Top 10 Project Management Software for Small Businesses in 2021

The best project management tools to save your time and money

Project management software helps small business teams to effortlessly plan their work, organize tasks and grow productivity. Every year, tons of new products and apps for project management are launched to address the companies’ needs around the globe. Some of them are really impressive — a user-friendly interface, top-notch features, modern solutions and multiple integrations with other platforms. Others cease to exist just a couple of months after their release.

In this post, I’ve gathered 10 best project management apps for small businesses in 2021. But wait, what makes a project management app outstanding? First, it should provide different and versatile tools for project management — Kanban, Gantt, to-do lists, resource planning, time tracking, etc. Secondly, it should be easy to get started with the app without any technical assistance. Thirdly, it should include a cloud-based version for easy access wherever you are. Last but not least, the pricing should be affordable for small teams.

So, give a warm welcome to the top 10 project management tools for the small teams:

Flowlu

Flowlu is a full-featured business management solution for small and medium-sized teams in all kinds of industries where you need to manage projects and tasks, sales and cash flow, and have efficient team communication. Flowlu managed to combine all the tools to handle your business in a very balanced way, without a cluttered interface or redundant features. It takes just five minutes to configure and navigate the platform and start your work. Flowlu is packed with tons of powerful tools to increase team’s productivity and complete projects quickly. It is a highly customizable and affordable solution for those who want to replace multiple apps with one.

Pros

• Versatile platform with simple UI
• Project workflows to create predefined project structure
• Project expense and revenue management, cash flow forecasting
• Agile project management tools: backlog, Kanban, Burndown Chart
• CRM automation to eliminate repetitive actions
• Internal and external knowledge base
• Email integration and team chat
• Built-in mind maps

Cons

• Reports can use improvements
• No email marketing tools
• Users may find it difficult to locate archived projects

Flowlu pricing starts at $29.00 per month for a team of 8 (billed annually). There is a free version and a free 14-day trial.

Freedcamp

Freedcamp is a user-friendly and easy-to-navigate online project management software tailored for small and mid-sized teams in Digital Media, Marketing, Web Agencies, Consulting, Freelancers. Freedcamp comes with features to manage tasks and calendar, track time and issue invoices. Tasks can be organized into a standard to-do list or Kanban board. Freedcamp offers everything you need to complete the work — files, project discussions, invoicing, CRM, etc. It is a great tool if you’re just getting started with managing your projects online.

Pros

• Intuitive interface
• Time tracking and billing
• Calendar with tasks, milestones and events
• Customizable dashboard
• Private or public Wikis with a shared URL

Cons

• No project budgeting
• Wikis, invoices and CRM are available only at Business and Enterprise plans
• No workflow automation

Freedcamp pricing starts at $1.49 user/month (billed annually). There is a free version and a free 14-day trial.

Quire

Quire is a very minimalistic project management software that allows teams to easily manage tasks in a tree structure. Quire offers a very intuitive design and handy tutorials which helps you reduce time figuring out how things work. It is a good and elegant alternative to Trello for tracking tasks using a clever Kanban board. With Quire, it is super easy to turn your ideas and thoughts into tasks at just a few clicks.

Pros

• Zapier, Slack, Google Calendar integration
• Recurring tasks
• Kanban board is very responsive
• Dark and light themes

Cons

• Too basic features for project delivery
• Time tracking is unavailable

Quire is 100% free.

Ora

Ora is an all-in-one productivity software for freelancers and agile teams of all sizes. Ora’s tools are aimed at helping teams to focus on the tasks that matter most and get more things done. It contains powerful features for task management and collaboration as well as reports on projects and team productivity. Ora makes it incredibly easy to organize projects and keep team members on track using such tools as agenda and sprints.

Pros

• Minimalistic design (in a good way)
• Time tracking
• Subtasks and tasks relationships
• Markdown support
• Agenda view to get all your tasks from different projects in one place
• Git and Slack Integration

Cons

• No IOS mobile app IOS yet
• No invoicing or budget planning
• Limited CRM options
• Email integration is unavailable

Ora pricing starts at $4.33 user/month (billed annually). There is a free version and a free 30-day trial.

GoodDay

GoodDay is a team management platform for strategic planning. You can organize and track project delivery, monitor progress towards KPIs, outcomes and achievements. GoodDay offers various powerful visual tools for project, task and resource management. GoodDay is a go-to choice for startup companies in any industry that look for a more complex platform with different customization features.

Pros

• Many different task views to fit any workflow (table, board, chart, calendar)
• Built-in chat for team collaboration
• A huge collection of project templates for IT, design, business, HR, sales, marketing and more
• Slack, G Suite, Drive, Dropbox integrations
• Budget and integrated expense tracking
• Advanced analytics and project reports

Cons

• Limited CRM options
• Invoicing is not available
• No payment gateway integration

GoodDay pricing starts at $4.00 user/month. There is a free version.

Teamwork

Teamwork allows you to track your team’s progress, and deliver multiple complex projects on time from one central place. It is customizable and provides both essential and advanced project management features such as workload management and time tracking. With Teamwork’s handy dashboards, you can always get a clear picture on the project health. Utilizing Teamwork, you can get full visibility into how your business is doing and who’s working on what, and identify potential bottlenecks.

Pros

• Subtasks and dependencies
• Time tracking
• Project management templates
• Invoicing
• Multiple integrations including Xero, Quickbooks, Dropbox, Slack

Cons

• No project budgeting or expense tracking
• Sales automation is not available
• Online invoice payment is not integrated

Teamwork pricing starts at $10 user/month (billed annually). There is a free version and a free 30-day trial.

Favro

Favro is a flexible planning and collaboration app. It is an ideal tool for agile teams to grow collaborative culture. You can manage multiple boards from a single workspace and keep track of progress towards company objectives. Favro lets different departments within your company work in different ways and visualize data the way they want. Users can also personalize the look of the boards with custom image backgrounds.

Pros

• Workflow automation
• Integrated with Slack, Google Drive and Calendar, Jira, Dropbox, GitHub and more
• Supports SCRUM processes including estimations and burndown charts
• Custom fields to add extra details
• You can print boards and cards for meetings

Cons

• No invoicing
• No project forecasting
• No CRM options
• No time tracking or billable hours

Favro pricing starts at $10.2 user/month. There is a free version and a free 14-day trial.

Clubhouse

Clubhouse is a simple project management platform for software engineering teams. It supports markdown, provides keyboard shortcuts, advanced integration with GitHub, and refined API. Clubhouse is fast to load and incredibly easy to set up. The app makes it easy for companies to visualize progress and keep everyone on the same page. It is a great alternative to fairly complicated and expensive Jira for small or medium-sized IT teams.

Pros

• Robust API that can allow a dev team to write their own integration
• Kanban board to visualize project’s progress
• A rich set of views to visualize and track progress: Velocity, Burndown Charts, Cumulative Flow Diagram
• Workspaces for collaboration

Cons

• No project budgeting
• No built-in calendar
• Limited CRM options

Clubhouse pricing starts at $8.50 user/month. There is a free version and a free 14-day trial.

Avaza

Avaza is the neat cloud-based all-in-one platform for team collaboration on projects, resources, time tracking, invoicing. Avaza helps teams to complete projects on time and organize work with multiple views including Gantt, Kanban and list. You can set up custom project templates or use recurring tasks to automate your processes. Avaza allows you to craft estimates, track expenses and build invoices. It is not just a project management software, it helps you to create an integrated workflow.

Pros

• Project resource management
• Online timesheets
• 500+ integrations including Xero, Slack, Jira, Dropbox, Quickbooks
• Expense tracking and invoicing
• Powerful chat for flexible conversations
• Insightful business reports

Cons

• Limited CRM options
• Built-in Wiki is not available
• No custom fields

Avaza pricing starts at $9.95. There is a free version and a free 14-day trial.

Paymo

Paymo is a work management solution for small businesses and remote teams. It helps companies to simplify planning and tracking work for several clients and projects. Using Paymo, you can schedule and monitor your tasks in real-time, bill your clients and get paid directly from the invoice through a payment gateway. Users can easily customize the reports and share it with the customers to keep them up to date with your team’s progress.

Pros

• Time tracking and timesheets
• Recurring invoices
• Multi-language and multi-currency for invoices and estimates
• Customizable report builder
• Expense tracking
• Slack, GSuite, Xero and Quckbooks integrations

Cons

• Client or sales management is not available
• No cash flow forecasting
• No built-in email integration

Paymo pricing starts at $9.95. There is a free version and a free 15-day trial.