10 Best Project Management Software for 2026, Compared by Plan and Cost

The best project management software depends on the job you need covered. ClickUp Core, at $9 per user per month billed yearly, puts Gantt charts and time tracking on one plan. Asana Starter, at $10.99 per user per month, billed annually, suits rule-driven teams. monday.com Pro, at $19 per seat per month, billed annually, reflows schedules by itself.

The feature you cannot skip decides the plan: ClickUp Core lists time tracking, while Asana’s built-in time tracking starts on Advanced and monday.com’s on Pro. For 25 people, a year runs from $1,500 on Trello Standard ($5 x 25 x 12) to $7,500 on Wrike Business ($25 x 25 x 12), at US prices read on November 9, 2026.

In This Article (16 sections)

Project Management Software Comparison: 10 Tools at a Glance

Entry paid plans bunch between $5 and $10.99 per user per month on annual billing, so the plan that holds your must-have feature decides the bill more than the entry rate does. Trello Standard has the lowest seat price here, and Basecamp is the one flat fee. Plan pages say what a plan lists, not what the tool does with it, so I ran ClickUp, Asana and monday CRM, 3 of the 10, through the same dated plan; the results are in Hands-On Results.

Software	Best for	Entry paid plan and price	Plan that adds the first gated feature (price)	Free plan or trial	Key limitation
ClickUp	All-in-one coverage on the entry paid plan	Core, $9 per user per month billed yearly	Business, $17 per user per month billed yearly, for unlimited Workload	Free Forever plan; 30-day refund	Workload is only a trial on Core
Asana	Process-driven cross-functional teams	Starter, $10.99 per user per month billed annually	Advanced, $24.99 per user per month billed annually, for built-in time tracking	Personal: free for 2 users	Built-in time tracking starts on Advanced
monday.com	Visual workflows with self-adjusting schedules	Basic, $9 per seat per month billed annually, from 3 users	Pro, $19 per seat per month billed annually, for dependencies	Free: up to 2 seats; 14-day Pro trial	Basic has no Gantt view and no guests
Smartsheet	Spreadsheet-style project teams	Pro, $9 per Member per month billed yearly	Business, $19 per Member per month billed yearly, for Timeline view and Workload tracking	No free plan; 30 days free	Pro holds 1-10 Members, new customers only
Teamwork.com	Agencies and client work	Basics, $9.99 per user per month billed yearly	Accelerate, $24.99 per user per month billed yearly, for invoices and workload	Free: 5 users, 5 projects; 14-day trial	Optimize and Enterprise show no price
Wrike	Resource and capacity planning at scale	Team, $10 per user per month billed annually	Pinnacle, “Connect with us for pricing”, for capacity planning	Free plan; 14-day trial	Team stops at 15 users
Jira	Software and agile teams	Standard, $8.48 per user per month billed monthly	Premium, $15.56 per user per month billed monthly, for cross-team planning	Free: up to 10 users; 7-day trial	SSO needs an Atlassian Guard subscription
Trello	Budget kanban boards	Standard, $5 per user per month billed annually	Premium, $10 per user per month billed annually, for Timeline view	Free: 10 collaborators per Workspace; Premium trial	Timeline and Dashboard views wait for Premium
Notion	Docs-plus-projects workspaces	Plus, $10 per member per month billed yearly	Business, $20 per member per month billed yearly, for SAML SSO	Free plan, for individuals	No workload or portfolio view on the plan cards
Basecamp	Flat fee for simple workflows	Freelancer, $29 a month for up to 5 users	Pro Unlimited, $199 a month billed annually, past 15 users	Free: 1 project; 30-day trial	No automation allowance stated

Sources: ClickUp pricing, Asana pricing, monday.com pricing, Smartsheet pricing, Teamwork.com pricing, Wrike pricing, Jira pricing, Trello pricing, Notion pricing, Basecamp pricing, checked November 2026.

Read the fourth column before the third: the step up roughly doubles the seat price on most of the ten. If the shortlist comes down to the two leaders, my ClickUp vs Asana head-to-head settles that pair.

The entry price hides the plan most teams need, so the features-by-plan matrix and the year-one table come after the ten reviews, under How to Choose.

Here is each tool in ranked order.

1. ClickUp: Best for All-in-One Coverage on the Entry Paid Plan

ClickUp puts more scheduling and tracking on its cheapest paid seat than either of the other two leaders. Core lists unlimited Gantt charts, time tracking and goals, where Asana keeps built-in time tracking for Advanced and monday.com keeps time tracking for Pro. The catch is capacity: the Workload view is only a trial on Core, so a team that balances assignments every week should price Business.

Timesheets start on Business and timesheet approvals on Enterprise, so a manager who signs off hours each week is buying more than the Core seat.

Automation is metered per Workspace. Core includes 1,000 actions a month, and ClickUp pauses every automation in the Workspace for the rest of the month once the actions run out, which would stall a team that routes each new request by rule.

In my Free Forever workspace, Gantt drew the three “blocked by” links as arrows and Workload opened without a prompt. The one paywall I hit was Private views, whose upgrade dialog pointed to Business.

Skip it if:

nobody will own Spaces, statuses and rules (Asana Starter’s unlimited automations need less metering), or you need weekly capacity planning but will not pay for Business, which a 25-person team prices at $17 x 25 x 12 = $5,100 a year, because Core’s Workload view is only a trial.

A Core seat buys a toolkit, not a configured workspace, and my ClickUp setup and governance review covers the work of designing Spaces, statuses and rules before a team arrives.

My ClickUp pricing by plan guide sets Core’s limits against Business line by line.

If rules must run all month without a counter to watch, Asana’s higher seat buys exactly that.

2. Asana: Best for Process-Driven Cross-Functional Teams

Asana earns its higher seat when work moves by rules and outside people review it. Starter lists unlimited automations and unlimited free guests alongside Timeline and Gantt views with dependencies, a mix that ClickUp Core’s 1,000 monthly actions and monday.com Standard’s 250 do not match. The cost is less tracking per dollar: built-in time tracking and resource management start on Advanced.

Unlimited automations suit an intake-heavy team. Marketing requests, IT tickets or client approvals can each be routed by a rule on every run with no monthly counter, the opposite of ClickUp’s monthly pause.

Free guests change the bill for client-facing teams: clients and contractors join free from Starter, while monday.com Standard bills every 4 guests as a seat.

My Advanced trial kept every date and drew overlapping links in red, which suits teams that want a person, not the tool, to decide what slips. Even on that trial, Timesheets carried a lock icon, and Asana’s AI added an unasked “Workstream” column that labeled Build the pages “Analytics”.

Skip it if:

you need built-in time tracking without paying for Advanced (ClickUp Core lists time tracking), or you want dependent dates to move by themselves (monday.com Pro).

Portfolios are where Asana scales across many projects, and my Asana workflows review covers how they hold up.

The Asana pricing by plan guide sets both billing terms side by side.

If the team wants the schedule to reflow on its own, monday.com Pro is the plan that lists dependencies.

3. monday.com: Best for Visual Workflows With Self-Adjusting Schedules

monday.com is the pick when a slipped task should push the rest of the plan without anyone dragging bars. Dependencies with Flexible and Strict modes, the Gantt critical path, the Workload view and time tracking all start on Pro, and in my test only monday (as monday CRM) moved dependent dates by itself. Basic is the wrong plan for project work: it has no Gantt view and no guests.

Pro’s dependency modes decide how a schedule reacts. Flexible moved three linked tasks by 1 to 3 days in my test account, Strict (the preselected mode) starts each item as soon as the one it depends on allows, and No action only draws the links.

Standard is the visual plan without the reflow: Timeline and Gantt views, Calendar view and guest access, plus 250 automation actions a month, or 10 per person at 25 seats. An automation-heavy team lands on Pro and its 25,000 actions sooner than the Gantt view alone suggests.

My test ran in monday CRM, not in monday work management, so the reflow verdict also rests on monday’s dependencies help page, which lists the feature on Pro and Enterprise.

monday CRM itself is a sales CRM with its own plans; for that job, my list of CRM options for small businesses is the better guide.

Skip it if:

you will pass 40 users and need a published price (Asana and ClickUp publish theirs at any size), or you run heavy automation on a Standard budget (Asana Starter lists unlimited automations).

If Asana and monday.com tie after the checklist, my Asana and monday.com head-to-head settles the close call.

The monday.com plan gates review shows where each tier stops being enough.

If the team already plans in spreadsheets, a grid tool may be the shorter step.

4. Smartsheet: Best for Spreadsheet-Style Project Teams

Smartsheet is cheaper than it looks when only a few people build plans. Only Members pay, and Contributors, who can view, comment and add attachments but cannot create or edit, are free on every paid plan. A 25-person team with 10 builders pays $9 x 10 x 12 = $1,080 a year on Pro, less than Trello Standard’s $5 x 25 x 12 = $1,500. The trade-off is the cap: the 11th builder moves everyone to Business.

Pro covers the grid work a spreadsheet team already does, with Gantt, table, board and calendar views and 250 automations a month. Business adds Timeline view, Workload tracking, unlimited automations and free Guests, which is when outside editors and capacity questions enter the picture.

Portfolios and SAML-based SSO wait for Enterprise, Resource Management is a separate add-on, and Pro is only available to new customers. A pilot can add a builder before paying: a Provisional Member gets full Member access at no cost until the current billing cycle ends.

Skip it if:

more than 10 people will build sheets and Business is outside the budget (ClickUp Core has no builder cap), or you need time tracking (Teamwork.com Basics lists billable time).

My Smartsheet seat model review covers Members and Contributors in detail.

The Smartsheet pricing guide works through Pro against Business at more team sizes.

If projects bill clients by the hour, the next pick turns logged time into invoices.

5. Teamwork.com: Best for Agencies and Client Work

Teamwork.com is built around the client: client users and collaborators cost nothing, and Basics tracks and reports billable time. Invoices built from logged time, time budgets, retainers and team workload planning wait for Accelerate, so an agency should expect to price the upper plan.

Free client users change agency math. A client user gets project-level permissions on up to five active projects without taking a seat, and a collaborator can complete tasks and comment but cannot add tasks or log time. Asana’s free guests do a similar job, but Teamwork.com pairs them with billable time and invoicing in the same plan.

Accelerate closes the billing loop: it builds client invoices from logged time and syncs time logs to QuickBooks, so hours reach accounting without an export. Teamwork.com also lists SOC 2 compliance on every plan, which helps an agency answer a client’s security questionnaire.

Skip it if:

you run an internal team with no client billing (ClickUp Core covers time tracking), or a client needs more than five active projects at once.

My Teamwork.com review walks through the billing workflow from logged hours to invoice.

For seat-by-seat math across all four plans, see the Teamwork.com pricing breakdown.

If the job is capacity planning across many teams, Wrike is built for it, at a price.

6. Wrike: Best for Resource and Capacity Planning at Scale

Capacity planning is the one job that justifies Wrike’s bill, and it sits on Pinnacle, which has no public price. Pinnacle lists advanced resource and capacity planning with time-tracking capabilities, plus budgeting against bill and cost rates. Below that, Team stops at 15 users, so a 25-person team starts on Business.

Team covers interactive Gantt charts and shareable dashboards, which is enough for one department under 15 people. Business adds templates and a standard integration, and Wrike sells Business and above only as annual subscriptions.

Outside access costs money here. Viewers can be provisioned free, but external users are full users who need a paid seat, the opposite of Teamwork.com’s free client users. Self-serve purchases of Team and Business stop at 15 users, so a larger team buys through a Wrike representative.

Skip it if:

your team will outgrow Wrike Team’s 2 to 15 users without a capacity-planning need (Asana Starter has no user seat limits), or many external users must edit work (Teamwork.com keeps client users free).

My review of Wrike’s plan lineup covers what Business includes before you ask for a Pinnacle quote.

If engineering owns the work, a general platform is the wrong shape.

7. Jira: Best for Software and Agile Teams

When engineering owns the tool, Jira is the default, and its Free plan already gives up to 10 users backlog, board, timeline and calendar views. The trade-off for a mixed team is shape: Jira tracks work as work items, with a Backlog view among its views, so I would pilot one marketing or operations project in it before rolling it out past engineering.

Automation is counted in steps: 150 per subscription a month on Free, 400 per user on Standard and 750 per user on Premium. For a 25-user team on Standard, that comes to 400 x 25 = 10,000 steps a month, enough for an engineering team that automates ticket triage.

Cross-team planning and dependency management wait for Premium. A Free site that passes 10 users moves to a 7-day Standard trial on its own, so plan the switch before the 11th person joins.

SSO costs extra: on Jira it requires an Atlassian Guard Standard subscription, and Guard starts at $4 per user per month, so 25 users add $4 x 25 x 12 = $1,200 a year.

Skip it if:

your team is non-technical and nobody in engineering will own the setup (my pick for mixed work is ClickUp Core or Asana Starter), or you need SSO without paying for Atlassian Guard (Notion Business lists SAML SSO).

My Jira agile workflow review shows what Premium adds over Standard.

The Jira per-user pricing breakdown shows how the rate changes with the billing term and user tier.

For sprint and backlog depth beyond this list, the agile project management roundup compares the tools built for it.

If the team only needs a shared board, Jira is more tool than the job needs.

8. Trello: Best Budget Kanban Board

Trello Standard is the lowest seat price on this list and the right tool for a team whose work fits on cards. The trade-off is visibility: Calendar, Timeline, Table, Dashboard and Map views wait for Premium at twice the rate, so a board team whose leadership wants a timeline pays double for it.

At 25 people, Standard’s 1,000 automation runs come to 40 per person a month (1,000 / 25 = 40), and one run can use more than one operation, so a rule-heavy board team may need Premium sooner than its views suggest.

Guests can change the bill. Single-board guests are free, but a guest on more than one board is billed at the member rate on Standard and Premium, so an agency that shares several boards with one client pays for that client.

Skip it if:

leadership wants timeline or dashboard views on a Standard budget (Jira Free lists a timeline view), or guests work across several boards (Asana keeps guests free).

The Trello pricing breakdown compares the annual and monthly rates in detail.

Where Standard stops working for a growing team is the subject of my Trello scaling limits review.

If projects live beside docs and wikis, a docs workspace may serve better than a board.

9. Notion: Best for Docs-Plus-Projects Workspaces

Think of Notion as a docs workspace that can run projects, not a project tool with docs attached. Its databases list subtasks, dependencies and custom properties even on Free, but the plan cards show no workload or portfolio controls, so capacity planning has to happen elsewhere.

The Free plan is described as for individuals: blocks are limited once 2+ members join, and file uploads are capped at 5 MB each. A team pilot therefore belongs on Plus, which adds collaborative blocks and uploads up to 5 GB.

Business lists SAML SSO and granular database permissions, while Asana and ClickUp keep SAML for Enterprise and Smartsheet lists SAML-based SSO on Enterprise. Custom Agents are free to try, then $10 per 1,000 monthly Notion credits.

Skip it if:

you need workload, portfolio or Gantt-style planning (ClickUp Core lists unlimited Gantt charts), or the team only moves cards (Trello Standard costs half as much per seat).

How projects, database automations and charts behave in practice is covered in my Notion projects and limitations review.

For seat-by-seat math, the guide to Notion Plus and Business costs is the companion read.

Teams weighing Notion as a knowledge base can compare it in Notion vs Confluence.

If head count keeps growing while workflows stay simple, the last pick is the one to price next.

10. Basecamp: Best Flat Fee for Teams With Simple Workflows

Head count is Basecamp’s argument. Pro Unlimited costs $199 a month billed annually, or $199 x 12 = $2,388 a year, for unlimited users and projects, which undercuts every per-seat plan here at 50 people. Below that, user and project caps pick the package, and the plans page states no automation allowance.

The smaller packages cap people as well as projects: Freelancer holds 3 active projects and 5 users, Pro 8 projects and 10 users, and Pro Plus 12 projects and 15 users. Every person added counts, clients and guests included, so an agency with many client contacts reaches Pro Unlimited sooner than its staff count suggests.

Templates and multiple tools per project start on Pro, and time tracking on Pro Plus, so a 10-person team that logs hours pays for Pro Plus. A team whose projects run on automation rules should look elsewhere first, because there is no stated allowance to compare with ClickUp’s or Asana’s.

Skip it if:

projects run on automation rules (Asana Starter lists unlimited automations), or you have 11 to 15 people who need more than 12 active projects at once.

The Basecamp flat-fee review works out when the fixed fee beats per-seat billing at your head count.

The list ends here; the test results and the buying checklist follow, then the three more tools that came close and stayed off it.

Hands-On Results: ClickUp, Asana and monday CRM on One Launch Plan

All three built the 10-task plan, drew 3 dependency links (finish-to-start in Asana and monday CRM) and opened Workload without an upgrade prompt; only monday CRM moved dependent dates, and all three assign rules fired on their first run.

How I Tested ClickUp, Asana and monday CRM

On October 10, 2026, I ran the same job in each tool as one user: build a 10-task website launch project dated October 12 to 30, link 3 tasks as dependencies and view them in Gantt. Then I opened Workload, created one rule that assigns new tasks to me, added one task to fire it and read the usage pages.

ClickUp ran on the Free Forever plan in my own workspace and Asana on a 14-day Advanced trial. monday ran as monday CRM on a 14-day Pro trial, the account’s only product, so it stands in for monday work management, the product this list prices.

A date counted as moved when a linked task’s start or end changed without an edit from me. Some date pickers needed a second try, so no run time here measures ease of use, and the test did not cover per-person capacity, because no task had an assignee.

Tool and account	3 dependency links: dates	Workload view	Assign rule, first check	Quota or lock shown
ClickUp, Free Forever plan	Arrows drawn; all 10 dates kept	Opened; Sprint Points and Time Estimates units greyed	Assigned at the check 5 seconds later	0 of 100 actions and 1 of 5 active rules a month; Private views locked behind Business
monday CRM, Pro trial	Flexible mode moved 3 linked tasks by 1 to 3 days	Opened; weekly capacity settings shown	Assigned within about 7 seconds	“1 / 25.000 actions used” on the pro plan; nothing locked
Asana, Advanced trial	All 10 dates kept; overlapping links drawn in red	Opened; “Set capacity” greyed	Empty at about 5 seconds, assigned by about 17	No rule counter; AI Studio credits 0 / 75K; Timesheets locked

Sources: my three test accounts on October 10, 2026; published limits on ClickUp’s automation limits page, checked November 2026.

The trials showed behavior, not plan gates: every price and gate in this guide comes from the vendors’ pages read on November 9, 2026.

Dependencies: monday CRM Moved the Dates, Asana and ClickUp Kept Them

Only monday CRM moved dependent tasks by itself. In Flexible mode it pushed Site map and wireframes from Oct 14-16 to Oct 15-17, Design homepage from Oct 16-21 to Oct 18-23, and Build the pages from Oct 21-27 to Oct 24-30.

A reflow only reaches linked work: Final review kept Oct 29-30 because nothing linked it, so a team that wants a trustworthy end date has to link every step. monday CRM’s “Show critical path” turned 6 of 10 bars pink, while Asana’s critical path outlined 1 of 10.

Asana kept all three dates and drew the arrows between overlapping linked tasks in red. ClickUp kept them too; its Gantt view offers a “Reschedule dependencies” setting (“Automatically adjust dates on dependent tasks”), which I left unchanged.

What you buy is not what the trials showed. In monday work management, dependencies and the Gantt critical path are Pro and Enterprise features, while the Gantt view itself starts on Standard; in Asana, Gantt and task dependencies start on Starter.

Automation Rules: Did They Run, and What Quota Applies?

Yes, each rule assigned the new “Automation check” task to me: ClickUp’s by the check 5 seconds later, monday CRM’s within about 7 seconds, and Asana’s after an empty check at about 5 seconds and a filled one at about 17.

ClickUp’s Usage tab read 0 of 100 actions and 1 of 5 active rules in my test workspace, and still read 0 / 100 about 35 seconds after the run, so my single run cannot show how ClickUp counts actions. monday CRM’s usage page read “1 / 25.000 actions used” on the Pro trial, and Asana showed no rule counter anywhere I looked.

The allowance you buy sits in the Features by Plan table under How to Choose. At 25 users, ClickUp Core’s 1,000 actions a month come to 40 per person (1,000 / 25 = 40) and monday.com Standard’s 250 to 10 per person (250 / 25 = 10), while Asana Starter has no cap. ClickUp pauses a Workspace’s automations for the rest of the month once its limit is exceeded, so count your monthly rule runs before settling on Core or Standard.

Rerun My Test in Your Pilot

Give each finalist two weeks, one live project and a named owner, and rerun my test on the plan you will buy: 10 dated tasks, 3 dependency links, Gantt, Workload, one assign rule, then the usage page.

Published trials cover most of that: Smartsheet 30 days, Basecamp 30, monday.com 14 days of Pro, Wrike and Teamwork.com 14, and Jira 7, after which Jira Free still holds 10 users. ClickUp offers a full refund within 30 days, while Asana publishes no trial length and does not offer refunds.

How to Choose the Best Project Management Software for Your Team

Project management software is a shared system where a team plans work, assigns owners and dates, and tracks status, and ten candidates become two finalists after five checks:

1. Name the kind of tool: a work platform (ClickUp, Asana, monday.com, Wrike), a spreadsheet planner (Smartsheet), a client-work tool (Teamwork.com), an agile tracker (Jira), a kanban board (Trello), a docs workspace (Notion) or a flat-fee hub (Basecamp).
2. Find your must-have feature in the features table and price that plan, not the entry plan.
3. Check next year’s head count against the seat caps.
4. Count monthly rule runs against the plan’s automation quota.
5. Count the outsiders who need access, and ask IT whether SAML SSO is required.

Your priority	Tool to consider	Reason	Trade-off
Lowest bill at 25 people	Trello Standard	$5 per user per month, billed annually	No Timeline view below Premium
Lowest bill at 50 people	Basecamp Pro Unlimited	$199 a month, billed annually, for unlimited users	No automation allowance stated
Billable client work	Teamwork.com Accelerate	Invoices built from logged time; client users are free	Minimum 5 users
Software delivery	Jira	Free for 10 users with backlog and timeline views	SSO needs Atlassian Guard
Unlimited automation on the entry plan	Asana Starter	Starter lists unlimited automations	Built-in time tracking waits for Advanced
A schedule that reflows itself	monday.com Pro	Dependencies are a Pro and Enterprise feature	Quote above 40 users
Free read-only stakeholders	Smartsheet Pro	Contributors are free on every paid plan	Pro caps at 10 Members
SAML SSO below an enterprise tier	Notion Business	Business lists SAML SSO	No workload or portfolio view
Capacity planning across teams	Wrike Pinnacle	Advanced resource and capacity planning	No published price
Already on Microsoft 365	Planner Plan 1	Timeline (Gantt) and dependencies at $10 per user per month, paid yearly	Critical path needs Plan 3

Sources: monday.com dependencies, Microsoft Planner pricing and the vendor pricing pages linked under the comparison table, checked November 2026.

Features by Plan: Gantt, Dependencies, Workload, Time Tracking and Automation

The cheapest plan that lists Gantt, dependencies, workload and time tracking together is ClickUp Business, Asana Advanced or monday.com Pro. Each cell names the cheapest plan that lists the feature.

Tool	Gantt or timeline	Task dependencies	Workload or capacity	Time tracking	Entry paid plan’s automation quota
ClickUp	Core (Free Forever: 60 uses)	All plans	Business (Core: trial)	Core	1,000 actions a month
Asana	Starter	Starter	Advanced, within one portfolio	Advanced (built-in, estimated vs actual time)	Unlimited
monday.com	Standard	Pro	Pro	Pro	Not listed on Basic; 250 actions on Standard
Smartsheet	Pro (Timeline view: Business)	Pro	Business	Not listed	250 a month
Teamwork.com	Free	Listed, plan not marked	Accelerate	Basics (billable time)	5,000
Wrike	Team	Not listed	Pinnacle	Pinnacle	Not listed
Jira	Free (timeline view)	Free (single project); Premium (cross-project)	Capacity management listed, plan not marked	Not listed	400 steps per user a month
Trello	Premium	Not listed	Not listed	Not listed	1,000 runs a month
Notion	Not listed	Free (databases)	Not listed	Not listed	Not listed
Basecamp	Not listed	Not listed	Not listed	Pro Plus	Not stated

Sources: ClickUp views limits, ClickUp Workload limits, Asana Gantt FAQ, monday.com plan guide, Trello automation quotas and the pricing pages above, checked November 2026.

For program managers, portfolios sit higher still: Asana lists unlimited portfolios on Advanced and Smartsheet lists Portfolios on Enterprise. Find the column you cannot do without and price that row’s plan, not the entry plan.

Year-One Cost at 10, 25 and 50 People

Team size reorders the list: at 10 people Jira Free costs nothing and Trello Standard $5 x 10 x 12 = $600, while at 50 people Basecamp Pro Unlimited’s flat $199 x 12 = $2,388 undercuts every per-seat plan here with a published price. monday.com is priced at Standard, because Basic has no Gantt view.

Tool	Plan priced	10 people	25 people	50 people	What changes the plan
ClickUp	Core, $9 billed yearly	$9 x 10 x 12 = $1,080	$9 x 25 x 12 = $2,700	$9 x 50 x 12 = $5,400	Business ($17) for unlimited Workload
Asana	Starter, $10.99 billed annually	$10.99 x 10 x 12 = $1,318.80	$10.99 x 25 x 12 = $3,297	$10.99 x 50 x 12 = $6,594	Advanced for built-in time tracking
monday.com	Standard, $12 billed annually	$12 x 10 x 12 = $1,440	$12 x 25 x 12 = $3,600	Quote (more than 40 users)	Pro ($19) for dependencies
Smartsheet	Pro to 10 Members, then Business	$9 x 10 x 12 = $1,080	$19 x 25 x 12 = $5,700	$19 x 50 x 12 = $11,400	The 11th Member
Teamwork.com	Basics, $9.99 billed yearly	$9.99 x 10 x 12 = $1,198.80	$9.99 x 25 x 12 = $2,997	$9.99 x 50 x 12 = $5,994	Accelerate for invoices and workload
Wrike	Team to 15 users, then Business	$10 x 10 x 12 = $1,200	$25 x 25 x 12 = $7,500	$25 x 50 x 12 = $15,000	The 16th user
Jira	Free to 10 users, then Standard billed monthly	$0	$8.48 x 25 x 12 = $2,544	$8.48 x 50 x 12 = $5,088	Premium ($15.56) for cross-team planning
Trello	Standard, $5 billed annually	$5 x 10 x 12 = $600	$5 x 25 x 12 = $1,500	$5 x 50 x 12 = $3,000	Premium ($10) for Timeline view
Notion	Plus, $10 billed yearly	$10 x 10 x 12 = $1,200	$10 x 25 x 12 = $3,000	$10 x 50 x 12 = $6,000	Business ($20) for SAML SSO
Basecamp	Pro to 10 users, Pro Plus to 15, then Pro Unlimited	$79 x 12 = $948	$199 x 12 = $2,388	$199 x 12 = $2,388	The 11th user (Pro Plus, $99 a month); the 16th (Pro Unlimited)

Sources: ClickUp pricing, Asana pricing, monday.com pricing, Smartsheet pricing, Teamwork.com pricing, Wrike pricing, Jira pricing, Trello pricing, Notion pricing, Basecamp pricing, checked November 2026.

Each per-seat cell is the listed rate x seats x 12 months, and Basecamp’s is its flat monthly fee x 12, before tax, add-ons and AI usage beyond the included allowance. Jira is priced on monthly billing because its annual rate depends on the user tier.

The upgrade column is where budgets break. At 25 people, ClickUp Business costs $17 x 25 x 12 = $5,100 a year. Asana Advanced costs $24.99 x 25 x 12 = $7,497, so Asana’s step up adds ($24.99 – $10.99) x 25 x 12 = $4,200 a year, against ($17 – $9) x 25 x 12 = $2,400 for ClickUp’s.

For monday.com and Teamwork.com, the Final Verdict recommends a higher plan than the one the table prices. monday.com Pro is $19 per seat per month, billed annually, so 25 people pay $19 x 25 x 12 = $5,700 a year. Teamwork.com Accelerate is $24.99 per user per month, billed yearly, so 25 people pay $24.99 x 25 x 12 = $7,497 a year.

A low bill only helps when the plan still holds next year’s head count and your outsiders, which is where the caps come in.

Seat Caps, Guests and Flat Fees

Five caps bite before a team reaches 25: Wrike Team stops at 15 users, Smartsheet Pro at 10 Members, Basecamp Pro Plus at 15 users, Jira Free at 10 users and Trello Free at 10 collaborators. Minimums push the other way: monday.com plans start from 3 users, and Teamwork.com Accelerate needs at least 5.

Tool	Outsiders who are free	Outsiders who cost a seat
ClickUp	Unlimited read-only guests on paid plans; Business adds 10 guest seats plus 5 per extra paid user	People from inside your organization, billed as paid users
Asana	Unlimited free guests from Starter	None listed
monday.com	Unlimited viewers from Basic; 3 guests on Standard; unlimited guests on Pro	Every 4 guests on Standard count as 1 billed seat
Smartsheet	Contributors on Pro, Business and Enterprise; Guests on Business and Enterprise	On Pro, anyone who creates or edits needs a Member seat
Teamwork.com	Client users (up to five active projects each) and collaborators	Standard users
Wrike	Viewers	External users and Contributors
Trello	Single-board guests	Multi-board guests on Standard and Premium, at the member rate
Notion	Guests, free of charge, on the pages they are invited to	Not listed on the pricing page
Basecamp	None below Pro Unlimited	Every person counts toward the user cap, clients and guests included

Sources: monday.com guest pricing, Smartsheet seat types, Teamwork.com license types, Wrike license types, Trello multi-board guests and the pricing pages above, checked November 2026.

For an agency, this table reorders the list: Teamwork.com and Asana keep clients off the bill, while Wrike’s external users and Trello’s multi-board guests put them on it. On monday.com Standard, 12 guests count as 3 billed seats, or $12 x 3 x 12 = $432 a year.

A flat fee wins once head count outgrows the seat price. Basecamp Pro Unlimited costs $199 a month, billed annually. A per-seat plan’s monthly bill passes that fee at these team sizes: monday.com Standard for a 17-person team (17 x $12 = $204), Asana Starter for a 19-person team (19 x $10.99 = $208.81), ClickUp Core for a 23-person team (23 x $9 = $207) and Trello Standard for a 40-person team (40 x $5 = $200).

Below 16 people, Basecamp’s smaller packages still cost less than most seat bills, but each caps both users and active projects.

Shortlists by Team and Job

• Teams under ten people: project management tools for small teams, ranked for that head count.
• Zero budget: free project management software, limited to plans that cost nothing.
• Engineering teams: project management software for developers, for issue trackers and code links.
• Campaign calendars and approvals: project management for marketing teams.
• Chat and files rather than tasks: small business collaboration software.

Also Considered

Three tools did not make the ten: Microsoft Planner, Linear and Todoist. Each one is below with the reason it stayed off the list.

Microsoft Planner: Price It First if You Pay for Microsoft 365

Maybe you need no new tool: Planner comes included in Microsoft 365 with Grid, Board, Schedule and Chart views. The Planner Plan 1 license costs $10 per user per month, paid yearly, and adds the Timeline view, sprints and finish-to-start dependencies.

Planner tier	Price	What it adds
Planner in Microsoft 365	Included	Grid, Board, Schedule and Chart views
Planner Plan 1	$10 per user per month, paid yearly	Timeline (Gantt), backlogs and sprints, task dependencies
Planner and Project Plan 3	$30 per user per month, paid yearly	Portfolios, baselines and critical path, dependencies with lead and lag

Sources: Microsoft Planner plans and pricing, checked November 2026.

For 25 people, Plan 1 costs $10 x 25 x 12 = $3,000 a year and Plan 3 $30 x 25 x 12 = $9,000. Plan 1 comes with one month free, so a team already on Microsoft 365 should price it before buying a separate tool.

Linear and Todoist

• Linear: Free stops at 250 issues and Business adds Code Intelligence, which points to software teams; my Linear review has the full verdict.
• Todoist: its Pro plan, at $5 per month billed yearly, is pitched to “Organize your work and life”, a personal task manager rather than a team planner; my Todoist review covers it.

FAQ

What’s the most popular project management software?

No neutral usage share is published, and vendor counts measure different things. Asana’s pricing page says it is “Loved by 100,000+ organizations”. Wrike’s price page says “Trusted by 20,000+ organizations worldwide”. Choose by job and year-one cost, not by a vendor’s customer count.

What are the big 3 in project management?

The big three usually refers to the triple constraint. Wikipedia’s project management triangle entry names its three constraints as time, cost and scope, and describes them as often competing: increased scope typically means increased time and increased cost.

What is the best free project management software?

For a team, ClickUp Free Forever: unlimited free members and 60 MB of storage, though ClickUp caps Gantt and Workload at 60 uses each there. For one shared board, Trello Free holds 10 collaborators and 10 boards per Workspace, and Jira Free holds 10 users.

Is there project management software for construction?

None of the ten is built for construction scheduling. The closest general option here is Microsoft’s top Planner license, Planner and Project Plan 3. It lists baselines and critical path and advanced dependencies with lead and lag, and it costs $30 per user per month, paid yearly.

Final Verdict: My Pick for Each Situation

Match the job to the plan, then trial two:

• Pick ClickUp Core if one plan must cover Gantt and time tracking and someone owns setup.
• Pick Asana Starter if rules and outside reviewers matter more than built-in time tracking.
• Pick monday.com Pro if the schedule must reflow by itself when a task slips.
• Pick Teamwork.com Accelerate if you bill clients for logged time.
• Pick Jira if engineering owns the work; Free covers the first 10 users.
• Pick Trello Standard at 25 people, or Basecamp Pro Unlimited from 40 people, if the bill is the constraint.