Are you finding it hard to manage your project? If this is the case, don’t worry. I have listed some top project management apps for freelancers to help you manage better.
As a freelancer, you’re running a one-person office. A client might ask for the final draft, while the other needs you to revise something.
Then, there’s the third client who is waiting for an invoice. Sounds familiar?
If you’re sick of maintaining spreadsheets or trying to fit more sticky notes on your wall, you’re in luck. Today, there are many project management apps for freelancers that can help make life easier.
Being your own boss means you’re in charge of everything – making proposals, sending emails, invoicing, tax compliances, revising work, following up on payments, etc.
All of this can pile up to a lot of work that might take much longer than actual gigs. Luckily, we’ve compiled a list of the best project management apps for freelancers to help you out.
Monday is a freelance project management app that can manage multiple tasks. Think of it as an Excel sheet – but much better looking. Whether you’re working as an individual or want to share things with a remote team, Monday helps you stay connected.
With huge companies like Unilever, Uber, Adobe, Universal, and Hulu using it, Monday’s popularity is unmatched. You can monitor team workflows using charts, kanban, or timelines. If working alone, the same features help you keep track of your project’s status.
Additionally, Monday lets you integrate all tools into your workflow. Moreover, you can set deadlines, prioritize certain tasks, and connect with your clients in real-time.
Monday comes with a 14-day free trial. If you’re a non-profit or a student, you can fill in the designated form to get Monday for free.
The Standard Plan costs $29 per month and includes 350 app integrations, a map view, a calendar, full API, and 50 GB of storage.
See Related: Best Time Tracking Apps for Freelancers
Trello is a great app for freelancers that work in a team. For instance, if you’re a writer who has to work with the SEO manager and the graphic designer for the client’s website, Trello is the place to collaborate.
From boards and lists to cards, Trello has many freelance tools to keep you connected flexibly. Plus, you can update the status of your project from Doing to Done to notify other members of your progress.
Trello cards allow you to add comments, due dates, and attachments. Even if you’re working alone, this feature is handy. You can give calendar and due date commands using the built-in automation. Moreover, the custom card buttons help take things off your to-do list.
Also, you can integrate other apps, including Google Drive and Dropbox, into the Trello workflow for seamless functioning. Regardless of where you are, Trello syncs across all devices.
Whether you’re on the bus using your phone or working on your laptop at home, you won’t miss an update from the client.
The basic unit of the organization on Trello is the ‘board.’ Each board is further divided into lists. You can make a separate board for each client and then make lists for different steps, including proposals, revisions, and payments.
Companies like Google, Squarespace, Lush, Pinterest, and Costco use Trello for its fun and flexible interface.
If you’re an individual freelancer, Trello is an ideal pick for you. It’s free for one user per month. In the free plan, you get unlimited lists, cards, and 10MB per file attachment.
The Business Class costs $9.99 per user per month, billed annually. It has all features of the Free Plan plus custom fields, card repeater, voting, and integration for over a hundred apps.
And.Co comes with the promise of handling the paperwork while you do what you love. Isn’t that every freelancer’s dream? It helps you manage everything from payments to proposals, making it a reliable software for freelance projects.
You can make proposals on the app to set your service apart from other freelancers. When it’s payday, you can use And.Co to create invoices. Plus, the app handles payments by tracking the money coming into your bank account – in every currency.
Moreover, And.Co helps you track time, expenses, tasks, reports, and contracts. It’s almost like an office space without the managerial hassle. More than 400,000 freelancers use this app to keep their affairs in order.
Possibly the best thing about the software is the hands-on support. The award-winning customer support will always be at your service, no matter what time of the day.
Even better, you can get help from a real person to manage your freelancing projects.
The free plan works for one user. You can make standard contracts and hook up two bank accounts. The Pro Plan costs $18 per month. You can add unlimited clients, connect six bank accounts, and make editable contracts.
Additionally, you’ll get a free training session from an And. Co-support provider.
See Related: Best Apps Where You Can Win Money
Although not software, the hourly rate calculator is one of the best freelance project management tools.
If you’re a beginner, you might not know the right hourly rate for your skillset.
Often, novice freelancers barely charge enough. Besides charging for work, you also have to factor in the cost of marketing and business development. The hourly rate calculator keeps everything into account, from your expected annual income to extra expenditures.
Here’s how it works: write your targeted annual income – the amount you want to make per year.
Then, add the expense of traveling and marketing. Add the platform fees.
For instance, if you’re working on Freelancer or Fiverr, the platform takes a commission on your work.
Unlike most other calculators, this tool also considers the days off per year. After adding everything, it gives you an estimated amount you should charge your clients.
The hourly rate calculator is free of charge.
FunctionFox is a one-stop for keeping your budget, deadlines, and invoices organized. The app has a beautiful interface that makes organization fun, while the freelance project management tools lessen the hassle of manual management.
The app is used by the Guardian, the University of Victoria, and Pattison, to name a few large companies.
One of the most useful features of FunctionFox is the CEO Desktop. It compares your estimated budget for a project with actual figures to help you keep the project scope in control.
Moreover, the Gantt Charts let your schedule milestones, actions, and meetings in an interactive way. As for a summary of your work, you can customize your dashboard using the built-in features.
The Classic Package costs $5 per user and includes retainer tracking, reports, unlimited projects, and budget tracking.
For $10 per month, you get the Premier Package which has to-do lists, traffic reports, and Gantt Charts, along with all Classic features.
See Related: Ways to Get Paid to Make Excel Spreadsheets
Wrike is among the best project management apps for freelancers, resembling Trello a little. Besides, it’s trusted by over 20,000 customers, including Dell, Google, Siemens, Airbnb, and Ogilvy.
To make things easier for yourself, you can create folders and assign deadlines to all tasks. Moreover, you can add tasks in different folders to differentiate between clients.
If you charge by the hour, Wrike is your best bet since it tracks the amount of time you spend on a project. Plus, it lets you share the schedule with clients or other team members, such as the editors.
Even if the receiver does not have a Wrike account, they’ll get snapshots of your work progress.
Also, Wrike integrates with day-to-day apps, such as iCal, Email, Chrome, and Cloud Storage.
If you work alone or with a small team, you can use Wrike for free with five members. The free plan includes real-time activity streaming, task management, and integrations with basic apps. You also get 2GB of storage.
Meanwhile, the Professional Plan costs up to $9.80 per user per month. The additional features include 5GB of storage, advanced integrations, subtask management, and shareable dashboards.
Bonsai is an all-in-one service that lets you take your mind off the paperwork and focus on work instead. From the first step – the proposal – to the taxes, Bonsai takes care of everything.
It allows you to work in a proper flow; proposals, contracts, projects, invoices, time tracking, accounting, taxes, etc. For presenting a proposal to a new client, you can use the built-in features to create a structured offer.
Since the app has a contract template, you only have to answer a few questions to craft a contract for your project. Hit send, e-sign the contract, and you’re good to go.
You can have different folders, files, and documents for each client. In this way, nothing ever gets missed or forgotten. Plus, you can time-track yourself by creating timesheets for each project.
The Hello Bonsai pricing is a bit different from other project management software for freelancers. The Workflow Plan costs $19 monthly and includes unlimited clients, contracts, proposals, and project management.
Workflow Plus is the most popular plan, costing $29 per month. It includes subcontracting, client portals, client forms, workflow automation, and priority support.
Regardless of the plan, you can add partners for $9 a month. If you want Bonsai to track your expenses or estimate taxes, you’ll have to pay an extra $10 monthly.
17 Hats is your escape from the chaotic lifestyle of a freelancer who is poor at management. Once your managerial tasks are under control, you’ll be able to focus more on work.
To learn about the app quickly, you can take a 45-minute demo in which you’ll be guided about different features and how to use them. No matter how big or small your reach is, 17 Hats works for your needs.
You can input deadlines to the calendar or add contacts that are always on your speed dial. Plus, the built-in invoice templates make paperwork paperless. Thanks to the onboarding feature, it’s easy to engage with each client separately.
As a freelancer, you can quickly lose sight of your monthly expenses. But the 17 Hats at-a-glance financials let you monitor your monetary progress for the month. Also, you can get quarterly reports for weekly payments.
Used by WeddingWire, Squarespace, Stripe, and the Bank of America, 17 Hats can help make organizational tasks a piece of cake. Freelancers from all fields of work, including developers, designers, and photographers, use the app.
The monthly plan comes at $45, but the $295 Annual Plan is 17 Hats’ most popular package. You also get a seven-day free trial and a money-back guarantee for 30 days.
You’ll find a lot of project management apps, but not all cater to freelancers. Most of them are designed for businesses and enterprises. Thus, they don’t suit individual users as well.
Here are a few things to consider when exploring project management apps for freelancers.
Planning and monitoring your time is very important while freelancing. Besides keeping you on track, it also helps show the client how many hours you’re working. For instance, if you work on Upwork, you’ll probably have to submit a timesheet to your client.
Most freelancers who work by the hour need to do something similar to create a comprehensive invoice. Why go through the manual hassle when you can let an app do it for you?
Project management apps let you create separate folders for different projects. Then, you can create timelines to get the work done before the deadlines.
Secondly, the app must have task management functionality. Most apps allow you to make a workflow to do everything in order. For instance, you can start with proposals and go all the way to payments in an organized manner.
Since every step in the pipeline is recorded, it’s almost impossible to lose track of management. You can also share the snapshots of your workflow with the clients to keep them in the loop.
Opt for project management apps that let you add links, files, and notes to the tasks.
This way, you can add reminders for yourself or input the instructions files sent by the client.
Most people will tell you that freelancing means being your own boss. However, it also means being your employee. You’re making the invoices, paying taxes, signing documents, and writing proposals – all while working on the gig. That’s bound to get hectic.
Fortunately, you can get help from many project management apps available online.
Most of them come at a nominal price. If you’re an individual freelancer, you’ll find many free options too.
In this guide, we’ve discussed the best project management apps for freelancers to take the extra organizational hassle off your hands. With that worry out of the way, you’ll be able to focus on your skill and go to the next level.
Here are a few frequently asked questions to resolve common queries.
It’s hard to choose a single app as the best management platform for freelancers. Depending on your freelancing category, team size, and preferences, the best app for you might not be great for others.
Therefore, it’s important to go through an app’s features before signing up for a payment plan. Some apps, such as 17 Hats, give a demo session to familiarize you with the software’s features.
Similarly, And.Co offers a free training session from an expert in the Pro Plan. If you’re inclined towards using project management apps used by huge corporations like Google and Dell, you can go for Trello, Hello Bonsai, or Wrike.
Generally, you won’t find free project management apps for freelancers. However, most apps have a free plan that comes with limited features. For instance, Trello’s free plan allows you to make unlimited lists, cards, and boards.
On And.Co, one user can use the app for free and connect up to two bank accounts. On Wrike, a team of up to five members can use the software for free. The free plan includes task management and integrations.
Thus, you don’t need to look for free freelancing software for projects. Instead, go for paid apps that have free plans for single users or small teams.
If you have a team of more than three to five members, it’s practically impossible to find a free app with versatile features. Lastly, if you want to judge an app’s functionality before paying for it, sign up for the free trial.
Last updated: September 1, 2023
