ClickUp is a cloud-based project management software primarily used for workplace-related engagements and interactions. Its unique one-stop-shop design makes it stand out from the rest. ClickUp has all the tools you need to create meaningful projects in one easy-to use and accessible platform.
You heard it! ClickUp is a workplace app that has specific uses and can be used to meet certain needs. ClickUp, however, aims to combine all these functions into one system with the primary goal to increase team productivity. But how true to the word is its claim? What is its performance when it comes to workflow management? We’ll answer these and more in our full review right here.
Also, in this article, we’ll tackle other important factors you might want to consider before getting it, including the pricing levels, system support, and the pros and cons that could either make or break ClickUp. Let’s begin!
For those of you who prefer a more visual experience, here is a video review from Kurt on his YouTube channel Kurt Knows. You can still read our article to get a complete overview of ClickUp.
What is ClickUp? A Handy Overview ClickUp For Journalists
ClickUp was founded in 2017 as one the most promising tech startups of the moment. The team behind ClickUp understood their goal: to make ClickUp the best place for teams and businesses to work more productively. They realized that the current productivity system could be all over.
There are many project management tools available that can be difficult to track. For instance, Monday.com and Asana may be a better place to manage project-related tasks. How do you track your time? Go for Hubstaff or ActiveCollab. Do you want to share documents and presentations with your team? Microsoft Office and Google’s suites of tools might help.
It’s not just the typical project management stuff that teams from all walks of life have to deal with. Communication is also important. While a few platforms include a chat function, many of them can be downloaded separately. You can think of Slack and MS Teams or even Discord.
With that in mind, there are way too many productivity-based apps for teammates to keep up with, creating an oversupply of separate ecosystems. Some may find it more difficult to finish certain projects or achieve specific goals due to the increased number of apps. The guys behind ClickUp understand the growing need for a platform that not just provides all workplace solutions in one place but also helps improve productivity rates by 20%, so that explains why they took it upon themselves and created it in the first place.
Though founded around half a decade ago, ClickUp has since then amassed a following of over 200,000 small- and medium-scale businesses and companies. These teams use ClickUp because of its cost-saving features. This helps them save time and money. ClickUp offers many useful tools, such as real-time collaborations with team members, shared task setting, productivity reporting, templates and other customization options. This is in addition to the usual tools like task management, communication and time tracking.
Another thing that makes ClickUp a solid pick for workplace activities is the flexible price range, including its free forever plan, which is among complete free packages as far as productivity platforms are concerned. While certain apps put their best features behind layers of paywalls, ClickUp ensures that all important tools are available for every teammate to use free of charge. ClickUp is ideal for remote teams with limited budgets. ClickUp For Journalists
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ClickUp: Who are the ideal teams?
ClickUp is a great tool for small and large teams. Its overall design makes it an ideal choice for anyone.
- Teams who work remotely or from home – Since ClickUp is cloud-based, it is a great option for businesses whose teams often work apart from each other.
- Human resources departments – ClickUp is equipped with excellent management, reporting, and storage tools, including a performance tracker, which any company’s HR department must have.
- Design and advertising teams – Feedback is an important aspect when it comes to working with teammates in the design and applied arts field, so ClickUp delivers that with seamless collaboration and communication features like chat and comment sharing.
- ClickUp is a great tool for marketing and finance-focused companies. ClickUp’s reporting and tracking features are great for teams that specialize in marketing or finance.
- Teams who work in healthcare – Healthcare companies, no matter if they work remotely or not, must abide by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). ClickUp offers this compliance, but it is limited to the enterprise plan.
What’s Good and What’s Not with ClickUp
From simple and convenient offerings to jam-packed pricing plans, it’s no wonder why ClickUp has become one of the top choices for the best productivity software on the internet, and a fan favorite, too! This statement might seem too good to be true. Keep reading to see if ClickUp can still stand on its own.
The pros
- ClickUp is one of a few platforms that offers a fully functional free plan. This includes vital workflow features that are not available through the paywall.
- It comes equipped with a wide range of elite customization options, each suited for teams from various industries. This includes customizing dashboards according to personal preference and the “Custom Fields” tool.
- ClickUp provides a wide range of tools for work management that can be used to improve communication and engagement in the workplace. It can range from excellent real-time reporting features to smooth collaboration options.
- Its tools are easy to use, simple and convenient. This reduces the stress of trying to manage multiple productivity apps at once.
- ClickUp’s plans are not as limited as those from other platforms, so if you’re looking to accommodate as many team members as possible or integrate with numerous third-party apps and services, you can do so no matter what plan you’re subscribed to.
- ClickUp offers desktop access as well as a mobile app for iOS and Android that allows inter-team collaborations to take place while on the move.
The Cons
- Despite being filled to the brim with easy-to-use features, using ClickUp requires having to go through a steep learning curve – in the case of onboarding, for instance, it may take an extra bit of time for new teammates to navigate through all of its in-house tools and learn how to use them well.
- As far as UI is concerned, ClickUp falls short in the field as some parts’ font and text sizes may be too small for some to read. The color layouts may be of great concern as well.
- ClickUp has many productivity features. However, it does not have the ability to provide post-project feedback. Its integrated tools may not be as intuitive as its counterparts. ClickUp For Journalists
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ClickUp’s pricing plans broken down
ClickUp offers four pricing plans to its users, with a sub-plan and upgrade tier for each. Each of these plans is suited for a diverse range of teams varied by size, manpower, and availability of resources. Without further ado, let’s take an in-depth look at ClickUp’s plans!
Free Forever
Among the platform’s greatest highlights, there’s no question needed as to why ClickUp’s Free Forever plan is placed in the category of the best free plans offered by any productivity software. Even though it’s an entry-level plan, you have unlimited access to tasks and can add unlimited team members to your workspace. You’ll also explore ClickUp’s jam-packed core features, such as real-time chat, whiteboards, time-tracking, and native video recording.
While the lineup of offerings appears to be convincing, you have to keep in mind that some limitations have been put into place, like the allowance of only 100 automations per month and 100MB worth of storage. Nonetheless, the Free Forever plan is a solid pick for solopreneurs, project management newbies, and small-scale teams needing more budget.
Unlimited Plan
You like the free tier, but you don’t want to follow the rules that could impede your workflow. ClickUp’s Unlimited plan offers many welcome upgrades and additional features at very affordable prices. At the same time, other productivity platforms have plans similar to this but at higher price ranges. ClickUp For Journalists
For as low as $5 per user per month (if paid annually), you get the same core features from the Free Forever plan, plus unlimited storage and app integrations, unlimited dashboard creations, advanced reporting tools, and the Goals & Portfolio tool. This plan is ideal for small teams with a larger client base and more resources. However, upgrading from Free Forever will cost you a little extra, making it very valuable.
Business Plan
ClickUp’s Business Plan is for teams that have grown beyond their small spaces and are prepared to tackle new challenges. ClickUp’s Business Plan includes a host of features to meet the increasing demands of effective workplace resources. For instance, it has extra security features for teammates, such as two-factor authentication and single sign-on integrations with Google on top of the features from the two previous tiers combined.
Additionally, the Business Plan has seen worthy upgrades for some of ClickUp’s core features, including advanced dashboard customizations, next-level automation, and upgraded public sharing. Also included is the Goal Folders feature, which lets you compile and organize project goals into separate folders for easy safekeeping. The Business plan costs as low as $12 per user per month (if paid yearly).
Upgrade to Business Plus
Explore more with the Business Plan The Business Plus upgrade, priced at the starting point of $19 per member per month (annually), unlocks the rest of the tier’s features for a maximized productivity experience within the team. You will also get additional automations allowances.
ClickUp’s team-sharing and KPI tracking features, as well as custom role creation, will be explored. ClickUp offers priority support. If you have any questions or requests, ClickUp will assist you as soon as possible.
Enterprise Plan
ClickUp’s Enterprise Plan is the most comprehensive tier, offering more enterprise-grade features than all other plans. Marketed towards very large-scale teams and established businesses and corporations, it has no fixed plan – this means you will need to link up with ClickUp’s sales department first to forge a deal on how much you may need to pay.
The Enterprise tier offers advanced solutions like white labeling, unlimited custom role, advanced permissions and customized contract agreements with legal support. It also includes HIPAA compliance for healthcare team members. Other noteworthy deals include the ability to do single sign-on using multiple apps aside from Google, custom onboarding training for new teammates, and a dedicated success manager to ensure a highly productive and positive workplace. ClickUp For Journalists
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A Closer Look at ClickUp’s Features
Before we can explore the rest of ClickUp, let’s first examine its hierarchical structure. A typical productivity system is composed of two things: a company or its projects. ClickUp elevates it with some structural changes. ClickUp creates its own hierarchy consisting of Teams, Workspaces and Spaces (Projects), Folders Lists, Tasks, and Folders.
Teams, in ClickUp terms, refer to the company or organization that handles all the tasks and assigns them to the employees or teammates. Usually, Teams are created by companies of various fields as just one entity, though there are rare cases in which some big groups handle multiple teams at once. The Workspaces are also known as departments within the company.
After the Workspaces come next, a varying number of Spaces or work projects are assigned by the departments within the Team. Each Space branches to the Folders, which in turn branch to the Lists. These Spaces are essentially subprojects of the larger plan. The much-anticipated Tasks from the Lists section are finally here, each one assigned to a different member of the team.
Let’s now get to the point.
Multitask Toolbar
The multitask toolbar appears when you click on one of the tasks in the ClickUp user interface. It has the same old functions that you could expect from, say, a taskbar from any e-mail platform like Yahoo Mail or Gmail, such as the ability to select and mark as read, delete, etc. Needless to say, it makes for a great feature for solo power users and managers who often handle a hefty load of tasks.
Just like you would any e-mail service, ClickUp’s multitask toolbar allows you to do a variety of things with your chosen tasks. You can, for instance, change the status if they’re complete or not, modify the due dates, set assignees among your current teammates, and even convert some of them into sub-tasks to make the full goal less complicated.
Simplified Methodology for Managing and Viewing Tasks
On nearly most productivity apps, you would be expected to bear the weight of manually writing in your tasks and inputting them into your team calendar and goals everywhere you go. ClickUp has made this process much easier. Instead of spending nearly an hour writing down your tasks and inputting them into your team calendar and goals, you can simply type the task you are interested in and wait for ClickUp to incorporate the data into your workspace.
Regarding how you view your laid-out tasks, ClickUp has given you plenty of options to explore. ClickUp currently offers more than 15 views. These include the calendar, boards, mindmap, map view and workload. That way, you’ll get a complete scope of how the rest of your team is doing, plus the assurance that your goals may be reached efficiently.
Customization range
ClickUp is a great tool for task management. The useful drag-and drop feature makes organizing tasks a breeze. For instance, if you wish to change the deadline to a later period and day, you may simply drag one of your existing tasks further right or left in the Calendar section.
However, customization goes beyond the simple drag-and-drop and multitask toolbar tools with ClickUp. ClickApps is a section that gives the Workspace a more personal feel. It provides time-saving tools like automations, dependencies and sprints. These can all be integrated into your space. You can also create templates for your documents, checklists, folders and other tasks that you might use in the future. Zapier allows you to integrate with more than 1,000 apps and services, making it easy for you to have a productive work environment. ClickUp For Journalists
Collaboration and communication tools
Communication is key to a successful work project, and ClickUp provides you and your team with in-house features that deliver the aspect right on the spot. Its e-mail service and chat feature allow you to interact with your fellow teammates without having to leave elsewhere, as you can do several things, such as catch up on your tasks and ask for special requests whenever necessary. However, as good as these features may seem, it’s important to note that they shouldn’t be heavily relied on as there are some issues with the interface and that it’s better to have some comms backups on the ready in case something goes awry.
That aside, apart from the integrated communications tools, ClickUp’s also packed with smooth collaboration features up its sleeves. You can see what your colleagues are doing in real time from the Whiteboard to Documents, just like Google’s work space. Have any feedback in mind? You can review your files and your team’s tasks, make suggestions, and even share them to others.
Documents
It is a great idea to have a place where you can share your ideas and goals. However, you will need to access them on different applications. ClickUp addresses this problem by integrating its version of Documents to the platform. This allows you and your team members to work together without having to go elsewhere.
ClickUp Docs allows you to create and edit files using a few fonts, sizes and photos. You can also link your files with Workspace tasks through widgets. You don’t need to update your workflow in different tabs. Instead, you can do it all within the editor. This feature not only saves you time, but also helps you to be more productive.
Once your documents are complete, you can share them with your team members or publically using an automatically generated copy/paste link. ClickUp Docs also offers other useful features such as Focus Mode, which allows you to focus on the part you are working on without distractions and allowing you to look at page details including word count, approximate reading time, and estimated reading time.
Real-time reporting and goal tracking
It is crucial to track the progress of projects and determine if any steps have been taken to achieve their goals. ClickUp’s customizable dashboard allows you to view all types of project indicators from one place. From the current status of project goals and sprints to a real-time graph indicating how many tasks have been completed within the team, rest assured that you have the right tools to determine if any of your projects are geared towards success or otherwise.
As far as reporting how well your general workspace is doing is concerned, you may be glad to know that ClickUp’s reporting section made it incredibly simple for you to do so, as with most of its other features. Aside from easily digestible visual graphs, the platform houses automatic reporting tools such as the Pulse section, where you get to view how many of your teammates are online at a specific time, Time Estimates, Team Points, and reports on how many tasks a teammate was able to complete in the day, month, or year.
Time Management
The increasing trend of remote work has resulted in an increasing need for time management apps to help track how long team members work in a day, week, or month, despite staying in different locations. There have been other platforms that offer time management, but ClickUp already offers them as part of its comprehensive package. Its time tracking and reporting functions are just like the rest of ClickUp’s tools.
The global timer allows teammates to enter their work hours, link their task and take notes. It doesn’t matter what device you use – ClickUp’s Chrome extension is free and you can record your time on your computer, your mobile phone or your laptop. You may opt to either start the timer as you get to your tasks or manually type in how many hours you’ll work in a day – no matter which way you prefer, ClickUp provides you with them. The core tools for general time tracking management such as time billing, editing and timesheets will be covered. Have you used a separate time-tracking app before, and do you want to transfer data from there to ClickUp? Simply sync information between the two platforms. ClickUp For Journalists
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Bonus: The ClickUp Support System
In need of assistance? ClickUp has nearly everything you may need to help you with them! Apart from being packed with many handy work management tools, ClickUp equally shines in providing its users with excellent customer support and learning resources.
It offers 24/7 customer support, which is available to all subscribers regardless of whether they are on a paid or unpaid plan. What’s nice about it is that you get plenty of support teams to choose from. The Sales section, for example, is the best place to go if you have questions about the Enterprise plan. Likewise, if you want help setting up your Workspace, there’s a dedicated team for that.
ClickUp allows you to explore a wide range of learning content that will help you use the platform. This includes the Demo package’s on-demand video tutorials and the Help Center’s rich documentation. ClickUp University offers courses and webinars that can help you and your team improve your work skills. ClickUp For Journalists
What Customers Have to Say About ClickUp
ClickUp’s extensive list of project management tools gives it an edge over other products, though some users may find the sheer number overwhelming. It has a large following in the general public.
Most team leaders who have used ClickUp for work have been generally positive about their experiences navigating through it so far. They have lauded the platform for its limitless customization possibilities and how time-saving most of its interface and features are. They’ve also appreciated how fully functional its free entry-level plan is compared to other productivity software and how worth the upgrades to higher tiers can get considering the valuable price range.
ClickUp has many features. It’s no surprise that learning can be difficult, especially for people not familiar with remote project management. With that in mind, they may need to allow themselves more time to get used to its inner workings, which the service thankfully catches up with a vast range of learning and onboarding material. ClickUp is also subject to criticism for its mobile app and web interfaces that can sometimes be glitchy, but most users don’t see any problems with the service as a whole. ClickUp For Journalists
Alternatives to ClickUp
ClickUp is a well-known productivity software that has earned a reputation for being the best. ClickUp’s recognition has been equaled by the following other work platforms. Each of these has competitive features and aspects that make it unique; however, some things aren’t always on par with what ClickUp offers.
- Monday.com – It’s obvious Monday.com is a close competitor to ClickUp. Monday.com offers many of the same features as ClickUp, including customization options, workflow capabilities, integrations and the ability to provide learning and onboarding resources to its teammates. It makes up for what it lacks with its free plan and large range of tools.
- Smartsheet – Smartsheet provides teams with the same quality project management tools that ClickUp offers, including a reliable mobile app and multiple task-viewing options. They also have the ability to share tasks with colleagues in real-time. Smartsheet shines best when it comes to creating spreadsheet-adjacent project plans, making it a much better choice for detail-oriented teams that deal with a huge load of data and only sometimes for small-scale groups and freelancers.
- Teamwork – ClickUp and other software are great for group projects. Teamwork however has many tools that can be used to support client- and service-based interactions. Apart from the usual features you may expect from any PM software, and some great solutions can be used individually. Though it may not have everything ClickUp has, Teamwork does offer a full suite of dedicated products for seamless productivity. ClickUp For Journalists
- Asana – Some PM platforms, like ClickUp, may be inundated with too many features, and others may need to be more basic. They may be considered pointless. Asana strikes the perfect balance between power and simplicity making it an excellent choice for small to large teams. Asana is a great tool for beginners, offering a comprehensive mix of tools, from task management to communication. However, some aspects require access beyond the paywall, like full-range customization.
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ClickUp: The Final Verdict
Let’s wrap up our ClickUp review and ask these questions: 1) Is it accurate in claiming that ClickUp will increase productivity? How does it handle workflow?
ClickUp is a platform that provides a single-stop solution for project management. This makes ClickUp a great tool to help improve collaboration among colleagues, even if they are far away. However, having too many tools can lead to information overload. Second, depending on how you see it, the software does its best to tackle multiple tasks, even though a few of its aspects require improvement.
Based on everything we know so far, is ClickUp worth a try as the go-to software for you and your employers? Although the final decision is up to you, we believe it’s worth a try in this instance. If you’re especially a small start-up team or simply ready to transition to remote work, you may be glad to know that ClickUp has nearly all the tools you need to help achieve your future goals.
FAQ ClickUp For Journalists
How many devices is ClickUp currently available to download on?
ClickUp offers a desktop version, as well as an app for Android and iOS that we have already developed. It can be downloaded on Windows, Mac and Linux. It also has a Chrome browser extension currently available on the Google Chrome web store, as well as availability through voice command services, namely Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa.
Is ClickUp ideal for personal or solo use?
Although ClickUp is not the best platform for freelancers working with clients on their own, it has enough tools to be useful even for personal use. ClickUp offers a wide range of project management tools that can be used by solo workers.
Does ClickUp offer offline access?
Yes! Yes! ClickUp offers an offline mode for coworkers who don’t have an internet connection. It allows you to view and create tasks, remind you of important dates, and look at your notes. However, some tools may not work if you aren’t connected online.
ClickUp’s Offline Mode feature is available on the platform’s web version, desktop program, and mobile app (Legacy 2.0).