Asana vs Trello: which is right for a small business?

How do Asana and Trello differ in approach?

Trello is boards and cards, and Asana is projects with structure. Trello, from Atlassian, puts each piece of work on a card that moves across lists on a board, with assignees, due dates, checklists and Power-Ups for anything extra. It's quick to learn and easy to share with anyone.

Asana treats each task as part of a project with an owner, a date and often a dependency, and adds timelines, dashboards, forms, portfolios and goals as you pay more. It asks more of the team at the start and gives more back when projects have many moving parts.

How much do Asana and Trello cost?

Trello is the cheaper of the two at every step. Trello Standard is $5 a user a month billed yearly or $6 monthly, and Premium is $10 billed yearly. Asana Starter is $10.99 billed yearly or $13.49 monthly, and Advanced is $24.99 billed yearly or $30.49 monthly.

The free plans differ just as much. Trello Free covers up to 10 collaborators per Workspace with unlimited cards, up to 10 boards, unlimited Power-Ups per board and unlimited storage at 10 MB per file. Asana's Personal plan covers two people with unlimited tasks and projects, list, board and calendar views, and files up to 100 MB.

How do automations and AI compare?

Asana includes unlimited automations from Starter, and Trello counts them. Trello's built-in automation runs on every board, limited by Workspace command runs: 250 a month on Free, 1,000 on Standard and unlimited on Premium. Asana Starter has unlimited automations and forms that turn requests into tasks, plus AI Studio, which classifies and routes requests and sends alerts on its own monthly credits.

On AI, Trello bundles everything into the plan price: Quick Capture, summaries, generated checklists, merged cards and whole boards from a described goal. Asana charges per request: 5 per user a month, capped at 50 per account on Starter and Advanced, with extra requests at $0.50 prepaid or $0.60 pay as you go. For a small team, Trello's AI costs nothing extra; Asana's goes further, with AI Teammates that do work across projects.

Which is better for capturing work from email and chat?

Trello has the more direct capture. Its Inbox gathers to-dos from email, Slack and Microsoft Teams into a personal space before you file them to boards, and Planner syncs a calendar so you can drag cards onto it to block time. Asana captures through forms that turn requests into tasks, and through 100+ free integrations including Slack, Google Drive and Zoom.

Where does Mojobase fit?

Mojobase suits teams whose to-dos mostly arrive by email and in meetings, built for 1 to 25 people, and it works well for teams up to 100. Because Email, Calendar and Tasks live together, the AI notices the request inside a customer's message and suggests the task with a link to it, without an inbox to forward to. It has no board view, so teams that think in cards and columns are better served by Trello, and teams running long projects by Asana. It costs $39 a month for the first person and $25 for each after, with every app and the AI included.