Why we publish this
Thicket makes flat-rate project management software ($49/month, unlimited users). We compete with every tool on this page. We publish this dataset anyway because per-seat pricing is genuinely confusing: most vendor pages advertise the annual-billing rate by default and put the month-to-month price behind a toggle, and third-party roundups quote stale figures for years.
So this page is the dataset, not the pitch: every number below links to its source and carries its verification date, our own prices sit in the same table under the same rules, and when per-seat pricing is cheaper we say so. The pitch lives at /compare and /pricing. Spot an error? Email support@thickethq.com and we'll fix it.
The index: every plan, both billing cycles
Published paid tiers for the six per-seat tools, plus Thicket under the same rules. Rates are USD per user per month unless marked flat. “Billed annually” is the per-month rate when you pay for a year up front, the number most pricing pages advertise; “billed monthly” is the month-to-month price. Basecamp moved to flat account pricing in mid-2026 and has its own table just below.
| Plan | Model | Billed monthly | Billed annually | Seat minimum |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monday.comsource · verified 2026-08-27 · vs Thicket | ||||
| Basic | Per seat | $12 / user | $9 / user | 3 seats |
| Standard | Per seat | $14 / user | $12 / user | 3 seats |
| Pro | Per seat | $24 / user | $19 / user | 3 seats |
| Asanasource · verified 2026-08-10 · vs Thicket | ||||
| Starter | Per seat | $13.49 / user | $10.99 / user | None |
| Advanced | Per seat | $30.49 / user | $24.99 / user | None |
| ClickUpsource · verified 2026-08-12 · vs Thicket | ||||
| Unlimited | Per seat | $10 / user | $7 / user | None |
| Business | Per seat | $19 / user | $12 / user | None |
| Notionsource · verified 2026-08-13 · vs Thicket | ||||
| Plus | Per seat | $12 / user | $10 / user | None |
| Business | Per seat | $24 / user | $20 / user | None |
| Teamworksource · verified 2026-08-06 | ||||
| Basics | Per seat | $13.99 / user* | $9.99 / user | None |
| Accelerate | Per seat | $34.99 / user* | $24.99 / user | None |
| Trellosource · verified 2026-09-07 · vs Thicket | ||||
| Standard | Per seat | $6 / user | $5 / user | None |
| Premium | Per seat | $12.50 / user | $10 / user | None |
| Thicketsource · that's us, same rules as every row above | ||||
| Pro | Flat (unlimited users) | $49 flat | $39 flat | None |
| Starter | Flat (3 active projects, 20 people) | $25 flat | $20 flat | None |
| Free | Flat (1 project, 20 people) | $0 | $0 | None |
* Teamwork publishes only annual per-seat rates plus a “Save 29%” annual discount; its monthly rates here are derived from that discount (annual ÷ 0.71, rounded to Teamwork's .99 convention).
Basecamp left this table in mid-2026: it no longer sells per-seat plans. Its flat project-tiered ladder is just below. Enterprise tiers with unpublished, sales-quoted pricing (e.g. Monday.com Enterprise, Trello Enterprise) are excluded: this index only carries figures a vendor publishes.
Thicket Starter billed annually is $20/month ($240/year); Pro is $39/month ($468/year). Free plans exist for most tools in the index with varying caps; they're out of scope here except Thicket's own, shown for symmetry.
Basecamp: flat plans, tiered by active projects
Basecamp dropped per-seat pricing in mid-2026; the $15/user plan it sold before no longer appears on its pricing page. Every plan is now a flat price for the whole account that steps up with active project count, so Basecamp gets its own table instead of a per-seat row. source · verified 2026-09-07 · vs Thicket
| Plan | Per month | Active projects | Users | Storage | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 1 | 5 | 1 GB | Personal use only |
| Freelancer | $25 | 3 | 20 | 5 GB | |
| Studio | $59 | 10 | Unlimited | 25 GB | Unlimited tools per project starts here |
| Pro | $99 | 25 | Unlimited | 100 GB | Time tracking included |
| Unlimited | $299* | Unlimited | Unlimited | 1 TB | Priority support and onboarding |
* Unlimited is sold on annual billing only. Freelancer, Studio, and Pro bill monthly; Basecamp offers annual billing on them but publishes no annual rates, so none are shown.
Lined up against Thicket's flat plans: at up to 3 active projects, Basecamp Freelancer and Thicket Starter are both $25/month (Starter includes 10 GB of storage versus 5 GB, full history, and every tool). From 4 projects, Basecamp steps to $59, then $99, then $299 billed annually, while Thicket Pro stays $49/month for unlimited projects and people.
What a team actually pays per month
Each per-seat tool's headline (entry / most-popular paid) tier at its monthly-billing rate, multiplied out by team size. Monday.com bills its 3-seat minimum at any smaller headcount. Thicket is the flat control row. Basecamp is absent by design: since mid-2026 its cost varies with active projects, not headcount (see its ladder above).
| People | Thicket (flat) | Monday.com Standard | Asana Starter | ClickUp Unlimited | Notion Plus | Teamwork Basics | Trello Standard |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | $49 | $42 | $26.98 | $20 | $24 | $27.98 | $12 |
| 5 | $49 | $70 | $67.45 | $50 | $60 | $69.95 | $30 |
| 10 | $49 | $140 | $134.90 | $100 | $120 | $139.90 | $60 |
| 15 | $49 | $210 | $202.35 | $150 | $180 | $209.85 | $90 |
| 20 | $49 | $280 | $269.80 | $200 | $240 | $279.80 | $120 |
| 25 | $49 | $350 | $337.25 | $250 | $300 | $349.75 | $150 |
Monthly cost in USD, billed monthly, on each tool's headline tier as listed in the index above (Teamwork monthly rates derived; see the index footnote). Annual billing lowers the per-seat rates but not the shape of the curve: per-seat cost scales with headcount, flat cost doesn't.
What the pricing pages don't make obvious
Documented behaviors of the vendors' own pricing pages, stated factually. None of this is hidden, but most of it takes a toggle-flip or a footnote to find.
ClickUp, Notion, and Trello advertise annual rates by default
All three pricing pages show the annual-billing rate unless you flip the billing toggle; month-to-month is higher. ClickUp Unlimited is advertised at $7/user but bills $10/user paid monthly; Notion Plus is $10 advertised vs $12 monthly; Trello Standard is $5 vs $6. The full Trello breakdown is in how much Trello really costs in 2026.
Teamwork publishes no monthly prices at all
Where ClickUp, Notion, and Trello at least reveal the monthly rate behind a billing toggle, teamwork.com/pricing lists only annual-billing rates ($9.99/user for Basics, $24.99 for Accelerate) next to a “Save 29%” banner. The monthly rates in this index ($13.99 and $34.99) are derived from that discount and marked with an asterisk. The full breakdown, including the derivation, is in how much Teamwork.com really costs in 2026.
Basecamp dropped per-seat pricing in mid-2026
basecamp.com/pricing now sells flat per-account plans tiered by active project count ($25 Freelancer, $59 Studio, $99 Pro, and $299 Unlimited per month) under the headline “No per-user fees, everyone's included.” Two quirks survive the move: annual billing is offered on Freelancer through Pro but no annual rates are published, and the ladder gates features as well as projects (unlimited tools per project starts at Studio, time tracking at Pro; Unlimited is billed annually only). The plan-by-plan breakdown is in Basecamp pricing in 2026.
Monday.com enforces a 3-seat minimum
Every paid Monday.com plan bills at least 3 seats. A solo user or two-person team on Standard pays $42/month billed monthly ($36/month at the annual rate). That's three seats' worth regardless of actual headcount. The full breakdown, including where the tier ladder lands, is in monday.com pricing in 2026.
Asana sells seats in bundles once you pass 5 people
Per asana.com/pricing's own FAQ, paid seats are added one at a time only between 2 and 5 total users; after that they come in increments of 5 up to 30 users, 10 up to 100, 25 up to 500, and 50 beyond that. A 6-person team on Starter therefore pays for 10 seats: $134.90/month billed monthly ($109.90/month at the annual rate), not 6 seats' worth. The full breakdown, including where the bundle jumps land, is in how much Asana really costs in 2026.
ClickUp's AI is a paid add-on on top of the plan
ClickUp Brain costs $9 per user per month in addition to the plan price. A team on Unlimited that adds Brain pays $19/user/month billed monthly rather than the $10 plan rate. The full breakdown, including how the add-on stacks at each tier, is in ClickUp pricing in 2026.
Notion prices AI by tier and agents by credits
Notion bundles its AI into the Business tier ($24/user/month billed monthly, $20 annually) rather than Plus. Agent usage beyond the included allowance is priced in credits, at $10 per 1,000 credits. The full breakdown is in how much Notion really costs in 2026.
These are pricing observations, not feature comparisons. Thicket has no timesheets, AI features, or storage add-ons. This section makes no claim about the value of any of them, only about how they're priced.
Where per-seat pricing is genuinely cheaper
Flat pricing isn't automatically better, and this index would be useless if it pretended otherwise. At 1–3 people, per-seat wins almost across the board: two people on ClickUp Unlimited pay $20/month billed monthly, on Asana Starter $26.98, well under a $49 flat rate. (Thicket's own $25 Starter plan narrows that gap, but ClickUp and Trello still come in under it at two seats. Monday.com is the per-seat exception even here: its 3-seat minimum makes a solo user $42/month on Standard.) At 5 people, ClickUp ($50) is a wash with $49 flat, and Trello Standard ($30) is still clearly cheaper. Trello stays under $49 through 8 people ($48/month). From 10 people up, every per-seat tool in the index costs more than a $49 flat plan, most by 2–3×.
Price isn't the only axis either. Thicket doesn't compete on Gantt charts, dependencies, workflow automations, custom fields, or portfolio dashboards, because it deliberately doesn't have them. If those are load-bearing for your team, a per-seat tool earns its price, and this index just tells you what that price actually is.
Methodology
- Source: every figure was verified by loading the vendor's public pricing page, linked from its entry in the index, on the date shown there. Per-vendor dates range across August 2026 – September 2026; nothing is quoted from third-party roundups or press coverage.
- Billing cycles: where a pricing page defaults to annual rates, the monthly rate was confirmed via the page's own billing toggle. Both cycles are recorded for every plan that publishes both.
- Derived figures are marked: Teamwork publishes only annual rates plus a “Save 29%” annual discount, so its monthly rates are computed from that discount (annual ÷ 0.71, rounded to Teamwork's .99 convention) and flagged with an asterisk. No other figure on this page is derived.
- Unpublished prices stay unpublished: where a vendor lists no figure (Basecamp's annual-billing rates, sales-quoted Enterprise tiers), this index shows none rather than guessing.
- Maintenance: the dataset is re-verified on a rolling basis and updates whenever a check finds a change; each vendor's entry carries its own last-verified date. All prices USD.
- Corrections: email support@thickethq.com (mistakes get fixed, not defended).
Frequently asked questions
How much does project management software cost per user in 2026?
Billed monthly, the entry paid tiers of the six major per-seat tools run $6–$14 per user per month: Monday.com Standard $14, Teamwork Basics $13.99, Asana Starter $13.49, Notion Plus $12, ClickUp Unlimited $10, and Trello Standard $6. Paying for a year up front lowers most of them, to $5–$12 per user per month. Higher tiers run $19–$34.99 per user billed monthly. Basecamp no longer charges per user at all: since mid-2026 it sells flat plans tiered by active project count, from $25 to $299 per month for the whole account. Every figure is verified against the vendor's own pricing page on the date shown in the index.
Which project management tools bill monthly vs annually?
Every per-seat tool in the index offers both cycles, but most advertise the annual (lower) rate by default. ClickUp, Notion, and Trello show annual rates unless you flip the page's billing toggle: ClickUp Unlimited is $7 annual vs $10 billed monthly, Notion Plus $10 vs $12, Trello Standard $5 vs $6. Monday.com does the same ($12 annual vs $14 monthly on Standard). Basecamp's flat Freelancer, Studio, and Pro plans bill monthly with annual billing available but no published annual rates, and its Unlimited plan ($299/month) is sold on annual billing only.
What's the cheapest project management software for 10 people?
Billed monthly on each tool's entry paid tier, a 10-person team pays: Trello Standard $60, ClickUp Unlimited $100, Notion Plus $120, Asana Starter $134.90, Teamwork Basics $139.90, and Monday.com Standard $140 per month. So the cheapest per-seat option at 10 people is Trello. Flat plans undercut all of them at this size: Thicket is $49/month for unlimited users (or $25/month for up to 3 active projects), and Basecamp's flat plans run $25–$299/month depending on how many projects you keep active, not how many people you add.
Do any project management tools have seat minimums?
In this index, only Monday.com enforces a flat minimum: every paid plan bills at least 3 seats, so a solo user on Standard pays $42/month billed monthly no matter how many people actually log in. Asana is a different kind of exception: it bills your exact headcount only up to 5 total users, after which seats come in fixed bundles, so a 6-person team pays for 10 seats. The remaining per-seat tools (ClickUp, Notion, Trello, and Teamwork) bill the seats you actually have. Flat plans have no seats at all: Thicket is $49/month whether 2 or 200 people use it, and every Basecamp plan is now a flat account price tiered by active project count, not headcount (its $25 Freelancer rung caps at 20 users; Studio and up are unlimited).
How were these prices verified?
Each figure was verified by loading the vendor's public pricing page, linked from its entry in the index, on the date shown there. Where a page defaults to annual rates, the monthly rate was confirmed via the page's own billing toggle. Teamwork publishes only annual rates plus a "Save 29%" annual discount, so its monthly rates are derived from that discount (annual ÷ 0.71, rounded to Teamwork's .99 convention) and marked as derived. All prices are USD. The dataset updates whenever re-verification finds a change; corrections go to support@thickethq.com.
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