A Teamwork.com Alternative for Agencies That Need Profitability Without the Upper Tiers
By the CrewDriven team · 9 min read · Updated September 28, 2026
Teamwork.com is one of the few project management platforms genuinely built around client work rather than internal tasks, and for agencies that matters. The catch is where it puts the money features. Invoicing, retainers, and time budgets are not on the $9.99 plan — they start on Accelerate at $24.99 per user per month billed annually, with a five-user minimum. Profit by project and client, cost budgets, and multi-currency sit one tier higher, on Optimize, which is priced on request. For a ten-person agency, Accelerate alone is about $250 a month, and it still does not answer the margin question. Here is an honest comparison, with the arithmetic.
What Teamwork.com does well — and how the tiers are drawn
Teamwork.com deserves its reputation. Unlike most project tools, it was designed with client services in mind: client companies are first-class objects, collaborators can be brought in without consuming a full seat, workload views are genuinely useful for planning, and the task management is deep enough for complex delivery. If you run many concurrent client projects and need real project management, Teamwork is a serious tool and this comparison is not going to pretend otherwise.
Pricing (checked September 2026 on teamwork.com): a Free plan for up to 5 users and 5 projects; Basics at $9.99 per user per month billed yearly ($13.99 monthly), with a 3-user minimum; Accelerate at $24.99 per user per month billed yearly ($29.99 monthly), with a 5-user minimum; then Optimize and Enterprise, priced on request. Paid plans come with a 14-day trial.
The lines worth studying are the two above Basics. Time tracking is on every plan, including Free. Invoicing, retainers, and time budgets appear on Accelerate. Profit by project and client, cost and fixed-fee budgets, multi-currency, and role and client rates appear only on Optimize. In other words, the plan that records the work is cheap, the plan that bills it costs two and a half times as much, and the plan that tells you whether the work paid has no published price.
Project management with finance attached vs finance with projects attached
Both products cover clients, projects, time, and money. The difference is which end they were built from, and it shows up in what each one makes easy.
Teamwork starts from delivery. Its centre of gravity is the plan: tasks, dependencies, workload, milestones, and collaboration with the client inside the project. Financial features were added around that core, which is why they sit on a higher tier — they are an upgrade to a project tool, not its foundation.
CrewDriven starts from the money. The centre of gravity is the client record: who works on it, at what cost rate and what bill rate, changing on which dates, invoiced how, paid in which currency. Task management is deliberately lighter than Teamwork's. If your delivery process needs dependencies, Gantt charts, and multi-stage approvals, that is a genuine reason to choose Teamwork — we would rather tell you that than lose your afternoon. See project profitability with multi-rate billing for how the financial side is put together.
Teamwork.com vs CrewDriven: an honest comparison
| Teamwork.com | CrewDriven | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Per user: Basics $9.99, Accelerate $24.99 (billed yearly; 3- and 5-user minimums); Optimize on request | Modular — you pay for the modules you switch on. Free during launch |
| Free plan | Up to 5 users, 5 projects | Entire platform, unlimited team, during the launch period |
| Profitability / budgets | Time budgets on Accelerate; profit and cost budgets on Optimize (priced on request) | Included for every workspace |
| Invoicing | Accelerate tier and above | Included — branded PDFs, recurring, payment status |
| Retainers | Accelerate tier and above | Included — recurring invoices and retainer tracking |
| Time tracking | All plans, including Free | Included |
| Project management depth | Excellent — dependencies, workload, milestones, client collaboration | Lighter. Projects, assignments, and planning rather than full PM |
| Cost rates vs bill rates | Billable rates on Accelerate; role and client rates on Optimize | Both, per assignment, with rate history and effective dates |
| Multi-currency | Optimize and above | USD, EUR and UAH, with the rate captured per transaction and USD normalisation |
| Payroll / team cost | Not covered | Team payments and payroll allocation in the same workspace |
Teamwork.com pricing and plan contents checked on teamwork.com in September 2026. Plans change — verify before deciding.
What you get without a tier gate
In CrewDriven, the features an agency needs to know whether it is making money are the core of the product, not the reward for buying a bigger tier. Pricing is modular: you switch on the modules you run on, so getting profitability never means paying for project-management depth you will not use.
Profit per client, in the base product
Revenue minus allocated labour cost, per client and per project, calculated from per-assignment cost and bill rates. On Teamwork the equivalent lives on Optimize, priced on request; here it is the reason the product exists.
Rates that remember when they changed
Every assignment carries a bill rate and a cost rate with effective dates, so a raise in March does not retroactively rewrite February's margin. Without rate history, historical profitability is a story rather than a number.
Invoicing tied to the same records
Branded PDF invoices, recurring invoices for retainers, and payment status from draft through paid and overdue — generated from the client and project records that drive the P&L, not a separate module you reconcile later.
Currency captured when the money moves
Each payment stores its original currency, the exchange rate on the day, and a USD-normalised amount. Bill in EUR, pay contractors in UAH, and month-to-month margins stay comparable.
You pay for modules, not for a tier
During launch the whole platform is free, whatever the size of your team, so bringing in three contractors for a busy quarter costs nothing. After launch, pricing is modular: what you pay follows the modules you switch on, not a bundle you never asked for. {seePricing}.
The arithmetic for a 10-person agency
Ten people on Teamwork Basics is 10 × $9.99 = $99.90 per month billed yearly, about $1,199 a year. That buys strong project management and time tracking — and no invoicing, no retainers, no budgets, no profitability.
Invoicing and retainers take you to Accelerate: 10 × $24.99 = $249.90 per month billed yearly, roughly $2,999 a year, or $299.90 a month on monthly billing. That is a real number for an agency of that size, and it is worth paying if you use the depth of the platform. But it still does not show profit by project or client: that is Optimize, and its price starts with a sales conversation.
It is also worth noting what no tier covers: paying the team and allocating payroll to projects. If half your team is on contract in another currency, the number that matters — margin after what you actually paid people — needs work outside the tool whichever plan you are on. If that is your situation, create your workspace and compare against your own numbers before renewing.
Who should stay on Teamwork.com
Stay if project management is the job. If your delivery depends on task dependencies, milestones, workload balancing across many concurrent projects, proofing, or bringing clients into the project to collaborate, Teamwork does all of that better than we do and it is not close.
Stay if you are already on Optimize or above and using it. At that tier you have the financial features, and the combination of deep PM plus profitability is a coherent product. Switching to save money while losing project management you actually use is a bad trade.
Stay if your agency is on the Free plan and fits inside it. Five users and five projects at no cost is a perfectly good place to be, and there is no reason to move until you outgrow it.
Who should switch — or run both
Switch if you are paying the Accelerate premium mainly for invoicing — or being quoted Optimize for profitability — while using a fraction of the project management. That is the clearest case for a modular tool, where the finance features do not come bundled with project management you are not using.
Switch if your team is growing and the per-user line has started to shape decisions — hesitating to add a contractor because it changes the monthly bill is a small tax on doing the work well.
Switch if you pay people in a different currency from the one you invoice in. Per-transaction exchange rates and USD normalisation are not a reporting nicety when your costs move with the market.
Running both is a reasonable middle path: Teamwork for delivery, CrewDriven for clients, rates, invoices, and P&L. If Harvest is also on your shortlist, the CrewDriven vs Harvest comparison covers the time-tracking angle.
Frequently asked questions
- How much does Teamwork.com cost in 2026?
- Checked in September 2026: Free covers up to 5 users and 5 projects. Basics is $9.99 per user per month billed yearly ($13.99 monthly), with a 3-user minimum. Accelerate is $24.99 billed yearly ($29.99 monthly), with a 5-user minimum, and is the first plan with invoicing, retainers, and time budgets. Optimize, which adds profit by project and client, cost budgets, and multi-currency, and Enterprise are priced on request. Paid plans include a 14-day trial.
- Which Teamwork plan includes invoicing and profitability?
- Invoicing, retainers, and time budgets start on Accelerate, at $24.99 per user per month billed yearly. Profit by project and client, cost and fixed-fee budgets, and multi-currency start on Optimize, which is priced on request. Time tracking is on every plan including Free, so you can record hours long before you can find out what they earned.
- Is CrewDriven a full project management tool?
- No, and it is better to say so plainly. CrewDriven covers projects, assignments, and resource planning, but it does not have task dependencies, Gantt charts, proofing, or the collaboration depth Teamwork offers. If those are core to how you deliver, Teamwork is the better fit.
- Is CrewDriven really free?
- Yes, during the launch period — the entire platform, no credit card, no time limit, no per-user fees. After launch it moves to modular pricing with at least 60 days written notice, and workspaces created during launch keep grandfathered terms.
- Can I use both tools together?
- Yes, and some teams do. Teamwork handles delivery while CrewDriven handles clients, rates, invoicing, and profitability. There is no lock-in on our side, and the free launch period means running both costs nothing extra while you decide.
Profitability without the upgrade
Create a workspace in under a minute. Free during launch — no per-user fees, no tier gate on the financial features.