Agency Project Management Software for 2022

Luckily, there is a multitude of excellent project management solutions to choose from today — whether you need software to guide the entire agency team or separate subdivisions of that team, there is a solution that will fit your needs. In addition, project management software can help you navigate your timeline in an agile manner. An agency that uses the most project management software for their needs will reap the benefits of added productivity, efficiency, communication, and success.

Top Project Management Tools for Agencies in 2022

Wading through the plethora of project management tools available can feel like a daunting task. We will look at several task management and project planning tools: Freework, Asana, Scoro, Trello, nTask, Workzone, Teamwork, Microsoft Project, Basecamp, and Hive. With each project management tool, we will provide a brief product description and list its key features and pricing options, so you can more easily make the best choice for your needs.

Freework

Freework is an all-in-one project management suite for agencies. It helps you with everything your business needs: from time tracking to invoicing. Best thing: It comes as a mobile and web app with several integrations such as a Chrome extension.

Key Features

Very intuitive time tracking and timesheet calibration.

A team and project planning tool to manage your ressources effectively.

Automated invoices to make timely payments and tax computation sheets to calculate exact tax amounts.

Smart all-knowing dashboards and reminders: Finances, team performance and projects - all available at a glance.

Safely store project and client information and access all the relevant info in seconds.

Powerful insights and reports that can be generated to your special needs

Pricing

Free for ever for individual users

Premium solutions by request

Asana

Asana is a web- and mobile-based work management platform. It is designed to help you and your teams organize, track, and manage workloads. It utilizes subtasks and real-time notifications to enhance team communication and keep everyone up-to-date with project updates.

Key Features

The Workflow Builder allows the project manager to create automated processes to coordinate teams across multiple projects with many users.

The Timeline builds a visual Gant chart to view progress and setbacks.

Boards allow teams to see and track work on Kanban boards.

The Calendar provides viewing of the team’s work and deadlines on a single shared calendar and gives project update notifications.

Asana utilizes App Integrations to use apps to further support your team with real-time interaction.

Pricing

The free version is available for teams of up to 15 members.

The Premium version is $10.99 per month and allows unlimited free guests.

The Business plan is $24.99 per month and offers additional features and integrations.

The Enterprise plan is also available, but the cost is unlisted; interested parties must contact Asana directly for pricing.

Scoro

Scoro is another excellent CRM tool. It’s a customizable “software-as-a-service” solution for professional and creative projects. It’s an all-in-one business management tool that combines project management with sales, billing, team management, and professional service automation. In addition, it can be used to store everything from invoices to templates.

Key Features

The customizable project management dashboards allow teams to tailor Scoro to their unique needs.

CRM capabilities — include unique customer details, including past communication, project history, quotes, files, and invoices.

Enables the automation of routine tasks, which speeds up team processes by quickly turning quotes into assigned projects and tasks.

Invoicing capabilities and the option to track costs with bills.

Pricing

The Free plan is available for teams of up to 9 people in size.

The Light plan is available for up to 20 people teams and is $1,699 per year.

The Premium plan is suitable for up to 50 people teams and costs $3,999 per year.

For details on the Custom plan, contact Scoro directly.

Trello

Trello is a web-based, customizable CRM tool that can handle invoices and templates. It’s a Kanban-style, list-making application. It allows teams to expand the utilized features as the teamwork grows. It will enable teams to manage projects, tasks, and camaraderie in one place. It offers task management and task lists in a visual interface.

Key Features

Trello features task management on a card-based board.

The tool enables users to create multiple task lists.

It allows users to organize lists by date or priority.

Trello features no-code automation to reduce the number of tedious tasks on your team’s project board.

The tool enables the team to connect its favorite apps into Trello workflow or add a Power-Up focused on fine-tuning specific needs — Trello has hundreds of Power-Ups available.

Pricing The Free plan allows up to 10 boards per Workspace, unlimited storage (10MB per file), and 250 workspace commands per month. The Standard plan is $5 per month and offers unlimited boards, unlimited storage (250MB per file), and 1,000 workspace commands per month. The Premium plan is $10 per month and offers everything in the Standard plan plus six new view styles and unlimited workspace commands per month. The Enterprise plan is $17.50 per month for up to 25 users — you can customize the price on the website for more users — and includes unlimited workspaces and extra features like organization-wide permissions.

nTask

nTask is a time tracking, task, and resource management tool that utilizes Gantt charts. It claims to be the only online project management software to provide every tool needed. It assists teams in streamlining time tracking and timesheets, pricing, and workspace notifications.

Key Features

nTask has excellent timesheet reporting and time tracking software to help your team stay on top of projects and better manage their time.

It offers administration approval process control to keep your team’s processes on target and focused.

Streamlined budget and resource management.

Team management to help keep your team in sync, wherever they may be.

Pricing The Basic plan is free for individuals. The Premium plan starts at $3 per user per month and is aimed at small to medium-sized businesses and can include up to 30 users. For more than 30 users, it is recommended to contact nTask directly. nTask offers a free 14-day trial of the Premium plan. The Business plan starts at $8 per user per month and is aimed at large businesses, and can include up to 50 users. For more than 50 users, it is recommended to contact nTask directly. nTask offers a free 14-day trial of the Business plan.

Workzone

The Workzone project management software claims to be more robust than entry-level tools like basecamp but less complicated than MS Project. It features to-do lists, subtasks, Gannt charts, task dependencies, and pricing options.

Key Features

Workzone offers personalized individual to-do lists.

It allows users to create subtasks and task dependencies.

Workzone utilizes Gantt charts so you can view your project schedules along a timeline.

Workzone also integrates secure document sharing across your teams.

Pricing

Workzone is aimed at teams of 5-500+, and each plan includes unlimited training and support.

For teams of one to four users, pricing starts at $200 per month.

For teams of five or more, the Team plan starts at $24 per user per month.

The Professional plan starts at $34 per user per month.

The Enterprise plan starts at $43 per user per month.

Learn more about Freework

Teamwork

Teamwork is a project management solution that claims to be a powerful, simple tool to use. It can manage multiple complex projects simultaneously. In addition, it offers time tracking, project templates, Kanban boards, Gantt charts, and digital agency control.

Key Features

Time tracking.

Agency project templates.

Gantt charts.

Banban boards.

Pricing

The Free Forever plan is free for up to five users.

The Deliver plan is $10 per user per month for a minimum of three users.

The recommended Grow plan is $18 per user per month for a minimum of five users.

The Scale plan pricing is upon request only.

Microsoft Project

Microsoft Project supports project templates, project timelines, resource management, and pricing. Key Features

Project scheduling and costing.

Reporting and business intelligence.

Built-in project templates.

Project timelines.

Pricing

Project Plan 1 starts at $10 per user per month (cloud-based solution).

Project Plan 3 starts at $30 per user per month(cloud-based solution).

Project Plan 5 starts at $55 per user per month(cloud-based solution).

Basecamp

Basecamp is a task management resource tool that utilizes checklists while streamlining project management.

Key Features

Message boards.

To-do lists.

Chat function for team member communication.

Automatic check-ins.

Pricing

Basecamp Personal is free for three projects and up to 20 users.

Basecamp Business is a flat $99 per month for unlimited users.

Hive

Hive integrates messaging, file sharing, proofing, and more in this intuitive project management tool.

Key Features

Group messaging.

File sharing.

Proofing and approvals.

Seamless integrations with Google Drive, Slack, and more.

Pricing

Hive Solo is free for small teams and individuals.

Hive Teams is $12 per user per month.

Hive Teams pricing is available upon request.

Photo by KOBU Agency on Unsplash

Key Features that a Project Management Software Should Have

When deciding on a project management system, there are certain key features that you should expect to receive, such as task management, resource management, time tracking, interactive reports, and team collaboration. These features are essential functions of decent project management software. For example, team members will be ill-equipped to track project progress in real-time without these.

Task Management

Task management allows your team to manage tasks and subtasks over their life cycle. It includes aspects of planning, tracking, testing, and reporting. It can be aimed at individual goals or team goals.

Resource Management

Resource management enables your team to plan, schedule, and allocate company resources such as people, money, and technology across various projects and programs. In addition, it allows you to track project progress and project status in one location.

Time Tracking

Time tracking allows businesses to track time and log the working hours of their employees using timesheets and billable hours. It can also show how time was allocated across various projects, and it can be benchmarked against your original estimates.

Interactive Reports

Interactive reports allow users to input various data and analyze it according to criteria, such as sorting. This feature enables the user to easily visualize the impact of potential changes. These forecasting features can be invaluable for teams looking to increase efficiency.

Team Collaboration

The team collaboration feature allows team members to work from anywhere on any device and remain in contact with the rest of their team in real-time to share files with this collaboration tool.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Criteria to Choose the Right Project Management Software For Your Agency

When it comes time to select the right project management software for your agency, there are several criteria that should receive consideration, such as pricing policy, integration, flexibility, and the scope of its project management tools. However, some criteria will be based on the type of projects your team handles. For example, a creative agency may have different requirements than a digital marketing agency. Consider the following criteria to ensure your agency selects project management software that meets the specific needs of your organization.

Pricing Policy

It’s important to find a tool that fits into your company’s budget and makes the team more profitable overall. It’s best to consider the price per user of each tool under consideration, as well as any adaptation costs that may come with it.

Integration

You will want to consider how easily the tool will integrate with and automate your other favorite API processes. Will it allow you to streamline all your necessary features in one location?

Flexibility

Flexibility is key to many teams who want to ability to streamline their project management tool. Will you have the ability to customize a certain function to adapt the tool to your team’s needs more appropriately?

Scope of Project Management Tools

Different project management tools have differing ranges of scope on features like their file sharing, real-time reporting, and team collaboration features. So before you commit to one particular tool, be sure to make sure its scope is wide enough for your team’s needs and gives your project a bit of wiggle room to grow. Because if your company expands and begins taking on more projects of a more robust and complex nature, you will want a project management tool that can grow to scale right alongside you.

Choosing a project management tool is a big commitment and one that deserves your time and attention. However, if you meticulously select the correct tool the first time, it will save you a lot of headaches and money down the road.