How do I judge whether a free plan is big enough?
Count the people and the objects that must be inside the plan on day one. Factro allows ten users, Teamwork five, and Planio and Kanban Tool two. Ganttic counts ten scheduled resources and ignores how many colleagues look at the result, while Beesbusy sets no head count and instead holds back scheduling features. Those are four different kinds of limit, and the one that bites depends on whether your pain is team size, number of boards or planning views.
Then list the single feature you would miss most. For an agency that bills hours it is the time and invoice link, which sits in Teamwork.com. For a project office it is the Gantt chart, which Factro includes and Beesbusy reserves for paid plans. A free plan that lacks that feature is a trial in disguise, however many users it admits.
What should I check before putting client data in a free tier?
Start with where the data physically sits and who runs it. Factro states German data centres only, Planio runs German hardware, Beesbusy names a Swiss host and Ganttic names AWS in Frankfurt. Teamwork and Kanban Tool both state a mix of US and EU infrastructure, which is not disqualifying but should be a conscious choice documented in your records of processing.
Next, read the data processing terms that apply to free accounts, because some vendors offer the agreement only on paid plans. We have not verified that for each tool here, so ask the vendor in writing. Also check what an export looks like, since a free plan is the plan most likely to be abandoned and the data has to leave in a usable form.
How do I move from a free plan to a paid one without losing the setup?
Staying with the same vendor is the cheap path. Paid steps in this list are modest: Beesbusy Business at €9.99, Kanban Tool Team at $6 per user and Planio at $25 per month for five users. Upgrading keeps boards, history and integrations, and what changes is the limit or the missing view.
Leaving is harder, because the free tier of one tool rarely maps to the data model of another. Planio imports from an existing Redmine installation, Beesbusy imports from Trello on the paid plans, and for the others plan on CSV export and a manual rebuild of boards. Do the first export while the project is small, not at the moment you need it.
When is a free plan the wrong choice?
It is the wrong choice when the team is already above the cap and would pay within a month anyway. A six-person agency on Teamwork.com, or a three-person duo on Planio, starts with a purchase decision, so compare paid plans directly. It is also wrong when the work involves regulated data and the vendor will not sign a processing agreement for free accounts.
Open source software is the alternative if the goal is zero licence cost and full control, but it trades the price for administration time. This guide leaves self-hosted projects out on purpose, because a self-run server needs backups, updates and someone responsible for both.
What does a free plan really cost over a year?
The licence is zero, but three costs remain. Setup time is the first, because a board built in a free tool and abandoned after six months is a full loss of that effort.
Hosting risk is the second, since several vendors state US infrastructure in the chain. The third is the upgrade step: Teamwork asks $9.99 per user per month at Basics and Kanban Tool $6, so a ten-person team that outgrows either pays from about $720 to $1,200 a year.
The cheapest outcome is a free plan you never have to leave. Factro at ten users and Beesbusy with unlimited collaborators are the two tools here that can plausibly stay free for a whole small organisation, provided its needs match what the free tier unlocks.
