Top 10 Project Management Software for Designers (2026)

The best design project management tools include Productive, Basecamp, ClickUp, monday.com, Asana, Jira, Notion, Wrike, Trello, and Miro.

They are common picks in customer reviews, especially for teams that need clear workflows and fast collaboration.

Here’s a quick snapshot of what each option is best for:

Whether you’re a design studio, software development company, or marketing agency, Productive is your best choice to replace fragmented patchwork of different tools.

As a leading professional services automation software solution, Productive offers advanced, seamlessly interconnected features for agencies of all shapes and sizes. This includes time tracking, custom management and resource planning reports, budgeting, billing, sales integrations, and docs.

Now, let’s take a closer look at what Productive can do to simplify your management and design process.

Productive is an integrated platform that can handle everything from resource planning, design work management, to time tracking to financial reporting and accounting in one place with real-time visibility.

It also gives you real-time data on project status and budgets (more on that later).

Don’t let your information float in the ether. It’s easy to set up task dependencies with Productive’s task management and time tracking feature. Efficient management and precise data go hand in hand, and Productive lets you achieve both.

Simplify your administrative tasks by seamlessly marking time as billable or non-billable hours and processing time off and sick day requests through Productive.

To enable efficiency and productivity, Productive also lets you create and collaborate on documents with the real-time collaboration and communication tool: Docs.

Docs are seamlessly integrated with your internal team’s task management. You can tag your team members and create tasks straight from a document.

You can also download Productive as a mobile app and stay in touch with your creative project no matter where you are.

Build budgets for your projects, whether fixed, hourly or mixed. Furthermore, if you’re on a retainer, you can easily set up your billing services with Productive’s recurring budgets feature.

Productive provides agencies with a great system to streamline administrative tasks and keep the client in the loop, both on a management and financial level.

Budgeting for your projects empowers your business with essential reports so you can address key concerns such as: What is your profit margin? Is your budget close to running out?

With consolidated project reports, Productive lets you anticipate these questions and adapt to any situation that may occur.

Reports have become our central place to follow key metrics, analytics, numbers, graphs. They are the pulse of our design company. Currently, it’s hard to imagine what our jobs would look like without reports. It’s a lock-in feature for us, for sure.

Learn how a digital agency grew from 70 to 350 people with support from Productive.

Get long-term planning for current and future projects. Productive’s capacity management feature lets you visualize and forecast your utilization by considering not only your team’s efficiency and availability, but also individualized metrics such as seniority, team composition, and demand over time.

Optimal utilization is important because it lets you get the most out of your team by ensuring that no one is underworked or overburdened. In the long term, this will improve your profit and overall employee satisfaction and let you scale your business through data-driven decisions.

Productive can help your team work more efficiently, giving your clients a clear view of your progress. With multiple project views, including list view, spreadsheet format, board view, calendar view, and timeline view, your design team can pick and choose how they want to access and manage their workflow.

Onboarding your creative team is efficient thanks to a comprehensive tutorial and user-friendly design. According to Capterra reviews:

Productive is pretty easy to set up and the UI is very clean, modern, and not clunky in the least bit like many competitors.

In customer reviews, teams often point to a clean UI as a reason onboarding feels lighter.

Integrations with other company-wide teams and processes will help you manage complex projects with ease, such as the in-built sales funnel that replaces cumbersome spreadsheets and lets you effortlessly turn won leads into projects.

Productive offers a 14-day free trial, so you can check out if it is the right tool option for you, commitment-free.

Basecamp is a design project management and team communication tool well-suited to small-scale organizations. As the main benefits of Basecamp, users highlight its range of essential features to facilitate teamwork, such as “centralized project creation, task assignment, deadline setting, and file sharing” (Source: G2).

In customer reviews, teams often mention Basecamp is easy to use and keeps communication in one place.

With a 30-day free trial, Basecamp is a great choice for designers who work in smaller teams with agile workflows and don’t want to commit to an option immediately.

However, users report that Basecamp’s “reporting capabilities fall short of competing tools in terms of comprehensiveness” (Source: G2). Additionally, features such as sales revenue forecasting and agency utilization reports are lacking.

Businesses with complex projects that could benefit from a complete picture of their creative project development would do well to consider more comprehensive project management systems instead – you can check out our Hive alternative guide to learn more or go through the list of the top Basecamp alternatives.

ClickUp is a comprehensive project management tool that offers both basic and complex features to help design teams streamline their project planning and workflows.

Users on Capterra recommend the tool to growing businesses due to its essential management features that support simpler projects and additional functionalities that streamline complex project timelines.

In customer reviews, teams often praise ClickUp’s flexibility, but mention the learning curve and setup effort.

As ClickUp’s biggest downside, some users point out the steep learning curve. Some users also underline that the high level of workflow customization can feel slightly overwhelming even after the initial onboarding. Additionally, some complex features regarding agency utilization and profit forecasting are not present.

Overall, ClickUp is a great option for larger organizations that are willing to invest the time to use the tool to its full potential.

For smaller and mid-sized teams of designers, as well as those interested in robust financial reports, it might be good to explore other available options.

Monday.com is a project management solution aimed at streamlining workflows and boosting teamwork for hybrid or remote teams across the entire project.

Along with its basic features that enable project management, such as customizable dashboards and task management, users often praise the tool’s “intuitive” and “visually appealing” interface (Source: Capterra).

In customer reviews, teams often call monday.com intuitive and visual, but mention costs can rise as you add more users.

Although users are overall satisfied with the tool, they frequently report that the pricing plans for adding more team members could be more flexible.

Moreover, Monday.com lacks some notable features when it comes to financial management, such as agency utilization and profit forecasting.

Monday.com is a great project management app for larger teams that use complementary tools for financial data, but growing businesses might want to look for options with centralized management, financial, and sales features.

Read our comparison of Monday vs Asana vs Trello vs Productive to learn more.

Asana is a creative project management tool that many design teams use for day-to-day planning that is frequently recommended for its flexible project views and user-friendly, intuitive interface.

G2 users also report that the tool has a gentle learning curve and a wide range of features that are essential for custom workflows.

In customer reviews, users often praise Asana for a clean interface and flexible project views.

If you compare Asana to other comprehensive project management tools, features such as revenue forecasting, budgeting, and profitability tracking are either entirely lacking or could be better developed.

Smaller and larger teams that are not looking for a project management tool with in-depth financial reports but rather a more specialized option for project workflows might want to consider Asana.

Jira is a robust project management tool with complex features aimed primarily at software development teams.

However, thanks to its great usability, intuitive navigation, and user-friendly interface, as reported by users on G2, Jira is also a good option for designers who work with developers.

In customer reviews, teams often like Jira’s structure for Scrum and Kanban, but call out the learning curve.

As with other comprehensive tools such as ClickUp and Monday, the biggest downside of Jira is the initial learning curve, especially for teams that are completely new to agile methodologies.

Businesses that want a more flexible system with customizable features might want to look at a more general project management tool instead.

Notion is a workspace tool (similar to Obsidian) that keeps projects on track with customizable workflows and a proprietary real-time collaboration tool. Users love Notion’s flexibility and customizable features, highlighting that it helps them and their entire team stay organized and efficient.

In customer reviews, people highlight Notion’s flexibility, but mention setup can be manual and time-consuming.

As for the downsides, multiple users have reported that the interface can be challenging for new timers, as well as that more robust features are only accessible through paid plans.

Though Notion is a good design project management option for teams interested in organizing their content, as well as structuring their to-do lists through task dependencies, advanced features for comprehensive resource management are lacking: for example, budgeting or profit forecasting.

We also covered Notion in another article, so head over there to learn what makes it a good Accelo competitor.

Wrike is a versatile project management tool that empowers teams to stay goal-oriented and maximize their performance. Users frequently praise Wrike for its flexibility and range of useful features.

In customer reviews, users often mention Wrike is powerful for planning, but can feel complex at first.

As the main downsides, users mention limited integrations, as well as its challenging learning curve:

Source: Capterra

We also wrote a Wrike vs Notion comparison as an aid in making an informed decision.

Trello is an online project management tool with polished collaboration features. Trello approaches task tracking through a visual-first lens and focuses on providing a user-friendly interface and intuitive navigation.

In customer reviews, users often like Trello’s simplicity, but mention reporting and automation limits.

Source: G2

This is why Trello is best used for businesses that are expanding on currently used design project management tools, especially small teams with agile workflows.

Miro is a collaborative, online whiteboard platform that facilitates brainstorming and ideation with real-time updates.

User recommendations for Miro highlight that the system makes “sharing and discussing project implementations in real-time effortless, allowing colleagues to contribute and refine ideas seamlessly” (Source: G2).

In customer reviews, teams like Miro for workshops and mood boards, but mention performance issues on larger boards.

As the main issues, users report some problems with the loading times and input delay, especially when larger teams are working on a single session.

Despite this, most users still recommend Miro. In the team collaboration tool category, Miro is a great asset that can serve as an addition to a more robust project management tool, especially for remote teams.

The key considerations of a design project management tool are flexible workflows, communication and collaboration capabilities, and a polished and straightforward UX.

Though there are a other nice-to-have design features that specialized design management software has, here we’ll focus just on the project management part.

When you’re looking at different software for managing design agency teams, pay special attention to:

Is it cliche to say that creatives are visual thinkers? Maybe, but that doesn’t change the fact that design project management software should be easy to understand, and even easier to use.

In general, having an intuitive user interface and navigation is a criterion most project management tools should meet to provide a great resource planning and project execution experience. Creative projects are no different.

Your team members probably have different standards when it comes to how to best manage and track their workflows. Instead of settling for compromises, consider investing in a tool that provides enough flexibility to internal teams.

Features such as customizable dashboards and project views can have a significant impact on your team’s collaboration and work satisfaction.

If you need to use five different kinds of project management tools to cover your processes, then you’re taking a step backward rather than forward.

This is why it’s best to invest in a tool with a wide range of features that can centralize your team communications and let them focus on their creative process.

An example is a tool that allows real-time collaboration, such as writing and managing documentation, along with task tracking.

A communication statistics 2025 study by project.co states that:

Clean UX, basic CRM capabilities and workflow flexibility play a major part in the quality of communication with the clients. In case you’d like to learn more, you should head over to our guide on creative agency project management to learn more.

Design teams move faster when feedback processes are clear. Look for feedback tracking that ties client requests and client feedback to tasks, deadlines, and owners.

That keeps client expectations aligned during reviews and revisions.

If clients need visibility, check whether the tool offers a client portal or guest access with permissions. Also ask how it handles version control for visual assets, so your team always knows what the latest file is.

To choose the right tool for your design teams, start with the bottleneck you need to fix: clearer project costs, smoother feedback processes, or better resource management.

Make a shortlist based on a few must-haves:

Then book demos with your top options and validate your shortlist with customer reviews from teams similar to yours.

To make the shortlisting process easier, we’ve made a short comparison tab.

Project management software for designers is a digital hub where you execute every step of your design projects.

You’ll use it to map out every step of a creative project; from the initial client brief and sketching phase through reviews, revisions, and final delivery.

This PM software type doesn’t necessarily include designing features, but rather support your design projects. It helps you spend less time hunting for files or chasing approvals or status updates, and more time actually designing.

Additionally, the best project management tools for designers should support your projects and business (e.g., a design studio or agency) as a whole.

There isn’t a one-fits-all answer to what’s the best design management tool.

By now, it’s clear that using an online project management tool is an indispensable part of project management, and this goes for creative projects as well.

In this article, we’ve explored some of the best project management tools for designers available on the market.

Some of the key concerns to keep in mind are the user interface and the onboarding process for beginners, flexibility and customizable features for task tracking and project views, and the extent to which the tool enables team collaboration, i.e. whether it centralizes all necessary features in one platform.

For a comprehensive project management tool that provides all of the above, book a demo with Productive.

Designers use different kinds of design software, depending on their workflows, design disciplines, and project requirements. Frequently, designers will use multiple tools at the same time, depending on the particular task. Some of the most popular tools for graphic design are Photoshop, Sketch, Illustrator, InDesign, and After Effects.

To manage a design project, start by turning the client brief into a clear scope (deliverables, formats, and deadlines), then break the work into tasks with owners, due dates, and review checkpoints (first draft, revision rounds, final handoff). Keep files and feedback in one place so everyone works from the latest version, and set a simple cadence like a weekly status check plus async updates for blockers. Track time and project costs against the budget as the work runs, and adjust early if scope changes or feedback cycles expand.

Project managers who work on design projects and lead creative teams should have deep knowledge of the entire design process. This includes managing design requests, understanding where potential roadblocks might occur, and how to best resolve them.

The above reasons are why designers are a natural choice for these positions. In order to minimize the amount of administrative work you need to do and leave time for creative endeavors, a project manager on a design project should invest in scalable, all-in-one project management software for designers.