TL;DR
Project duplication in Plutio clones an existing project, including every task, subtask, task group, billing rate, budget, currency setting, project status, contributor list, and description, into a new project with a fresh name and timeline.
Plutio handles project duplication natively from the project settings menu. Select a completed or active project, duplicate it, and the new project inherits the full internal structure without recreating anything manually. Freelancers who run 10+ similar projects per year save roughly 5 to 10 hours annually by duplicating instead of rebuilding, since a typical 20-task project takes 30 to 60 minutes to set up from scratch.
Project duplication comes with all Plutio plans starting at $19/month, with a 7-day free trial. The feature works on any project regardless of its status, so both active and completed projects can serve as the source for a duplicate.
What project duplication is
Project duplication is the process of cloning an entire project, with all its internal structure, settings, and task hierarchy, into a new standalone project that can be renamed, rescheduled, and assigned to a different client without starting from a blank slate.
In Plutio, project duplication works through the project copy method. When a project is duplicated, Plutio copies all tasks and subtasks, task groups (the organizational buckets that hold related tasks), project settings including billing rate, budget amount, and currency, the project status configuration, the full contributor list, and the project description. The new project receives a fresh name and timeline, so deadlines and start dates reset rather than carrying over stale dates from the original.
Full project duplication vs project templates
Project duplication and project templates serve different purposes. Templates are pre-built starter structures designed for repeated use, stripped of client-specific data and ready to apply to any new project. Duplication clones a specific active or completed project exactly as it exists, including any custom tasks, adjusted billing rates, or scope changes that accumulated during the work. Templates are ideal when the project structure is standardized across every client. Duplication is ideal when a past project, with all its real-world adjustments, is the closest match to what comes next.
Individual task duplication
Plutio also supports duplicating individual tasks through the task copy method. A single task, including its subtasks, description, and assignments, can be cloned into the same project or moved into a different one. Task duplication is useful when one deliverable from a past project needs to be repeated without copying the entire project structure. The distinction matters: full project duplication copies everything at once, including all task groups and their contents, while individual task duplication handles one-off repeats without touching the rest of the project.
I run the same onboarding project for every new client. Duplicating the last one takes 10 seconds and gives me the exact structure with all 24 tasks and subtasks already in place.
Why project duplication matters for freelancers
Freelancers who deliver the same type of project repeatedly, whether brand identity packages, website builds, or marketing audits, spend significant admin time recreating task lists, group structures, and billing configurations for every new client. A 25-task web design project with 3 task groups, subtasks on each deliverable, and a $100/hour billing rate takes 30 to 60 minutes to build from scratch in any project management tool.
The cost multiplies across the year. A freelancer running 15 similar website builds per year spends 7 to 15 hours annually just on project setup, not counting the time lost to missed tasks that were part of the original workflow but forgotten during manual recreation. Missed tasks lead to missed deliverables, and missed deliverables lead to revision cycles that were entirely avoidable.
Asana offers project duplication on its Premium plan ($10.99/user/month billed annually), but Asana does not include invoicing, proposals, or contracts, so the duplicated project still lives in a separate tool from the billing workflow. Monday.com includes board duplication on its Standard plan ($12/seat/month for minimum 3 seats), but duplicating a board does not carry over time tracking data or billing rate configurations, since Monday.com handles those through third-party integrations rather than natively.
The most common failure mode is not forgetting to duplicate but forgetting to update. A cloned project with the previous client's billing rate, outdated task names, or last quarter's deadline can create more problems than it solves if the details are not reviewed after duplication.
Plutio addresses this by giving the duplicated project a fresh name and timeline while preserving the structural components, tasks, groups, billing rates, and budget, that are most time-consuming to recreate. The freelancer reviews and adjusts the details rather than rebuilding from nothing.
How project duplication works in Plutio
Open the project to duplicate, select the copy option from the project menu, give the new project a name, and Plutio clones the entire structure, including tasks, subtasks, task groups, billing rates, budget, contributors, and description, into a new project with a fresh timeline.
Before duplicating, make sure the source project contains the task structure and settings worth carrying forward. Any tasks, groups, or billing rate changes made after duplication do not sync back to the original, so the source project should represent the baseline to clone.
Step by step
- Step 1: Open the project to use as the source. Navigate to the project's settings menu (the dots menu or project settings icon).
- Step 2: Select the duplicate or copy option from the project menu. Plutio begins copying the project structure immediately.
- Step 3: Name the new project. The cloned project appears with all tasks, subtasks, task groups, billing rate, budget, currency, status configuration, contributor list, and project description carried over from the source.
- Step 4: Update the timeline. Set new start and due dates for the project and adjust individual task deadlines to match the new client's schedule. The original project's dates do not carry forward, so the timeline starts clean.
- Step 5: Review and adjust. Update the client assignment, modify any task details specific to the new project, and adjust the billing rate or budget if the new engagement has different terms. The project is ready for work.
Practical tip: keep one "master" version of each common project type, such as a website build or a brand identity package, with all tasks and groups in place. Duplicate from the master each time rather than from the last client's project, so accumulated scope changes from past clients do not carry forward unintentionally.
Who needs project duplication
Freelancers and agencies delivering repeatable project types, particularly web designers, brand consultants, marketing strategists, and virtual assistants managing onboarding workflows, get the most value from project duplication.
A web designer who delivers 12 to 15 website builds per year follows nearly the same task structure every time: discovery call, sitemap, wireframes, design mockups, development, content migration, QA, and launch. Rebuilding that 20+ task structure for every client means 6 to 12 hours per year lost to project setup. Duplicating the last successful project and updating the client name, timeline, and any scope-specific tasks takes under 2 minutes and carries the full billing rate, budget, and contributor configuration forward automatically.
Agencies running onboarding sequences for new clients use project duplication to standardize the first 30 days. The onboarding project contains every task from contract signing to kickoff call to first deliverable review, and duplicating it ensures no step gets skipped across the 50+ clients onboarded per year. Over 35% of Plutio users on team plans duplicate at least one project per month, indicating that repeatable workflows are the norm rather than the exception for agencies managing multiple concurrent clients.
Freelancers exploring Asana alternatives often need project duplication alongside invoicing and contracts in the same workspace. Asana duplicates projects but lacks native billing, so the cloned project still requires a separate invoicing tool for billing configuration. Freelancers switching from Monday.com alternatives find that Plutio's project duplication carries billing rates and budgets natively, while Monday.com relies on third-party integrations for financial data that does not transfer during board duplication.
Bottom line: any freelancer or agency running more than 5 similar projects per year saves both setup time and task accuracy by duplicating a proven project structure rather than rebuilding from memory each time.
