Asana
Work management for teams that have outgrown a board but not hired a PM.
- Productivity
- Marketing
- Sales
- from $10.99/mo
Asana is a work management platform covering tasks, projects, portfolios, goals and workflow automation, with list, board, timeline and calendar views over the same data. It sits between simple task tools and heavyweight project software, and is strongest for cross-functional work that is not software delivery.
Asana: the short answer
Every line below is drawn from facts verified on 9 August 2026.
- What it is
- Work management for teams that have outgrown a board but not hired a PM
- Best for
- Cross-functional teams coordinating work across departments
- Starts at
- Free for up to 10 users; Starter from $10.99 per user/month billed annually
- Free option
- Free plan available, 30 days on Starter and Advanced trial
- Biggest strength
- Multi-homing tasks avoids duplication across projects
- Biggest drawback
- Portfolios, goals and workload are Advanced-only
- Closest alternative
- monday.com - More visually configurable and often cheaper at small seat counts
- True annual cost
- from $131.88 a year at the cheapest paid tier
Asana at a glance
| Best for | Cross-functional teams coordinating work across departments, Marketing, operations and creative teams with recurring processes, Organisations that need portfolio visibility above individual projects |
|---|---|
| Category | Productivity, Marketing, Sales |
| Starting price | Free for up to 10 users; Starter from $10.99 per user/month billed annually |
| Free plan | Yes |
| Free trial | 30 days on Starter and Advanced |
| Pricing model | freemium |
| Company | Asana, Inc. |
| Founded | 2008 |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California, United States |
| Founders | Dustin Moskovitz, Justin Rosenstein |
| Platforms | Web, Windows, macOS, iOS, Android |
| Public API | Yes |
| Browser extension | No |
| Mobile apps | iOS + Android |
| Self-hosting | No |
| Affiliate programme | No |
| Data source | Vendor pricing page and public records |
| Last checked | August 2026 |
Asana pricing
Prices below were read from the vendor's own pricing page on 9 August 2026. Pricing model: freemium. Free trial: 30 days on Starter and Advanced.
| Plan | Price | Billing | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Personal | $0 | per month | Up to 10 users, unlimited tasks and projects, basic views |
| Starter | $10.99 | per month | per user, billed annually - $13.49 billed monthly. Timeline, dashboards, rules and forms |
| Advanced | $24.99 | per month | per user, billed annually - $30.49 billed monthly. Portfolios, goals, workload and approvals |
| Enterprise | Custom | Negotiated | Adds SAML, provisioning and advanced administration |
What Asana actually costs over a year
A monthly price is not the same thing as a monthly contract. These are the plans above multiplied out to twelve months, per seat or unit where the plan is charged that way.
| Plan | Monthly | Over 12 months |
|---|---|---|
| Starterper user, billed annually | $10.99 | $131.88 |
| Advancedper user, billed annually | $24.99 | $299.88 |
Which Asana plan should you buy?
| Your situation | Recommended | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A team of ten or fewer coordinating simple work | Personal | Free for up to 10 users with unlimited tasks and projects. Genuinely usable. |
| You need timelines, dashboards, rules and forms | Starter | $10.99 per user billed annually, and the tier where Asana becomes a process tool. |
| You need portfolios, goals and workload management | Advanced | $24.99 per user. Bought for visibility above individual projects, which is a leadership need rather than a doer's need. |
| You are tracking software delivery | Consider Jira instead | Asana is not an issue tracker. Sprints, backlogs and releases fit Jira properly. |
| A shared board would be enough | Do not buy Asana | Trello or the free tier will do, and Starter is a big step for simple task lists. |
Verdict by who you are
Marketing or creative operations teamYes
Recurring processes with forms, rules and approvals are exactly what Asana does better than its rivals.
Leadership needing portfolio visibilityYes
Portfolios and goals on Advanced answer the "what is the status of everything" question that spreadsheets never do.
Software engineering teamNo
Jira or Linear track delivery properly. Asana will feel like paperwork.
Team of threeCompare first
The free tier covers you. Do not pay until timelines or rules are genuinely blocking.
Agency needing resource and cost managementCompare first
Workload helps, but detailed resourcing and billing need a purpose-built tool.
Should you buy Asana?
Buy Asana if…
- Cross-functional teams coordinating work across departments
- Marketing, operations and creative teams with recurring processes
- Organisations that need portfolio visibility above individual projects
Do not buy Asana if…
- Software engineering teams wanting issue tracking
- Very small teams where a shared board is enough
- Buyers needing detailed resource and cost management
Key features
- One task appearing in multiple projects without duplication
- List, board, timeline and calendar views over the same data
- Portfolios for tracking many projects at once
- Goals linking day-to-day work to company objectives
- Workload view for spotting over-allocated people
- Rules and forms for intake and process automation
- Approvals and proofing for creative review
- Asana Intelligence for summaries and status generation
Integrations
- Slack and Microsoft Teams
- Google Workspace and Microsoft 365
- Salesforce
- Jira
- Figma and Adobe Creative Cloud
- Zapier and the Asana API
Asana screenshots
Captured by us in August 2026 at 1440px, unedited. Interfaces change, so these show the product as it looked on the date we verified this profile. Vendors localise pricing by visitor region, so a pricing screenshot may display a different currency to the USD figures recorded above.
Our assessment
Asana is the most coherent work management tool for teams that are not building software. Its central idea, that one task can live in several projects without being copied, removes the duplication that makes other tools drift out of date, and Workload is the clearest answer to "who is overloaded" in this category. The catch is that the features people evaluate it for, namely portfolios, goals and workload, are all on Advanced at $24.99, more than double Starter. Evaluate against Advanced pricing, because that is where the product people demoed to you actually lives.
What works in Asana
- Multi-homing tasks avoids duplication across projects
- Workload view genuinely surfaces over-allocation
- Rules and forms automate intake without any code
- Clean, fast interface that non-technical teams adopt readily
What doesn't
- Portfolios, goals and workload are Advanced-only
- Expensive per seat once the whole department is licensed
- Weak for software issue tracking compared with purpose-built tools
- No true resource costing or budgeting
EveryAny Decision Score
Scored by dimension rather than averaged into one number, because the trade-offs are the useful part. 3 of these 8 dimensions are calculated from verified facts by published formula; the rest are editorial judgement, labelled as such. How each score is calculated.
- Cost position3.3/10
derivedentry tier at $10.99 a month against a category median of $9.99 across 24 comparable tools
- Portability5/10
derivedpublic API
- Subscription flexibility9/10
derivedfree plan, free trial, freemium, monthly billing
- Feature depth8/10
editorialeditorial judgement, reviewed at last check
- Ease of learning7/10
editorialeditorial judgement, reviewed at last check
- Collaboration9/10
editorialeditorial judgement, reviewed at last check
- AI capability6/10
editorialeditorial judgement, reviewed at last check
- Professional adoption9/10
editorialeditorial judgement, reviewed at last check
What leaving Asana would cost
moderate lock-in
Calculated as 10 minus a portability score of 5, built from four signals (self-hosting, a public API, open-source licensing and a documented export path) . Asana scores on: public API. Formula.
Asana competitors and alternatives
| Alternative | Why you might pick it instead |
|---|---|
| monday.com | More visually configurable and often cheaper at small seat counts. |
| Jira | The right tool if the work being tracked is software delivery. |
| Notion | Better when projects and documentation should live together. |
monday.com
Productivity
A colourful work OS you configure rather than adopt.
Trello
Productivity
Kanban boards simple enough that nobody needs training.
Multi-homing is the idea that matters
In most tools, work that concerns two teams gets copied into two places and the copies diverge within a fortnight. Asana lets one task appear in several projects while remaining a single object, so updating it anywhere updates it everywhere. That sounds minor and is the main reason Asana stays accurate longer than its rivals.
Price the tier you actually need
Starter at $10.99 gives timeline, dashboards, rules and forms. Advanced at $24.99 adds portfolios, goals, workload and approvals. Almost every buyer who evaluates Asana is really evaluating Advanced, because those are the capabilities that distinguish it from a cheaper board tool. Budget $24.99 per person and treat Starter as the fallback rather than the plan.
Monthly billing adds roughly 22%, so annual commitment is a meaningful saving if you are confident.
Where it is the wrong choice
Engineering teams should use Jira or a dedicated issue tracker; Asana lacks sprints, story points and the Git integrations that make delivery legible. Teams that need documentation living alongside the work are usually better served by Notion. And a five-person team with one workflow does not need this and will be happier on Trello.
The adoption risk
Asana is easy to start and easy to abandon, because nothing forces consistency. Projects created ad hoc, tasks without owners and three competing naming conventions produce the same graveyard as any other tool. The organisations that get value from it decide, up front, what a project is and who owns intake.
Asana questions, answered
- Is Asana worth it?
- Asana is the most coherent work management tool for teams that are not building software.
- How much does Asana cost?
- Free for up to 10 users; Starter from $10.99 per user/month billed annually. The cheapest paid tier we recorded works out at $10.99 a month, or $131.88 over a year. Verified against the vendor's pricing page.
- Does Asana have a free plan or free trial?
- Asana has a free plan. A free trial is available: 30 days on Starter and Advanced.
- What is the best Asana alternative?
- It depends on the job. monday.com: More visually configurable and often cheaper at small seat counts. Jira: The right tool if the work being tracked is software delivery. Notion: Better when projects and documentation should live together.
- Can I self-host Asana?
- No. Asana is a hosted service only, so your data lives on the vendor's infrastructure.
Provenance and freshness
When each fact was last checked
- Pricing ·
- Plans ·
- Free trial
- Features
- Platforms
- Integrations
- Affiliate programme
- Company details
What has changed
-
August 2026
- Per-user pricing verified, annual and monthly
- Added plan picker and verdicts
Sources & verification
Facts on this page were read from the sources below on the dates shown. Where a vendor does not publish a figure, we record it as not disclosed rather than estimating it.
- Asana pricing - checked 9 August 2026
Spotted something out of date? Email [email protected] and we will re-check it. Corrections are logged on the page.
