TLDR (Summary)
Trello handles Kanban boards and basic task tracking, but has zero invoicing, proposals, contracts, payments, time tracking, or client portal features at any price tier. The free plan limits workspaces to 10 boards with capped automations. Paid plans at $5-12.50/user/month add views and automations but still don't include any business management features. Freelancers using Trello typically stack 3-5 additional tools to cover the full workflow, pushing monthly costs past $60. Plutio covers Kanban boards plus proposals, contracts, time tracking, invoicing, and client portals starting at $19/month flat.
Trello's simplicity trap: easy to start, impossible to run a business
Trello's free plan draws freelancers in with clean Kanban boards, but the simplicity that makes it easy to start is the same simplicity that forces every business function into a separate tool.
The pitch is straightforward: cards, lists, boards. Drag a card from 'To Do' to 'In Progress' to 'Done.' The visual layout clicks immediately. Most freelancers start with Trello because the free plan is genuinely useful for tracking tasks, and the learning curve is minutes, not weeks.
The problem surfaces when the project finishes and the business side begins. The card moves to 'Done,' but there's no invoice attached. The client needs a proposal before the next project starts, but Trello has no proposal builder. The contract needs a signature, but Trello has no e-signature feature. The client wants to see progress on their own, but there's no client portal.
Atlassian acquired Trello in 2017 and has invested in Premium features like timeline views, dashboard views, and additional automations. But the investment has gone into making Trello a better project board for teams, not into adding the business features that freelancers need. After 15 years and an enterprise acquisition, Trello still cannot send an invoice.
Trello holds a 3.2/5 rating on Trustpilot. Recent reviews flag Atlassian integration problems, difficulty unsubscribing, and a product that works for personal task management but falls short for running a business.
Trello's free plan is easy to start. The hidden cost is the 3-5 additional subscriptions needed to cover every business function Trello doesn't include.
What Trello does well in 2026
Trello delivers fast, visual Kanban boards with drag-and-drop cards, checklists, labels, and automations that handle basic project tracking without a learning curve.
The Kanban interface is genuinely good. Cards move between lists with a single drag. Checklists break tasks into subtasks. Labels color-code priorities, clients, or project types. Due dates trigger reminders. For visual thinkers who want to see work laid out across columns, Trello's board view remains one of the cleanest available.
The free plan covers the basics: unlimited cards, up to 10 boards per workspace, 250 automation runs per month, and one Power-Up per board. For personal task tracking and small team coordination, the free tier handles enough without paying anything.
Premium at $10/user/month (annual) adds timeline, calendar, dashboard, and map views. Automations become unlimited. Admin controls and priority support are included. For teams that need multiple views of the same project data, Premium unlocks useful perspectives that the free plan restricts.
The Power-Up ecosystem connects Trello to hundreds of third-party tools: Slack, Google Drive, GitHub, Figma, and more. The Standard plan at $5/user/month removes the one-Power-Up limit, letting boards connect to multiple external services.
Trello's Kanban boards are fast and visual. The gap is not in task tracking. The gap is that finishing a task and getting paid for the task happen in entirely different tools.
What Trello doesn't do for freelancers
Trello handles task boards but has no invoicing, proposals, contracts, payments, native time tracking, or client portal at any price tier, including the $12.50/user/month Premium plan.
No invoicing or payments at any tier
Trello has no invoicing feature. There's no way to generate an invoice from completed tasks, send payment requests, or accept payments through the platform. Every invoice requires a separate tool like FreshBooks, QuickBooks, or Stripe. The completed card on the board and the invoice for that work live in different systems with no connection between them.
No proposals or contracts
Trello has no proposal builder, no contract templates, and no e-signature functionality. Sending a proposal means opening a separate tool, creating the document, and manually creating a Trello board when the client accepts. The signed proposal doesn't create cards. The finished cards don't generate an invoice.
No client portal
Trello boards are internal by default. Boards can be shared with guests, but guests see the full board layout, including internal notes, labels, and team comments. There's no branded portal where clients check progress, approve deliverables, or download files without seeing the project management view.
No native time tracking
Trello has no built-in time tracking. Tracking hours requires third-party Power-Ups like Toggl, Harvest, or Clockify. On the free plan, only one Power-Up per board is allowed, so choosing a time tracker means giving up other integrations. Even with a Power-Up, tracked time doesn't feed into invoicing because Trello has no billing features.
Free plan limitations grow fast
The free plan caps workspaces at 10 boards, limits automations to 250 runs per month, and allows only one Power-Up per board. Freelancers managing multiple clients hit the board limit quickly. Upgrading to Standard at $5/user/month or Premium at $10/user/month lifts the limits but still adds zero business features.
No amount of upgrading adds invoicing, proposals, or a client portal to Trello. The board tracks the work. Getting paid for the work requires separate tools regardless of which Trello plan is active.
Trello keeps cards organized but once you need to invoice the client, there are no proposals or contracts, no invoicing or payments, and no branded client portal for progress updates.
The real cost of a Trello-based freelance workflow
Trello's free plan costs nothing, but freelancers stack invoicing, contract, and time tracking tools on top to cover every business function Trello is missing.
The monthly math for a Trello-based freelance workflow in 2026:
- Trello Premium: $10/month (annual, for timeline views and unlimited automations)
- FreshBooks or QuickBooks: $21-30/month (invoicing and payments)
- Bonsai or PandaDoc: $19-25/month (proposals and contracts)
- Toggl or Harvest: $9-12/month (time tracking, since Trello has none)
- Total: $59-77/month for four tools that don't share data
Staying on the free plan saves $10/month on Trello but the board limit and automation cap push most active freelancers to paid plans within weeks. The business tools stacked on top cost the same regardless of which Trello tier is active.
Then there's the time cost. Finishing a project on Trello, opening PandaDoc for the contract, switching to FreshBooks for the invoice, and checking Toggl for the time log adds non-billable hours every week. The project data, the contract, and the invoice exist in three separate systems with no automatic connection between them.
Plutio at $19/month covers projects with Kanban boards, proposals, contracts, time tracking, invoicing, and client portals in one place. The pricing is flat per workspace, not per user. The subscription saves $40-58/month over the Trello stack, and the connected workflow means a finished task can generate an invoice without leaving the platform.
A freelancer pays $59-77/month to run a business around Trello's free boards. The same functions cost $19/month on a platform where the board, the invoice, and the client portal are already connected.
Where Trello users are switching in 2026
Most freelancers switching from Trello look for platforms that keep the Kanban boards but add invoicing, contracts, and client portals without requiring a stack of separate tools.
For the full freelance workflow in one platform
Plutio starts at $19/month with no per-user pricing and includes Kanban boards, Gantt timelines, proposals, contracts, time tracking, invoicing, and client portals in one flow. When a client signs a proposal, the project creates automatically with tasks and a branded client portal. Time tracking feeds directly into invoices. For freelancers who use Trello's boards but need the business side connected, Plutio replaces the entire tool stack. See the full Trello alternatives comparison for details.
For project management with more views
Asana offers a free plan for up to 10 users with board, list, and calendar views. Paid plans start at $10.99/user/month with timeline views and dependencies. Asana has the same business-function gaps as Trello (no invoicing, no contracts, no client portal) but provides deeper project management with subtask hierarchies, custom fields, and workload views. See the Asana deep dive for trade-offs.
For proposals, contracts, and basic project tracking
Dubsado at $35/month handles the business side that Trello misses: proposals, contracts, invoicing, and intake automation. Project management is basic but every business function that requires a separate tool on Trello is built in. See the Dubsado deep dive for trade-offs.
For a broader comparison, the project management tools comparison covers pricing, features, and trade-offs across 8 platforms.
Every platform Trello freelancers switch to either includes invoicing natively or connects the board to the invoice without requiring 3 separate subscriptions in between.
With Plutio we don't jump between apps anymore! Everything from projects to invoicing is finally connected in one fully-branded app.
