10 Best Project Management Software for Small Businesses

Asana: Best overall

Asana is one of the top-rated tools for project management and work management, as it delivers critical features ranging from forms to boards, timeline management, automation and universal reporting, among other effective features for small businesses.

As a project management software, Asana ensures that users do not have to constantly move between different tools, such as email and spreadsheets, to manage their projects.

Pricing

Asana offers a free plan that remains free forever, ideal for those just starting out. You can opt for the Premium plan at $10.99 per user per month when billed annually, the Business tier at $24.99 per user per month, also billed annually, or the Enterprise tier which requires you to contact Asana for a quote.

Features

• Dashboards (Figure A) to examine progress across projects without manual effort.
• Suitable for bug tracking, sprint planning, product feedback, product launch, product roadmap and work request use cases for engineering teams.
• Automation to streamline marketing and creative processes.
• Integration with 300+ tools.

Pros

• Automated workflows to improve work management.
• Real-time tracking of reports, status updates and overall project progress.
• Simple task assignment and management.
• Improved communication as Asana ensures conversations are in one place.

Cons

• Asana can be overwhelming to new users as its user interface may come off as complex, therefore introducing a learning curve.
• Limited free version.

Integrations

Asana boasts over 350 app integrations, including Slack for communication and GitHub for code management.

Why we chose Asana

It’s difficult to come across a project management tool that strikes a perfect balance between functionality and user experience. Asana comes close to that as it stands out for its robust feature set that doesn’t compromise on user experience. Its thorough roster of powerful features makes it a go-to for small businesses of all shapes and sizes.

For more information, check out our full Asana review.

Wrike: Best for reporting features

Wrike is an all-in-one platform for managing projects, organizing work, enhancing collaboration and accelerating execution across the departments of its users. As project management software, Wrike empowers its customers to align their strategy with their execution to deliver success. Wrike cuts across strategic planning, project portfolio management, program and project management and corporate development.

Pricing

In addition to a free plan, Wrike offers a Team plan that costs $9.80 per user per month and there’s also a Business plan at $24.80 per user per month for more comprehensive needs. It also has Enterprise and Pinnacle plans, whose pricing information you’ll need to contact Wrike for.

Features

• Strategic planning to facilitate transparent operations and ultimately help users plan, visualize and track OKRs.
• Business-wide Agile planning and a platform that supports sprint or Kanban-style management.
• Business process standardization features to establish best practices through customization of workflows, auto-assignment of tasks, automation and more.
• Effective reporting features that yield detailed reports (Figure B) and ultimately decisions, from data. Wrike delivers full visibility through its dashboards, Gantt charts, tables and more.

Pros

• Cross-departmental collaboration.
• 360-degree visibility of the entire business.
• Enterprise-grade security that includes role-based access control, user authentication and more.
• 400+ popular app integrations available.

Cons

• Complex user experience.
• A duller user interface compared to most of its alternatives.

Integrations

Wrike natively integrates with 40+ tools, including Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Tableau, OneDrive, Outlook, Slack and Adobe Creative Cloud.

Why we chose Wrike

Wrike is the epitome of an all-in-one solution, with features that cater to both project management and team collaboration. Its reporting capabilities are unparalleled, which is a plus for small teams that leverage data for decision-making.

For more information, check out our full Wrike review.

monday.com: Best for a balanced solution with a limited budget

monday work management is a monday.com platform that enables its customers to plan, manage and collaborate on projects or portfolios. As a small business project management software, it is popular since it cost-effectively delivers a balanced range of features that are of value and impact to small businesses.

Monday work management provides the toolkit to manage a variety of aspects of a project, from project requests and approvals, to risk registers, resources, dependencies, project views and advanced Gantt.

Pricing

Free plan aside, monday offers a Basic plan starting at $8 per user per month and Standard and Pro plans at $10 and $16 per user per month, respectively, all billed annually. For its Enterprise plan, custom pricing is available upon request

Features

• Gantt charts to track projects and key metrics.
• Project dashboards ensure that users access real-time data to inform business decisions.
• Advanced integrations make sure that businesses can connect their most important tools.
• Pre-built customizable project templates (Figure C) suited to various project use cases.

Pros

• Easy management and planning of multiple projects from one place.
• Tracking and optimization capabilities enable businesses to monitor performance.
• Improved efficiency resulting in staff time and money savings.

Cons

• Reporting features are limited.
• Boards can become cluttered.

Integrations

monday offers more than 200 integrations and applications across communication, marketing, CRM, finance, development and collaboration. The most popular ones include Jira, SAP, Google Chat, Power BI, GitHub and Slack.

Why we chose monday

For a starting price of $8 per user per month when billed annually, monday offers something for every kind of team, especially small teams seeking a competent yet cost-effective tool. It has a vast range of integrations and applications, as well as features.

For more information, check out our full monday work management review.

Trello: Best for kanban boards

Trello delivers flexible work management and project management software that empowers teams to collaborate on projects, ideate, organize workflows and keep track of project progress visually. Its simplicity and flexibility, alongside its impressive Kanban boards and generous free plan, make the tool quite popular among small businesses.

Pricing

Besides a free plan, Trello delivers a Standard plan at $5 per user per month and a Premium plan at $10 per user per month. Larger teams can opt for the Enterprise plan, priced at $17.50 per user per month, all billed annually.

Features

• Built-in automation tool to handle repetitive tasks like the addition of team members, creation of agendas and tracking of due dates.
• Custom field functionality saves time and helps to effectively meet the demands of a project, whether simple a simple to-do list or a complex workflow.
• Customizable project management templates to deliver boards that help users avoid starting from scratch.
• Multiple methods to view your projects including Board (Figure D), Workspace, Timeline, Dashboard, Calendar, Table and Map views.

Pros

• No steep learning curve; Trello is easy to use.
• 195+ integrations with popular tools.
• Better free plan compared to most of its alternatives.

Cons

• Trello struggles with complex tasks with many dependencies.
• Design and layout can be confusing to users.

Integrations

Trello offers 195+ integrations, including Google Calendar, Slack, Miro, Zapier and Jira.

Why we chose Trello

We simply picked Trello because of its Kanban boards, which offer an incredibly visual and intuitive way to manage projects. These Kanban boards are simple to set up and make it easy to track projects, making Trello an excellent tool for small businesses that fancy a straightforward, no-frills approach to project management.

For more information, read our comprehensive Trello review.

ClickUp: Best for customized views

ClickUp is an advanced project management software platform whose mission is to raise the productivity of its users and give them back at least 20% of their time to use on other activities. It delivers customizable pre-built automation recipes and visualization and planning capabilities to provide teams with beautiful views to plan and track their projects from beginning to end. It is also a popular choice for small businesses that utilize Agile product development, sales teams and marketing teams.

Pricing

Beyond a free plan,  ClickUp offers an Unlimited plan at $7 per user per month billed annually and a Business plan at $12 per user per month billed annually. It also offers enterprise-level pricing upon request.

Features

• Real-time, Agile reporting to ensure projects are on track and resources are aligned.
• Time management features through tracking, reporting and estimates.
• A variety of project templates (Figure E) to provide users with multiple time-saving scenarios for their use cases.
• Its collaboration features ensure that projects and teams have total alignment as comments, with action items and real-time chat, can be added to any task or project.

Pros

• Vast customization capabilities without code or add-ons required.
• Many views and automation options alongside 1,000+ integrations.
• ClickUp is capable of managing complex projects.

Cons

• Has a steep learning curve for new users.
• Small businesses may be priced out of the higher premium tiers.

Integrations

ClickUp offers 1000+ integrations, with 40+ native integrations, including Tableau, Discord, Miro, Zendesk, Twilio, Front, GitLab and Time Doctor.

Why we chose ClickUp

ClickUp is a powerhouse of customization. Its multiple views and extensive automation options make it a versatile tool that can adapt to complex project requirements. For small teams with diverse project management needs, ClickUp is definitely worth considering.

For more information, check out our full ClickUp review.

Airtable: Best for data-driven teams

With the initial appearance of a spreadsheet, Airtable is a powerful project management software tool that fosters collaboration between teams that allows them to model their projects, define relationships and generate views tailored to their work. This makes Airtable a worthy choice for small businesses that base their project data on spreadsheets.

Airtable offers numerous project management templates for different use cases to give its users the ability to pick up the tool with a minimized learning curve. Airtable is also arguably the easiest tool to use on this list.

Pricing

Airtable provides a 14-day free trial of its Pro version to give you a taste of its advanced features. The Plus plan starts at $10 per seat per month, billed annually, while the Pro plan is priced at $20 per seat per month, also billed annually.

Features

• Interface Designer to enable teams to reimagine their workflows with custom interfaces.
• Views (Figure F) feature helps users generate views of data that are as flexible as the transformations of business data.
• Automations ensure that workflows are streamlined and as simple or complex as users require.
• Sync aligns teams around a single source of truth with real-time data from disparate data sources.

Pros

• Easy to use, particularly its templates for different use cases.
• Delivers a single source of truth.
• Highly customizable tool.
• Sleek user interface.

Cons

• The features offered by the free plan are limited.
• The great versatility of Airtable inadvertently introduces a learning curve.

Integrations

Airtable offers integration with around 30+ tools, including Google Drive, Basecamp, Zendesk, Facebook, GitHub and Salesforce.

Why we chose Airtable

Airtable’s spreadsheet-like interface is a game-changer for data-driven teams. It merges the simplicity of a spreadsheet with the effectiveness of a database, making it incredibly versatile for various project types.

For more information, check out our full Airtable review.

Notion: Best for agency collaboration

Notion is a versatile workspace that combines elements of project management, documentation and collaboration. Particularly when it comes to its note-taking capabilities, Notion gives small businesses an easy and intuitive interface to collaborate through an all-in-one workspace. It also offers a wide range of templates and customization options, which is a time-saver for teams.

Pricing

In addition to a free plan, Notion offers three paid plans Plus, Business and Enterprise, of which the Plus and Business plans start at $8 and $15 per user per month when billed annually. The Enterprise plan requires you to reach out to Notion for a quote.

Features

• User-friendly drag-and-drop user interface.
• 3500+ templates (Figure G) to help users avoid starting projects from scratch.
• AI-infused tools for smarter projects.
• Document collaboration capabilities.

Pros

• Highly customizable.
• All-in-one workspace.
• Strong community and template ecosystem.

Cons

• Vast feature catalog can overwhelm users.
• Has limited offline capabilities.

Integrations

Notion offers 70+ integrations as it integrates with popular tools like Slack, Google Drive and Jira, AdobeXD and more.

Why we chose Notion

The way Notion blends elements of project management, documentation and collaboration into a single platform makes it a truly compelling choice for small businesses. Its note-taking features also stand out by adding an extra dimension to keeping not only small teams but also small agencies organized.

For more information, read our full Notion review.

Todoist: Best for simplicity

Todoist is a task management tool that focuses on simplicity and effectiveness. Its clean interface and intuitive features make it easy to manage tasks and projects. It prioritizes simplicity and focus through features like today, upcoming and custom filters to sort and prioritize work.

Pricing

Todoist offers a free plan and two premium plans, Pro and Business at $4 and $6 per user per month billed annually.

Features

• Quick Add to rapidly capture and organize tasks.
• Task (Figure H) assignments to share daily tasks in shared projects.
• Boards, labels, filters and themes to customize task views.
• Productivity visualizations to track goals.

Pros

• Simple and intuitive.
• Cross-platform availability.
• Strong focus on individual productivity.

Cons

• Limited collaboration features.
• Free plan is quite limited.

Integrations

Todoist offers integrations with tools like Google Calendar, Beeminder, Apiway, Boardy, Firefox, Jira and Amazon Alexa.

Why we chose Todoist

Todoist excels in being both simple and functional, with a clean interface and intuitive features like natural language input, which make it a breeze to manage tasks and projects. For small businesses looking for a straightforward, effective way to stay organized, Todoist is a top pick.

For more information, check out our full Todoist review.

Teamwork: Best for resource allocation

Teamwork is a project management tool created to maximize collaboration and efficiency within teams. It offers a suite of features that small teams can appreciate, which go beyond mere task management, including time tracking, resource allocation and advanced reporting capabilities. This makes Teamwork a great consideration for small businesses with resource-intensive projects.

Pricing

Teamwork offers a free plan and four premium plans. The Starter, Deliver and Grow plans are priced at $5.99, $9.99 and $19.99 per user per month, all billed annually; while the last plan, Scale, requires you to contact Teamwork for a quote.

Features

• Multiple views including list, tables and Gantt.
• Time tracking to log time and mark time as billable.
• Expense tracking (Figure I) against project budgets.
• Advanced reporting capabilities.

Pros

• Extensive feature set.
• Strong focus on team collaboration.
• Highly customizable workflows.

Cons

• Can be overwhelming for small projects
• Higher price point

Integrations

Teamwork integrates with a range of tools, including Skyvia, MS Teams, Stripe, HubSpot and QuickBooks.

Why we chose Teamwork

Teamwork offers Teamwork Spaces, which allow for the creation of dedicated workspaces for each project and can integrate with other tools to bring all relevant information into one place.

For more information, read our full Teamwork review.

Zoho Projects: Best for flexibility

Zoho Projects is a cloud-based tool that helps teams track and collaborate on their projects while becoming more productive. It’s part of the Zoho Suite that offers a comprehensive set of project management features like time tracking, task management and advanced reporting capabilities.

Pricing

Its three plans are Free, Premium and Enterprise, of which the latter two cost $4 and $9 per user per month when billed annually.

Features

• Project planning and scheduling capabilities.
• Robust reporting (Figure J) and analytics tools.
• Task management features with drag and drop functionality.
• Multiple project views including calendar, board and list formats.

Pros

• Well-priced tool.
• Huge arsenal of features.
• Great customer support.
• Seamless integration with Zoho Suite.

Cons

• No native time tracking.
• Limited native integrations.

Integrations

Zoho Projects integrates with other Zoho Suite products, like Zoho CRM and Zoho Analytics, offering a seamless workflow within the Zoho ecosystem. It also supports third-party integrations like Google Workspace and Microsoft Office.

Why we chose Zoho Projects

Zoho Projects consists of a set of features that cater to both simple and complex project needs. It’s especially worth choosing if you’re already a member of the Zoho Suite and is a great choice for small agile teams as well as remote teams.

For more information, read our full Zoho Projects review.