Projects & Productivity

This is the widest category on the site because it covers the tools a small team pays for every month: where tasks live (Trello, Asana, ClickUp, monday.com, Linear, Todoist), where information lives (Notion, Airtable, Miro), where clients live (HubSpot, Pipedrive, Capsule), plus PDF editing (Acrobat, Foxit, Smallpdf, iLovePDF) and time tracking (Toggl Track).

Nearly every tool here is priced per seat, so the number that matters is the price multiplied by your team. A few exceptions are sold per account, for one person: Todoist Pro, Smallpdf Pro and Adobe Acrobat Standard. A team on Todoist moves to Business; a team on Smallpdf moves to Team.

Most of these tools have a free plan, but free plans in this category usually stop at a member count, a number of projects, boards or records, or a feature such as automations. The free plan is a trial of the workflow, rarely a plan you can run a growing team on.

How to choose in this category

Start from the job

Tasks for one person, projects for a team, a client pipeline, or a database: each has tools built for it. A CRM used as a task list, or the reverse, costs more than two simple tools.

Multiply by the team

Use the team cost calculator: a lower price per seat can still cost more than an account plan once five people need access.

Who needs a paid seat

Some tools let guests, viewers or clients in for free, others charge for every person. Check before inviting clients.

Leaving later

Check exports before you put a year of work in: tasks, records and files should come out in a format another tool reads.