ClickUp Review

ClickUp offers to change your life and make you 46 percent more productive. Those are bold and interestingly precise claims, which we hope to put to the test in this ClickUp review.

It boasts a client base of over 25,000 teams, including such heavyweights as Google, Nike and Samsung. Customers like that suggest it has plenty to offer.

We were pleasantly surprised by ClickUp. It is fully featured and most of it works well. It is cheap and easy to use, yet offers plenty of depth. It ranks up there with our favorite project management software. That said, we found a few things that could have worked better. Keep reading to find out why we liked the service.

Alternatives for ClickUp

Strengths & Weaknesses

Features

As with most project management software, you’ll spend much of your time with ClickUp creating and modifying tasks.

Each task has its own dedicated page for adding comments and files. You can assign comments to an individual, giving them a notification and an extra task to tick off. That makes it good for bosses who want to make sure their team members look at what they need to do.

Tasks have mini to-do lists, which function as subtasks. They can be ticked off one by one as you do them. You can add dependencies from the task view by opening its drop-down menu, clicking the dependencies option and choosing tasks that the selected one is dependent on or those that are dependent on it.

Tasks can be assigned priorities, which gives you a way to check what needs to be done urgently. They can also be merged, so if you’ve gotten trigger happy, you can consolidate and simplify your project. Priorities are represented by colored flags that are easy to understand.

You can enter a time estimate for each task, too. You can compare your estimates to what happened later, so you can improve your planning skills from project to project. Features like that are good for helping your team improve its performance in the long run.

ClickUp Task Control

The task view gives you a lot of options. Tasks are at the core of project management software, so it is good to see ClickUp offering you so much control over them.

If you need something simpler, take a look at our Asana review. Asana is simple, easy to use and a good option if you value user-friendliness over features.

ClickUp has three basic views and they can be selected using the buttons at the top of the screen.

The list view is the simplest and displays your tasks in rows. There are columns showing various details, which you can change if you like.

Its time view is a calendar that allows you to drag tasks around and reschedule everything.

The board view gives you a kanban-like interface, but it only has two columns by default. There’s one for open work and one for closed. You can create as many columns as you want, though, which means you can use ClickUp as an effective kanban board.

For another kanban-based tool that’s easy to use, take a look at our Trello beginner’s guide.

ClickUp’s box view divides the screen into boxes representing your team members. Each box contains the tasks assigned to that person. There’s also an unassigned box, so you can see what jobs still need to be allocated.

That is a good view to use if you want to focus on people and check out what particular individuals are doing.

There’s a gantt view, too, which is a great way to see how tasks fit together and which are dependent on others.

If the gantt view is your favorite way to organize things, you may want to consider using a tool that is centered around it. Read our TeamGantt review for details.

ClickUp Reports

ClickUp offers an easy-to-use reporting screen, with multiple types of report accessible via quick links. They include lists of what people have worked on, time tracked and several others. There are customization options, too, so you can get data for different periods and control how statistics are presented.

The time tracking can be done using a Chrome plugin or one of several external services, including Everhour, Harvest and others.

The bottom right of the screen contains a notepad icon. If you click it, the notepad pops up, which lets your write notes and reminders to yourself.

Each note can be expanded and commented on using a mini text editor. Notes can be printed or converted to tasks on your main project, making them a useful way to experiment with ideas before sharing them with your team. At the same time, though, the feature is no match for our best note-taking apps.

If you want to use data from other platforms, you can import it from Asana, Trello or Jira. You can import or export using .csv files, too. ClickUp’s export function didn’t work for us, though. We tried it twice and it never finished, despite waiting over 30 minutes on the second attempt. You might have better luck.

Its integrations allow you to work with several other tools, including GitHub and Slack. You can use Zapier, too, which lets you connect to over 1,000 other applications.

Customizing the options available to you is done through “ClickApps.” There are 10 of them and they add functionality, such as time tracking or automatic dependency rescheduling. You can switch them on or off via the options screen, but you’ll be asked what features you need when starting out, which will make some choices for you automatically.

ClickUp supports many platforms. In addition to mobile apps for Android and iOS, it has desktop apps for Windows and macOS, an extension for Chrome and an app for Amazon Fire TV.

ClickUp has an excellent feature set that provides many ways to control and manage your tasks. It also integrates well with other platforms. We had issues with its export feature, but what we looked at generally worked well, so it gets a strong score here.

ClickUp Features Overview

User Friendliness

ClickUp impresses from the word go, with a slick, modern-looking website that uses animation effectively and guides you through its sign-up process. Information can be found easily and generally without a fuss.

After confirming your email, you are sent to pick your avatar and color scheme, as well as the integrations you want to use.

You can customize your profile and team with different colors or use an image. If you want to use your logo, ClickUp allows you to do so.

It lets you pick and choose some of its features when setting up, so if you want to assign tasks to multiple team members, you can. Task priorities, time tracking and several other features can be switched off.

That’s great if you want to keep things simple. Just select the features you need and avoid the clutter of those you don’t want.

You can click through the initial setup if you want. It could be off-putting to those who aren’t sure how they want to use it and prefer to experiment with a blank slate at first.

After you finish the sign-up quiz, ClickUp invites you to start your first project. It offers a wealth of templates, sorted into over 20 categories.

It supports international fonts, so if you’re using Chinese or Korean, you should be catered to. We’re not sure if that feature is unique to ClickUp, but it is the first platform that’s told us it has it.

Like LeanKit’s, ClickUp’s sample project works as a do-it-yourself guided tour, with task names encouraging you to try different features and comments giving you tips on what to do. Take a look at our LeanKit review if that appeals to you. LeanKit is another strong platform, with plenty to offer business teams.

ClickUp’s sample project is a great way to learn, and we recommend taking a good look at it the first time you use the service.

ClickUp Interface

Its bright and breezy user interface can be flipped into dark mode if you want to give your eyes a rest or prefer a different aesthetic.

As you look around the sample project, you will be shown pop-up tips giving you advice on how to use the buttons and controls.

There is lots of help available to teach you how the platform works. ClickUp is excellent when it comes to usability. It presents many features in a clear way and you can get most things done without checking the help pages. In addition to making the basics easy, its menus include more useful options, so there are plenty of advanced features to find if you hunt.

For an alternative tool that also nails usability, read our monday.com review.

ClickUp score well on usability because it offers lots of features without overwhelming the user. It can be understood quickly, but also rewards exploration. We enjoyed using it and think you will, too.

Cost

Free	FREE
Unlimited	$ 5.00/ month
Business	$ 9.00/ month
Enterprise Contact sales for pricing details	Contact support for pricing

ClickUp’s pricing structure looks simple on its website, with a free plan and a paid plan called Unlimited. The free offering gives you 100MB of storage, as well as unlimited users and projects. That’s quite the deal if you have a large team, provided you don’t need much space.

If you want to use the free plan but need more storage for your team, take a look at our best online storage for teams article, which summarizes some of the options.

Confusingly, two more paid plans are visible in the app after signing up: Business and Enterprise. They offer extra security features and more.

We asked support about the difference between those on the website and in the app and it said ClickUp is in the process of updating its website. Hopefully, by the time you look at it, it will be consistent. That said, it might pay to check everything carefully.

The Unlimited option is as good as its name, with unlimited storage, advanced reporting, permissions and unlimited features and integrations. At only $5 per user per month, ClickUp is one of the cheapest players on the market.

Take a look at our best project management software guide to see how its competition is priced.

If $5 per month is still too much for you, you can make an offer of your own. Click the “let’s make a deal” text and you can suggest a price for a number of users you select. ClickUp’s team will presumably get back to you with a yes or no, so if you enjoy negotiating, you might be able to get an even bigger bargain for your team.

You can only pay be credit card, but a PayPal option may be added soon.

ClickUp scores well on price, with a free option and cheap paid plans. Check its website for the latest pricing, though, as it is making changes.

Security & Privacy

ClickUp complies with the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield framework, as well as the General Data Protection Regulation and HIPAA, so you have some assurances when it comes to the safety of your data.

It is hosted on Amazon Web Services, a huge company with well-developed security practices. Data in transit uses SSL 256-bit encryption, so nobody intercepting it will be able to read it.

Two-factor authentication and single sign-on are available on its paid plans. You can also set up single sign-on via Google or Microsoft if you’re on those plans.

For more on why that’s useful, take a look at our what is two-factor authentication article.

Those on its paid plans can also get at-rest encryption, but will need to contact support for more information. ClickUp didn’t elaborate on the type of encryption, even when asked, but maybe it’s best to keep everyone guessing.

If you’re interested in learning what you can do to keep your website secure, take a look at our website security piece for tips.

ClickUp has an extensive security policy, which details what it does and what it expects of its staff. We won’t go into detail regarding the contents, but take it from us, the service takes your security seriously.

If security is your priority, another platform you may want to look at is Wrike. It offers excellent security and is strong in almost every area. Read our Wrike review to learn more.

ClickUp gets nearly everything right when it comes to security, so it gets a strong score here. It would be nice to see more detail on its encryption, but keeping the specifics under its belt is arguably more secure.

Service & Support

ClickUp claims to have the highest rated client support in the industry, so we thought we’d ask it a few questions to put that to the test.

Its help page includes a phone number, email address, support form and physical address. There’s a live chat option too, so you have the full range of options for getting in touch.

If you prefer to solve problems yourself, it has a searchable knowledgebase with around 200 articles. They include text, video and animation to help show you how to do all sorts of things.

Though the content is good, some pages are out of date and mention features being available in plans that aren’t listed on its pricing page, which is confusing.

In addition to the standard guidance, it includes tips on how to set up the platform for different purposes — inventory tracking or recruiting, for example.

If you like learning via video, you’ll appreciate its YouTube channel, which has around 100 videos showing you how to use the platform’s features, as well as guides for particular tasks and different categories of user. There are videos for sales teams, development teams and marketing teams.

We noticed an unfortunate bug on its contact form. Clicking enter to select auto-complete fields (which we did for our email address) sends the form, meaning we sent its support team a few blank messages before figuring out how it worked. They were polite about it, though.

Once we figured it out, our query about encryption got a response in around 15 hours.

If you want to try a service with faster response times, read our Basecamp review. It only took three minutes to respond to us.

ClickUp’s in-app help menu contains useful options. There’s a suggestion page where you can ask for features. Many of the suggestions have active discussions around them and are marked as in-progress, so you can see if what you want is on the horizon.

It also has a live chat option, though it isn’t always staffed. Our question here got a response explaining the difference between the pricing pages discussed earlier in about a day and a half.

ClickUp’s service and support are strong. Its response times are good, though far from the quickest we’ve seen. We wouldn’t rate it as the “best in the industry,” but it still gets a good score here.

Final Thoughts

We enjoyed using ClickUp. It is excellent at managing tasks and assigning relationships between them. It has unlimited storage and a quality UI, as well as plenty of security options. It has you covered with help and support, too, with many options available if you get stuck and useful learning materials.

In addition to having a free version, ClickUp’s paid offerings are among the cheapest out there, making it an excellent choice for those on a budget.

We found a few things that didn’t work perfectly, but the platform seems to add new features regularly and the odd hiccup is the price you pay for that. Regardless, we recommend it if you want a cheap, effective tool that looks good and lets you manage your tasks in all sorts of ways.

If you’ve tried it, we’d love to hear what you thought. Please let us know in the comments. Thanks for reading.