If there’s one thing I’ve learned from years of managing projects, both as an internal and external PM, it’s that consulting is a different beast entirely.
When you’re an internal project manager, you usually have one “client”, a set salary, and no pressing need to generate profit. But as a consultant, you’re juggling multiple clients, fighting to protect your margins, and constantly worrying about billing to get cash through the door.
Consultants need project management software that:
- Is easy to use
- Tracks billable hours
- Accommodates multiple clients
- Provides insights into project progress
This guide explores six of the best project management tools for consultants. We’ll cut through the marketing fluff to review the pros, cons, and costs of each tool, then dive into the key time tracking features you need for managing client work and keeping your sanity intact.
6 best project management software for consultants
Before we dive into the details, here’s a quick glance of the tools we’ve tested.
| Tool | Free plan? | Lowest paid price | Best for |
| Toggl Focus | Yes (up to 5 users) | $9/user/mo | Easy time tracking and reality-based capacity planning |
| ClickUp | Yes | $7/user/mo | Broad feature set and consultant-ready collaboration tools |
| monday work management | Yes (limited to 2 users) | $9/user/mo | Customization to unique consultant workflows |
| Trello | Yes | $5/user/mo | Simple Kanban-style delivery |
| Miro | Yes | $8/user/mo | Visual collaboration and exploring ‘big ideas’ with clients |
| Productive | No (14 day trial only) | $9/user/mo | End-to-end consultancy workflow at a premium price |
1. Toggl Focus
Best for: Easy time tracking and reality-based capacity planning
Toggl Focus tackles one of the biggest (but often underestimated) causes of project failure: poor time tracking and management.
While other tools see time tracking as an afterthought, Toggl Focus puts time data at the center of everything it does. As a project delivery tool, it bridges the gap between high-level visual planning and granular time and project management, so you deliver on time, and get paid what you’re owed, for each and every client.
On top of this, Toggl Focus has powerful resourcing and reporting features, making it easy to manage junior consultants while reporting outwards to clients. And to round it off, there’s even free guest access to invite clients in, boosting collaboration, accountability, and transparency for every project.
Time tracking and billing
Built on the foundations of Toggl Track (which many consultants already use), Toggl Focus makes sure you never have to guess how long tasks take; your plans are based on real-time data. You can track time in many ways, including through the browser plugin or in-app timers.
For task-based tracking, open a task record to start a timer, estimate task durations, and use this information to compare actual time logged against your original estimate to get a detailed forecast vs. actual view.
As you’re working through each of your consulting projects, use dashboard reports to see where and how you’ve spent your time, diving into key metrics such as daily time logged, time logged by project, and time logged by client.
At the task, project, or client level, tag whether time entries are billable or non-billable to give you clarity over what needs invoicing at the end of every week or month.
From there, there’s no need to send time data elsewhere to start getting paid. Simply dive into your time reports to gain a clear view of your total billable and non-billable records.
When you need to generate an invoice, all the variables you need are pre-populated to create an invoice that’s ready to send to your clients straight away.
Project planning views
As a consultant juggling different clients, having flexibility for your planning is a must. With Toggl Focus, there’s something for every type of planner — whether you’re a Kanban warrior, to-do list ticker, or an old-school Gantt charter.
The Board view provides a Kanban-style layout, allowing you to move tasks through stages such as “To-do,” “Blocked,” and “In Progress.” This gives you ultimate visibility, showing you at a glance where your bottlenecks are, what’s on the list for today, and what’s waiting for you in the future.
If you like seeing your work mapped out over weeks, months, or quarters instead, the Timeline view is the perfect place for you. Here, you can track milestones and key deliverables at a high level or filter by team member, project, or task when you need to drill down into the details.
Within the Timeline, features such as project color codes, drag-and-drop timelines, and quick task creation also make context switching easy, with full flexibility to adjust your plans around your client’s changing needs.
Lastly, if you’re a to-do-list ticker, like all good project planning tools, it’s easy to see your tasks in a straightforward list view. Customize the columns to show the data that matters to you, and easily assign tasks to team members or clients to keep your consultancy projects moving forward.
Capacity and resource planning
For those managing a larger team of consultants, project, time, and capacity planning come together to let you master resource planning perfectly.
Alongside your core project tasks, Toggl Focus uncovers “actual capacity” by overlaying public holidays, time records, and PTO to go past who just “seems” free to get a view of who’s “actually” free.
This capacity and resource data builds over time, so you move from being reactive to proactive. Forecast long-term workloads to anticipate hiring needs and rebalance resources before you have a client conflict.
Limitations
- Toggl Focus purposefully avoids some heavy, complex features found in other HR processing or CRM tools. Instead, our deliberately lean platform focuses on the key features consultants need: time tracking, billable hours, and client collaboration.
Toggl Focus pricing:
- Free: Free for up to five users. Includes unlimited projects and basic time tracking.
- Starter (from $9/user/mo): Adds Timeline views, recurring tasks, and billable rates.
- Premium (from $20/user/mo): For scaling teams needing full capacity management and deeper utilization insights.
2. ClickUp
Best for: Broad feature set and consultant-ready collaboration tools
ClickUp markets itself as “one app to replace them all,” and for consultants who love to tinker and configure every little detail, it packs in a huge amount of functionality into one platform. Its all-in-one functionality includes document creation and collaborative whiteboards, making it easy to run end-to-end client projects in one place.
ClickUp’s key strengths
- The “Everything” View: For consultants juggling 10 different client projects, the “Everything” view is a lifesaver. It aggregates tasks from all your different projects into one master list, so you don’t miss a deadline.
- Guest access: ClickUp has robust permission settings, but also allows for external and team collaboration. You can invite a client as a “Guest” to a specific folder or list without them seeing the rest of your workspace.
- Docs and whiteboards: Having your scoping documents and brainstorming sessions right next to your tasks is very convenient while also creating a slick and professional appearance for high-value clients.
ClickUp’s limitations
- The learning curve: Because it does so much, ClickUp can be overwhelming. Small teams can experience “feature fatigue” where they spend more time setting up ClickUp automations than actually doing client work, which isn’t ideal for the bill-by-the-hour model.
“The app is very tricky to use and can be slow when handling a large amount of data.” — IT professional
ClickUp’s pricing
- Free: Generous free plan, but limits some advanced features like online Gantt charts.
- Unlimited (from $7/user/mo): Unlocks unlimited storage, integrations (Slack, Microsoft, Google), and dashboards.
- Business (from $12/user/mo): Adds advanced time tracking features and workload management software capabilities.
3. monday work management
Best for: Customization to unique consultant workflows
monday work management, built on the monday.com Work OS, is a collaborative platform that helps teams plan and execute every type of work, including projects, processes, and daily tasks. The platform is visually appealing and user-friendly thanks to its colorful, spreadsheet-like interface, but don’t worry, it isn’t just a pretty design. If your consulting work involves unique workflows, like a specific 10-step audit process, monday work management’s customizable features are great for adaptability.
monday work management also excels at AI and automation, with automatic flows built into every aspect of task management to speed up routine activities such as task assignment and project reporting. The Pro and Enterprise plans allow you to invite an unlimited number of guests into the tool to boost your client/consultant collaboration.
monday work management’s key strengths
- Customizable dashboards: This is monday work management’s ace card. You can build beautiful, high-level dashboards that pull data from multiple client boards. It’s perfect for a “Consultancy Overview” screen showing total revenue or project status across all clients.
- Slick automations: “When status changes to ‘Done’, email the Client.” monday.com’s automation builder is intuitive and saves you from repetitive admin work.
- Client access: Create shareable boards that act as a client portal, giving them a window into the project without giving them the keys to the castle.
monday work management’s limitations
- Pricing structure: monday work management uses a “seat-based” pricing model (in buckets of three or five), which gets expensive if your team size falls between buckets.
- Complexity creep: Like ClickUp, it’s easy to over-engineer your boards until they become too complex to maintain. This can make it hard for the team to pick up monday work management and hit the ground running.
“I will say a few areas could definitely be improved, like, the learning curve. With so many features, it can feel overwhelming, especially for first or new time users.” – Mercy, Founder
monday work management’s pricing
- Free: Up to two seats, but very limited (no dashboards or automations).
- Basic ($9/seat/mo): Basic project views.
- Standard ($12/seat/mo): The “real” entry point includes Timeline, Gantt, and Automations.
- Pro ($19/seat/mo): Required for time tracking and private boards.
4. Trello
Best for: Simple Kanban-style project delivery
If you’re a solo consultant or work on smaller, fast-paced projects, Trello is the classic Kanban board tool. It’s incredibly simple to move tasks between To Do, Doing, and Done, with almost zero learning curve. This makes it great for collaborating with non-tech-savvy clients and clearly showing your output day-by-day.
Trello’s Power-Ups integrate quickly to streamline task workflows, while built-in reports and ready-made templates help teams get started fast.
Trello’s key strengths
- Visual simplicity: Trello’s ease of use replicates sticky notes on a whiteboard perfectly. For agile consulting projects where priorities change daily, dragging cards around feels natural.
- Client onboarding: You can invite a client to a board, and they’ll understand how to use it in 30 seconds. No training manuals required.
- Butler automation: Trello’s built-in workflow automation bot can handle simple rules like “When a card moves to Done, check off the due date.”
Trello’s limitations
- Lack of “Big Picture”: Trello struggles when you need to see a timeline or Gantt chart across multiple projects or want general scalability (unless you pay for the Premium plan views, and even then, it’s lighter than competitors).
“For larger and more complex projects, Trello was bulky and not the right software for large scale project management.” – Morgan, Manager.
Trello’s pricing:
- Free: Unlimited cards and up to 10 boards. Great for starting out.
- Standard ($5/user/mo): Unlimited boards and advanced checklists.
- Premium ($10/user/mo): Adds Dashboard, Timeline, and Calendar views.
- Enterprise ($17.50/user/mo): Higher security and unlimited features for 50+ users.
5. Miro
Best for: Visual collaboration and exploring “big ideas” with clients
Miro isn’t a “project management” tool in the traditional sense. Instead, it’s an infinite digital whiteboard best for consultants who run workshops, strategy sessions, or design sprints.
For many consultants, this makes it an essential part of the stack and a great visual project management tool for keeping track of tasks, inputs, outputs, and client specifications.
Miro’s key strengths
- Visualizing complexity: Sometimes a list of tasks just doesn’t cut it. Miro lets you map out complex stakeholder relationships, user journeys, or system architectures visually.
- Engaging client communication: Instead of sending a PDF report, you can invite clients into a Miro board for a live, interactive workshop that elevates your perceived value as a consultant.
- Project templates: Miro offers a massive library of consulting frameworks (SWOT analysis, Business Model Canvas, etc.) ready to go.
Miro’s limitations
- Not for execution: You can’t really “manage” a project end-to-end in here. There aren’t any Gantt charts, resource management views, or budget trackers. It’s for thinking, not tracking which makes it limiting compared to competitors..
- Struggles under pressure: With so much collaboration power, some users note Miro can be a little slow when managing big projects with multiple stakeholders.
“While Miro is powerful, it can feel a bit overwhelming or cluttered when boards get large with many contributors. It also uses a lot of memory, which can slow performance on big projects.” – Lorna, Professional Services
Miro’s pricing
- Free: Three editable boards
- Starter ($8/user/mo): Unlimited boards and private board sharing.
- Business ($16/user/mo): Advanced security and guest capabilities.
6. Productive
Best for: End-to-end consultancy workflow at a premium price
Productive is a consultant-specific tool that treats project management as just one part of the puzzle, sitting alongside features for Sales, Budgeting, and Invoicing. It’s a great place to manage each of your client’s ‘P&Ls’ while also getting some great work done.
Productive has all the end-to-end features you’d need for tracking deliverables, time, and inviting clients for collaboration, with a slick and simple user interface that maintains a consult-level of professionalism.
Productive’s key strengths
- Financial focus: The platform calculates profitability in real-time based on your consultants’ cost rates and your clients’ billable rates to show you every project’s margin.
- Retainer management: If you work on recurring monthly retainers, Productive handles the “rollover” of hours and recurring budgets better than most generic tools.
- End-to-end: It covers the full consultant lifecycle from the Sales CRM (tracking the lead), project management (tracking the work) to the final Invoice (tracking the $$$).
Productive’s limitations
- Feature depth: Productive is tailored for consultants but doesn’t run deep in terms of customization or advanced AI/workflow technology.
- Price: While Productive removes the need for other tools (like a separate CRM), the monthly cost is higher than other tools on our list, and there’s no free plan available.
“Features are quite limited, we don’t have as much freedom as we normally feel in Jira or Clickup.” – Hussain, Project Manager
Productive’s pricing
- Free plan: No. (Only a 14-day trial).
- Essential ($9/user/mo): Basic project, budgets, and time tracking with limited customization.
- Professional ($24/user/mo): Required for the advanced financial and milestone reporting and team time management.
How to choose the right tool for your consulting business
Choosing software is like choosing a business partner; it needs to fit you and your work. If you’re trying to decide which tool is right for you, here’s a simple framework.
1. Define your size and structure
Map out where you are as a consultancy to match with the right size and scale of tool. You’ll probably fit into one of these three buckets:
- The Solo Consultant: You need speed and simplicity. No complex permissions — just a clear view of upcoming work, plus basic time tracking and invoicing.
- The Boutique Team (2-15 people): Your small business needs visibility without micromanaging. A clear picture of who’s working on what, and a way to balance limited resources across client projects.
- The Scaling Agency (20+ people): You’ve got a proper business to run now, so you need controls, budgets, and structured financials. Look for tools that enable you to create end-to-end processes and track margins at scale.
2. Align your billing model
Ultimately, every consultant needs to get paid, so make sure your tool supports your billing model. Specifically, think about these two mechanisms:
- Time and materials: If you bill by the hour, time tracking is non-negotiable. Don’t choose a tool where time tracking is an afterthought or a clumsy add-on. You need it native and robust from tools like Toggl Focus.
- Fixed price/retainer: Here, you’ll care most about efficiency. The right tool warns when you’re spending too much time on a fixed-price project with instant metrics and alerts to stop you becoming unprofitable.
3. Avoid the feature trap
One of the biggest mistakes we see consultants make is buying a tool that has “everything.” They buy a complex ERP system because it can do invoicing, CRM, and HR. But then they realize the actual project management interface is clunky and slow.
Our advice? Work out where a tool adds real value, and where it adds noise.
- Sales and marketing: If you’re small, there’s a high chance your outreach will be more manual. If you’re larger, you might need a proper sales engine to manage multiple client relationships.
- Project management: You’ll always need delivery support, so prioritize strong project timeline, resource allocation, and time tracking features.
- Billing and invoicing: Linking your work to your invoicing is super important, but be aware you may need to add additional features as you scale. If you’re small, you may be better off partnering your PM tool with something like Xero or Quickbooks.
Elevate your consultancy work with Toggl Focus
Consulting is hard enough without fighting your own tools. The “best” software isn’t the one with the most features; it’s the one that gives you clarity and control.
You need to answer:
- What do we need to complete today?
- Are we within budget?
- Does the team have capacity to take on that new client?
If you’re looking for project management software that bridges the gap between high-level planning and the reality of daily work, we’d highly recommend giving Toggl Focus a spin. It’s designed to stop you from planning in the dark, giving you accurate time data so you can see exactly where your time goes and what you’re owed.
Create your free Toggl Focus account today for a clear view of your consulting projects.
Frequently asked questions (FAQs) about project management consulting software
What features should consultants look for in project management software?
Consultants should prioritize features for time tracking, resource planning, and client visibility. The right cloud-based platform lets you track billable hours accurately, stop overbooking your team, and share progress updates from multiple clients without revealing sensitive internal data.
Is project management software worth it for solo consultants?
Absolutely, project management software is definitely worth it for solo consultants. Even if it’s just you, relying on memory or sticky notes leads to “scope creep” and missed billable hours. A simple tool tracks exactly where your time goes, so you bill for every minute you work and keep your client projects organized.
Can project management software track billable hours and profitability?
Yes, tools like Toggl Focus and Productive track billable hours and profitability. You can assign billable rates to projects or team members, and the software automatically calculates revenue as time is tracked, comparing it to your project budget.
How is project management software for consultants different from generic tools?
Generic tools for consultants give you the ability to track progress (“Is the task done?”). Project management software focuses on the business of the project (“Is the task done within budget?”). Consultant-focused PM tools include features like multi-client support, guest portals, forecasting resources, reporting visualizations, and billable vs. non-billable time tracking that generic to-do lists often lack.
That said, all of the general-purpose tools in our list, like ClickUp or monday work management will still do a great job but won’t be as specific to a consultants individual use case.
What’s the best project management platform for small consulting firms?
For small firms (5-20 people), Toggl Focus is an excellent choice because it combines easy task management with powerful team capacity planning. The platform helps you manage workloads without the steep learning curve or high cost of heavy enterprise agency software, while making it easy to turn your billable hours into client-ready invoices.
