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On our last round of Work OS testing, we found the best work operating system (Work OS) you can choose is ClickUp, which scored a 4.8/5. It has a large set of task management and workflow creation features, an excellent starter plan that you can try for free, and useful data visualization tools. It also turned out to be one of the easiest to use too.
Since the mass shift to remote working, many employees have felt bogged down by the number of software applications they have to use to perform their daily duties. According to project management software Wrike, 79% of business leaders now think there are too many apps, programs, and systems involved in their work days.
That's where a Work Operating System (OS) comes in – it's an all-encompassing setup for managing work plans, processes, tasks, and projects. You can use a Work OS to successfully replace spreadsheets, boards, and notepads which staff use to track project progress – and we cover precisely what a Work OS is in more detail in this article.
Best Work OS software to choose
Before we look at the best work OS software in greater detail further on in this article, Here's our sneak peek at the very best Work OS tools to choose from:
- ClickUp – best overall Work OS
- monday.com – most customizable Work OS
- Smartsheet – easiest to use work OS
- Trello – Best Basic Work OS
- Asana – Work OS with Best Automation Builder
ClickUp and monday.com both have their own Work OS offerings that go far beyond basic project management or task tracking, and they tracked the most impressive performance, with ClickUp scoring a 4.8/5 and monday.com a 4.7/5.
Smartsheets will feel like the smallest shock to the system if you're used to spreadsheets, whereas Trello is a good option for a more basic, barebones work OS. Asana, on the other hand, has one of the tidiest interfaces around and is an excellent automation builder for streamlining workflows.
Below, there's a table detailing the best Work OS tools available today. Or, for more information on how we arrived at our user testing scores, visit the About Our Research section.
Price From All prices listed as per user, per month (billed annually) | Pros | Cons | Verdict | ||
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BEST WORK OS | |||||
ClickUp | monday.com | ||||
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Slick, simple software with a powerful core, plus a genuinely usable free tier for individuals, and great value plans for teams. | A great task management system due to strong customizability and support team, with a generous free trial. | A great tool for spreadsheet-natives, which can take your Excel-based task planning to the next level, and there's a free plan, too. | A simple task-list-based project management platform with an acceptable free tier. | A fairly-priced, stripped-down option best for small teams who need a central location for basic task management. |
ClickUp
Tech.co Work OS User Testing Score: 4.8/5
Best for? Overall Work OS
ClickUp aims to replace a team's entire productivity stack, from project management and docs to OKRs, workload management, and more. On our last round of testing, we found it to be the best Work OS on the market, and you can even try ClickUp for free for yourself to see how the software works in practice.

Pros
- Genuinely impressive free plan
- 15+ ways to view project progress and data
- Useful "Chat" view for collaboration
- Team view for organizing tasks by team member
- Cheaper than monday.com & Wrike
- Agile project management features
- Vast number of features, even on cheap plans
Cons
- Customizability can be overwhelming to new users
- Not great at compiling project feedback
- Comparatively Clunky automation builder
- Slow to load on our tests
- Fewer integrations than competitors
ClickUp overview: the best Work OS
ClickUp's impressive overall score comes from its 4.9/5 rating for task management, a rating it achieved because it offers the exact collection of features you'd expect a proper Work OS to have for managing tasks. So many of these features are available on its free plan and first paid plan, the Unlimited Plan ($7 per user, per month, or $5.95 a month with the code TECHCO15).
Thanks to that low price point, ClickUp scores a 4.4/5 for pricing, which means it was our best value-for-money Work OS. But ClickUp isn't all about task management. ClickUp is a 5/5 provider for data visualization (with lots of options for customizing your own charts and widgets) and gets a 4.3/5 for workflow creation – custom templates and automations (as well as pre-built ones).
Our researchers found ClickUp to be a very usable product (it scores 4/5 for usability), thanks to a handy bookmark-style bar at the top of the page, meaning you don't have to do the normal menu-dive to find the setting or function you want. Smartsheet was easier to use (4.3/5) however, thanks to a spreadsheet-style view that's really easy to master.
Plus, ClickUp's native email integration helps users tie in their email use, always a core concern. ClickUp also recently added a new feature, Pulse, which uses Machine Learning to create automatic activity reports.
Check out our full ClickUp review for a comprehensive look at all of its features.
ClickUp Pricing
All in all, when we tested ClickUp's paid plans, it scored particularly high scores across the board, but especially when it comes to task management, customer support, workflow creation, and data visualization. The provider has an impressive library of communication integrations and also integrates with top CRM Salesforce, helping it to a 4.4/5 for pricing overall.
- Free ($0):Â ClickUp has the best free Work OS on the market. Although it has a project limit of five, it's got no user limit, custom and pre-built automations, custom project templates, a Gantt Chart with 100 uses (pictured below), sub-tasks and task dependencies, a dashboard for data (100 uses), a team instant messenger, and 24/7 live support.
- Unlimited Access ($7 per user, per month): If you have a little bit of a budget to spend on software, definitely go for this ClickUp plan. The usage limits on some of the free plan features are lifted, as is the project limit, and there's a calendar as well as 1,000 automations a month.
- Business ($12 per user, per month): this plan is geared toward larger businesses and has a 10,000 automation limit, a huge upgrade from the Unlimited plan. There are also custom chart and widget builders, so you'll have more control over how your data is displayed in your Work OS. This plan also has burndown charts for teams deploying Scrum, the Agile working methodology.
- Enterprise (tailored pricing): ClickUp's enterprise package comes with a dedicated success manager and live onboarding training, as well as a single sign-on function and a tailored Enterprise API. Along with these enterprise-specific features, this plan still has all the basic features you need to manage projects, like the Gantt Chart pictured below:

monday.com
Tech.co Work OS User Testing Score: 4.7/5
Best for? Customization
Sheer scope helps monday.com stand out: Its Work OS “spans hundreds of business verticals,” says Matthew Burns, Startup Ecosystems Leader at monday.com:
“Companies use it as homegrown as construction or as industrial as space travel. It requires no coding experience to get started while offering low-code tools for those who wish to create their unique applications on top of our platform.”

Pros
- Highly customizable platform
- Custom fields feature available on all plans (including the free plan)
- Rule-based automation can be used to complete simple tasks, like archiving items
Cons
- Free plan has 2-person user limit
- Limited third party integrations
- Higher tiers required for basic features
monday.com overview: the best Work OS for customization
The service's flexible custom templates helped it score 4.3/5 for workflow creation, as did features like monday.com's form builder, which can be used to compile post-project feedback. It's important to note that monday.com's customer score is much higher than most of the other providers we tested, with an overall total of 4.5/5 (by way of comparison, Smartsheets is just 3.8/5).
monday.com also has the collaboration tools to compete with the best Work OS, scoring 3.8/5 (which isn't as good as ClickUp or Teamwork, which both score 4/5, but still commendable), and 5/5 for data visualization, thanks to the options on its more expensive plans.
You're welcome to try monday.com for free to get a feel for the Work OS platform.
monday.com pricing
Monday.com's pricing plans only helped the provider to a 3.9/5 for pricing – making it the 6th best provider out of the 14 we tested in terms of value for money. Its pricing structure puts it in the middle of the pack, but it also has more plans than most providers with 5 in total compared to Smartsheet, which has 3 pricing plans, so you may find there's a monday.com plan that fits your budget.
- Free ($0):Â monday's free plan has a user limit of two, which means that most businesses won't be able to use it. However, if you are a duo, you'll enjoy monday.com's kanban board, custom fields for inputting all kinds of data, and collaboration tools.
- Basic ($8 per user, per month): this plan has no user limit and the storage is upgraded from 500MB to 5GB. This is the first plan you'll be able to create or use project templates on, but there's still not a huge number of features.
- Standard ($10 per user, per month): This is where monday.com truly becomes a Work OS, with custom and pre-built automations, a milestone-setting tool, and a Gantt Chart for managing tasks, dashboards for displaying data, a calendar) , and integrations with other software, and guest access to top it all off.
- Pro $16 per user, per month: There are more task management features added on this plan (like task dependencies), a budget management workaround, as well as a chart builder for showcasing insights to the rest of your team. There's also a resource management tool available.
- Enterprise (tailored pricing): this plan is monday.com's only plan that offers onboarding assistance, and there are large business-focused functions like dashboards that let you manage multiple sub-boards.
Below is monday.com's Calendar view, which is available on the Standard plan, Pro plan and Enterprise plan:

Smartsheet
Tech.co Work OS User Testing Score: 4.6/5
Best for? Ease of use
Smartsheet was the provider our research team finds the easiest to use (4.3/5, 1st) – and as it looks so similar to a spreadsheet, it might not quite be the “baptism of fire” other project management software might be.

Pros
- Free Trial available
- Familiar, spreadsheet-like interface
- Great for any sized company
- High scores for security & customer support
Cons
- Some features have limited functionality
- Not the easiest tool to use at first
- Competitors like ClickUp have better collaboration features, such as an online whiteboard
Smartsheet overview: easiest to use Work OS
“Smartsheet's spreadsheet format makes it very straightforward to update information to reflect any changes which occur as the project progresses,” one of our researchers commented during testing, highlighting the useful sidebar that lets you make changes to your project and communicate with your team.
There are also preset and custom project templates, and a form builder for post-project feedback (pictured below), for which Smartsheet is very capable, and overall Smartsheet scores 4.3/5 for workflow creation, putting it joint first with monday.com and ClickUp.
The customer support options offered by Smartsheet aren't great. You can only really make contact via email on the Pro plan and you have to pay for phone support on the Business plan, so Smartsheet only scored 2.5/5. However, it has a surprisingly vast range of task management tools (including custom fields, task dependencies, and milestones) on all of its plans.
Smartsheet has all the tools you need to display data, but they're not quite as good as ClickUp and monday's offerings in this regard. However, as Work OS's go, you won't find one that's as clear and simple to get the hang of as Smartsheet is. Below is an example of this – Smarthseet's simple, straightforward form builder:

Smartsheet pricing
Smartsheet only scores 3.3/5 for pricing, putting it 10th out of 14 providers in terms of value for money. This isn't because Smartsheet is a bad program, on the contrary – it's just quite expensive, with a second tier priced at $25 per user, per month – which is well over double the cost of equivalent unlimited and premium plans offered by ClickUp and Zoho Projects. Smartsheet has a free plan for one user and two “editors” who can also make changes to products. The provider's paid plans are structured like so:
- Pro ($7 per user, per month): Smartsheet's first plan has a user limit of 25 and an automation limit of 250 per month. There's also a 20GB storage cap, and you can only make a maximum of one data dashboard and five custom charts. Aside from that, it's got a lot of tools for its price, including a Gantt Chart, a calendar, and the ability to add guests.
- Business ($25 per user, per month): The business plan from Smartsheet adds, on top of everything in the free plan, phone support (for an additional fee) and resource management tools. There's also document editing and 1TB of storage, as well as unlimited automations and integration with Microsoft teams.
- Enterprise (tailored pricing): you won't have to pay for phone support on this plan, and there's unlimited storage, custom email domains, advanced analytics, and work insights, plus other enterprise-level features like single sign-on.
Asana
Tech.co Work OS User Testing Score: 4.5/5
Best for? Streamlining Workflows with Automation
Asana is another project management solution that helps businesses handle everything: organizing, tracking, and managing, and is used by big names like Uber and AirBnB.

Pros
- Unlimited storage
- Plenty of third-party integrations
- Incredible clean and intuitive interface
- Easy to use dashboards and chart builder
Cons
- Most key features require a Premium plan
- Very high prices for larger teams
- No phone-based support
Asana overview: a Work OS with best-in-class automation
On our last round of testing, Asana scored 4.4/5 for task management because it provides a Gantt Chart, a Kanban board, and task dependencies, among other useful features.
Asana scored 5/5 for data visualization (although there aren't any of these sorts of features available on the free plan). Further, the provider's “Portfolios” functionality helps teams reduce work with project portfolio management, for any number of Work OS benefits, from high-level views for department heads to consolidated institutional knowledge that's referenced frequently.
Asana also scores 4.3/5 for workflow creation (joint 1st), thanks to one of the simplest, easiest automation builders in the game – the rule-based system can be seen in the image below. This was better than ClickUp's automation builder which although not exactly difficult to master, was comparably clunkier to use than Asana's. If you and your team feel bogged down with mundane tasks and want as many of them as possible to be taken care of without the need for human intervention, then Asana is the software for you.

Asana Pricing
Asana, like monday.com, scores 3.9/5 for pricing – it's a fantastic program, and the first paid plan, the Premium plan, has a lot of what you need to run a project for small teams. The only problem is providers like ClickUp offer very similar packages for less money ($7 per user, per month), making it better value for money overall.
- Basic ($0):Â Asana's free plan is decent, but it lacks data visualization tools as well as important task management features. It also has a user limit of 15, so won't be suitable for medium and large businesses (as well as some small ones) which will have more people who need access to the Work OS.
- Premium tier ($10.99 per user, per month): there's a full set of data visualization tools on this plan, as well as useful task management tools like a Gantt Chart, Milestones, and task dependencies.
- Business tier ($24.99 per user, per month): This is the first plan that Asana will let you build custom automations with its incredible automation builder, which was really easy to use and the best one we tested in our last round of research. There's also a resource management feature that's useful for managing the available hours of team members.
- The Enterprise plan (Bespoke Pricing):Â This plan, as the name suggests, has enterprise-level capabilities, including increased data control, an Audit log API for security alerts and priority support (including a 99.9% uptime guarantee).
Trello
Tech.co Work OS User Testing Score: 4.1/5
Best for? Basic, Simple Work OS
Trello's 2021 team collaboration-centered upgrade gives the platform a range of views including Timeline, Table, Dashboard, and Calendar, and centers the service even more on team connection.

Pros
- Kanban-dominant approach
- Automation is available on the free plan
- Cheaper than most competitors
- Live chat support on all paid plans
Cons
- Very simple project templates
- Basic functionality, not updated regularly
- Sparse collaboration tools
Trello overview: the best basic Work OS
Trello didn't score as highly as some of the other providers on this list (4.1/5 overall). It is, however, a great solution for very basic task management without all the bells and whistles offered by ClickUp's Unlimited plan – and, sometimes, keeping it simple is the quickest route to success.
Its task management (3.4/5) and workflow creation (3.5/5) scores are nowhere near Work OS programs like Asana's scores, but not everyone needs a flashy automation builder – particularly if the workflow of your team is pretty standardized in the first place. And besides, Trello still has a very capable automation builder, (which can be seen in the image below), loads of preset project templates, and a Kanban board.

Trello's customer score of 4.3/5 was the second-best customer score out of any of the providers we tested – even though it might not have the feature set of Smartsheet (which only scored 3.8/5 for its customer score), clearly, those who actually use Trello have a good experience with it.
One of the downsides to Trello is the customer support (1.8/5) options – you only get priority support on the most expensive plans, and you can only really contact the provider by email. There's a knowledge base and community forum, but they aren't quite as useful as some other competitors' respective versions, and when providers like ClickUp now offer 24/7 live support on all plans, it's easy to see why Trello scores poorly in this regard.
Trello pricing
Trello scores 4/5 for pricing, and has one of the cheapest Enterprise tiers available at $17.50 per user, per month – a lot of competitors (monday.com, ClickUp, Asana, etc.) don't even make their Enterprise pricing public. Granted, Trello is not as feature-rich as many competitors, but it's not trying to be – and Trello's pricing matches that.
- Free ($0): Trello's free plan is an excellent option for teams who don't want to overcomplicate their task management or workday duties, but need an extra bit of organization and an efficiency boost. Trello will let you create automations on its free plan (although only 205 per month), as well as custom project templates. It has a user limit of 10 and 10MB per file, however, so it won't suit most medium or larger businesses.
- Standard ($5 per user, per month): On Trello's first paid plan, you'll get unlimited project boards, and you'll be able to show stakeholders your progress via Guest access. The automation limit is expanded to 1,000 per month, but there are still no data visualization tools and you're only entitled to Trello's standard support.
- Premium ($10 per user, per month):Â On the premium plan you'll be able to display data on dashboards, and you'll have a calendar to aid better organization and forward planning. There are also some extra task management tools like a Gantt Chart and a spreadsheet-style view, as well as priority support.
- Enterprise ($17.50 per user, per month): Trello's plan for the largest businesses adds free Single Sign-On (SSO) into the mix and you can build multiple workspaces for different teams working on different projects.
What is a Work OS?
The term Work OS refers to the future of project management software, which is evolving into a comprehensive dashboard for seamless workflows for all employees, whether they're in-person or remote.
A Work OS is “the operating system for putting all your work in one place,” as Zeb Evans, CEO and founder of project management service ClickUp, puts it.
But what does that actually mean in practice? Here's how business software is evolving to meet the new normal of the business world and your new-look working day. With the days of fully in-person offices gone, the Work OS's status as a single record-keeping platform is key.
“A modern Work OS is designed to save people time, make teams more efficient, and serve as a single source of record for all work so that everyone can know what everyone is working on across a company” – Zeb Evans, ClickUp.
You might not be able to tip your chair back and holler across the open office to that one coworker, but when dropping a comment on their project feels just as easy, you're still connected where it counts.
The Benefits, Features and Capabilities of Work OS
Now, we'll go take you through some of the benefits of using a Work OS in a little bit more detail. Here are some of the main reasons why a Work OS will transform your work day:
Core Benefits
- Centralization workflow and task management in one place
- Ability to Automate the more menial elements of your work day
- The streamlining of workflows and the subsequent time saved
- Capacity to integrate vital data from other software
- Clearer, in-context communication on the most important data
Additional Benefits
- Getting a better handle on the critical path of your projects
- Better management of asset-sharing between colleagues
- Easier to convey findings to stakeholders in your projects/work
- A smaller datasphere to manage
- Minimization of the dark matter of a workday
Centralizing workflows creates less confusion
Since the pandemic, what has replaced our all-binding water cooler conversations and easy access? Too often, the answer is: inconsistently used management software or target documents.
If your team uses even just two different solutions, then comments and updates might slip through the crack between them. Or worse, keeping everything up to date becomes an entire work task in itself.
“With different teams working across different tools for a variety of different tasks, teams inevitably become disconnected from their work and each other,” ClickUp's Zeb Evans says.
“With all elements of work moving digital – video chats, email, instant communication, project tracking, reporting, document creation, and so much more – workers are feeling burnt out just trying to keep up” – Zeb Evans, ClickUp.
This is perhaps the most important element of a Work OS – it should focus on making the essential aspects of any business's workflow more manageable (ClickUp's task tracking is pictured below) and, in turn, it'll make people feel less burnt out, confused and unsure of whether they truly have the full picture.

Considering ClickUp? See our guide to ClickUp Pricing for more detail.
Staying connected with colleagues and goals
Matthew Burns, Startup Ecosystems Leader at monday.com, sums up what makes a Work OS by contrasting it against more limited traditional tools:
“Unlike a conventional task tracking or project management tool, which is primarily a focused solution, a Work OS is designed to help teams plan and deliver on all of their work – like ideation, processes, projects, and initiatives – in one place” – Matthew Burns, monday.com.
The Work OS needs to be robust, given the shoes it has to fill to serve as the central software for a given business. It'll have to be “innovative enough to replace all the software people already use or integrate with software they want to keep,” Evans added.
With a Work OS, tasks can be seen in the context of a wider project. A project can be seen in the context of a wider business strategy and a company's (and an individual's) goals. The timeline for that strategy can be viewed holistically or incrementally. Importantly, it provides a way for employees to understand their role in a business in multiple ways (see monday's KPI Tracker below), wherever they are.
“A Work OS is designed to address this challenge by enabling cross-collaboration, transparency, and an open flow of information across a company – no matter how far apart teams may be” Matthew Burns, monday.com.

Once the team is freed from work silos and cut time-consuming tasks, that connection is easier than ever, no matter where they're working from. In order to shake off the ways of the past, though, you'll need to know what they are.
Learn if monday.com is the best value for you with our monday.com pricing guide
Choosing the Right Work OS for Your Business
There are some core criteria a Work OS has to satisfy to be considered a true Work OS. These include:
- It should be cloud-based, so it's easily accessible from any device or location.
- It should also focus on the essentials of a business workflow – planning, managing, and tracking projects and daily tasks
- It must be flexible/customizable – the Work OS must be adaptable to the latest challenges facing your business.
But there are also other things you'll have to consider when purchasing a Work OS. The main factors are going to be the size of your business, your budget for software, and the general level of tech savviness in your team.
Company size
Organizations of different sizes and different business functions will need different functions, whether it's an easily flagged quick review process, or a messaging ability that ensures everyone's comments on a project are in the same place.
Small Businesses can afford to be less concerned with the more expensive Work OS software plans. These often include enterprise-grade features that would be useless for smaller companies and analytics capabilities that just aren't necessary. There's also less pressure to go for complex software with a litany of features facilitating duties like managing multiple teams at once – if you only have one team, you don't need a Work OS with a function like this.
Medium-sized Businesses as a category of business are perhaps home to the most variation in this context. Some medium-sized businesses will need enterprise-level capabilities and some won't. One thing medium-sized businesses will have to look out for is user limits – Smartsheet's “pro” plan, for example, has a user limit of 25, which will be too small for many medium-sized businesses.
Large Businesses will have to shop around for those enterprise-level capabilities that small businesses can afford to avoid. Larger companies are likely to be more concerned with compliance regulations and data security, considering how many people will be managing huge amounts of data, much of it likely to be confidential.
Budget
Of course, budget is almost always the biggest consideration – and in an economic climate like the one we're currently in, there's even more pressure to spend well on software that guarantees ROI.
If you have no budget for Work OS Software, then you'll be looking exclusively at free plans. Just be sure to not focus too much on the features on offer – many providers have quite strict user limits. monday's free plan, for example, is only available for a maximum of two people, while ClickUp's free Work OS app only allows for a maximum of five projects.
Remember though, in the second case, you could always just make a new account when you run out of projects (which may solve that issue for smaller businesses working on less than five projects simultaneously). That's just one example of a consideration you should take into account when reviewing free project management software or Work OS programs.
If you do have a budget for software, and you want to make a Work OS your priority, then make sure you're looking at Tech.co's pricing scores. In terms of value for money, it's those first paid plans like ClickUp's unlimited plan ($7 per user, per month) and Trello's (also $5 per user, per month) that are often the best bets – lots of restrictions from free plans are often removed and, if you don't necessarily need the enterprise-grade features of the most expensive plans, it's a no-brainer.
The other thing to think about, however big your budget is, is how much money you'll be saving by centralizing your operations around a multi-functional Work OS that can do it all. You might be able to cancel your subscriptions to other applications if you find a program that's feature-rich enough to deal with all your work needs.
So, it might actually save you money to go with a more expensive Work OS that really does it all, and escape the multi-software hell many of us have found ourselves in post-pandemic.
Your team's tech-savviness
A third consideration you'll have to take into account is how tech-savvy your team is. Not all employees have the time to be tech whizzes, and even averagely complex software can feel intimidating if you've only just managed to get your head around the fact you can make two different tabs in the same spreadsheet.
Luckily, there's enough clear, uncluttered, and intuitive Work OS software on the market to get around this stumbling block. Asana's user interface is easy to navigate around, and Smartsheet is a great option if you want a smooth transition away from spreadsheets.
How a Work OS Makes Remote Work Easier
There are a number of issues that arise when working remotely, some of which come down to hardware setup. One recent survey found the two biggest self-reported work-from-home tech struggles were slow connection and slow devices.
Slow file downloads and dropped calls were also high on the list, further driving home the biggest practical concern facing a hybrid work environment: not all broadband speeds were created equal.

Chart via InMyArea.com
Even with these problems, using a Work OS can help — you'll streamline processes that could otherwise keep you switching between a handful of internet-eating software rather than just one. But, the Work OS needs to be flexible enough to meet employees where they are, and internet speeds are just one consideration.
“The ability to transition the employee experience from human to virtual is complex and fraught with landmines,” – Matt Abbott, Head of Recruiting Services, The Sourcery.
Abbott recommends any businesses frustrated with their workflow ask themselves three questions before adopting a new software:
- What problem are we solving?
- Does the tool mesh with our company culture?
- Is this a problem to solve using software, or can we efficiently humanize the process?
Don't go for the quick fix, particularly in the transition from multiple software tools to one, centralized Work OS. If the value of the software isn't clear to the entire organization, you run the risk of adding yet another micromanaging tool to a long list of them; the opposite of your end goal.
How We Chose the Best Work OS: Our Research
Here at Tech.co, we have a full-time research team that provides us with new product insights on a daily basis – which means we can give you the guarantee that we only write about products we've researched and tested.
They test the products and create research frameworks and criteria upon which to assess them. This means we can make judgments over which software is actually the best, and which businesses it's best suited to. It definitely takes more time, effort and thought, but it's worth it if we can provide truly accurate information.
How do we choose the criteria? It's based on collaborating with, and talking to, businesses like yours. If businesses are telling us that one of their key decision-making factors is how easy a product is to use, for example, we'll put that front and center of our research frameworks.
Once our team of researchers has completed their analysis, they then team up with our expert writers to make sure that what we're recommending is backed up by the data we've gained from their testing processes.
There's one rule we have when it comes to research: if we don't have the data, we don't write the review.
We're very upfront about the fact that we have commercial partnerships with some of the providers we write about (see the wording at the top and bottom of each review, comparison, and versus page on Tech.co).
However, our commercial partnerships never, ever impact our editorial independence, rankings, or impartiality when it comes to judging software. That objectivity is simply too important to us, and something we won't compromise on.
Work OS research at Tech.co
Work OS and project management software research is performed very regularly at Tech.co as it's one of the software categories we cover that changes frequently. The good thing is that this allows us to keep updating you with the very latest market insights, feature updates, and pricing changes.
For our Work OS research, the core criteria we honed in on (based on the pain points voiced by real businesses) were:
- Usability – an assessment of the platform's user experience when completing basic project management tasks.
- Pricing – an analysis of how many features users get on a provider's plans for the price they pay.
- Customer Support – an assessment of the customer support options on offer.
- Features – analysis of both the quantity and quality of features provided by the software.
- Customer Score – how do real customers rate these products?
Because “features” is such a broad category, we broke this down further into four sub-categories within which all Work OS features fall into. These include:
- Task Management – assessment of the performance of a provider's task management features (e.g. Kanban boards).
- Project and Workflow Creation – assessment of project and workflow creation features on offer (e.g. project templates).
- Data Visualization – assessment of features that aid the presentation of data (e.g. preset charts and widgets).
- Collaboration – assessment of features designed for communication with team members (e.g. an instant messenger).
Verdict: ClickUp is the best Work OS
The pandemic started over and, since then, the world has changed dramatically. Importantly, our work changed forever along with it. Right now, employees working remotely and in the office feel overwhelmed by the amount of software that they now have to use. A Work OS, like the one provided by ClickUp, can change that – not only will it streamline your workflows and make projects easier to follow and track, but it'll save your staff precious time and energy too.
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