Rize logs where your hours went, automatically, and sorts them by client and project. EMRALD logs what those hours cost you: you set an effort level before a session, rate the real effort in about fifteen seconds after it, and EMRALD builds a calibrated record of it over time. They answer different questions, and you can run both.
If you searched for a Rize alternative, this page lays out what each tool measures so you can decide whether you need one, the other, or both.
Everything here about Rize comes from Rize's own published pages (pricing, features, privacy and changelog), read on October 2, 2026. This comparison reads those pages and does not review the product itself, so each description below is limited to what the pages say.
Rize is automatic time tracking for Mac and Windows. Its pages describe background capture across your apps and websites, with no timers and no manual entry. Its AI sorts that time by client, project and task using app, website and calendar activity, and it learns your patterns as it goes. That addresses a real problem: forgotten time entries and timesheets rebuilt from memory.
On top of the capture layer sits productivity analytics: focus metrics, daily scores, deep work detection and a distraction blocker. Rize's productivity page names a Focus Quality Score and describes it as computed from activity. The same page lists AI break suggestions and focus music, and says Rize "supports your well-being alongside your productivity." Rize's published pages describe an activity-based score and no post-session effort rating. They describe no burnout-risk score either. Rize's blog carries a 2022 post on the signs of mental exhaustion, which is blog content.
The business side is deep. Rize separates billable from non-billable hours, reports utilization, and calculates profitability (revenue, cost and margin by client, project and team member, from hourly, retainer and hybrid contracts). It adds resourcing, timesheets, and invoicing from tracked time, including PDF invoices and recorded payments. The Team plan runs shared dashboards, utilization, billable hour allocation, timesheet approvals and four permission roles, with a two-seat minimum.
The AI and integration side is wide too. Rize Agent answers natural-language questions about your time data, and AI Reports, Routines, Shared AI Skills and Agent Context extend it. Rize also runs a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that connects to Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor and can read, create, update and delete time entries. Rize's changelog dates the MCP beta to April 27, 2026 and the ChatGPT directory app to September 3, 2026. MCP access sits on the Pro plan and up. Rize's integrations page lists Linear, ClickUp, Asana, Slack and Zoom as native, Google Calendar and Outlook as calendar syncs, and further tools such as QuickBooks, Trello and Notion through Zapier, with thousands of additional apps there. Its pricing page lists API, webhooks and Zapier on the Pro plan.
On privacy, Rize's privacy page states that it logs no keystrokes, records no screen and stores no screenshots. By default it reads window metadata: app name, window title and URL. An optional Screen Text feature stays off unless the organization enables it, an admin grants it and the user turns it on.
Pricing, per Rize's pricing page: Basic is $9.99 a month billed annually ($12.99 monthly), Pro is $23.99 annually ($28.99 monthly), and Max is $39.99 annually ($49.99 monthly). Team is $29.99 per seat per month billed annually. The page lists a free 7-day trial on every plan, no credit card required, and no free plan.
EMRALD is an effort ledger for the projects you already run. You choose an effort level when you create a project: E1 through E4, fixed at 25, 50, 75 and 100 percent of your daily work time, with custom levels on Pro. You start a session, work, and stop it. Stopping opens a five-question effort receipt that takes roughly ten to fifteen seconds. Its options include six effort sources (complexity, emotional drain, high motivation cost, novelty, physical demand and uncertainty), plus questions on flow and complications. Sessions shorter than five minutes record without a receipt.
The core mechanic is a closed loop: set an effort level before the session, rate the real effort after it, and let the system calibrate the two against each other. EMRALD builds a personally calibrated effort-cost model from your receipts over time. A drift check (the D19 chart) flags where your answers stop matching your behavior, so you can review them.
Twenty metrics sit across four categories: Effort, Calibration, Productivity and Energy. The free tier includes the first eight, plus the Burnout Monitor, which is free on every plan and computes its score from a combination of metrics with checkable math. Digests come weekly on the free tier, with daily and monthly added on Pro, all inside the app. Pro costs $5 a month or $42 a year and adds the full set of twenty metrics, custom effort levels, and the insight engine's Discovery patterns and expanded Warnings for sleep and effort volatility. Full pricing is on the pricing section, and the research behind the model is on the Research page.
EMRALD runs as an Obsidian plugin and as a web app, on one shared account, and an account is required for tracking. The Obsidian plugin is MIT-licensed and open source, so you can read the code that runs in your vault. The web app and API are not open source. EMRALD sees session data. It cannot see note or work content. EMRALD also has a browser extension for Toggl, for people who track time there (see EMRALD vs Toggl).
The limit to state up front: EMRALD uses session timers, so you start and stop them yourself. A session auto-pauses two hours past the level's prescribed time, which catches a forgotten stop. It is no substitute for capture that runs by itself.
A question list, because Rize and EMRALD answer different questions about the same hours.
| Question | Rize | EMRALD |
|---|---|---|
| Where did my time go? | Automatic background capture on Mac and Windows; AI sorts time by client, project and task | Session timers you start and stop yourself |
| Do I have to remember to start a timer? | Rize's pages describe capture with no timers or manual entry | Yes. EMRALD sessions are started and stopped by you |
| How focused was I? | Focus Quality Score, computed from activity per Rize's description | Flow and complications questions on the receipt, self-reported |
| What did the work cost me in effort? | Rize's published pages describe an activity-based score and no effort rating | Five-question receipt after each session, an E1 to E4 level set beforehand, a calibrated model with a drift check |
| Am I heading toward burnout? | Rize's published product pages describe no burnout-risk score; the productivity page lists AI break suggestions and focus music | Burnout Monitor, free on every plan, score computed with checkable math |
| What do my projects earn? | Revenue, cost and margin by client, project and member; invoicing from tracked time; timesheets | With the Toggl integration, the extension's Trends view shows how much tracked time is billable, and Pro adds what a point of your effort earns |
| Can I query my data from an AI assistant? | MCP server (Pro plan and up), ChatGPT directory app, Rize Agent | EMRALD has no MCP server. The Pro insight engine surfaces Discovery patterns and Warnings in the app |
| What does it connect to? | Native: Linear, ClickUp, Asana, Slack, Zoom. Calendar sync: Google Calendar, Outlook. Via Zapier: QuickBooks, Trello, Notion and thousands more. API and webhooks on Pro | Obsidian plugin, web app, browser extension for Toggl |
| What does it cost? | Basic from $9.99/mo billed annually; free 7-day trial; no free plan listed | Free tier (core tracking, 8 of 20 metrics, Burnout Monitor, weekly digest); Pro $5/mo or $42/yr |
Rize owns capture, categorization, billing and the AI integrations. EMRALD owns the effort rating and the calibrated record built from it. Neither table column replaces the other.
Choose Rize if the problem is the hours themselves. If you forget to start timers, your timesheets are reconstructed from memory, you invoice clients and want profitability and invoicing in the same place, you run a team that needs shared dashboards and permissions, or you want to ask Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor about your time data through MCP, Rize covers that ground.
Choose EMRALD if the hours are already accounted for and the open question is what they cost you. A week can look identical on a time report and leave you in very different states. EMRALD gives you an effort level before each session, a receipt after it, and a calibrated record of which projects and which kinds of days take the most out of you. The Burnout Monitor is free on every plan.
Use both if you want the hours and the cost in the same week. Rize captures the time without your involvement. EMRALD adds the effort receipt for the blocks where you want one. Compare the two weekly.
Rize captures your time automatically. EMRALD tells you what that time cost you. Rize answers "what did I do, and for how long?" with background capture that a session timer cannot match. EMRALD answers "what did that cost me?" with a calibrated effort model built from your own ratings.
The honest limit of running both: you start and stop EMRALD sessions yourself. Rize does not feed EMRALD, and EMRALD does not read Rize. A block of work appears in both tools when you ran an EMRALD session for it. Blocks without a session appear in Rize alone. The two records live in two places, and you line them up by hand, usually once a week.
For the sessions you do run, the pairing is useful. Rize shows that Tuesday held six hours on one client's project. EMRALD shows whether those six hours were an E2 or an E4 in practice, and whether your answers on that project have been drifting.
Want EMRALD to work with Rize? Tell us.
Tell usRize captures time automatically in the background and categorizes it by client and project using AI. EMRALD asks you to set an effort level before a session and rate the real effort after it. They measure different things.
Rize's published pages describe productivity analytics, including a Focus Quality Score computed from activity. They describe no felt-effort rating and no burnout-risk score. The productivity page lists AI break suggestions and focus music and says Rize "supports your well-being alongside your productivity." This answer reflects the pages we read. EMRALD includes a Burnout Monitor, free on every plan, and a calibrated effort receipt.
Yes. Use Rize for automatic time capture and EMRALD for post-session effort receipts. You start and stop EMRALD sessions yourself. Rize does not feed EMRALD, and EMRALD does not read Rize, so you compare the two records by hand. Want EMRALD to work with Rize? Tell us.
You set an effort level (E1 to E4) when you create a project. After each session, EMRALD asks five questions. The options include six effort sources (complexity, emotional drain, high motivation cost, novelty, physical demand and uncertainty), plus flow and complications. EMRALD builds a calibrated cost model from your receipts over time and flags where your answers drift so you can review them.
Rize's pricing page lists no free plan. Every plan includes a free 7-day trial with no credit card required, and Basic starts at $9.99 a month billed annually ($12.99 monthly). EMRALD has a free tier with core tracking, 8 of 20 metrics, the Burnout Monitor and a weekly digest, with no trial clock. Pro is $5 a month or $42 a year.
Rize's Focus Quality Score is computed from your activity, such as which apps and websites are active, per Rize's description. EMRALD's effort receipt is a self-reported rating of how the session felt. The score describes attention. The receipt describes cost.
Yes. Rize has an MCP server (its changelog dates the beta to April 27, 2026, with access on the Pro plan and up) and a ChatGPT directory app (September 3, 2026). You can query your time data from Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor. EMRALD has no MCP server.
They measure different things. Rize measures time allocation and focus across your workday. EMRALD measures the effort cost of that work with a calibrated model. You can run both.
Get EMRALD: the free tier has no trial clock.
