Project management for agencies: client access, time tracking, billing and proofing by plan

*Three of the ten tools we rank state at least two of the four features below on their entry plan, or as a stated add-on: Zoho Projects, Teamwork.com and ClickUp. Only Teamwork.com states all four.*

Agencies need four things from project management software: a way for clients to see and approve work, built-in time tracking, billable hours or invoicing, and proofing, where clients review and approve files. Here is what each tool in our project management ranking says about each, on its entry plan (the cheapest paid plan that allows five users). All were read on Oct 1, 2026.

A client portal or client approvals

Here is how each lets clients in on its entry plan:

• Teamwork.com Basics: free client users. "The purpose of client users is to enable you to bring clients into your projects where necessary, without incurring extra costs onto your subscription." Clients can approve proofs without an account.
• Zoho Projects Premium: client users are a paid add-on, $5 per client user a month or $4 billed annually.
• ClickUp Unlimited: "Guests With Permission Control". View-only guests are free; there are 5 permission-controlled guest seats plus 2 per member invited.
• Asana Starter: "Unlimited free guest seats let clients and contractors collaborate without increasing your license count." Approvals start at Advanced.
• Basecamp Freelancer: clients "can see messages, comment on work, complete to-dos", and you choose what they see. They count toward the 20-user cap.
• Notion Plus: "Guests are free of charge – but they can only access individual pages they are invited to."
• Smartsheet Pro: clients join free as Contributors, who can view and, with Commenter permissions, comment.
• Trello Standard: single-board guests are free.
• Wrike Team: free viewers can view and comment; guest approvals start at Business.
• monday.com Basic: no guest access. It starts at Standard, where "4 guests billed as 1 seat".

Built-in time tracking

• On the entry plan: ClickUp Unlimited ("Native Time Tracking"), Zoho Projects Premium ("Time Logs and Timesheets") and Teamwork.com Basics (time tracking on every plan).
• On a higher plan: Asana from Advanced (Starter only syncs third-party trackers), Basecamp from Pro at $99 a month, monday.com on Pro and Enterprise, Wrike from Business, and Smartsheet through the Resource Management add-on on Business and Enterprise.
• Trello and Notion name no built-in time tracking on their pricing pages.

Billable hours or invoicing

• Teamwork.com Basics: "Track and report billable time". Invoices built from logged time start at Accelerate, $24.99 a user billed annually.
• Zoho Projects Premium: time logs are billable or non-billable, and "With the Zoho Books or Zoho Invoice integration, Projects helps ... turn your timesheets into invoices". Those are separate Zoho products.
• ClickUp: billable time and billable reports appear only in the Business and Enterprise columns.
• monday.com: the Time Tracking Column "can be used to track the billable hours", on Pro and Enterprise only.
• Asana: Timesheets and Budgets is "Available as an add-on to Enterprise plan". Its table also shows the add-on in the Starter column; we use the worse reading.
• Smartsheet, Wrike, Basecamp, Trello and Notion name no billable hours or invoicing for their entry plans.

Proofing

• Teamwork.com Basics: 20 proofs (the pricing page's table reads "20/M", a month), and external clients can review and approve them.
• ClickUp Unlimited: "Proofing: Image & PDF Annotation" is only a "Trial"; the Business card lists "Unlimited Proofing".
• Asana: "Approvals and proofing" are on Advanced.
• Smartsheet: "Proofing (image and video)" starts at Business.
• Wrike: file proofing and approval start at Business.
• Zoho Projects, Basecamp, Trello, Notion and monday.com name no proofing on the pages we read.

Which tools make our list

Our list for agencies and client work ranks the tools that state at least two of the four on their entry plan or as a stated add-on: Zoho Projects, Teamwork.com and ClickUp. The other seven state client access at most.