Top 15 ClickUp Alternatives (Free & Paid) – Decision Guide

The best ClickUp alternatives are Productive, Wrike, Asana, Trello, monday.com, Basecamp, Teamwork, Smartsheet, Nifty, and Airtable.

Each of these potential ClickUp substitutes is positioned for a different use case, so you can quickly see which option might be the best for your team. We’ll zoom-in on the details in the sections below.

Productive is an all-in-one project management platform that replaces the typical ClickUp plus five other tools stack. Productive pulls everything into one place.

Compared to ClickUp, it focuses on reliable performance, clear financials, and resource planning that matches how agencies actually work, not just how tasks are organised.

Productive helps you cut down on the admin work that often builds up in ClickUp. Automate your workflows, so when people track time or add expenses, budgets update in the background and managers get clear approval flows instead of chasing status in chats or spreadsheets.

Time approvals, expense approvals, and time off approvals keep data clean without turning every update into a manual task. The result is a system that quietly stays up to date so your team can focus on delivery, not on maintaining the tool.

One of the biggest reasons agencies look for a ClickUp replacement is the lack of real-time financial insight. Productive connects budgets, rates, time tracking, and scheduling, so you can see how much budget is burned and how much profit is left while projects are still running.

Budget owners see when work is drifting off plan, not weeks later when invoices are already sent. Capacity views show who is overbooked or underused, which makes it easier to protect margins and keep workloads realistic.

Many teams end up using ClickUp alongside Harvest, Float, Google Sheets, a CRM, and accounting tools just to understand what is going on.

Productive is designed to replace that patchwork with a single system that covers the full client lifecycle, from sales and estimates through delivery and billing. And yes, you can integrate Productive with 1000+ apps.

Because projects, time, budgets, and invoices live together, you do not need to export data or rebuild reports in spreadsheets. Leadership, operations, and delivery teams all look at the same numbers in custom dashboards, which makes decisions faster and reviews less painful.

Time tracking is a common failure point in ClickUp, both in usability and sometimes, data quality. Productive makes time tracking simple to use and connects every entry to projects and budgets, so the data finally becomes trustworthy.

On top of that, the resource planning views show who is booked, who has capacity, and how new work will affect delivery.

You no longer have to rethink about whether you can take on another retainer or large project, because the system shows the impact on people and profit before you commit.

If you like a good story, find out how a dev agency got more consistency and predictability with Productive.

Productive offers a 14-day free trial, so you can decide if it’s the right ClickUp alternative for your agency.

Wrike is a strong ClickUp competitor for teams that manage complex projects with many moving parts, cross-functional stakeholders, and tight deadlines.

In a Wrike vs ClickUp comparison, Wrike feels more opinionated around planning, scheduling, and project tracking, which helps teams that live inside timelines and reports, but can be too much overhead for very small teams that just need a simple board.

Wrike is a strong fit for PMOs and operations teams that run many interdependent projects and rely on timelines, dependencies, and workload views to stay in control.

It suits organisations that treat structured project management as a discipline and have someone to own configuration, but it is rarely ideal for tiny teams or ad-hoc collaborations that just want a lightweight board.

Asana suits teams that want structured work across multiple departments without taking on the full complexity of a tool like ClickUp.

If you compare Asana to ClickUp, Asana usually feels simpler to navigate, but it does not try to cover deep financial tracking or advanced resource and capacity planning, which means some teams will still pair it with other tools or may find it either more than they need or not quite enough on its own.

Asana works best for product, marketing, and agency operations management that run lots of small to medium initiatives and mainly need clear ownership, due dates, and cross team coordination.

It is a solid choice when financials and billing live elsewhere, but it is not the strongest fit as the sole system of record for teams that depend on integrated time tracking, margin reporting, and invoicing.

Trello is a simple, card-based tool and a good free ClickUp alternative for very small teams and individuals who mainly want to keep daily tasks visible on a board.

As a free ClickUp substitute, Trello sits at the very light end of project management, which makes it a calmer place to coordinate simple work but leaves gaps for teams that need structure, reporting, or deeper controls.

Trello is ideal for individuals and very small teams that need a simple, visual way to track daily tasks, side projects, or early-stage work on one or two boards.

It is a good starting point when you value ease of use over structure, but it quickly falls short for agencies or growing teams that need richer planning, reporting, and financial insight.

If you’re a Kanban person, you might want to switch over to our Trello alternatives overview.

Monday.com is a visual project management platform that lets teams organise work on colourful boards and see status at a glance.

Compared to ClickUp, Monday.com leans into simple visual structure and no-code automations, which can make it easier for some teams to standardise how work moves without touching every setting.

For teams that only need a basic board and a handful of projects, all that flexibility can feel like more structure than they really need.

Monday.com suits cross-functional teams that want a visual, configurable work management system with automations to keep routine tasks moving across marketing, operations, or product.

It is a strong option when you need more structure than a basic board but not full blown portfolio or financial management, and can feel like overkill for very small teams or a partial solution for organisations that expect deep capacity planning and billing in the same tool.

Basecamp is like a communication-first project hub that pulls messages, to-do lists, schedules, and files into one place.

As a ClickUp replacement, Basecamp focuses less on detailed project structures and more on keeping conversations and updates in a single space for the whole team, which keeps things simple, but can feel light if you rely on advanced planning or reporting.

Basecamp is a good choice for managing very small teams that care most about keeping conversations, tasks, and files together in a simple, communication-first hub.

It works well when work is medium complexity and collaboration happens mostly through written updates, but it is not ideal as a primary system for organisations that depend on detailed scheduling, forecasting, or formal project governance.

Teamwork is a strong ClickUp competitor for agencies and service businesses that need built in tracking for time, budgets, and client billing.

Compared to ClickUp, Teamwork feels more focused on client projects and billable work, but its interface and feature set can feel heavy for internal teams that only need simple task management.

Teamwork is best for firms that manage billable client projects and want time tracking, budgets, and invoicing close to task management.

It works well when your priority is controlling billable work and client reporting, but internal teams that do not bill clients often find they don’t need most of its functionality, and people who prefer a very minimal tool may see the interface as more than they want to manage.

Smartsheet is a work management platform for teams that still think in spreadsheets but need more structure, automation, and reporting than Google Sheets can provide.

This ClickUp replacement keeps the familiar grid layout while adding more robust workflows and controls, which is powerful for operations teams, but can feel like overkill if you mainly want a simple task board.

Smartsheet fits operations teams, PMOs, and project leaders who currently manage work in spreadsheets and now need stronger structure, automation, and oversight across repeatable processes.
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It is well suited to complex, ongoing initiatives that benefit from templates and governance, but it is not the best match for very small teams looking for a simple to-do app or for groups that prefer a more opinionated, ready made agile tool.

Nifty is a ClickUp similar app that combines projects, milestones, docs, and discussions in a single workspace for small and mid sized teams.

This alternative tool to ClickUp feels more compact and straightforward, with fewer configuration options, which keeps everyday collaboration lighter, but can limit teams that want very granular control over workflows and reporting.

Nifty is a good option for managing remote teams that want one workspace where tasks, milestones, docs, and discussions stay together without heavy configuration.

It works best for small to mid sized teams that value simplicity over deep customisation, and is less suitable for very large organisations or agencies that require advanced financials and enterprise level controls.

Airtable is a flexible project management systems for teams that want database style control over tasks, records, and workflows.

Compared to ClickUp, Airtable sits somewhere between spreadsheets and traditional project management tools, which gives you more freedom to model complex work but often requires more setup and structure than a simple board.

Airtable suits operations, marketing ops, and product ops teams that already live in spreadsheets but now need a more collaborative, structured way to manage work and related data.

However, it’s not ideal for very simple task tracking or for teams that prefer a predefined project management framework over building their own.

Teams are looking for ClickUp alternatives because the tool often becomes too complex, too slow, or too limited for the way they actually work.

For some organisations, the tool starts as a flexible project management app and then turns into a crowded workspace as more teams, lists, and dashboards are added.

Agencies and service businesses in particular often need clearer financials, better reporting, and smoother day-to-day coordination than they feel they get from their current setup.

Many teams adopt ClickUp to bring everything into one place, then discover that the sheer number of views, settings, and features makes everyday work harder instead of easier. Without strong internal ownership, workspaces can fill up with unused spaces, overlapping workflows, and long sidebars that hide what really matters.

This is often the moment when they start looking for alternatives to ClickUp that feel simpler, more focused, and easier to keep under control.

When workspaces grow, performance and notifications become another common pain point. Slow loading pages, laggy search, and noisy alerts all add friction to daily work, especially for teams that hop in and out of the app all day.

One ClickUp reviewer on Capterra notes:

For teams running complex projects across multiple clients, this kind of noise makes it harder to see what actually needs attention. Over time, people start to ignore alerts or avoid the app, which defeats the goal of having a central project management workspace in the first place.

Another reason teams consider a different ClickUp competitor is the need for deeper reporting and financial visibility. The tool offers basic dashboards and task reports, but many agencies want to understand profitability, margins, and capacity in much more detail.

A G2 reviewer puts it simply:

For agencies that bill clients, the lack of built in invoicing in ClickUp is another gap. As one Capterra reviewer explains:

These limitations push teams toward tools that tie projects, time tracking, budgets, and billing together so they can see the full picture without exporting data into spreadsheets.

Finally, many companies realize that the platform was never designed as a full agency management platform. It works well for tasks and basic planning, but it leaves big parts of client work, forecasting, and commercial tracking to other tools.

One Capterra review summarises this feeling:

For teams that run dozens of client engagements at once, this means important data lives in separate systems for sales, invoicing, and resourcing. That makes it harder to understand account health, project profitability, or whether the team has enough capacity to take on new work.

The other ClickUp alternatives you should be aware of are Zoho Projects, Hive, Bitrix24, Infinity, Smartsuite, and a few smaller niche tools.

These additional ClickUp competitors sit just outside the main list because they either overlap heavily with the tools we already covered, focus on narrower use cases, or are less relevant for agencies and service based teams.

You should choose the right ClickUp substitute for your team by first listing your biggest pain points in ClickUp, then matching them to tools that are built to solve those specific issues.

Instead of starting with long feature lists, start with the problems you actually feel today, such as complexity, slow performance, missing reporting, or limited financial insight. From there, you can compare a small set of ClickUp alternatives and pick the one that best reflects how your team works.

Begin by writing down what is not working in your current ClickUp setup. Be specific about what slows you down, such as cluttered spaces, confusing views, unreliable notifications, or gaps in time tracking and invoicing.

This list of problems becomes your checklist when you look at project management tools like ClickUp, so you can avoid choosing a replacement that recreates the same issues in a new interface.

Next, decide how much structure your team truly needs. If you run many complex projects across departments, you may need a more opinionated work management platform with stronger planning, dependencies, and reporting.

If your team is small and mostly needs a shared board for tasks and ideas, a simpler ClickUp alternative or even a free tool may be a better fit. The goal is to choose a system that feels slightly more structured than today, without becoming its own source of friction.

Different ClickUp substitutes specialize in different types of work.

If you are running an agency or service business, focus on the best ClickUp alternatives for agencies that combine projects, time tracking, budgets, and billing, so you do not need separate systems to understand profitability.

Internal product or marketing teams can prioritise collaboration features, knowledge management, and planning views instead, because financials may already live in other tools.

Once you have a shortlist, look carefully at how each tool handles reporting and integrations. Ask whether it answers the questions your leadership team actually asks, such as capacity, delivery dates, and account health.

Review how well it connects to the rest of your stack, including communication tools, CRMs, accounting platforms, and file storage. If data control and compliance matter, consider whether you need a hosted app or something closer to a self hosted ClickUp replacement.

Finally, test your top one or two ClickUp competitors with a real project that has clear stakes and real deadlines. Bring in a small group of people from different roles and ask them to run their normal work in the new system for a few weeks.

Pay attention to how quickly they understand the interface, whether tasks and updates stay in one place, and how easy it is to extract meaningful reports. Use this trial to decide whether the tool genuinely reduces friction compared with your current ClickUp setup.

For more actionable know-how, head over to our how-to-choose project management tools guide.

Choosing the right ClickUp replacement is less about chasing every possible feature and more about finding a tool that fits how your team actually works, from day-to-day collaboration to long-term planning and reporting.

Use the comparisons in this guide to narrow your shortlist, test your top options with a real project, and look for a setup that feels calmer, clearer, and easier to maintain over time.

Next step: Book a demo of Productive to see how an all-in-one platform connects projects, budgets, time tracking, and reporting in a single workspace for finances and delivery.