Project management software for individuals can help you with everything from managing your daily to-do list to overseeing a home renovation. In this software guide, we’ve rounded up seven of the best project management software for individuals. We compare their pricing, features and more to help you decide which project management software for individuals is the best for your needs.
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Besides affordable pricing, you want to make sure that your project management software for individuals has certain key features. Here are some of the features to look out for when comparing project management software for individuals.
| Multiple view types | Templates | Document management | Forever free plan | Pricing | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monday work management | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | $8 per user per month |
| Smartsheet | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | $7 per user per month |
| ClickUp | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | $7 per user per month |
| Wrike | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | $9.80 per user per month |
| Asana | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | $10.99 per user per month |
| Trello | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | $5 per user per month |
| Notion | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | $8 per user per month |
monday work management is one of the most fully featured project management solutions available. It definitely presents a learning curve, but it also offers a large number of features and customizations that make it suitable for almost any type of project or occasion. If you need a solution that can be used to manage complex projects, not only for simple task management, then monday is definitely worth a try.
For more information, read the full monday review.
If you’re currently trying to manage a personal project in spreadsheets and finding it a frustrating and tedious experience, Smartsheet is an excellent option. Its grid view is based on a classic spreadsheet, but it includes more project-specific functionality beyond what Excel can provide, including notifications and automation. Smartsheet also has document storage, so you can manage all assets related to the project in the same application.
For more information, read the full Smartsheet review.
If you’re looking for a project management software for individuals that can be tailored to your needs, consider ClickUp. Choose your own custom statuses, templates, privacy, workflows, tags and more to set up ClickUp exactly to your specifications. With paid plans starting at only $7, it’s also good value for the money.
For more information, read the full ClickUp review.
If you have multiple aspects of your life that you’re looking to manage at once, then consider Wrike. Wrike was designed for project portfolio management, a.k.a. managing multiple complex projects at once. There’s definitely a learning curve and it’s better suited to power users for that reason. But once you master it, you can take advantage of the powerful customizability and truly impressive number of features.
For more information, read the full Wrike review.
Many project management software cap the number of projects that you can have on the free plan. Asana bucks this trend by allowing unlimited projects, tasks, activity log, storage and comments on the free forever plan. It does cap free users at 15 people per workspace, but this won’t be an issue for people searching for project management software for individuals.
For more information, read the full Asana review.
While many project management platforms have tried to copy Trello’s Kanban boards, few have been able to match its intuitive drag-and-drop interface. The card-based Kanban view is ideal for visual people who struggle with more text-based software. If the Kanban view doesn’t work for a particular project, then you can also choose from board, timeline, table, calendar, dashboard, map and workspace views.
For more information, read the full Trello review.
Notion combines project and task management features with note taking, wiki creation and document management. This makes Notion a great solution if you’re tired of splitting these activities across most apps. Notion’s project management capabilities aren’t robust as some competitors, so it’s not the best choice if you’re managing very complex projects, but it’s more than enough for basic project and task management.
For more information, read the full Notion review.
Many people seek out project management software for individuals in order to help them manage their day-to-day to-do list. Task management features to watch out for include setting due dates, customizing workflows, creating dependencies and tracking time. Ideally, the dashboard should also show your immediately upcoming tasks so that you don’t have to go hunting for your to-do list.
Automations help to cut down on repetitive work, such as automatically setting up workflows when a new task is created or moving projects to a specific column when they’re assigned to a certain category. Each platform offers different levels of automations, and they may cap the number of uses on free or entry-level plans, so keep that in mind as you try to decide on project management for individuals.
Document creation and management can take many forms, from uploading a photo to a task to creating an entire knowledge base. Project management software offers different levels of document management, and they also have various storage cutoffs for free and entry-level plans, which you will want to note. These platforms also typically integrate with popular document storage solutions such as Google Docs and OneDrive.
Prebuilt templates mean that you don’t have to start from scratch every time you need to create a checklist or project plan. Most top project management software includes dozens or even hundreds of templates to choose from. They also offer the ability to customize the templates to your specific needs.
For certain projects, you might want to add view-only guests or active collaborators to specific boards and workspaces, which means that you need to be able to set permissions for each user. Some project management software limits the ability to add guests to paid plans only, which is something that you should consider, especially if you were hoping to find a free plan that works for your needs.
When choosing the best project management software for individuals, you can disregard some features, such as team collaboration. Instead, consider exactly what you need the software for and the complexity of the projects you’re managing. Some people will be fine with a simple task management solution for their daily to-do list, whereas others need a robust platform that can be used for complex projects such as a home renovation.
Pay special attention to what limits each software imposes on their free plan. Most pose some kind of constraints, whether that’s what project views you can use, the number of projects you can create or the size of the documents you can upload. If you’re hoping to find a forever free plan that suits your needs, identify your must-have features and prioritize platforms that don’t limit those features on their free plans.
If you aren’t on a budget and don’t mind paying for project management software for individuals, take advantage of free trials to test each of your top contenders. If you still aren’t totally committed after the trial period ends, you can sign up for a month-to-month subscription initially, so you aren’t locked into an annual contract in case you decide to switch later.
We reviewed these project management software for individuals based on a number of criteria, including pricing, ease of use, user interface design and the steepness of the learning curve. We also weighed additional features such as document management, automation, project views, templates, time tracking, and billing and invoicing. We evaluated these platforms by consulting user reviews and product documentation.
