Trello

What it is

Trello is a board of columns and cards. A card is a piece of work, a column is a stage, and you drag cards from left to right as things progress. That is the whole model, and it is why people who have never used a project tool understand it in about a minute.

Underneath the simplicity there is more room than most people use. Cards carry checklists, due dates, attachments and comments. Power-Ups add capabilities per board, and the free plan allows unlimited Power-Ups per board. Automation runs on commands, with 250 Workspace command runs per month on the free plan, and integrations include Slack, Google Drive and Salesforce among more than 200 available.

Who it's for (and who it isn't)

It fits small teams and individuals who need work to be visible, and who have previously abandoned heavier tools. If your last attempt at a project system died because nobody kept it updated, the honest lesson is usually that the tool asked for more structure than the team would maintain, and Trello asks for very little.

It is a weaker fit once you need to see across projects. Dependencies, portfolio views, workload balancing and reporting are where boards stop being enough, and that is the moment to look at Asana, monday.com or ClickUp. The other limit is board sprawl: ten people each making boards produces a workspace nobody can navigate.

Pricing

Trello is freemium and the free plan is unusually usable: unlimited cards, up to 10 boards per Workspace, up to 10 collaborators, unlimited Power-Ups per board and 250 Workspace command runs per month, with a 10MB file limit. Standard is $5 per user per month billed annually, or $6 monthly, adding unlimited boards, custom fields, advanced checklists and 1,000 command runs. Premium is $10 per user per month billed annually, or $12.50 monthly, adding calendar, timeline, table, dashboard and map views, AI capabilities and unlimited command runs. Enterprise is $17.50 per user per month billed annually.

For a small team, the free plan is often the whole answer, and the first genuine reason to upgrade is usually the 10-board ceiling rather than a missing feature.

Set it up

Official guide: Create your first project

1. Think of one process you repeat, such as handling client requests. Create a Trello account on the Free plan, which has up to 10 boards per Workspace and unlimited cards. A Workspace is the place where your boards live. Your account is now on the Free plan.
2. Click the plus button (+) in the header, then select "Create Board". A board is one page that shows a process from start to finish. Type a name such as "Client requests" and choose your Workspace. Choose "Private" if only the people you invite should see the board. You now see an empty board.
3. Click "Add a list" and name the list after one stage your work passes through, for example "To Do". Add a list for each stage, such as "Doing" and "Done". You now see your stages as columns side by side.
4. Click "Add a card" in the first list, type a short title and press Enter. A card is one piece of work, such as one client request. Add a card for each job you have now. You now see your cards stacked in the first list.
5. If you work with another person, click "Invite" at the top of the board and invite them. They must be on the board before you can put them on a card. If you work alone, skip this step. The person you invited can now see your board.
6. Click a card to open its back, where the details live. Click "Add", choose "Members", and type a name to put a person on the card. Click "Dates" and set a due date. The card now has an owner and a due date.
7. Drag a card into the next list when its work moves forward. You now see the card in its new column.

When this works, you have a board where each card sits in the column for its current stage, so you see where every job stands without asking anyone.

On Standard ($5/user/mo billed annually ($6 monthly)): Advanced Checklists, which let you assign members and add due dates to the items inside a card's checklist.

Strengths and limitations

The strength is that people actually use it. Adoption is the failure mode of every work tracking tool, and Trello's low ceremony is a genuine advantage rather than a marketing line. The free plan being this capable makes it a reasonable permanent home for a small team, not a stepping stone.

The limitations are structural. Boards do not naturally show dependencies, capacity or cross-project reporting, so as coordination gets more complicated you either bolt on Power-Ups until the simplicity is gone or you move. File attachments are capped at 10MB on the free plan. And the 10-board limit arrives sooner than people expect, because boards multiply. Asana vs Trello covers the choice in more detail.