What Is Project Management Software?
Project management software is software that helps you to manage projects via task planning, resource allocation and reporting.
Good project management software can help businesses to run projects more efficiently and keep them both on track (in terms of timescales) and on budget (to maximise profitability).
With hybrid and remote working becoming increasingly popular, project management software is key to ensure good visibility for all team members and managers.
ClickUp and Teamwork – Leading PM Tools
ClickUp and Teamwork are two leading project management tools. Last year I evaluated both tools, as existing ‘Accelo’ platform was no longer suited for our needs. The evaluation including extensive testing and comparisons between the systems.
ClickUp
The strapline ClickUp use to describe their software is ‘One app to replace them all.’
So ClickUp don’t describe themselves as a project management platform and from the first moment you look at it, it’s clear it can do a lot of different things.
Features
Project & Task Management
In ClickUp, tasks are the lowest level item. Tasks are quick and easy to make and you can add custom fields. It is possible to have sub-tasks as well as checklists.
Tasks live in lists, lists live in folders and folders live in spaces.
Automations
ClickUp include automations which works off actions, triggers and conditions. They can do things such as changing the tasks status, assignee etc.
It’s possible to set automations at a specific level – e.g. a space, so one automation can apply to all tasks in that space.
Integrations
ClickUp integrates with a number of 3rd party tools and systems, such as Slack, GitHub, Harvest, Google Drive, Outlook and more.
Collaboration
For team collaboration, ClickUp offers a number of ways to work. This includes ‘watching’ tasks, commenting on tasks (including threaded replies) and the ability to send emails from tasks. It also includes built-in whiteboarding and chat functionality.
Documentation
ClickUp includes a built-in documentation system ‘Docs’. This is an alternative to options such as OneNote.
Reports
For reporting, ClickUp offers views (which you can customise) as well as dashboards with a large number of widgets available. Dashboards can be used to summarise project status, time reporting and more.
Cost
Clickup has a free version and four paid plans – these start from $5 (~ £4.70) / user / month. There are no minimum number of users for paid plans.
‘Free’ Plan
The free plan is completely free, but does have some limitations – it’s limited to 5 spaces, 100 lists per space and several other features are limited to 100 uses.
‘Unlimited’ Plan
The unlimited plan costs $5 (~ £4.70) / user / month and is unlimited for most features.
‘Business’ Plan
The business plan costs $12 (£11.20) / user / month. This plan removes the limits and has almost every features available.
‘Business Plus’ Plan
The business plus plan costs $19 (~ £17.80) / user / month. It enables team sharing and has an higher automation limit.
‘Enterprise’ Plan
The enterprise is the top plan and has bespoke pricing – you need to get a custom quote. It has all features, high limits, along with corporate security features such as Microsoft single sign on.
Teamwork
Teamwork use ‘Run your client work in the only platform that’s actually built for it.’ to describe their software.
From this strapline you can quickly conclude that Teamwork is a focused platform on helping companies to manage client work.
Features
Project & Task Management
In Teamwork, tasks are the lowest level item. Tasks are easy to make and as with ClickUp you can add custom fields. It is possible to have sub-tasks.
Tasks live in task lists, task lists live in projects and projects belong to a portfolio.
Automations
Teamwork include automations, which work on event or time-based triggers. They can do things such as changing the tasks status, priority etc. Compared to ClickUp, the automations are less powerful.
Integrations
Teamwork has strong integration with its sister products – Teamwork Spaces (for documentation), Teamwork Desk (for helpdesk), Teamwork CRM (for sales CRM) and Teamwork Chat (for team chat).
Teamwork also integrates with a number of 3rd party tools and systems, such as Slack, Harvest, Google Drive, Outlook and more.
Collaboration
For team collaboration, Teamwork functionality includes messages and followers.
Documentation
Teamwork doesn’t include documentation functionality built in, but it does have strong integration with the sister product Teamwork Spaces.
Reports
For reporting, Teamworks offers customisable filters, as well as dashboards with a number of widgets available. It also supports project level status updates and health indicators.
Cost
Teamwork has a free version and three paid plans – these start from £9.99 / user / month. Paid plans have a minimum of 5 users.
‘Free Forever’ Plan
The free plan is free, but has a limit of 2 projects and 5 users. It also has some functionality disabled – such as billing, agile and most of the integrations.
‘Deliver’ Plan
The deliver plan costs £9.99 / user / month and allows for 300 projects and most features are enabled.
‘Grow’ Plan
The grow plan is £17.99 / user / month and allows for 600 projects and has all features enabled.
‘Scale’ Plan
The scale plan is the top package and has custom pricing – you need to request a quote. It has an unlimited number of projects, all features and other limits (such as number of automations) are much higher.
Teamwork Limitations
After trialling Teamwork for around 2 months, the main limitations I found were:
- Lack of customisation / complex automations – For my needs this was limiting and something I wasn’t happy with.
- Although Teamwork supports billing / invoicing (which is a benefit over ClickUp), it wasn’t flexible enough for my needs and the different types of invoices I wish to generate.
- To have 2FA (two-factor authentication) you have to have the ‘Grow’ or ‘Scale’ plan. 2FA is highly recommended for login security and most businesses would consider it essential. So this really forces most businesses to select ‘Grow’.
ClickUp Limitations
After using ClickUp for over 1 year now, the main things that I find limiting are:
- Time logging – No ability to time log on behalf of other users. For example employees or freelancers. Once they have logged it, you can edit it. But you can’t add a time log on behalf of another user.
- Notifications and ‘auto watching’ – As default you get LOTS of notification which his overwhelming – part of the cause is that you get automatically added as a watcher on tasks.
- Resource scheduling (particularly capacity planning) is not quite as smart as it could be.
Pricing – ClickUp vs Teamwork
For my agency (and I feel for most agencies and companies), the ‘Business’ version of ClickUp is sufficient for most needs and the ‘Grow’ version of Teamwork is needed.
For small teams of less than 5 people Teamwork can work out quite expensive due to its minimum of 5 users. See table below for how the monthly cost of ClickUp and Teamwork compare for various size teams:
| Users | ClickUp ‘Business’ | Teamwork ‘Grow’ |
| 2 | £22 / month | £90 / month |
| 5 | £56 / month | £90 / month |
| 10 | £112 / month | £180 / month |
| 20 | £224 / month | £360 / month |
| 50 | £560 / month | £900 / month |
As you can see from the above table, Teamwork ‘Grow’ is significantly more expensive and almost double the cost of ClickUp ‘Business’. And for teams under 5 people, it’s very expensive per user.
My Conclusion
After extensive research and trials, I took the decision that ClickUp was the best project management tool for my digital agency. In fact due to its customisation functionality, it’s actually being used for quite a lot more than just pure project management.
However, depending on your needs and situation the right tool for you and your business may differ.
I’d suggest:
Teamwork – If you want a solid tool for project management, want to get running quickly and don’t want to customise the platform much.
ClickUp – If you want a very flexible platform that can be used for project management and other purposes and you don’t mind spending a fair amount of time setting it up and configuring it to your exact needs.
The best thing to do (like I did) is to extensively try each tool. Select the right version, add some test projects and also get your team involved. Really think about what you like and don’t like and evaluate which is the best.
