3 Best Project Management Tools for Solopreneurs (2023): Features, Pricing, How-to-Choose

The complexities involved in project management, especially when you're a one-person business, are immense. Tracking deadlines, managing tasks, ensuring quality, and coordinating with clients or freelancers requires a unique set of skills and a significant amount of time.

Some of the major challenges include:

• Time Tracking: Keeping track of how much time is spent on different tasks to ensure efficiency and meet deadlines.
• Resource Allocation: Determining what resources are needed and managing them effectively without the support of a team.
• Project Prioritization: Balancing multiple projects and tasks, often with conflicting deadlines and requirements.
• Communication: Managing communication with clients and any freelancers or contractors can become overwhelming.

These challenges can lead to missed deadlines, compromised quality, and an increased level of stress. Here is where project management tools tailored for solopreneurs come into play.

How to Choose the Right Project Management Software

Different project management tools are built with various target markets in mind, and hence takes into consideration different needs and spending power. Several factors must be considered to ensure that the chosen tool aligns with your business's unique requirements and workflow.

• Core features: Some options are more complex than others, and they usually come with more features and a higher price point. Choose the one that accommodates your current workflow while still within budget when your business grows.
• Task management: Wearing multiple hats can cause solopreneurs to be easily overwhelmed from balancing various tasks. The chosen option should streamline task prioritization, delegation, and scheduling all in one dashboard.
• Cost: Many project management apps provide free versions with basic features, but consider the pricing when you scale operations to multiple teams.
• Customer support: Most alternatives provide comprehensive product documentation and a knowledge base. However, evaluate if their customer service is accessible in your time zone in the inevitable event that urgent issues arise.
• Learning curve: Choose a tool that matches the tech-savviness of those using it -- you, your team, and your clients. Some tools offer a gentle learning curve with extensive support and tutorials.
• Integration and automation: All business project management software comes with powerful automation and numerous integrations, but not all of them are easy to set up.
• Additional features: Consider the additional features you're getting at your pricing plan, such as file knowledge sharing, remote work management, time tracking, customizable templates, and visual roadmaps.

Best Project Management Tools for Solopreneurs

The market is flooded with project management tools, each promising to be the ideal solution for solopreneurs. To make your decision-making process simpler, let's explore some of the most popular project management tools and compare them based on essential features.

1. Asana: Best Overall

Asana has just the right balance of a clean user interface with the right amount of features without feeling over-bloated. The free plan comes with three views: list, board, and calendar which can be shared with up to 15 team members.

Asana's iOS and mobile app is just as intuitive as its desktop counterpart, which is great for business owners to easily keep track of tasks on-the-go. However, Asana's free trial forces you to try its premium plan for 30 days, meaning that you'd have to wait a month to assess its free plan.

Pros:

• Smooth and clean interface
• All the features you need at every price point
• Slight learning curve but still accessible for the less tech-savvy
• Intuitive iOS and mobile
• High-level overview of task progress and employee productivity (available in paid plan)

Cons:

• Slightly more expensive when scaling
• Unable to assess free plan features until 30-day trial is over
• Time tracking only available with third-party integration

Pricing: $13.49 to $24.99 per user per month, both free and enterprise plans available.

Verdict: Great start for solopreneurs looking to get started right away with a project management tool that comes with all the features you need.

2. Trello: Easiest to Use

Trello is the most popular project management software with 2,000,000+ customers, and for good reason. With dozens of ready-made templates for various use cases, Trello enables anyone to hit the ground running without watching lengthy tutorial videos.

I personally use Trello so this review may contain some bias. But the equally intuitive mobile app, non-existent user cap, and affordable pricing make Trello an irresistible choice. Its task management interface is extremely easy to use, even for the most technologically illiterate.

However, while Trello does one thing very well, it leaves much to be desired. The free plan only comes with a Kanban board view and only 10/MB per file upload (although cumulative storage is unlimited). Moreover, because of its lack of advanced features, you may find yourself spending more and more time building workflows with third-party apps, especially as your operations grow.

Pros:

• Unlimited guests even for free option
• Virtually non-existent learning curve
• Simple task management tool with intuitive desktop & mobile interface
• Affordable pricing
• Can onboard clients easily
• Detailed activity log

Cons:

• Limited native features
• Reporting only available in paid plans
• 10MB per file limit is inadequate

Pricing: $5 to $10 per user per month, both free and enterprise plans available.

Verdict: Perfect for solopreneurs who want a simple, uncomplicated task management tool with minimal learning curve and seamless client onboarding.

3. ClickUp: Best All-in-One

ClickUp streamlines all the features you need and more into one customizable platform -- time tracking, whiteboards, collaborative docs, sprint management, etc. This powerful project management software also boasts a comprehensive set of integrations, allowing solopreneurs to build automated workflows tailored for every industry.

Its free plan has no comparison in the market, featuring unlimited team members and 24/7 support. The higher plans aren't as expensive compared to Asana and Monday.com, so you're ensured to get the best bang for your buck.

However, ClickUp also requires a steep learning curve to familiarize with, and can be overwhelming for first-time users. The platform (both desktop and mobile) can also be slow and glitchy, but the team promises to fix all these in the ClickUp 3.0 update.

Pros:

• Unbeatable value and feature depth
• Customizable workflows
• Key features streamlined into one platform
• Free plan includes unlimited users and 24/7 support
• Scalable pricing plans

Cons:

• Steep learning curve
• Platform can be glitchy at times
• No single feature stands performance-wise

Pricing: $10 to $29 per user per month, both free and enterprise plans available.

Verdict: ClickUp provides unbeatable value with its comprehensive suite of features and customizable workflows. While it may take some time to get used to the platform, its scalability and affordability nonetheless make it a great choice.

FAQs

Is Kanban good for small teams?

Yes, Kanban is great for small teams. It promotes visual tracking, efficiency, and flexibility, making it suitable for managing workloads and reducing bottlenecks within a small team setting.

Is Agile suitable for small projects?

Yes, Agile is suitable for small projects. Its iterative, flexible approach encourages regular adaptation and alignment with objectives, making it an excellent fit for small-scale projects.