Cheapest Project Management Software in 2026
Clockify is the cheapest entry paid plan at $3.99 per seat a month, though it is a time tracker with task features bolted on rather than a full project manager. For a genuine board-and-list tool, Trello starts at $5 a user a month and Azure DevOps at $6, with the first 5 users free forever. Height ($6.99), ClickUp ($7), Todoist ($8 for Business), Shortcut ($8.50), monday.com ($9), Teamwork.com ($9.99) and Linear ($10) round out the list, all billed annually per user or seat.
10 tools compared on price, features and fit, with prices checked on vendor pages in August 2026.
Every "best project management software" list leads with feature comparisons and buries the number that actually decides the purchase: what you pay once your team outgrows the free plan. Of the 10,000+ tools Toolradar tracks, 56 in the Project Management category have verified pricing, and this guide ranks the ones with a genuinely usable paid tier by their cheapest entry price, from lowest to highest.
We pulled each tool's current pricing straight from Toolradar's own pricing data, then cross-checked every entry price against the vendor's live pricing page and used the vendor's number when the two disagreed. Prices below are per user or per seat, per month, billed annually, unless a plan is explicitly flat-rate. We also note what each free tier does and does not cover, since a plan that looks free often caps out at 2 seats or 60MB of storage before you can do real work.
Top Picks
Picked by editorial review, informed by G2 and Capterra review volume and rating and by media mentions, the signals behind our category rankings. How we rate
| Tool | Starting price | Rating | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clockify | From $3.99/mo | 4.7 9,468 reviews | Teams that need time tracking and lightweight task management in one tool without paying for a separate app |
| Trello | From $10/mo | 4.1 37,904 reviews | Small teams that want simple Kanban boards without a steep learning curve |
| Azure DevOps | From $6/mo | 4.2 201 reviews | Software teams already on Microsoft infrastructure who need issue tracking tied to pipelines and repos |
| Height | From $8.5/mo | n/a | Teams that want an autonomous AI layer handling routine project upkeep on top of standard task views |
| ClickUp | Free plan | 4.3 19,870 reviews | Teams that want tasks, docs, chat, and goals in a single tool instead of stitching several apps together |
| Todoist | From $8/mo | 4.6 3,494 reviews | Small teams and individuals who want fast, natural-language task capture without a heavyweight interface |
| Shortcut | From $8.5/mo | 4.5 540 reviews | Engineering teams that want sprints, stories, and GitHub integration without Jira's complexity |
| monday.com | From $3/mo | 4.7 17,192 reviews | Teams that want a highly visual, customizable work OS across multiple departments, not just engineering |
| Teamwork.com | From $8.99/mo | 4.4 1,281 reviews | Agencies and services teams that bill clients and need project profitability built in from day one |
| Linear | From $10/mo | n/a | Engineering teams that want a fast, opinionated issue tracker over a flexible general-purpose board |
Teams that need time tracking and lightweight task management in one tool without paying for a separate app
- Pro: Basic plan costs $3.99 per seat a month billed annually ($4.99 billed monthly), the lowest entry price of any tool here
- Pro: Free plan covers unlimited time tracking, timesheets, kiosk mode, and reports
- Pro: Standard tier at $5.49 a seat adds invoicing and billable rates for client-facing teams
- Con: The free plan is capped at 5 users as of 2026, down from the unlimited-user free tier Clockify used to offer
- Con: Bulk edit, project templates, and CSV or Excel export require the paid Basic tier
Clockify's pricing is very fair, especially with its generous free tier offering unlimited users and core tracking features.
Watch out
Monthly billing is ~25% more expensive
Small teams that want simple Kanban boards without a steep learning curve
- Pro: Standard plan costs $5 per user a month billed annually ($6 billed monthly)
- Pro: Free plan supports up to 10 boards and 10 collaborators per workspace with unlimited cards
- Pro: 250 Butler automation runs a month included on the free plan, jumping to 1,000 on Standard
- Con: 10-board and 10-member caps on the free plan force an upgrade quickly for any growing team
- Con: File attachments are capped at 10MB on free and 250MB on Standard, too small for design or video-heavy work
Trello remains the simplest kanban board on the market, and its pricing reflects that simplicity.
Watch out
Butler automation on Free (250 runs/mo) depletes fast, a single rule on a busy board with 10 card moves/day burns 300 runs in a month, forcing an upgrade or disabling automations entirely
Software teams already on Microsoft infrastructure who need issue tracking tied to pipelines and repos
- Pro: First 5 users are free permanently, not a trial, with unlimited private repos included
- Pro: Basic paid tier costs a flat $6 per user a month, pay-as-you-go with no annual lock-in required
- Pro: 1,800 CI/CD minutes and 2 GiB of artifact storage included on the free tier
- Con: Interface and setup are built for engineering teams, a steep learning curve for non-technical project managers
- Con: Test Plans, needed for structured QA workflows, jumps to $52 a user a month, far above the base tier
Azure DevOps is one of the best values in DevOps platforms thanks to its generous free tier: 5 users get full Basic access free, including Repos, Boards, Pipelines, and Artifacts.
Watch out
The free tier covers only 5 Basic users. User #6 triggers $6/month per user for ALL additional Basic users, not just the 6th.
Teams that want an autonomous AI layer handling routine project upkeep on top of standard task views
- Pro: Team plan costs $6.99 per member a month billed annually ($8.50 billed monthly)
- Pro: Free plan has unlimited members, not a seat cap, with all core views included
- Pro: Autonomous AI features handle triage, duplicate detection, and status updates without manual setup
- Con: Smaller integration ecosystem than Trello, Asana, or ClickUp, which matters for teams with an existing tool stack
- Con: Priority support is paid-tier only, a gap for teams that need fast help during onboarding
Height's pricing is exceptionally generous, especially with its robust Free tier offering unlimited tasks, views, and integrations for unlimited members.
ClickUp
- 4.6 on G2 (14,240 reviews)
- 4.6 on Capterra (4,630 reviews)
- 4.3 on TrustRadius (693 reviews)
- 3.3 on Trustpilot (287 reviews)
- 4.0 on PeerSpot (20 reviews)
Teams that want tasks, docs, chat, and goals in a single tool instead of stitching several apps together
- Pro: Unlimited plan costs $7 per member a month billed annually ($10 billed monthly)
- Pro: Free Forever plan includes unlimited tasks and members, though storage is capped at 60MB
- Pro: Unlimited plan removes the storage cap and adds unlimited Gantt charts and custom fields
- Con: 60MB free-plan storage limit is small enough that most teams hit it within their first week
- Con: The sheer number of features and settings makes onboarding slower than simpler tools like Trello
ClickUp is the value leader among mainstream project management tools.
Watch out
Free plan automation limit (100) is LIFETIME, not monthly, once exhausted, you must upgrade
Small teams and individuals who want fast, natural-language task capture without a heavyweight interface
- Pro: Business plan (team billing, shared workspace) costs $8 per user a month billed annually
- Pro: Individual Pro plan is $5 a month billed annually and includes 300 personal projects and unlimited activity history
- Pro: Free plan supports 5 personal projects with natural-language quick add and email or calendar integrations
- Con: Free plan caps out at 5 projects and only 1 week of activity history, restrictive for any active workload
- Con: No native Gantt or timeline view, so teams needing dependency tracking will need a different tool
Todoist's pricing is quite generous, especially with its robust free tier offering significant functionality.
Watch out
Pro tier requires annual commitment for $5/mo price.
Engineering teams that want sprints, stories, and GitHub integration without Jira's complexity
- Pro: Team plan costs $8.50 per user a month billed annually ($10 if billed monthly)
- Pro: Free plan supports up to 10 users with 5GB of storage and Kanban boards, roadmaps, and sprints included
- Pro: GitHub, Slack, and Figma integrations are available even on the free plan, not gated to paid
- Con: Strategic objectives and OKR tracking require the $12 Business tier, one step above Team
- Con: 10-user cap on the free plan is a hard wall for any team that grows past a small squad
Shortcut's pricing is quite generous, especially the Free tier for up to 10 users.
Watch out
Storage limits (5GB Free, 250GB Team/Business) could incur overage.
Teams that want a highly visual, customizable work OS across multiple departments, not just engineering
- Pro: Basic plan costs $9 per seat a month billed annually across a minimum 3-seat team
- Pro: Free plan supports up to 2 seats and 3 boards, enough to fully test the interface before buying
- Pro: Hundreds of prebuilt templates cover marketing, HR, sales, and product workflows out of the box
- Con: 3-seat minimum on every paid plan means the real entry cost is $27 a month, not $9
- Con: Timeline and Gantt views require the Standard tier at $12 a seat, not included on Basic
monday.com does not publish a single static dollar on its support docs.
Watch out
Seat math is buckets, not exact headcount. Minimum 3 seats, then 5, 10, 15. A team of 4 pays for 5 (monday Support, Aug 2026).
Agencies and services teams that bill clients and need project profitability built in from day one
- Pro: Starter plan costs $9.99 per user a month billed annually
- Pro: Free plan supports up to 5 users and 5 projects with mobile apps included
- Pro: Time tracking and billing are available starting at the entry Starter tier, unusual this low in the pricing ladder
- Con: Workload planning and advanced reporting require the $13.99 Deliver tier, one step above Starter
- Con: Free plan's 5-project cap is tight for any agency running more than a couple of clients at once
Teamwork's pricing is fair, offering a generous free tier and competitive per-user pricing.
Watch out
Free tier limited to 5 users, 2 projects.
Engineering teams that want a fast, opinionated issue tracker over a flexible general-purpose board
- Pro: Basic plan costs $10 per user a month billed annually
- Pro: Free plan allows unlimited members and up to 250 issues across 2 teams, generous for a small startup
- Pro: Unlimited file uploads and admin roles are included as soon as you upgrade to Basic
- Con: 250-issue cap on the free plan is easy to hit for any team shipping at a normal pace, forcing an early upgrade
- Con: Advanced analytics (Linear Insights) and Triage Intelligence require the $16 Business tier, not Basic
Linear is the fastest, most polished issue tracker available, and its pricing is refreshingly simple.
Watch out
250-issue cap on Free: once you hit 250 active issues, you must upgrade or archive old issues. Growing teams hit this within 2-3 months of real usage
What Counts as Project Management Software Here
Project management software gives a team a shared view of tasks, deadlines, and progress: boards, lists, timelines, or issue trackers that multiple people update and everyone can see. That excludes pure time trackers and single-player to-do apps unless they also support shared projects and assignees, which is why a tool like Clockify makes this list (it added shared projects and task assignment) while a purely personal timer would not.
The pricing model varies more than the feature set. Most tools here bill per user or per seat, annually, with a monthly option at a markup. A few, like Todoist's Business tier, separate an individual plan from a team plan entirely. Azure DevOps and a couple of others give away a set number of free seats before billing kicks in, rather than gating features behind a paywall.
Why the Entry Price Matters More Than the Feature List
Most teams do not evaluate project management software by reading a spec sheet, they start on the free plan, hit a wall, usually a seat cap or a storage limit, and then pay whatever the next tier costs without shopping around. That habit costs real money at scale: the gap between the cheapest tool here ($3.99 a seat) and the most expensive mainstream one ($10 a seat) is roughly 150 percent, and it compounds fast once a team passes 10 or 20 seats.
Billing structure matters as much as the sticker price. A per-seat annual price with a 3-seat minimum, like monday.com's, costs more for a 3-person team than a flat-rate plan that covers 10 users, like Taskade's cheaper flat tiers outside this list. Knowing whether you are buying per-seat or flat-rate pricing before you commit to annual billing avoids a surprise renewal invoice.
Key Features to Look For
Entry paid price and billing unit (Essential)
Per-user, per-seat, and flat-rate plans are not directly comparable at face value. Always normalize to a monthly-per-person cost before comparing tools.
What the free tier actually unlocks (Essential)
A free plan capped at 2 seats or 60MB of storage is a trial in disguise. Check the real limit, not just whether a free tier exists.
Annual versus monthly billing gap (Essential)
Every tool on this list charges more for monthly billing, often 20 to 30 percent more. The annual price is the real comparison point once you have validated the tool.
Minimum seat requirements (Important)
Some plans, like monday.com's Basic and Scoro's combinations, enforce a minimum seat count that inflates the real bill for small teams.
Free-to-paid feature gap (Important)
Time tracking, reporting, automations, and integrations are the features most commonly locked behind the first paid tier. Know which one you need before comparing price alone.
Per-user versus flat pricing model (Nice to have)
Flat-rate plans with a generous user cap can beat per-seat pricing for small teams, but stop scaling once you outgrow the cap.
Mistakes to Avoid
- ×
Comparing sticker prices without normalizing for billing unit. A $9 flat-rate plan for 10 users beats a $7 per-seat plan once a team passes 12 or 13 people.
- ×
Ignoring seat minimums. monday.com's 3-seat floor turns a $9 headline price into a real $27 monthly minimum, a fact most comparison articles skip.
- ×
Committing to annual billing before validating the tool on its free plan. Every tool here charges 15 to 30 percent more for monthly billing, but that premium buys the flexibility to walk away.
- ×
Assuming the cheapest tool covers the same features as a pricier one. Clockify's entry price wins on cost but its task management is secondary to time tracking, not a like-for-like swap for Linear or monday.com.
- ×
Expert Tips
- →
Run the free plan with your actual team size for at least two weeks before comparing paid tiers. Seat caps and storage limits only become obvious under real usage.
- →
Calculate the true monthly cost including any seat minimum, not the advertised per-seat price. monday.com and Scoro both enforce minimums that change the real number.
- →
Default to monthly billing during evaluation, then switch to annual once you've confirmed the tool sticks. The 15 to 30 percent annual discount is only worth locking in after validation.
- →
- →
Re-check pricing pages before renewal. Clockify cut its free plan from unlimited users to 5 in 2026, and pricing structures across this category change more often than the feature lists do.
The Bottom Line
There is no universally cheapest project management tool, only the cheapest one that still does what your team needs. Clockify wins on raw price at $3.99 a seat but leads with time tracking, not boards. Trello and Azure DevOps are the cheapest genuine project trackers at $5 and $6 a user, and Height, ClickUp, Todoist, Shortcut, monday.com, Teamwork.com, and Linear fill out the rest of the field between $6.99 and $10 a user a month, all billed annually. Of the 10,000+ tools Toolradar tracks, 56 in the Project Management category have verified pricing, and every price in this guide is checked against the vendor's own current pricing page.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the cheapest project management software?
Clockify has the lowest entry paid price at $3.99 per seat a month billed annually, though it is primarily a time tracker with task management layered on. For a tool built primarily around boards and projects, Trello is the cheapest at $5 a user a month billed annually, followed by Azure DevOps at $6.
Is there a genuinely free project management tool?
No tool on this list is free at real team scale. Linear's free plan is the most generous for small software teams (unlimited members, 250 issues, 2 teams), while Azure DevOps gives 5 users free permanently. Most other free plans cap out at 2 to 10 seats or a small storage allowance, which is enough to trial the tool but not to run a team on indefinitely.
Why do project management tools charge less for annual billing?
Annual billing reduces churn and gives the vendor predictable revenue, so most tools discount it 15 to 30 percent versus paying month to month. Clockify's Basic plan, for example, is $3.99 a seat annually versus $4.99 monthly, and ClickUp's Unlimited plan is $7 annually versus $10 monthly.
What do free project management plans typically not include?
The most commonly gated features are time tracking, advanced automations, unlimited storage, timeline or Gantt views, and SSO. monday.com's free plan lacks automations entirely, ClickUp's caps storage at 60MB, and Trello holds Timeline and Calendar views behind its $10 Premium tier rather than the $5 Standard plan.
Is the cheapest project management tool always the best value?
Not necessarily. Clockify's $3.99 entry price is the lowest here, but a software team that needs sprint planning and GitHub integration gets more real value from Shortcut at $8.50 or Linear at $10 than from underfitting a time tracker to a job it was not built for. Match the tool's core strength to your actual workflow before optimizing purely on price.
Cite this page: Toolradar, "Cheapest Project Management Software in 2026", updated August 2026, https://toolradar.com/guides/cheapest-project-management-software
Sources
Prices and plan details on this page come from each vendor's own pricing page, re-checked by the Toolradar pricing tracker:
- Clockify pricing, checked
- Trello pricing, checked
- Azure DevOps pricing, checked
- Height pricing, checked
- ClickUp pricing, checked
- Todoist pricing, checked
- Shortcut pricing, checked
- monday.com pricing, checked
- Teamwork.com pricing, checked
- Linear pricing, checked
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