Focus in blocks. Bill every minute that counts.
Ribbon is a timer that works from the tasks you already keep, in ClickUp, Trello, GitHub, Missive or Apple Reminders. Every block ends as a receipt. Every receipt can become an invoice line.
The same timer, used three different ways.
Ribbon is simple if you want it simple, and deep if you want to tune it. Pick the one that sounds like you.
Get through the day in blocks.
Your reminders and calendar as boards, a ring that fills while you work, a bell when it's time to stop. No money anywhere unless you want it.
- Apple Reminders, Calendar and Notes on the Mac
- Pomodoro, or just an open timer
- Life admin and work in separate spaces
Know what every block was worth.
Work from your client's tasks, log the time back where they live, and tear off a receipt you can send as an invoice line. Idle time is flagged, never billed unseen.
- Time written back to ClickUp as you go
- Draft invoice lines in Stripe or Invoice Ninja
- Allotted against actual, per job
See who's on what, without asking.
A space for the team, boards everyone shares, teams inside it with boards only they see, and a glow on whoever is working. Each person signs in to their own tools.
- Shared queues from a Missive inbox or a board column
- Requests from a manager, presence, locked block lengths
- Reports by board and person soon
Pick a task. Work a block. Tear off the receipt.
Connect where your tasks already are
Sign in to ClickUp, Trello, GitHub or Missive and your lists show up as boards. On a Mac, Reminders and Calendar come in too. Or make a plain Ribbon board in ten seconds.
Start the ring on a card
A 25-minute block, an open timer, or "until 3pm". Interruptions get a reason and leave a notch on the ring. Breaks come round on their own. The card moves to Doing if you want it to.
Keep the receipt, or bill it
Each block ends as a receipt with its notches and any flagged idle time. Time is logged back to the task. On a board that bills a client, the Ledger turns receipts into draft invoice lines.
Nothing is written anywhere you can't see.
Every write to another tool goes through an outbox, is read back to check it landed, and shows you if it didn't. You never find out at invoice time that three hours never made it.
Ribbon offers, it doesn't do: it never starts or stops a timer by itself.
Everything the ring knows, you can see and set.
If "pomodoro timer" makes you want the settings page first, this is the part for you.
- Modes
- Pomodoro: blocks and breaks, a long break every Nth, overtime drawn as an inward spiral if you ride the wave. Open: counts up, laps every hour. Allotted: a set length, overrun in amber.
- Notches
- Each interruption is a tagged notch on the ring and a line on the receipt. Your own reasons, one tap.
- Idle
- The Mac notices when you stop. Flagged time on the receipt asks: remove it or keep it. Flagged time is never billed unseen.
- Per board
- Block and break lengths per board; a team space can lock them.
- Queue
- Line up what's next and work through it for an hour. When a break ends, the next card is already waiting, so you start without choosing. Press Q.
- Quick entry
- "Call Dan tomorrow 2pm 30m" becomes a card with a time and an allotment. Rules, not an AI guessing.
- The box
- "What are you working on?" takes a task name, a search across every board, or a command.
- Calendar
- Today's events beside the timer; an event or a reminder with a time can start a block. Cards carry start and due times.
- Keys
- Space starts and stops. Everything else has a key too.
- Looks
- Dark by default, light if you like. Touch mode for an iPad beside the Mac.
- Write-back
- Outbox with read-back verification. Failed writes stay visible until fixed.
- API
- Per-board tokens, task upsert with your own ids, signed webhooks for task completed and time logged.
The Mac app is the full thing.
Menu-bar timer, a mini window that floats over your work, native bells that ring even when the app is napping, Reminders and Calendar through the system, and auto-updates.
The iPhone app is catching up.
Timer, boards, ledger and team are there. Spaces, queues and sorting are on the way. If you're on the early-access list you can run it today.
Windows and Linux build, but aren't released.
They'll follow once the Mac app settles.
Answer the customer without leaving the timer.
Connect Missive and your inbox, your team's inboxes and every shared label become boards. A conversation is a card. Start a block on it and the whole thread opens in the tray; reply from there, or leave it as a draft for a second pair of eyes.
Every conversation shows whose turn it is. Waiting on you is the list that matters at nine in the morning.
The inbox as a queue.
Follow an inbox or a label and new conversations line up as they arrive. A manager feeds the team's queue; whoever is free takes the next one.
The space matches the organisation.
Link a Ribbon space to your Missive organisation and its teams to Ribbon teams; the people come across already matched.
Watched clients. planned
A board of everything from one customer, by address, domain or contact group, with the time it has cost you so far.
Time first. Money only where it belongs.
Every block lands in the Ledger as a receipt. A board shows money only when it bills a client; everything else is just time, and stays that way.
On a billing board, Convert to money turns a receipt into a draft invoice line in Stripe or Invoice Ninja, and Make all billable does the week in one go. Flagged idle time asks before it's counted. Amend a line and the record of the change stays.
Drafts, never sent for you.
Ribbon writes draft lines to your invoicing tool and stops. You review and send there, the way you already do.
Effective rate, per job.
Allotted against actual on every job, and what the hours really earned. The number that changes next month's quotes.
History and stats. next up
Free keeps 30 days; Plus and Pro keep everything, with stats by board, person and week.
Tasks from where they live. Invoices to where you send them.
Ribbon doesn't want to be your task manager or your invoicing tool. It sits between the two you already have.
Tasks
Billing
Anything else
Quoted four hours. Took six. Now you know.
Ribbon's jobs are a list of steps with an allotted time each. Work them in order, end one and start the next, and the job summary shows allotted against actual and what you really earned an hour.
Start from a preset ("Website build", "Server migration", "Replace a toilet") or make your own. Time-only boards for work you don't invoice by the hour, money boards for work you do.
Ribbon for trades, in full →Day rate or hourly, the numbers are the same.
A day-rate job still shows you the effective hourly rate once it's done. That's how you learn which jobs to quote higher next time.
Your job app stays your job app. planned
ServiceM8 and Fergus first: the job comes across with its quoted hours, time goes back as the job's time entries, the invoice there sees the real hours. Tradify has no public API; we'll meet it through Xero.
Arrive on site, the timer offers to start. planned
On the phone, with your permission, and only ever an offer.
Priced to sit between two free tools and still be worth it.
A serious timer should cost less than the coffee you drink while using it. Billing features are what you pay for; the timer itself is free.
- Timer and unlimited tasks
- 3 boards
- 1 connected task tool
- Time only, no billing
- 30 days of history
- 20 boards
- Every task tool
- One billing connector
- Apple sync on the Mac
- Full history
- Unlimited boards
- Every billing connector
- Job profitability
- Amendments
- Reports soon
- Everything in Pro, for the space
- Shared boards and queues
- Presence and requests
- Locked block lengths
- Join one without a plan of your own
It's on TestFlight and the Mac now. Ask for a seat.
Ribbon is invite-only while it's being finished with a small group. Tell us how you'd use it and you'll get a sign-in, the Mac download and the TestFlight link.
Mac: a signed, notarised download. Opens with a double-click; updates itself.
iPhone: through Apple's TestFlight app, which is how pre-release apps are installed.
Hub: hosted at hub.ribbonapp.co. Self-hosting comes later.
Questions, answered.
Is this another to-do app?
No. Ribbon has plain boards if you want them, but it's built to use the lists you already keep. Your tasks stay in ClickUp or Trello or Reminders; Ribbon reads them, times them and writes the time back.
Do I have to bill anyone to use it?
No. A board only shows money when it bills a client. Everything else is time, and the free tier is time only. Plenty of people will only ever use the ring.
Can my team see my personal boards?
No. Personal and team spaces are separate, and provider boards in a team space are reached through each member's own sign-in. Where you are is yours too: Ribbon never tracks location, and the on-site offer later will be opt-in on the phone.
What happens to my data if I stop?
Export everything from Settings, or delete the account from the app. Boards over a plan's allowance go read-only, never deleted.
Why invite-only?
Because the apps are still being finished with a small group, and a bug in a billing tool is worse than a bug in a timer. Early-access seats are free.
Will there be a Windows app?
It builds today and isn't released. After the Mac and iPhone apps settle.
Work the block. Keep the receipt.
Free while it's early. Your clients and teammates don't need to install anything.
Apply for early access