Best Project Management Software for Small Teams: Reviewed
Best Project Management Software For Small Teams
7th Oct, 2024
Small teams and businesses use project management apps to help track progress and streamline processes. Here's our best picks of best project management apps for small teams.
Small businesses might not need big tools for the job.
Being on the same page is important whether you're conquering your next startup or your team is handling recruits. Whatever the job, project management software can help lighten the load.
Small teams are all about being fast, nimble, and reliable for their customers making them the best in the business, despite their size. Project management software helps with task management, workloads & invoicing, this takes the pressure out of the job to focus on the important work at hand.
How do we define a small team?
We consider a small team to be 5-25 people.
We've chosen between 5-25 people as a small team or small business and optimized the selection of tools accordingly.
Our Top Picks for Small Teams
- Wrike - Popular with small marketing & sales teams
- Taskade - A flexible AI-powered solution with video chat
- Trello - Easy to use Kanban-style project management
- Todoist - A to-do list app with easy-to-use task management
- Paymo - Perfect for small agencies with invoices & clients
- Notion - A customizable space to suit any business needs
- Any.DO - A task management tool for teams
- Superlist - A to-do list app with note-taking for projects
- monday - An all-rounder for larger and small jobs
- Ora - Ideal for smaller teams looking for a range of tools
What makes great project management software for small teams?
Small teams are looking for something fast & easy.
Fast and easy abilities in the project management tools mean they can jump into tasks, assign workload, and manage their projects with ease. An important trait in smaller teams.
- Range of Customization - As a small team, handling a project with a wide variety of views can help you better manage your workload and what's up next. These project management tools are designed to help be flexible.
- Easy to Learn - You don't want anything too overwhelming to bring to the table for a small team purely so that they get the concept, get stuck in and there is as little friction as humanly possible to better get focused on goals, manage projects and handle tasks. So we've included tools that are easy to jump into and learn from day one.
- Great Sharing Abilities - You can the ability to share projects and tasks across your workload but potentially even to clients or public-facing entities that you're working or partnering with - so these tools have good share abilities for these scenarios.
What are the differences between small and large team project management?
Comparing the important factors for small and large teams when it comes to seeking project management software.
Large Teams | Small Teams |
|---|---|
Scalable & workflow-orientated | Easy to learn |
Fast, reliable & good uptimes | Strong sharing abilities |
Support and account management | Flexible and customizable |
If big is something you need, our recommendation is to go and explore the best project management software for bigger and more suitable tools, that offer tools like ClickUp & monday.com.
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1. Wrike
Best for Marketing & Sales
Every day, Wrike eliminates inefficiencies for 2.4 million people.
Wrike aims to be one platform to streamline all workflows
What makes Wrike good for small-team project management?
Wrike is an all-round project management tool and can be used within small and large companies to manage projects. Owned and managed by Citrix, a much larger company than most, Wrike has been growing features in the last few years to be a healthy balance of a range of features and capabilities for specific teams.
Small teams are looking for something with an easy-to-onboard nature meaning they can get new team members on without much education on how to use the tool and Wrike delivers this.
Wrike is popular with small teams in sectors like sales and marketing. Wrike is super friendly in look and feel meaning most people tend to get on with it without much need for people to learn it like a more open-plan software like Notion.
With features like image-proofing, campaigns and marketing templates to get started, this makes Wrike very attractive to marketing and sales agencies and small teams looking for something friendly for those who communicate visually and plan their project campaigns.
For marketing and sales, this does make it easier when Wrike can bring in up to 20 free collaborators making it perfect for client-facing workloads and sharing those projects whilst looking professional. Out of all of the tools in the all-round project management space, many people credit Wrike as one of the most cost-effective for teams to get started on and at a cost that isn't as costly.
Should we get Wrike for our small team?
If your team is considering growing or doesn't need specific features, Wrike could be a good solution for you.
Wrike is a versatile tool that will allow you to grow with your team. It has a wide range of features for general use. Not being tailored to a specific set of users like developers, product managers, or VCs.
2. Taskade
AI-Powered Projects
Is Taskade one to consider for our team project app?
Taskade is lightweight and powered by AI. There are a lot of AI abilities inside of Taskade, making it much ahead of the curb of many options in this list for project management.
For project management, Taskade comes with tasks, plans, templates & an AI assistant (with AI agents) for you to better manage your workload in one space. Taskade is made for small teams by default, you can add tasks and view them as tables, Gantt charts, calendars, lists, and even more visual modes like org charts and mind-mapping.
Taskade will allow you to take a note and turn it into a list to a mindmap.
The customization in project view is impressive allowing you to view things in the best way for you with all the regular collaborative abilities like commenting, notifications, and a good set of mobile apps.
Affordable in price and flexible Taskade is easier for small teams to get on board with. Features are packed into this application allowing you to use it for not only meeting notes, brainstorms, and projects, but also video calls.
Taskade lets you and the team have video calls. You can use either voice chat, video chat, or text chat to keep in communication within a specific project, great for collaborating with others. This feature won't replace tools like Zoom or Microsoft Teams, but it will allow teams of up to 25 to have calls. Be aware of pricing and plans.
Should we get Taskade for our small team?
Taskade is full of gems. If your team needs something lightweight, cost-effective, and comes with in-built video chat abilities, then this could be a great option.
It will take some time to get familiar with Taskade however there's so much this tool packs into the application that will allow your team to get things going. An important role in Taskade is AI so making sure you're using those features will help you better take advantage of the tool for you and the team.
3. Trello
Kanban Board Layout
- Pricing: Free with pricing starting from $5 per user
- Summary: Great for all-round project management & no massive education needed
Is Trello good for small teams?
Trello is priced well for small teams and allows for fantastic kanban boards which makes it super attractive to teams that don't have much time to get started. If you're a startup or team launching something and need to get co-ordinated, the kanban boards are Trello's forte meaning you can get going from day dot.
Trello is one of the best all-rounders for getting started and many people credit it thanks to the boards and power-ups connected behind each card you create that give you more superpowers for better management of your tasks and projects.
Should I go with Trello as the tool for our team?
Here's some of the best features for smaller teams and why to choose it:
- Easy Onboarding - One of the most simple tools to get started with and rolling thanks to the nature of the boards and ease of feel and look. You can even use boards, calendar, dashboards and more as you expand your knowledge of Trello - and more recent edition of table view which helps more traditional users.
- Power-Ups - Inside of Trello, cards reign as the way to add tasks or items. With cards you can add more powers with "power-ups" - think integrations. These will help you to build out some automations and better ways to effectively use cards. Some power-ups include card auto-archive, pomodoro timers and custom fields.
- Reliable Developer - Trello is owned by Atlassian which helps to know that they're constantly developing the experience to grow and expand every year.
4. Todoist
Best List Based Tool
- Pricing: Free with pricing starting from $5 per month
- Summary: With newly launched Team Workspaces, list management is easier
Is Todoist good for small teams?
Todoist is a personal to-do list app for sure.
But yes, Todoist is a perfect list management software for small teams that might not want something too overwhelming. So this means those small businesses that might want to create lists, assign others and keep projects to a minimum.
Todoist is a much lighter way to manage projects but with the team plan you can create a team inbox for your tasks, assign tasks, give due dates, create templates and even turn any of your lists into board view which makes handling them a lot easier in Todoist.
Todoist recently launched team workspaces, something we explain in our latest YouTube:
Should I go with Todoist for my team?
Here's some of the bits we like for smaller teams and businesses:
- Kanban View - You can use Todoist board view to help express a simple list in a much more functional way for teams. Whilst Todoist boards is more simple in nature than Trello's kanban boards, you can use "custom view" to help build filters and sorting to create the board you might want - for example: a board organized on priority levels or per person who is part of the list. This is very flexible for seeing team projects.
- Calendar View - Todoist are planning to expand this setup and as you read this, already might be here, for calendar view. This will help you see any board or list in a calendar view - a much more visual way to plan and organize your tasks ahead.
- Team Workspaces - Newly launched team workspaces allows you to better manage all your projects within your team and allow you to separate your personal and teamwork tasks in one account, without confusion.
Your go-to work platform. No credit card needed. Unlimited time on Free plan.
Core solutions that span across your business. All on one platform.
5. Paymo
Client Facing Tool
- Pricing: Starting from free and $5.95 per month
- Summary: Great for client based work, for freelancers & small teams
Is Paymo good for small teams?
Paymo is a good one for managing your business if it is client facing.
Paymo is great for small teams that want to handle invoices, clients and track all that time in one. It really is a gem for managing everything and used by freelancers and agencies alike that want to bring the client management process all into one base with solid project management for making sure tasks are assigned and workload is managed.
Paymo is one of the most structured yet power feature-driven tools we've reviewed.
Should I go with Paymo?
Here's the best features in Paymo that make it stellar for small teams or freelancers:
- Clients - You can create a profile for a client and manage invoices, time tracked and projects associated with that client easily. There's also a dashboard per client that helps you see unpaid invoices, tracked tasks and even what needs to be done upcoming as well, per team member. The features like scheduling team workload is a premium feature but helps you allocate time and work per employee to each client, so that this management side is traced and allocated.
- Invoices - Handling invoices is easy with Paymo. Create them using the template settings and you're good to go. In settings, you can add the payment details so that they pay via tools like Stripe and PayPal. Auto-create invoices per client for the time tracked with the projects you've done.
- Time Tracking - Time tracking is well done in Paymo meaning you and the team can track per task you've started and add it to the client or upcoming invoice ready to bill the clients that matter. For those who allocate time or project pricing for their work, this is superb for keeping track of it and making sure every minute is paid for.
Your go-to work platform. No credit card needed. Unlimited time on Free plan.
Core solutions that span across your business. All on one platform.
6. Notion
Most Flexible Tool
- Pricing: Free with $10 per month starting price
- Summary: Fully customizable to your small team and with lots of features
Is Notion good for small teams?
Small teams can benefit from using Notion.
You can learn and adapt the workspace over time to work specifically for your team members using different blocks like tables, images, and databases, and you can always download templates to help get you started.
A lot of people get scared of Notion, but there are actually some great courses to learn It that are worth exploring. These courses will allow you to optimize it and learn it in 2024 for your smaller team and become the oracle in your team.
Should I get Notion?
Here's the features that matter most to small teams:
- Databases - One of the best and most difficult features to master is Databases. Now, it won't take too long to learn and there's great resources out there for that, but Notion databases present an opportunity to be flexible with views. Meaning you can change any of your projects into board, list, calendar, timeline and more to help get the team on one page. You can even save each view per team member meaning your team can get their own perfect layout that can be locked for the optimal use.
- Flexible Nature - Probably the best investment of your time is setting up Notion - but it will take time. There's plenty of Notion templates and resources to help you learn but for small teams and businesses, this might be a good time investment to make. Notion is probably one of the most flexible tools on this list allowing you to build apps and workspaces that are designed best to your team and how they work.
7. Any.DO
Easy & Lightweight
- Pricing: Free with $8 per user, per month team pricing
- Summary: Lightweight project management and task management app
Why is Any.DO good for small teams?
Smaller teams looking at Any.DO might find it attractive thanks to the lightweight nature.
It is really easy to use and comes with a clean and simple design that allows you to better manage and co-ordinate workload. The project management abilities allow you to move between table, kanban and calendar view which is nice to have much like you can do inside of apps like Taskade and it works nicely.
Any.DO isn't the complete system like Wrike, but does offer a lighter weight way to manage your tasks, projects in a familiar setting for people.
Should I get Any.DO?
What features make the most sense for smaller teams:
- Table View: This is one of the three views for project management including board and calendar view per project and it works like a gem. Allowing you to see more of an Excel spreadsheet like view of your work that you commonly see in monday.com.
- New Calendar Beta: Visualising your projects and tasks on a calendar view on desktop allows for fast and easy access. The mobile app for Any.DO works really well on the go too. There are also newer AI features too allowing you to create and expand on tasks.
8. Superlist
Lightweight Lists with Notes
- Pricing: Free up to 5 users, $12 per user for teams
- Summary: Lightweight task management app with note abilities
- Discount: Use TOOLFINDER for discount
Why is Superlist good for smaller teams?
For teams between 1 and 5, you'll love Superlist because it offers a free plan.
Superlist is a task management app at heart, like Todoist with less features. Superlist wants to help you better manage your tasks and manage them into a list that acts like a note. This makes it great for collaborative work (with real-time collaboration abilities) and the ability to add notes, headers, images, attachments, voice notes and even tasks too (wink).
This one is great for those who don't want a fully completed project management tool.
Should I use Superlist for our team?
At $12 per user, per month past 5 people, Superlist is more expensive but
- Free for 5 Members - Smaller team. This one is free for up to 5 people and that's a savior for many people who want ot get their team focused and organized and expand later on, keeping costs down.
- Integrations - Paid integrations with Linear, Slack and Gmail make life easier and there's more that teams that are paying get access to for managing and importing tasks into the system like apps like Akiflow and Sunsama do.
Your go-to work platform. No credit card needed. Unlimited time on Free plan.
Core solutions that span across your business. All on one platform.
Which Project Management App Should We Use?
Here's our take on which one you should go for in 2024:
Best Customizable for Small Teams
For the total personalization and customization for your team workflows:
Best for Client Facing Projects
For the perfect client facing experience for small teams focusing on clients:
Best for Ease of Use
For the easy, get started and get a moving option for your small team:
For larger teams, what should go for?
Now you have taken a look through all the best project management software for small teams you can think about the four things we mentioned earlier.
- How many people are in the team? - For smaller teams, apps like Basecamp can be a good place to start or ClickUp for potential team growth.
- How does the team work best? - More visual Teams may like to use Asana's board view, or Notion to create a space that works for them.
- Keep it simple or tackle a learning curve? - Apps like Notion and Taskade might require some learning to understand shortcuts and customisation.
- How much do I have in my budget? - Start off using the free version of apps like Wrike before spending money. You can use Notion, Trello and Todoist for free to get started.
You can always test free trials and have a look around at reviews of how other small teams and businesses have gotten on with project management software.
Do we need project management software?
Small teams will benefit from using project management software, it doesn't matter how big or small your team is, you'll still need to manage projects, tasks and other people. Project management software can help marketing teams, sales teams, product development teams, and any team that needs to manage people, tasks and customers.
Project management apps for small teams help members stay aligned with the process, meaning users can easily understand the values of the team and what to do next. This helps keep a continuous flow of work so there are no issues or hiccups along the way.
Lots of information can get lost within separate chat applications such as details about projects, meeting times and notes and so on. With project management apps you can keep all important information in one place, accessible at any time to whoever needs it.
And finally, project management software helps teams stay on track. You can use a range of different dashboards and views to track the progress of each step of the project, this helps with amending any issues, or working out how to better manage the project.
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