ClickUp Review

ClickUp’s generous free plan makes it a great project management tool for freelancers or sole proprietors. Although its storage is limited to just 60MB, it still includes a comprehensive feature set to manage tasks, collaborate and stay organized.

• Unlimited tasks and users: Create as many tasks as needed within multiple projects and invite as many team members as you like. You can also set recurring tasks to save time.
• Multiple views: Access list, board and calendar views to visualize and plan your work in different ways. 
• Dashboards (60 uses): A “use” includes actions like creating a dashboard, adding a card or viewing a dashboard. Therefore, 60 uses can run out quickly.
• Collaboration tools: Use comments, mentions, in-app video recording, collaborative documents, and task sharing to work with teammates in real time.
• ClickUp Brain: Limited access to AI-powered assistance for tasks like getting summaries of project progress and drafting content. Free users get 50 trial uses per Workspace, while Unlimited and Business plan users have 75 trial uses per Workspace. Full access to ClickUp Brain costs $9 per user per month as an add-on to your ClickUp plan. 

ClickUp’s Unlimited plan is designed for small to midsize teams that need more flexibility and features. Priced affordably at just $7 per user per month, annually, this plan unlocks additional features, such as unlimited folders and spaces, custom fields and integrations. However, despite its name, it’s not truly unlimited.

All free features+

• Unlimited: Unlimited storage, folders and spaces, integrations, Gantt charts, custom fields, chat messages and forms.
• Up to three teams: Organize users into a maximum of three groups, but create unlimited folders and spaces. You can also add guests with permissions.
• Custom fields: Add specific data points to tasks — such as priority, budget or client name — to track exactly what matters to your workflow. 
• Dashboards (100 uses): Though slightly more than the free plan, 100 uses can still run out quickly and may not be sufficient for detailed reporting. 
• Storage space: Unlimited storage space allows you to add as many files as required for any project. 
• Other features: ClickUp Email, time-tracking, goals and portfolios, and resource management.

As its name suggests, ClickUp’s Business plan is tailored for larger teams and growing organizations that need more advanced project management, security and automation features. It costs $12 per user per month, annually, and offers better scalability, improved reporting and more uses of features like ClickUp’s AI tool.

All Unlimited features+

• More Unlimited: Create as many teams and workspaces as needed, and get unlimited storage for documents, attachments and project assets. You’ll also have unlimited message history, Mind Maps, activity views and whiteboards.
• Unlimited dashboards: Create and customize dashboards with unlimited widgets for deeper insights and detailed reporting. 
• Advanced automations: Access more automation actions and conditions to streamline complex workflows. You can also utilize automation integrations.
• Google single sign-on (SSO) and advanced permissions: Simplify user access and control who can view, edit or share information across workspaces. 
• Sprints: If your team utilizes Scrum methodology, you’ll be able to use ClickUp’s sprint points and reporting features.

Finally, ClickUp’s Enterprise plan is built for large organizations that need advanced security and customization. It has custom pricing and is fully scalable according to your specific business needs. It promises dedicated customer support and advanced features, including the following: 

Everything in the Business Plan+

• Advanced admin controls: Enjoy unlimited custom roles, permissions, audit logs, SSO, SCIM provisioning and policies to manage user access. 
• Massive automation and API support: Use up to 250,000 automation actions per month and API support, which allows for integration with other tools for custom data connections and workflows. 
• Custom labeling and branding: The fully customizable interface and domains can be adjusted to align with your company’s brand identity.
• Dedicated onboarding and support: This includes live training, a customer success manager, 24/7 priority support and access to managed services. 
• Compliance: You can activate Master Service Agreements (MSA) and HIPPA compliance, and also choose your team’s data residency (U.S., EU or APAC).

ClickUp allows you to organize your work into a hierarchy. At its core are tasks, which can be organized into lists. These are grouped into folders and spaces within a project in your workspace. You can view and manage tasks using several layout options or views. These include kanban, Gantt, calendar and timeline views, among others.

Beyond the obvious parameters for a task, like due date and assignee, you can add many other details, such as subtasks, checklists, dependencies, priorities and links. You can also create custom fields to personalize ClickUp according to your needs. This ensures that ClickUp adapts to your processes, rather than forcing you to adapt to a rigid system.

We appreciate how ClickUp allows you to set clear, measurable objectives and track project progress. You can break goals down into smaller, actionable “targets” and track them by number, currency, true/false status or task completion. You can assign each target to individuals or teams and monitor them with visual progress indicators.

Additionally, you can designate specific tasks as “milestones.” These act as critical moments or decision points in your workflow that are easy to track visually. Together, goals and milestones bring much-needed structure for long-term planning. They allow teams to stay focused on the bigger picture while tackling everyday responsibilities.

ClickUp makes it easy to visualize project data and track team performance in real time. You can build custom data-rich dashboards using drag-and-drop widgets. These allow you to gain specific insights, such as for workloads, task statuses or time spent on tasks. This makes it easy to monitor projects and keep an eye on deadlines or KPIs. 

Dashboards are a useful reporting tool, providing you with the information that matters most. You can create multiple dashboards for different teams, clients, departments or project types, with each one showing only the data that’s relevant. For instance, a marketing team might want to visualize only campaign timelines and workloads.

ClickUp has a range of team collaboration tools to keep everyone aligned and communicating efficiently within the project management platform. Each task includes a comment section where team members can leave notes, tag colleagues or attach files and links. This helps keep important information connected to the task it relates to. 

Furthermore, ClickUp supports real-time document collaboration, which means users can share ideas and provide feedback without switching platforms. There’s also a handy in-app chat feature and integrations with popular third-party tools like Slack and Zoom for smoother communication across the board.

We’re impressed with the hundreds of automations that ClickUp offers to help teams save time and reduce manual work. There’s a library of pre-built automation templates for the most common use cases, like automatically moving a task to a different list when its status changes, notifying certain members or sending due date reminders.

Automations can be applied at the space, folder or list levels, offering lots of flexibility in how you use them to improve team efficiency. For instance, you could auto-assign a task and set a due date whenever a new item is added to a particular list.

Moreover, you can also create your own automations from scratch to suit your team’s unique needs by using its Zapier integration.

ClickUp can integrate with popular work apps and collaboration tools, such as Slack, Google Drive, Microsoft Teams, Figma and GitHub. Connecting these apps helps you set up your workflow exactly as you need it to be.

Furthermore, it serves more advanced needs through integration via Zapier. This makes it possible to connect with thousands of additional apps you may use. For instance, you can sync your work with a customer relationship management platform to automatically generate tasks when a new lead is added, send follow-up reminders and more. 

ClickUp’s native time-tracking feature allows users to record how much time they spend on each task. Users can do this in real time using the built-in timer or manually log the time retroactively. Each task includes a time-tracking panel where you can view time logs, add notes and see what each team member has tracked.

You can filter and report on time-tracking data across projects. This helps managers understand how time is distributed and identify potential bottlenecks. It’s handy for gaining a clear picture of team capacity, task duration and billable hours. It also eliminates the need for third-party time-tracking tools, though you can still integrate with these if necessary.

ClickUp Brain is an AI-powered assistant that can help you generate summaries of project progress, answer questions based on your workspace data, draft content, and even update tasks or documents using natural language commands. You can communicate with ClickUp Brain through a chat interface, which makes it easy to use and minimizes manual effort.

This feature is available on all ClickUp plans, but with restrictions. Free users get up to 50 trial uses per Workspace, while customers on the Unlimited and Business plans get up to 75 trial uses per Workspace. To get full access to AI features, you need to purchase ClickUp Brain as an add-on to your ClickUp plan. The price starts at $9 per user per month. 

ClickUp is best used through its web app on a browser like Google Chrome, Firefox or Safari. However, you can also download the app to your computer and smartphone, as we explain below. To get started, simply go to ClickUp.com and click the “get started” or “sign up” button. Then, follow the steps below.

1. Enter Your Details

   On the signup screen, enter your name and email address. Set a strong password to access your account. Alternatively, you can click the “sign up with Google” button to link your existing Google account with ClickUp.

   

2. Complete Basic Setup

   ClickUp will ask you two questions to help set up your account — namely, if you want to use it for work, school or personal projects, and what kind of tasks you want to manage. Select the relevant answers to complete the process. ClickUp will ask you to name your workspace and will automatically create three sample tasks for you to customize.

   

3. Download the Desktop App

   Once your account is ready, click the profile icon in the top-right corner. From the dropdown menu, select “download apps.” This will open a new window with a button to download ClickUp for your device. Click the button and save the installer file to your computer.

   

4. Install the App and Sign In

   Open the downloaded file and follow the on-screen instructions to install ClickUp on your computer. Once it’s complete, log in to the app by entering the email address and password you used to sign up in the first step above.

   

When you first sign up for ClickUp, it automatically creates three sample tasks for you. You can edit these, add more tasks and customize your workspace as needed. 

ClickUp has an extensive help center and ClickUp University with detailed tutorials for every feature, but we’ve included some basic steps below that you can follow to set up this project management software. For more information, read our ClickUp tutorials.

1. Create a Task

   To create a new task in ClickUp, simply click the “add task” button. This will create a new task for the list, to which you can add details like a task name, an assignee, a due date and the priority.

   

2. Create Task Statuses

   By default, ClickUp has three status labels to manage tasks — “to do,” “in progress” and “done” — but you can add your own status labels to customize your workflow. Just click the “new status” button below the table, type in a name for the status, and choose a color to go with it.

   

3. Toggle Between Views

   ClickUp offers multiple view options, which you can customize to your needs. By default, your tasks are displayed in the list view. At the top of the list, you can click various buttons for different views. For example, clicking “board” will show a kanban board view. You can also add more views by clicking the “+ view” button.

   

4. Try a Dashboard

   A dashboard provides insights from your project, such as an overview of task statuses and deadlines. ClickUp has many dashboard templates you can try. Click “+ view” and select “dashboard.” This will open a preconfigured dashboard that you can customize by moving the widgets or “cards” around. Click “add card” at the top right to add a new data point.

   

5. Set Up an Automation

   Automations make ClickUp a truly powerful project management software because they can help you cut down on repetitive work and reduce manual effort. To set up an automation, click the “automate” button at the top right and select “create automation.” This will open a window where you can specify a trigger and an action.

   

ClickUp’s desktop apps for macOS and Windows provide access to everything available in the web version, including task management features, views, time tracking and integrations. The interface stays consistent across platforms, and the performance is smooth overall, with no lags or interruptions during use.

The apps also support useful keyboard shortcuts to improve productivity. For instance, you can use the “Command + J” shortcut on Mac (or “CTRL + J” on Windows) to open the command center. This is a handy tool to search for features on ClickUp and run commands even when you’re using other apps.

However, offline functionality is limited, so you must have the ClickUp app open and be connected to the internet to perform most actions. 

ClickUp’s mobile apps for iOS and Android offer a convenient way to manage your tasks on the go. You can create and edit tasks, check notifications, track time and even comment on projects from your phone. However, the interface is not optimized for the much smaller display on a smartphone, which makes it quite clunky to use.

For instance, you can easily mistouch and end up moving things around unintentionally. Navigating between tasks can feel complicated, and you can’t view all the information you need to. Therefore, we wouldn’t advise handling complex workflows from your phone. The mobile interface definitely needs improvement to be more user-friendly.