It may be surprising, but many marketing and creative agencies are still drowning in spreadsheets to manage their projects, even with several project management software available on the market.
We have nothing against spreadsheets, really. After all, they have so many interesting and useful purposes. But how wonderful it is to have a tool designed specifically for a necessity in your workflow? All the features you need, automated process eliminating the manual one, time tracking, task management…
So, to help you say goodbye to the common spreadsheet way of doing things, we have gathered 12 project management tools that fit perfectly the needs of creative and marketing agencies. Here’s a shortcut to help you browse between them:
- Drag
- Swit
- Basecamp
- Hive
- Odoo Project Management
- ActiveCollab
- Productive
- Monday.com
- MeisterTask
- ClickUp
- ProProfs Project
- Nifty
1. Drag
is an all-in-one project management software tool that allows marketing agencies to manage several tasks inside their Gmail inboxes. It means that teams can handle their emails as tasks and create new assignments from scratch in the same place.
With Drag, teams can create customizable boards for different purposes, such as CRM, Task Management, Content calendar, or Creation flow, for example. It’s possible to manage your entire workflow without leaving your inbox literally.
Besides, you can share team inboxes inside Drag with teammates, which is the most secure way, and also eliminates those endless threads with FWD’s, Cc’s, and Bcc’s.
Main features
- Shared inboxes;
- Kanban view;
- Team chat inside each email;
- Email tracking templates, sequences;
- Integrations with Google Groups and Calendar;
- Delegation of emails/tasks;
- Shared email drafts;
- Checklists, notes, color coding, tags, sort, and filter;
Pricing
Drag is free for solo users and freelancers limited to one board. For teams and marketing agencies from all contexts and sizes, Drag costs $8 per user/month.
2. Swit
Swit is a complete team collaboration suite, which seamlessly combines team chat and project management in just one place, eliminating context switching between tools. This tool also offers post, file sharing, kanban, Gantt chart, and calendar.
Main features
- Cross-project management;
- File management;
- Timeline and workload (Gantt);
- Templates;
- Bucket, Status and Team view;
Pricing
Swit is free for up to 5 projects and 300 tasks, but the range of pricing on unlimited plans is from $9.99 user/month to 29.99 user/month, billed annually.
3. Basecamp
is ideal for creative and marketing agencies because it facilitates managing projects and staff at once, centralizing all your processes. Usually, agencies need to focus on completing projects with due dates and depending on the planning budget. This tool allows teams to track and manage both.
Besides, it’s also possible to organize tasks in to-do lists and assign them to other people.
Main features
- To-to lists
- Schedule with calendar
- Document and file sharing
- Group chat
Pricing
Basecamp offers a free plan suitable for freelancers, personal projects, and teams that need light use. It’s possible to have up to 20 users and 3 projects on this free account, plus 1Gb of storage space. So, if you need to upgrade seats, storage, and the number of projects, the price is $99 per month.
4. Hive
is an easy-to-use project management tool that helps teams move faster and improve their company-wide efficiency. With flexible project layouts, native email, resourcing, group messaging, and file sharing, Hive connects all aspects of your work.
Main features
- Flexible project views;
- Analytics;
- Forms and templates;
- Automation;
- Assignee and comments;
Pricing
Hive’s base package costs $12 per user, per month, in the annual plan. Teams that need all the add-ons should purchase the Enterprise plan and contact the sales team to know about its pricing.
5. Odoo Project Management
is an open-source suite of business applications, which includes CRM, Project Management, Manufacturing, Inventory, Accounting, and other business needs. All of these in just one software solution.
The different applications are interconnected, and it’s possible to automate many processes to avoid manual inputs into multiple applications.
Main features
- Calendar view;
- Reporting;
- Forecasting;
- Graph views;
Pricing
The pricing depends on which application you want to add from the platform and also on the number of seats you need. But you can simulate how much your custom plan will cost here.
6. ActiveCollab
gives teams complete control over their work with a set of features that helps to organize your work. It’s a great tool for remote teams that need a clear overview of what is happening in projects.
Main features
- Time records;
- Task dependencies;
- Recurring tasks;
- Desktop & mobile app;
- Email integration;
- Budget vs. cost tracking;
- Advanced reports;
Pricing
You can have all the unlimited core features paying $7Â per member, per month, billed monthly. And if you want to expand your plan with additional features, it’s possible to pay a bundle deal for $4 per user/month.
7. Productive
is an end-to-end project management tool that also integrates Sales Pipeline, Resource Planning, and Project Management features. It is designed for marketing, creative agencies, and other professional service business.
It’s possible to assign work, collaborate, and organize your agency projects using features like time tracking, while you also have insights with customizable reports.
Main features
- Budgeting;
- Time tracking;
- Project management;
- Invoicing integrations;
- Reporting;
- Forecasting;
Pricing
The Standard plan costs$12.50 per user/month, while the Premium with more features is $20 per user/month. For more than 100 users, agencies can contact their sales team to know more about the Enterprise plan.
8. Monday.com
is an open platform easy-to-use, with a visual interface that includes building blocks. It also offers Apps and integrations so that agencies can build or customize their workflow according to their needs.
Main features
- 8 different data visualizations(Kanban, Calendar, Timeline, Gantt, map, form, workload, and main);
- Templates;
- Â Files, images, updates, and feedback sharing;
- Automation;
- 40+ integrations;
Pricing
The prices depend on which country you are located in, and you can check them on their website.
9. MeisterTask
is a multi-platform collaboration tool ideal for agencies that want to organize and manage tasks in a highly customizable workspace. It has Kanban boards, which allows teams to easily see each task’s status, giving more visibility to the projects.
Main features:
- Customizable project boards
- Import from Asana, Trello, Wunderlist
- File attachments
- Email support
- Time tracking
- Task from emails
Pricing:
It offers a free version ideal for small teams with limited features. The Pro plan costs $4.19 per month, and the Business plan is $10.39 per month. The most advanced plan is the Enterprise, which teams can customize according to their needs. But the price for this plan is not available, so it’s necessary to contact the sales team.
10. ClickUp
is a project management software that provides a customizable collaboration experience for creative and marketing agencies. This means that team members can manage individual and shared tasks according to their preferences. It’s also possible to easily visualize and manage tasks in 5 different views so that you can organize them based on priority. Besides, there is a task assignment for other team members.
Main Features:
- Recurring tasks;
- To-do lists;
- Automations;
- Gantt Charts;
- 50+ Native Integrations;
- Time Tracking;
- Mind Maps;
Pricing:
The freemium version is for unlimited users and unlimited tasks with limited storage of 100 Mb. And if you want an upgrade to paid plans with more features, the prices start at $5 per user per month.
11. ProProfs Project
ProProfs Project offers a complete marketing project management solution. It streamlines project workflows and enhances overall team productivity. It also increases project visibility, leading to better project outcomes.
With its multiple project views, you can track and get a bird’s eye view of how the tasks are progressing from one stage to the next. This enables you to seamlessly manage multiple marketing campaigns from start to finish from a single dashboard. Moreover, you can collaborate with team members on the move with instant messaging and file-sharing capabilities.
The tool enables an automated client billing process that helps create accurate invoices. You can share and access these invoices from anywhere and anytime.
Main features:
- Time tracking
- Task and resource management
- Milestone tracking
- File sharing
- Custom workflows
- Gantt charts, Kanban boards, Calendar views
- Insightful reports
- Shared calendar
Pricing:The Essentials plan is priced at $2 per user/month and the Premium plan is priced at $4 per user/month. It also offers a 15-day free trail version.
12. Nifty
is a project management tool that helps to improve team productivity by reducing project development, providing a team chat, tasks, roadmaps, docs, and files in just one place. Moreover, this software allows you to manage tasks with kanban or list view, as also a calendar that you can integrate with Google.
Main features
- Time tracking;
- Reporting;
- Milestones (Gantt Chart);
- Automation on task assignments;
- Recurring tasks;
- Custom fields;
Pricing
The pricing range for Nifty goes from $39 per month to $549 per month, depending on the number of seats, the storage space, and the number of projects available your agency needs.
Wrapping up
Choosing a new project management software for your marketing or creative agency may not be an easy task. With so many options, it’s necessary to analyze the ones that fit better what you are looking for, with the features that will help you run your business seamlessly.
Don’t forget to look at directories – such as Capterra, AlternativeTo, or G2 – for user reviews, and visit the tools’ websites to look for use cases that are similar to yours. Don’t waste the opportunity to use the free trials and schedule demos with your favorite options, so you can really know how the product will work for you.
Finally, if you want to know how to choose the right tools for your digital marketing agency, not only for project management, we have a complete guide for you:
The best project management software for marketing agencies.
Drag turns Gmail into your Team’s Workspace – One single place to support customers, manage tasks and close deals, from the place teams love: Gmail. We are a Techstars-backed Company, trusted by 30,000 users around the World.
