Best free project management software of 2024

Social media mavens looking to capitalize on the content they create for their audiences could get a boost in their likes and shares when they start using one of the many creator templates Notion provides. The free and fee-based templates support content projects and schedules for Instagram influencers, YouTube channels and budding TikTok stars, among other platforms.

Anyone who’s active on Slack, GitHub and other online services can use Notion’s built-in connections to these and other systems. Notion lets creators add dynamic previews of their content in docs and notes by pasting a link to a GitHub PR, Jira ticket and other platforms. However, many project teams will be stymied by the limitations of the free version of Notion’s services — in particular, the lack of direct support from the company.

Notion’s paid project management software packages address some of these limitations, but they still limit the number of guests you can invite to participate in the project. And all but the company’s Enterprise plan restrict your ability to revert to previous pages from seven days for the free package to 90 days for its Business plan. Many project teams may be forced to upgrade from the free plan to a paid package by the limit on the number of content blocks that teams can share.

Notion’s approach to project management is intended to spark your imagination and help you get creative in your own inimitable way. The software organizes your notes and content into many different formats, including images and video and then into pages that can be dragged, dropped and nested. It also tracks your task schedule without a lot of distractions to enhance your focus and boost your productivity.

Value 

There’s plenty of functionality in Notion’s free version to meet the project-management needs of individuals and small teams, including team-member permissions, shared calendars and multiple project views. The value of Notion’s task and project tools for larger teams is in its Plus and Business plans, which feature custom database automations that make tracking the project status and work of team members much more efficient.

You can try out the custom automations and other features of Notion’s fee-based plans while using the free version by downloading one of the company’s many free templates. The templates cover issue tracking, calendars, roadmaps, goal setting and ticketing. However, many of the free templates require the company’s Notion AI add-on, which costs $10 a month.

Functionality 

Even if you’ve got some experience using project management software, you might struggle a bit to get started with Notion’s pages-and-blocks approach. Each project task has its own page that describes all related planning and implementation steps. All the content on the page is in the form of blocks that can hold text, images, videos, bullets, databases and “embeds,” which are placeholders for files from PDFs, YouTube videos, Google Maps, Google Drive and many other sources.

Seasoned project managers know how quickly a project can get out of hand. Keeping all tasks and participants moving in the right direction requires the ability to monitor progress using multiple views. Notion lets managers track projects by status in a calendar view, as well as by using Kanban boards, timelines with waterfall and critical path views. It also offers Sprint boards for agile development.

Support 

Individuals and small teams without much experience with project management are on their own when looking for help getting started and troubleshooting problems with Notion’s free plan. The company provides direct support only to customers who purchase a paid plan, which includes 24/7 access from their desktop screen or mobile app.

The Notion help center fills the support gap for free users by providing guides for getting started and information on the product’s features, settings and security. The Notion Academy goes a step further by explaining various ways to leverage the product to make your projects run smoothly. Notion has a library of webinars that cover such topics as workspace setup, task dashboards and tips for creators.

Our editorial team created our expert opinion scores. The expert score contributes to 10% of the data-focused methodology, which underpins our Blueprint rating for each company. The expert score combines first-person experience, subject matter expertise and extensive research to develop these metrics as another source of truth for readers during their decision-making process.

ClickUp is a great choice for businesses that want their projects to move fast, but not necessarily break things. The company applies the agile development approach used in the Scrum environment, called sprints, to improve teamwork and get more work done in less time. Of course, sprints are just one of the many project management options ClickUp delivers, which include Kanban boards, Gantt charts and portfolios.

The free version of ClickUp is intended for personal use and is limited to 100 MB of storage, so it may not be the best option for small businesses that require such features as permissions and time tracking. ClickUp’s Unlimited package includes both of these features and more project management tools for small teams, while the Business plan has the capabilities that midsize teams need such as workload management and timelines.

It’s fast. Novice project managers can get up to speed on ClickUp’s fundamental features in a few hours. The main window lets you move between projects with a click and change views just as quickly. Your company’s projects can move along even faster if you purchase ClickUp Brain, the company’s AI add-on that’s available with ClickUp’s paid plans.

Value 

There’s nothing more valuable to a business than time. ClickUp makes your teams’ time more valuable by helping to boost their productivity and reduce their stress. The free version lets individuals track their tasks in a variety of ways and create custom views and fields. They can collaborate on documents, chat in real time and record and share video from within the ClickUp app.

Organizations that manage multiple teams and projects can step up to the company’s Unlimited or Business packages which cost $10 and $19 per user per seat respectively. Both plans let you set permissions for guests, track time and create user groups. The Business package adds timelines, mind maps and granular time estimates. (ClickUp also sells project management software for enterprises).

Functionality 

Small businesses need to be able to manage all the pieces of a project using tools that match the way they operate. ClickUp lets companies streamline projects that involve different departments and functions. Team members collaborate using chat and shared documents. They save time by assigning tasks, posting comments and advancing a task’s status automatically using ClickUp’s built-in automations.

ClickUp serves as a platform that integrates time management and real-time reporting. It has more than a dozen views that include workload, box and activity. Companies that want to combine project management with other business functions can add ClickUp’s solutions for software development, IT, sales and other operations. Alternatively, they can connect their projects to other systems using the third-party add-ons ClickUp offers, such as Slack, GitHub and Google Drive.

Support 

Unfortunately, getting started with ClickUp isn’t made much easier by the chatbot support the company provides 24/7. Each time we asked the bot a question we were directed to several articles from the company’s help center that weren’t especially relevant.

The Contact Us link at the bottom of the help page leads to the help center’s categories page. Clicking an option on this page opens the chatbot or opens a web form where you choose an issue from the dropdown menu, add a topic and type in your request along with your name and email address.

Businesses that want to take their project management skills to the next level can sign up for ClickUp University which offers classes designed to improve communication and collaboration with the goal of saving time by applying productivity best practices. Alternatively, project managers can pick up new skills by viewing the company’s on-demand webinars for administrators, new team members and client onboarding.

Our editorial team created our expert opinion scores. The expert score contributes to 10% of the data-focused methodology, which underpins our Blueprint rating for each company. The expert score combines first-person experience, subject matter expertise and extensive research to develop these metrics as another source of truth for readers during their decision-making process.

If your small business depends on work you do for clients, Teamwork’s project management software is designed for you. The company offers template-driven solutions for agencies, IT services, accounting and finance, legal and about a dozen other team categories.

Businesses can get started quickly by selecting a department-specific template and tweaking it to meet their needs. Or they can start from scratch and create their own templates for managing project tasks, pages and entire projects.

Small teams will find the project management features they require in Teamwork’s forever free plan, which supports up to five users. However, the free version gives you only two project templates and two custom fields, and it doesn’t allow client access.

Businesses that need to support larger teams, including members from across departments and functions, are better served by Teamwork’s Deliver and Grow plans, which cost $13.99 and $25.99 per user per month, respectively (discounted with annual agreements).

Growing businesses need tools that will grow along with them. With Teamwork, you can either start with the company’s free plan and upgrade as your projects require more sophisticated management or take advantage of Teamwork’s 30-day free trial (no credit card required). Then apply the customization options to create the perfect project management process for your operation.

Value 

Teamwork’s fee-based project management software is more expensive than products from competing vendors, especially before the steep discounts for signing an annual contract. The product’s value is its focus on addressing the project management needs of client-based businesses such as agencies, professional services and consultants. The paid plans from Teamwork support an unlimited number of client users, and all packages feature client views, client company management and billable time tracking.

Another value-add feature of Teamwork’s project management products is their ability to integrate with your current business processes. While the free plan has only a handful of third-party integrations and customization options, the company’s paid packages add QuickBooks integration and several others. The plans also let you add your branding to templates, integrate team chat and share dashboards.

Functionality 

The downside of Teamwork’s free plan is its limit of five users and five projects, as well as storage capped at 100 MB and automations limited to 100 actions per month. Most small businesses will crash into these limitations in no time, requiring an upgrade to the company’s Deliver or Grow packages that come with 100 GB and 250 GB of storage, respectively, and support up to 300 and 600 projects, respectively.

However, there’s plenty of upside for small businesses to the free and paid plans sold by Teamwork, starting with a range of project views that include list, Kanban board, table and Gantt. The free plan includes unlimited task list templates and supports task-level tags and milestone tracking. Companies that manage larger project teams will appreciate the portfolio and workflow views in Teamwork’s paid packages, as well as the advanced reports and team management features.

Support 

Live chat and email support are available only with Teamwork’s paid plans. Live support hours are 7 a.m. to midnight Irish Standard Time, Monday to Friday, and limited hours on weekends. The Teamwork support center features a knowledge base that covers getting started with a project, time tracking and integrations, among other topics.

Alternative support options from Teamwork are a handful of on-demand webinars, a guide to project management best practices and the Agency Life podcast. The Teamwork Academy provides dozens of short videos — some no longer than 15 seconds — on project structures, assigning tasks, tracking time and other project-related topics.

Our editorial team created our expert opinion scores. The expert score contributes to 10% of the data-focused methodology, which underpins our Blueprint rating for each company. The expert score combines first-person experience, subject matter expertise and extensive research to develop these metrics as another source of truth for readers during their decision-making process.

For Jira, waterfall projects are so 2010. Speed is as important to small businesses as it is to megacorporations, and no development style is faster than agile, which entails continuous collaboration and improvement by constant iteration. Project tasks are concurrent rather than sequential, for example, and testing begins at the earliest stages and continues through and after deployment.

If this sounds like the type of project approach for your small business, Jira’s free package is a great place to put the agile concept to the test. You won’t have to worry about hitting any caps because the plan includes unlimited goals, projects, tasks and forms as well as multiple project views and customizable workflows.

Despite agile’s background as a software development methodology, Jira serves all areas of your business, including templates for marketing, sales, finance, operations and other areas. While the free version of Jira is limited to 10 users, the company’s Standard plan supports up to 50,000 users per “site,” which serves as the platform for all your projects. Standard also bumps up the free plan’s 2 GB of storage to 250 GB.

Henry David Thoreau is famous for exhorting us to “Simplify, simplify.” There’s very little about modern workflows that can be described as “simple,” but Jira offers an antidote for complexity by cutting convoluted workflows down to size.

All project tasks are reduced to manageable steps that can be tracked by team members in different ways, switching quickly from the big-picture view to the details of a single piece of the jigsaw puzzle that is your project.

Value 

Businesses that start with Jira’s free plan aren’t likely to grow out of it right away, but eventually they may find their project teams constricted by the free package’s storage and other limits, including a maximum of 10 users and 100 automation rule runs each month.

The step up to one of Jira’s paid plans doesn’t reduce the company’s value proposition: the Standard and Premium packages are affordably priced and loaded with productivity-boosting features, such as user roles and permissions, audit logs and direct support.

It almost seems like very small businesses using Jira’s project management software are being subsidized by their larger counterparts, but the company’s paid plans deliver plenty of value in the form of projects that meet their goals in less time and at a lower cost.

Functionality 

With Jira, projects actually start at the finish line because your first steps are setting the project’s goals, including its completion date. From there, the team identifies issues, which are the individual pieces of work that will be tracked, then lines up the people who will comprise the team and the responsibilities of each. The last piece of the puzzle is defining the project’s workflows, which have three elements: status, transition (the action required to advance its status) and resolution (when the task is completed).

From the main Jira window, you can access the project’s goals by clicking the Goals tab, which shows the current status and due dates as well as the most recent updates. The project’s issues include tasks, help desk tickets and leave request forms, for example, and can be updated to add descriptions, assignments and attachments. Other Jira elements are projects, forms and workflows.

Support 

WIth the free version of Jira, your only support option is to post your question with the Atlassian community or search the community’s database of previous answers, articles and discussions.

The Atlassian support page describes the options available for each Jira plan: Standard has live (non-telephone) support nine hours a day, Monday to Friday; Premium offers three levels of support, including 24/7 for level 1 issues; Enterprise adds 24/7 telephone support and a dedicated senior support team.

The Atlassian contact page has links for posting a support ticket and general inquiries, as well as the address and telephone numbers of the company’s offices in Asia Pacific, Europe and North America. Other support options are the Atlassian knowledge base, documentation and developer resources.

Our editorial team created our expert opinion scores. The expert score contributes to 10% of the data-focused methodology, which underpins our Blueprint rating for each company. The expert score combines first-person experience, subject matter expertise and extensive research to develop these metrics as another source of truth for readers during their decision-making process.

No matter a project’s size or goal, it ultimately gets broken down into a series of tasks. Todoist takes this idea and runs with it, basing its project management software on tasks that you use to plan and schedule every action. The result is simple, straightforward and effective goal setting and time and resource planning.

Todoist’s free plan is designed to help individuals organize their lives. It lets you manage up to five projects and includes all the essential task features except reminders, which are available only in the company’s fee-based Pro and Business packages. The free plan limits your project views and custom filters, and it lacks any team management features, so most small businesses will need to upgrade to one of Todoist’s paid plans.

That’s not such an expensive option, though, because Pro and Business cost only $5 and $8 per user per month, respectively. The plans add Todoist’s AI Assistant that helps you tie your tasks to project goals and suggests ways to make the tasks more “actionable.”

You can think of Todoist as a back-to-basics project management solution because it lets individuals and teams approach projects at an elemental level without losing sight of the path those tasks create for efficiently reaching the project’s goals.

Despite the free version’s limitations for team settings, the plan is an effective starting point for small operations, like an extended limited-feature free trial. The low cost of the company’s paid plans make potential upgrades more palatable.

Value 

The lack of team features limits the value of Todoist’s free version, especially compared to the collaboration capabilities of free project management software from vendors such as Notion and Teamwork. There’s benefit in considering the task-based approach to projects that Todoist uses, especially for businesses that want to get project participants up to speed quickly.

More small businesses are going to look for value in Todoist’s low-cost Pro and Business packages, which increase file uploads to 100 MB from the free plan’s 5 MB. The paid plans let you have up to 300 projects, which is quite a step up from the free version’s limit of five projects. Another important feature for project teams is the paid versions’ calendar view, which isn’t included with the free plan.

Functionality 

The typical user of Todoist’s free project management software is an independent contractor or manager looking to improve their time management. They can share their projects with five people, and their tasks can have comments and file attachments.

However, only Todoist’s Business plan lets you create a team workspace. The Business plan supports up to 1,000 team members and 1,000 guests, as well as projects involving as many as 250 people. You can even pay all team members on a single invoice.

When you start creating, using and editing tasks, the process will feel natural for anyone who has ever used a scheduler, although the free plan lacks a true calendar view. The traditional list view will serve most people’s needs, but you may want to try out the Kanban board view that offers a macro-level view of projects — handy for tracking each element’s progress.

Support 

Businesses that expect a high level of personalized support will want to consider a Todoist alternative because the company relies on a contact form. The company’s help page runs through the troubleshooting process, beginning with a visit to the known issues page and leading to a series of troubleshooting guides.

Individuals and companies new to project management will find getting-started guides at the Todoist help center. There’s also a troubleshooting checklist and help with using third-party integrations, such as Zapier and IFTTT. Companies that want to create custom integrations can use the guides to Todoist’s APIs and software development kits (SDK).

Our editorial team created our expert opinion scores. The expert score contributes to 10% of the data-focused methodology, which underpins our Blueprint rating for each company. The expert score combines first-person experience, subject matter expertise and extensive research to develop these metrics as another source of truth for readers during their decision-making process.

Any small business that wants to empower its employees will appreciate the app-building tools that Airtable puts in their hands. The company’s Interface Designer lets project team members create custom apps by dragging and dropping elements into a workspace to match the way the team operates. You can design workflows for various types of projects, including finance, marketing and operations.

Unfortunately, the free version of Airtable lacks the advanced permissions included with the company’s fee-based Team and Business packages. The controls allow businesses to apply passwords and domain restrictions to shares and grant access and other permissions at the field and table level.

However, there are plenty of project management features in the free plan, such as support for up to five editors and 50 commenters per workspace. The free package comes with a full complement of project views, including list, grid, Kanban and calendar, though it lacks Gantt and timeline views which are offered only with Airtable’s paid plans.

A project’s team members are only as productive as their tools allow them to be. Airtable gives your employees a wealth of options for creating a work environment that is the best match for the tasks and schedule of each unique project. While many small companies will quickly bump up against the limits of Airtable’s free plan, the freebie has all the features a small team will need, including in-product support and automation integrations.

Value 

The benefits of Airtable’s free offering for individuals and small teams are in introducing them to the functions and capabilities of the company’s Team and Business plans, which cost $24 and $54 per seat per month, respectively. It’s great that the free plan includes the Interface Designer for creating custom project workspaces.

However, it excludes the company’s customization options for page and view sections as well as color and formatting options and custom-branded forms, all of which are included with Team and Business.

Upgrading from the free version of Airtable to a paid plan is a big leap in price, especially considering the features and capabilities of less-expensive paid plans from competing project management vendors such as Monday.com and ClickUp. Most small businesses will soon max out the free plan’s limits of 1,000 records per “base,” or workspace, and its two-week limit on revision and snapshot histories.

Functionality 

Your company’s project teams will appreciate the control that Airtable’s project management software gives them over the look and operation of their workspace (or “base,” in Airtable parlance). They can create and share custom interfaces without any coding that mirror the style and preferences of each team member.

Unfortunately, the free plan from Airtable doesn’t include the granular permissions available in the company’s Team and Business offerings. These controls allow managers to limit access to features at four levels: owner/creator, editor, commenter and read only. The permissions apply to records, views, fields, tables and automations, among other components.

Several other features that small businesses will require for managing their projects are available only in Airtable’s paid packages. These include data dependencies for automatically updating information, resource tracking across teams and access to pre-built extensions. Lastly, the Airtable AI add-on designed to improve the efficiency of project workflows is available only to paid subscribers.

Support 

All Airtable plans come with in-product support by clicking the Help button in the top-right corner of the home page and choosing “Message support.” Only the company’s high-end Business and Enterprise Scale products come with email support and the Professional Services add-on through Airtable’s Services Partners program. There’s no indication on the company’s site that it provides 24/7 support in any form.

Self-support options from Airtable include webinars, ebooks and reports on various subjects, as well as a learning center for new users, a video center that includes how-tos and feature updates and on-demand demos. The company also provides resources for developers and a community for sharing with other Airtable users.

Our editorial team created our expert opinion scores. The expert score contributes to 10% of the data-focused methodology, which underpins our Blueprint rating for each company. The expert score combines first-person experience, subject matter expertise and extensive research to develop these metrics as another source of truth for readers during their decision-making process.

If you can say one thing about spreadsheets, it’s that they’ve got staying power. VisiCalc, the first electronic spreadsheet, predates the IBM PC, yet the tables-columns-rows interface continues to be a mainstay in offices large and small. Smartsheet takes the proven spreadsheet model a step or two further by transforming it into a full-fledged project management platform.

The result is a free product that gives individuals most of the project-tracking capabilities of solutions that cost hundreds of dollars a year, including Gantt and calendar views of your projects and up to 100 workflow automations a month. The fly-in-the-ointment for small businesses will be the free plan’s limit of a single user and two editors as well as two “viewers” who have read-only access.

Upgrading to Smartsheet’s Pro plan for $9 per user per month adds up to 10 users, 10 paid editors and unlimited viewers. However, many companies will need workload tracking, scheduled backups and API calls, all of which are found only in the company’s Business and Enterprise offerings. Business boosts the per-user-per-month price to $32 and requires a minimum of three users.

Anyone who knows their way around column types and cell formulas will take to Smartsheet’s project management like a duck takes to water. But the “sheets” you work on with Smartsheet are a lot more than just your typical Excel worksheet.

The product lets you switch quickly between visual views of your projects, create branded dashboards and link data across multiple sheets. The result, according to Smartsheet, is faster project setup, increased productivity and a big reduction in manual processes.

Value 

Very small businesses will find all the project management features they need in Smartsheet’s free plan, which supports a single user and two editors. However, most small companies will realize greater value from the Pro plan, which can be used by as many as 10 people (for $9 per user per month) and 10 paid editors. The low-cost package from Smartsheet overcomes the two-sheet limit of the free offering and bumps the storage limit up  to 20 GB from the free plan’s 500 MB.

It’s not as easy to find the value for small companies in upgrading to Smartsheet’s Business plan, despite the package’s addition of a timeline view, workload tracking and activity logs. At $32 per user per month with a three-user minimum, the plan’s added expense will be difficult for many small operations to justify.

Functionality 

This is an area where Smartsheet shines. The project views you get with the free plan include many that other project management software vendors make you pay for, such as Gantt and calendar views. You also get unlimited dashboards and reports, access to Smartsheet’s template library and the ability to assign team members to specific tasks.

What you don’t get with the free package is access to Smartsheet’s premium add-ons, such as the Control Center for managing portfolios of projects, and the Resource Management tool that includes workload balancing and project time estimates. These and other premium features are available only with the high-end Business and Enterprise plans.

Support 

Only certain Smartsheet project management plans include 24/7 telephone support, but all Smartsheet customers can access the company’s online support portal at any time to post a question and open a case. The company’s Premium Support add-on offers 24/7 chat and email support in addition to telephone contact and promises a first response within two hours.

Businesses using the free version of Smartsheet have two support resources available. The Smartsheet Help and Learning center features a knowledge base and getting started guides, while Smartsheet University offers certification programs, self-paced courses and instructor-led virtual sessions.

Our editorial team created our expert opinion scores. The expert score contributes to 10% of the data-focused methodology, which underpins our Blueprint rating for each company. The expert score combines first-person experience, subject matter expertise and extensive research to develop these metrics as another source of truth for readers during their decision-making process.

Trello’s free project management plan supports up to 10 collaborators, which meets the needs of most small businesses. This alone distinguishes it from other free releases that are intended specifically for individuals and very small teams, such as Todoist. Trello’s free package takes collaboration further by including the company’s Power-Ups for automating common processes and integrating with third-party tools, including Slack, Google Drive and Microsoft Teams.

The board and card approach to project management saves small businesses time by being quick to pick up and integrate with their other activities. The free plan gives users unlimited cards but only 10 boards for each workspace. It also caps file upload sizes at 10 MB.

It won’t take long for a startup to outgrow the free plan and look to upgrade to Trello’s Standard or Premium package, both of which support unlimited boards and advanced checklists. Prices for the plans start at $6 per user per month.

Project managers need a clear and up-to-date view of activities that are planned, in process and completed. Trello’s boards, lists and cards are easy to learn and adapt to your needs. When you combine the boards with the company’s Power-Ups, you gain new project views and other time-saving features. However, many useful project views, such as calendar, timeline, dashboard and table, are available only with the Premium and Enterprise plans.

Value 

The free version of Trello serves individuals and small groups. Right out of the box, Trello’s free software delivers the project management tools a small group needs to get a project from planning to completion.

The product’s value diminishes rapidly for larger teams because of the free version’s limit of 10 workspace collaborators. While Trello’s Standard plan adds unlimited boards and custom fields, only the Premium package gives you useful views that include calendar, timeline and dashboard. At $6 and $12.50 per user per month, respectively, both the Standard and Premium plans are priced lower than products with comparable features from competing vendors.

Functionality 

The Trello board interface is so intuitive that you can use it to lay out tasks and gather a team within minutes of opening it. The time-saving increases as you learn how to put the product’s automations into use. For example, Power-Ups are included for automating common processes, such as recurring tasks and due dates. You can enhance communication between team members by applying collaboration Power-Ups for getting cards approved and adding live whiteboards to cards.

Small businesses using Trello’s free version are missing out on some useful collaboration features, however. The Standard plan gives you single board guests and increases the number of workspace command runs per month to 1,000 from 250 in the free version. Standard also lets you upload files as large as 250 MB rather than the 10 MB limit of the free plan.

Support 

Trello’s free plan is limited to self-help resources offered by the Atlassian community. The Standard plan gives businesses live support during local business hours, and the Premium plan provides 24-hour support Monday to Friday. Other help resources are a getting-started guide, instructions for developing Power-Ups and webinars on such topics as productivity tips and board views.

Our editorial team created our expert opinion scores. The expert score contributes to 10% of the data-focused methodology, which underpins our Blueprint rating for each company. The expert score combines first-person experience, subject matter expertise and extensive research to develop these metrics as another source of truth for readers during their decision-making process.

Project teams have to work well together, but each team member also works in their own unique way. Asana’s project management software accommodates many different approaches to the work, allowing individuals to switch from view to view quickly and simply to gain new perspectives and insight.

The company’s free version supports up to 10 collaborators and removes many of the limitations of competing free project management software, offering unlimited tasks, projects and messages. However, the Personal package lacks functions that many small businesses need, such as project dashboards, customizable templates and timeline views.

For startups and very small teams with relatively basic management needs, the Personal plan serves as a leg up, allowing the business to implement the platform for collaborating on future projects. A bonus is the ability to link to popular productivity apps and other third-party tools through Asana’s many app integrations.

When you consider Asana’s reputation as a provider of enterprise-class solutions for operations, IT, marketing and other business functions, it’s a bit of a surprise to realize the company’s project management software is also the best choice for the equivalent of a mom-and-pop shop.

These companies need to be able to start quickly with a system that has all the essentials and maybe even a few extras but doesn’t impose limitations. That’s Asana’s free Personal plan in a nutshell.

Value 

The best value for Asana’s project management products is for either end of the small-business spectrum: operations with non-existent budgets and fewer than 10 team members at one end, and scaling businesses that are looking for a system that will support their growth and expansion at the other.

The first group gets a fully functional project management system that won’t gobble up a lot of their time, and the second benefits from the Advanced plan’s time tracker, goal setting and other features.

In between is Asana’s Starter package that is priced similarly to midrange plans from competing vendors such as Jira. Small businesses that need to support multiple teams will appreciate Starter’s timeline and Gantt views, custom templates and workflow automations. However, Starter lacks advanced reporting and limits automations, or “rules,” to 250 a month.

Functionality 

When it comes to keeping tabs on a project’s status, you need a clear and complete view because you can’t manage what you can’t see. Asana brings all aspects of a project into focus to help team members understand their roles and duties, and how their tasks link to others and lead to goals.

The Personal version of Asana lets you switch between a project overview and three other views: list, boards and calendar. The plan also gives you more than 100 third-party integrations, such as Microsoft Office 365 and Slack. Unlike other free project management software, Asana doesn’t limit the tasks, projects or messages available in Personal.

Small companies are likely to bump up against the free plan’s 10-collaborator-per-workspace cap before too long, however. They’ll also miss Asana Intelligence, the company’s AI-based analytics tool offered only with the company’s paid packages.

Support 

Only Asana’s Enterprise and Enterprise+ plans come with 24/7 support. Paid support is available from Asana for onboarding, integration and other support tasks. All Asana plans are supported by the company’s help center, which features a chatbot and video tutorials for getting started and navigating the Asana interface.

The Asana Academy offers on-demand courses for team leaders, team members and IT administrators, as well as short video tutorials on dozens of topics. The company also provides a community forum that serves up discussions and tips in six languages. Lastly, Asana has live training events and pre-recorded sessions on using various Asana features and effective project management techniques at advanced, intermediate and beginner levels.

Our editorial team created our expert opinion scores. The expert score contributes to 10% of the data-focused methodology, which underpins our Blueprint rating for each company. The expert score combines first-person experience, subject matter expertise and extensive research to develop these metrics as another source of truth for readers during their decision-making process.

The way Monday.com lets you slice and dice project workflows makes the product a perfect fit for entrepreneurs with a little bit of extra geek, or any project leader who would like to automate operations such as task generation, assignment and tracking.

The downside is that Monday.com’s automation features aren’t available in the free or Basic versions, which also lack the company’s many third-party integrations. The free package does a good job of meeting the needs of its intended audience: individuals who want to organize their work.

Not many small businesses will find their project management needs met by Monday.com’s Basic plan, which requires at least three seats and costs $12 per seat per month. The package lacks integrations and automations, and it has only a single project view: Kanban boards.

Good project management software helps you complete projects. The best helps you achieve your goals in less time and with minimum effort. Once you’re familiar with Monday.com’s workflow automation process, you can apply it to reduce your project’s administrative load and improve the ability of team members to complete tasks faster and more efficiently. For individuals, the free plan from Monday.com assists with managing personal workloads.

Value 

For small businesses and departments within large ones, Monday.com’s most valuable packages are Standard and Pro. The free and Basic versions lack collaboration and communication functions such as guest access and workload monitoring. For most project teams, the real productivity and efficiency boosts will come from the workflow automations and third-party integrations you get with Monday.com’s Standard and Pro plans.

One way individuals and very small teams can realize value from Monday.com’s free and Basic offerings is by using boards to organize their own one-, two- or three-person projects. The product’s project boards can be used as a communications platform, and board owners can place restrictions for viewing and editing the board.

Functionality 

Some project teams get by using a single view of their activities and progress. Monday.com’s Kanban boards give teams plenty of options for arranging the interface by customizing the columns that are used to arrange information on the boards.

Board owners can set column permissions, sort and duplicate columns and create column templates. Column types include people, status, text, date and timeline. Columns can be mirrored, connected and used to track the project’s progress.

However, Monday.com’s project management software separates itself from the pack by offering productivity-boosting workflow automations, which are available only with the company’s Standard, Pro and Enterprise plans.

These products also add access to Monday.com’s extensive library of third-party integrations that include communications, e-commerce and productivity apps. Last but not least, the higher-end offerings come with three very helpful views: timeline, calendar and map.

Support 

Monday.com’s paid plans receive 24/7 live chat support as well as email support and telephone callback. The company also provides daily live webinars. The Monday.com help center offers articles, video tutorials and technical documentation to users of all plans. It has links to the company’s community and the Monday Academy, which features getting-started guides, information on new features and resources for developers.

Our editorial team created our expert opinion scores. The expert score contributes to 10% of the data-focused methodology, which underpins our Blueprint rating for each company. The expert score combines first-person experience, subject matter expertise and extensive research to develop these metrics as another source of truth for readers during their decision-making process.