List of 10 best Workflowmax alternatives
1. Paymo [ Get Started > ]
Paymo is the top choice for all-in-one work management tools and a solid Worflowmax alternative. Despite its apparent complexity, Paymo has an intuitive interface. It mainly consists of modules that help you plan & budget tasks, monitor progress, schedule resources, proof files, track time, and invoice clients. The reports and analytics are dense enough to provide a holistic and granular view of projects, depending on the context.
Many users appreciate the time tracking and invoicing features, saying they are much better integrated into the project management core than other popular tools. It’s ideal for multi-department teams but also for those who are just starting with project management.
Pricing (yearly)
- Free – unlimited users, time tracking, and invoicing
- Starter – $5.90/user/month
- Small Office – $10.90/user/month
- Business – $16.90/user/month
Plan work, track time, and invoice your clients
2. Bitrix24
For business management software with a focus on CRM, pick Bitrix24. It has everything you need to start working immediately: process management, internal chat, and document collaboration. Despite feeling like an ecosystem, the interface can be complicated for first-time users.
Bitrix24 offers many CRM features you’re charged for in most project management tools. Some users have reported only a few useful apps in the marketplace that add value to the platform. This recommends it as a good entry point for a small team but not for a mid-to-large one with established processes.
Pricing:
There’s a Free plan with limited functionalities and no seat cap. Paid plans start at $61/month for five users. On-premise installation is also available, with different price tags for each plan.
3. Toggl Plan
Toggl Plan balances visual graphics and details perfectly to stick with a simple task management tool. Users love the ability to drag and drop tasks, set task hourly budgets, and the overall vivid colors. Sharing projects is easy thanks to the public links for which you can choose a pre-set zoom level.
Where Toggl Plan has gaps is the milestones that are too simple, serving as a note on the timeline, with no possibility of linking them directly to tasks. The tool is also an excellent choice for teams and freelancers who value planning more than other project management processes.
Pricing:
The Team plan is $8/user/month charged annually, making up for recurring tasks, milestones, and a Toggl Track integration. The Business plan costs $13.5/user/month annually, allowing data exports.
4. Redbooth
Redbooth is dedicated to helping teams communicate and deliver projects faster. It does so through rich task overviews and visual tracking tools – the Gantt chart being a great example. It’s too bad the free plan doesn’t support task dependencies for more accurate project planning.
The poor mobile app experience can be a detractor for most marketing teams, who might need more specialized tools to tackle parallel projects. But if you want to transition from pen & paper to a simple project management tool with tasks and due dates assignments, then Redbooth is the answer.
Pricing:
- Pro plan – Costs $12/user/month and includes native time tracking and video meetings on top of simple task management.
- The business plan costs $18.75/user/month, comes with a resource scheduler, and advances subtasks.
- Enterprise plan – Custom pricing that includes a dedicated customer success manager.
5. TeamGantt
TeamGantt combines the ever-popular Gantt chart with the benefits of team collaboration. It’s flexible, allowing you to omit weekends and specific work holidays from the actual timeline calendar. You can also schedule your team’s workload in advance and group tasks into specific clusters.
It becomes hard to navigate when you have several projects with many tasks. The collapsible menus will also make you miss specific tasks when, in fact, you’ve just run out of screen real-estate space. Despite these drawbacks, TeamGantt is still a valid option for sharing project progress with clients.
Pricing:
There are two paid plans: The Standard plan is priced at $19/month per manager and includes workloads and baseline, while the Advanced plan is priced at $49/month per manager, having time tracking and hourly budgets as extra features. There’s also an “Unlimited Everything” plan for which you have to contact the Sales team.
6. Teamwork Projects
The main product in Teamwork’s portfolio is Teamwork Projects. And for a good reason. The tool is a centralized workspace for tasks, comments, milestones, calendars, and dashboards. Its strength lies in a broad task management system that covers all task planning and monitoring fundamentals. It doesn’t focus on just one industry vertical; hence, it suits most small and large teams.
Various user roles, once customized properly, can unlock team efficiency. Some users say the lack of a well-built time-tracking module slows the overall monitoring process.
Pricing:
- Teamwork Project’s free forever plan includes essential project management without project templates.
- Starter plan – Starts at €8.99/user/month
- Deliver plan – Starts at €13.99/user/month, charged annually.
- Grow plan – Starts at €18/user/month, charged annually.
- Scale – Custom pricing, with priority support and onboarding training.
7. Quire
Quire is a project management tool that helps managers break down ideas into task lists. It uses Kanban boards and timelines to organize information more visually. Quire also boasts powerful analytics like project hill charts and cumulative flow charts.
One common reason for dissatisfaction among users is the absence of robust mobile notifications and a desktop app on par with the web one. The intuitive interface is suitable for organizing simple tasks, but larger ones require more project management features like a calendar view.
Pricing:
For now, Quire hasn’t launched any pricing plans. The platform is free for accounts of up to 35 organizations, 80 projects, and 30 members per organization.
8. Zenkit Base
Zenkit Base is the central puzzle piece in Zenkit’s Suite. It’s highly customizable, allowing users with different technical backgrounds to collaborate in a shared space. The mind map feature is a great addition that captures ideas, files, comments, subtasks, and due dates. There are also wikis on a team level.
Unless you pay, the free plan doesn’t allow you to add visuals to a task inside a Kanban board. Although many users love Zenkit’s Base elegant design and versatility, the platform has a low storage limit on all plans.
Pricing:
- Personal plan – Limited to 500 items of any kind, three users, five workspaces, and 1 GB.
- Plus plan – Costs $8/user/month charged annually. It allows you to define user roles and add unlimited users, 50.000 items, and 20 workspaces. Storage is limited to 6GB. 2FA enabled.
- Business plan – Costs $21/user/month charged annually. Allows for 150.000 items, 500 workspaces, and advanced Gantt Chart features.
- Enterprise plan – Custom pricing and bulk discounts are available.
9. Avaza
Avaza is a cloud-based project management tool that covers project management, time tracking, invoicing, and, lately, team chat. Clients can collaborate with you on tasks, approve timesheets, and view financial information if given the right user permissions. They can also pay you directly via PayPal, Stripe, and Payoneer.
The sheer number of features and user permissions can be overwhelming; the outdated interface doesn’t help either. It’s ideal for more seasoned marketing teams and professional services.
Pricing:
The pricing system is perhaps one of the most overly complicated ones. The Free plan provides one user with admin access and 5 with chat rights. Depending on the four user roles, you need to pay different price tags for all paid plans. Avaza does offer unlimited client access.
Criteria for choosing a project management tool with invoicing
Before you search for the best free project management tool, understand that specific criteria will make your job as a project manager much more accessible. Here are six to pay attention to:
1. Task management
Tasks represent the building blocks of any project. Whether it’s a simple one with a short to-do list or a complex one that requires a dense project charter, they all work together towards a common goal. That is to bring the project to successful completion.
How you organize, prioritize, and delegate them will largely influence how quickly you deliver your projects. That’s why a good project management tool should cover the basic task management fundamentals: assigning tasks to multiple users, setting deadlines, and different levels of priorities.
2. Kanban boards
Kanban boards derive from the Japanese “Kanban” system, which initially focused on monitoring all production phases at Toyota. It implies a board and a set of cards organized into columns. Every card moves from column to column, providing a top overview of all task statuses through the project cycle.
Project managers and their teams can benefit from this heightened transparency level while spotting potential bottlenecks if specific columns get too crowded. Online Kanban boards should allow you to add multiple columns for each project stage, offer a backlog, and include swimlanes to segment different tasks on the same board.
3. Team collaboration
Whether you’re a team of 2 or 50, the success of your projects will largely depend on how well your team can work as one. Both in an office and remote environment. This translates into the ability to bounce ideas quickly between one another in a shared context. Features that prove helpful in this direction are comments, file attachments, team chats, and even file proofing add-ons with mark-up tools for design assets.
4. Time tracking
Relying solely on your gut when managing project time estimates is like searching for your keys with the lights off. Proper time tracking and access to timesheet data from previous projects will help you set more accurate hourly budgets and manage deadlines more confidently. Search for free project management software with native time tracking. One that feels more like an addition to your current skills, not a burden.
5. In-depth reports
Relying on up-to-date reports puts you at the steering wheel of your project and team. You need to know the status of your projects in terms of the remaining hours, costs implied, and available resources to make sound business decisions.
Even though most project management software comes with standard reporting functionalities, look at those behind project dashboards. Time reports for team performance, average delivery date/project, and billable vs non-billable hours should always be in close reach.
6. Integrations
No project is an island. If you think about it, there are certain stages before and after the concrete start of a project. You meet with clients, then send them a proposal of your services that is accepted or not. During the project execution, you collaborate with clients and consider upcoming suggestions. While upon completion, the project has to be invoiced so you get paid for your work.
Choose a platform that does the heavy lifting for you. One with plenty of native automation, not supported via third-party platforms. That works on a personal level (like Slack and Google Calendar) and the overall business (like Salesforce, PayPal, Stripe).
Wrapping it up
We hope this summarized comparison can help you navigate the intricate project management software market much more accessible. Ultimately, you want software that acts as an extension of yourself in the service of all the project stakeholders. Be they your team, collaborators, or clients.
If you want to start with an app that covers the full spectrum of work management, one that your team will gladly use, try Paymo. With built-in budgeting, estimated calculations, time tracking, and professional invoicing, you can tackle every aspect of the project lifecycle. Take complete control of your work.
Andrei Țiț
Author
Andrei Țiț is a product marketer at Ahrefs. He has been involved in product marketing at various SaaS companies for over six years, specializing in content marketing and short-form video. In his free time, he enjoys cooking and traveling.
