When you need to plan, manage, and implement projects from beginning to end, there’s nothing better than dedicated project management software. The best project management software gives everyone a unique way to log in to view tasks, upload associated documents, and contribute to important task-related discussions. The software also makes it easy to stay on task and provides managers with a high-level overview of how projects are progressing through various stages.
We looked at different project management solutions to determine which are best for small business. The best project management systems for 2023 are:
- Zoho Projects: Best overall project management software
- ClickUp: Best for multiple project views
- monday.com: Best for project customizability
- Jira: Best for software projects
- Notion: Best for dragging and dropping tasks
One app to replace them all: Get everyone working in a single platform designed to manage any type of work with ClickUp. |
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Best Project Management Software for Small Business at a Glance
Project Management Software | Monthly Starting Price* (per User) | Key Features | FSB Rating |
---|---|---|---|
$5 |
| 4.58 out of 5 | |
$9 |
| 4.48 out of 5 | |
$8 |
| 4.46 out of 5 | |
$7.75 |
| 4.14 out of 5 | |
$8 |
| 4.09 out of 5 | |
*All providers have free plans that offer comparatively simplified feature sets.
Zoho Projects: Best Overall Project Management Software
What We Liked
- Seamless integration with Zoho solutions
- Efficient communication with project group chat
- Robust time tracking
Where It Falls Behind
- Steep learning curve
- Doesn't offer unlimited storage
- Limited number of project templates
Zoho Projects Monthly Pricing*
- Free: $0 for up to two projects, custom statuses, document sharing, finish-to-start dependency, and 5GB of storage space
- Premium: $5 per user for unlimited projects, project timeline Gantt, task dependencies, time tracking, and 100GB of storage space
- Enterprise: $10 per user for project layout, workflow rules, critical path, milestone custom fields, and 120GB of storage space
- Free trial: 10 days
*Save up to $12 per user, per year if you opt for annual billing.
Part of the larger Zoho ecosystem, Zoho Projects serves as a surprisingly robust project management software solution, which is why it’s earned our top spot. Pricing-wise, Zoho Projects ties neatly with ClickUp as the two project management tools that have the cheapest starting price past the free tier. At only $5 per month, they each provide an easy-to-traverse barrier of entry for small businesses and solopreneurs.
Added value comes with the fact that Zoho Projects also provides its free solution for up to three users, which is very beneficial as teams grow. With this clear small business friendliness come some strong features for project management. Not only does it deliver features like Gantt charts, but it also has built-in chat so that teammates quickly communicate with each other during projects.
This Zoho product also has robust integrations with multiple third-party applications in addition to the solutions in the Zoho suite. A good example of its utility is the ability to not only chat with team members but to use solutions like Zoho Meeting to actually pull teammates into meetings for impromptu or scheduled discussions and planning sessions.
While Zoho Projects is feature-rich and our best overall project management software, it still falls behind in some regards. For example, Projects’ Gantt charts lack drag-and-drop and fine-tuning functionality, which is available on providers such as monday.com.
Zoho Projects Features
- Universal Add: Also called Global Add, this feature allows you to quickly add a variety of work items. For example, tasks are able to be added here, as well as milestones, timesheets, new projects, and forums. This is doable without navigation to the specific modules of the project.
- Web Tab: The web tab allows you to embed a web URL from your browser into Zoho Projects. This is designed to provide easy access to related sites and web applications. You’re able to name the specific web tab, and you’re also able to set permissions for the viewability of specific web tabs.
- Planned vs Actual Hours: This feature allows you to quickly compare the time allotted for each task with what time it actually took to complete them. This helps project managers provide better estimates for clients and stakeholders. There are filters to enable things like month view, project groups, project name, and task status.
ClickUp: Best for Multiple Project Views
What We Liked
- Unlimited file storage in the entry-level plan
- Generous offerings in the free version
- Easier task management with bulk action toolbar
Where It Falls Behind
- AI tool requires an add-on fee
- Complicated customization process
- Natively integrates with over 50 third-party solutions only
ClickUp Monthly Pricing*
- Free: $0 for unlimited tasks, 60 uses of custom fields, multiple project views (list, board, calendar, and 60 uses of Gantt, timeline, and workload), 50 active automation rules, 100 automation executions, and 100MB of storage space
- Unlimited: $10 per user for 100 uses of timeline, workload, and map views, custom task types, 500 active automation rules, 1,000 automation executions, and unlimited storage space
- Business: $19 per user for pinning custom fields, custom task IDs, unlimited active automation rules, 10,000 automation executions, and private docs
- Enterprise: Custom pricing for universal search, white labeling, conditional logic on forms, and team sharing
*Save up to 45% when you subscribe to its annual subscription.
In addition to its cheapness, which ties with Zoho Projects, ClickUp stands out for its views. Included with the software are views such as the following:
View Type | |
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In fact, the provider itself names views as its “secret sauce,” and it’s good for businesses looking to really perform a deep-dive into various aspects of specific projects. List and table views are also exportable as Excel or CSV files, but it’s important to understand that, in the second tier, this is only available a maximum of five times.
For free plan users, it’s also critical for users to know that ClickUp only allows for about 100MB of storage. This is significantly lower than other providers, like Jira, which provides 2GB of storage space on the free plan. This is significantly offset by the tier two Unlimited plan that provides unlimited storage for only $5 per month.
Every tier of ClickUp includes the ability to comment on task-related threads, which helps teammates coordinate their work. Features like project templates, schedule and time management, team chat, and time tracking are all basic to the platform. For those who need integrations, there are more than 50 available, but if there’s a need for even more third-party support, consider a provider like Zoho Projects.
ClickUp Features
- Box view: Box view provides a representation of each person in your workspace as well as for tasks that are unassigned. Every person’s box will present their assigned workloads, and the box view allows you to drag and drop tasks to where they need to be. If a teammate is too busy for a specific task, send it to another colleague. Tasks are even grouped by status so that redelegation is easy.
- QuickSwitch hotkey: Pressing either Ctrl+K on PC or Cmd+K on Mac will enable the QuickSwitch feature. This provides you with the command center view, which helps you quickly navigate through your views, spaces, folders, and lists. This also provides you with a quick and easy way to search documents, tasks, and even chats.
- Clip screen recording: ClickUp has a unique in-app video recording feature that isn’t really available in other top project management software solutions. The software allows you to capture your entire screen or a browser tab so that you can present it later to clients or teammates. Audio is also capturable via a microphone so that you can provide full-fledged presentations within projects. Shareable links are even generated on the platform.
monday.com: Best for Customizability
What We Liked
- 200-plus templates help users get started quickly
- Easy-to-use interface, thanks to its visual appeal
- Intuitive automation builder
Where It Falls Behind
- Requires a minimum of three seats for the paid subscription
- Entry-level plan doesn't offer automations and integrations
- Doesn't have an internal chat feature
monday.com Monthly Pricing*
- Free: $0 for a maximum of two users, embedded documents, Kanban view, one week of activity log, and 500MB of storage space
- Basic: $12 per user for unlimited users, boards, and documents, custom fields, and 5GB of storage space
- Standard: $14 per user for multiple project views (timeline, calendar, and map), six months of activity log, 250 automation and integration actions, and 20GB of storage space
- Pro: $24 per user for time tracking, workload view, one year of activity log, 25,000 automation and integration actions, 100GB of storage space
- Enterprise: Custom pricing for five years of activity log, 250,000 automation and integration actions, 1,000GB of storage space, 99.9% uptime guarantee, and compliance with Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) standards
- Free trial: 14 days
*Save up to $18 when you subscribe to its annual billing.
monday.com’s work management tools are a leader in project management for a reason. Right out of the gate, new users of monday.com are presented with a series of brief questions. This helps the software customize the overall experience so that utilizing the platform is made much easier. You’re presented with an entirely customizable dashboard that represents your company, its size, and its industry.
monday.com also incorporates daily webinars for users as well as a robust knowledge base that helps provide users with context and support for any issues that might crop up. Agents are also available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, so overall, users will feel very supported. In fact, the overall user experience is some of the best in the industry. Assigning tasks is easy, and it’s very easy to chat and collaborate with teammates. The user interface (UI) is crisp and colorful, with enough visual indicators to make things quickly decipherable at a glance.
Security is also top-notch; monday.com has firewall features, distributed denial of service (DDoS) mitigation, and options for companies needing Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliance at the Enterprise level. monday.com still falls a bit behind when it comes to guest access; it’s not really available in the free or first-tier paid plan. For this feature in a free plan tier, consider Notion.
monday.com Features
- Task management: Projects are created using a spreadsheet-like tool. Each row is a new task, and each column is a new data point you can track, such as assignee, budget, due date, location, or anything else you wish to add. Once created, you can visualize projects in many different ways, including a timeline/Gantt chart, Kanban board, calendar, and interactive map. Altogether, this makes monday.com the most visually flexible project management program.
- Time tracking: Simply click a play button next to a task to begin recording time and a pause button to stop. It’s a simple way to track time spent on a task.
- Forms: Integrate web forms into your project management. When somebody submits an order form or support ticket, you can automatically send the details to monday.com and initiate a new project.
Jira: Best Project Management Solution for Software Teams
What We Liked
- Robust task management capabilities in the free version
- Excellent third-party integrations, connecting with over 3,000 apps
- Highly customizable, allowing businesses to reflect actual workflows
Where It Falls Behind
- Unlimited file storage is locked behind the Premium plan
- Overwhelming for teams working on simple projects
- Technical know-how is necessary to operate the platform
Jira Monthly Pricing*
- Free: $0 for up to 10 users, unlimited projects and issues, multiple project views (board, list, backlog, timeline, and calendar), single-project dependency management, 100 automation rule runs, and 2GB of storage space
- Standard: $8.15 per user for 50,000 users, unlimited email notifications, 1,700 automation rule runs, and 250GB of storage space
- Premium: $16 per user for sandbox, release tracks, project archiving, 1,000 automation rule runs per user, unlimited storage space, and 99.9% uptime guarantee
- Enterprise: Custom pricing for unlimited automation rule runs, customizable analytics dashboards, and 99.95% uptime guarantee
- Free trial: 7 days
Unlike many of the competing project management options presented in this guide, Jira was originally built for tech teams looking to track bugs in software. This doesn’t limit Jira’s usage to those teams focused on software development or management, but its original purpose certainly provides some key advantages to teams within that field. For example, the software has a drag-and-drop forms builder that quickly allows users to better manage and create specific requests.
While not as full of view options as ClickUp, Jira Work Management manages to include some key views, such as big-picture views of projects in flight, work allocation views, and dependency views. Jira also has distinct Agile project management support; it supports several Agile methodologies to break down projects into phases. Both Scrum and Kanban have boards with customizable designs, delivering transparency for the entire team.
By default, even the free version of Jira includes 2GB of storage space, which is a prime advantage for teams with multiple tasks that also have file requirements. This is highly favorable, especially when compared to other providers with meager file storage capacities in their free versions, like ClickUp. Still, the interface is a bit complex, especially for those without tech backgrounds. For a more easy-to-set-up experience, go with monday.com.
Jira Features
- Agile development: Jira is focused on Agile and Scrum management. As a result, it’s easy to build frameworks from which future projects can be made and managed. There are also tools built in that make managing projects easier, such as Kanban boards, project roadmaps, and backlogs.
- Instant ticket creation: Thanks to its history as a bug and issue tracking tool, Jira also has ticketing functionality for the management of these types of issues. This feature effectively allows general users to quickly create a ticket for IT professionals within the organization to solve issues that arise. This helps both non-technical and technical team members to track progress.
- Automation rules: Jira, like many other project management packages, allows users to create workflow automation processes for the sake of streamlining. With its automation rules, the software permits the creation of triggers, conditions, and actions to perform specific tasks automatically. Each rule chain is very editable and allows you to set the scope of each automation task.
Notion: Best Its for Drag & Drop Functionality
What We Liked
- Easily customizable, thanks to content blocks
- Integrates with over 80 third-party apps
- Extensive tutorials facilitating ease of use
Where It Falls Behind
- Only allows a month of page history in the entry-level plan
- AI tool requires an additional fee
- Automations are still wonky
Notion Monthly Pricing*
- Free: $0 for a limited block trial for more than two users, seven days of page history, multiple project views (timeline, boards, and calendar), basic automations, and 5MB of file uploads
- Plus: $10 per user for unlimited pages and blocks, 30 days of page history, custom automations, custom Notion site, and unlimited file uploads
- Business: $18 per user for private teamspaces, 90 days of page history, export entire workspace as PDF, and single sign-on
- Enterprise: Custom pricing for unlimited page history, advanced teamspace permissions, workspace analytics, and compliance with HIPAA standards
*An annual billing option is also available.
One of the first features of Notion’s collaborative task management solution you might notice is the block interface. Notion uses these designs so that everything is quickly adjustable to the specific needs of the project.
For example, a page generated on the platform has the option to be presented using image blocks, table blocks, text blocks, YouTube video blocks, database blocks, and even full-page blocks. In fact, calling them the building blocks of the platform would be the best description, especially since changing tasks and project features are done using drag-and-drop.
With Notion, you can even grab specific aspects of a block and place them in another with relative ease. There’s a variety of ways to create blocks in your workspace so that teammates can easily navigate through the tasks and processes of the overarching project. In a way, Notion feels much like a modern content management system (CMS) in that layouts are fairly easy to create with a little practice.
Notion allows users to access workspaces from a variety of platforms, including mobile, desktop, or via a browser. Each project has the ability to set fonts, add images or videos, or full pages.
There’s also a variety of project management templates available from galleries presented within Notion. Notion also integrates with a variety of third-party solutions for collaboration, like Slack, Google Calendar, and Zoom. Still, if you want to use a provider with built-in features without integrations, a project management solution like monday.com might be more appropriate.
Notion Features
- Wiki: Through Notion’s block-based interface, it’s easy to craft wikis for your projects. This gives team members a simple way to view practices for the project, review meeting notes, and view instructional videos for tasks. Like much of Notion, this is buildable via blocks.
- Advanced note tracking: Using blocks, users can quickly add notes to any Notion project. This is easily organized through views in the platform, such as list view.
- Starter templates: Notion has hundreds of starter templates that allow you to create tasks that are predesigned based on the type of work. Examples include a content deliverables template, a company values template, Kanban boards, and Scrum templates.
How We Evaluated the Best Project Management Software
A project management software solution delivers a means to manage tasks and team members on specific projects. It also makes it easy to provide accurate time tracking and project scheduling for the purposes of clients. For this guide, we evaluated five solutions based on cost, general and niche features, customer support, and how they performed for both experts and everyday users.
Click on the tabs below to learn how we evaluated the best project management software for small teams:
20% of Overall Score
We compared subscription prices of project management software, including the availability of a free plan or cheaper annual pricing. For each solution, we considered a baseline per user price point of $15 a month for the first paid tier as well as a $25 baseline for the second tier and higher.
25% of Overall Score
This is where many small businesses pay the most attention. For general features, we asked whether each project management software option had tools for project planning and scheduling, task management, and reporting. We checked if it features multiple project views and calendar sync.
20% of Overall Score
Some businesses require specific tools for specific project needs. That said, for the advanced features, we looked for premium offerings, such as time tracking, budget monitoring, resource management, and team dashboard. In addition, we gauged how secure the platform is.
10% of Overall Score
Some teams don’t have a dedicated IT organization, so having a project management suite that’s easy to set up and use is critical. For this reason, we evaluated whether a solution required a high technical skill to use and implement and also evaluated how intuitive the interface is.
10% of Overall Score
For most users, help is critical when something goes wrong, so we evaluated the support structures of each provider. With this, a business knows what to expect if they need assistance with some aspect of the software. We checked for the availability of phone, email, and live chat support and gave more points to providers operating 24/7.
15% of Overall Score
We calculated our expert score by identifying standout features that deliver the best value for money. We also checked out the popularity of each provider and how easy it was to incorporate their solutions into existing processes. Users’ perception was likewise important, so we included that factor in our evaluation.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Project management is important because it allows individuals to keep track of the tasks they need to accomplish. Knowing what is on your plate for the day or the week allows you to manage your time better. It also provides teams with a window to see where the project stands in the overall process. With this, teams ultimately collaborate more effectively by employing project management strategies.
There are four main types of project management software that can be used to streamline processes for different projects. These include:
- Individual: A single application that can manage spreadsheets, tasks, and tools.
- Collaborative: An option that allows teams to collaborate. This is highly customizable, but it may have difficulties processing concurrent data input.
- Integrated: This software integrates information and allows users to access it through a central dashboard, which is ideal for analyzing data.
- Cloud-based: This is a software app that is hosted in the cloud. Multiple people can access it simultaneously, and the app can be customized to your individual liking.
The tools you will look for in project management software will vary based on your business’ needs. With that said, the most commonly used tools include:
- Project views: Typically, software solutions feature list, board, calendar, Kanban, and timeline views.
- Collaboration tools: Some platforms allow you to embed files in tasks, while others feature whiteboards for sharing of ideas.
- Storage space: Some systems offer limited storage per account or per user. Others have unlimited storage space, which benefits teams that use documents heavily on projects.
- Resource management tools: These include workload charts and time tracking, offering insight into how resources are spent and should be distributed.
- Workflow automation: While others have unlimited automation actions, some have a certain number of actions you can implement in a month.
Bottom Line
Project management helps teams stay on track and gives managers high-level and detailed views of key projects. To work effectively for your team’s needs, the best project management software for small business needs to handle all the specific tasks your business deals with. It also needs to be easy to use and something your team members can easily adopt in their daily routines.
So, what is the best project management software? For the purposes of this guide, we’ve determined Zoho Projects is the best current option for small businesses looking for task organization and management. It provides features like time tracking, cloud storage, team chat, and collaboration, and stands out for its simple-to-use interface. Paid plans offer a 10-day trial without the need for a credit card. Click on the button below for more details.