| #↕ | Tool↕ | Price per user↕ | Pricing 40%↕ | Features 30%↕ | Terms 20%↕ | Support 10%↕ | Score↕ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Asana | $10.99 | 8.2 | 9.1 | 8.4 | 9.0 | 8.7 |
| 2 | ClickUp | $7.00 | 9.3 | 8.8 | 7.9 | 6.5 | 8.4 |
| 3 | Notion | $10.00 | 8.4 | 8.2 | 8.1 | 6.0 | 8.0 |
| 4 | Trello | $5.00 | 9.5 | 6.9 | 8.6 | 5.5 | 7.6 |
| 5 | Monday | $9.00 | 7.9 | 7.8 | 6.4 | 6.8 | 7.4 |
Per-seat pricing makes project management software look cheaper than it is. A tool at seven dollars a seat that forces an upgrade for timelines costs more over a year than one at eleven dollars that includes them. So we scored the entry paid tier of each tool as a ten-person team would meet it, counted only the features listed on a public pricing or documentation page, and held back points where the plan hides something a team of that size will need in month two.
Five tools cleared the bar for this cycle. Each publishes per-seat pricing, each offers a plan under fifteen dollars, and each was re-checked against its live pricing page in the first week of November 2026.
1. Asana, 8.7
Asana wins because its cheapest paid plan is the one that stays usable. Timelines, custom fields, task dependencies and unlimited dashboards all sit on the entry tier rather than behind the next upgrade, which is where most of this field puts them. For a ten-person team the annual bill comes to about $1,319, roughly $500 more than ClickUp, and the gap buys features the others charge twice for.
It loses ground on pricing weight alone. At $10.99 a seat it is the second most expensive tool here, and the jump to the tier above is steep enough that teams needing portfolio reporting should price that tier before committing. Support scored 9.0 because a real ticket queue is included at the entry price rather than sold as a service add-on.
- Best for: teams of eight to thirty running several projects at once.
- Watch for: goals and portfolio views sit two tiers up.
2. ClickUp, 8.4
ClickUp takes the pricing criterion outright at seven dollars a seat and bundles more into that figure than anyone else: Gantt charts, custom fields, forms, time tracking and integrations all land on the first paid plan. On raw feature count per dollar nothing in this list touches it.
Two things keep it off the top spot. Support on the entry tier is chat-based with no published response window, which is why it scores 6.5 there. And the terms score of 7.9 reflects a storage and automation ceiling that is easy to hit: the entry plan caps monthly automations, and heavy teams meet that ceiling faster than they expect. Price the next tier up before you standardise on it.
- Best for: cost-sensitive teams willing to configure the tool themselves.
- Watch for: automation caps on the entry plan.
3. Notion, 8.0
Notion is scored here as a project management tool rather than as a document workspace, and that framing costs it. Boards, timelines and database views are all present on the paid plan, and teams that already keep documentation in Notion get the rare benefit of one tool holding both the plan and the reasoning behind it.
What it does not give you is opinionated project structure. Dependencies, workload views and recurring task logic have to be assembled rather than switched on, and that build cost falls on whoever owns the workspace. Support scored 6.0: the entry plan routes to email with no published target.
- Best for: teams whose documentation already lives in Notion.
- Watch for: setup time measured in days, not hours.
4. Trello, 7.6
Trello is the cheapest tool in the field and scores 9.5 on pricing for it. A ten-person team pays about $600 a year, less than half of Asana. Its terms score is strong too, since the paid plan is month to month with no minimum seat count.
The features score of 6.9 is the honest cost of that price. Timeline and calendar views arrive one tier up, reporting is thin, and dependency tracking is a Power-Up rather than a built-in. For a team running a handful of simple boards that is a fair trade. For anything with cross-project scheduling it is not.
- Best for: small teams running simple, parallel boards.
- Watch for: views and reporting that sit behind the next tier.
5. Monday, 7.4
Monday finishes last mostly on terms, where it scores 6.4. Seats are sold in blocks with a three-seat minimum, so a team of eleven buys twelve, and the entry paid tier withholds timeline view, the feature most teams arrive wanting. The published nine dollar rate is therefore not the rate most teams end up paying.
The product itself is capable and the board interface is the most approachable in this group for non-technical staff. Teams that will use the next tier up should price it directly, since that is where Monday becomes competitive again.
- Best for: mixed teams that need a visual board more than reporting.
- Watch for: seat blocks and a timeline view priced one tier up.
The verdict
Pick Asana if the team is above eight people and runs more than three projects at once. The extra four dollars a seat over ClickUp buys dependencies, timelines and a support queue you will eventually need, and it buys them on the plan you are already paying for.
Pick ClickUp if budget is the binding constraint and someone on the team enjoys configuration. Pick Trello if the work is genuinely simple and you want the bill to stay under $600 a year. Notion earns its place only when documentation already lives there. Monday needs its second tier to be worth the money, so price that tier rather than the advertised one.
Two tools were excluded this cycle. Basecamp publishes a flat rate that cannot be compared on a per-seat basis, and Jira's pricing calculator does not return a figure for teams under eleven users. Neither exclusion reflects product quality. Read the exclusion rules.
How we scored this list
Pricing carries 40 percent and is measured at a ten-person team on annual billing. Features carry 30 percent and count only what a public page confirms. Terms carry 20 percent and cover seat minimums, contract length and what the entry tier withholds. Support carries 10 percent and asks what access is included at the price quoted, not what can be bought on top. The full rubric, including what disqualifies a product, is on the methodology page.
November 2026. Monday moved from fourth to fifth after its three-seat minimum was confirmed on the pricing page. Scores otherwise unchanged.
October 2026. ClickUp's entry price re-checked at $7.00 on annual billing, no change.
September 2026. List first published with five entries.