Best project management software in 2026: 9 tools compared

Project management tools keep a team’s work in one place: tasks with an owner and a due date, shown as a list, board, calendar or timeline, with files and comments on each task. Paid plans usually add timeline or Gantt views, guest access and, in some tools, time tracking. The tools differ in three ways: per-user or flat pricing, which plan unlocks the views and time tracking you need, and whether anything connects the work to money.

This guide is for any team choosing a general project management app, from marketing to operations. If you run an agency or another client-service business and need approved hours, invoices and project profitability, read our agency project management software guide instead; it compares 14 tools built for client work.

Nine general project management tools and PLYNTUM, from each vendor’s own pricing page on 23 October 2026 (Asana, ClickUp and Teamwork.com again on 24 October 2026, Basecamp on 25 October 2026). Prices are list prices a month before tax, written as annual / monthly billing. “Not stated” means the pricing page is silent, not that the feature is missing. Tools are listed alphabetically, not ranked; PLYNTUM, our product, is last.

Trello, Notion, Wrike and Smartsheet state US dollars; Asana, ClickUp, Basecamp and Teamwork.com show only the $ sign. monday.com showed euros from our location and sets prices by billing country, so its figures stay in euros, unconverted.

In the same alphabetical order, with what each pricing page leaves out.

Asana

Asana aims Starter at small teams and professionals tracking project progress and deadlines. Native time tracking needs Advanced ($24.99 / $30.49); a Timesheets & Budgets add-on has no published price. Not stated: timesheet approval, invoicing, project profitability; a branded client portal is a separate product, Asana Client Management.

Pricing: asana.com/pricing. See also Asana alternatives.

Basecamp

Basecamp charges a flat price per package, not per user, and says it is priced for start-ups, freelancers and small businesses. Freelancer ($29, 5 users, 3 projects) lacks time tracking; Pro Plus ($99, 15 users) has it. These are monthly prices: the pricing page lists annual billing only on Pro Unlimited, $199 a month billed annually or $329 monthly, with no user cap. Its features page lists The Lineup, a timeline of projects (both checked 25 October 2026). Not stated: Gantt views, invoicing, budgets.

Pricing: basecamp.com/pricing.

ClickUp

ClickUp’s page names no target team; it suits teams that want to start free with unlimited members and get Gantt and time tracking on the first paid plan. Yearly prices are shown as discounts ($9 from $12 on Core, $17 from $25 on Business). Timesheets start on Business, their approval on Enterprise and Max. Not stated: invoicing, budgets, profitability.

Pricing: clickup.com/pricing. See also ClickUp alternatives.

monday.com

monday.com offers its Work Management plans to every team and calls the free plan ideal for freelancers and individual professionals. In euros, as shown to us, Standard is €12 / €14 per seat and Pro €19 / €24. Not stated for Work Management: timesheet approval, invoicing, budgets. Quotes and invoices sit in a separate product, monday CRM.

Pricing: monday.com/pricing. See also monday.com alternatives.

Notion

Notion calls itself one tool to run your company: pages and databases in one workspace, where a database can show as a board or a timeline. It suits teams that want project lists next to their pages. Business is $20 / $24 per seat. Not stated: which plan includes the board and timeline views, time tracking, timesheets, invoicing, budgets.

Pricing: notion.com/pricing.

Smartsheet

Smartsheet aims Business ($19 / $24 per member, from 3 members) at companies that need to align people, projects and programs. Time tracking appears only in the description of the Resource Management add-on, which has no published price. Not stated: timesheet approval, invoicing, budgets.

Pricing: smartsheet.com/pricing.

Teamwork.com

Teamwork.com is built for client work; Optimize is aimed at services businesses managing resources, budgets and profitability. It is the closest of the nine to PLYNTUM and the only one listing client invoicing: basic invoices from logged time on Accelerate ($24.99 / $29.99); timesheet approval, financial budgets and profit by project or client on Optimize, priced on request. Basics needs at least 3 users and Accelerate at least 5.

Pricing: teamwork.com/pricing.

Trello

Trello runs on boards, lists and cards on every plan, though its pages never use the word kanban. It suits small teams that want a simple board and a free start. Premium ($10 / $12.50) adds calendar, timeline, table, dashboard and map views; from Standard, guests can join single boards. Not stated: time tracking, timesheets, invoicing, budgets.

Pricing: trello.com/pricing. See also Trello alternatives.

Wrike

Wrike presents Business as a customizable platform to manage workflows and Pinnacle as built for complex workflows; it suits teams that need Gantt on the first paid plan. Business ($25 per user, 5–200 users) is annual only; Pinnacle, with budgeting, and Apex are priced on request. Prices apply to purchases from 21 January 2026. Not stated: invoicing, timesheet approval.

Pricing: wrike.com/pricing.

Five questions cut nine tools to two or three.

How many people, now and in a year?

Free plans range from 2 people on Asana and monday.com to unlimited members on ClickUp and Wrike. Paid plans add seat rules: monday.com starts at 3 seats, Wrike Team stops at 15 users, Smartsheet Pro at 10 members, and Basecamp packages cap users at 5, 10 or 15 (Pro Unlimited has no cap). PLYNTUM plans include 5, 10, 25 or 50 members.

Which views will you use every day?

Every tool here has a board; if that is your main view, see what a kanban board is. Timeline and Gantt views are what separate the plans, so check in the table which plan unlocks them; only Teamwork.com puts Gantt on its free plan.

Do you need time tracking, timesheet approval or invoicing?

Native time tracking usually sits in a middle tier, such as Asana Advanced, monday.com Pro or Wrike Business. Timesheet approval is stated only by ClickUp (Enterprise and Max) and Teamwork.com (Optimize), and client invoicing only by Teamwork.com, from Accelerate. If you invoice clients for your team’s hours, this question matters more than any view.

Per seat or per workspace: what 5 and 10 users cost

Eight of the nine charge per user; Basecamp charges per package, with a user cap and, below Pro Unlimited, monthly prices, and PLYNTUM per workspace, members included. The table is arithmetic on list prices, per month on annual billing, before tax; it is not a quote.

Free plans change this: 5 people pay nothing on ClickUp, Trello, Wrike and Teamwork.com if the limits fit, and 10 people on ClickUp, Trello and Wrike. Per-user prices rise with each hire, while flat prices move in steps: at the 11th member a PLYNTUM workspace moves from Core to Scale, $360 a month billed annually.

Will guests or clients work in the tool?

Asana allows unlimited free guests from Starter, Notion 10 on Free and unlimited from Plus, Smartsheet free guests from Business; monday.com bills 4 guests as one seat from Standard, Wrike needs a paid limited seat for external users, and Basecamp counts clients as users. Teamwork.com invites client users from Basics. PLYNTUM gives each client a portal from Core: a private link to their projects, invoices, payments and balance, with no account needed.

PLYNTUM is our product: business management software for agencies and service companies, in English and Georgian. It suits teams that sell their time and want each project to show the hours logged, the invoices sent and what it earned; it is one option here, not a replacement for the nine tools.

• Work: tasks, subtasks, assignees and deadlines; list, board, calendar, week and timeline views on every plan; dependencies, files and recurring tasks. Boards and projects: 10 and 20 on Launch, 20 and 50 on Core, unlimited from Scale, which also adds workload and capacity planning. See project and task management in PLYNTUM.
• Time: a manual timer and timesheets on every plan. Project cost counts every logged hour; from Core, a manager approves each person’s week, which locks it. There is no background timer or AI capture today.
• Money: invoices, payments, expenses and receivables on every plan; project profitability, billable rates and recurring invoices from Core.
• Price: per workspace, members included: Launch $55 a month for 5 members, Core $150 for 10, Scale $450 for 25, Intelligence $1,050 for 50, and 20% less billed annually ($44, $120, $360, $840). No free plan; the 7-day trial runs on Launch without a card. Compare plans.
• In development: Task Composer, designed to turn a client brief into a draft task plan for the team to review. Buying a plan does not activate it.

PLYNTUM is built around client work. If any of these describes your team, one of the nine tools above will serve you better.

• You do not bill clients. For internal, product or operations projects, linking hours to invoices adds nothing, and Trello, ClickUp and Wrike have free plans that cover ten people.
• You have more than 50 people in one team. PLYNTUM’s largest self-serve plan, Intelligence, covers 50 members.
• You run on automation and integrations. Automation rules, Google Calendar, Drive, Gmail and Outlook connections, an API, webhooks, Slack and Zapier are planned, not available; today there are recurring task templates, and data moves by import and export.
• You need a free plan. PLYNTUM has none.
• You need automatic time capture. Time is entered by hand; private automatic capture is in development.

We read each vendor’s pricing page on 23 October 2026 (Asana, ClickUp and Teamwork.com again on 24 October 2026, Basecamp on 25 October 2026), annual and monthly prices and comparison tables row by row; links are under each tool above. Where a page was silent, we opened one official page: Wrike’s comparison table, Notion’s help page on views and Asana’s Client Management page. No review sites, sign-ups or sales calls. Pages were read from one location, so prices may differ by region. PLYNTUM’s figures come from our own price list.

Prices change; check the vendor’s page before you buy, and tell us at info@plyntum.com if a figure here is out of date.

Every vendor fact on this page was read on the vendor’s own page on 23 October 2026; Asana, ClickUp and Teamwork.com prices were read again on 24 October 2026, and Basecamp’s on 25 October 2026. Prices change; check the vendor before you buy.

• Asana
• Asana Client Management
• Basecamp
• ClickUp
• monday.com
• Notion
• Notion help: views
• Smartsheet
• Teamwork.com
• Trello
• Wrike
• Wrike comparison table

• The work carries its context.
• Task management software for client work: owner, date and hours on every task
• Best agency project management software (2026)
• Kanban board: what it is and how to use one for client work
• Asana alternatives for client work: seven options and where PLYNTUM fits