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Best Project Management Software for Creatives: Buying Guide/Reviews
It doesn’t matter what type of team you’re operating if you don’t have project management software, you’re missing out. This is particularly true for creative teams working together on a specific project. One location where feedback can be tracked, processes can be consolidated, and other collaborators can be engaged is essential for creatives. A creatives team exchange of data and papers with the rest of their business and customers may quickly become overwhelming. As a result. software for managing products is essential in ensuring project success.
Looking for specific features? Explore our comparison tooling.
At a glance:
- Smart Sheet: Best overall project management software
- Monday Project Management: Most user-friendly
- Wrike: Best invoicing
- ClickUp: Most comprehensive
- Teamwork: Most affordable
Best Overall
✅ Endlessly customizable and quite powerful
✅ Supports automations, input from web forms, proofing and approvals.
User-friendly
✅ Planning and setting objectives with the team.
✅ Flexible and customizable in terms of setting up a workflow.
Best invoicing
✅ Can manage both projects and ongoing work.
✅ New intelligent features flag projects at risk of slipping.
Comprehensive
✅ Keep an overview.
✅ Extensive customization of virtual workplace.
Affordable
✅ Great customization options.
✅ Billing and invoicing included.
✅ Free account available.
How to choose the best project management software for creatives?
This article focuses on how to effectively manage creative projects by using the appropriate toolsets. When it comes to finding the best tool for your company, you have a variety of possibilities at your disposal. As long as you have a fair idea of what you’re looking for, you should have no difficulty identifying the most appropriate project management system for your company. Before choosing, it is important to bear in mind the following:
- Price. The cost of project management software may vary widely, with some businesses charging a flat monthly fee while others charge per user or for individual project. It’s important to think about how you’ll use this management software before you start budgeting for it, since the price may make a major impact in your decision. It is possible to find alternate management solutions that provide amazing capabilities without the high or complicated up-front costs associated with a certain price structure if you can’t justifiably justify the upfront costs.
- Sharing and Collaboration features. Each product has a unique way of interacting with other users on a regular basis, and this is the core role of any project management software. Choosing a project management technology is influenced by how your projects are handled. To determine whether a product is right for you, look at the sharing options and the way cooperation is set up.
- Integration. It’s true that not all project management tools allow for the integration of third-party programmes or websites, but this may not be necessary for your particular workflow.
- Easy-to-use design. It is important that project management software is simple to use. It’s all about making your processes more efficient and saving you time. A product’s interface should not be an obstacle to your productivity if you find it to be confusing and time-consuming.
- Count of users. This is a significant issue that may influence your choice, and it also ties back to the cost. The number of individuals you need to involve in projects, as well as your future workload expectations, should be taken into consideration when choosing a project management platform. You may end up spending a lot of money if you’re paid per user for huge projects or if your firm grows quickly.
- Time. The ability to organize one’s time is critical for creatives, and adopting a platform with time tracking tools is essential for knowing where one’s time and energy is being spent on each client and project. If you work for an agency and bill customers on an hourly basis, this is an essential must-have feature.
At the end of the day, your workflows and project steps determine which kind of product is the right choice for your needs. Make sure that you are not trying to make your workflow fit poorly into the established functionality of a tool that will never suit your needs. This is why comparison shopping for project management tools is so critical.
Best Project Management Software for Creatives
- Smart Sheet: Best overall Project Management software
- Monday Project Management: Most user-friendly
- Wrike: Best invoicing
- ClickUp: Most comprehensive
- Teamwork: Most affordable
Smart Sheet Review: Best overall Project Management software
Excel users who have grown tired of the limitations that come with the software will be pleased with the new enhancements that Smartsheet have added to their software. Modifications to the programme may take a number of forms, including the use of trademarks and the creation of unique themes for various sorts of activity. A mobile app for project management on the move, as well as excellent resource management capabilities, are included as additional features.
Two of the most essential qualities of Smartsheet are its capacity to be customized and its resilience. Editing and approval are two more alternatives available in addition to the use of online forms. Additionally, the administrative interface of the programme allows you to personalize and manage your account information.
It’s probable that you’ll want to utilize this programme to produce reminders and reports for chores that are coming up in the future. Smartsheet incorporates all of the most crucial abilities required for most jobs today.
If you are using older methods of project management, you’ll find it difficult to automate business procedures, organize events, and create photos. Smartsheet enables all of this. Moreover, by incorporating capabilities like shared views and history tracking, they have made it simpler for team members to convey information about project areas. Complete status reports and automated notifications raise awareness for whole teams, through ensuring that no crucial details are missed.
Monday Project Management Review: Most user-friendly
With Monday.com’s customized templates for procedures and project management systems, there is no need to start from scratch when developing procedures. When developing new papers, templates not only save time by streamlining the process, but they also help to maintain uniformity. A large number of free templates are available on Monday.com for managing project portfolios and teams, campaigns and contacts, onboarding customers, and addressing help desk problems.
There are templates on Monday.com that can be customized to meet your specific needs, whether you’re in charge of a small-scale project or one that involves hundreds of employees in various roles.
Your team can swiftly and effectively communicate data across a variety of different platforms by using Jira and GitHub. For the widgets on the project screen to be tracked, a link or other tracking information may be added to each of their respective fields.
Using this application, which is compatible with Google Drive, Slack, Jira, and GitHub, you can exchange files and data with your coworkers in a rapid and seamless manner. If you’re looking for a unique tracking tool, you may insert a link or other piece of information into a specific area on the project screen’s widgets.
Project accounting is not really covered in this tool but you can choose to integrate their unique tracking tools to keep tabs on hours worked, timelines, and invoices. This is a small additional integration that is easy to make if you need this kind of tool in your project management workflow.
Wrike Review: Best invoicing
There is a broad variety of organizations that may benefit from utilizing Wrike, but it is particularly beneficial for companies who have a big number of transactions to process. Custom reports, forms for requesting information from other team members, and other features of this application’s user-interface are all accessible from the same location.
Some of its most significant benefits include the addition of intelligent tools that can manage both projects whilst also continuing work efforts that are at danger of falling behind schedule, as well as managing account types for marketing and creative teams – all tied together with the ability to create custom accounts.
In addition to the high level of process visibility, calendar sharing, and reminders that are offered, smaller tasks may be broken down if necessary to save time. Interoperation with other marketing systems, such as Marketo is also possible. The program’s amazing invoicing capabilities will make it worth your while to invest in purchasing.
It is possible to divide jobs down into smaller ones if necessary, and there is excellent workflow visibility, calendar sharing, and reminder functionality available. The software costs $9.80 per month per user, with the invoicing capabilities being so good that it may just be worth paying the fee.
ClickUp Review: Most comprehensive
The use of this software will provide a wide range of valuable planning and scheduling features, as well as the chance to exchange information and communicate with others in a collaborative environment.
You and your team will be able to cooperate more effectively and split any project into tasks and subtasks if you use this application. If there are a large number of people working on a range of activities, a search and filter function that is easy to use is available.
You can utilize the application to construct a virtual workplace that is tailored to your companies’ specific requirements whilst at the same time maintaining a comprehensive perspective on the overall progress of your project.
This is a unique application because it allows for the creation and storage of collaborative knowledge documents like Wikis as well. With Wrike, you can see and manage your projects in a variety of ways. Gantt Charts, lists, tables, and kanban boards are all included in the platform’s tools. Using workflow categories, tasks are categorized into active or completed state, and custom headers may be added to further classify jobs. Having everyone participating in the project and following the same plan and deadlines may assist in keeping everyone on track with the project.
Providing a more cost-effective alternative to G Suite or Slack, this service is a fantastic option. Everything is included in the free plan, with the exception of Wikis, which are available for an additional $5 per month per user. Essentially, everything you could possibly desire in a project management solution is included inside this single application.
Teamwork Review: Most affordable
Using Teamwork, you may customise your account to match your company’s specific needs. An option to upload a logo is available for each account.
You also have complete control over the appearance and features of your project. If a user is working on a project that does not need time tracking or payment, the appropriate fields will be hidden from view. It is also possible to set a default page for each project.
Billing and invoicing are included in Teamwork, making it a good fit for teams that charge clients for their services. Teamwork remains a viable option for small organizations. In our opinion, there is currently no better solution for project management than Teamwork, which has an excellent reputation. You can acquire what you want without spending a lot of money. Using this project management software, you can easily monitor billable time and deadlines thanks to widgets and an intuitive user interface.
Zoho Review - Honourable Mention
If you’re looking for a way to connect with a huge number of high-quality people, the Zoho platform is the option for you. There are several charting choices, and it you can also automate a broad variety of tasks.
There are several methods to interact with the programme, making it easy to learn how to use it and customize it. It is possible to keep track of how long it has been since you last worked on your project, helping you and your team keep tabs on progress. After all, it is easier for teams to interact when they have access to project tracking tools and the ability to keep tabs on the status of their work.
A custom template for your most often done tasks may also be created, which you can customise with your own information. A complementary onboarding session is included in this package, which will help you understand more about the software’s capabilities.
Some additional systems, such as Google Drive, Slack, Microsoft and Jira may be able to integrate with Zoho. The seamlessness with which the billing, project management, and spreadsheet data are all integrated in this programme is impressive. Instead of paying monthly, you may choose to pay $4 per user each month for the whole year.
Summary - The best project management software for creatives
For a really excellent and well-balanced tool that will offer you all of the functionality that you could ever want for projects and team efforts – choose Smart Sheet. This is the right choice for easy visualization of tasks and timelines as well as information sharing and customization options. The pricing is really affordable and the user interface is easy to understand and work with.
Unlike other project management platforms, Smartsheet can grow from a single project to a full-fledged work management system, linking businesses on a no-code, cloud-based platform where anybody can design the solution they need—backed by the control and security IT demands.
If this is not the right tool for your needs, these other options might be the perfect fit for your organization and project management style:
- Monday Project Management: When it comes to ease of use and teamwork, this is a no-brainer. If you use workflow tools and widgets, you can keep an eye on the present condition for every project and job you are working on. A little monthly cost ensures that you will not go bankrupt if you use one of the supported services.
- Wrike: This may be the best solution for you in the near term if you have a lot of expenses to pay. You can keep track of how much time each employee spends on each work by using this tool, which allows you to segregate and subdivide tasks. Compared to other options on our list, this program’s invoicing features are worth the higher monthly fee.
- ClickUp: When it comes to planning and scheduling activities, this project management application excels, and it also has fantastic sharing capabilities. With this tool, you may work with a big group and everyone will know exactly where the project is at all times. Wikis may be created using this application, and you’ll receive a lot of useful integration features that you won’t find in other Wiki-related products.
- Teamwork: Manage projects and freelancers from a single spot with this programme; you can log hours worked and set up shared calendars so everyone can see what’s going on at any given time. These tools make it simple to delegate tasks and duties to others, which is an important consideration for anybody tracking the development of a project. This organization’s numerous management solutions may help you keep track of various types of work while also using cutting-edge technologies.
- Zoho: Some of the other products on our list don’t have as much flexibility in terms of integration as Zoho does. The widgets allow users to connect with one another, assign and reassign tasks, and utilize third-party tools inside each project. This programme has a great charting feature that allows you to customize the look and feel of the data for each task.
Project management software for creatives FAQs
Why is project management software important?
Project management software is very helpful to track all of the steps of the projects that you are managing. You will be able to see all of the stages and steps of your project as well as the tasks that have to be completed within each stage when you use this kind of software. This is an important product for project management because everyone working on the project will be able to see everything they need to know about it at a glance. Being able to create shared timelines, calendars and tasks can be very helpful for any kind of project.
What are the uses of project management software?
This kind of software tool is made to help businesses and groups track tasks, timelines, calendar activities, and more in one location. Project management tools help large groups to collaborate more effectively and to maintain communication during all of the stages of the tasks that need to be done for a job. These kinds of tools can also help with invoicing and billing and they can help with communication with vendors and freelancers.
What are the types of software management for projects?
Most project management software tools are designed to track deadlines and work that a group is sharing. This can mean that freelancers, vendors, and other external workers can use the tool as well as internal team members. The other kind of software tool for this need is one that allows for invoicing along with project timeline management and team collaboration. Most of these tools will be made to offer all of the same features but invoicing and time management tools are typically only included in some of these softwares.
What are the main characteristics of software for project management?
These softwares are made to offer timeline management tools, task creation, and management tools, project widgets that allow for document links and uploads to be shared, and they offer shared calendars. The best of these tools will also allow invoicing and billing management. You will be able to track every kind of action that is needed for your project to be a success.
What are the types of activities in project management?
Project management requires sharing information with other team members and as a project manager, you must be sure that every aspect of your project is completed correctly and on time. Project management also requires invoicing and billing and work with freelancers and external workers of all kinds. The right project management software will make it possible to track all of these activities with ease in one location. Being able to share all the relevant information and timelines for a project in one location is critical to its success.
What are the Key Features of Project Management Software?
Project management software offers all the tools and features that are needed to manage a project with ease. You will get access to shared calendars, timelines that help track deadlines, sharing locations that allow for link sharing, access sharing, and document downloads. You will also get chat and discussion functionality that allows for everyone to talk about who needs to do what within each task. Task creation and management is also a part of these tools and with some of these softwares you can even track invoicing and billing.