ActiveCollab Review: Features, Pricing, Pros & Cons

ActiveCollab is a project management solution with a focus on tools for workflow, client management and finances. In ActiveCollab, you can manage your time, budget and tasks, all while collaborating with your team. In this ActiveCollab review, we’ll explore its pricing plans and features to see how budget-friendly it is and what capabilities it offers. We’ll also investigate its pros and cons and take a look at some ActiveCollab features to help you decide if it’s the right choice for your team.

What is ActiveCollab?

ActiveCollab is a project management software that is designed to help your team manage all of its tasks, communication, team members and files in a single place. ActiveCollab offers many features, including team collaboration, project expense tracking, resource management and client management.

Hands-on ActiveCollab review results

We tested out ActiveCollab and ranked it according to over 30 different variables. Here’s how it scored in the most important categories:

ActiveCollab pricing: 4.4/5

Pro

The Pro plan is $9.50 per month for up to three seats billed annually, or $11 for up to three seats billed month-to-month. This plan has task and client management with unlimited projects and 10GB of storage. It doesn’t have integrations, expense tracking or advanced reporting.

Plus

This tier costs $8 per user per month billed annually, or $9 per user billed month-to-month. In this subscription, teams get full-time tracking features as well as integrations.

Pro+Get Paid

This subscription costs $11.75 per user per month billed annually, or $14 per user billed month-to-month. With this plan, users have access to all ActiveCollab’s full feature set for budgeting, estimates and invoicing with clients.

Core ActiveCollab features: 4/5

ActiveCollab offers many features for project management and team collaboration.

Project views and templates

ActiveCollab offers three main project views: List, Column (Kanban, Figure A) and timeline (Gantt chart). While this covers the most popular views, this number is more limited than some competitors. ActiveCollab does allow you to create and save your templates for later use, but it doesn’t come pre-loaded with a library of templates, so you’ll have to build your own.

Figure A

Team collaboration

As the name suggests, ActiveCollab supports both synchronous and asynchronous digital collaboration. Team members can comment on tasks and @ mention each other to send a notification. They can also create and manage documents using the Notes function. For a more in-depth conversation, set up a forum-like discussion or utilize the built-in chat app (Figure B).

Figure B

Time tracking

ActiveCollab provides a stopwatch (Figure C) that users can set for a project, individual task tracking and timesheets. All project management time tracking data will be summarized in both personal and team timesheets, and data is automatically calculated into the project budget and employee payroll. You can also compare estimated hours vs. tracked hours to see if your team is staying on target.

Figure C

Resource and budget management

ActiveCollab supports resource scheduling and planning (Figure D) so that you don’t overload teams or individuals with too much work. It also offers tools for budget management so that your team doesn’t go over the client’s or project’s budget. The tool will send budget alerts so managers don’t have to manually check in all the time.

Figure D

Client management

ActiveCollab supports unlimited clients on all pricing plans and also offers additional tools for client management. Users can create and send invoices and estimates directly in the tool (Figure E) instead of switching over to a separate software. You can also create a profile for each company or client to keep all their contact information organized. Personalize your hourly rates for different clients, accept online payments and send out late payment reminders.

Figure E

ActiveCollab ease of use: 3.5/5

We ranked ActiveCollab’s overall ease of use as moderate-to-good. It offers mobile apps for both iOS and Android, as well as two desktop apps for Mac and Windows that are currently in beta. ActiveCollab also provides automations to reduce manual work and is relatively easy to set up. The learning curve is also manageable, although it’s not the easiest out of all the project management software we tested.

ActiveCollab’s user interface is pretty intuitive to figure out, but it’s not the most attractive to look at, especially compared to more colorful and visually appealing software. The limited number of pricing plans offered by ActiveCollab also means that its scalability is somewhat limited, though we do appreciate how affordable even the most expensive pricing plan is.

ActiveCollab customer service and support: 4.5/5

While it doesn’t provide live trainings or weekend support, ActiveCollab does offer an extensive knowledge base and multiple ways to contact customer service channels.

Knowledge base

ActiveCollab offers an extensive knowledge base to help users troubleshoot on their own. The well-organized knowledge base is easy to browse by topic category, and users can also search for specific issues.

Customer service channels

If the knowledge base doesn’t answer their question, users can contact ActiveCollab customer support in multiple ways. Choose from phone, email or live chat, depending on your preferences.

Customer service hours

ActiveCollab offers different customer services depending on the channel. Agents are available on each weekday between 8AM – 2PM CET. Phone support is also available during “working hours,” but the website doesn’t specify what those hours are.

ActiveCollab pros and cons

Best uses for ActiveCollab

While ActiveCollab is a flexible platform that works for many types of teams, it’s especially well suited for a couple particular scenarios.

Client management

ActiveCollab allows unlimited clients for all pricing plans. It also offers additional features for client management, such as invoice and estimate creation, a client profile database and late payment reminders.

Remote teams

ActiveCollab supports both synchronous and asynchronous collaboration, making it a great choice for remote teams. Comment on tasks, manage documents together, host a lengthy discussion or use the real-time team chat without having to switch to Slack.

Advanced projects

ActiveCollab offers multiple advanced project management tools, such as budget tracking and resource management, on its Pro+Get Paid plan. While this plan is the most expensive offered by ActiveCollab, it’s still more affordable than many plans with similar features offered by competitors.

ActiveCollab alternatives and competitors

Monday work management

This project management solution is popular and has workload management, automation and reporting capabilities similar to ActiveCollab. monday allows unlimited viewers and the ability to add guest users with excellent security and support. Compared to ActiveCollab, their paid plans are better suited for enterprise teams and can be costly if you’re on a budget. Their free plan is for two members.

Wrike

If you’re looking for more capabilities such as advanced reporting and business intelligence, consider Wrike. They also have budgeting and time management features. Their free plan supports unlimited users, access to multi-language support, 2GB of storage, task management and project templates.

ClickUp

Teams that want more features and affordability should check out ClickUp. The platform offers 15 different work views, natural language processing, sprint reporting and custom exporting. Their free plan comes with automation, task dependencies, time tracking and security.

ActiveCollab review methodology

Our review methodology included signing up for a free trial, gathering data from the ActiveCollab website and looking through ActiveCollab’s documentation. We also analyzed user reviews of ActiveCollab to learn about its strengths and areas for improvement based on customers’ complaints.