Basecamp
Flat-fee project management - $299 a month for unlimited users, or $15 a user.
- Productivity
- from $15/mo
Basecamp is 37signals' project management tool, built around to-dos, message boards, chat and schedules rather than configurable workflows. Its commercial distinction is Pro Unlimited: $299 a month billed annually for an unlimited number of users, which makes it the only product in our project management comparison whose bill stops growing with the team.
Basecamp: the short answer
Every line below is drawn from facts verified on 19 August 2026.
- What it is
- Flat-fee project management - $299 a month for unlimited users, or $15 a user
- Best for
- Teams above about 20 people who want the bill to stop growing
- Starts at
- Free for 1 project and 20 users; Pro $15 per user/month; Pro Unlimited $299/month flat
- Free option
- Free plan available, 30 days on Pro, 60 days on Pro Unlimited, no credit card required trial
- Biggest strength
- $299 a month flat for unlimited users, which no rival here offers
- Biggest drawback
- No dependencies, resourcing or portfolio reporting at any price
- Based on
- Primary-source research, not hands-on use
- Closest alternative
- Trello - Cheaper below 20 people at $5 a user, and simpler again. No flat-fee option
- True annual cost
- from $180 a year on Pro, the cheapest paid tier ($15 a month)
Basecamp at a glance
| Best for | Teams above about 20 people who want the bill to stop growing, Companies who want a tool nobody has to configure, Agencies working with clients and contractors, who are not billed |
|---|---|
| Category | Productivity |
| Starting price | Free for 1 project and 20 users; Pro $15 per user/month; Pro Unlimited $299/month flat |
| Free plan | Yes |
| Free trial | 30 days on Pro, 60 days on Pro Unlimited, no credit card required |
| Pricing model | subscription |
| Company | 37signals |
| Founded | Not disclosed |
| Headquarters | Not disclosed |
| Founders | Jason Fried |
| Platforms | Web, macOS, Windows, 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 |
Basecamp pricing
Prices below were read from the vendor's own pricing page on 19 August 2026. Pricing model: subscription. Free trial: 30 days on Pro, 60 days on Pro Unlimited, no credit card required.
| Plan | Price | Billing | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | per month | Up to 20 users - One project, 1 GB of storage. Downgrading to it requires deleting all but one project |
| Pro | $15 | per month | per user, billed monthly - Unlimited projects, 500 GB of storage. Clients and contractors are not billed - only employees and full users |
| Pro Unlimited | $299 | per month | Unlimited users - Billed annually. Unlimited users at a fixed price, 5 TB of storage, and the Admin Pro Pack and Timesheet upgrades included |
| Timesheet | $50 | per month | Flat, whatever the headcount. Included on Pro Unlimited |
| Admin Pro Pack | $50 | per month | Flat, whatever the headcount. Included on Pro Unlimited |
| Extra 1 TB storage | $50 | per month | Flat, shared across every user on the account |
What Basecamp actually costs over a year
A monthly price is not the same thing as a monthly contract. These are the plans above resolved both ways, per seat or unit where the plan is charged that way. Where a vendor quotes only a yearly figure it is divided by twelve rather than left out, and the Quoted column says which figure the vendor actually publishes.
| Plan | Quoted | Monthly | Over 12 months |
|---|---|---|---|
| Proper user, billed monthly | per month | $15 | $180 |
| Pro UnlimitedUnlimited users | per month | $299 | $3,588 |
| Timesheet add-on | per month | $50 | $600 |
| Admin Pro Pack add-on | per month | $50 | $600 |
| Extra 1 TB storage add-on | per month | $50 | $600 |
Which Basecamp plan should you buy?
| Your situation | Recommended | Why |
|---|---|---|
| You are 20 or more people and already on Basecamp | Pro Unlimited | $299 a month billed annually, unlimited users. The crossover against Pro at $15 a user a month is 20 people, so above that this is the cheaper of the two and gets cheaper with every hire. |
| You are a small team of five | Pro | $15 a user a month billed monthly, so $75 a month. Cheaper per-seat options exist at this size. |
| You want to try it on one real project | Free | One project, 20 users and 1 GB of storage, with every feature included. |
| You are an agency with more clients than staff | Pro | Clients and contractors are not billed, so only employees count towards the per-user price. |
| You need dependencies or resource planning | Consider Smartsheet or ClickUp instead | Basecamp does not do either, and no tier adds them. |
Verdict by who you are
Company of 30 to 200 peopleCompare first
A fixed $299 a month for everybody is predictable and gets cheaper with each hire, but cheaper per-seat options exist at 30 - Trello, Plane and ClickUp all come in under it until 43 people or more.
Agency with clients in the toolYes
Clients and contractors are free, which is unusual and materially cheaper than per-seat rivals.
Team of fiveCompare first
$75 a month for five is above Trello, ClickUp and Plane at the same size; you are paying for the absence of setup work.
Team that needs dependencies or capacity planningNo
Neither exists here, and this is a deliberate scope decision rather than a gap to be filled.
Software team tracking sprintsNo
There is no backlog, no sprint and no release, and Card Tables is not an issue tracker.
Should you buy Basecamp?
Buy Basecamp if…
- Teams above about 20 people who want the bill to stop growing
- Companies who want a tool nobody has to configure
- Agencies working with clients and contractors, who are not billed
Do not buy Basecamp if…
- Teams who need dependencies, resourcing or portfolio reporting
- Software teams tracking sprints and releases
- Anyone wanting AI features, which this product does not advertise
Best Basecamp alternative for each job
Chosen by what you are trying to do rather than by which product is closest overall, because the right replacement depends on the job.
| If you mainly need to… | Use | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Cheapest way to give five people a tracker | Plane | Free to 12 users, then $6 a seat a month, and open source. |
| Simplest board a team will actually update | Trello | $5 a user a month, free for ten collaborators, and nothing to configure. |
| Dependencies and resource planning | Smartsheet | Portfolio and resourcing over a grid, with unlimited free contributors. |
| Recurring processes with forms and approvals | Asana | Intake forms, rules and approvals that block, which Basecamp does not attempt. |
Key features
- Message boards for announcements, kept out of chat
- To-dos for tracking work and accountability
- Card Tables, the product's take on Kanban
- Campfires and Pings for group chat and direct messages
- Scheduling for deadlines, milestones and events
- Docs and files with per-project storage
- Reports and automatic check-ins
- Every feature is included on every package, including the free one
Integrations
- Basecamp API
- Third-party apps through the Basecamp extras directory
- Email-in for messages and comments
Basecamp 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. Pricing pages are captured from a US vantage point, so the currency shown matches the USD figures recorded above.
Our assessment
Basecamp is the one product in this category that has decided what it is not going to do, and prices accordingly. There are no dependencies, no resource levelling, no portfolio roll-ups and no AI features on the pricing page - what there is instead is a flat $299 a month for unlimited users, which changes the arithmetic rather than the feature list. At 20 people, per-user Pro and flat Pro Unlimited cost within a few dollars of each other; above that, every new hire is free. Where it lands against rivals depends entirely on their per-seat rate - it undercuts Wrike Business from twelve people and Asana from twenty-eight, and does not undercut Trello until sixty. Clients and contractors are not billed at all. The trade is real and it is not small: teams who need to know what blocks what, or who is over-allocated next month, will not find it here at any price, and there is no answer to a sprint board. The company is unusually legible for a software vendor - 27 profitable years, zero debt, self-serve cancellation with annual payments prorated back - and that is part of what is being sold. Buy it for the shape of the bill and the absence of a configuration project, not for capability.
What works in Basecamp
- $299 a month flat for unlimited users, which no rival here offers
- Clients and contractors are free, so agency work does not inflate the bill
- Every feature is on every package, including the free one
- Self-serve cancellation with annual payments prorated back to the card
What doesn't
- No dependencies, resourcing or portfolio reporting at any price
- The free package allows one project, so downgrading means deleting work
- Pro is dearer per seat than Trello, ClickUp, monday.com or Plane
- No AI features are advertised on the pricing page
EveryAny Decision Score
3 of these 8 dimensions are calculated from verified facts; the rest are our judgement, shown as a band rather than a figure unless something specific sits behind them. How each score works.
- Cost position1.8/10
derivedentry tier at $15 a month against a category median of $9.99 a month across 28 comparable tools
- Portability5/10
derivedpublic API
- Subscription flexibility8/10
derivedfree plan, free trial, subscription, monthly billing
- Feature depth4/10
editorialMessage boards, to-dos, Card Tables, chat, scheduling, docs and check-ins, with no dependencies, no resource management and no portfolio reporting at any tier.
- Ease of learningVery high
editorialour judgement, with no measurement behind it
- CollaborationHigh
editorialour judgement, with no measurement behind it
- AI capability1/10
editorialNo AI feature is named anywhere on the pricing page, where every rival in this comparison names at least one.
- Professional adoption7/10
editorialThe pricing page states 2,608 organisations signed up in the week before it was read, and 27 profitable years in business. No total customer count is published.
What leaving Basecamp would cost
moderate lock-in
Basecamp scores on public API. Portability 5/10 ; lock-in is the inverse. How this is calculated.
Basecamp competitors and alternatives
| Alternative | Why you might pick it instead |
|---|---|
| Trello | Cheaper below 20 people at $5 a user, and simpler again. No flat-fee option. |
| ClickUp | Far more capability for $7 a user, and far more configuration to do. |
| Asana | Better at recurring processes with forms, rules and approvals. Priced per seat throughout. |
Trello
Productivity
Kanban boards simple enough that nobody needs training.
Checked Aug 2026
Asana
Productivity
Work management for teams that have outgrown a board but not hired a PM.
Checked Aug 2026
ClickUp
Productivity
One app to replace them all, which is both the pitch and the risk.
Checked Aug 2026
The flat fee is the product
Every other tool in our project management guide charges by the person, so the bill tracks headcount. Basecamp offers that too - Pro at $15 a user a month - but its argument is the other package:
| Team size | Pro at $15 a user | Pro Unlimited flat | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 people | $900 a year | $3,588 a year | Pro |
| 20 people | $3,600 a year | $3,588 a year | Level |
| 50 people | $9,000 a year | $3,588 a year | Pro Unlimited |
| 200 people | $36,000 a year | $3,588 a year | Pro Unlimited |
The crossover against Basecamp’s own Pro plan is 20 people.
Against other vendors it depends entirely on their per-seat rate, and the answer is later than the flat fee makes it feel. $3,588 a year buys unlimited users, so Pro Unlimited is the cheaper option from the headcount where a rival’s annual per-seat bill passes that figure:
| Instead of | Per user a year | Pro Unlimited wins from |
|---|---|---|
| Wrike Business at $25 a user a month | $300 | 12 people |
| Smartsheet Business at $19 | $228 | 16 people |
| Basecamp Pro at $15 | $180 | 20 people |
| Asana Starter at $10.99 | $131.88 | 28 people |
| Teamwork.com Basics at $9.99 | $119.88 | 30 people |
| monday.com Basic at $9 | $108 | 34 people |
| ClickUp Unlimited at $7 | $84 | 43 people |
| Plane Pro at $6 | $72 | 50 people |
| Trello Standard at $5 | $60 | 60 people |
So “flat fee beats per-seat” is true, and true later than it sounds. A 30-person company pays less on Trello, Plane or ClickUp than on Basecamp.
The per-seat rates above are the vendors’ own. The annual figures and the crossover headcounts are arithmetic on them.
Clients and contractors are not billed
The FAQ is explicit: on Pro, “we only bill you $15/user/month for employees or full users, not clients or temporary contractors.” For an agency whose Basecamp holds twelve clients and four staff, that is the difference between paying for four people and paying for sixteen.
What it will not do, at any price
- No dependencies. Nothing records that one task blocks another.
- No resource or capacity planning. No view of who is over-allocated next month.
- No portfolio reporting. Reports and automatic check-ins are the ceiling.
- No sprints, backlogs or releases. Card Tables is a Kanban board, not an issue tracker.
These are scope decisions rather than gaps, and no upgrade adds them. A team that needs the first two should read Smartsheet; a team tracking software delivery wants Jira or Linear.
No AI, stated plainly
Every other product in our comparison names AI on its pricing page - credits, agents, assistants, or a per-seat add-on. Basecamp’s pricing page names none. Whether that is a feature or an omission depends on whether you were going to use them; what it is not is a hidden cost.
The company is part of the pitch
37signals publishes things most vendors do not: 27 profitable years, zero debt, privately held, 99.99% historical uptime, and cancellation that is entirely self-serve with annual payments prorated back to the card. Non-profits get 10% off, and schools and universities are free for class work.
We have not used Basecamp, and this profile makes no claim about how it feels to run a project in. What is checked here is the price list, and the price list is the reason to look.
Basecamp questions, answered
- Is Basecamp worth it?
- Basecamp is the one product in this category that has decided what it is not going to do, and prices accordingly.
- How much does Basecamp cost?
- Free for 1 project and 20 users; Pro $15 per user/month; Pro Unlimited $299/month flat. The cheapest paid tier we recorded is Pro, published at $15 a month, which works out at $15 a month or $180 over a year. Verified against the vendor's pricing page.
- Does Basecamp have a free plan or free trial?
- Basecamp has a free plan. A free trial is available: 30 days on Pro, 60 days on Pro Unlimited, no credit card required.
- What is the best Basecamp alternative?
- It depends on the job. Trello: Cheaper below 20 people at $5 a user, and simpler again. No flat-fee option. ClickUp: Far more capability for $7 a user, and far more configuration to do. Asana: Better at recurring processes with forms, rules and approvals. Priced per seat throughout.
- Can I self-host Basecamp?
- No. Basecamp is a hosted service only, so your data lives on the vendor's infrastructure.
What this profile is based on
Every claim below is about our work, not about Basecamp. A "no" is recorded rather than omitted, because the difference between a tested review and careful desk research is the reader's to weigh. How we research a profile.
-
Prices read from the vendor : yes
Read from Basecamp's own pricing page on 19 August 2026
-
Plans and terms recorded : yes
6 rows, each with its billing period
-
Original screenshots : yes
1 captured by us: pricing page
-
Sources cited and dated : yes
2 primary sources, each with the date it was read
-
Product used first-hand : no
Not tested. This profile is desk research from primary sources
-
Alternatives used first-hand : no
None, so comparisons here rest on published facts rather than use
-
Vendor contacted : no
Not contacted for this profile
Desk research from Basecamp's own pricing and about pages, read on 19 August 2026 through a United States egress. Nobody here has used Basecamp, no account was created, and the crossover figure in this profile is arithmetic on the vendor's two published prices rather than a quote from them.
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Provenance and freshness
When each fact was last checked
- Pricing ·
- Plans ·
- Free trial
- Features
- Platforms
- Integrations
- Affiliate programme
- Company details
Individually sourced claims
-
Pro Unlimited is $299 a month billed annually for an unlimited number of users
Basecamp pricing ↗ · checked
-
Pro is $15 per user a month billed monthly, and clients and contractors are not billed
Basecamp pricing ↗ · checked
-
The free package covers one project, 1 GB of storage and up to 20 users
Basecamp pricing ↗ · checked
-
Timesheet, the Admin Pro Pack and an extra 1 TB of storage are each $50 a month flat, and all are included on Pro Unlimited
Basecamp pricing ↗ · checked
-
Registered 501(c)(3) non-profits get 10% off, and K-12 schools, homeschoolers and universities are free for class work
Basecamp pricing FAQ ↗ · checked
What has changed
-
August 2026
- First published, with every package and add-on read from the vendor's pricing page
- Recorded that clients and contractors are not billed on Pro
- Recorded the 20-user crossover between Pro and Pro Unlimited
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.
- Basecamp pricing - checked 19 August 2026
- Basecamp - where we came from - checked 19 August 2026
Spotted something out of date? Email [email protected] and we will re-check it. Corrections are logged on the page.
