Choose the scale of the problem
| Product | Decision to demonstrate | Commercial detail to establish |
|---|---|---|
| Harpoon | Relate financial goals to projects, time and invoices | Included users and client limits |
| Teamleader Focus | Move a quote into project work and billing | Base package plus required Boosters |
| Teamleader Orbit | Decide whether the agency can accept more work | Tailored scope, onboarding and user commitments |
Harpoon
Harpoon should be considered when the owner wants a forward view of the business alongside time and invoicing. Its feature overview brings together planning, projects, expenses, time tracking, invoicing and analytics, and documents team roles. The pricing page distinguishes packages by included users and, on Starter, a client limit. That makes it a different evaluation from buying a broad agency PSA primarily for interdepartmental resource governance.
The reviewed monthly prices include Starter at USD 9 for one user and three clients, Freelancer at USD 19 for two users, and Studio at USD 39 for eight users. The corresponding displayed annual prices were USD 85, USD 180 and USD 372 paid annually. These are subscription terms, not equal-feature quotes against Friday Falcon. Confirm the plan's current limits and any extra-user terms for your intended team. A lower-priced package may be sufficient for a small operation whose main concern is its own financial planning.
A fictional independent developer wants to know whether a proposed support agreement fits a yearly income goal. In a demo, place the prospective agreement alongside existing projects, then delay one client's payment and record more hours than expected on a fixed-price job. Ask the owner to explain how the financial picture changed. A useful test separates booked work, invoiced revenue, received payment and the cost of outside help. It should not turn an aspirational revenue goal into evidence of money already earned.
Stay with Harpoon when it makes those owner-level planning decisions clear. If an outside specialist is paid on a different basis from the client's fee, inspect that workflow separately. Friday Falcon can be evaluated for accepted contractor sources and payments made elsewhere, but it does not promise Harpoon's planning or invoicing workflow. Before adding it, determine whether the existing records already explain the contractor amount well enough. If two systems remain, assign a reconciliation owner and retain the source history; no automatic Harpoon import or synchronization is promised.
Teamleader Focus
Teamleader Focus is worth evaluating when a small service business needs quotations, project administration and invoices to connect. The project-management page describes converting quotations into project work, monitoring budgets and invoicing hours or agreed sums. Its project-manager guide explains the relationship between quotation structure, groups of work, budget information and planning. This is a concrete reason to assess the process from the sales handoff onward.
The pricing configurator uses packages and optional Boosters. The project page displays the Project management Booster starting from EUR 35 monthly per account, added to a Focus subscription. That is not the price of the complete setup, and it should not be compared directly with an all-in Company subscription in another product. Confirm the base package, users, planning needs, renewal terms and regional offer in one dated quote. Do not combine starting rates from different markets or commitments.
For a fictional translation business, a quotation includes translation, editing and layout. Ask the demonstrator to convert it into project work, assign the stages and bill one completed stage before the rest are finished. Then revise the layout scope. The buyer should be able to explain how the original agreement, new work and invoice remain related. Review the actual project module available to the account: Teamleader's migration guidance describes a transition between project modules, so an old tutorial may not match a new account.
Keep Focus when it already provides a dependable quotation-to-delivery process. A translator's supplier invoice and private rate need a separate review from the amount charged to the end client. Evaluate whether your Focus configuration handles that adequately before adding Friday Falcon. This guide does not claim missing expense or supplier capabilities, nor promise automatic imports or equivalent planning in Friday Falcon. Test a correction and external partial payment with the authorized reviewer before deciding that another workspace is necessary.
Teamleader Orbit
Teamleader Orbit is a distinct current product aimed at agencies with more complex operations. The official comparison in Teamleader's pricing FAQ distinguishes it from Focus, while the Orbit product page describes capacity scenarios, timesheets, budgets, client information and reporting. The vendor uses twenty or more team members as an audience guideline rather than a strict cutoff. Buyers should therefore use operational complexity, not headcount alone, to decide whether it belongs on the shortlist.
Orbit's product page calls for tailored pricing and onboarding. Its commercial terms distinguish committed, non-committed and freelance user accounts. Those distinctions make a headline monthly rate an incomplete budget. Request a dated proposal specifying the access mix, term, implementation, support and integrations, and clarify how occasional freelancer usage is billed. We do not infer a final current quotation from the public terms or repeat the vendor's revenue-improvement claims as expected results for your agency.
Imagine a fictional digital agency considering two overlapping launches. One uses specialists already committed elsewhere; the other looks profitable only if an outside team is available. Ask Orbit to demonstrate the competing capacity scenarios, then remove one assumed specialist and change the start date. Have sales, project management and finance explain the resulting decision from their intended roles. A useful outcome is a shared understanding of which assumptions drove the plan, including what is still tentative and which costs are sensitive.
Stay with Orbit when those agency-wide relationships are necessary to run the business. Friday Falcon has not been verified as an equivalent system for scenarios, resource planning, multi-entity operations or reporting. It may deserve a separate evaluation if accepted contractor evidence and external-payment history remain difficult to review, but it should not be used to claim wholesale replacement of Orbit. First run the amount exercise below inside your existing process, inspect permission boundaries, and assess the cost of maintaining another workspace. There is no promised Orbit synchronization, import or migration.
A forecast is not an accepted obligation
This fictional exercise puts three numbers beside one another. An agency forecasts USD 1,500 of contractor cost for a launch. The contractor later completes 14 accepted hours at USD 80 and a USD 60 approved expense, totaling USD 1,180. The matching contractor invoice supports that total. After an external payment of USD 700, USD 480 remains.
The forecast was useful before delivery, but it is not the amount to pay merely because it appeared in a budget. Ask each product to preserve the forecast, show the accepted actual evidence and explain the remaining balance. Then change one accepted hour through the supported correction process. Inspect who can see rates and payment evidence, and whether a client-facing report accidentally exposes them.
Consider the narrower Company purchase
Friday Falcon Company costs USD 59 monthly or USD 590 paid annually per Company, with no seat or contractor fees and no free Company trial. It supports source review and external-payment records; it does not move funds or provide payroll, tax or classification protection. See the amount-review guide. Individuals can use free personal tools, including manually composed invoices, without buying a Company; tracked time does not automatically create an invoice.
Friday Falcon publishes this guide. Official sources were checked October 22, 2026. The examples are fabricated and the fit judgments are editorial interpretations of documentation. We did not perform competitor trials or measure switching outcomes.