Discover the top task management software solutions for small businesses.
Managing quarterly goals and deadlines can be overwhelming without the right tools. Task management software provides a comprehensive view of your team’s tasks, allowing you to prioritize effectively and enhance productivity.
In this article, we have curated a selection of the best task management tools for small businesses to enhance productivity, streamline organization, and drive revenue growth.
What is Task Management Software and Why is It Essential?
Keeping track of priorities can be challenging, especially for small teams that handle multiple roles. They manage client relations, content marketing, product development, administrative duties, and more.
Without an organized approach to task management, critical tasks may be overlooked, resulting in missed deadlines and unhappy customers.
This is where task management software comes in. It serves as a central hub for managing work and planning projects, enabling you to monitor everything from project initiation to completion.
Your task assignments will be directed to the appropriate team members in a collaborative environment. Most importantly, your team will focus on high-priority tasks instead of getting bogged down in unproductive busy work.
15 Essential Task Management Tools for Small Businesses (Free and Paid)
At CanadaCreate, we aim to empower small businesses to compete with larger companies. With the right task management tools, your teams can enhance their efficiency.
That’s why we’ve carefully selected the top task management solutions, providing you with only the best options available.
Let’s explore these tools!
1. Asana
In our view, Asana is the top task management software for small businesses.
Asana not only assists in managing tasks but also aligns all your company’s work with overarching goals and business strategies, breaking down complex projects into easily manageable tasks.
You can establish key results and objectives for your company, team, and individual members, and monitor how they align. Each task is linked to a goal, ensuring that time is not wasted on low-priority activities. Additionally, you can generate reports to track progress towards your goals across the organization.
Asana is adaptable and customizable to fit your team’s requirements. You can set up automated workflows without needing any coding skills.
For instance, whenever a specific task reaches a designated stage, you can automatically delegate it to the next person in the workflow or set up recurring tasks to ensure you never overlook important activities. Additionally, you can view projects and tasks in various formats, including lists, kanban boards, timelines, calendars, portfolios, and workload views.
The free version of Asana is impressive and not to be underestimated. Unlike many free task management software options that are overly restrictive and impractical for small businesses, Asana offers substantial functionality.
Asana’s free plan includes unlimited projects, messaging, file storage, and the ability to manage multiple project files. Moreover, Asana provides a mobile app for both iOS and Android devices, allowing you to manage your to-do list while on the move.
Pricing: With Asana’s free version, you receive all the essential features you need, including unlimited tasks and projects. For advanced features like timelines, goal tracking, or approvals, consider upgrading to their Premium or Business plans.
2. Monday.com
Monday.com is among the most versatile and powerful task management tools available today. Trusted by over 180,000 businesses, it can manage everything from basic task organization to resource management and comprehensive project portfolios.
Creating workflows from the ground up can take a lot of time. However, with Monday.com’s customizable templates, you can bypass the lengthy setup. Select from a variety of project templates tailored for campaign planning, project portfolio tracking, product roadmaps, customer support tickets, onboarding, and more.
The dashboards are highly customizable, featuring 30 pre-built widgets, including a capacity planning widget that enables project managers to assign resources effectively.
Monday.com simplifies the process of breaking down large goals into achievable daily tasks. Begin by establishing goals and objectives that align with your business priorities. Next, outline the projects and processes necessary to achieve these goals. From there, you can create parent and child tasks, as well as subtasks that correspond to the project and objectives.
One of Monday.com’s standout features is its integrated customer relationship management (CRM) application. It allows you to efficiently organize your prospects based on their position in the sales pipeline.
The CRM is built to keep everything organized and save you valuable time. It includes automation features that can set reminders for tasks, automatically assign leads to team members, and update deal stages.
Monday.com offers a specialized ‘Dev’ product designed for developers, enabling you to launch, design, and refine your products effectively. Its features include backloading, bug tracking, roadmap planning, and sprint management, ensuring you tackle all product-related challenges thoroughly.
For online store owners, Monday.com provides a WooCommerce integration, allowing you to efficiently manage your online orders and inventory through their intuitive interface.
Pricing Information: The free plan allows access to up to 3 Kanban boards, making it ideal for individuals. To utilize the Gantt calendar or timeline view, an upgrade to the Standard plan is required at $10 per month. Premium plans offer automation, time tracking, integrations, and a comprehensive suite of additional features.
3. Kanban Boards for WordPress
Kanban Boards for WordPress integrates the popular project management approach directly into your dashboard at no cost.
This tool is ideal for businesses looking to manage straightforward to-do lists without feeling overwhelmed. The project boards are customizable, allowing you to make edits directly from the interface.
You can create and assign tasks to team members with deadlines and monitor the time taken to complete them. This plugin also allows you to create custom views, enabling you to filter the board based on various criteria.
Why should you choose Kanban boards in WordPress instead of popular tools like Asana or Monday.com?
Consistently publishing content on your WordPress blog is essential for driving traffic and converting visitors into customers. Kanban boards enable you to plan ahead and create highly customizable editorial calendars. However, you might want to integrate Kanban Boards for WordPress with other calendar-specific plugins since this tool lacks a calendar view.
Integrating a Trello-like Kanban board into WordPress is very straightforward. Simply install the plugin and adjust a few settings, then you can start creating tasks and assigning them to your team.
Pricing:It is free to use, with a premium version available for $149 per year.
4.ClickUp
ClickUp is an all-in-one task management platform that offers more features than any other tool on this list.
A key advantage of ClickUp is its extensive customization options tailored to your business model and workflow. For instance, the custom fields feature allows you to add various types of information to your views, while the custom dashboard provides over 50 widgets to create dashboards that display the metrics that matter most to your business.
ClickUp offers flexible time-tracking features that simplify time management, even for remote workers. Users can easily monitor the time spent on completing tasks.
Project managers can review historical timesheets to effectively allocate the appropriate number of hours for each project.
One of ClickUp’s newest features is ClickUp AI, which integrates artificial intelligence into various planning stages. This tool helps users create project timelines, draft project briefs, compose emails, summarize meeting notes, generate status reports, and more.
Pricing Information:For freelancers or individuals, the free plan includes 100MB of storage, kanban boards, and a calendar view. The Business plan, priced at $12 per month, is ideal for small businesses, offering unlimited storage, goal tracking, portfolio management, resource allocation, and additional features.
5. AirTable
AirTable is a versatile cloud-based task management platform that enables users to create custom databases and applications from the ground up. This flexibility allows you to organize your data, processes, and workflows in a way that suits your needs better than most traditional task management tools.
Starting from scratch can be challenging for those without a technical background. Thankfully, you can utilize a variety of templates designed for common scenarios and customize them to suit your business needs. Explore their extensive template library that covers areas such as content creation, software development, public relations, and real estate.
One of the standout features of AirTable is its effortless integration with widely-used business applications, including WordPress. Given that over 43% of websites are powered by WordPress, it’s essential for task management tools to offer this connection.
You can integrate with AirTable in two ways: through the platform’s native WordPress integration or by using the Uncanny Automator tool. Either option allows you to access the full AirTable interface directly within your WordPress website.
Pricing:AirTable provides a free plan that includes access to all view types, up to 5 editors, and automation capabilities. Their premium plans offer increased storage, additional editors, and advanced features.
6. Teamwork
The next tool on our list is Teamwork, a task management solution renowned for its excellent collaboration capabilities.
Teamwork excels in managing client projects and creative teams, offering features such as billable time tracking, custom branding, invoicing, intake forms, and access for clients and collaborators to streamline project management.
For creating client forms or questionnaires, we suggest using a dedicated and more advanced form builder like WPForms.
You can enhance client collaboration by granting them limited access to Teamwork, allowing them to add comments and view your task list.
Teamwork integrates seamlessly with popular tools like Google Drive, Dropbox, and Quickbooks, eliminating the need to switch between different platforms to access your files or data.
While most task management software offers a free plan for individuals, Teamwork stands out by providing more features in its free tier compared to its competitors. You can enjoy premium features for up to 5 users, including automation, team availability, Gantt chart views, time tracking, and milestones, which are typically not available in free plans.
Pricing: Teamwork’s free plan includes all the essentials to get started, allowing up to 5 users, access to all project views, and the ability to manage task dependencies.
7. Smartsheet
Smartsheet is an online platform designed for businesses of all sizes, offering features such as task management, crowdsourcing, reporting, and more.
Smartsheet can be seen as a more sophisticated alternative to traditional Excel spreadsheets, making it a familiar choice for companies accustomed to using spreadsheets for managing projects.
This tool allows you to incorporate formulas and functions for calculations or data manipulation. It’s especially beneficial for aggregating data from various sheets or performing calculations, such as tracking sales team revenue or forecasting financial outcomes based on current work rates.
What sets Smartsheet apart is its powerful reporting features. You can effortlessly compile essential information from multiple sheets into a single report with just a few clicks, enabling you to identify trends and potential issues, thereby supporting your team’s ongoing improvement.
Smartsheet offers a versatile range of applications. Similar to a spreadsheet, you can customize your sheets for various purposes, including task management, budget tracking, inventory oversight, campaign monitoring, expense categorization, and more. This flexibility positions it as a strong alternative to other business tools you may currently use for different tasks.
However, it may not be as user-friendly as some of the more widely used task management software and lacks the familiar Kanban boards that many users appreciate.
Pricing:Smartsheet provides a free plan that includes access to all essential features. The Business plan is priced at $25 per user per month, making it an excellent choice for small businesses looking to manage projects with unlimited collaborators.
8. Trello
Trello is an intuitive task management tool renowned for its Kanban-style boards.
Its customizable interface allows users to organize cards on various boards, resembling post-it notes.
Inside each card, you can assign tasks to team members, add comments, share files, tag users, and create checklists. Trello offers extensive customization options, enabling you to label cards for easy identification.
The drag-and-drop functionality is user-friendly. You can effortlessly move cards from one column to another as they progress through different stages. For team members, it is likely the most straightforward platform to navigate, as all actions are performed through the Kanban board.
It’s important to highlight the Power-Up feature, which allows you to enhance your boards with additional integrations and functionalities. This includes document management, calendar views, time tracking, social media integration, and custom fields.
Trello is an excellent choice for small teams and individuals due to its user-friendly interface. However, it may not meet the needs of larger businesses as it lacks advanced features such as built-in dependency management and Gantt charts for visualizing project timelines and milestones.
Pricing: Trello offers a free plan that includes unlimited cards and up to 10 boards per workspace. For additional features like calendar, timeline, table, and map views, you can upgrade to the Premium plan for $10 per user per month.
9. PublishPress
PublishPress is a comprehensive suite of plugins designed to help you manage editorial calendars effectively. Whether you’re starting a new WordPress blog or managing an existing one, the PublishPress Editorial Calendar plugin is an essential tool.
A key factor in building a successful blog that attracts traffic is maintaining consistency. Establishing a regular posting schedule and planning your content in advance will enable you to produce a steady stream of blog posts. Additionally, utilizing a keyword generator tool can assist you in crafting content that resonates with your target audience.
All content is directly linked to the blog posts on your WordPress site. The calendar view allows you to see the scheduled publication dates for each post.
WordPress offers limited status options such as ‘Draft’ and ‘Published.’ By using the PublishPress Permissions plugin, you can tailor your workflow to align with your editorial needs. Additional statuses like ‘Pending Review’ and ‘Edits’ can help keep everyone informed about the current stage of each blog post.
Pricing:All PublishPress plugins are available for free. Simply install and activate them from the WordPress plugin repository. For enhanced features, you can upgrade to PublishPress Pro, which provides access to the premium versions of each plugin, with plans starting at $129 per year.
10.Jira Software
Jira Software is specifically designed for developers and is part of Atlassian’s suite of tools aimed at supporting agile teams in achieving their goals. Agile teams typically collaborate across various functions, often breaking projects into smaller, manageable tasks assigned to different team members.
Consider Jira Software as a comprehensive tool for monitoring all activities throughout project iterations. It enables you to quickly identify obstacles, maintain a focus on continuous improvement, and achieve your goals with minimal complications.
This tool offers pre-configured cards for Scrum and Kanban methodologies, along with a variety of Agile reporting tools. While the reports may not be visually stunning, they are effective for tracking progress.
You can set up a backlog to organize all the tasks that need to be completed for your project. Then, create a sprint to focus on addressing these tasks within a defined timeframe.
Jira Software is ideal for larger teams, particularly those consisting of designers and developers. However, it can be challenging to learn due to its many advanced features and complex terminology.
Pricing Information: Jira Software offers a free plan for up to 10 users, allowing you to get started without any cost. Upgraded plans provide additional storage, user roles, and permissions. In the free version, all users have project admin rights.
11. ProofHub
ProofHub is a comprehensive task management application favored by many Fortune 500 companies and trusted by over 85,000 teams globally.
The software is renowned for its robust collaboration features, making it easy to communicate with your team and complete projects efficiently. With individual and group chat options, as well as discussion boards, you can collaborate without lengthy email chains or Slack conversations.
Stay updated on project progress with a centralized view of all topic-related updates. Project administrators can make announcements akin to social media posts, allowing you to celebrate milestones, share team updates, and communicate changes in priorities.
ProofHub offers a comprehensive suite of features that enable your team to collaborate effectively on creative projects. You can annotate visual and text files to provide precise feedback on specific areas that need attention.
Choose from various project views tailored to your needs, including board view, Gantt charts, calendar view, and table view.
Pricing:Starting at $45 per month, the Essential Plan includes all essential features necessary for efficient small business operations. This plan covers project management, boards, Gantt charts, time tracking, file approvals, and chat functionality.
12. Hive
Hive is a comprehensive tool that goes beyond simple task management. It features unique email integration, allowing users to send messages directly from Gmail and Outlook to Hive.
Enjoy real-time collaboration capabilities, including video chat, a note-taking app similar to Google Docs, and an intake form builder. Additionally, leverage AI tools to generate content, draft email replies, and create project tasks based on intelligent suggestions.
Hive offers a versatile task management experience, allowing you to organize your projects using nine different views, including Gantt charts and kanban boards. It simplifies visualization, enabling you to easily track what matters most. You can also color-code tasks and set up personalized notifications to ensure you never miss important deadlines.
The platform includes built-in automation features that streamline repetitive tasks. For instance, you can create triggers and actions, so when a specific task is completed, the system automatically sends an email or updates a row in Google Sheets.
Hive is ideal for any creative or business team looking to enhance efficiency by streamlining and automating their workflows.
Pricing:Hive offers a free plan for two users, perfect for getting started. For teams, the Team plan is available at $12 per user per month, providing access to all task views, time tracking features, and seven customizable add-ons to enhance your Hive experience.
13. HubSpot Task Management
Although HubSpot Task Management is not a conventional task management tool, its CRM platform includes effective task and project management features.
For sales professionals, HubSpot is an excellent choice due to its integrated features, including email marketing, CRM, chat, and task management tools. This integration allows you to seamlessly link your tasks with contacts, providing valuable insights into your leads.
As a user, you can establish workflows to organize new tasks, set reminders, and analyze your performance against historical data. An organized task list with filtering options helps you avoid spending time on administrative tasks that do not contribute to revenue.
However, it lacks a kanban board or calendar view and does not support task dependencies, which may limit its usefulness for project managers and teams outside of sales.
Pricing:HubSpot Task Management is completely free to use. To connect your tasks with contacts, calls, or other marketing and sales activities, explore the comprehensive HubSpot pricing plan that includes their full range of products.
14. Wrike
Wrike is an all-in-one project management solution designed specifically for agencies, marketing teams, and professional service providers.
Similar to other leading platforms, this tool allows you to assign tasks, set dependencies, and monitor project progress all in one convenient location. You can visualize your projects using Gantt charts, Kanban boards, tables, and lists.
Wrike seamlessly integrates with many popular business applications, enabling effortless data retrieval from your email, CRM, and other software. This means you can generate comprehensive reports by connecting data from various parts of your organization.
One drawback of Wrike is its relatively high pricing. As a small business, you’ll need to subscribe to their team plan, which costs $9.80 per user per month. However, this plan lacks certain reporting features and user permissions, so you may need to upgrade to the Business tier at $24.80 per user per month for full functionality.
Pricing Information:Wrike offers a free starting plan that includes only the board and table views. The Team plan, priced at $9.80 per user per month, accommodates up to 25 users and provides unlimited views, along with an AI content generation tool.
15. Atarim
Atarim is an emerging task and project management tool designed specifically for web design agencies. With its WordPress plugin, you can easily install Atarim on your client’s WordPress website.
Atarim is a robust visual collaboration platform that allows you to leave comments on any section of a client’s website, much like you would in Google Docs. You can tag team members and link comments to tasks that direct you to a Kanban board.
You can also notify clients to highlight exactly what changes you plan to make. This reduces the need for back-and-forth emails, enabling you to quickly demonstrate which part of the website you are addressing.
Atarim provides all the necessary tools for managing projects in a web design agency, including the ability to create client intake forms and track time for freelancers. This allows you to keep all your tasks organized in one place without needing to switch between multiple tools.
Pricing:Free plans are available for a single user. Paid plans start at $20 for access for up to 5 users and 20 projects, essentially covering 20 websites. Higher-tier plans offer more collaborators and projects.
Our Recommendation: Top Task Management Software
To enhance your team’s productivity and achieve your major objectives for the year, it’s essential to have the right business tools to support the growth of your small business.
Which option is the best fit for you?
Asana is the top choice for task management software tailored for small businesses. It aligns your tasks with your goals, ensuring your team focuses on impactful work. With its affordability, you can create personalized workflows and automate repetitive tasks, allowing you to dedicate more time to strategic projects.
For those who regularly publish content, Kanban Boards for WordPress is an ideal solution. Its user-friendly interface allows you to effortlessly drag and drop cards across the board as they progress through different stages.
Smartsheet caters to spreadsheet enthusiasts who appreciate a grid layout and the ability to use formulas for calculations. It’s particularly beneficial for sales teams looking to monitor sales performance or create financial forecasts.
Jira Software is the preferred platform for developers and designers. Its features, including backlogs, bug tracking, roadmaps, and dependencies, facilitate the journey from initial ideas to successful product launches.
We hope this article assists you in selecting the most suitable task management software for your small business. You may also find our guide on the best WordPress plugins for business websites or the top live chat software for small businesses helpful.
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