A comparison · checked October 30, 2026
Looking for a Wrike alternative? Here is an honest comparison
The best Wrike alternative depends on which plan step you have hit. Wrike's Team plan is $10 per user a month, billed annually, for 2 to 15 users, and Business is $25 for 5 to 200 users [1]. Time tracking and AI agents start on Business [2][5], and SAML single sign-on and SCIM on Pinnacle, which is priced by sales [1][7][8]. This page compares Kavanah, Wrike, Asana and monday work management on what their own pages said today, says exactly what a Wrike export carries and what it leaves behind, and names the cases where you should stay on Wrike.
#Why it is different
Why teams look for a Wrike alternative
Most of it is the plan ladder. Wrike's prices are per user a month, billed annually, and its Business plans and above are only sold as annual subscriptions [1]. Team, at $10, is for 2 to 15 users and adds interactive Gantt charts and AI Essentials; Business, at $25, is for 5 to 200 users and adds AI Elite features and templates [1]. A team that grows past 15 people has to move to Business, and time tracking is only on Business, Pinnacle and Apex [5]. Advanced resource and capacity planning, budgeting and advanced reporting are on Pinnacle, and SAML single sign-on and SCIM are on Pinnacle and Apex [1][7][8]; both of those plans are priced by sales [1].
People outside the core team cost money too. Wrike's pricing FAQ says regular and external users are full users who need a paid seat, and limited users need a seat at a reduced rate as contributors or can be added free as viewers [1]. The Collaborator licence is being discontinued, and new accounts could not get it from January 20, 2025 [6]. AI is metered in AI Elite actions: Business includes a starter pack, Pinnacle three times as many and Apex ten times, but the page does not say how many actions the starter pack holds, and going over opens a discussion about usage rather than an automatic invoice [1]. Exports are the last surprise: Wrike exports to Excel up to 65,000 rows, and attachments and comments are not exported [4].
Be fair to Wrike, though, because the reasons to stay are real. Its AI agents, launched in February 2026, can only be created by space admins, come with ready-made Intake, Triage and Risk Status Reporter agents, and show the reasoning behind each action [2][3]. An agent can be tried in a testing playground before it goes live [2]. Pinnacle adds budgeting and advanced resource planning, and Apex adds bi-directional sync with third-party systems [1]. Leaving is a good decision when you pay Business or Pinnacle prices for a few features. It is a bad one when your process runs on Wrike's resource planning and custom workflows. The checklist below is how to tell which.
#What to require
What to check in any Wrike alternative before you move
Use this list on every tool you shortlist, including ours. The first two are where most Wrike migrations go wrong, because they are only discovered after the import.
01
What an Excel export leaves behind
Wrike's Excel export stops at 65,000 rows and 256 columns, does not include attachments or comments, and its project export leaves out formula custom fields [4]. Collaborators, contributors and viewers cannot export at all [4]. Decide which history you need, and who will export it.
02
An importer that matches your columns
Most tools import Wrike work as a spreadsheet. Asana's CSV importer, for example, names Wrike among the tools it moves data from [10]. Check which columns become real fields, what happens to folders, subtasks and dependencies, and import one real project before you commit.
03
User caps, not just prices
Wrike's Team plan is for 2 to 15 users and Business for 5 to 200 [1]; monday.com's plans start at 3 users [11]. Check the plan you will need at next year's headcount, and whether it is sold monthly or only annually.
04
What clients and outside contributors cost
On Wrike, external users need a paid seat and viewers can be free [1]. Count the clients, contractors and approvers who need to see or approve work, and price them on every tool you compare.
05
Time tracking and capacity on the plan you will buy
Wrike's time tracking is on Business and up [5], Asana's native time tracking is on Advanced [9], and monday.com's is on Pro [11]. If you plan or bill by the hour, check the plan it is really on.
06
AI agents with a scope, an approval step and a record
Wrike limits who can create agents and shows their reasoning [2][3]. Ask any vendor what its agents may touch, which actions wait for a person before they run, what a unit of AI usage costs, and how you reverse an action.
07
Single sign-on without a sales call
On Wrike, SAML single sign-on and SCIM are on Pinnacle and Apex [7][8], both priced by sales [1]. If your security team requires SSO, find out which published plan includes it.
#How Kavanah does it
How Kavanah covers what you use Wrike for
Kavanah is an agentic project management platform: projects, tasks and planning, with AI employees that do coordination work inside limits a person sets. Each item below describes the product as it ships today, including where it falls short of Wrike.
CSV import of a Wrike export
Save Wrike's Excel export as CSV and import it. Kavanah matches columns by name: a task name or title, status, priority, assignee, due date, tags and description. Imported into a new project, each status becomes a board column, and assignees are matched to members by name or email. Limits: 1,000 rows per import, only the first tag is kept, and dependencies, custom fields and folder hierarchy are not imported. There is no Wrike connector and no sync.
Timeline, dependencies and boards on every plan
Custom statuses per project, first-class sub-tasks, custom fields, several assignees per task, a Timeline view (tasks as bars on a calendar, by person), task dependencies (blocked by / blocks) and a critical-path chart in Planning, on every plan including the free one.
Portfolio, capacity and budgets
A portfolio view with programs, strategic objectives linked to projects, budgets and resources, plus team capacity in hours per week. The sprint planner compares each person's estimates with the hours they actually logged and says what fits at the median and at the 90th percentile.
Approvals, proofing and intake
A task can carry an approval request with a recorded decision. Reviewers can drop proofing pins with comments on images and PDFs. Request pages let people inside or outside the company submit work that becomes a task, and automations run actions on triggers.
Time tracking and a client portal on every plan
Native time tracking is included on every plan. Clients you invite through the client portal can follow, collaborate on and approve their projects without being charged as a seat.
AI employees with controls
AI employees with a role, scoped tools and access only to the projects you choose; once you turn it on, a task assigned to one is worked by it. Safe mode removes risky actions, action policies make chosen categories wait for approval before they run, every action lands in a ledger, and actions can be undone. Anything that runs on its own or spends AI credits is off until you turn it on.
Learn moreIdentity and security, stated plainly
SAML 2.0 and OIDC single sign-on and SCIM on the Enterprise plan, TOTP and passkey sign-in, per-project and per-task access control, and an audit log. The SOC 2 Type II observation period is underway; there is no report yet.
Learn morePriced per seat, no seat caps, AI metered openly
Basic is $3 a seat a month ($2 billed yearly) and Pro is $6 ($4 yearly), with unlimited seats and projects and no minimum or maximum team size. AI usage is metered in credits, about a cent each, with 100 or 250 per seat a month pooled by the workspace. Pay as you go drops the seat fee entirely: you buy credits in packs from $10 per 1,000. The free Starter plan covers up to 5 members and 10 projects.
Learn more#In practice
Migrating from Wrike to Kavanah, step by step
One team lead and a workspace admin
1. Take stock before you move
- List the Wrike spaces, folders and projects that are still active.
- Note the custom fields, workflows, request forms and blueprints each project depends on, and the attachments and comments you need to keep. None of these come across in an Excel export [4].
- Count your external users, contributors and viewers; in Kavanah, clients join through the client portal instead of a seat.
- Invite your team to Kavanah first, using the names or emails they use in Wrike, so assignees match on import.
A Wrike user with a regular licence
2. Export each project to Excel
- Export the project to Excel from Wrike [4]. Collaborators, contributors and viewers cannot export, so use a regular user.
- Open the file and save it as CSV.
- Check the header row: rename the columns you want to keep to Task name, Status, Priority, Assignee, Due date, Tags and Description if they are named differently.
- Split the file so no import is over 1,000 rows, and keep the original Excel file and Wrike itself as your archive.
Workspace admin
3. Import it as a new project
- Send the CSV to the task import API with a project name, from a script or the kvn command line. Each status becomes its own board column.
- For a small file you can instead attach it in chat and ask the agent to import it.
- Read the import report, invite anyone whose name matched no member, then reassign.
Team lead
4. Rebuild what an export does not carry
- Recreate the custom fields you report on, and set dependencies (blocked by / blocks) on the tasks.
- Rebuild Wrike request forms as Kavanah request pages, and automation rules as Kavanah automations.
- Set team capacity and project budgets in the portfolio view.
- Invite clients to the client portal, then run one planning cycle in Kavanah before you renew Wrike.
#Compared
Kavanah, Wrike, Asana and monday work management compared
Each competitor cell describes only what that vendor's own public page said when we checked on October 30, 2026: Wrike's pricing page, its launch release for AI agents and its help articles on agents, Excel export, time tracking, licence types, SAML and SCIM [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8], Asana's pricing and CSV importer pages [9][10], and monday.com's pricing page [11]. Wrike's security page shows certification logos without naming them in text, so its cell says "Not described". "Not described" means the page did not say, not that the product lacks it. Kavanah cells describe the product as it ships.
| Criterion | Kavanah | Wrike | Asana | monday work management |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Entry paid price | Basic $3 per seat a month, $2 billed yearly; or Pay as you go, no seat fee, credits from $10 per 1,000 | Team $10 per user a month, billed annually [1] | Starter $10.99 per user a month billed annually, $13.49 monthly [9] | Basic $9 per seat a month billed annually [11] |
| Free option | Starter: up to 5 members and 10 projects, 2 GB | Free: task management with board and table views [1] | Personal: 2 users, unlimited tasks and projects [9] | Free: up to 2 seats and 3 boards [11] |
| Team size limits | No seat minimum or cap on paid plans | Team 2 to 15 users; Business 5 to 200 [1] | No user seat limits on Starter [9] | Plans start from 3 users [11] |
| Bringing work over from Wrike | CSV import of a Wrike export saved as CSV, matched by column name; 1,000 rows per import | Excel export up to 65,000 rows; no attachments or comments [4] | CSV importer names Wrike among its sources [10] | Not described |
| Gantt charts | Timeline view and dependencies on every plan; no Gantt view | Interactive Gantt charts from Team [1] | Timeline and Gantt views from Starter [9] | Timeline and Gantt from Standard [11] |
| Native time tracking | Every plan | Business, Pinnacle and Apex [5] | Advanced; through integrations on Personal [9] | From Pro [11] |
| Capacity and budgets | Team capacity in hours per week; portfolio budgets and resources | Advanced resource and capacity planning and budgeting on Pinnacle [1] | Not described | Not described |
| AI agents and their controls | AI employees with scoped tools; safe mode, approval policies, action ledger and undo | Agents on Business and up, created by space admins, tested in a playground, reasoning shown [2][3] | AI Teammates and AI Studio [9] | AI agent workforce, limited on Basic [11] |
| How AI is metered | Credits, about a cent each: 100 or 250 per seat a month pooled, or bought in packs | AI Elite actions from Business; base allowance not stated; overage handled by discussion [1] | 5 AI requests per user a month, up to 50 per account; separate AI Studio credits [9] | 1,000 to 3,000 AI credits a month by plan; 1,000 credits = $10 [11] |
| Clients and outside people | Client portal; clients are not charged as seats | External users need a paid seat; viewers can be free [1] | Unlimited free guests on Starter [9] | Unlimited free viewers on Basic; guest access from Standard [11] |
| SSO and SCIM | SAML 2.0 / OIDC SSO and SCIM on Enterprise | SAML SSO and SCIM on Pinnacle and Apex [7][8] | SAML authentication and SCIM on Enterprise [9] | Not described |
| Security attestations named | SOC 2 Type II observation period underway; no report yet | Not described | SOC 2 Type II [9] | ISO/IEC 27001 and 27018 [11] |
#Questions
Questions buyers ask
- What is the best Wrike alternative?
- It depends on why you are leaving. Asana suits teams that want timelines, goals and portfolios with a simpler setup. monday work management suits teams that want visual boards and low-code automation. Kavanah fits teams that want a timeline, dependencies, time tracking and a client portal on every plan, no seat caps, and AI employees doing coordination work under real controls. If your process runs on Wrike's resource planning and custom workflows, staying on Wrike may be the better call.
- What is the cheapest Wrike alternative?
- For a team whose AI use is light, Kavanah's Pay as you go plan has no subscription and no seat fee: after a first credit pack, seats and projects are unlimited and you buy AI credits in packs from $10 per 1,000. On a seat plan, Kavanah Basic is $3 a seat a month, or $2 billed yearly, against Wrike Team's $10 per user a month billed annually. monday.com's Basic and Asana's Starter sit between the two.
- Can I import my Wrike projects into Kavanah?
- Yes, through a spreadsheet. Export the project to Excel from Wrike, save it as CSV, and import it into a new Kavanah project; each status becomes a board column and assignees are matched by name or email. Up to 1,000 rows per import. Wrike's Excel export does not include attachments or comments, and Kavanah does not import dependencies, custom fields or folder hierarchy, so keep the export and Wrike as your archive.
- Does Kavanah sync with Wrike?
- No. There is no Wrike connector, sync or direct importer today; moving work is a one-time CSV import. Plan a cutover date for each project rather than a long period of running both tools.
- Does Kavanah have time tracking and Gantt charts?
- Time tracking, yes; a Gantt chart, no. Native time tracking, a Timeline view (tasks as bars on a calendar, by person), task dependencies (blocked by / blocks) and a critical-path chart in Planning are on every Kavanah plan, including the free Starter plan. There is no dedicated Gantt view; on Wrike, interactive Gantt charts start on Team, so a team that lives in them may be better served there.
- How do Kavanah's AI employees compare with Wrike's AI agents?
- Both put limits on agents. Wrike's agents are created by space admins, can be tested in a playground, and show the reasoning behind each action. Kavanah's AI employees act only inside the projects and tools you give them, chosen categories of action can be set to wait for a person's approval before they run, every action is recorded in a ledger, and actions can be undone. Kavanah meters AI in credits at about a cent each, with the allowance stated per plan.
- When should a team stay on Wrike?
- When the process lives in what Wrike does well: advanced resource and capacity planning, budgeting, custom workflows and request forms built up over years, bi-directional sync with other enterprise systems, or a set of Wrike agents you already rely on. In those cases the cost of rebuilding is likely to exceed what you save.
#Go deeper
One question at a time
- Wrike Alternatives in 2026: An Honest Comparison of Four ToolsWrike is a capable work platform with a steep plan ladder. Here is how Asana, monday work management and Kavanah compare on price, user caps, time tracking and AI agents, and when staying on Wrike is the better call.
- How to Migrate From Wrike to Kavanah: Excel Export, CSV Import and What Stays BehindThere is no Wrike importer in Kavanah, but there is a clean route: Wrike's Excel export, saved as CSV, imported by column name. Here is each step, every limit on both sides, and what you will rebuild by hand.
- Wrike Pricing Explained (2026): Seat Groups, User Caps and AI Elite ActionsWrike's per-user prices are clear; the bill is less so. Seats are sold in groups, Team stops at 15 users, Business is annual only, and AI is metered in actions with an unstated starter pack. Here is the arithmetic.
- Working With Clients in Wrike: External Users, Viewers and What Each One CostsAgencies and service teams bring clients into their project tool. In Wrike, what a client may do decides whether they need a paid seat. Here is how its licence types work, and how a client portal handles the same job.
Related reading
- Asana alternative: an honest comparisonSeat steps, AI requests, and what an Asana import carries.
- monday.com alternative: an honest comparisonSeat buckets, automation caps, and moving your boards.
- Smartsheet alternative: an honest comparisonFrom a grid of sheets to boards, with time and AI included.
- PricingPer-seat plans, Pay as you go, and how AI credits work.
Sources
- [1] Plans and Pricing — Wrike, 2026, updated
- [2] How to Create an AI Agent — Wrike Help Center, 2026, updated
- [3] Wrike launches AI agents delivering six days of output in a five-day work week — Wrike, 2026
- [4] Exporting Data to Excel From Wrike — Wrike Help Center, 2026, updated
- [5] Tracking Time in Wrike — Wrike Help Center, 2026, updated
- [6] User Rights by License Type — Wrike Help Center, 2026, updated
- [7] SAML SSO: Implementation Guide — Wrike Help Center, 2026, updated
- [8] SCIM API — Wrike Help Center, 2026, updated
- [9] Asana pricing: Personal, Starter, Advanced, Enterprise — Asana, 2026, updated
- [10] CSV + Asana: Import work data into Asana — Asana, 2026, updated
- [11] monday.com pricing — monday.com, 2026, updated
Sources and the comparison were checked on October 30, 2026. Product details change; check each vendor's own pages before you decide.
Run it on your own work.
Free to start, priced per seat from $3 a month with AI usage metered in credits.