Written by Zara Chechi Reviewed by James Macey Updated on January 11, 2023 On this page monday.com ClickUp Wrike Teamwork Jira Zoho Projects Asana Is Free Project Management Software Enough for You? How Did We Choose the 7 Best Free Project Management Tools? Verdict FAQs Expand Our site is reader-supported – by clicking our links, we can match you with a potential supplier, and we may earn a small commission for this referral. As far as free project management platforms go, our favourite is monday.com. It’s the most user-friendly platform on our list, and it scores very well when it comes to customer reviews. The features and limits included on the free tier should more than suffice for a small team looking to run a project or two.However, it’s not a landslide victory! ClickUp and Wrike both fair quite well, as do the other four contenders on our list. Read on to see how the top project management platforms approach their free plans, and which will work best for you and your team. In A Hurry To Find The Best Project Management Software? Save time by using our comparison chart See Comparison Chart Swipe right to see more 0 out of 0 backward forward monday.com ClickUp Wrike Teamwork Zoho Projects Jira Software Asana Lowest price $9/user Lowest price $5 per user per month Lowest price $9.80 per user, per month Lowest price $5.99 per user per month Lowest price $4 p/a Lowest price $7.75 per user, per month Lowest price $10.99 p/a Key features on free plan Most of monday’s paid tiers’ collaboration featuresOver 200 templates for projects and itemsAccessible and usable iOS and Android apps Key features on free plan Unlimited tasks, users, and custom viewsGreat customer serviceGenerous customisation options (including 100 monthly automations) Key features on free plan Unlimited users2GB of storageAccount-wide work schedules Key features on free plan Milestones and dependenciesGantt chartsPhone, live chat, and email support Key features on free plan Integration with other Zoho productsA Gantt chart (read only)Mobile app (iOS and Android) Key features on free plan Apps and integrationsAutomations (for a single project)Agile reporting Key features on free plan Unlimited users, projects, and tasks100+ integrationsUnlimited file storage Free Plan Free Plan Free Plan Free Plan Free Plan Free Plan Free Plan Try monday.com Try ClickUp Try Wrike Try Teamwork Try ZohoProjects Compare Compare monday.com monday.com 4.6 Try monday.com Quick overview If you ask us, the best free tier for a project management platform is offered by monday.com. With five users, three boards, unlimited documents, and 500MB of storage, it's a great tier for a smaller team looking to save on costs.This tier also allows access to monday's 200+ templates and 20 column types, and is supported by their iOS and Android apps. It also supports most of monday's collaboration features, including embedded documents, whiteboard collaboration, and a live updates section.As far as security goes, monday.com provides SOC 2 Type II compliance, as well as two-factor authentication, so your account and projects will be will defended from prying eyes.The one place where monday.com falls short, both in their free plan and all their paid plans, is their customer support. They don't offer any kind of live response, whether that's a phone call or live chat, so, if you have an urgent problem, it can be a bit frustrating to have to wait on a response. Read more + Read less - What Are monday.com’s Free Project Management Key Features?The key draws for monday.com’s free plan are:Most of monday’s paid tiers’ collaboration features (embedded documents and whiteboard collaboration)Over 200 templates for projects and itemsAccessible and usable iOS and Android appsIs monday.com’s Free Plan Enough for You?For a smaller team, monday.com’s free plan should be a great starting point, but may not be a suitable plan for a long-term investment. Five team members is pretty standard for a small project team, and having unlimited docs on three boards is pretty generous from a free plan. monday’s usability – its best offering – is a constant across all of its tiers, even the free one.How Does monday.com’s Free Plan Compare to Its Competitors?In our research, we find that monday is the most usable platform of every provider on this list, scoring a 4.1/5 in usability. Wrike and ClickUp are both close behind (each scoring a 4/5), but monday’s interface is just too clean to give it anything other than first place.This may also be why monday.com scores the highest when it comes to customer sentiment, raking in 4.5/5 points, trumping ClickUp’s 4.3 points. Whether it’s the free plan, or a paid plan, monday is overall the best choice. ClickUp ClickUp Try ClickUp Quick overview ClickUp's free plan's highest accolade is there are no task limits, and no member limits. This means almost any team could run almost any project on ClickUp, as long as they stay within the other limits.There are some great unique features too. Native time tracking lets users see how long certain steps took, and sprint management allows specific project management methods to be used. There's also two-factor authentication, Kanban views, and the ability to collaborate on documents.The only real hiccup with ClickUp is its minuscule file limit, capping out at 100MB. Our researchers give ClickUp a 4/5 for usability, compared with monday.com, which scores 4.1/5. This trend is reflected in the customer score too, with monday getting 4.5/5, while ClickUp pulled in a 4.3. All very respectable scores, however! Read more + Read less - What Are ClickUp’s Free Project Management Key Features?The key draws for ClickUp’s free plan are:Unlimited tasks, users, and custom viewsGreat customer serviceGenerous customization options (including 100 monthly automations)Is ClickUp’s Free Plan Enough for You?With unlimited users, and particularly generous offering of unlimited tasks, this is a great choice for any team size and any project size. The storage limit of 100MB is a bit low, but it’s not uncommon in free plans. If this sounds like it would facilitate what you’re looking to do and would suit your team well, then there’s no other hidden problems here.How Does ClickUp’s Free Plan Compare to Its Competitors?While ClickUp follows close behind monday.com in almost every way, it does outperform monday when it comes to customer support – it’s weakest feature. However, in features overall, like tools and customisation, monday comes out on top, which is where the points really matter.ClickUp definitely fares better than every other competitor though, being far more usable than Jira and Zoho, and has more features than Teamwork. Wrike Wrike Try Wrike Quick overview Wrike's free plan is very generous. They allow unlimited users, and offer 2GB of file storage. You'll be able to access Wrike through their web, desktop, and mobile apps, and will be able to view your projects as boards or tables.Projects can be broken down into tasks, subtasks, and you can even implement folder hierarchies and account-wide schedules – two things you can't do on the lowest paid tier. There's even AI recommended tasks, a feature which learns your common actions and tasks and recommends them later on, which is a huge time saver.The only section where Wrike really drops the ball is in its customer support, scoring a 1.8/5. There isn't much help on offer for anyone struggling with the product. To be fair, Wrike still scores a 4/5 for usability, and a 4.1/5 customer score, so it's possible you won't need much help. Still, it's important to have should you need it. Read more + Read less - What Are Wrike’s Free Project Management Key Features?The key draws for Wrike’s free plan are:Unlimited users2GB of storageAccount-wide work schedulesIs Wrike’s Free Plan Enough for You?Strangely enough, Wrike’s free plan is a better deal than its lowest paid plan (the Team plan). For example, both offer 2GB of storage but, where the free plan offers unlimited users, the Team plan only allows up to 25 users. So, to answer the question, yes, Wrike’s free plan will likely be enough for a team that isn’t looking to supercharge their subscription with loads of features.How Does Wrike’s Free Plan Compare to Its Competitors?Wrike comes in a close third, right behind ClickUp and monday.com. Honestly, as far as features and limits go, it might trump them both, but its scores in both customer support and satisfaction are too low to ignore. Wrike’s customer support score is a 1.8/5, which is one of the lowest of any project management software on this list. While its customer satisfaction score is a respectable 4.1/5, it can’t outpace ClickUp or monday.com’s scores of 4.3/5 and 4.5/5, respectively. Teamwork Teamwork Quick overview Allowing up to five users and two projects, and with a storage limit of 100MB, Teamwork is a pretty standard free plan at first glance. However, it includes some features that are worth noting that might make Teamwork worth a glance.It allows for a fully functional Gantt chart, which is rare on free plans, and a calendar view. There's even a limited Kanban board. You can also set milestones, dependencies, project-specific subtasks, and create sub-teams. It even has time tracking – and this is all on the free plan!So, where does it fall short? Nowhere specific (although the limits are pretty tight), but it also doesn't shine in many aspects either. Outside of its features, it only scores 3.9 in usability, a 3.8 in customer support, and a 4.1 in customer satisfaction. These are all fine scores, but aren't enough to push it to the next level.Also, it's worth noting that this is the only free plan on this list that does not include two-factor authentication, so, if that's a deal-breaker, look elsewhere! Read more + Read less - What Are Teamwork’s Free Project Management Key Features?The key draws for Teamwork’s free plan are:Milestones and dependenciesGantt chartsPhone, live chat, and email supportIs Teamwork’s Free Plan Enough for You?As far as limits go, Teamwork is quite restrictive. However, there are some features that your team might absolutely need, like dependencies. If this is the case, and you’re not willing to shell out for a paid tier of another product, then Teamwork is really your only choice!How Does Teamwork’s Free Plan Compare to Its Competitors?Teamwork is the definition of ‘middle of the pack’. Its usability score (3.9/5) is better than Jira’s (3.5/5), but not as good as ClickUp’s (4/5) or monday’s (4.1/5). Its customer service score (3.8/5) is better than monday’s (2.8/5), but not as good as Jira’s (4/5). Basically, it’s not taking home any gold medals, but it’s not bad by any stretch of the imagination. Jira Jira Quick overview Jira's free plan isn't anything astonishing. It makes allowance for 10 users, a single project, and 2GB of file storage. The main appeal is the fact that you can use agile reporting on Jira's free plan, which is a very popular method of project management. You can also customize your workflows and set up automations on a single project.Much like Zoho, the main appeal for Jira may be the fact that Jira themselves are responsible for making a load of other business software, which can be cross-integrated into each other to make your business/team run smoothly.As far as its downfalls, Jira could use a few more features, both in its free plan and just overall. It only scores a 3.3/5 when it comes to features, which is below average, and the lowest on this list. Its usability and customer satisfaction scores (3.5/5 and 3.6/5, respectively) also leave room for improvement. Read more + Read less - What Are Jira’s Free Project Management Key Features?The key draws for Jira’s free plan are:Apps and integrationsAutomations (for a single project)Agile reportingIs Jira’s Free Plan Enough for You?With a member limit of 10, Jira’s free plan will likely be able to accommodate any small team or business. You can only run a single project at a time, and there’s actually no accessible data on how many tasks you can have but, if you’re only tackling one project at a time, it probably won’t be too small.How Does Jira’s Free Plan Compare to Its Competitors?Jira falls short when comparing it to competitors. Its feature score is particularly low (3.3/5), and its usability isn’t much better (3.5/5). Its one glowing spot is its customer service score (4/5), which beats monday.com, ClickUp, Wrike, and every other platform on this list. Zoho Projects Zoho Projects Try Zoho Projects Quick overview Zoho has one of the most limited free plans. This plan only supports three users and two projects, which isn't much at all, and the file storage is only 10MB, which is pretty much nothing. Why, then, is it on our list of the seven best free tiers?Well, the name Zoho might sound familiar to someone even slightly tangential to the business software world. Zoho is the supplier of all sorts of business software, like invoice software and CRM software, all of which can be integrated with each other to keep your business all in one system. The free plan only accommodates Zoho CRM, Meeting, Sprints, and Zapier, so you'll need to upgrade to fully cross-integrate, but it's very useful for businesses already on the Zoho train.Zoho, however, is another platform on this list which falls short due to their lack of customer service functions, scoring a subpar 1.8/5 in that section. If something is confusing or broken due to this usability deficit, a poor customer service system is not going to be of much help. It also gets a 3.4/5 for usability, which is respectable, but not perfect. Read more + Read less - What Are Zoho’s Free Project Management Key Features?The key draws for Zoho Projects’ free plan are:Integration with other Zoho productsA Gantt chart (read only)Mobile app (iOS and Android)Is Zoho’s Free Plan Enough for You?You’d need a very small team for Zoho Projects’ free plan to be worth an extended period of your time. With only three team members and two projects, it’s the smallest plan on our list, and acts more like an extended trial than a full-on plan. However, if your team is used to using Zoho products, then it’s a great call because it’ll all seem familiar, and possibly support your integrations.How Does Zoho’s Free Plan Compare to Its Competitors?There are two categories where Zoho Projects trumps its opponents. One of them is price: it scores a lovely 4.7/5 when it comes to price, which is the highest of any providers we looked at (its first paid plan is only $4 per user, per month).We normally wouldn’t factor that in on a page about free plans, but when Zoho’s free plan feels so much like a trial for a paid plan, it’s worth mentioning. The other good point is its customer score – 4.2/5. This comes in second only to monday.com and ClickUp. Asana Asana Quick overview Offering a very generous 15 seats, unlimited projects, tasks, messages, and file storage (up to 100MB per file), Asana's free plan is the best when it comes to sheer volume and access to features.As far as features go, it offers a calendar view, and you can view your projects in either a list or a board. You can assign tasks to individuals, and create project overviews and briefs. It also boasts 100+ integrations, all of which can indeed be used on the free plan. So it's no surprise that our research team scores its features a solid 4/5.So what's the catch? Well, their customer support score is a fairly low 2.8/5, as it only offers email support which can be frustrating for time-sensitive issues. Their other scores are all decent, but not enough to push them over our frontrunners. With a usability score of 3.9/5, it comes in just under Wrike, monday.com, and ClickUp, and its customer satisfaction score of 3.9/5 leaves a bit of room for improvement. Still, the access to features might make this all worth it for you! Read more + Read less - What Are Asana’s Free Project Management Key Features?The key draws for Asana’s free plan are:Unlimited users, projects, and tasks100+ integrationsUnlimited file storageIs Asana’s Free Plan Enough for You?There’s really no world where the answer to this question is ‘no’, at least when it comes to limits and the capacity for a large team or business. The fact that there’s no limit on projects, tasks, team members, or storage, means that the only reason this might not be enough for you is due to missing a specific feature you’d need.How Does Asana’s Free Plan Compare to Its Competitors?If Asana put just a bit more into their interface and features, they’d be one of the all-time greats. For example, Asana is just slightly less easy to use than monday, Wrike, and ClickUp, and their customer satisfaction score follows that same trend. Their customer support score is low, but monday and Wrike are also pretty poor at customer service, so if Asana put some investment into that, they’d be able to overtake some of the project management titans. Is Free Project Management Software Enough for You?The answer to this question all depends on what you need from the project management software. Firstly, as you may have noticed, almost all of these free plans have very tight limits when it comes to members, so the main thing you’ll need to ensure is that your team isn’t too big, or will outgrow a free plan. Sole traders, startups, and very small businesses may find that a free plan fits them quite nicely.The good news is, even if the answer to this question is ‘no’, project management software is usually extremely affordable. The cost for the lowest paid plan from any provider will typically be in the single digits per user, per month, so, if you need to boost your software’s power, it won’t break the bank. How Did We Choose the 7 Best Free Project Management Tools?Our team of independent researchers scoured the industry, looking for every project management software platform that included a free plan (not just a free trial). After finding all of the platforms with free plans, as well as what those plans include, the researchers then compare each software against its competitors, allowing us to find the cream of the crop. The criteria we look at includes:Features: Fairly easy to assess. Whichever platforms offer the best variety of features are given a better placement than those that have a minimal collection of tools.Usability: Our researchers have a collection of tasks they need to accomplish. The ease and time through which they can accomplish these tasks is tallied up to see which platform is the most usable.Customer Support: Again, easy enough – look at the options available and see how monday.com compares against its competitors when it comes to customer support options.Customer Score: After looking across various review aggregate sites (eg. Trustpilot), our researchers compile a general customer score, summarizing the overall satisfaction of the public.After factoring in all of this information, alongside the scores they received, we calculate a final overall score for each project management platform’s free plan. Verdict Our favourite project management platform’s free tier is monday.com, but it’s only by a hair! Their usability and customer satisfaction is too high to ignore, and the amount of features and limits you get on the free plan are pretty much exactly what you’d need on a project management free plan.While our favourite is indeed monday.com, we also highly praise ClickUp and Wrike, and you can try them all with absolutely zero commitment (some platforms may ask for card information, but they will not charge you if you’re only on the free plan). FAQs Is there a free version of monday.com? Yes, there is. monday.com’s free plan is a great way to introduce yourself, or your team, to project management. And, if your team is particularly small, it might just be enough to sustain your project all the way to the end. What is the best project management free tier? It’s a good idea to experiment with all of the free plans at your disposal (which is easy, since there’s no financial investment). If you’re in a rush, our favourite free plans are monday.com, Wrike, and ClickUp. What is the best project management platform? While every project management platform has its pros and cons, in our research, we found that ClickUp is the absolute best platform on the market. Its usability, affordability, and customer satisfaction are particularly high. Written by: Zara Chechi Business Services Expert Zara is a Payments Expert, specialising in writing about Point of Sale systems. With a Law Degree from City University of London, she has used her legally-honed research and analytical skills to develop expertise in the Business Services world. Featured in FinTech Magazine, she quickly became an expert in payroll, POS systems, and merchant accounts. Reviewed by: James Macey Senior Business Software Researcher James thinks all businesses can improve if they use the right technology. At Expert Market, he utilises his 4+ years experience as a researcher to offer specialised advice on a wide range of categories from CRM to Fleet Management.