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Four of your staff are working on the same client deliverable. One tracks tasks in a shared Google Sheet, one has a Trello board, one uses sticky notes, and one sends status updates by text. You find out the deadline was missed because nobody was sure who owned the final sign-off.
That's the exact situation project management software fixes. The question is which one to pay for, because Monday.com, ClickUp, Asana, and Notion all claim to solve the same problem — and they do it in genuinely different ways at genuinely different price points.
Here's the plain comparison, with NZD pricing included.
Who each tool is actually built for
Before getting into features: each of these tools has a different default user in mind.
- Monday.com is built for non-technical teams who want visual boards and don't want to configure anything. Sales ops, operations managers, agencies.
- ClickUp is built for teams who want everything in one place and are happy to spend time setting it up. Developers, agencies, tech-savvy founders.
- Asana is built for structured, process-driven teams. Marketing and content ops, anyone running repeatable campaign workflows.
- Notion is built for knowledge workers who want a flexible workspace — half project management, half wiki. Startups, small teams that write a lot.
If that rough cut already sorted it out for you, great. If not, read on.
Monday.com
Monday.com is the most polished of the four. New users are typically productive within an hour. You get colour-coded boards, 200+ integrations, and a genuinely useful free tier for up to two users.
The catch: paid plans require a minimum of three seats. If you're a solo operator or a two-person team, you're paying for a seat you won't use.
Monday.com plans — 2026 NZD pricing:
| Plan | USD/user/mo | NZD/user/mo |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 (2 users max) |
| Basic | $9 | ~$15 |
| Standard | $12 | ~$20 |
| Pro | $19 | ~$31 |
The Basic plan is nearly useless — it has no automations and no integrations. Standard is the realistic entry point at around NZ20/user/month.Forafive − personteamonStandard, that′sroughlyNZ100/month.
What works well:
- Onboarding is fast, especially for people who've never used PM software
- Gantt and Kanban views on Standard plan
- 250 automation actions/month on Standard (25,000 on Pro — a significant jump)
- Strong CRM-lite functionality on Pro makes it useful beyond just task tracking
What's frustrating:
- Three-seat minimum is annoying for small teams
- Time tracking only available on Pro (NZ$31/user/mo)
- Costs climb quickly as you add people
Monday.com starts with a free 14-day trial on paid plans.
ClickUp
ClickUp is the feature-dense option. It does more than any other tool on this list — tasks, docs, time tracking, goals, whiteboards, chat, sprints. The trade-off is that it takes longer to configure and the interface can feel overwhelming at first.
The headline advantage is price. ClickUp Unlimited at US7/user/month(aroundNZ12) includes native time tracking, Gantt charts, and 1,000 automation actions per month. Monday.com's equivalent plan doesn't have time tracking at all.
ClickUp plans — 2026 NZD pricing:
| Plan | USD/user/mo | NZD/user/mo |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 (unlimited users) |
| Unlimited | $7 | ~$12 |
| Business | $12 | ~$20 |
ClickUp's free plan is the most generous on this list — unlimited users, with meaningful feature access. Paid plans don't have a seat minimum.
Tip
ClickUp's Brain AI add-on costs an extra US$9/user/month. Skip it initially and see if the base tool is enough for your team before adding it.
What works well:
- Best value per dollar, especially at Unlimited tier
- No minimum seat count — works for solo operators through to 50+ staff
- 1,000 automations/month on the $7 plan (vs. Monday's 250 at $12)
- Native time tracking included (saves paying for Toggl or Harvest separately)
What's frustrating:
- Steep learning curve — most teams spend a week figuring out the hierarchy
- Mobile app is notably worse than desktop
- Too many features can slow teams down rather than speed them up
ClickUp offers a generous free plan with no credit card required.
Asana
Asana sits in the middle — more polished than ClickUp, more flexible than Monday.com. It's the best option for teams running structured, repeatable workflows: content calendars, client onboarding, campaign launches, and similar process-heavy work.
The free plan is capped at 10 users, which is useful for small teams testing it out. After that, the price jump is real.
Asana plans — 2026 NZD pricing:
| Plan | USD/user/mo | NZD/user/mo |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 (up to 10 users) |
| Starter | $10.99 | ~$18 |
| Advanced | $24.99 | ~$41 |
The gap between Starter and Advanced is steep. Advanced adds portfolios, workload management, and advanced reporting — useful for managers tracking across multiple projects, less necessary for small teams running day-to-day.
What works well:
- One of the cleanest interfaces available — new users pick it up fast
- Timeline view is excellent for planning dependent tasks
- Goals and milestone tracking built in
- Works well for hybrid teams (some people doing project work, some doing recurring tasks)
What's frustrating:
- No native time tracking (you'll need Toggl, Harvest, or a similar integration)
- Advanced plan is expensive for what it adds at small team sizes
- Docs/notes are an afterthought compared to Notion
Asana free plan supports up to 10 users.
Notion
Notion is genuinely different from the other three. It's less a task tracker and more a flexible workspace: wiki, database, project board, and document tool in one. Small teams use it to run their entire internal knowledge base alongside project tracking.
The downside is that it requires setup. Notion doesn't hand you a pre-built project management structure — you either use a template or build your own.
Notion plans — 2026 NZD pricing:
| Plan | USD/user/mo | NZD/user/mo |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 (unlimited pages, limited collab) |
| Plus | $10 | ~$16.50 |
| Business | $20 | ~$33 |
The free plan is the most usable for solo operators — unlimited pages and blocks for a single user. The Plus plan at NZ$16.50/user/month is reasonable for small teams needing full collaboration.
What works well:
- Combines project tracking and team wiki into one tool — reduces the number of SaaS subscriptions you're paying for
- Free plan is genuinely useful for solo operators and very small teams
- Flexible enough to build exactly the workflow you need
- Strong template library covers most small business use cases
What's frustrating:
- Not a great standalone PM tool — task management is weaker than Monday.com or Asana
- No native time tracking
- Requires more setup than the others
- Can turn into a messy, unmaintained wiki if nobody owns it
Notion free plan has no time limit.
Side-by-side comparison
| Feature | Monday.com | ClickUp | Asana | Notion |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NZD entry paid plan | ~$15/user | ~$12/user | ~$18/user | ~$16.50/user |
| Free plan useful? | Limited (2 users) | Yes (unlimited users) | Yes (up to 10 users) | Yes (solo/tiny teams) |
| Native time tracking | Pro plan only | All paid plans | No | No |
| Automations (entry plan) | 250/mo (Standard) | 1,000/mo (Unlimited) | Basic | No |
| Gantt/timeline view | Standard+ | All paid plans | Starter+ | With templates |
| Seat minimum | 3 seats | None | None | None |
| Learning curve | Low | High | Low-Medium | Medium-High |
| Best for | Non-technical teams | Feature-hungry / value-seekers | Structured workflows | Knowledge work + PM combo |
Which one should you pick?
Solo operator or freelancer: Start with Notion Free. It's the most flexible for a single user and doubles as your client docs, project tracker, and notes system. Upgrade to Plus (NZ$16.50/month) once you're collaborating.
Two to five people, tight budget: ClickUp Free or ClickUp Unlimited (NZ$12/user/month). Best feature set per dollar, and no seat minimums to worry about. Accept that you'll spend a few hours setting it up.
Five to fifteen people, not very technical: Monday.com Standard (NZ$20/user/month). It's the fastest to get everyone using without training. The three-seat minimum isn't a problem at this size. Worth it for the onboarding speed alone.
Content or marketing team running repeatable campaigns: Asana Starter (NZ$18/user/month). Timeline view and workflow management is better suited to campaign-style work than the others. The clean UI means your team will actually use it.
Growing team that wants everything in one place: ClickUp Business (NZ$20/user/month). At this price point it matches Monday.com on cost but offers substantially more automation headroom and time tracking.
One thing most comparisons don't mention
The tool you pick matters less than whether your team actually adopts it.
Monday.com has the best adoption rate of the four because it's the simplest to get started with. ClickUp has better long-term value but a higher abandonment rate in the first month. If your team has tried and failed with project management tools before, start with Monday.com or Asana — the lower friction matters more than the features list.
All four tools offer free plans or free trials. Test with a real project (not a demo), with the people who'll actually use it daily. That's the only reliable way to know what sticks.
Toby Downs is a Wellington-based technology writer covering SaaS tools and software for NZ businesses.