Alternative to Asana A system written around your process
Project management
What Asana is
Asana is a project and teamwork tool, widely used in marketing, operations and product management. It has list, board, timeline and calendar views, plus Goals, project portfolios and forms. It is valued for a clean interface and for staying consistently within work management.
Five limits of Asana
Not faults, boundaries - these are the places where clients most often run into the edge of the product.
No native time tracking
Asana has no built-in time tracking. Recording hours means integrating an outside tool - Toggl, Harvest - which is another cost and another application to switch to.
Reporting is held back on lower plans
Advanced dashboards and Universal Reporting only arrive with the Business plan, around €23 per person per month. Premium gives you basic progress views and nothing more.
No project budgeting
There is no module for tracking cost, budget or project invoicing. A services business has to run its project finances in a separate tool entirely.
One assignee per task
A task in Asana can have exactly one assignee. Work that genuinely needs several people has to be split into subtasks, which complicates the structure of every project.
Cost rises with scale
The Business plan for a team of 30 is about €8,400 a year - and Goals and Portfolios, which a PMO cannot do without, only exist on that plan.
Asana against a system written from scratch
| Feature | Asana | Custom |
|---|---|---|
| Time tracking | None; needs Toggl or Harvest | Timer and hour reporting built in |
| Project budgeting | No native module | Cost, budget and margin tracked |
| Reporting | Advanced from the Business plan | Full dashboards in every variant |
| Task assignment | One assignee | Several people, with distinct roles |
| Cost, 30 people a year | About €8,400 on Business | A fixed cost, independent of headcount |
| Invoicing | None | Invoices generated from logged hours |
Total cost of ownership over three years
A subscription looks cheap by the month. After three years the bill often reads differently, so we add it all up.
| Item | Asana | Custom |
|---|---|---|
| Licence / hosting (year) | €8,400 | €840 |
| Build | €1,200 | €7,000 |
| Customisation and development (year) | €700 | €1,200 |
| Maintenance and support (year) | €560 | €1,100 |
| Total (3 years) | €11,000 | €10,000 |
Figures are quoted in euro, converted from Polish złoty at a fixed rate of 4.30 PLN to 1 EUR and rounded. Contracts are settled in either currency.
When moving pays off
Services businesses and agencies on Asana that are missing time tracking, project budgeting and invoicing in one place. Usually above twenty people, on the Business plan.
You need time tracking joined to the project management, not beside it
The absence of project budgeting in Asana makes cost control guesswork
Asana Business costs more than €7,000 a year
You need several people assigned to one task
Frequently asked questions
What does an Asana replacement cost?
A project tool with time tracking and budgeting built in costs €6,000-9,500. At 30 users the licence saving is around €7,400 a year.
Can we move the data out of Asana?
Yes. The Asana REST API exports projects, tasks, subtasks, comments and attachments. It is a standard migration and takes one to three weeks.
Can a custom system replace Asana Goals and Portfolios?
Yes - an OKR module and a project portfolio can both be rebuilt, and joined to things Asana does not have: goals tied to budget and to margin.
Need an alternative to Asana?
A few sentences about what it should do and who for is plenty. You get scope, a date and a price back within 24 hours.
Free consultation