Project management software compared

Project management software gives a team one place to list tasks, move them across boards, schedule them on a timeline and discuss the work where it happens. The nine products on this page each offer task lists and boards, a timeline or Gantt view, and team collaboration on tasks. We read every price on the vendor's own website and confirmed it with a second, separate fetch. Each product page links to the pages we used. All figures are US dollars and can differ by country, tax and billing currency.

What the three inclusion tests mean

The written criteria for this category are task lists and boards, timelines, and team collaboration on tasks. A tool with only a to-do list fails the first test, and a board with no schedule view fails the second. Chat apps and document tools usually fail the third, because comments and assignments there are not tied to a task.

The timeline test is the one that changes the price. Several vendors hold schedule views back for paid plans, and the tier where they start differs from product to product, which we set out below. The criteria have not yet been approved by an editor, so treat the list as a working draft.

Free plans differ more than the price suggests

Seven of the nine products have a free plan, but the limits point at different kinds of team. Asana allows 2 users on its free Personal plan, with unlimited tasks and projects and a 100MB limit per file. monday.com also stops at 2 seats and adds a cap of 3 boards and 3 docs. A two-person team can run on either, and a third person forces a paid plan.

Trello allows up to 10 collaborators and 10 boards per Workspace, and Teamwork.com allows up to 5 users and 5 projects. ClickUp takes the opposite approach. Its Free Forever plan has unlimited tasks and free members, but it limits storage to 60 MB, allows 5 Spaces, and permits 100 automation actions a month with 5 active rules. A team that attaches design files will meet that storage limit within days.

Paymo limits its free plan to 1 user, 1 client and 2 projects, so it suits a freelancer more than a team. Wrike offers a free plan, though its pricing page gives no numeric limits for it. Smartsheet and ProofHub have no free plan. Smartsheet offers a 30-day trial, and ProofHub cites a 14-day trial.

Where the timeline starts

The cheapest way to get a schedule view depends on the vendor. On the pricing pages we read, the timeline or Gantt view begins at these points.

• Asana lists timeline and Gantt views from the Starter plan at $10.99 per user a month on annual billing.
• monday.com includes them from Standard at $12 per seat, not on Basic at $9 or on Free.
• ClickUp includes Gantt charts from Core at $9, but its Timeline view is included only from Business at $17 and appears as a trial on Core.
• Trello puts the timeline view on Premium at $10 per user, not on Standard at $5.
• Smartsheet lists Grid, Gantt, Calendar, Table and Board views on all four plans. Its Timeline view needs Business at $19 per member.
• Wrike lists an interactive Gantt chart on Team at $10 per user.
• Teamwork.com mentions Gantt on its Basics plan at $9.99 per user.
• Paymo restricts the Gantt chart to Pro, which is the top self-serve plan.
• ProofHub lists a Gantt chart on its pricing page, though the page does not show which of its two plans includes it.

A buyer who only needs a simple Gantt can therefore pay as little as $9 per user a month at ClickUp or Smartsheet. A buyer who wants ClickUp's Timeline view pays $17, close to Smartsheet Business at $19.

What a 10-person team pays

Per-seat prices hide the effect of seat rules, so a worked example helps. These figures use annual billing, multiply the listed per-user price by 10 users, and ignore tax and add-ons. Each product page links to the pricing page its figures came from.

Product	Entry plan with a schedule view	Per month for 10 users
Trello	Premium, $10	$100
Wrike	Team, $10	$100
Teamwork.com	Basics, $9.99	$99.90
Asana	Starter, $10.99	$109.90
monday.com	Standard, $12	$120
ClickUp	Business, $17 (Timeline view)	$170
Smartsheet	Business, $19 (Timeline view)	$190

Smartsheet Pro at $9 gives 10 members a Gantt view for $90, though Pro is limited to 1 to 10 members and the page says it is only available to new customers. Past 10 members, a team must move to Business. Wrike's Team plan covers 2 to 15 users, and Business at $25 covers 5 to 200, so a 20-person team on Wrike pays at least $500 a month against $240 for the same team on monday.com Standard.

ProofHub sits outside this table because it charges a flat fee for the account. Essential costs $45 a month on annual billing for 40 projects, and Ultimate Control costs $89 for unlimited projects. Both plans allow unlimited users. The FAQ says Ultimate Control rises to $135 a month on annual billing after the first three months, so a team should budget for that figure. For a 20-person team that is about $6.75 per person.

Seat rules and billing terms that change the bill

Minimums and block sizes decide what a small team really pays. monday.com says plans start from 3 users, so a two-person team that wants a timeline pays for three seats at $12, or $36 a month. Teamwork.com sets a 3-user minimum on Basics and 5 on Accelerate at $24.99 per user, so five people on Accelerate cost $124.95 a month.

Wrike sells seats in blocks. Up to 30 seats are sold in groups of five, 30 to 100 seats in groups of 10, and anything above 100 in groups of 25. A team of 11 on the $10 Team plan pays for 15 seats, or $150 a month. The same page says Business plans and above are annual only, and that the posted prices apply to purchases made on or after January 21, 2026.

Billing period matters too. Asana charges $13.49 per user for Starter on monthly billing against $10.99 on annual billing, a gap of $2.50 a seat. Trello Standard goes from $5 to $6 and Premium from $10 to $12.50. monday.com says monthly billing is not discounted on its pricing page, which shows annual prices. ClickUp's text lists yearly prices only, so a buyer who wants to pay monthly needs to confirm the rate at checkout.

Paymo needs a separate note. Its page shows intro prices for the first three months for new accounts, then higher prices. Plus lists at $10.90 per user and Pro at $16.90 during the intro period, rising to $15.90 and $23.90. A team of 10 on Pro pays $169 a month at first and $239 a month afterward on monthly billing.

Single sign-on and admin controls

Single sign-on is where the cheap plans end. Asana lists SAML under Enterprise, which is quote-only. ClickUp lists Google sign-in from Business and Microsoft, Okta and SAML sign-in from Enterprise and Max. Smartsheet lists SAML single sign-on for Enterprise and Advanced Work Management, though every plan allows sign-in with a Google, Microsoft or Apple account.

Trello and Atlassian work differently. Standard and Premium do not include SAML sign-in, and a team can add it through Atlassian Guard, a separate subscription starting at $4 per user a month. Enterprise includes it. Teamwork.com lists single sign-on under Enterprise only. The monday.com, Wrike and ProofHub pricing pages we read do not mention single sign-on, so those cells stay empty on the product pages until we find a vendor source.

A company that must pass a security questionnaire should ask early which plan carries SAML, because the jump can be large. Trello Premium at $10 per user becomes Enterprise at $17.50, and the extra $7.50 per user is a 75% rise.

How the products differ in style

The nine products share the three required capabilities, but they suit different habits. Trello and its card-and-column model reward teams that want a visual board and little configuration. Cards are unlimited on every plan, and assignees and due dates are available on Free and every paid plan.

Smartsheet starts from a spreadsheet-style grid and adds Gantt, calendar, table and board views on top, with comments, conversations and assigning people on all plans. That suits teams that already track work in spreadsheets. Asana's pricing page describes list, board and calendar views on the free plan and unlimited comments among its essentials.

ClickUp offers Board, List, Calendar and Table views on every plan, including Free. monday.com describes boards where a task moves between statuses, and Wrike's page names task management and a Gantt chart among its features. Paymo and ProofHub add time tracking, invoicing or proofing-style discussion alongside task lists, so they fit agencies and client work.

Teamwork.com's pricing page names task, list, board, Gantt and table views. Its home page shows task assignment and an AI feature that summarizes comment threads.

Products we left out

Basecamp has a pricing page, but we could not confirm a timeline or Gantt view from it, so it fails the second inclusion test for now. Zoho Projects and Jira did not show their per-user prices in the page text we could fetch, and a price we cannot read is a price we do not publish. Hive and Notion showed prices without saying whether they assume annual or monthly billing, so we held them back. Freedcamp lists a Gantt chart from its Business plan, but its page did not show assignments on tasks. These products may be added after the next check.

What to verify before buying

Open the vendor's pricing page and find the plan that carries the timeline view, the seat minimum and block size for your head count, and the plan that carries single sign-on if you need it. Then price the team you will have in a year, not today, and add the billing-period gap if you cannot commit annually. Before signing, ask the vendor for a written quote that names the plan and the seat count.