TL;DR
Custom project statuses let freelancers and agencies define the exact labels, colors, and order that match how client work actually moves through stages, replacing generic defaults with workflow-specific tracking that filters, sorts, and triggers automations.
Plutio ships with six default statuses (New, In Progress, Pending, Delayed, Completed, Cancelled) and lets workspace owners create unlimited additional statuses from Settings > Projects > Statuses. Each status gets a custom name, a color, and a position in the sequence, so the project list and board view reflect the real pipeline at a glance. The biggest gain: projects that once sat in a vague "In Progress" bucket for weeks now move through defined stages like "Drafting," "In Review," and "Revisions," so a freelancer managing 10+ active clients can spot bottlenecks in the project list without opening a single project.
Custom statuses are available on all Plutio plans starting at $19/month, with a 7-day free trial. Over 35% of Plutio workspaces with 5+ active projects use at least one custom status beyond the defaults, and teams that define stage-specific labels report checking individual projects 40% less often because the status column carries enough context on its own.
What custom project statuses are
Custom project statuses are workspace-level labels that define the stages a project passes through from start to finish, with each status carrying a unique name, color, and position in the sequence. Instead of relying on a fixed set like New, Active, and Done, workspace owners define labels that mirror real workflow stages: Onboarding, Discovery, Drafting, In Review, Revisions, Approved, Invoiced, Archived, or whatever combination fits the business.
In Plutio, statuses live in Settings > Projects > Statuses and apply across every project in the workspace. When a project's status changes, that change appears in the project list, the board view, and the client portal (if status visibility is enabled). The color-coded label shows up wherever the project appears, so scanning 20 projects in list view takes seconds instead of opening each one.
Creating and editing statuses
Workspace owners open Settings > Projects > Statuses to see all existing statuses in order. Click the add button to create a new status, type the name, pick a color from the palette, and drag the status to the correct position in the sequence. Existing statuses can be renamed, recolored, or deleted at any time. Deleting a status that has active projects assigned to it prompts a reassignment, so no project loses its label without a replacement. The entire setup takes under two minutes, and changes apply immediately across the workspace without refreshing.
Filtering and sorting by status
The project list in Plutio supports filtering by status, so a freelancer working across 15 projects can view only those in "Awaiting Feedback" or "Ready to Invoice" with one click. Board view groups projects into columns by status, turning the project list into a Kanban-style pipeline where dragging a project card from one column to another changes its status instantly. Sorting by status in list view clusters projects by stage, so weekly reviews start with what needs attention first and end with what's already completed.
Each status acts as both a visual indicator and a functional trigger: the label communicates progress at a glance, and the status value drives filters, automations, and client-facing visibility in the portal.
I set up custom statuses for my design workflow: Brief Received, Concepts, First Draft, Client Review, Final Delivery. Now I open the board view on Monday morning and immediately know where every project stands without clicking into anything.
Why custom project statuses matter for freelancers
Generic project statuses force every type of work into the same three or four buckets, which means a web development project, a branding package, and a retainer contract all show the same "In Progress" label even though each sits at a completely different stage. A freelancer managing eight active clients opens the project list, sees six projects labeled "In Progress," and still has no idea which ones need immediate attention versus which ones are waiting on client feedback. The result: 10 to 15 minutes every morning opening projects one by one to piece together the actual state of work.
The cost scales with the number of clients. An agency running 25 concurrent projects with only default statuses spends 30+ minutes per day on status checks that a color-coded, stage-specific label would answer in seconds. Missed status updates lead to overlooked deliverables: a project sitting in review for five days without follow-up because the label said "Active" and nobody noticed. On a $5,000 project, a one-week delay caused by a missed status check can push payment back by 30 days and strain the client relationship.
Asana offers custom project statuses on its Premium plan at $10.99/user/month billed annually, but the status applies at the project level only and does not carry into portfolio views without upgrading to the Business tier at $24.99/user/month. For a three-person agency, Asana's status visibility across all projects costs $75/month before adding any other project management features. Monday.com uses color-coded status columns on task boards, but project-level statuses require building a separate "project tracker" board, which fragments the workflow into multiple boards rather than a single project list with built-in stages.
The most expensive consequence of vague project statuses is not wasted time checking in, but missed follow-ups on projects that silently stall in a generic "Active" state while the freelancer assumes everything is moving forward.
Plutio addresses the root cause by making statuses workspace-wide, customizable, and visible everywhere a project appears, so the label itself carries enough information to act on without opening the project.
How custom project statuses work in Plutio
Open Settings > Projects > Statuses, create status labels that match real workflow stages, assign colors and positions, and every project in the workspace can use those statuses to communicate progress across list view, board view, the client portal, and automation triggers.
Before creating custom statuses, Plutio provides six defaults: New, In Progress, Pending, Delayed, Completed, and Cancelled. These can be renamed, recolored, or deleted to fit any workflow.
Step by step
- Step 1: Navigate to Settings > Projects > Statuses. The current status list appears in order, showing each status name and color. Default statuses (New, In Progress, Pending, Delayed, Completed, Cancelled) appear on every new workspace.
- Step 2: Click the add button to create a new status. Type the status name (for example, "Client Review" or "Ready to Invoice"), pick a color from the color palette, and the status appears at the bottom of the list.
- Step 3: Drag the new status to the correct position in the sequence. The order determines how statuses appear in dropdowns, board view columns, and filter options. Place stages in chronological workflow order for the clearest project pipeline.
- Step 4: Open any project and click the status field to see all available statuses in a dropdown. Select the new status, and the project's label updates instantly across list view, board view, and the client portal.
- Step 5: Set up automations that trigger on status change. In the Automations section, create a rule like "When project status changes to Completed, send a notification" or "When status changes to Approved, create invoice." Status-based triggers turn label changes into automated workflow steps.
Practical tip: create a "Ready to Invoice" status and set up an automation that notifies the workspace owner when any project moves to that status. This turns the billing step into a triggered action instead of a mental note that gets forgotten during busy weeks.
Who needs custom project statuses
Freelancers and agencies managing more than five concurrent projects, particularly those with multi-stage delivery workflows like design, development, consulting, and content production, get the most value from custom project statuses because generic labels break down once the project count exceeds what a single person can track mentally.
A freelance web developer running eight client projects needs to distinguish between "Discovery," "Wireframes," "Development," "QA," and "Launch Prep" rather than seeing all five active builds under the same "In Progress" label. With custom statuses, the Monday morning project review happens in the list view: scan the status column, spot the two projects in "Client Review" that need follow-up, and move on. Without custom labels, those same two projects hide inside a list of eight identically labeled items. Freelancers managing retainer clients benefit even more, because retainer projects never truly end and need statuses like "Active Month," "Paused," and "Renewal Due" instead of the linear start-to-finish defaults.
Agencies with three to ten team members need status visibility across all projects to coordinate handoffs. A project moving from "Design" to "Development" signals the developer to start without a Slack message or email, because the status change triggers a notification through Plutio's activity log and optional automation. Freelancers switching from Asana often cite Plutio's project-level statuses as a reason for the move, since Asana's custom project statuses require a Premium plan and lack the integrated invoicing, proposals, and contracts that Plutio includes on every tier at $19/month.
Trello offers label-based color coding on cards, but Trello labels are tag-based rather than status-based, so a card can carry multiple labels simultaneously without a clear single-status indicator. Freelancers who outgrow Trello's board-per-project model find that Plutio's workspace-wide statuses provide the pipeline visibility that Trello's individual boards cannot.
Bottom line: any freelancer or agency tracking more than five active projects with distinct delivery stages saves 10 to 15 minutes per day in status-checking overhead by replacing generic labels with workflow-specific statuses that communicate progress at a glance.
