ClickUp Review: An All-in-One Customizable Workplace Platform

Ever felt a rising sense of panic as you look at your weekly to-do list?

Infinite to-do lists are like new seasons of The Simpsons––just when you think you’ve finished one, another one shows up.

It can be overwhelming to juggle priorities, manage client expectations, and set business goals simultaneously.

Whether you’re a solopreneur, freelancer, or managing a team, there are ways to be more productive.

Implementing productivity software is one way of streamlining your workflow.

Right now, there are multiple productivity platforms to choose from. ClickUp is one popular productivity app that centralizes all of your work in one place.

But how do you know if ClickUp’s features are any different?

Who is ClickUp best suited to? And can it replace your current paper to-do list?

This ClickUp review will help you decide if the tool is right for you and your business.

What is ClickUp?

ClickUp is a workspace platform that aims to replace all productivity software and save you 1 day a week.

Founded in 2017, it’s kind of the new kid on the project management block. The folks at ClickUp consider themselves to be the ‘underdog’ of the productivity software industry.

ClickUp essentially puts all your work-related information in one central online location. Instead of using multiple work apps, you would just use ClickUp.

The platform is fully customizable with a dazzling list of features. You can use ClickUp as a single application for tasks, docs, chat, goals, and team management.

Who is ClickUp best suited for? 

ClickUp mainly caters to product managers, freelancers, project managers, and other business owners. Its sophisticated tools also makes it suited to teams with thousands of members.

Right now, there are 200,000 teams signed up to the platform. Some of those teams include Google, Airbnb, and Uber.

ClickUp pricing

ClickUp seems to be cost-effective compared to other similar project management platforms. But, the price tag can quickly increase if you’re planning on adding lots of users.

Here are the different annual pricing plans:

Larger businesses that plan to add more users can also contact ClickUp for a bespoke quote.

A free forever plan offers unlimited tasks, 5 spaces, and 100 MB storage.

Given this, the free plan could be a great option for a solopreneur, freelancer, or startup founder.

The main caveat is that it’s missing a few popular integrations like Google Drive and Dropbox. There’s also no access to key features like cloud storage and editing permissions.

But, the free forever plan does give you a great insight into how the platform works. You could use it to decide if it’s suited to your business’s needs before you commit to a paid subscription.

To give perspective, Basecamp charges a flat fee of $99 per month. Asana on the other hand charges $10.99 per user per month for their premium plan.

ClickUp core features

ClickUp’s mission is to provide an all-in-one digital workspace.

Users are able to communicate, collaborate, and organize their workflow all within the app. 

Once you’re set up, you shouldn’t have to jump between multiple applications. Say goodbye to having 10 tabs open at the same time!

There are a lot of ClickUp features available to use, which can make it a harder platform to get your head around.

Today, we’ll look at the features that are most helpful for effective project management.

Let’s jump in!

1. Task management 

It can be hard to effectively prioritize tasks on your to-do list.

You take a look at your list on Monday morning and it looks like everything needs to be done now.

At this point, it’s easy to fall into the trap of trying to do everything at once. You never finish one task before starting the next.

We’ve all been there.

To make your task management more efficient, you could use ClickUp to:

• Build task checklists – all you need to do is drag and drop your tasks to organize your priorities

• Save checklists – reuse them as project templates so you don’t need to build a checklist from zero every time
• Set task dependencies – display which tasks rely on another’s completion

2. Process management

Find it easy to miss out on some elements of your tasks?

ClickUp makes it easier to track and complete the moving components of each task.

You may want to switch between a big picture overview of your progress and the smaller details.

Die-hard to-do list fanatics can stick with a listview:

Those who prefer visual displays can put their tasks on a kanban board:

There are also calendar, Gantt chart, and box (with paid version) views for displaying pending tasks.

You can set an overall project objective and track the progress of your tasks on a dashboard.

With ClickUp, you’ll never forget that looming deadline again with the ability to set reminders so you and your team stay on track.

Another cool feature, especially for managers, is the workload charts. These charts make it easy to track which team members have space to take on more tasks and which are at full capacity.

3. Time management

Ever thought a task would take you just an hour, only for it to eat up five hours of your day?

Get better at estimating how long tasks actually take by using ClickUp to track the time spent on each item on your to-do list.

Once you’re a pro at time tracking, ClickUp lets you create time estimates for any tasks you’re working on.

That way, you can make sure you and your team are never blindsided by the length of a task again.

You can also sync your calendars with the platform, so everyone can see deadlines and events.

4. Collaboration and reporting

Endless back and forth communication about tasks is time-consuming. We’ve all experienced those never-ending email ping-pong matches about who’s doing what and when.

But as we know, successful projects rely on keeping everyone in the loop

That’s why ClickUp lets you save time and directly tag team members in task comments. You can assign new collaborators to different tasks without having to use endless email threads.

Any changes you make within ClickUp are instantly shown on all connected devices. You’ll be able to see when others are making changes or comments and avoid any clashes.

Running a larger team?

Use the team reporting tool to get an overview of what the whole team is up to. The process percentage feature helps you identify how much work there is remaining on a project or list.

This makes the whole process of collaborating with other team members much easier.

Any downsides?

Like any other project management platform, ClickUp isn’t perfect. There’s still plenty of work to be done to improve the platform and the overall user-experience.

Here are some of the main downsides we encountered while using the platform.

UI isn’t eye-catching

There’s a lot of white space on the dashboard and the text is fairly small. Limited color-coding makes it hard to glance at your projects and understand what’s going on.

Overwhelming customization options

Setting up ClickUp to fit your business’s unique needs takes time, especially for the average solo user.

For some people, there are too many customization options to choose from. You could easily spend more time setting up ClickUp than actually completing tasks.

Steep learning curve

It can take some time to get your head around all the features ClickUp has to offer.

However, the platform does provide resources like videos, webinars, and demos to help users.

Most people will find that they need to figure out ClickUp’s functions and features before they can make the most of the platform. Users who are new to project management platforms may have some initial difficulty.

Before signing up for the platform it’s worth considering whether you and your team are willing to dedicate your time and effort to learning the ins and outs of ClickUp.

How is ClickUp different from other productivity tools?

You may be asking yourself, “Isn’t ClickUp just like any other project management tool?”

Perhaps you’ve read reviews of other productivity tools. You may have even used tools like Asana and monday.com.

While productivity tools are designed to help you get your best work done, they all differ when it comes to their unique functions and use cases.

Asana is best at simplifying team-based work management. It helps teams organize, manage, and track their work.

Monday.com is a cloud-based work operating system. It’s known for its colorful interface that looks like a more intuitive version of Google Sheets.

On the face of it, these productivity software platforms may seem similar. But some are best suited to smaller teams and others to larger teams with complex needs.

	ClickUp	Asana	Monday.com
Board view	✅	✅	✅
Email	✅	✅	❌
Task Tray	✅	✅	❌
Unlimited users	✅	❌	❌
Dependencies	✅	❌	✅
Private tasks	✅	✅	❌

These features are included with ClickUp, Asana, and monday.com’s free plans.  They’re generally best suited to solopreneurs, freelancers, and small businesses.

The bottom line: Is ClickUp right for you?

ClickUp is a comprehensive and versatile project management platform. It’s best for managing complex workflows and collaborating with multiple team members.

It’s also great for organizing your time. You could use it to manage calendars, build schedules, track time, and monitor capacity.

But some users may find the number of features and customizations overwhelming.

If you want to take your project management to the next level, ClickUp could be a great choice.

The best part is that most users will be able to accomplish their objectives by using the free plan.

If you’re looking for another versatile and visual way of managing your projects that doesn’t require a monthly subscription, why not give Taskolly a go? 

Monthly subscriptions can quickly add up––knowing you have lifetime access to your productivity app is one less cost to think about.

Taskolly works well for marketers, project managers, creative teams, and solopreneurs looking to better organize their projects in one place. I recommend getting the affordable lifetime deal here.

Til next time, Sumo-lings!