ClickUp is an incredibly feature-rich project management and collaboration solution. It’s great for anyone that doesn’t need a ton of customization, but still needs something that packs a lot of punch.
Its powerful collaboration tools make it a smart choice for remote and distributed teams, too.
ClickUp Compared to the Best Project Management Software
ClickUp lets your teams manage everything in a single platform—chat, tasks, projects, objectives, docs, and goals to name a few.
It gives you access to a full suite productivity tools alongside a range of collaboration capabilities.
The best part is that it’s all built out for you and ready to go, unlike Monday.com or Smartsheet (two of our other favorites). Those two offer far more customization options but come with a much steeper learning curve.
While service-based businesses can get what they need from ClickUp, Teamwork is built specifically for managing client projects and campaigns.
You’ll find it set up to match how you work, rather than changing operations to fit inside ClickUp.
Asana is very similar to ClickUp. Both are heavily structured and already set up so you don’t have to build out a system on your own. However, Asana is laser-focused on project and task management. ClickUp has a lot of other bells and whistles, which can be a good or bad thing depending on who you are.
If all of these sound way too advanced, Trello is where it’s at. Its simplistic elegance makes it a great choice for lightweight task management, small projects, and anyone who wants to stick to the Kanban methodology.
Check out our full post on the best project management tools to learn more about each of them plus how ClickUp stacks up.
If you’re interested in a highly customizable work management solution, you can check out our Airtable vs ClickUp head-to-head comparison to see how it compares to the system we use.
ClickUp: The Good and The Bad
So far, we’ve talked about ClickUp from a high level. Now, we’ll start to get into the details about what we love (and don’t love) about the platform.
What ClickUp Is Good At
Feature-rich: From custom fields, 50+ widgets, and reporting to numerous project views, calculations, time tracking, goal management, documents, and automations, there’s not much ClickUp doesn’t do. If you love exploring new features or trying different configurations to see what works best for you, you’ll love the platform.
ClickUp Brain: One of ClickUp’s newest additions is deeply embedded AI capabilities. It’s able to read and understand your projects, docs, and team members to quickly answer questions, summarize anything, build new automations, understand project progress, and more.
Team collaboration: ClickUp offers a ton of advanced features that enable real-time and unsynchronized collaboration. Whether it is sending and receiving emails, chatting with colleagues, or editing documents with other team mates, everything is possible. You can rely on the tool to stay connected and up-to-date from anywhere and at any time, regardless of whether your team is office-based or working remotely.
Competitive pricing: Despite offering tons of amazing features, ClickUp has some of the most competitive and affordable pricing on the market. For starters, you can sign up for ClickUp’s Free Forever Plan to explore the platform and its features.
If you feel like it’s the right fit, you can opt for a paid plan starting at only $7 per user per month.
Real-time reporting: With ClickUp, it’s extremely easy to create and customize reports. You can use the tool to gain more insight into your team‘s performance; figure out each team member’s schedules—what projects they are currently working on, deadlines they’ve missed, and tasks they have completed. The 50+ widget variations can come in handy to build custom dashboards, where you can easily see a high-level overview of the project, plus use the reporting tools to track the progress of each task and the project on the whole.
Multiple project views: Another great advantage of ClickUp is it offers 15+ views to choose from, meaning you can view your projects, timelines, and team structure however you like. In addition to the typical view options like List View, Box View, Calendar View, Board View, and Gantt View, you can also try out Mind Map View (planning and organizing projects and tasks visual outlines), Workload View (visualizing your team’s capacity and managing resources), and Activity View (an aggregated view of all activities across a specific location, people, and project type).
Automations: There are more than 100 pre-built automations you can use or customize to match your needs. The intuitive automation builder uses triggers, conditions, and actions to help you get more done in less time. You can choose from 50+ actions and triggers, so there are plenty of options without feeling too overwhelming.
Easy time tracking: ClickUp makes it easier to manage your time at work by offering flexible time tracking features that help you focus on your work and improve time management. Use the tool to track time, set estimates, add notes, and view reports to be more in control of your work hours. What’s more, you can mark billable time to see how many hours should be expensed on invoices, plus add or subtract from your tracked time if needed.
Excellent mobile app: Considering the importance of anytime-anywhere access in today’s world, ClickUp is one of the few project management software tools that offer users a well-functioning mobile app that lets them get work done, check for important updates, assign tasks, and so on, at the touch of the screen. The app comes with an intuitive interface and user-friendly features, making it easier than ever to create new tasks, update colleagues, and, of course, manage projects on the go.
What ClickUp Is Lacking
Steeper learning curve: Compared to Monday.com and Smartsheet, ClickUp’s learning curve is pretty shallow. But compared to Trello and Asana, it’s steeper. Overall, ClickUp falls in the middle in terms of its complexity.
It can feel overwhelming: While ClickUp is a relatively structured project management tool, there are still a lot of different things you’ll need to figure out before it feels like second nature. On top of that, the sheer number of capabilities can feel daunting. You may end up going down rabbit holes or overcomplicating your project management processes just because you can.
ClickUp AI costs extra: If you want to use these features, you’ll have to pay an extra $5 per user per month. Other project management tools include these at no extra cost.
A lot of “free trial” features: On the lower tiers, you can try out some of ClickUp’s more advanced tools. However, you won’t be able to keep using them once you hit an unclear (at best) limit. Gantt, timeline, workload, and mind map views can only be used 60 times on the free plan, for example. You’ll be able to use them 100 times on the Unlimited plan, but it’s not very clear what exactly that means.
Some features may feel half-baked: ClickUp’s constantly adding new capabilities. Some of them don’t always feel 100% complete when they release them. On top of that, some features stay that way for quite some time.
Advanced time tracking features: If you want to track time spent on the various tasks for your project by marking them as billable hours, this process is only available in the Business pricing tier and higher. You also can only add time entry descriptions and labels to particular tasks in the Business tier and higher.
ClickUp Pricing and Options
ClickUp pricing is pretty straightforward. There are four plans to choose from, one of which is entirely free. It’s a great place to start and many teams may be able to stay there for quite some time.
You’ll get unlimited projects and users, but there are a ton of limitations–many features are only available for a certain number of uses, which can get frustrating. You’re also limited to 100 MB in storage space, which is virtually nothing. On top of that, any guest you invite has full access to everything–there are no access controls at this level.
The cheapest paid plan is reasonable at $7 per user per month. However, it too still has limitations on many features, including Gantt, timeline, workload, proofing, and timesheets.
Business at $12 per user per month eliminates most of those restrictions. It also gives you advanced automations via webhooks, email, SMS, and integrations which can go a long way in improving your workflows. This is also the first tier that allows users to create private docs for themselves.
For larger teams with more organizational requirements, Enterprise offers far more administrative controls for organizing the platform, managing users, and keeping things secure.
It also allows for custom branding, conditional logic on forms, custom roles and permissions, and a wide range of other security options.
How ClickUp Ranks
ClickUp is a project management solution that we highly recommend here at Crazy Egg.
While it’s a no-brainer for small teams and independent workers, it also offers enough features and functionalities for larger enterprises. The pricing is very competitive, which together with its versatility and flexibility, allows you to identify and remove bottlenecks and keep projects and tasks on time always.
ClickUp does have a slightly steeper learning curve than its competitors–you may be able to get by with something a little easier for your employees to master. It’s all tradeoffs, though, as the lighter and easier tools on our list can’t track projects with the same degree of detail as ClickUp.
Check out our best project management software list to find the best fit for your business and budget.
