Asana's free plan is now 2 users: what small teams can do next

Asana's free plan, called Personal, now allows 2 seats per project and per team. The older free plan allowed up to 10, and Asana's help centre says that version is being phased out. A shared project with more than 2 members locks until someone is removed or the team upgrades.

For a team of three or more, the cheapest way to stay is Starter at $10.99 per user per month billed yearly, or $13.49 billed monthly. Asana sells seats in steps of five once you pass five users, so a team of six pays for ten. Trello, Zoho Projects, ClickUp and MeisterTask still have free plans that hold more than two people. Breeze costs less per seat than Starter.

Disclosure: Breeze publishes this page and is one of the five options below. It has no free plan, and its entry says where Asana does more.

Contents

• How many users does Asana free allow now?
• What do 3, 6 or 10 people pay for Asana Starter?
• What happens to projects with 3 or more members?
• Should you pay, cut to two or leave?
• Which tools still work for a small team?
• How do you move without losing history?

How many users does Asana free allow now?

Asana Personal allows two users per project and two per team. Asana's Personal plan help article describes it as room for you plus one key person, such as a partner or an assistant, and points anyone with three or more people to Starter. The pricing page lists the plan as "2 users".

Asana has not put a date for the change on its help or pricing pages. Users started reporting notices and in-app banners about it in autumn 2026. The help article says only that accounts on the legacy plan "may be prompted to upgrade or adjust" to fit two seats, so the timing can differ from one workspace to the next.

The warning was short for some teams. One person running an eight-person team on r/Asana said they had about two weeks between the notice and the change, and another user found a three-person project locked with the choice of removing someone or paying.

What do 3, 6 or 10 people pay for Asana Starter?

A team of three pays about $33 a month on Starter billed yearly. A team of six or ten pays about $110, because Asana's seat steps jump from five seats straight to ten. Its pricing FAQ sets the steps: one seat at a time between 2 and 5 users, then five at a time up to 30, then ten at a time up to 100.

Adding a sixth person means buying five more seats, roughly $660 a year on yearly billing. Community threads about the change repeatedly raise this jump. Here is how it affects the decision:

• At five or fewer: you pay for exactly the people you have, so Starter is priced like any other per-seat tool.
• At six to nine: you pay for ten seats. The next few hires cost nothing extra, but compare the bill with the team you have now.
• Clients and contractors: Starter includes unlimited free guests, which Asana says lets outside people collaborate without raising your license count. Count only your own staff when you work out seats.

Advanced, which adds portfolios, goals, resource management and approvals, costs $249.90 a month for ten seats billed yearly, or $304.90 billed monthly. Most small teams leaving the free plan do not need it. Asana's FAQ also says you can upgrade a single team rather than the whole organization, which helps when only one group outgrew two seats.

What happens to projects with 3 or more members?

Asana Personal projects with more than 2 members lock. Asana shows the message "This project has more than 2 project members. You can remove members or upgrade to continue using this project." The help article gives the free route: remove every member except yourself and set the project to Private. Nothing in it mentions a read-only mode for the people you remove.

Three other rules catch teams out on Personal:

• No sharing with individuals: a project can be private to you or shared with a team, and a team on Personal can have at most two members.
• Projects shared with the organization: these ask for a paid license until you switch them to Private.
• Paid features inside a project: custom fields, start dates or dependencies block the project too. Asana's fix is to export it as CSV, delete those columns and import the file into a new project.

People you remove lose access to the workspace, but Asana says their work history remains. Their comments and completed tasks stay where they were, which matters if you later upgrade or export.

The new Personal plan fits one person working alone or with a single helper. If three or more people need to see the same project, the free plan has stopped being an option for you.

Should you pay, cut to two or leave?

Pay if the team uses Asana every day and the price of Starter at your seat count is acceptable. Cut to two if the work really belongs to one person with an assistant. Leave if the free plan was the main reason you chose Asana. Choose based on the work you need to keep:

• Stay and pay: you rely on rules, forms, dashboards or the timeline, and the team is at 3 to 5 people or close to 10, where the seat steps cost least per person.
• Cut to two: the others only needed updates, not the projects themselves. A shared document or a weekly email may cover them.
• Move: you are at six or seven people, the cost of ten seats is too high, and you mostly use lists and boards. Most tools below cover that for less.

Whatever you choose, export first. A project that locks or loses its paid fields is much easier to rebuild from a CSV you took before the change. The steps for each format are in the Asana export walkthrough, and the Asana spreadsheet export steps cover opening the file in Excel or Google Sheets.

Which tools still work for a small team?

Trello, Zoho Projects, ClickUp and MeisterTask have free plans for more than two people. Breeze has no free plan but costs less per seat than Asana Starter and has no seat steps. Prices are from each vendor's pricing page; review summaries come from Capterra and G2.

Trello

Choose Trello if your team of up to ten used Asana mainly as a board, with cards moving through stages.

• Pricing: Free for up to 10 collaborators and 10 boards per Workspace. Standard is $5 per user per month billed yearly or $6 monthly. Premium, which adds the Timeline, Calendar and Table views, is $10 billed yearly or $12.50 monthly.
• Rating: 4.5/5 on Capterra from 23,619 reviews, 4.4/5 on G2 from 14,064.

Trello's free plan covers the same ten people the legacy Asana plan did. Setting up one board per project, one list per stage and one card per task takes an afternoon. The catch is how Trello counts: guests and pending invites count toward the ten, so a client you invite to one board takes a place.

Where Trello may not fit: teams that used Asana's list view for long task lists or relied on its timeline. The timeline in Trello needs Premium, and reviewers note it has no real task dependencies.

What reviewers say about Trello

Most reviewers start with how fast people get going: a board that looks like a wall of sticky notes and shows who is on what without a meeting. The criticism is about growth. Bigger projects outgrow it, reporting is thin unless you add Power-Ups, and busy boards become hard to read once they hold a few dozen cards.

Sources: Capterra, G2

Zoho Projects

Choose Zoho Projects if you want the lowest paid price for a team of 6 to 10, with time logs and timesheets included.

• Pricing: Free for up to 5 users and 3 projects. Premium is $4 per user per month billed yearly or $5 monthly, with unlimited projects, time logs, timesheets and project budgets. Enterprise is $9 billed yearly or $10 monthly.
• Rating: 4.5/5 on Capterra from 872 reviews, 4.4/5 on G2 from 567.

The free plan holds five people, against Asana's two, and Premium for ten people costs a little over a third of Asana Starter for the same team. Reviewers single out its Gantt charts, task dependencies and milestones, the planning side that Asana keeps for paid plans.

Where Zoho Projects may not fit: teams that liked Asana because it was clean and quick to learn. Setup takes longer, and the interface is busier.

What reviewers say about Zoho Projects

Reviewers mostly praise the value: a full project toolkit with Gantt charts, dependencies and time tracking at a price well below the big names, plus links to the rest of Zoho. The common complaints are a dated, crowded interface on larger projects and a setup that feels like a lot to learn without help.

Sources: Capterra, G2

ClickUp

Choose ClickUp if you want to keep the whole team on a free plan and accept a tool with more settings than Asana.

• Pricing: Free Forever with unlimited free members and 60 MB of storage. Core is $9 per user per month billed yearly or $12 monthly, with unlimited storage and Gantt charts. Business is $17 billed yearly or $25 monthly.
• Rating: 4.6/5 on Capterra from 4,631 reviews, 4.6/5 on G2 from 14,333.

ClickUp's free plan puts no cap on members, so a ten-person team can move across without paying anything. It includes boards, a calendar view and time tracking. The storage limit is the main constraint: Free Forever comes with 60 MB, so file-heavy work fills it fast.

Where ClickUp may not fit: a team that found Asana busy already. Paid Core costs nearly as much per seat as Asana Starter.

What reviewers say about ClickUp

Flexibility is the reason most reviewers chose it: custom statuses, fields and views, and docs, dashboards and time tracking in one place, often replacing several tools. The most frequent criticism is the effort it takes, with a crowded interface, a real learning curve and lag in large workspaces.

Sources: Capterra, G2

MeisterTask

Choose MeisterTask if your team works on a few ongoing boards and wants everyone in for free.

• Pricing: Free with unlimited team members and up to 3 projects. Pro is $7 per user per month billed yearly or $9 monthly and adds unlimited projects, recurring tasks and automations. Business, with timeline views and subtasks, is $12.50 billed yearly or $16 monthly.
• Rating: 4.7/5 on Capterra from 1,157 reviews, 4.6/5 on G2 from 173.

MeisterTask limits projects rather than people. A team that ran three standing projects in Asana, say a pipeline, a delivery board and an admin list, fits on Free with every person invited. It also imports from Asana directly.

Where MeisterTask may not fit: anyone with a project per client. Three projects run out quickly, and the timeline needs Business, which costs more per seat than Asana Starter.

What reviewers say about MeisterTask

Reviewers like how quickly non-technical colleagues get going and how clear the colourful boards are. The recurring frustration is features moving into paid tiers, with subtasks, more projects and external sharing behind an upgrade. Many of the reviews on both sites date from 2021 to 2023.

Sources: Capterra, G2

Breeze

Choose Breeze if you were going to pay anyway and want boards, time tracking and free client access at a lower seat price than Starter.

• Pricing: $9 per user per month billed yearly, or $10 billed monthly, with every feature included. A Solo plan for one person is $14 a month. Client users are free. 14-day free trial, no free plan.
• Rating: 4.4/5 on Capterra from 45 reviews, 4.1/5 on G2 from 22.

Breeze bills per person with no steps, so six people pay for six: $648 a year against $1,318.80 on Asana Starter. The one plan includes boards and lists, task dependencies, a team calendar, built-in time tracking with budgets, and roadmaps across projects. It can import Asana projects directly. Compare the feature differences before moving.

Where Breeze may not fit: it has no free plan, so it is no answer if the goal is to keep paying nothing. Asana goes further on portfolios, goals and complex automation, and a team built around those should stay.

What reviewers say about Breeze

The point reviewers make most is that Breeze is light: little setup, little training, and clients can find their way around it. Many use the time tracking every day. On the other side, several say it lacks the depth of larger platforms for complex projects and that team-wide reporting is basic. Both review samples are small.

Sources: Capterra, G2

How do you move without losing history?

Export every shared project, then rebuild one active project in the new tool before moving the rest. Asana keeps removed members' work history, but you still need access to the work in progress. Use this order:

• Export every shared project: CSV covers tasks, assignees, dates and custom fields. Do the projects with paid features first, since they are the ones that lock.
• Pick one live project: rebuild it in the new tool and run it there for a week or two.
• Import the open work: most tools take Asana's CSV, and several import straight from Asana. Leave finished projects in the export.
• Count real seats: staff only, with clients as guests or free client users where the tool allows it.

If a free plan matters most, consider Trello for up to ten people or ClickUp for any number. If you are paying anyway, compare Asana Starter at your real seat count, after the steps, with the per-seat prices above. Breeze's plans and pricing page has the full list of what one plan includes.

Written by Lucas

Lucas writes content at Breeze and specializes in project management, team collaboration, and practical workflow advice. He helps small teams and growing businesses plan projects, track progress, and keep work organized by sharing clear, actionable guides.