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10 Best Project Management Tools For Remote Teams In 2023

List Of Best Project Management Tools For Remote Teams

Here’s a shortlist of the best project management tools for remote teams:

  1. 1. monday.com — Best remote PM tool for 3rd-party integrations
  2. 2. Wrike — Best for agile teams
  3. 3. Smartsheet — Best remote project management tool for sales reps
  4. 4. Hub Planner — Best for midsized to large companies
  5. 5. ClickUp — Best remote project management tool for screen recording
  6. 6. Kintone — Best for building custom project workflows
  7. 7. Forecast — Best for managing your projects, resources, and finances in one
  8. 8. Paymo — Best remote project management tool for freelancers
  9. 9. MeisterTask — Best tool for mixed OS teams
  10. 10. ProjectManager.com — Best software for remote teams using hybrid project methodologies

Below you’ll find an overview of each of the 10 best project management tools for remote teams, with screenshots, feature overviews, and pricing.

Remote work is both a current trend and the way of the future. There are benefits that come along with it, too. Teleworkers are, on average, 35-40% more productive than their in-office counterparts! It’s a great way to attract quality candidates to your company, as you can hire from anywhere. A report by Buffer indicated that a whopping 99% of survey participants preferred some level of remote work in their career.

That being said, remote teams only work if you have the best apps backing you up. Communication tools and Gantt charts, roadmaps and time management, Kanban boards, and file management—you’ll need it all! Here are 10 project management tools for remote teams that I have personally vetted and think you will love.

Criteria For Project Management Tools For Remote Teams Comparison

Here’s a summary of my evaluation criteria for PM software for distributed teams:

  1. User Interface (UI): Remote team members may have a series of apps to switch through every day, so is the software UI intuitive and engaging to prevent burnout? Bonus: Does the project management software for remote work feature any gamification or accountability boosters?
  2. Usability: Can remote workers figure out the tool with no in-person training required? Do virtual teams have access to online tutorials, whitepapers, live chat check-ins, real-time webinars, project templates, and community forums?
  3. Integrations: Remote employees rarely use only one piece of software for their day-to-day; so, does the PM tool integrate with other common types of software (timesheets, collaboration tools, file sharing, messaging, task management, video conferencing, CRM, invoicing)? Does the project management solution easily and securely connect with popular workspace software like Slack, Google Drive and Google Docs, Dropbox, Jira, Skype, Zoom, Microsoft Suite, Proofhub)?
  4. Value for $: Most remote projects require workflow tools that do a bit of everything. Does the functionality of the tool seem fair for the list of services they are providing? Is the pricing scheme accommodating to large and small teams alike? Does the cost include mobile app access for Android or iOS?

Project Management Tools For Remote Teams Key Features

  1. Team communication options – You’ll want the basics (like @-tagging and a commenting system) but look for those that go above and beyond with team collaboration features.
  2. File management and sharing – Every project team is going to have a series of documents or items that must be easily accessible to all team members at any time. Good file management is crucial.
  3. Time tracking – This is a must for remote working. Depending on your needs, you can get time tracking tools with inactivity sensors and other software solutions to prevent time theft.
project management tools for remote teams logos list

Overviews Of The 10 Best Project Management Tools For Remote Teams

Here’s a brief description of each of the tools on my list showing what it does best, plus screenshots to showcase some of the features.

1

monday.com

Best remote PM tool for 3rd-party integrations

Used by over 100,000 teams, Monday.com offers a host of tools for planning, tracking, and delivering remote work for different projects. Out-of-office teams will most likely have a collection of apps they need on a daily basis and Monday.com delivers with hundreds on third-party integrations to choose from. They connect with the apps you would expect, like Slack and Microsoft, as well as more niche software like Eventbrite.

monday.com costs from $6/user/month and comes with a free 14-day trial. They offer a free plan for up to 2 users.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.7 6745

14-day free trial + freemium plan available

From $8/user/month (billed annually, min 3 seats)

Pros

  • Excellent collaborative features
  • Simple organization by dragging and dropping tasks
  • Very easy to invite others, share timelines, and assign tasks

Cons

  • Best features locked to Standard or Pro versions
  • Automations are not fully customizable
  • No bottleneck identification or assistance
2

Wrike

Best for agile teams

Wrike is a project management tool best for teams of five to an unlimited number of users in distributed locations. Wrike’s project management tools give teams across time zones a digital information hub with real-time collaboration and remote communication.

Wrike’s project management tools are easy to learn and include task lists, subtasks, schedules, and shared workflows that help with daily workloads. Wrike offers simple navigation with distinct spaces, folders, and tasks, as well as between dashboards, calendars, reports, and the notification and messages stream.

Wrike has a dedicated help center with interactive training, videos, a ‘Getting Started’ guide, and a thriving community. The tool also offers templates to assist with standard organizational processes.

Wrike offers 400+ pre-built native integrations that make remote project management possible. Wrike’s integrations include the most popular file management software from Microsoft, Google, and Dropbox, along with sales and marketing software from Salesforce and Marketo.

Pricing starts at $9.80/user/month. There are four different price points, including a free version and plans which offer the ability to invite free external collaborators to a paid account.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.2 2544

Freemium version available

From $9.80/user/month

Pros

  • Variety of project views meet different user needs
  • Holistic, comprehensive task modeling
  • Ease of use and setup

Cons

  • The commenting system needs to be more prominent
  • Best features limited to Business plan
3

Smartsheet

Best remote project management tool for sales reps

Smartsheet unifies the most important work functions—collaboration, workflows, and content management—in a single, flexible platform. They have plenty of department-specific recommendations but the sales solution stands out in particular thanks to its ability to manage complex customer engagement processes. Deal management and pipeline transparency are just a few of the sales-specific tools remote sales teams will appreciate.

Smartsheet costs from $7/user/month, with a minimum of 3 users and a maximum of 25 users. They also offer a 30-day free trial.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.4 7399

Freemium version available

From $7/user/month

Pros

  • Quick Gantt charts with easy entry of tasks
  • Reminders and update requests are great collaborative tools
  • Customizable sheets and dashboards for different departments

Cons

  • Might be over-engineered for simple projects
  • Changes do not autosave instantly when editing
  • Power users may hit row and cell link limitations
4

Hub Planner

Best for midsized to large companies

Hub Planner is a remote project management tool with robust resource management and team management tools. The tool provides transparency and visibility into which team members are working on what, and allows users to see availability by team member and skill set.

The tool allows users to optimize resource time, handle time off and vacation requests, forecast your demand, and track actuals in timesheets and much more. Visualize team utilization and plan your project schedules effectively. The intuitively designed scheduler gives management and team members a birds eye view of what they are working on in remote environments.

Other useful features include custom fields, timesheets, budget management, and more. Hub Planner can integrate with a variety of other apps through Zapier, and the tool offers an API for further integrations.

Pricing starts at $7 per month.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.2 16

30-day free trial

From $7/resource/month (billed annually)

Pros

  • Powerful built-in and custom reporting features
  • Beautiful user experience and user interface
  • Excellent capacity planning and forecasting

Cons

  • Needs more inline integrations
  • Some features only available through the premium plan
5

ClickUp

Best remote project management tool for screen recording

ClickUp is a sturdy remote project management tool that offers tasks, docs, chat, goals, and everything else you have come to expect from a modern PM app. Where ClickUp stands out is its intuitive built-in screen recording features, which allow you to demonstrate processes and share data no matter where your team is physically located. You can even embed your recordings right into your group chats, making screen sharing basically effortless.

ClickUp costs from $5/user/month and offers a free version with limited features.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.7 4135

Freemium plan available

From $9/user/month

6

Kintone

Best for building custom project workflows

Kintone is a customizable project planning platform used by teams at Volvo Trucks North America, Japan Airlines, Shiseido, and over 23,000 organizations worldwide. Their unique approach to project and task management lets you build a wide variety of customizable “apps” either from scratch, using templates or from your existing spreadsheets, for data management, business processes, and workflows. Kintone apps can be customized for project management, sales CRM, customer databases, expense reports, shared to-do lists, equipment management, product feedback, and much more.

Apps can be built either from scratch, using templates, or from existing spreadsheets for data management, business processes, and workflow purposes. Kintone apps can be customized for project management, sales CRM, customer databases, expense reports, shared to-do lists, equipment management, product feedback, and much more.

Kintone lets you build agile project management apps by dragging and dropping elements that you want to see onto the page: rich text fields, date fields, drop-down menus, number fields with built-in calculations, spaces for attachments, user or group selection menus, related data from other apps, tables, and more. Your agile project management solution can look and work however you want it to.

What makes Kintone particularly great for agile project management is that it empowers project managers to track all facets of their project, from individual tasks and project data to workflows and communication—and then use their findings to rapidly improve their processes as they go. Because the end-users are also the app designers, feedback loops are instant, continuous, and actionable.

There are so many ways to customize Kintone it can be hard to know where to start. Read the starter blog “What Can You Build with Kintone?” or watch Creating an App from Scratch for a quick look at how the drag-and-drop builder works.

Kintone lets you expand its capabilities with both free native plugins built by the Kintone team as well as integrations with other tools like Slack, Gmail, Google Calendar, Outlook, Tableau, Dropbox, Salesforce, HubSpot, Eventbrite, WordPress, QuickBooks, MailChimp, and many more through a paid plan with Zapier or via API integrations.

Kintone costs $24/user/month with a minimum requirement of 5 users. They offer a 30-day free trial (no credit card required) and discounted prices for nonprofits and educators. Kintone’s team also offers a free custom app build as part of the free trial process.

30-day free trial

From $24/user/month

7

Forecast

Best for managing your projects, resources, and finances in one

Forecast is a project management software for remote teams that unites your projects, resources, and financials in one AI-powered platform. Project managers can leverage Forecast’s workflow automation capabilities to create smart schedules, estimate timeframes and budgets, and populate timesheets instantly. Forecast is currently used in over 40 countries by an assortment of remote- and hybrid agencies, consulting companies, SMBs, and enterprises.

PMs can control the workflow by building out detailed task lists and flagging clear priorities. Task cards allow remote team members to easily comment, share files, and register time spent. Everything related to the specific task appears in one place, including dependencies and subtasks. You can put together projects for any type of work: fixed price, time and material, or retainer.

Forecast’s AI learns from previous work and suggests the number of hours you normally register on similar tasks to help you log time faster. You can monitor time registrations from a team perspective and notify each member if they forget to enter something in. Time tracking utilization on a company-wide level is calculated for you for easy alerts, estimates, and reporting.

Forecast integrates with Slack, Microsoft Teams, iCloud Calendar, Google Drive, Google Calendar, Outlook, Harvest, Trello, Asana, GitLab, Github, and dozens more using a paid plan through Zapier. Higher-tier subscriptions include native integrations with Timelog, Xero, QuickBooks Online, JIRA, Azure DevOps, Salesforce, Okta, OneLogin, and Azure Active Directory.

Forecast cost from $29/user/month with a minimum of 10 users and offers a 14-day free trial.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.7 225

14-day free trial

From $29/user/month

Pros

  • Automated cost and budget estimations
  • Excellent iOS and Android apps
  • AI powered auto-scheduling and time entry suggestions
  • Projects, resources and financials connected in one platform

Cons

  • Minimum of 10 seats
  • No asset management
  • No browser extension for time tracking
8

Paymo

Best remote project management tool for freelancers

Paymo helps users manage tasks, create schedules, track time, and bill clients with a solution that's tailored to the needs of small and medium businesses. Used by over 50,000 recorded freelancers, Paymo has a simple but thorough time management system, easy invoicing, client-ready report templates, and convenient file storage. For simple task management and time tracking, Paymo offers a free freelancer edition of their tool.

Paymo costs from $9.95/user/month and offers a 15-day free trial.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.6 561

Free plan available

From $5.95/user/month

Pros

  • Easy to share content with external stakeholders
  • Organizes jobs intuitively and can easily archive jobs
  • Time tracking easily runs in the background with little interference

Cons

  • Budgets from projects to tasks can be difficult to calculate
  • Project table layout categories challenging to edit
  • Large learning curve compared to others
9

MeisterTask

Best tool for mixed OS teams

MeisterTask tackles everything from individual task management to holistic project planning with a simple-to-use interface. Remote teams may be scattered across a variety of device types but that's not a problem for MeisterTask, which works with iOS, Android, Mac, and Windows. Their smart device apps are no joke, either, with a 4.7-star rating on the Google Play Store at the time of writing this. They were also named Editor's Choice on the iOS App Store.

MeisterTask costs from $8.25/user/month and offers a free version for up to 3 projects.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.6 169

Free trial available

From $8.25/month (billed annually)

Pros

  • Access to unlimited project boards
  • Very easy to manage several projects at the same time
  • Intuitive and user-friendly UI

Cons

  • After loading a file into a task it cannot be downloaded immediately
  • File attachments limited to 200 MB per file
  • Timeline and custom fields are restricted to Business accounts
10

ProjectManager.com

Best software for remote teams using hybrid project methodologies

ProjectManager lets users choose their own project view, be it agile, waterfall, or a hybrid methodology—whatever suits their needs. Flexible project views offer kanban boards, Gantt charts, task lists, and other common workflow arrangements. Remote teams will also appreciate their dedication to interdepartmental collaboration through an intuitive commenting system, robust roadmaps, and unlimited file-sharing.

ProjectManager costs from $15/user/month and offers a 30-day free trial.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.4 76

30-day free trial

From $16/user/month

Pros

  • Fits well into an Agile framework
  • Easy to use project scheduling
  • Good for costing and construction work monitoring

Cons

  • Most reports require a manual clean-up
  • No way to sort Agile Boards by project, only by task
  • No way to track and update partially complete tasks

Need expert help selecting the right Project Management Software?

We’ve joined up with Crozdesk.com to give all our readers (yes, you!) access to Crozdesk’s software advisors. Just use the form below to share your needs, and they will contact you at no cost or commitment. You will then be matched and connected to a shortlist of vendors that best fit your company, and you can access exclusive software discounts!

Summary Of The Best Project Management Tools For Remote Teams

Tool Free Option Price
1
monday.com

Best remote PM tool for 3rd-party integrations

14-day free trial + freemium plan available

From $8/user/month (billed annually, min 3 seats) Visit Website
2
Wrike

Best for agile teams

Freemium version available

From $9.80/user/month Visit Website
3
Smartsheet

Best remote project management tool for sales reps

Freemium version available

From $7/user/month Visit Website
4
Hub Planner

Best for midsized to large companies

30-day free trial

From $7/resource/month (billed annually) Visit Website
5
ClickUp

Best remote project management tool for screen recording

Freemium plan available

From $9/user/month Visit Website
6
Kintone

Best for building custom project workflows

30-day free trial

From $24/user/month Visit Website
7
Forecast

Best for managing your projects, resources, and finances in one

14-day free trial

From $29/user/month Visit Website
8
Paymo

Best remote project management tool for freelancers

Free plan available

From $5.95/user/month Visit Website
9
MeisterTask

Best tool for mixed OS teams

Free trial available

From $8.25/month (billed annually) Visit Website
10
ProjectManager.com

Best software for remote teams using hybrid project methodologies

30-day free trial

From $16/user/month Visit Website

Other Project Management Tools For Remote Teams

Here are a few remote project planning tools that didn’t quite make the list but are still worth checking out.

  1. Basecamp –  Best for IT teams
  2. Scoro –  Best for customizable dashboards
  3. Zoho Projects –  Best for CRM
  4. Asana –  Best drag-and-drop task list
  5. Trello – Best for Kanban-style organization
  6. Keyedin –  Best for PMO analytics
  7. Workzone – Best for robust file management
  8. Proworkflow –  Best variety of remote collaboration features
  9. EasyProjects –  Best for product lifecycle
  10. Sciforma –  Best for scalability

What Are Your Favorite Project Management Tools For Remote Teams?

Did you learn about new project management tools for your remote teams from this article? If not, what are some tools you know deserve to be on this list?

Also, what PM tools help you work remotely, especially across different time zones?

Let me know in the comments if there are tools that you can't live without that didn't make it to the list!

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By Ben Aston

I’m Ben Aston, a digital project manager and founder of thedpm.com. I've been in the industry for more than 20 years working in the UK at London’s top digital agencies including Dare, Wunderman, Lowe and DDB. I’ve delivered everything from film to CMS', games to advertising and eCRM to eCommerce sites. I’ve been fortunate enough to work across a wide range of great clients; automotive brands including Land Rover, Volkswagen and Honda; Utility brands including BT, British Gas and Exxon, FMCG brands such as Unilever, and consumer electronics brands including Sony. Ben's a Certified Scrum Master, PRINCE2 Practitioner and productivity nut.

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1 Comment

  • Thank you for the list. In the word we live in those tools are very important and it is crucial to know what is best for You! I don't want to talk You into anything, because everybody has its own needs. Although I would like to share that I happily use digital tools, like kanbantool.com. Kanban often helps me to finish all the tasks and check If everything is well done and well completed. I would feel lost as hell, without it :)

    Reply

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