Project management software makes it easy to plan projects, allocate tasks and keep teams organized so that deadlines and goals are met. With so many project management systems on the market today, however, choosing the right option for your needs can be difficult. To help, we analyzed dozens of the leading providers and selected the best project management software in 2023, based on pricing, features, customer support and more.
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To compile this list of the top six project management software options, we reviewed 18 providers and rated them according to factors such as transparent pricing, types of dashboards available, integration compatibility, access to customer support and customer ratings. All ratings are determined solely by our editorial team.
Methodology
This list was a result of careful evaluation of 18 popular project management software platforms that small businesses use. We looked at each contender using our rubric that considers another 18 project management factors important to small businesses. Next, we gave each criterion a weighted score and tally all the scores together to land a final star rating.
Some factors we considered when choosing inclusions for this “best of” list include:
Cost and Fees
Small businesses must always be budget-conscious. For this reason, we looked for project management software with options for less than $8 per month per user. Companies with free versions received bonus points. Pricing accounts for 20% of the total score.
General Features and Functionality
We considered the software’s ability to offer basic project management tools (such as Kanban and Gantt charts) and customize the project management experience to your company’s needs, including via integrations or automation tools. We also checked to see if the platform offers a mobile app. General features amount to 20% of a product’s total score.
Additional Features
To further flesh out the scoring, we looked for functionality that goes above and beyond generic project management software. Tools that provide client access, invoicing functionality and budget tracking received extra points. This section makes up 20% of the final ranking.
Expert Score
A good project management software is one that any person on your team can learn to use with minimal tech training. The software options on this list offer tools to keep the learning curve manageable, such as pre-built templates.
When implementing new software into your company processes, you are bound to run into questions. We prioritized software solutions that offer the customer support needed to help you quickly and easily overcome these hurdles. All told, our expert analysis makes up another 20% of our score.
Customer Reviews
Finally, there is nothing more telling when assessing a choice than what customers who have used it think. We chose project management software options with at least 3.5-star ratings across their customer bases. These ratings encompass the final 20% of a company’s score.
What Is Project Management Software?
Project management software is a digital platform/tool that businesses or individuals use to plan projects, allocate and track project resources, schedule project timelines and tasks, assign tasks, track progress, capture and implement knowledge and ideas, and collaborate with team members for project completion.
How To Choose the Best Project Management Software
To choose a project management software, consider each provider’s cost and added fees, overall features and functionality offerings, reporting, integration capabilities, necessary features vs. feature overload, customer reviews and customer support. In this section, we walk you through how to approach this assessment.
Essential Project Management Software Features
Project management software has basic features that most projects need to be successful. However, extra or unique features make some software options better for certain teams or businesses. It’s important to do your research to understand what unique features might make your project more successful based on your team approach, type of business or type of project. Some highly utilized project management tools and features include:
- Budget planning tools. Budget planning tools allow you to upload your set budget, then track expenses and invoices to compare project costs to the planned budget. By tracking this variance, you can determine if you are running into a budgeting problem. Financial forecasting tools further help you to ensure you don’t run over budget or, worse, have to stop the project because of lack of funds.
- Resource management tools. Resource utilization tools allow you to plan, track and record where resources—such as your talent—are used in the project’s execution. In doing so, it helps to reveal gaps in availability or when certain team members are overused (risking burnout), then adjust resource allocation to prevent problems.
- Task management features. Task management features include automations (that eliminate redundant tasks from to-do lists). Examples include automating invoicing, the identification of critical project changes and managing project workflows. Other task management tools include boards (to visualize moving tasks through their stages to completion), calendars, timeline views, scheduling, task tracking and task prioritization.
- Risk management features. Common project risks include finishing over budget, with a lower-quality outcome than expected or not finishing on time. Many tools within a project management software can help you balance competing demands to finish the project as intended, including critical path charts, checklists, scheduling tools, cost breakdowns, cost variance reports and timelines.
- Reports and charts. Project management software offers digital charts for planning, tracking and readjusting your projects’ timelines, budget and quality as needed. For example, Kanban charts show tasks on a timeline board and their status. Gantt charts also give an overview of a project’s timeline complete with its phases, tasks and outputs. You can gather or feed data into these charts to update in real time.
- Mobile app. Mobile apps help teams easily track, manage and deliver project deliverables from anywhere, helping to ensure all members are always in the know no matter where they are. Real-time knowledge can help them make smart decisions that keep projects progressing as planned. Apps also offer personalized content so team members know the tasks, activities and milestones they must complete each day.
- Integrations. Integrations help to boost a project management software’s performance and cater it to your needs. Slack and Google Drive integrations, for example, allow team members to collaborate within the software on project deliverables. And, Stripe allows your team to invoice clients for deliverables. Many project management software offer hundreds or even thousands of integration options.
- Client management tools. Many project management software offer various features for including your clients in the project’s execution, keeping them up to date on the project’s status and maintaining a professional relationship. Such tools include video-conferencing tools, invoicing and the ability to add clients as users to the project management software while maintaining control over what they can and cannot see.
- Collaboration tools. Many project management platforms offer tools to help project execution team members work together seamlessly, even across locations. Some come in the form of integrations, such as Slack. Others, however, are built in. Such built-in tools often include shared calendars, group chats, document sharing, chat forums and team email.
- Demos and team feedback. Project management software may have all the right features but, if your team isn’t comfortable with it, it may underperform in project execution. For this reason, many software programs offer demos your team can use to test them, even allowing you to pilot them in a real project. From there, you can gather team feedback to learn the software’s appropriateness for your team and needs.
