Intervals

The implementation process for Intervals is designed to be swift and self-directed, typically allowing a team to go from sign-up to tracking time in less than 30 minutes. The journey begins with a 14-day free trial where users can immediately access all features. The platform includes a 'Getting Started' wizard that walks new admins through the process of setting up clients, projects, and team members. Data migration is facilitated through a robust import tool that allows users to upload existing tasks, clients, and historical time data via CSV files, which is critical for teams moving from spreadsheets or other PM tools. Most small teams are fully 'go-live' within their first week, with the initial few days spent customizing task statuses and project categories to match their existing internal workflows. For larger organizations, Pelago offers concierge onboarding support through their help desk to ensure that historical data is mapped correctly and that team-wide reporting is configured to meet executive needs.

Intervals offers a high degree of flexibility to accommodate the diverse workflows of creative, technical, and professional service teams. Users can customize nearly every fundamental aspect of their workspace, including project categories, task statuses, and priority levels. This allows a team to move beyond a simple 'To-Do / In Progress / Done' workflow into more complex, agency-specific states like 'Client Review,' 'QA,' or 'Pending Approval.' The UI itself is customizable through several themes, including the 'Modernistic' and 'Classic' views, allowing users to choose the density of information that suits them best. From a data perspective, the platform supports custom fields for tasks, enabling teams to track specific metadata such as 'Billable Status' or 'Service Type.' Furthermore, the reporting engine is highly configurable; users can save custom filters for their most-used reports and schedule them to be emailed automatically to stakeholders, ensuring that the right data reaches the right people at the right time.

Intervals is notable for its transparent, flat-rate pricing model, which minimizes 'hidden' costs. The monthly subscription fee covers all core features including time tracking, task management, and invoicing. Unlike many SaaS platforms, there are no additional charges for basic support, and there are no 'add-on' fees for specific modules like Gantt charts or reporting. However, customers should be aware of a few potential variables. For teams on the 'Lite' plan, there are strict limits on the number of users (3) and active projects (3). Moving beyond these limits requires a plan upgrade. While storage is generous across all plans, extremely large media-heavy agencies might eventually need to move to higher tiers for more disk space. There are no setup fees or long-term contract requirements, as the service is billed month-to-month. The only other 'external' costs would be if a team chooses to integrate with paid third-party services like QuickBooks Online or Stripe, which carry their own independent subscription or transaction fees.

Training at Intervals is handled through a multi-layered educational ecosystem designed to support both quick wins and deep mastery. For immediate assistance, the platform features a comprehensive 'Knowledge Base' with hundreds of articles covering every feature from basic time entry to complex API usage. New users are encouraged to view the 'Intervals 101' video series, which provides a visual walkthrough of the platform's core functions. Pelago also maintains a YouTube channel with specific tutorials on 'Advanced Reporting' and 'Project Budgeting.' For teams requiring a more tailored approach, the support staff is highly responsive via email and ticketing, often providing detailed screenshots or personalized videos to answer specific workflow questions. While they do not offer a formal 'certification' program, their documentation is structured in a way that allows a motivated project manager to become a certified 'internal expert' within a matter of days, ensuring the team gets the most value out of the software.

Security is a foundational element of the Intervals infrastructure, employing industry-standard protocols to protect sensitive client and financial data. All data transmitted between the user's browser and the Intervals servers is encrypted using high-grade 256-bit SSL (Secure Socket Layer) technology. The application is hosted in highly secure, world-class data centers that feature 24/7 physical security, redundant power supplies, and advanced fire suppression systems. Pelago performs full daily backups of all customer data, which are stored in off-site locations to ensure disaster recovery readiness. Internally, the platform uses a robust Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) system, allowing administrators to define exactly what each team member can see or edit—crucial for agencies that want to keep financial data or specific client projects restricted to certain personnel. They also adhere to PCI compliance standards for all billing and payment processing, ensuring that customer credit card information is never stored directly on their primary servers.

Intervals follows an agile development methodology with a consistent and reliable update frequency. Minor bug fixes, performance tweaks, and UI refinements are typically deployed every one to two weeks, often without any noticeable downtime for the user. Major feature releases and significant architectural updates occur every four to six weeks. Pelago maintains a public 'Release Log' on their website, where they transparently document every change, no matter how small. This allows users to stay informed about new capabilities and improvements. Unlike traditional installed software, updates are automatic and included in the subscription; users always have access to the latest version of the platform the next time they log in. The product roadmap is heavily influenced by the user community, with many updates stemming directly from customer suggestions, such as the recent expansion of the graphing engine and the development of the new mobile request queue.

Pelago maintains a very clear and customer-friendly policy regarding data ownership: the customer owns their data 100%. This is a critical assurance for professional service firms who must comply with their own client confidentiality agreements. Intervals provides multiple ways for users to export their data at any time, ensuring no 'vendor lock-in.' Reports can be exported to Excel, CSV, and PDF formats, and there is a dedicated 'Data Export' tool in the settings that allows for a comprehensive dump of tasks, time entries, and client information. This portability is essential for agencies that might need to perform deep-dive analysis in external BI tools or maintain local backups for compliance purposes. Should a customer choose to cancel their subscription, Pelago provides a grace period for final data retrieval, and they have clear procedures for the permanent deletion of account data upon request, aligning with global privacy standards like GDPR.

Intervals is built to scale alongside the natural growth trajectory of a small agency. The transition from a three-person startup to a 50-person creative powerhouse is seamless within the platform due to its unique pricing model. Because most plans include unlimited users, the 'people' side of scaling does not impact the software budget. Instead, scaling is managed by moving between tiers based on the volume of 'Active Projects' and storage needs. The underlying technical architecture is designed to handle thousands of concurrent tasks and hundreds of thousands of time entries without a degradation in performance. For organizations that grow into multi-department entities, Intervals supports this through its 'Project Groups' and 'Clients' hierarchy, allowing for clean organization even as the database grows. The API further supports scaling by allowing teams to automate the creation of projects or the syncing of time data as they adopt more complex enterprise resource planning (ERP) or CRM systems.

The terms and conditions for Intervals are designed for simplicity and fairness, reflecting the company's bootstrapped, customer-first ethos. The service is provided on a month-to-month subscription basis with no long-term contracts, allowing users to upgrade, downgrade, or cancel at any time without penalty. Billing is handled upfront at the start of each monthly cycle. If a customer decides to cancel, the subscription remains active until the end of the current billing period, after which no further charges are applied. There are no hidden 'cancellation fees' or 'reactivation fees.' Pelago also provides a 14-day free trial that does not require a credit card, ensuring that potential customers can fully evaluate the software without financial commitment. Their Service Level Agreement (SLA) aims for high availability, and they maintain a public 'Uptime' page to demonstrate their historical reliability. Contractual terms also include clear commitments to data privacy and a prohibition on the selling of user data to third parties.

Intervals is committed to maintaining a secure and compliant environment for its global user base. The platform is designed to be GDPR compliant, providing the necessary tools for users to manage, export, and delete personal data as required by EU regulations. For agencies working in the financial or legal sectors, the platform's detailed audit trails and access controls help in meeting internal compliance and 'Chain of Custody' requirements. While Pelago is a US-based company, they ensure that their data handling practices meet international standards for privacy and security. They also comply with PCI DSS standards for the handling of payment information, utilizing secure gateways like Stripe and PayPal for all transactions. While they may not hold niche certifications like HIPAA directly (as they are a general-purpose tool), many of their healthcare-adjacent clients use the platform's robust security features to build their own compliant workflows, supported by Intervals' high-level encryption and strict internal data policies.