Integrations: Workflows don’t operate separately from your other business processes. Documents, emails, contact info, and reports should all connect seamlessly from your inbox, CMS, calendars, and other tools.

Customizable: Each business has their own set of processes and models. Top tier workflow management software needs to be fully customizable to your processes, but easy enough to customize without the need for complex coding.

Reporting: Detailed reporting can help you analyze your overall productivity. Sometimes that task you think will take the team 5 hours to complete actually ends up taking an entire 3 days. These insights can help you better plan out and manage future tasks and projects.

Notifications: Workflow management shouldn’t feel manual or time-consuming. The idea is that you don’t need to follow up. Instead the platform sends team members automatic notifications about deadlines and approval processes.

Automation: Repetitive processes are a time drain for your team. Once a task is completed, you need your software to automatically alert the person who’s responsible for the next part of the task instead of having to spend time emailing them. Good workflow management software will have this automation and others.

Visual: Whether your workflow is ultra complex with multiple moving parts or a simple linear process, a visually pleasing color coordinated workflow is easier to understand.

10 best workflow management software options

Now you know which features to look out for, let’s have a look at the 10 best workflow management software options available.

1. Asana [Best for team collaboration]

Asana is a great workflow management software for teams looking for an easy to use, ultra-customizable, and visual software.

Its team communication and collaboration features make it great for both small and large teams. You can use Asana as a central source of file sharing. It’s easy to upload files in PDF, JPG, and Google Docs formats.

Using the calendars, team members can consider each other’s schedules and monitor any changes. Easily assign tasks to team members, create to-do lists, and set priorities.

The handy workflow feature makes it easy to see how busy team members are so that no one is over or underworked.

One of the best parts of Asana is that it’s ultra-versatile. Whether you need a marketing content calendar, need to better collaborate with global team members, or need to organize a workflow that spans IT, HR, product, sales, and marketing divisions, it’s easy to build an efficient workflow management system.

Asana also has a list of 100+ integrations, including popular apps like Google Drive, Slack, Zoom, and Zapier.

Pricing: The Basic plan is free forever and has all the necessary features for solopreneurs. The Premium plan is $13.49/month and has a few additional features like timelines for small and large teams. For larger teams and businesses, the Business plan is $30.49/month.

2. monday.com [Best for visualization]

Ultra-visual and customizable, monday.com is a great workflow management software choice for those looking to upgrade their Google Sheets or Airtable spreadsheets to something more visual.

Using monday.com you can view tasks from a high level using the dashboard overview feature, or zoom in on the detail.

Basically formed off a grid, you decide what elements of your workflow you want to include. Each row can include anything you want to track, maybe active projects or items pending approval. Columns are for details relating to each element, like the deadline, who’s assigned to it, and anything else that’s relevant.

monday.com is particularly strong on automation. If you’re tired of your team wasting hours on manual tasks, let monday.com take some of that workload. You can automate simple things like the changing of status to trigger an action like a notification. Or you can use an automation recipe to move elements from one board to another.

Another strong point is the 200+ templates built for multiple use cases that range from those for freelancers to software developers and startup founders.

Pricing: The Individual plan is free forever and includes unlimited boards. The Basic plan is $8/seat/month, Standard plan is $10/month, and Pro plan is $16/seat/month.

3. Kissflow [Best for large teams]

Kissflow is a workflow management software designed to help people visualize their workflow, allocate responsibility, and boost overall productivity.

Advanced access control is helpful for teams that have external contributors working on projects. For example, you may only want some team members and contributors to have access to certain sections like client contact details or financial data.

The intuitive interface enables users to make changes by simply dragging and dropping workflow items from one area to another.

Detailed reports and analytics give you insights into what’s working and what elements of your pipeline need improvement.

Compatible with third-party apps, you can integrate team favorite tools like Zapier, DocuSign, and Salesforce.

Pricing: The Basic plan is $12/user/month and includes all the basics for a small team starting out. The Advanced plan is $18/user/month and includes more integrations. The Fully Loaded plan is $25/user/month and provides more security features.

4. ClickUp [Best for automation]

ClickUp is a fairly new workflow management software that helps you simplify your workflows while better managing your team and project resources.

Choose box view for dashboards, list view for to-dos, Gantt view for project schedules, and board view for workflows. There are also mind maps, calendar, workflow, and table views.

Where ClickUp really shines is its automation abilities. Automation templates enable you to automate parts of your workflow. You can automate things like assigning tasks, changing a task status once it’s complete, or adding tags to tasks when a priority changes.

Pricing: There’s a Free Forever plan which enables unlimited tasks and members. The Unlimited plan is $9/ team member/month and comes with more integrations and dashboards.

5. Airtable [Best for spreadsheet lovers]

If you’re the kind of person who loves planning out their tasks and workflow on Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets, Airtable could be the best workflow management software for you.

Its familiar spreadsheet appearance makes it easy to navigate and build your workflow from the ground up. You can choose to keep it simple with a straightforward grid or build out a more sophisticated solution to match your workflow’s exact requirements.

If you’d prefer to start with a base, there are templates created with product launches, content calendars, and event planners in mind.

You can also integrate your workflow with hundreds of apps including Slack, Stripe, and Zendesk. A Zapier integration gives you access to even more platforms. The Apps Marketplace allows you to access 150 open source apps on GitHub and further customize your workflow.

If other team members aren’t a fan of the spreadsheet-like appearance, there are calendar, Kanban, and gallery views to show the workflow in any way that they want.

Pricing: Their Free plan is great for individuals and teams just starting out. The Plus plan is $12/seat/month and includes more records per base, a longer history, and more storage space. The Pro plan is $24/seat/month and is best for larger teams with more complex workflows.

6. Process Street [Best for beginners]

Process Street is a simple workflow management software great for people who are just starting to manage their workflow.

Keyboard shortcuts and drag and drop make it easy for users to navigate the platform, while its simple layout is easy to learn.

A highlight of Process Street is its unique conditional logic feature which helps build dynamic workflows that shift if/when your team changes priorities.

Eliminate bottlenecks and simplify approval processes by building single instance, multi-stage or sequential approvals.

Schedule daily, weekly, or monthly workflows that help you automate your manual tasks and save you time.

Pricing: The Free plan allows up to 5 workflows. The Pro plan is $30/user/month and provides unlimited workflows and additional automation features.

7. Wrike [Best for hybrid/remote work]

Wrike has top-tier team collaboration features making it a great workflow management software choice for teams balancing remote, in-house, and hybrid members.

Share files, tasks, and reports with other members and get full visibility across multiple departments instantly. Zoom in and out on your overall workflow with customizable dashboards.

It’s easy to shorten the often time-consuming and inefficient feedback process with automated approval systems and visual proofing. For instance, instead of having to send countless emails with file attachments, you can create auto-sign offs so that relevant people are automatically notified when work is ready.

Wrike also has an impressive 400+ app integrations on its roster making it easy to seamlessly connect your workflow with the platform.

Pricing: Their Free plan allows unlimited users as well as both internal and external contributors. The Professional plan is $9.80/user/month and provides more integrations and storage. The Business plan is $24.80/user/month and has more features like resource management.

8. ProofHub [Best for flexibility]

If it’s simplicity and flexibility you’re after, ProofHub is a great workflow management software choice.

Task management features are a highlight of ProofHub. You can easily add plenty of detail to each task, including estimated time to complete and any documents that go with the task. To reorder tasks, all you need to do is drag and drop them.

The Discussions feature helps teams avoid those endless email threads and simply chat as a group about specific tasks within the software.

An Activity Log allows you to track everything that’s going on with a big picture view, while a Me View gives you a noise-free look at the tasks that involve you.

Pricing: Plans are flat-rate no matter the number of users. The Essential plan is $50/month and includes 40 projects. The Ultimate Control $99/month and includes unlimited projects.

9. Hive [Best for small businesses]

Hive is a great workflow management software for small business and startup teams

Like other software options on this list, you can build custom workflows, and automate repetitive tasks to better streamline processes and communication for your business.

If your team has lots of Zoom meetings, you’ll love the Notes feature. Prior to a meeting, you can share a collaborative notes doc with the meeting’s agenda. As ideas flow through the meeting, turn talking points into tasks and assign them to people along with deadlines. That way nothing from your meeting slips through the net.

Time tracking tools enable you to measure time spent on a project and better allocate resources and identify any blockers and opportunities.

Real-time analytics measure both team-wide and individual task progress. There is also an AI-assisted risk assessment feature to point out potential project risks and sticking points.

Pricing: The Hive Solo plan is free for up to two users. Hive Teams allows unlimited users and is $16/user/month.

10. Backlog [Best for developers]

Backlog is a top software choice for developers and other team members tasked with identifying bugs and product glitches.

Instead of having notes on bug issues scattered across different platforms, using Backlog you can streamline the process and make it more efficient. Easily create outlines for each issue and set up notifications for when issues are solved. A history thread can also show you when issues were updated.

It’s easy to use Backlog as a code collaboration tool too. Version Control allows you to host your code securely in the cloud and get a clear picture of who’s working on which branch, monitor changes, and check others’ work.

You can also use Backlog for more general workflow management for things like including creating and assigning tasks, setting deadlines, and dividing tasks into checklists and subtasks.

Pricing: Their Free plan allows up to 10 users and one project. A Starter Plan is $35/month and is for up to 30 users. The Standard Plan is $100/month and is for unlimited users.

AppSumo’s verdict: best workflow management software

So there you have it––our lowdown on the best workflow management software available. Which one should you pick? As always it’s a case of weighing up your budget, your top feature priorities, and how much time you have to dedicate to learning new software.

If you want to create beautiful visual boards, monday.com could be the right choice. But if you want to focus on issue tracking, Backlog could be a better fit.

While you’re deciding, why not take a look at the AppSumo Store? We have annual and lifetime deals on some of the best software available.