Free Project Time Tracking for Students: JustClock Now Free for a Full Year

If you're a student writing code for coursework, side projects, or a part-time freelance gig, here's some good news: JustClock is now free for verified students - full access, for a full year, renewable every year you're still enrolled. No trial limits, no feature gate, no credit card.

Why bother tracking time as a student?

Manually logging hours never survives contact with a real deadline - the timer gets forgotten the moment you start actually coding. Automatic tracking solves a few problems that show up constantly in student life:

1. Group projects. "Who actually did the work" is one of the most common sources of friction in a team assignment. A time log settles it with data, not memory.
2. Freelance or part-time gigs. A lot of students pick up small paid coding jobs alongside their studies. If you're billing by the hour, accurate logs aren't optional - they're what gets you paid correctly.
3. Building a habit early. Every professional developer eventually has to estimate and account for their time. Getting used to it now, on low-stakes projects, beats learning it under pressure on your first job.
4. Evidence of effort. Whether it's a scholarship requirement, a portfolio, or just proving to yourself how much time a project actually took, having real numbers beats guessing.

What's actually free (and for how long)

To be precise about it: the JustClock plugin itself is always free to install, for anyone. What's new is that verified students get a free annual license for full access to the service - the same features as a paid plan, at no cost. As long as you're still enrolled, you can renew it again for another year when it expires. No catch, no downgrade to a limited free tier after year one.

Getting started in VS Code

VS Code is what most CS students end up using day to day, so here's the quick version:

1. Install the JustClock extension from the Visual Studio Marketplace.
2. Open Settings (Ctrl/Cmd + ,) and search for "JustClock".
3. Get your API key after registering, and paste it in to start syncing.

Working across IDEs? The same setup works in PyCharm and every other JetBrains IDE, if your coursework has you switching between VS Code and something else.

No code, no keystrokes - just time

Worth saying plainly, especially if you're installing this on a machine with university or client code on it: JustClock only measures active time spent in the IDE and the project identifier. It never reads your files, your keystrokes, or anything else you write. Full details are in our Privacy Policy.

How to apply for your free student license

Email support@radeal.eu with one of the following:

1. An email sent from your official institutional address (e.g. an .edu address)
2. A copy of your valid student ID, with a visible expiration date
3. Official enrollment documentation from your school

We'll verify it and set up your free annual license - full details are also on the pricing page.

Ready to stop guessing where your hours went? Create your free account and get your student license set up in a few minutes.