If you run a WordPress website, you’re probably familiar with plugins. There are thousands available, but one type you’ll see a lot of admins using is a WordPress project management plugin.
Project management plugins help content managers and bloggers keep track of various campaigns published on their site. That way, content teams get their work done before deadlines, and marketing teams can capitalize on timely opportunities to engage their audience.
In this post, we assembled a list of the best project management plugins available for WordPress. Choose one and get started planning, optimizing, and executing projects for your site.
Best WordPress Project Management Plugins
1. WP Project Manager
What we like: WP Project Manager is one of the best and most popular freemium project management plugins available, and offers robust features for both free users and paid subscribers.
Pricing: Free; Paid plans are available for $79/year, $149/year, and $249/year
WP Project Manager is one of the most popular project management plugins available on WordPress. It's open-source, and packs enough potential to compete with full-fledged project management systems, all inside of your WordPress dashboard.
For example, its basic features include project creation, user assignment, messaging, file attachments, and the ability to leave comments on tasks or projects. The premium version adds a calendar with drag-and-drop functionalities, expanded privacy settings, milestone tracking, and deadline management, and subtasks.
With WP Project Manager, you can also incorporate add-ons like WooCommerce and BuddyPress to track additional activities on your site. The WooCommerce integration creates projects after a product is purchased and the BuddyPress integration creates tasks for different internal teams. With these added features, you can maintain a finger on the pulse of everything that's going on with your site.
Another notable integration offered by this plugin is Pusher, which provides notifications in real-time to your teammates when activities are assigned or completed. Team members will receive notifications when they’re mentioned, or when a task is created or updated to keep everyone aligned.
For more info, this excellent review from Elegant Themes covers this plugin, as well as several other WordPress project management plugins, in-depth:
2. SP Project & Document Manager
What we like: This plugin allows for fast and synchronized file sharing, keeping your whole team up to date on the most recent versions of your files and data.
Pricing: Free; Premium version available starting at $75
Whether you’re adding a last-minute post to your social media calendar, or announcing an unexpected update for a new product, sometimes it’s critical to share information quickly. The right stakeholders need to be in the know and receive information at the right time if you want your campaigns to be successful.
To accomplish this, you’ll need a project management system like this one to disseminate information quickly and efficiently.
SP Project and Document Manager lets you create unlimited folders and subfolders, and each folder can contain as many files as you would like. You can upload documents, images, videos, and other types of media all into one place. This makes it easy to share an entire campaign with a team, department, or stakeholder since all of the campaign’s files are located in a single shared folder.
The premium version offers a bit more customization to your experience. For example, you can add tags to your files so that they’re easier to find when searching for them in a folder. You can also group files based on who created or uploaded them. This helps you keep track of which teams are hitting deadlines and which ones need more support to complete your project.
3. WP Client Portal
What we like: WP Client Portal packs a tremendous amount of functionality for free, and can work as both your project management system and CRM.
Pricing: Free
WP Client Portal combines elements of a CRM plugin with a project management system, aiming to be an “all-in-one” business plugin solution. For a free product, this plugin is incredibly capable and worth checking out.
One example is the "Private Messaging" feature, which acts similar to the messaging feature on a CRM contact record where you can send emails to a client that are recorded on their internal profile page.
Another notable feature is the “Client Manager,” where you can assign clients to someone at your company who then is responsible for sending them information and promotions. This is similar to a "teams" or "contact owner" feature offered by most CRMs. It funnels information into one pipeline that can be referenced as needed.
One standout feature for this plugin is its "Estimates & Invoicing" tool which lets you create customized and branded estimates and invoices for clients before and after they make a purchase. Clients can then view these documents as PDFs and even pay an invoice online instead of over the phone or in person.
4. CoSchedule
What we like: CoSchedule’s marketing calendar is one of its flagship products, allowing you to organize and schedule your campaigns all from the comfort of your WordPress dashboard.
Pricing: Free; Pro version available for $29/user/month
CoSchedule is known for its marketing project management software, and it offers a plugin for WordPress users that integrates its marketing calendar functionality right into your dashboard.
CoSchedule’s marketing calendar helps you easily visualize your workload and organize your marketing team's digital strategy. All of your content is scheduled on a shared, drag-and-drop calendar where users can communicate and collaborate in real-time.
Unlike some of the other options on this list, CoSchedule includes some unique social media features, including the ability to optimize promotions using "Best Time Scheduling," a tool that identifies the most effective time to engage your following. There's also an option to automatically reshare top content, so you can capitalize on the material that generates the most engagement.
CoSchedule also integrates with HubSpot, which means you can streamline and manage blogs, landing pages, and emails all within the calendar.
5. Panorama
What we like: Panorama doubles down on its project management features for a more focused product.
Pricing: Plans are available for $69/year, $99/year, and $129/year. There’s also a lifetime purchase for $299.
Panorama is a true project management tool, meaning it's designed to help users and stakeholders understand what a project's timeline looks like and when they can expect that project to be completed.
Unlike some other options on this list that provide additional features and tools, Panorama focuses solely on project management and sharing information between internal and external stakeholders.
While you may think this limits Panorama, it actually makes it a powerful project management plugin. With Panorama, each user has their own custom dashboard giving them a summary of what projects they're currently working on and how far those projects are from completion. This feature lets everyone know what they need to do to complete a project, making the goal feel much more attainable.
Another unique feature is the task completion system that measures the time elapsed between each completed task. With this tool, you can see which teams are keeping pace with the project's timeline and which tasks have yet to be finished before a project is complete.
6. Kanban Boards for WordPress
What we like: Kanban Boards for WordPress brings the popular project management system into your dashboard for free.
Pricing: Free; Paid version available for $149/year
The Kanban framework was originally designed for Agile project management, but it can be used for tracking marketing and sales activities as well. With the Kanban Boards for WordPress plugin, project boards are customizable and most editing can be done right from the board interface. You can create tasks and assign them to team members, as well as track how long it takes to complete them.
With this tool, you can also create "custom views" which filter your project board by different criteria. You can bookmark individual tasks and updates, and delegate them to team members who can collaborate in real-time.
And, the data you gather with Kanban is stored outside of your WordPress account. This makes it more secure and reduces the chance of sharing data with unwanted parties.
7. BuddyPress
What we like: BuddyPress is a leading WordPress plugin and the most popular solution for creating an online community for your website. You can create an internal network for your company and leverage it as a project management tool entirely for free.
Pricing: Free
BuddyPress is a popular social networking and forum plugin because it adds a great deal of functionality to your site. It's not only a project management tool, but also a social networking integration, a content management system, and a web design resource.
When it comes to managing projects, BuddyPress offers a variety of features that help users collaborate in real-time. For instance, users can form and join groups where they can chat internally and update each other on their progress.
They can also follow "activity streams," which are timelines that highlight what another user has been doing over a certain period of time. Rather than having that user notify everyone when a task is complete, those who follow their activity stream will be alerted automatically once they're finished.
Perhaps best of all, BuddyPress can be extended with a plethora of BuddyPress plugins, some free and some paid, to enhance your site beyond what the plugin alone can do.
8. Business Manager
What we like: For those in need of a time management plugin for their projects, Business Manager is worth a try. You can sample the plugin for free and buy into the paid extensions of your sold on the product.
Pricing: Free; paid extensions also available
Business manager is a project manager, a document manager, and a human resources manager all wrapped into one plugin.
With this tool, you can track when a project starts, when it's completed, and how many hours and days were spent on each task. You can also categorize projects by different types and statuses and write detailed notes so you know exactly what's going on with each one. Business Manager uses Kanban Boards to outline projects in a calendar format, so you can drag and drop new items in as your work develops.
The HR management tools are more employee-specific. For example, you can monitor company-wide holidays and keep track of when employees are taking vacations so that you're properly staffed throughout the year. You can also create performance reviews that measure how well an employee is doing at your company. These reviews include skill ratings, strong/weak points, and career goals that you and your employees can set together.
9. Upstream
What we like: While sporting fewer downloads than other options on this list, UpStream is a promising project management plugin with a healthy number of features available for free, including issues and bug tracking.
Pricing: Free; premium extensions also available
Upstream offers many of the same features provided by other plugins on this list. It lets you upload files and documents, assign tasks to users and teams, and create project discussion threads so team members can chat internally about different goals and tasks.
One unique feature that Upstream provides is its issue/bug tracking tool. This tool reports glitches and roadblocks as they arise, and just like delegating a project task, these issues can be assigned to team members who are responsible for fixing them.
If you want to share your progress with external stakeholders, Upstream has a feature that lets people view data without granting them access to your WordPress admin panel. That way, you can keep relevant stakeholders updated without having to add them as users in your WordPress account.
Create and manage projects in WordPress.
Completing a project on time relies heavily on your ability to remove roadblocks that negatively impact productivity and efficiency. Project management tools do just that and make it easy for stakeholders to understand what work has been done, and what work needs to be done to complete a project or task.
By using one of these WordPress plugins to outline this information, team members have a clear understanding of what their responsibilities are and how their work contributes to the project's success.
This post was originally published in January 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.
