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Trello alternatives: Summary & key takeaways
What they replace: Trello alternatives keep a Kanban board and add jobs Trello doesn't list natively, like time tracking and budgets.
Why teams switch: A shadow spreadsheet grows beside the board for capacity, hours, and margin.
How this list works: Each tool is matched to the spreadsheet tab it retires, using official October 2026 pricing pages.
Best fit for services firms: Teamwork.com holds capacity, time, and budgets on its own plans, so one platform covers all three tabs.
For most of my nine years in agencies, moving tasks along was the easy part. The hard part lived in spreadsheets: who was free next week, which hours never got logged, and whether a retainer still paid its way. I had a basic timer and a lot of tabs, and the tabs were always a few days behind.
I work at Teamwork.com now, and I see the same thing in teams shopping for Trello alternatives. Trello is still a strong board, and Premium adds Timeline, Table, Calendar, Dashboard, and Map views. No Trello plan lists time tracking, workload, or budgets, so a shadow spreadsheet grows beside the board.
Those missing hours show up in industry numbers, too. SPI Research's 2026 Professional Services Maturity Benchmark reports billable utilization fell to 66.4% in 2025, the lowest in SPI's survey history and below its 75% target. Hours that sit in a shadow spreadsheet, never logged or planned, can't count toward that number.
Most roundups compare views and Power-Ups, which moves the board and keeps the spreadsheet. This list starts from the job instead: eight Trello alternatives, each matched to the tab it retires.
What is a Trello alternative?
Trello is a Kanban board tool owned by Atlassian. A Trello alternative replaces its boards and adds a job Trello doesn't hold natively, usually time tracking, capacity planning, or budgets.
For example, a design agency might keep its board habit but need every hour logged against the right card. A good Trello alternative answers these questions without a side spreadsheet:
Who has room for new work next week?
Where did the hours on this project actually go?
Is this retainer or fixed-fee project still making money?
Can clients see progress without seeing internal costs?
The shadow spreadsheet growing beside your board
Teams rarely leave Trello because the board stops working. They leave because those questions end up in a spreadsheet, which grows a tab every time the board can't hold a job.
The tabs are predictable. In Teamwork.com's The Sprint to AI report, 92% of respondents say their tools fall short, and 42% point to resource management. The same survey puts the profitability management gap at 38%, and 34% of agency respondents say time tracking falls short. Only 8% of professional services teams say their tools meet all their needs.
For example, a $12,000 monthly retainer at a $150 blended rate buys 80 hours. Log 95 hours in a timer the board never sees, and the retainer loses $2,250 that month. To check your own team's numbers, try our billable utilization rate calculator.
Spreadsheets carry their own risk, too: a 2015 review by Raymond Panko of the University of Hawaii found errors in 94% of 85 audited operational spreadsheets, mostly from older audits.
Before moving to Teamwork.com, Community Link Consulting planned resources through spreadsheets, handwritten notes, and one-on-ones. The shadow spreadsheet map shows which tools retire each tab natively.
Spreadsheet tab
Notion and Airtable don't list any tab natively by plan. Services firms should read the bottom row first, because capacity and time without budgets still leave margin in a spreadsheet.
How I reviewed and selected these tools
That map became my main test: I read each vendor's official pricing pages in October 2026 and judged every tool on seven criteria:
Board continuity: Can a Trello team keep working on a Kanban board from day one?
Capacity: Does it show booked vs. available time per person natively, and on which plan?
Time tracking: Can people log hours against tasks without a separate timer?
Budgets and margin: Can you set a budget and see cost against it during delivery?
Client access: Can clients see progress without seeing internal notes or costs?
AI grounding: Does the AI work from live delivery data or only from card text?
Migration: Is there a documented Trello importer or a clean import path?
Quick glance: 8 best Trello alternatives
Eight tools made the cut, with Teamwork.com first because its plan cards list capacity, time tracking, and budgets without an add-on.
Tool
Teamwork.com
Teamwork.com is the agentic PSA (professional services automation) platform for agencies, consultancies, and IT services firms that deliver for clients. It keeps the board view Trello teams like and connects it to time, capacity, and money, so teams arriving from Trello keep their board habit intact. The change is that hours, workload, and budget burn sit beside the tasks, so Monday's status check starts without an export.
Best features:
Bring your boards across: The Trello importer brings each Trello board in as a project, archived boards included.
Log time where the work happens: Every plan, including Free, lets people log time on tasks, and Accelerate builds client invoices from logged time.
See capacity before you commit: The Workload Planner shows live capacity on Accelerate, and the Utilization report tracks billable utilization per person.
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Watch margin during delivery: Accelerate manages time budgets and retainers, and Optimize adds financial budgets plus revenue, cost, and profit insights.
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Put AI on your delivery data: TeamworkAI's AI Teammates work from your real project data. Scout recaps what you missed and summarizes your meetings, and Flo checks project health and drafts client updates. Dotty suggests replies to support tickets in Teamwork Desk, and Jack runs custom workflows across tools like HubSpot and Slack.
Limitations: Rates, roles, and budgets need configuring before reports mean much, so setup takes more thought than Trello. Profitability insights sit on custom-priced Optimize, and the Remi and Kash AI Teammates are coming soon. Paid plans carry seat minimums of three on Basics and five on Accelerate.
Shadow spreadsheet tabs: Retires all three. Capacity, time, and budget live on the same project.
Pricing:
Free: $0 for up to 5 users
Basics: $9.99/user/month (billed yearly)
Accelerate: $24.99/user/month (billed yearly)
Optimize: Custom pricing
Enterprise: Custom pricing
Every paid plan comes with a 14-day free trial. You don't need a credit card to start.
"Teamwork feels like it was built for teams that work with clients, not just for moving tasks from one column to another. Time tracking, budgets, workload planning, and profitability are all part of the daily workflow instead of feeling like features that were bolted on later." — Omar S., Project Manager, G2
Asana
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Source: Asana
Asana is a work management platform for cross-functional teams that want clear owners, dates, and goals. It's a natural step up for Trello teams planning across many projects at once.
Its standout for a delivery lead is Portfolios, which group projects so you see status, owners, and progress for all of them on one screen. That replaces the weekly "where is everything" tab, and Goals tie those projects to the outcomes leadership tracks. For an account lead juggling several clients, it's the closest thing here to a ready-made status page. Paid plans also include AI Teammates and AI Studio.
Limitations: Native time tracking starts on Advanced, where resource management is limited to one portfolio. Capacity planning sits on Enterprise, and timesheets, user rates, and project budgets need the paid Timesheets & Budgets add-on.
Shadow spreadsheet tabs: Retires time on Advanced and capacity on Enterprise. Budget and margin need the add-on.
Pricing:
Personal: $0 for up to 2 users
Starter: $10.99/user/month (billed annually) or $13.49/user/month (billed monthly)
Advanced: $24.99/user/month (billed annually) or $30.49/user/month (billed monthly)
Enterprise: Contact sales
Yearly billing saves up to 18%. Extra AI requests cost $0.50 each prepaid or $0.60 pay-as-you-go.
monday.com
monday.com is a flexible work platform built around colorful, customizable boards. It's the gentlest visual jump from Trello for teams that like seeing everything on one board.
Column types do the heavy lifting: each board works like a table with status, people, date, timeline, and number columns, and automations fire when a status changes. A Trello list becomes a structured tracker, and dashboards pull several boards into one view. Because the board still looks like a board, it's usually the least disruptive switch for Trello fans.
Limitations: Time tracking starts on Pro, and resource management for workload and capacity is an Enterprise feature. The work management product lists no budgeting features, since quotes and invoices sit in monday CRM. Plans start from three seats, so a two-person team still pays for three.
Shadow spreadsheet tabs: Retires time on Pro and capacity on Enterprise. Budget and margin aren't listed.
Pricing:
Free: $0 for up to 2 seats
Basic: $9/seat/month (billed yearly)
Standard: $12/seat/month (billed yearly)
Pro: $19/seat/month (billed yearly)
Enterprise: Custom pricing
The pricing page showed yearly prices only. A 14-day free trial of Pro lets you test time tracking before you commit.
ClickUp
ClickUp is a work platform that aims to replace several apps at once, covering tasks, docs, chat, and goals. It suits teams that want one tool and are willing to configure it.
Its range of views is the draw. The same tasks can show as a board, list, Gantt chart, table, or calendar, so designers keep their Kanban while account leads work from a list.
Limitations: Teams coming from Trello can find the hierarchy of spaces, folders, and lists heavy at first. No native budgeting or invoicing is listed, and the Workload view is only a trial feature on Core. The pricing page shows two plan grids, so confirm the live price.
Shadow spreadsheet tabs: Retires time on paid plans and capacity through the Workload view. Budget and margin aren't listed.
Pricing:
Free: $0
Core: $9/user/month (billing cadence not stated on pricing page)
Business: $17/user/month (billing cadence not stated on pricing page)
Enterprise: Custom pricing
A second grid on the same page lists Unlimited at $7/user/month billed yearly ($10 billed monthly). It also lists Business at $12 billed yearly ($19 billed monthly), and ClickUp backs paid plans with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Jira
Jira is Atlassian's issue and project tracker for software teams that run sprints. It shares a parent company with Trello, so development teams often look at it first.
Jira's strength is configurable workflows. You define the exact statuses an issue moves through and what's required at each step, then plan sprints from a prioritized backlog. Each project can have its own workflow, so a design review and a code review get different steps.
On Premium, Plans adds capacity management and advanced planning across several teams. Rovo AI is included on paid plans, and Standard or Premium comes with a 7-day free trial.
Limitations: It's built around engineering language, so client-facing teams often find it heavy. No native time tracking, budgets, or financials are listed. In services firms, Jira tends to become the developers' tool while account teams track hours elsewhere, usually in a spreadsheet.
Shadow spreadsheet tabs: Retires capacity on Premium, mainly for engineering teams. Time and budget aren't listed.
Pricing:
Free: $0 for up to 10 users
Standard: $8.48/user/month (shown in the pricing page's monthly view; annual billing saves up to 17%)
Premium: $15.56/user/month (shown in the pricing page's monthly view)
Enterprise: Contact sales (billed annually only)
Notion
Notion is a connected workspace that combines docs, wikis, and databases. It suits teams that want project notes and tasks on the same page.
The useful idea is linked databases. A projects database can link to tasks, meeting notes, and client briefs, and each can display as a board, table, or timeline. One search covers pages and databases, so last quarter's brief is easy to find.
For teams whose Trello cards kept pointing to separate docs, keeping the brief beside the task saves real clicking. Notion Agent and AI Meeting Notes come with the Business plan, which suits teams that run on meetings.
Limitations: Notion lists no time tracking, budgets, or workload management. Because it's so flexible, it can turn into another version of the shadow spreadsheet if nobody owns the structure. It rewards teams with someone who enjoys building templates.
Shadow spreadsheet tabs: Retires none natively. It works best as the brief and wiki layer beside a tool that holds hours and budgets.
Pricing:
Free: $0
Plus: $10/member/month (billing cadence not stated on pricing page)
Business: $20/member/month (billing cadence not stated on pricing page)
Enterprise: Custom pricing
Airtable
Airtable is a relational database with an app builder on top. It suits operations-minded teams that want to design their own system.
Linked records are the reason to pick it. You can connect a clients table to projects, projects to people, and people to roles, then build interfaces for each audience. Rollup fields can total hours or costs across linked records, as long as someone enters them.
If your Trello setup was always a workaround, Airtable lets you model how delivery really works. Ops leads who like building systems get the most from it, because every view is theirs to shape.
Limitations: You build and maintain everything, so it's only as good as its designer. No native time tracking, budgets, or invoicing is listed. Gantt and Timeline start on Team.
Shadow spreadsheet tabs: A new Utilization feature may cover capacity, but the pricing page doesn't say which plans include it. Time and budget aren't listed.
Pricing:
Free: $0 for up to 5 editors
Team: $20/seat/month (billed annually) or $24/seat/month (billed monthly)
Business: $45/seat/month (billed annually) or $54/seat/month (billed monthly)
Enterprise Scale: Custom pricing
The Free plan's five-editor cap means most teams reach Team pricing quickly once more people edit.
Wrike
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Source: Wrike
Wrike is a work management platform for larger teams and departments with formal processes. It suits organizations that need resource planning and structured intake.
Its request forms and custom item types are worth a close look. Forms route incoming requests into the right project with the right fields filled in, and custom item types give work like a campaign its own fields and workflow. Resource and capacity planning start on Business, with advanced planning on Pinnacle. Dashboards like the one above show active, overdue, and completed tasks by assignee.
Limitations: Wrike takes real setup and training compared with Trello. Budgeting sits on Pinnacle, a contact-us plan, and time tracking isn't listed on the plan cards. Business plans and above are annual-only, and Team caps at 15 users, so growing firms land on Business quickly.
Shadow spreadsheet tabs: Retires capacity on Business and budget on Pinnacle. Time isn't listed.
Pricing:
Free: $0
Team: $10/user/month (billed annually), for 2–15 users
Business: $25/user/month (billed annually), for 5–200 users
Pinnacle: Contact us
Apex: Contact us
Wrike's two-week free trial gives you time to test request forms on a live project. Prices apply to purchases on or after January 21, 2026.
AI on a board vs AI that knows your numbers
Every tool above now sells AI, and so does Trello, whose Standard plan includes it. But ask a board-based assistant whether your team can take on a new retainer next month, and it can only read card titles, dates, and comments.
Board AI still earns its place: it summarizes long threads, drafts descriptions, and pulls action items out of notes, which saves real minutes. What it can't do is answer a commercial question, because the hours, rates, and budgets were never on the board.
Reporting shows the gap clearly. In Wellingtone's 2026 State of Project Management release, 72% of project professionals said they spend half a day or more each month collating reports. An assistant that rewrites cards doesn't shorten that, because the numbers it needs still live in the spreadsheet.
AI that sits on delivery data can. In TeamworkAI, Flo checks project health and drafts client updates from live project data. On Optimize, AI forecasts profit, revenue, and cost for each project, so "can we take this on?" comes with a margin attached.
Why Teamwork.com stands out for teams leaving Trello
Generic project tools can't manage the money, and traditional PSAs often get resisted by the teams meant to use them. Teamwork.com is an agentic PSA teams actually want to use: it keeps a familiar board view and adds capacity, time, and budgets. Logged hours feed workload, budgets, and invoices, and TeamworkAI works from that same data.
Know who can take the next project before you say yes to the client. Capacity tabs go stale whenever someone books leave or a task slips, so staffing decisions end up running on last week's numbers. The Workload Planner compares each person's scheduled work against available capacity, so you see exactly who has room before you commit to the next client.
Log every billable hour on the task, right where the work actually happens. Hours captured in a separate timer never reach the budget until somebody exports them, retypes them, and double-checks that nothing quietly slipped through. With Time Tracking, hours logged on each task feed time-and-materials and retainer budgets and reports, so your timesheets line up with what you bill.
Catch a slipping retainer while there's still time to rescope the work. A retainer usually reveals that it lost money only after the month closes, when the invoice has already gone out to the client. Budget Tracking tracks spend against each budget, and retainer budgets track spend per period and can carry a surplus or deficit forward.
The Brand Leader™ replaced Asana and a separate time tracker with Teamwork.com's built-in time tracking, budgeting, and capacity planning, saving the agency more than $17,000 a year.
The job
Plenty of Trello alternatives move the board, but Teamwork.com also retires the spreadsheet beside it.
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