Harvest price increase: what it means for your firm, and what to do next

Many consulting and AEC firms have seen their Harvestrenewal bills rise sharply in 2026.

If your renewal is coming up, it's a good moment to look at how your whole business runs, and what it needs next.

Since Harvest moved to a new pricing model, firms have reported renewal bills several times higher than the year before, and in some cases more than 15 times higher. Firms juggling dozens of live projects have been hit hardest.

Many of the firms we speak to run Harvest alongside spreadsheets, a separate scheduling tool and an accounts package. Between them, those tools hold the answers that matter most: which projects are making money, who's free next month and what cash is coming in. A higher bill is a good prompt to ask what that setup really costs you, and whether it can keep up with where your firm is heading.

This guide covers what changed with Harvest's pricing, the hidden costs of running on a time tracker, how CMap compares, and exactly what moving from Harvest to CMap involves.

What changed with Harvest's pricing?

Harvest has moved from a simple per-seat price to a seat fee plus usage-based charges. The usage charges are behind the biggest bill increases.

Harvest was acquired by Bending Spoons, the group behind Evernote, WeTransfer and Vimeo, in 2025. The new pricing model followed. New accounts upgraded from a trial after 7 November 2024 are on the current plans, and existing annual customers typically move across at renewal.

Why project-heavy firms are hit hardest

Harvest now charges for active projects, clients, tasks and invoicing above each plan's allowance. Only items with time tracked in the period count, and the per-unit rates aren't published on the pricing page. A consulting firm or practice with many live projects, clients and work stages generates exactly the kind of usage the new model charges for.

What firms have reported:

• A UK consulting firm: told the BBC its monthly bill rose from $130 to $2,110, an increase of around 1,500% (Silicon UK).

• A US user: reported annual costs rising from $2,800 to $23,000 (Tiger Brokers / Deep News).

• A 20-seat engineering firm: reported annual costs passing $20,000, around a 600% increase (Productive, citing G2).

Bending Spoons has said its prices "are in line with those of comparable products". Every firm's bill will differ, so check your own renewal under Settings, then Billing, before you decide anything.

Tip: If you're still on a legacy annual plan, your current rate should hold until renewal. Use that window to weigh up your options properly rather than in a rush.

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The hidden cost of running on a time tracker

Harvest is a good tool for tracking time and raising invoices. Most growing consulting and AEC firms we speak to run it alongside Forecast, spreadsheets and an accounts package, and their teams lose hours every month moving data between them.

The director of a 35-person UK design studio described it well when they first spoke to us:

"We have grown in size and in projects, and so… the spreadsheet system mixed with Harvest is becoming somewhat harder to manage… extracting the information from Harvest, not allowing us to be dynamic enough with our resourcing and to forecast."

Director, 35-person design studio (UK)

• Typing everything twice: Time leaves Harvest every week or month so someone can rebuild the picture in Excel.

• Resourcing in the dark: The schedule sits in Forecast or a spreadsheet, with no link to fees, pipeline or margin, so the Monday resourcing meeting turns into a scramble.

• Finding out too late: You can see hours against a budget, but not whether a project is still making money, or how today's staffing calls will land next quarter.

• Pipeline out of view: Work you're likely to win doesn't show up in your resourcing or revenue forecast.

• Fees built offline: Proposals, fees and work stages are worked out in spreadsheets, then rekeyed.

• Month-end by workbook: WIP, revenue recognition and forecasting happen in your accounts package or a spreadsheet, long after the work has moved on.

• One person holds the keys: When the spreadsheet that runs the business sits on one person's laptop, holidays and handovers stall everyone else.

Key questions to answer:

• How many hours a month does your team spend exporting and reconciling Harvest data?

• Can you see which projects are making money while they're live, or only once they close?

• Does your resourcing plan reflect the work in your pipeline?

• Are your fee proposals built from how similar projects actually performed?

• How confident are you in next quarter's revenue and utilisation numbers?

If you can't answer two or more of these with confidence, your firm has likely outgrown a time tracker. Growing firms need to see margin, capacity and cash while the work is still live, with time to act on what they find. That means bidding for work, staffing it, delivering it and billing it on one connected foundation.

Want to know more about the options? Read our complete guide to PSA software.

Find out how Channel 3 Consulting replaced its standalone CRM, timesheet, expenses and time-off systems with CMap, so the whole firm now works from the same numbers.

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What sets CMap apart

Most Harvest alternatives are other time trackers, which may lower the bill while leaving the same gaps. CMap gives services firms one connected foundation from pipeline to payment, AI that shows you what needs attention while you can still act, and people who know firms like yours.

More than 750 services firms trust CMap to run their business. More than 25 consulting and AEC firms have already moved to us from Harvest, across the UK, US and Canada, most of them with 10 to 60 people.

Built for consulting firms

Your expertise is what clients buy. Our job is to get the firm around it ready for what comes next.

• Fix margin while the engagement is live: margin tracked as-sold against as-projected, by engagement, client and service line.

• A revenue forecast you can stand behind: live and pipeline work combined in one forward view.

• See the crunch before it bites: capacity and skills constraints set against the pipeline you're actually winning.

"Now, we can manage resourcing in just a couple of hours each week."

Kiara Coen, Director of Operations, Livework Studio

Find out more about CMap Consulting Edition.

Built for architects and engineers

Your craft comes first. We keep the business out of its way. More than 500 AEC firms run on CMap, from 10 people to 1,000.

• Know which jobs are making money, while you can still shape them: profitability by project and RIBA stage, updated as your team logs time.

• Get the practice out of the spreadsheets: fees, resourcing, time and invoicing in one place, entered once and trusted everywhere.

• Cash in without the chasing: invoices raised straight from time and fee stages, with WIP and aged debt visible to leadership.

We also connect to the tools your teams already use, including Revit, AutoCAD, and OpenAsset.

"When an ERP tool looks like a bunch of Excel spreadsheets, no one wants to use it. CMap is better designed and so our team is more likely to use it, and use it properly."

Laura Gore, Head of Finance, Make Architects

Find out more about CMap for architects and engineers.

Bid for it, staff it, deliver it, bill it

With Harvest, resource scheduling means a second subscription to Forecast, and CRM, WIP and advanced reporting usually mean more tools again. In CMap, pipeline, resourcing, time, project finances and invoicing sit on one foundation. Your team stops typing everything twice, and your leaders make decisions from numbers they can rely on.

That foundation is also what makes AI useful. AI amplifies whatever it's built on, so clean, complete data in one place means answers you can trust. Your data stays yours, AI works inside your permissions, and nothing you store trains anyone else's models.

After seeing CMap for the first time, the leadership team at a 35-person UK design studio running on Harvest said:

‍"It's doing what we do in half the time in a database. I mean, there's no negative to it."

Leadership team, 35-person design studio (UK)

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Moving from Harvest to CMap

Changing systems is a big decision, so we move at your pace, with people who've done it many times before. Onboarding has three moving parts, and most firms are fully live in around three months.

Before you start: check your renewal and export your data

Find your Harvest renewal date and current plan under Settings, then Billing. Harvest seats can't be removed mid-cycle, but you can reduce the seat count for renewal.

Tip: Onboarding usually takes around three months, so start the conversation at least three months before your Harvest renewal.

Harvest admins can export the following from Settings, Import/Export and from the Reports and Manage sections (Harvest help centre):

Tip: Export everything before your renewal date, even if your onboarding runs past it, so you keep a full record of past work.

Part 1: We set up your version of CMap

We configure CMap around your company structure, roles and rates, on your own domain, so it reflects how your firm works from day one. Your stages, fee types, approvals and invoicing are mapped to the way you run projects.

Part 2: Training with your own onboarding consultant

You'll have a dedicated onboarding consultant with you throughout, someone who has helped firms like yours move off spreadsheets and other systems before. They take your team through each area of CMap over Teams, so everyone can hit the ground running on go-live day. For more on bringing your people with you, read our tips for implementing new technologies.

Tip: Appoint a few CMap champions who can support colleagues with day-to-day questions in the first few weeks. Our guide to strong timesheet adoption has more ideas.

Part 3: We import your live project and CRM data

We import your live projects, including the time spent to date and what has been invoiced to date, along with your CRM data, so budgets and profitability carry on without a break. We also connect your accounting system, such as Xero, Sage, QuickBooks Online or Business Central.

How long does it take?

Around three months from the start of onboarding to being fully live. If calendars and workload line up, it can move faster.

If you'd like to learn more about implementation, read our PSA buying guide.

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The cost of standing still

Before you accept the new Harvest price or negotiate a discount, compare the total cost of running your firm across every tool you use.

For a 30-person firm, Harvest's published rates alone come to $5,040 to $6,840 a year before any usage charges.

Based on Harvest and Forecast published pricing, October 2026. Firms would still need Enterprise for profitability reporting and approvals, and separate tools for CRM, WIP and fee building.

Tip: Harvest's billing simulator, under Settings then Billing, lets you model your own usage charges. Run it with last period's active projects, clients and tasks before your renewal.

The costs that don't show up on the invoice matter just as much:

• Margin lost at the debrief: Overruns you only spot when a project closes quietly eat into profit, job by job.

• Leaders' time spent on admin: Hours every month exporting, reconciling and chasing data instead of running the firm.

• Bills you can't predict: Usage charges rise as you add projects and clients.

• Work you didn't win: Without the pipeline in your forecast, you hire too late or turn down work you could have delivered.

These costs are easy to underestimate because they build up gradually, across many projects.

Research also shows that PSA users see a 19% increase in gross margins.

CMap is priced by number of users, plan and add-on modules, with discounts by user count and billing frequency.

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Where CMap fits in

Your firm does work that matters. Our job is to make sure running the business never gets in the way of it. If you're reviewing Harvest, choose a platform that can carry your firm into what comes next, from pipeline and resourcing to billing and reporting.

With CMap, consulting and AEC firms:

• See what's ahead and act on it, with margin, capacity and cash visible while work is live.

• Bid for work, staff it, deliver it and bill it on one connected foundation.

• Retire Harvest, Forecast and the spreadsheets around them.

• Put AI to work on numbers they can trust, with their data staying their own.

• Evolve at their own pace, backed by what more than 750 firms have taught us about what works, what breaks and what to watch.

Ready to make the switch? Book a CMap demo and we'll show you how your current Harvest setup maps to CMap, what the move would involve, and what it would cost.

CMap. Behind the work that matters.

Book a CMap demo.

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FAQs

Is CMap a like-for-like replacement for Harvest?

CMap covers Harvest's core time, expense, budget and invoicing features, then adds pipeline, resourcing, financial management and reporting. Firms can bring several parts of their tech stack into CMap at once, typically Harvest for time and invoicing, Forecast or a spreadsheet for resourcing, a standalone CRM for pipeline, and the workbooks used for fee building, WIP and forecasting.

Is CMap right for small firms?

CMap works best for firms of around 10 to 500 people. If you're under 10 people and only need time tracking, a simple time tracker may be all you need for now.

Can we bring our Harvest data into CMap?

Yes. Harvest lets admins export time, clients, projects, tasks, people, expenses and invoices. As part of onboarding, we import your live projects, with the time spent and invoiced to date, plus your CRM data.

How long does it take to switch?

Around three months from the start of onboarding to being fully live, and quicker if calendars and workload allow.

Can we keep our accounting system?

Yes. CMap connects to your accounting system, so invoices, expenses and supplier bills flow across without rekeying. Our finance integrations include:

• Xero and QuickBooks Online: core integrations, built and supported by us and included in every plan

• Microsoft Business Central: included in every plan

• Sage 50, Sage 200, Sage Business Cloud Essentials and Sage Intacct: Sage 200, Business Cloud Essentials and Intacct are included from our Growth plan upwards

• Microsoft Dynamics GP and AccountsIQ

• NetSuite: delivered by our approved partner iQlink, for firms running enterprise finance systems

See our integrations page for the full list, including CRM, HR, BI and Microsoft 365 tools.

Will our team need training?

Yes, and you won't be on your own. A dedicated onboarding consultant takes your team through each area of CMap over Teams, so everyone is ready on go-live day. Our mobile app and Outlook add-in then make day-to-day time entry quick for staff.

What happens to our data when we use CMap's AI?

Your data stays yours. CMap's AI works inside your data and permissions, and nothing you store trains anyone else's models, so client confidentiality stays intact.

Is our data secure?

CMap is ISO 27001 compliant and Cyber Essentials Plus certified, with annual penetration tests and regular external audits. Find out more on our data security page.