Priced for one person. Most comparisons quote a per-seat figure that assumes a team, which hides the tools that charge you for seats you will never use.
Working alone changes which tool wins. Seat minimums stop being a footnote and become the whole bill: a vendor charging $9 per seat with a three-seat minimum costs a freelancer $27 a month for a single login. Free tiers also matter more here, because a solo workload often fits inside them.
Cheapest plan that actually works at this size, on annual billing, with seat minimums and user caps applied. Tools with seat minimums are ranked on what they actually charge one person, not on their headline price.
| Tool | Plan | Monthly cost | Free tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trello | Standard | $5/mo | Yes |
| ClickUp | Unlimited | $7/mo | Yes |
| Jira | Standard | $8/mo | Yes |
| Smartsheet | Pro | $9/mo | Yes |
| Notion | Plus | $10/mo | Yes |
| Linear | Basic | $10/mo | Yes |
| Asana | Starter | $11/mo | Yes |
| Basecamp | Plus | $15/mo | Yes |
| Airtable | Team | $20/mo | Yes |
| Monday.com | Basic | $27/mo billed for 3 (3-seat minimum) | Yes |
| Teamwork.com | Deliver | $33/mo billed for 3 (3-seat minimum) | Yes |
| Wrike | Team | $50/mo billed for 5 seats (sold in blocks) | Yes |
The simplest tool here, and the cheapest paid tier in the category. Fine for straightforward boards, thin once you need reporting or dependencies.
$5/month for 1 person on Standard.
Watch out: Enterprise requires a minimum of 50 seats and a $10,000 annual commitment. There is no path between Premium and Enterprise for a 30-person company.
Visit site →The cheapest serious option per seat. Enormous feature set, which is either the main attraction or the reason teams abandon it.
$7/month for 1 person on Unlimited.
Watch out: Monthly billing costs 43% more than annual on Unlimited and 58% more on Business. The steepest annual penalty in this category.
Visit site →Built for software teams and priced for them. Powerful issue tracking, and the steepest learning curve of anything in this comparison.
$8/month for 1 person on Standard.
Watch out: The per-user rate drops at 100, 250 and 500 seats. If you are near one of those thresholds, adding a few users can lower your total bill.
Visit site →Our comparison table prices every tool at three team sizes, and each tool has a full pricing breakdown with the fees its own page leaves out.
Written by Sebastian Bru. Sebastian Bru runs administration for a 180-person private hospital. For the past 10 years he has evaluated, bought and renewed the software his organization depends on, which means he has spent a decade learning the difference between the price on the pricing page and the number on the invoice.
Prices last verified on 2026-07-27.