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A common challenge most creative teams face is finishing projects on time.
There are many reasons creative projects don’t make it across the finish line in a timely manner, but the reasons we see most are:
For creative teams to start delivering projects on time, they have to make a concerted effort to lessen the impact of these factors. How? Using creative project management software.
If you want to skip ahead to our list of the 12 most important creative project management software for your team, click here.
Project management is the process of taking a project from beginning to end by managing people, tasks, timelines, and resources in order to execute the project objective.
However, project management isn’t just about building glorified to-do lists. It involves:
Creative project management software can help creative teams get more work done efficiently. It allows them to plan, organize, and prioritize tasks to finish them faster without overshooting budgets or pushing deadlines.
More and more businesses are investing in creative project management tools for their creative teams. In fact, a recent study shows that the creative project management tool industry was valued at $6.59 billion in 2022 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 15.7% from 2023 to 2030.
To be one of the best creative project management software companies on the market, you have to have a comprehensive library of features that cut down on repetitive tasks, delegate work, and get projects across the finish line faster. Here are some examples:
1. Intuitive User Interface
A user-friendly interface is crucial. Creative teams need software that is easy to navigate, with a minimal learning curve, so figuring out how to use a tool doesn’t eat into the time they have to work on projects.
2. Visual Task Management
To simplify status and timeline management, visual task management tools like kanban boards and Gantt charts can help teams track progress and manage dependencies.
3. Real-Time Collaboration
We’ve talked a lot about how you can effectively collaborate with your team members. But, to collaborate in a space that isn’t face-to-face, creative project management software is necessary. They allow for synchronous or asynchronous collaboration features, letting team members comment, share files, and work together on tasks regardless of their location.
4. Feedback Management
A tool that enhances feedback management makes it easier for clients and stakeholders to provide valuable input directly on projects. These tools can also make feedback clear and actionable so you can get through revision rounds faster and finish your projects deftly.
5. Time Tracking and Resource Management
You should have a tool that tracks vital time and resource metrics. Why? It can help your team manage budgets and time for maximum profitability.
6. Integration with Other Tools
Creative teams use a variety of platforms daily, from design collaboration software to communication tools. Seamless integration with popular tools like Adobe Creative Suite, Slack, and Google Drive ensures a smooth workflow and cuts down on time flipping between multiple platforms.
7. Scalability
As your team grows, projects will become more complex. So, your software should scale with you. The best creative project management tools can handle increasing workloads and larger teams without compromising performance.
Punchlist is a great creative project management software because of its feedback management capabilities. Rather than searching for feedback across long email chains, meeting notes, and Slack messages, Punchlist automatically consolidates client feedback and makes it actionable so you can easily make revisions and deliver projects faster.
Here are some of the features that make Punchlist such a valuable creative project management software:
Features
Pricing
Punchlist offers a 30-day free trial on any plan to see how much easier it is to manage feedback, get through review rounds, and deliver exceptional creative projects. You can explore the rest of Punchlist’s pricing here.
Asana is one of the most popular creative project management software that helps enhance creative collaboration.
One of the reasons it is so popular is due to its easy-to-use, vibrant interface. Plus, it makes delegating and organizing tasks pretty easy. Here are some of its most important features:
Features
Pricing
Asana does have a free plan with their essentials, three project views, and basic workflows. Their Starter plan, however, starts at $10.99 per month and their Advanced plan starts at $24.99 per month. These include more project views, portfolio views, automated and advanced workflows, reporting, and more!
Another one of our favorite creative project management tools is Wrike. We recommend Wrike for simple remote collaboration. It makes streamlining workflows and organizing tasks easier so your creative team can complete their tasks promptly.
Features
Pricing
Wrike has a free plan that includes many of their task management tools but lacks in integrated project management features. Their Team plan starts at $9.80 per user per month and their business plan starts at $24.80 per user per month. Both of these plans include way more of the project management features you’ll need to keep your team aligned. For pricing on the enterprise plan or higher, you’ll need to contact their team.
Trello is another popular project management software for creatives. It is well-known for its comprehensive and customizable kanban boards that allow members to create cards for every new task and tack them up on the board like digital Post-it notes. The cards, in turn, contain tracking lists so that you can follow up on the progress and status of other tasks within the project.
Features
Trello’s user interface is more minimalistic, so it doesn’t require extensive platform knowledge to get started.
Pricing
Trello also has a free plan, but unlike the previous creative project management tools, their Standard plan starts at $5 per user per month—much less than many of the other options on this list. Trello’s Premium plan starts at $10 per user per month.
Many smaller teams start their task management journey with Trello due to its simplicity and affordability, then graduate to a more robust tool like Asana, Monday, or ClickUp later as they scale.
Next up is ClickUp. ClickUp is a freemium creative project management software that does, well, everything—or so they claim. Their goal is to be your one source of truth for all your workplace needs from creating docs and time tracking to instant chat and digital whiteboards.
Features
Pricing
ClickUp has a “free forever” plan, but that is mainly for personal use. However, their Unlimited plan for small teams starts at $7 per user per month and their business plan for mid-sized teams is $12 per user per month.
monday.com is popular for its simplistic and effective project management interface, allowing creatives to focus solely on their task at hand. The platform resembles a highly customizable spreadsheet with tons of project management features for your creative team, including:
Features
One of its popular features is its Monday workdocs. This is where your creative team can communicate by adding updates, questions, comments, or files to specific tasks. This serves as a workspace where team members can brainstorm ideas and collaborate. It also helps handle difficult feedback within the team.
Pricing
monday.com has a free plan—but it only includes up to two seats. Their Basic plan is $9 per seat per month, the Standard plan is $12 per seat per month, and the Pro plan is $19 per seat per month.
StoryChief is a creative project management software specifically built for content marketing. Their tool can help you generate content strategies, audit content, get real-time insights, and publish your content to platforms quickly. Basically, it blends the best parts of a content creation platform with a project management platform.
Features
Pricing
StoryChief has a Free plan that provides some social media and web analytics. However, their Individual plan jumps $40 per month for one user and one workspace, which is hefty. Their Marketing Team plan and Agency plan are $60 per month and $180 per month respectively.
If you need a content creation management platform, StoryChief is a great choice. If you need more comprehensive project management tools, you might want to go in a different direction.
Basecamp is a creative project management software specifically built for small teams. They pride themselves on being the underdogs for underdog businesses. However—and they claim this too—their features aren’t as comprehensive as other creative project management tools. They’re built for simplicity.
Features
Pricing
Basecamp does not have a free trial or free plan. They do have the Basecamp plan and the Basecamp Pro Unlimited plan, however. The Basecamp plan comes with all of their features, 500 GB of storage, and is $15 per user per month. The Basecamp Pro Unlimited plan ads on 5 TB of storage with tons of priority support and onboarding for larger teams. However, it has unlimited users and is $299 per month.
Teamwork.com is another creative project management software that helps teams drive efficiency by streamlining client work operations. They mainly focus on balancing team capacity, organizing tasks, and optimizing billing and revenue so your projects turn out profitable, which is why we think Teamwork.com is the best project management tool for creative agencies.
Features
Pricing
Teamwork.com’s free plan works for teams of up to 5 people. The Deliver plan with more robust features starts at $11 per user per month and the Grow plan is $19.99 per user per month.
Smartsheet is a creative project management software specifically designed for enterprises. We say that because companies like LEGO, P&G, and Uber use Smartsheet to manage their projects, programs, and processes. The platform is built to look like a spreadsheet, so those already comfortable living in that world will integrate into Smartsheet well.
Features
Pricing
Smartsheet’s Free plan can hold one user and two editors and has two sheets. The Pro plan is $7 per user per month, with only up to 10 users. Their Business plan is $25 per user per month with unlimited editors. While the price does spike for Smartsheet, for enterprises, this may not be a huge inconvenience.
Nifty is a creative project management tool designed to be one app that unites your teams, goals, and processes. Nifty prides itself on being a platform that uses agile strategies, meaning you can help your teams get more done, faster. In addition, Nifty lets you instant chat and video call with your teammates on the platform, so online collaboration can be done without switching between platforms.
Features
Pricing
Nifty has more plans than the average project management software, with the free plan having unlimited users but with only the essential tools. The Personal plan is $5 per user per month, the Pro plan is $10 per user per month, and the Business plan is $16 per user per month.
Our last creative project management software is Jira. Jira hangs its hat on software development but can be used for creative project management too. As far as complexity goes, Jira is sometimes seen as being more robust and harder to use right out of the box. The UI also isn’t as intuitive as other project management tools some reviews say, but once you get the hang of it, it works well.
Features
Pricing
Jira has a Free plan that allows up to 10 users—which is better than a lot of other software. Their Standard plan starts at $7.16 per user per month while the Premium plan is $12.48 per user per month.
Project management is essential to any productive and effective creative team. It helps improve workflows, making creative professionals more efficient and organized. Hence, most creative project management tools design features to help members focus on their individual tasks and improve collaboration.
If you want your creative team to focus on what’s important—making unforgettable work that exceeds client expectations—it’s time to use Punchlist.
Punchlist’s feedback management tool consolidates feedback so creative teams don’t have to waste tons of time searching for feedback. It’s all right there, with context, so you can bring your client’s visions to life faster than ever before.
Want to see Punchlist in action? Take a video tour of our platform or book a demo with one of our helpful customer success managers. Head here to start your 30-day free trial.
We found that the best project management tool for content creation is StoryChief. Their software is specifically built for content marketing so you can more easily generate content ideas and publish them on time without as much hassle. StoryChief does have fewer project and task management tools, however, so you may need another tool to bridge the gap.
There are plenty of free project management tools for creative teams. Many, however, have paid plans that add more features and tools. Here are a couple of free project management tools we found for creative teams:
