Asana review: the most complete planning tool per dollar at the Starter tier

Asana is a work and project management app from Asana, Inc., a US company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Teams plan projects as lists, kanban boards, calendars and timelines. They assign tasks with due dates and dependencies, then track progress on dashboards.

On the Cybernock research rubric Asana scores 8.8/10 and ranks first in our best project management software list. The reason is its entry paid plan. It already does what most teams buy project software for: Gantt charts, reporting and outside collaborators. Points come off for managers, though, since portfolios and goals sit on the $24.99 Advanced plan.

How does Asana work?

Work lives in projects, and every project can switch between list, board, calendar and timeline views of the same tasks. A task can hold subtasks, custom fields, attachments, an assignee and a due date. It can also sit in more than one project at once.

That last detail matters more than it sounds. A design task can appear in both the website project and the designer’s own queue, with no copies drifting apart. In practice, this is what keeps cross-team work from splitting into duplicate checklists.

Above projects, Asana adds portfolios (a status board of many projects), goals linked to projects, and workload views that flag who is overbooked. Rules automate routine moves, such as assigning a task when it reaches a column or setting a due date when a form comes in.

Which Asana plan should you buy?

Most teams should buy Starter; nothing cheaper includes the timeline view. Don’t forget that guests are free on it, so invite clients and freelancers instead of buying them seats. Move to Advanced only when a manager needs portfolios, goals, workload balancing, approvals or time tracking across several projects.

Prices are US list prices from Asana’s pricing page, checked in October 2026. Yearly billing saves about 18%.

Seat bundles are the easiest pricing detail to overlook. Asana sells seats one at a time from 2 to 5 users, then in steps of 5 up to 30 and steps of 10 up to 100. A team of 7 therefore pays for 10. When you’re near a step, count heads before you buy.

What does Asana cost for a team of 5 or 15?

On yearly billing, Starter costs $659.40 a year for 5 users and $1,978.20 for 15. Advanced costs $1,499.40 and $4,498.20. A 15-person team on Advanced pays about $2,500 a year more than on Starter, so confirm someone will actually use portfolios and goals before upgrading.

Asana’s FAQ says it does not offer refunds. If you’re unsure, start on monthly billing and switch to yearly once the team has settled in.

How good are Asana’s automations and AI?

Asana advertises unlimited automations from Starter. That removes the action-counting that limits monday.com’s Standard plan (250 actions a month) and Wrike’s Team plan (50 per seat). Advanced adds a custom rules builder for more complex logic. When you compare tools, count automation limits as carefully as seat prices; a capped plan can force an upgrade sooner than headcount does.

AI comes as a monthly credit pool per billing account: 50,000 AI Studio credits on Starter, 75,000 on Advanced and 200,000 on Enterprise. AI Teammates, Asana’s agents that draft, triage and update work, include 5 requests per user per month. Extra requests cost $0.50 each in prepaid packs or $0.60 pay-as-you-go. Light AI use costs nothing extra. Heavy agent use does, so skip the pay-as-you-go route if you expect steady volume.

Is Asana secure enough for larger companies?

Mostly, at the right tier. Asana lists SOC 2 Type 2, SOC 3 and ISO/IEC 27001, 27017, 27018 and 27701 certifications on its trust center, along with data centers in Europe, Australia and Japan.

The catch is tiering. SAML single sign-on and SCIM provisioning need Enterprise. Data residency, audit logs and HIPAA support sit in the Enterprise+ add-on, according to the pricing page and third-party guides. Smaller teams on Starter get two-factor sign-in but not SSO. If you’ve been told SSO is mandatory, price Enterprise from day one.

Where does Asana fall short?

• A thin free plan. Personal now allows only 2 users for new accounts, while Trello Free allows 10 collaborators and Jira Free 10 users.
• Manager features cost more. Portfolios, goals and workload start at $24.99 per user, more than double Starter.
• No refunds. A yearly plan bought by mistake stays bought.
• Docs and chat are light. Asana has project briefs and messages, but not the wiki-style docs of ClickUp or Notion.

How does Asana compare with ClickUp, monday.com and Jira?

ClickUp suits teams that also want docs, whiteboards and chat in the same app, though its timeline and dashboards need the $17 Business plan. monday.com is easier for non-technical teams and cheaper at Standard, but it caps automations and keeps dependencies for Pro. Jira is stronger for software teams that work in sprints; its prices above use Atlassian’s list prices effective October 13, 2026. For heavy resource planning across departments, look at Wrike.

Who should not use Asana?

Four kinds of team will find a better fit elsewhere.

• Software teams running sprints and bug tracking. Jira is built around that workflow, and at 15 users its tier costs $1,450 a year against Asana’s $1,978.20.
• Teams that want one app for docs, chat and tasks. ClickUp covers all three; Asana’s docs are light.
• Groups of three to ten that want to stay free. See the free-plan gap above.
• Two or three people who only need a kanban board. Trello Standard at $5 a user costs less than half of Starter.

Should you choose Asana?

Choose Asana if your team plans projects with dates and dependencies, works with clients or freelancers, and wants dashboards without an enterprise contract. Starter at $10.99 per user per month is the plan to buy. Upgrade to Advanced only when a manager will use portfolios and goals every week. Compare all ten tools in our project management ranking.