Top 8 Small Business Project Management Software 2024 (Free&Paid)

Project scheduling software for small business is deceptively straightforward. Sure, there are fewer people involved, and there are fewer procedures to follow. Big companies, on the other hand, frequently have a marketing project manager, a sales project manager, and a product development project manager. The project manager for a small business, on the other hand, is in charge of many departments and is likely to wear numerous hats.

Finding the best project management software for small teams that allows you to maximize output while balancing everything else on your plate is critical. We looked at a number of project management systems in order to locate tools with a feature set tailored to small organizations. We narrowed it down to the best options after comprehensive testing.

Powerful Solution for Small Business

4.9

On top of Fireberry’s easy-to-use system, it brings specific service, sales, and marketing solutions that are built to help your business run as smoothly and efficiently as possible.

Learn More

Service

One of the many service capabilities which can be used in Fireberry is a shared team inbox for collaborative client communication. In this way, each client’s correspondence can be handled directly through their page in the system, and each service representative can easily track previous correspondence. Use pre-built email templates to reply to each customer in no time. You can even build personalized automations to help expedite these emails, as well as many other business needs. 

 

Another great service option is the comprehensive ticket system, where you can allocate each ticket to the right hands and track it as it moves down the pipeline. The AI Assistant will prioritize tickets for you with summarized intents and even suggest replies to help you maintain personal and reliable communication with your customers.

Sales

Sales teams can stay focused and maximize their time with Fireberry’s customizable platform. Each page is built by you to only display the fields and components which are relevant to the specific client. You can also choose when each field will be required or read only, and receive notifications about changes made to your accounts. In this way, your teams can stay on track and manage each client process from start to finish. 

Streamline clients through self built pipelines, and use the board view to visualize where your clients stand. Share each lead with only the relevant team and business unit using custom role permissions, so that every client stays in the right hands. 

Marketing

Fireberry’s capabilities make marketing your business a breeze. You can send out personalized emails and texts to countless customers with one click. Personalize your messages with customer specific information to build personal connections with your customers and brand loyalty.

The Campaign object and management tool helps you stay on top of each campaign’s performance. You can get an overview in a glance, and make sure each task is assigned properly and gets done on time. Use dashboards and reports to actively manage each campaign's budget and help your campaign get closer to the finish line. 

What is a project management tool?

The discipline of small business project management software entails planning, coordinating, and managing resources in order to finish a project. A project is any task that entails a number of interconnected activities. A project can be straightforward or intricate. [Related article: Why to Use CRM with Project Management.]

To break down a project into smaller, more manageable tasks, you use a project management tool. You can delegate these tasks to various team members and keep track of their progress. You can track how much time is spent on each work, whether it is completed on time or not, and how much it cost with the right technology. You may also discover who on your staff is the most productive, which clients or projects are the most profitable, and where you might be losing money.

Let's imagine you have four weeks to produce a new website design to a client. Collecting business requirements, creating wireframes, designing the user interface and user experience, and laying out each page are all jobs that can be broken down into smaller chunks. Each of these duties can be further subdivided into smaller subtasks.

You can assign due dates to each task in your task management for small business once you've prepared the list of tasks. This will ensure that the project is completed on time. After that, you assign each assignment to a member of your team to accomplish.

You can then track which activities are on track and which are behind time to keep an eye on each task and the overall project's development. Most of the best project management software for small business can also keep track of how much time your team spends on each task and how much it costs you.

What makes great project management software for small businesses?

Choosing the best small business project management app for small businesses is no easy task: there are numerous programs available, all of which boast impressive marketing campaigns. It doesn't help that some services claim to be one thing but aren't, or strive to be everything at the same time.

Finally, we focused on whether our alternatives have a flexible feature set, are simple to use, and, of course, how all of this compares to their pricing. This does not, however, imply that our top option is also the best for you: every business is unique, and there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all solution. [ Related article: Benefits of CRM for Small Business.]

As a result, we recommend that you go over the entire list and read the full evaluations for every project management app that you are interested in.

Project management software for small business comparison criteria

To properly manage your project as you set up and execute it, you'll need a powerful tool. Project management software for small business comes in a variety of flavors and with a variety of functions. What you require is a tool that meets your company's requirements as well as your budget.

NASA's rocket-launching software is extremely strong, but it's also difficult to use and expensive. A piece of software that merely allows you to maintain a to-do list will be really simple to use, but it will be useless for managing a marketing project.

Make a list of features that the program must have to satisfy your needs when choosing the best project management software for small business. It's also a good idea to figure out how much you're willing to spend on the tool because prices vary widely. [Related article: Top Free CRMs for Small Business.]

Here’s a summary of my evaluation criteria:

• Is the user interface (UI) simple to navigate, lightweight, and quick to load and update?
• Is it simple to understand and master? Is there good tech assistance, user help, tutorials, and training at the company? How steep is the learning curve?
• Integrations: Does the program integrate with other popular tools, such as Google and Microsoft products, that can be useful for small teams?
• Is the cost of entry affordable for small businesses and creative teams? Does it provide scalability options in the event that the team grows?

You can also consider these other robust and reliable CRM systems for small businesses:

Zoho

It is a web-based email marketing management service for small and medium businesses. It automates the entire marketing process - from managing your email marketing campaign to maintaining mailing lists.

Fireberry

Fireberry is an all inclusive and customizable platform made to centralize all your business needs. Expedite your processes and pipelines with automations and data analytics. 

HubSpot

HubSpot CRM includes all the tools you need for marketing, sales, service, and content management. Each hub in the platform is effective on its own, but it becomes a powerhouse when you use them together. 

Pipedrive

Pipedrive CRM is a user-friendly platform that is effortless to master. The CRM keeps a laser-like focus on sales but integrates with hundreds of other tech tools to expand its features. 

- The best project management software for small teams

monday.com

monday.com is simple project management for small businesses that saves small businesses money in two ways: by providing free/affordable entry-level plans and by being extremely user-friendly to reduce training and onboarding costs. They're used by Uber, Adobe, Hulu, and Unilever, so your little business can feel like it's in the big leagues when it comes to software.

monday.com is adaptable and scalable, with five different pricing levels to choose from. You'll get limitless project boards, 200+ free project/task templates, 20+ column types, and their iOS and Android applications with their freemium plan. Pre-made outlines for editorial calendars, marketing campaign planning, CRM charts, event planning, HR forms, and more may be found in the free project template collection. This section's importance to small enterprises cannot be emphasized.

Slack, Google Drive, Gmail, Google Calendar, Jira, GitHub, Trello, Dropbox, Typeform, and many other small business task management tools are among the integrations available under a subscription Zapier account. They also provide an app store with both free and paid add-ons to let you expand your capabilities.

Key Features

• Creation & Assignment
• Due Dates
• Task Prioritization
• To-Do Lists
• Drag & Drop
• Planning
• Views
• Creation & Assignment
• Due Dates
• Drag & Drop
• Mass Updates
• Task Prioritization
• To-Do Lists
• Dependencies
• Recurring Tasks

Monday.com Overview

What's Missing

• The free plan isn't perfect.
• If you rely on Google apps, the lack of Gmail integration is a problem.
• There is no plan for a single user.
• Setting up auto-reminders requires additional procedures.

Pricing

monday.com costs from $6/user/month and comes with a free 14-day trial. They offer a free plan for up to 2 users.

- Best project management software for ultimate project flexibility

Asana

In the world of project management for small teams, Asana stands out as a powerful solution that supports numerous project management methods and gives you complete choice over how you see and organize your work.

Its user interface is simple and intuitive, with a clear hierarchy of elements. The navigation sidebar is located on the far left and allows you to access multiple projects, statistics, your messaging inbox, and your personal task list. The primary area shows a list of tasks, their due dates, and who is responsible for each task. In the event of overlap, each task can be assigned to many projects and have an endless number of subtasks.

Asana's strongest point is its adaptability: there is no one-size-fits-all approach to creating projects, project sections, or tasks. The list format is the default view, which is simple and straightforward to scan for due dates and assignees. You can also change the layout to a board, timeline, calendar, or dashboard.

Although Asana allows you to create task and project templates, the default setup is fully open-ended: all tasks must have a title. You can then add a description, organizational tags, custom fields (available with subscription plans), due dates, assignees, and other features. Despite all of the options for adding information to your assignments, Asana's interface is fairly simple. This helps to keep the focus on the job rather than the small team project management tool.

Use Asana's Zapier integrations to connect Asana with your favorite apps, such as Gmail and Slack, for even more flexibility. Take a look at how other teams are incorporating Asana into their workflows for insights.

Key Features

• Creation & Assignment
• Due Dates
• Task Prioritization
• To-Do Lists
• Dependencies
• Mass Updates
• Drag & Drop
• Recurring Tasks
• Planning
• Project Map
• Calendar View
• Issue Tracking
• Templates
• Project Monitoring
• Dashboards

What's Missing

• Not recommended for work that requires a lot of graphics.
• Prices are a little higher than those of competitors.

Pricing

Up to 15 team members, three views, and basic features are free; the Premium plan costs $10.99 per user per month (paid annually) and includes additional features such as the admin panel, comprehensive reporting, custom fields, and Timeline view, and more.

- Best small business project management software for the most generous free plan

Trello

Trello is a simple, visual method to use Kanban boards to organize your projects. And, unlike most project management tools for small business,Trello has a low learning curve: because to its straightforward, drag-and-drop interface, your team will be able to get up and running immediately.

Create a new board from scratch or select a template from hundreds of marketing, sales, design, team management, and other categories. Each Kanban board can be customized to match the Agile backlog, in-progress, and completed lists. Alternatively, you might be more creative and use the boards as ideation or collaboration tools, where team ideas are gathered, sorted, and approved as needed. Checklists, due dates, labels, attachments, photos, comments, custom fields, and more can all be included in cards.

Simply drag the cards to the proper list as you complete tasks. From the activity menu, you can keep track of all comments and tasks that mention you—or that you're watching. Trello also has one of the best free subscriptions on the market, with unlimited users, tasks, and Power-Ups, as well as 10 boards and 250 Butler automation command, which runs every month.

Trello is the epitome of Kanban simplicity, and it has a good reputation as a result. But therein lays its greatest flaw: Trello's features fall short if you have complex tasks with various dependencies, for example.

Use Trello's Zapier connections to connect Trello with your favorite apps, such as Google Calendar and Slack, to help supplement Trello's task management software for small business. 

Key Features

• Creation & Assignment
• Due Dates
• Task Prioritization
• To-Do Lists
• Dependencies
• Drag & Drop
• Planning
• Project Map
• Creation & Assignment
• Due Dates
• Drag & Drop
• Task Prioritization
• To-Do Lists
• Recurring Tasks

What's Missing

• Trello is an online-based application that requires an active internet connection to work effectively.
• The system's commenting system might be improved.
• The 10MB attachment limit on the free plan might not be enough.
• The upgrade is disappointing.

Pricing

Unlimited users, 10 boards, unlimited Power-Ups, and 250 Butler command runs per month are included in the free plan; upgrade to the Standard plan for $5/user/month (paid annually), which adds unlimited boards, custom fields, advanced checklists, and 1,000 command runs per month.

- Best project management software for managing client projects

Teamwork

Teamwork, which is used by over 6,000 companies and 20,000 agencies, offers a variety of the best project management apps for small business capabilities as well as a free project management system with some limitations. To minimize bottlenecks caused by overloaded scheduling, keep track of your team's workload capacity in the app; you can easily drag-and-drop items to re-prioritize or re-assign blocked tasks.

Teamwork has a lot of self-guided training materials, which can be a big assistance for small businesses who don't have the time or resources to do 1:1 onboarding of new tools across the board. Prerecorded and live webinars are available, as well as the Teamwork blog, a downloadable software handbook, a comprehensive wiki/resource center, and feature videos.

To better incorporate external stakeholders in your planning and execution processes, Teamwork gives you an infinite "client" account. Within the admin menu, you can customize client access and permissions so that they can only see and touch objects and reports that are relevant to their projects. Clients can use their accounts to add tasks, write comments, and even log time.

With a subscription Zapier account, Teamwork can integrate with Google Drive, Box, OneDrive, Dropbox, Slack, Microsoft Teams, MS Office, Harvest, Quickbooks, Xero, Hubspot, SharePoint, Microsoft Project, SoftSync, and hundreds of more apps.

Key Features

• Creation & Assignment
• Due Dates
• Task Prioritization
• To-Do Lists
• Dependencies
• Mass Updates
• Drag & Drop
• Recurring Tasks
• Planning
• Project Map
• Views
• Templates
• Time & Expense
• Scheduling

What's Missing

• No PDF or image markup tools

Pricing

Teamwork has a free plan for basic tasks and project management software for small projects. Paid plans cost from $10/user/month and come with a 30-day free trial.

- Best project management software for managing projects via email

Wrike

You'll inevitably continue to manage some aspects of your projects via email, no matter how powerful your project management program is. With Wrike's built-in email integration, you can connect your inbox activities to Wrike and keep track of it all in one place.

This email connectivity is different from the app directory's Gmail and Outlook integrations. Instead, you may set up this native email integration in your profile, and all you have to do is add and validate one or more "from" email addresses. You can use email to create a new Wrike task, assign a task, add attachments, schedule a task, update the task status, set task priority, make a comment, and add a task to a subfolder or several folders.

While you can get a lot done without ever leaving your inbox, you'll eventually need to log in to Wrike to manage your projects. Wrike projects have a similar layout to Asana projects at first appearance. Wrike, on the other hand, gives more organized flexibility, allowing you to tailor (and standardize) what information is required for each work, whereas Asana's flexibility comes from an open-ended structure.

Each task, for example, can have numerous custom fields. Each task shows in a multi-column list view when it has been set up, with each column representing a type of information in the tasks. If you're working on a development project, you might be more concerned with priority levels and progress percentages, making those columns stand out more than others; if you're working on marketing, due dates might be the most significant factor. In either case, your team members will always be aware of the information needed for each work they are assigned.

Key Features

• Creation & Assignment
• Due Dates
• Task Prioritization
• To-Do Lists
• Dependencies
• Drag & Drop
• Recurring Tasks
• Planning
• Project Map
• GANTT
• Calendar View
• Views
• Templates
• Dashboards

What's Missing

• Customization of the user interface (UI) has to be improved.
• Some popular solutions, such as BaseCRM and Xero, are not integrated.
• There isn't a built-in chat application.
• The tutorials are a little short, and the fees have increased dramatically.

Pricing

Upgrade to the Professional plan for $9.80/user/month (paid annually), which includes Gantt charts and shareable dashboards for up to 200 users, for $9.80/user/month (billed annually).

- Best simple project management software

TeamGantt

TeamGantt is a mobile-friendly project management software for small businesses with collaboration tools and essential features like project plan templates and project planning filters. They include a variety of project templates for marketing, creative & design, event planning, software development, and construction projects to help you get started quickly.

TeamGantt allows you to create a base Gantt chart and save it as a template, allowing you to reuse your custom design over and over. Despite the name, TeamGantt allows you to switch between multiple project views in the same way that other software in this sector does: task lists, calendars, and so on.

In TeamGantt, you may access portfolio views and reports to keep track of everything your firm is working on at once. This is ideal for professional services firms that have several clients and projects to manage. Customers can follow along with your work without having to ask for continuous status updates if they subscribe to their standard subscription plan (and above).

TeamGantt has native integrations with Slack, Trello, and Dropbox, as well as API integrations and the ability to connect to hundreds of more apps via a paid Zapier subscription.

Key Features

• Creation & Assignment
• Due Dates
• Task Prioritization
• To-Do Lists
• Dependencies
• Drag & Drop
• Planning
• Project Map
• GANTT
• Calendar View
• Scheduling
• Work Capacity
• Task Ranking
• Time Tracking
• Progress Monitoring

What's Missing

• Aimed exclusively at Gantt charts
• Odd pricing

Pricing

TeamGantt is free for 3 users and 1 project. Paid plans cost $19.90/month for 1 user.

- Best project management software for customized views

ClickUp

While most project management tools for small business only offer a few various methods to view your tasks, ClickUp stands out with over 11 different ways to do it, including Kanban, Scrum, Gantt, calendar, timeline, workload, and mind map, to name a few. It's up to you to decide which views to maintain on the top menu, and it may be different for each project, making it a great solution for teams to use. The best thing is that, unlike many applications that restrict access to premium views (like as Gantt), ClickUp allows you to access any and all of those views regardless of which subscription you choose—even the free one.

The customizability of ClickUp extends beyond task displays. You may customize your dashboard with over 20 widgets and a variety of ClickApps to enhance the tool's capabilities, such as time tracking, sprints, custom fields, and even screen recording. All of this customization requires a little more time and work when it comes to setting up your app, although guided in-app onboarding and the ability to import tasks from another application can help. Because ClickUp integrates with Zapier, you can automate processes like uploading form submissions or starred emails to ClickUp as tasks.

Key Features

• Creation & Assignment
• Due Dates
• Task Prioritization
• To-Do Lists
• Dependencies
• Drag & Drop
• Planning
• Calendar View
• Views
• Templates
• Creation & Assignment
• Due Dates
• Drag & Drop
• Task Prioritization
• To-Do Lists

ClickUp Overview

What's Missing

• Steeper Learning Curve
• Requires Onboarding

Pricing

Unlimited tasks and members, time tracking, and Kanban boards are free; upgrade to the Unlimited plan for $5/user/month (paid annually) to get unlimited storage, integrations, and dashboards, as well as additional views and features like Gantt charts, teams, and custom fields.

- Best project management software for working with multiple methodologies

GoodDay

GoodDay is a scalable tool that can be used by your engineering team as well as the HR and marketing departments. Teams can choose from a variety of project management methodologies for each project, ranging from Gantt charts and Agile to Kanban and Scrum. After you open the project, you may switch between approaches by navigating the tabs at the top of the project screen.

You may add a variety of additional modules to GoodDay during onboarding to help adapt it even more to different teams. The HR module, for example, has a bespoke calendar view for tracking vacations, while the Clients & Customer Portal adds more user permissions and sharing controls.

GoodDay has a few key integrations for things like email, cloud storage, and Slack, but you can integrate GoodDay with Zapier to really open things up. This allows you to automate procedures such as starting a new task or project, allowing you to focus on the job rather than job tracking software for small business.

Key Features

• Creation & Assignment
• Due Dates
• Task Prioritization
• To-Do Lists
• Planning
• Project Map
• GANTT
• Calendar View
• Views
• Time & Expense
• Capacity
• Scheduling
• Baselining / KPIs
• Resource Allocation
• Dashboards

What's Missing

• Complicated interface
• Complicated import and export

Pricing

Upgrade to the Professional plan for $4/user/month (paid annually) for more advanced views, user controls, and custom fields for up to 250 members; the free plan offers limitless projects and tasks for up to 15 users.

The Best Project Management Software For Small Business Summary

Purchasing project management software for small teams might be difficult. You may be unable to make a timely decision due to a variety of factors, including budgetary constraints, especially in the event of a pandemic. As a result, before you go out and buy a system, make sure you really need one. Keep in mind that these items are intended for projects that have set start and finish dates. You'd be better off using business process management software for routine tasks. [Related article: Top 10 CRMs for Small Business.]

Another factor to think about is what you require from a project management solution. Small project management software will not have as many features as enterprise project management software. Try to figure out what your project management issues are and what solutions will help you solve them. Then there's the matter of implementation; choose trustworthy providers and get advice from the correct individuals when it comes to planning implementation. Assuming you've completed all of these steps, it's always a good idea to take advantage of free trials, which allow you to get a firsthand look at a platform's features. For example, the best CRM for small consulting businesses options are those that offer affordable pricing, intuitive user interface, and essential features like lead management, contact tracking, and project management.

Which teams can use project management software?

These are the teams that can benefit from project management software for small businesses:

• Project management teams 
• Engineering teams 
• Executive teams
• Marketing teams
• Sales teams
• The project steering committee
• Product teams
• Human resource teams
• Design teams

Final Thoughts

Given the variety of the best project management tools for small teams available these days, finding the best software for your small business can be quite challenging. With so many options to choose from, it's important to carefully consider your specific requirements before making a decision. While all of the tools mentioned in this blog post are highly regarded and offer valuable features, not all of them may be the perfect fit for your unique needs.

By carefully considering your needs, prioritizing key features, and thoroughly evaluating different options, you can find the best project management software for your small business. Remember, it's important to strike the right balance between functionality, simplicity, and cost-effectiveness to ensure a seamless and efficient project management experience for your team.

Let's Test Drive Your CRM