Seven tools compared by workflow fit, practical limits, and the cost of a growing team.
Prices and plan details checked September 17, 2026
Disclosure: CleanTalk develops doBoard, one of the products in this article. We explain where it fits and where another tool may be a better choice.
Most CleanTalk customers are small businesses. We built doBoard to coordinate our own development, support, operations, product, and marketing teams, and to help small businesses like them organize their work.
Quick picks (prices per month, monthly billing)
- Trello: small teams tracking everyday work on visual boards. Free for up to 10 collaborators; Standard is $6 per user.
- Basecamp: teams that want discussions, chat, and check-ins in one place. Free for 1 project and up to 5 users; $25 for up to 20 users; $59 for unlimited users.
- doBoard: small businesses that want flexible workflows and unlimited users. $5 for the whole team (5 GB of storage).
- Asana: repeatable processes that pass between teams. Free for up to 2 users; Starter is $13.49 per user.
- ClickUp: teams that want extensive customization. Free plan with unlimited members; Unlimited is $10 per user.
- Zoho Projects: businesses already using Zoho apps. Free for up to 5 users; Premium is $5 per user.
- Paymo: agencies and studios that bill clients for their time. Free for 1 user; Plus is $15.90 per user.
A five-person retailer preparing a store opening and a five-person agency billing clients by the hour need different project management software. One needs clear ownership and deadlines. The other also needs to turn completed work into invoices.
This comparison covers seven options for small businesses: Trello, Basecamp, doBoard, Asana, ClickUp, Zoho Projects, and Paymo. The recommendations focus on the work each system suits, the features that require a paid plan, and what happens to the bill as your team grows.
The seven tools at a glance
The seven tools below suit different small-business needs, from everyday task coordination to billing client work. Compare the workflow each tool supports, the features included in the relevant plan, and the limits that could matter as you add people or projects.
| Tool | Best fit | Check before choosing |
|---|---|---|
| Trello | A small team organizing everyday work on visual boards | Reporting, additional views, and the cost of Power-Ups |
| Basecamp | Teams wanting dedicated project discussions, chat, and check-ins | Plan limits on active projects, users, and storage; time tracking starts at Pro |
| doBoard | Small businesses adapting workflows while avoiding per-user fees; web agencies wanting an integrated website feedback tool | Storage needs (price scales with storage); limited automations and integrations |
| Asana | Repeatable processes that pass between teams | Which plan includes the reporting and time features you need |
| ClickUp | Teams wanting extensive configuration in one workspace | Who will maintain the setup and which limits apply |
| Zoho Projects | Businesses already using Zoho, with schedules and budgets to manage | Paid client access and separate Zoho subscriptions |
| Paymo | Businesses delivering billable client work | The plan needed for invoicing, scheduling, and workload |
How we compared these tools
This comparison combines official product documentation, pricing pages, and published feature limits with CleanTalk’s own experience, described by its CEO below. We did not conduct a new hands-on test of all seven products for this article. Recommendations about fit are our editorial assessment. The sprint completion figures describe CleanTalk’s reported results in its own workflow.
We used five questions that matter when a small business chooses a shared work system:
- Can it match your process? Look at stages, labels, fields, and ways of organizing work. Decide whether you need a few adjustments or detailed rules across departments.
- Can people see what to do next? Consider task ownership, deadlines, discussions, and how easily someone can find the relevant project information.
- Can it show capacity and time? A due date, an estimate, a running timer, and a workload view answer different questions. Check which ones your team actually needs.
- Can clients and contractors participate appropriately? Check both access permissions and the way external people are billed.
- What will it cost as you grow? Compare the plan you need at 5, 10, and 25 people, including storage, active projects, and add-ons.
These questions apply to a shop coordinating a promotion, an operations team handling requests, or an agency delivering client projects. You do not need to use software development methods to benefit from a project management tool.
1. Trello for straightforward visual task tracking
Trello is a useful starting point when your main question is, “What is waiting, what is in progress, and what is finished?” Its boards and cards give everyday work a visible structure. Cards hold deadlines, attachments, and checklists, so a task can carry the information needed to complete it. See Trello’s product overview.
Example fit: A small retailer could use one board for an upcoming promotion, with lists for ideas, preparation, review, and launch. Each card represents a deliverable, such as updating a product page or ordering signage. The team can agree on a small set of stages without designing a detailed management system.
Trello also supports custom fields and automation. That gives it room to grow beyond a basic checklist, although the relevant limits depend on the plan.
Pricing and limits: Free supports up to 10 collaborators and 10 boards per workspace. Standard costs $6 per user per month on monthly billing, or $5 with annual billing, and includes unlimited boards and custom fields. Premium adds views such as Timeline and Dashboard. Check the current plans.
Where another tool may fit better: If your main decision is how many hours a person can take on next week, or whether a client project is profitable, map out the additional tools you would need. Some Power-Ups have their own subscriptions. Also check guest billing: on paid workspaces, a person invited to more than one board can become a billable multi-board guest. Trello explains those billing rules here.
Use doBoard’s Trello pricing calculator to estimate your real cost based on members, guests, boards, automation usage, billing period, attachment size, and required features.
2. Basecamp for project discussions and team updates
Basecamp is worth considering when a project needs several kinds of communication in one place. Its toolset includes message boards for longer discussions, chat, to-dos, schedules, files, card tables, and automatic check-ins. A recurring question can collect written updates without someone sending a fresh reminder each time. See Basecamp’s features.
Example fit: A small organization planning events could keep the project brief on a message board, discuss day-to-day issues in chat, assign preparations as to-dos, and ask for a weekly progress update through a check-in. This suits teams that want dedicated spaces for discussion as well as task tracking.
Pricing and limits: Basecamp charges a fixed price per plan rather than per user, but the lower plans cap how many people you can add, clients included. Free covers one project and up to five people. Freelancer is $25 per month for three active projects and up to twenty people. Studio is $59 per month for unlimited users, ten active projects, and 25 GB of storage. Pro is $99 per month for twenty-five active projects. Time tracking is included only in Pro and Unlimited ($299 per month, billed annually). See Basecamp’s pricing.
Where another tool may fit better: Count the projects that need to stay active simultaneously. A business handling many small ongoing engagements may reach a project limit before it reaches a storage limit. Also decide whether you want a separate chat, discussion board, and check-in system for each project. If your work centers on moving tasks through a few stages, a task-focused setup may be sufficient.
Use the Basecamp cost calculator published by doBoard to estimate costs for your team and needs.
3. doBoard for flexible workflows without paying for each user
doBoard is our pick for small businesses that want to organize work around their own processes and add people without buying another seat. Its pricing grows with storage, while the feature set stays available across plans.
The relevant audience is broader than software teams. A local business might organize store operations, an online retailer might coordinate product launches, and a small agency might separate work by client. doBoard’s small business project management page describes these kinds of workflows.
Example fit: A ten-person business could use projects for ongoing work, labels for categories, and tag groups for the stages in a request. A process might run from “New request” through “Scheduled” and “In progress” to “Ready for review.” The useful starting point is agreeing on those stages and responsibilities, then configuring the tool to match.
doBoard includes estimates, workload planning, calendars, and time tracking at the task and project level. Team members record time in task comments, and managers can review hours by task, person, board, or project and compare them with estimates. This helps a business understand where time goes across client work, even when invoicing is handled in a separate accounting system. Tag groups can represent ordered stages, with rules for calculating deadlines. doBoard’s Companies feature gives each client a separate space, and people receive access to the companies or projects they are invited to. These are permissions within the workspace, rather than a separate guest product.
What changed for the CleanTalk team: CleanTalk’s CEO explains what shaped doBoard:
“We used Basecamp for seven years and appreciated its speed and how easily new teammates could get started without training.
Denis Shagimuratov
As our workflows evolved, we wanted more space for content on larger screens, connections between tasks across projects, and labels to organize work beyond projects and task lists.
Those needs shaped doBoard: a full-width layout with less scrolling, links between related tasks, and task labels. After moving to doBoard, our team’s share of planned sprint work completed by the deadline increased from 55–65% to 80–100%.”
CEO of CleanTalk
For software and web teams, there are optional sprint-planning features, Planning Poker, and a GitHub Issues connector.
Spotfix website feedback is also included. Once you install the snippet or WordPress plugin, clients, teammates, or visitors can leave feedback on page elements and turn it into work tracked in doBoard. That is particularly relevant for web agencies, maintenance providers, and businesses with a focus on managing their own websites.
Pricing and limits: doBoard charges per account, not per user. The entry plan is $5 per month with 5 GB of storage; larger plans cost $15 for 20 GB, $50 for 75 GB, $150 for 250 GB, and $300 for 750 GB per month. Every plan includes unlimited users, projects, and tasks, with the same features. The seven-day trial requires no credit card.
Where another tool may fit better: Time tracking uses manual entries in task comments, so it may not suit a team that needs a running timer. The entry storage allowance also deserves attention if you upload substantial creative assets. If you depend on Gantt planning or portfolio reporting, or rely on many integrations, compare other options against those requirements before choosing doBoard.
4. Asana for repeatable work across teams
Asana fits a small business whose projects regularly pass between functions. A new request might need input from sales, work from operations, and a final review from marketing. Forms, templates, custom fields, and rules can help make those handoffs consistent.
Example fit: A company running regular product launches could collect requests through a form, start projects from an agreed template, and use rules to move or assign work when its status changes. Asana’s rules documentation describes these kinds of triggers and actions, including connections with other apps.
This becomes useful when the process is established enough to repeat. Before building automations, decide who owns each stage and what information must be present before work moves forward. Otherwise, the team may automate an unclear process and keep the same coordination problems.
Pricing and limits: The current Personal plan supports two users. Starter costs $13.49 per user per month on monthly billing, or $10.99 with annual billing. It includes forms, custom fields, templates, automation, and Timeline and Gantt views. Native time tracking, portfolios, and resource management are listed on Advanced, which is $30.49 per user per month on monthly billing. See Asana’s plan comparison.
Where another tool may fit better: Starter may cover process coordination while leaving a separate requirement unresolved, such as native time tracking. Price the plan that meets your actual needs. For a team that primarily wants a shared list of tasks and a few stages, the additional process configuration may offer little immediate value.
For an estimate that accounts for seat bundles, required features, and optional add-ons, use the Asana cost calculator published by doBoard.
5. ClickUp for teams that want extensive customization
ClickUp is a candidate when several teams want to work in one platform but need different ways to organize their tasks. For example, a marketing workflow and an internal operations workflow may use different statuses and fields. ClickUp supports custom task statuses, so those processes can be represented separately.
Example fit: A small company could give its content team a review process and its operations team a request queue. A designated owner would maintain the structure, document the naming conventions, and decide which views people should use. This is most useful when the business is willing to treat configuration as ongoing work.
The breadth of options makes it sensible to start with one process. Establish a shared approach to ownership, statuses, and notifications before extending the workspace. Otherwise, two teams can end up using the same status name to mean different things.
Pricing and limits: Free includes unlimited members and tasks but has a 60 MB storage allowance and feature limits. Unlimited costs $10 per user per month on monthly billing, or $7 with annual billing, and includes native time tracking and custom fields. More advanced workload and reporting features require the Business plan. AI options can add to the subscription cost. See ClickUp’s pricing.
Where another tool may fit better: If nobody can maintain the workspace, flexible settings can become inconsistent settings. A team that needs one reliable task flow may get more value from a smaller configuration. Also verify the usage limits for the exact views and features you expect to use regularly.
Guest permissions, automation usage, and optional AI packages can change the total. The ClickUp pricing calculator published by doBoard lets you include those requirements in your estimate.
6. Zoho Projects for businesses already using Zoho
Zoho Projects deserves a place on the shortlist when your business already uses Zoho CRM, Books, or other Zoho applications. Its integrations connect project work with other business functions, including customer records and invoicing through the relevant Zoho products.
Example fit: A small consultancy using Zoho CRM could consider Zoho Projects for delivery after winning an engagement. The decision would include how customer information moves between apps, how staff record time, and how the business prepares an invoice. Existing software choices matter here as much as an isolated project management feature list.
Zoho Projects also covers more formal planning. Paid plans include time logs, budgets, and workflow tools. Its plan comparison distinguishes project-level workload reporting from reporting across projects, along with different dependency and customization options. That gives a business a concrete checklist for deciding which tier it needs.
Pricing and limits: Free supports up to 5 users and 3 projects. Premium costs $5 per user per month on monthly billing, or $4 with annual billing, and allows unlimited projects. Check the current pricing page for your region and required features.
Where another tool may fit better: Integration with Zoho Books or CRM does not mean every connected application is included in a Projects subscription. Include those subscriptions, configuration work, and any paid client users in the budget. If your business has no existing Zoho setup and needs only everyday task coordination, the broader ecosystem may be less relevant to the decision.
7. Paymo for billable client projects and invoicing
Paymo suits small businesses that need to turn tracked billable hours and project expenses into client invoices. Its connected workflow covers task management, time records, estimates, expenses, and billing, with plan-dependent profitability and scheduling features. This is particularly useful when preparing invoices is part of the project manager’s work.
Example fit: A design studio could estimate a project, record the hours spent on its tasks, review the financial result, and prepare the client invoice. For that business, the quality of the path from work to billing may matter more than having the largest collection of task views.
Paymo supports running timers and manual time entries, and offers an optional desktop app for automatic time tracking. Its feature list also describes estimates, recurring invoices, and project-related expenses. Choose the approach that fits how your team records billable work, rather than asking everyone to adopt several time-entry methods at once.
Pricing and limits: Free is limited to one user, one client, and two projects. Plus supports a team and unlimited clients and projects. Its regular monthly price is $15.90 per user. Pro is $23.90 per user per month and adds features including Gantt views, dependencies, employee scheduling, and workload management. The pricing page currently advertises a temporary introductory discount; the cost comparison below uses the regular monthly rates after that offer.
Where another tool may fit better: If invoicing already works well in your accounting system and you only need a shared task process, assess how much of Paymo’s financial workflow you would use. Teams that require scheduling should also budget for Pro rather than assuming those features are in Plus.
How much does project management software cost for a small business?
In this comparison, paid plans for a small business cost $5 to $15.90 per user per month, or a flat monthly price for the whole team. For 10 people, that means $50 to $159 on per-user plans, $59 for Basecamp Studio, and $5 for doBoard.
The table below uses monthly billing in US dollars, before taxes and optional add-ons. These are practical paid starting points for the scenarios above. Their features and storage allowances differ. For Basecamp, we use Studio to support 10 active projects; doBoard uses its 5 GB plan.
| Product and plan | Monthly rate | 5 people | 10 people | 25 people |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trello Standard | $6 per user | $30 | $60 | $150 |
| Basecamp Studio | $59 per account | $59 | $59 | $59 |
| doBoard 5 GB | $5 per account | $5 | $5 | $5 |
| Asana Starter | $13.49 per user | $67.45 | $134.90 | $337.25 |
| ClickUp Unlimited | $10 per user | $50 | $100 | $250 |
| Zoho Projects Premium | $5 per user | $25 | $50 | $125 |
| Paymo Plus | $15.90 per user | $79.50 | $159 | $397.50 |
Totals are calculated from the vendors’ pricing pages linked in each section. Figures were checked on September 17, 2026; confirm the current checkout price before subscribing.
Trello, Asana, ClickUp, Zoho Projects, and Paymo charge per user on the paid plans compared here. doBoard charges by storage, while Basecamp packages combine user, project, and storage allowances. Compare the plan that covers your workflow, including any extra features or client access, at your expected team size.
To estimate costs for your own team, use this project management software cost calculator. Enter your team size, storage, active projects, billing preference, and required features to compare doBoard, Trello, Basecamp, Asana, and ClickUp.
Three details can change the comparison:
Required features: Native time tracking moves Asana to Advanced and Basecamp to Pro; workload scheduling moves Paymo to Pro. Guest permissions, paid integrations, and advanced reporting can also affect the total.
Storage: doBoard stays at $5 per month however many people join, as long as 5 GB is enough; the 20 GB plan costs $15. The other plans in the table include 25 GB (Basecamp Studio), 50 GB (Paymo Plus), 100 GB (Zoho Projects Premium), or unlimited storage (Trello Standard, Asana Starter, ClickUp Unlimited).
Project and user limits: A Basecamp team of up to twenty people, clients included, with no more than three active projects could use the $25 Freelancer plan. Running more than ten active projects requires Pro ($99) or Unlimited.
A useful budget starts with the work you need to support, then applies the right plan and expected usage. A low starting price is helpful only if that plan covers the requirement.
How to narrow the shortlist
Write down one real process before opening trial accounts. For example: a request arrives, someone checks the details, work is assigned, a deadline is set, and another person reviews the result.
Then identify the part that currently causes trouble. If work disappears between messages, prioritize ownership and a visible queue. If handoffs repeat across teams, look at forms, templates, and rules. If the owner cannot judge next week’s commitments, examine estimates and capacity. If delivery and billing are disconnected, review the invoice workflow.
Choose two tools that address that problem. During their trials, recreate the same small project, invite a colleague, change a deadline, and ask that person to find their next task. If clients will participate, inspect what they can see with the intended permissions.
Choosing a tool is only part of making it work. For teams spread across locations, CleanTalk’s guide to managing a distributed team explains how we handle written updates, task ownership, and decisions between meetings.
Frequently asked questions
doBoard is the best fit for small businesses that want customizable workflows and unlimited users, from $5 per month for the whole team. Trello is best for simple visual boards, Basecamp for project discussions, Asana for cross-team processes, ClickUp for deep customization, Zoho Projects for Zoho users, and Paymo for billable client work.
Trello Free and ClickUp Free are the most generous options: Trello covers up to 10 collaborators and 10 boards, and ClickUp allows unlimited members but only 60 MB of storage. Zoho Projects Free covers 5 users and 3 projects. doBoard has no free plan, but after a seven-day trial the whole team pays $5 per month.
Per-user plans cost more with every new teammate, while flat-priced plans change only when you outgrow a plan limit. For 10 people, Trello Standard costs $60 per month, ClickUp Unlimited $100, and Asana Starter $134.90. doBoard stays at $5 for any team size while 5 GB of storage is enough, and Basecamp Studio stays at $59.
doBoard works best for agencies that invite clients into projects: it offers separate client spaces, time tracking by task and project, unlimited users for $5 per month, and Spotfix for website feedback. If you want invoices generated automatically from tracked hours and expenses, choose Paymo.
Test it on one real project before you pay. During the trial, invite a colleague, assign tasks, change a deadline, and check whether they can find their next action. Then price the plan at your expected team size. doBoard’s seven-day trial needs no credit card, and adding teammates does not change the price.
Try doBoard with one real workflow
If your priority is adapting everyday workflows and adding teammates without per-user charges, explore doBoard for small businesses. Use the seven-day trial to check it against one real process, including the people and information that process needs.
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