The Best ClickUp Alternatives in 2026: Prices and Features Compared
The Coavon team · · 13 min read
The best ClickUp alternative for most teams is Coavon. ClickUp tries to do everything inside one app built around tasks. Coavon takes a different approach: a separate, purpose-built app for each job, connected under one sign-in and one price. Flow for projects, Scope for clients (a real CRM), Docs for documents, Drive for files, Chat, Notes and Calendar, from $8 a person a month, with automations that are never capped by how often they run.
Below we look at why teams move away from ClickUp, then go through seven alternatives (Coavon, Asana, monday.com, Wrike, Notion, Trello and Basecamp) with what each one includes and costs.
Every price and plan detail for other companies on this page was read from their own pricing pages on October 18, 2026. Prices are per person a month, billed annually, in US dollars, unless we say otherwise. They change often, so check before you buy.
Why teams look for a ClickUp alternative
- AI is a separate purchase. On ClickUp's pricing page, Brain AI is $9 a person a month and Everything AI is $28, on top of the plan.
- Automations have a monthly allowance. ClickUp Business includes 5,000 automations a month and Enterprise 250,000.
- The free plan has 60 MB of storage. Unlimited storage starts on the paid Unlimited plan.
- One app stretched over many jobs. Tasks, docs, chat, goals, whiteboards and CRM-style lists all live in the same app, which some teams find a lot to set up and keep tidy.
ClickUp alternatives at a glance
| Tool | Lowest paid plan | Main strength |
|---|---|---|
| Coavon | $8 a person (Starter) | Separate apps for projects, clients, documents, files and chat on one account |
| Asana | $10.99 a person (Starter) | Project tracking, with goals and portfolios on Advanced |
| monday.com | $9 a seat (Basic), 3 seats minimum | Boards you design yourself |
| Wrike | $10 a person (Team, 2 to 15 people) | Detailed planning for larger teams |
| Notion | $10 a member (Plus) | Pages, wikis and databases |
| Trello | $5 a person (Standard) | Simple boards |
| Basecamp | $25 a month flat (Freelancer) | A fixed price with no per-person fees |
1. Coavon: the best ClickUp alternative
Coavon is a suite of connected apps under one sign-in. Flow is the project app that replaces ClickUp's tasks; Scope, Docs, Drive, Chat, Notes and Calendar sit beside it. Every plan includes every app, the Free plan included.
A real app for each job
- Scope is a real CRM, with records for companies and people, pipelines, custom fields and its own automations. A won deal can start its project in Flow from your own template.
- Docs is a real document editor, with pages, comments and suggested edits, and Word or PDF download.
- Drive is a real file drive, with folders, previews and sharing, and 30 GB a person on Starter, pooled across the team.
- Chat has channels, group chats and direct messages, next to the work it is about.
Project management in Flow
- Board, list and calendar views on every plan, and a Gantt chart with task dependencies on Pro.
- Approvals with a separate approver. The task cannot be marked done until it is approved or rejected, and the approver can be a guest, such as a client.
- Free guests for clients and freelancers: unlimited on every paid plan, and two on Free. A guest sees only the projects they are invited to.
- Task followers who hear about comments, status changes and completion, and bulk editing in List view.
- Recurring tasks, time tracking and forms on every plan, and custom statuses on Pro.
- Automations in Flow and Scope that run as often as you need. Plans limit how many rules you have, never how often they run.
AI without a separate AI plan
The Coavon connector lets Claude and other AI assistants read and update your work across the apps: tasks, clients, notes, documents and your calendar. It is listed in Claude's connector directory and included from Starter, with no per-request charge and no separate AI plan.
Price
Starter is $8 a person a month billed annually ($10 month to month), Pro is $16 and Business is $24. ClickUp Unlimited is $7, a dollar less, but Coavon's price already includes a CRM, a document editor, file storage, chat and AI connections. Coavon is free for one person, and every new workspace starts with a free trial. See pricing.
What Coavon does not do yet
Coavon runs in a web browser and has no phone apps yet. It does not connect to Slack or Microsoft Teams, has no single sign-on through an identity provider, and cannot turn an email into a task. Flow has no milestones, goals, portfolios, whiteboards or workload view, and a task belongs to one project at a time.
2. Asana
Asana is a work management tool for planning and tracking projects.
- List, board and calendar views on every plan, with timeline and Gantt views from Starter.
- Forms, reporting dashboards, custom fields and unlimited automations from Starter.
- Unlimited free guests from Starter.
- Portfolios, goals, resource management, approvals and built-in time tracking on Advanced.
- More than 100 integrations on the free plan, and phone apps.
- Price: Personal is free for up to 2 people; Starter $10.99 and Advanced $24.99 a person a month billed annually ($13.49 and $30.49 month to month). AI requests are charged separately.
Compare in detail: Coavon vs Asana, or read our Asana alternatives guide.
3. monday.com
monday.com is a work management platform built around boards you set up yourself, with separate products for CRM, service and software teams.
- Boards on every plan, with a calendar view, timeline and Gantt chart from Standard.
- Automations and integrations from Standard, with 250 automation actions a month (25,000 on Pro).
- Time tracking from Pro.
- monday workdocs for writing alongside your boards.
- Guest access from Standard, and phone apps.
- Price: free for up to 2 seats; Basic $9, Standard $12 and Pro $19 a seat a month billed annually, with a 3-seat minimum. monday CRM is a separate product.
Compare in detail: Coavon vs monday.com.
4. Wrike
Wrike is a project management tool built for larger teams and detailed planning.
- Board and table views on Free, with interactive Gantt charts and shareable dashboards from Team.
- Templates and standard integrations on Business.
- Resource and capacity planning and budgeting on Pinnacle.
- Web, desktop and phone apps.
- Price: Free; Team $10 a person a month for 2 to 15 people; Business $25 a person for 5 to 200 people, billed annually. Pinnacle and Apex are priced on request.
Compare in detail: Coavon vs Wrike.
5. Notion
Notion is a workspace of pages and databases, often used for wikis, notes and docs.
- Databases with subtasks, dependencies and custom properties on every plan.
- Forms and published sites, basic on Free and customizable from Plus.
- Notion Calendar included.
- Database automations from Plus.
- Notion Agent and AI meeting notes on Business.
- Price: Free (10 guests); Plus $10 and Business $20 a member a month billed yearly ($12 and $24 month to month).
6. Trello
Trello is a simple board tool: boards, lists and cards.
- Boards with built-in automation on every plan.
- Power-Ups to connect more than 200 apps, including Slack and Google Drive.
- Unlimited boards, custom fields and card mirroring from Standard.
- Calendar, timeline, table and dashboard views on Premium.
- Phone and desktop apps.
- Price: free for up to 10 collaborators and 10 boards per Workspace; Standard $5 and Premium $10 a person a month billed annually ($6 and $12.50 month to month).
7. Basecamp
Basecamp is a project tool sold at a fixed monthly price, with no per-person fees.
- Message boards, to-dos and card tables (Basecamp's take on Kanban) in every project.
- Campfires and Pings for group chat and direct messages.
- Scheduling, docs and files, reports and automatic check-ins.
- Connectors for ChatGPT and Claude.
- Time tracking on the Unlimited Edition.
- Price: Free for 1 project; Freelancer $25 a month (3 projects, 5 GB), Studio $59 (10 projects, 25 GB), Pro $99 (25 projects, 100 GB) and Unlimited $299 a month billed annually (unlimited projects, 1 TB), each with unlimited users.
ClickUp vs Coavon, feature by feature
| Coavon | ClickUp | |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest paid plan | $8 a person (Starter) | $7 a person (Unlimited) |
| AI | Connector for Claude and other AI tools from Starter, no per-request charge | Sold separately: Brain AI $9, Everything AI $28 a person |
| Automations | No limit on how often they run | 5,000 a month on Business |
| CRM | Included: Scope, with pipelines, records and automations | CRM templates built from tasks |
| Documents | Included: Docs, with pages, suggested edits and Word or PDF download | Included: ClickUp Docs |
| Team chat | Included: Chat | Included: ClickUp Chat |
| File storage | 30 GB a person on Starter | 60 MB on Free Forever, unlimited from Unlimited |
| Time tracking | Every plan | From Unlimited |
| Guests | Free: unlimited on paid plans, 2 on Free | Guests with permission control from Unlimited |
| Forms | Every plan (unlimited from Pro) | 1 on Free Forever, unlimited from Unlimited |
| Goals and whiteboards | Not yet | Goals from Unlimited, private whiteboards on Business |
| Phone apps | Not yet (runs in the browser) | iPhone and Android |
For the full table, see Coavon vs ClickUp.
How to choose a ClickUp alternative
- Decide whether you want one app or a suite. If you use ClickUp as a CRM, wiki and file store as well as for tasks, look for tools that do those jobs properly, or a suite such as Coavon that includes them.
- Price the whole bill. Add any separate AI plan, CRM, chat app or storage to the per-person price.
- Check limits that grow with you: automation allowances, storage, team-size bands and seat minimums.
- Count the people outside your team. Free guests make a big difference for agencies and client work.
- Try it with one real project for a week before you move everything.
How to move from ClickUp to Coavon
- Export your tasks from ClickUp to a CSV file.
- In Flow, open Settings and import the file. Match its columns to Flow's fields and check the preview before anything is added.
- Import companies and people into Scope from a CSV file, and upload your files to Drive.
- Invite your team, and add clients or freelancers as guests on their projects.
Comments, automations and integrations do not come across in the file, so set those up again in Coavon.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best alternative to ClickUp?
For most teams, Coavon. Instead of one app stretched over every job, it gives you a project app, a CRM, a document editor, a file drive, team chat, notes and a calendar on one account, from $8 a person a month billed annually, with automations that are not capped by how often they run and an AI connector included.
Is there a cheaper alternative to ClickUp?
On October 18, 2026, ClickUp Unlimited was $7 a person a month billed yearly. Trello Standard is cheaper at $5. Coavon Starter is $8, a dollar more, and includes a CRM, documents, file storage, chat and an AI connector. Basecamp charges a flat monthly price instead, from $25 a month for 3 projects.
Is there a simpler alternative to ClickUp?
Trello is the simplest: boards, lists and cards. Coavon keeps each job in its own app, so the project app only has to manage projects, while clients, documents and files have their own apps beside it.
Does Coavon include AI like ClickUp Brain?
Coavon does not sell a separate AI plan. Its connector lets Claude and other AI assistants read and update your tasks, clients, notes, documents and calendar, and is included from Starter.
What does ClickUp do that Coavon does not?
ClickUp has phone apps, goals, whiteboards and mind maps, a larger library of integrations, and its Unlimited plan costs $1 less a person a month. Coavon instead has a real CRM, document editor and file drive, each built for its job.
Can I import my ClickUp tasks into Coavon?
Yes. Export your tasks from ClickUp to a CSV file and import it into Flow, matching its columns to Flow’s fields. Comments, automations and integrations do not carry over and are set up again.