Who Each One Is Actually For

What It Actually Costs

Both platforms offer free and paid plans, but their current pricing and feature allowances differ significantly.

The following US prices are monthly equivalents of annual billing.

Month-to-month subscriptions generally cost more. Taxes, optional services, additional integrations, and implementation costs are excluded.

Current plan comparison

US pricing checked November 12, 2026. All paid prices shown are per user, per month, billed annually. Asana's smallest paid subscription requires at least two seats. Current free Asana Personal accounts allow two users; certain legacy accounts had higher allowances. Sources: Zoho Projects pricing , Asana pricing , and Asana Timesheets and Budgets .

Zoho Projects pricing by edition

The Free edition includes up to five users and three projects, with basic task management, subtasks, mobile applications, and limited automation.

Premium includes the capabilities most relevant to billable client work.

These include:

• Unlimited projects. Manage multiple client or internal projects without the Free edition's project-count limit.
• Time logs and timesheets. Record time against tasks and issues.
• Timesheet approvals. Review and approve submitted time entries.
• Project budgets. Track planned and actual effort or cost.
• Earned value management. Monitor project performance against planned work.
• Task blueprints and workflows. Automate supported project and task processes.
• Custom views and statuses. Adapt project structures to operational requirements.

Enterprise builds on Premium with portfolio dashboards, custom roles, broader administrative controls, critical path and baselines, sandbox functionality, and higher automation allowances.

Ultimate adds multi-user and multi-project timesheets, additional resource-management capabilities, larger workflow allowances, and expanded reporting and storage.

Businesses should select the edition that supports the required financial, reporting, and governance workflows.

Asana pricing by edition

Asana Starter costs $13.49 per user per month with month-to-month billing, compared with $10.99 on annual billing.

Asana Advanced costs $30.49 per user per month with monthly billing, compared with $24.99 on annual billing.

Asana Personal currently supports two users under its standard free terms.

Some legacy Personal accounts previously supported up to ten users, but that older allowance should not be treated as the entitlement for new accounts.

Asana's paid subscriptions also have seat-purchasing rules. The minimum is two seats, and larger teams may need to purchase seats in specified increments.

The actual bill should therefore be confirmed against the number of paid seats required, not simply the number of employees.

Annual cost for 5, 20, and 50 users

The following calculations compare Zoho Projects Premium with Asana Starter, using published annual-billing rates.

Subscription-only annual comparison: Asana Starter at $10.99/user/month versus Zoho Projects Premium at $4/user/month. Assumes the listed number of paid seats, constant list pricing, and annual billing. Excludes taxes, add-ons, implementation, and integrations. The editions are not feature-equivalent.

For a twenty-person team, Zoho Projects Premium costs $960 per year, compared with $2,637.60 for Asana Starter.

That is an annual subscription difference of $1,677.60.

However, the comparison becomes more relevant for client-service teams when time tracking and project budgets are included.

Adding time tracking and budgets to Asana

Asana now provides a first-party Timesheets and Budgets add-on.

The published US price is $5.99 per user per month, billed annually.

It is available on Starter, Advanced, Enterprise, and Enterprise+.

The add-on includes centralized timesheets, timesheet approvals, billable and non-billable hours, user rates, budget tracking, cost reporting, and forecasting.

For a Starter user requiring the add-on, the combined annual-billing monthly price is:

Importantly, Asana does not require every organization member to purchase the add-on.

Additional licenses can be assigned only to the people who need timesheet and budget functionality.

For example, a twenty-person team might need the add-on for only ten employees who perform billable work.

That can reduce the actual add-on cost compared with licensing the entire organization.

The following table illustrates the cost when every user does require the add-on.

Annual subscription-only illustration. Assumes every listed Asana user also purchases the $5.99 Timesheets and Budgets add-on. Actual costs may be lower if only some team members require add-on licenses. Accounting applications, integrations, taxes, and implementation are excluded.

At twenty users, Asana Starter plus Timesheets and Budgets costs $4,075.20 annually if every user needs the add-on.

Zoho Projects Premium costs $960 annually for the same number of paid users.

That creates a $3,115.20 annual subscription difference.

The comparison does not mean the products provide identical project management, reporting, or automation capabilities.

It demonstrates why organizations with extensive billable time requirements should evaluate the full licensing structure.

Time Tracking and Project Budgets

This is the most important functional distinction for professional-services businesses.

Both platforms can support time tracking and project financial management.

The difference lies in included features, licensing, and the path from recorded work to customer billing.

Zoho Projects: timesheets included from Premium

Zoho Projects Premium includes time logs and timesheets as standard functionality.

Team members can record time against tasks and issues manually or through timers.

Timesheets can distinguish billable and non-billable work, allowing organizations to understand how project time is being spent.

Managers can review submitted time and use multi-level approval workflows where configured.

Approved time entries can then support billing processes through the appropriate Zoho financial integration.

Premium also includes project budgeting and earned value management.

That allows managers to evaluate whether a project is progressing according to its planned time and cost.

These features are especially useful for consulting firms, agencies, implementation partners, and other organizations that deliver client projects.

Asana: native tracking and a first-party add-on

Asana's time-tracking capabilities should not be described as exclusively third-party.

Asana Advanced includes native task-level time tracking.

Users can record estimated time, actual time, and time entries against supported tasks.

Asana also provides a live timer and reporting on tracked effort.

On Starter, the base subscription does not include native time tracking.

However, Starter customers can purchase the Timesheets and Budgets add-on without moving to Advanced.

The add-on supports:

• Centralized timesheets. Record work across projects and tasks.
• Timesheet approvals. Submit time entries for manager review.
• Billable and non-billable hours. Separate client work from internal time.
• User rates. Apply configured rates to calculate costs.
• Project budgets. Monitor spending and budget status.
• Cost reporting. Compare planned and actual costs.
• Forecasting. Estimate the financial impact of ongoing work.

On Advanced, the add-on can also support broader portfolio-level financial visibility.

Enterprise editions add further resource and capacity-planning capabilities, depending on the subscription.

Asana can therefore support professional-services financial tracking.

The difference is that these features may require a separately licensed add-on.

Official references: Asana native time tracking and Asana Timesheets and Budgets .

Project budgeting and job costing

Zoho Projects Premium includes several methods of measuring project financial performance.

Budgets can be based on planned hours or monetary amounts.

Organizations can configure staff rates, project rates, or task-related billing approaches according to the available project settings.

The platform supports planned-versus-actual comparisons, budget thresholds, and forecasting.

Earned value management helps project managers compare planned work, actual spending, and the value of completed work.

This can be useful when a project is consuming more hours than expected or progressing more slowly than the original plan.

Asana's Timesheets and Budgets add-on also supports project cost monitoring, rate-based calculations, and estimates compared with actual spending.

It would therefore be inaccurate to claim that Asana has no budgeting or cost-management capabilities.

Zoho Projects' advantage is the inclusion of its core project financial controls at a much lower published subscription price.

From Logged Time to an Invoice

For a services business, time tracking is only one part of the financial workflow.

The next question is what happens after billable time has been recorded and approved.

Zoho Projects with Zoho Books or Zoho Invoice

Zoho Projects provides native integrations with Zoho Books and Zoho Invoice.

These integrations can connect project execution with the relevant customer-billing workflow.

The integration must be enabled and configured. It is not accurate to say that all time logs automatically become invoices without an integration.

When configured, supported projects, customers, tasks, users, and approved billable timesheets can synchronize into Zoho Books.

The finance application can then use that information to create invoices and manage the associated customer transactions.

This helps eliminate unnecessary exports and manual re-entry when the workflow is implemented correctly.

However, Zoho Projects is not a complete accounting system.

The organization still needs the appropriate Zoho Books or Zoho Invoice functionality, licensing, permissions, and configuration.

Project managers should also verify billable status, approved timesheets, rate settings, customer mappings, and synchronization errors.

An unapproved time entry or incorrectly mapped project should not automatically become a customer invoice.

The benefit is a native connection between project operations and finance, not a complete absence of setup requirements.

Official references: Zoho Books and Projects integration and Zoho Projects finance integration .

Asana and the billing process

Asana's Timesheets and Budgets add-on helps organizations collect time, monitor project costs, and prepare accurate billing information.

Teams can export time and cost data for reporting and downstream invoicing.

Asana can also connect to accounting and business applications through available integrations and automation services.

However, the add-on should not be mistaken for a complete accounting application.

A business still needs to determine how approved hours become customer invoices, how rates are maintained, and which system owns the financial record.

Depending on the environment, that may involve a supported connector, a custom integration, or a controlled export and import process.

If your team already works effectively in Asana, building that billing connection may be preferable to replacing the entire project management environment.

Workflow Automation and Limits

Automation is another important difference.

Asana Starter includes unlimited automation actions under its published plan terms.

Teams can use supported rules to assign tasks, update fields, send notifications, and respond to workflow events.

Zoho Projects also supports workflow rules, blueprints, macros, webhooks, and custom functions.

However, Zoho uses monthly automation-action allowances that vary by edition.

Figures reflect the main Zoho Projects pricing page as of November 12, 2026. A separate Zoho Automation Credits help article still shows a lower Premium allowance. Confirm the effective quota in your subscription before planning high-volume automation. Asana's unlimited automation allowance remains subject to the supported features and service terms of its selected edition.

These quotas are relevant for organizations with frequent automated task updates, project transitions, notifications, and integration actions.

However, the number of executions is not the only consideration.

The actual comparison should include:

• Available triggers. Which events can start a workflow?
• Conditions and branching. What logic can determine the next action?
• Available actions. Which tasks, records, and integrations can the workflow update?
• Approval processes. How are changes reviewed and authorized?
• Execution volume. How frequently will the automation run?
• Monitoring and errors. How will failures be identified and corrected?

Asana has a meaningful advantage for teams that rely heavily on supported rule-based automation at the Starter tier.

Zoho Projects remains capable, but high-volume environments should evaluate its edition-specific execution limits.

Where Asana Genuinely Wins

Zenatta is a Zoho Premium Partner, so that perspective is worth knowing.

Asana has several legitimate strengths, particularly for teams coordinating work across departments.

Interface and team adoption

One of Asana's most compelling strengths is its emphasis on work visibility and collaboration.

Its List, Board, Calendar, Timeline, and Gantt views help teams organize work in different ways.

Some teams may find Asana's interface easier to understand and more inviting for everyday task management.

That is an editorial judgment rather than a universal product fact, but it matters in a real implementation.

A system with sophisticated project controls is not useful if employees do not consistently update their work.

For organizations where the primary challenge is task visibility, coordination, and accountability, Asana may encourage a more natural daily workflow.

We recommend testing real projects with the actual users rather than assuming the product with more features will be adopted more successfully.

Cross-functional work management

Asana is designed for coordinating work across different departments and business functions.

Common use cases include:

• Marketing campaigns. Coordinate creative, content, approvals, and launch activities.
• Internal operations. Manage recurring responsibilities and cross-functional projects.
• Product launches. Connect milestones, tasks, and dependencies.
• Team requests. Use forms to collect and route work.
• Strategic initiatives. Connect projects to broader goals and organizational priorities.

Asana Starter includes dashboards, forms, custom fields, Timeline and Gantt views, and unlimited automation actions.

Advanced adds portfolios, goals, workload management, approvals, proofing, and native time tracking.

These features can make Asana attractive for businesses that need a broad work-management environment.

Integration ecosystem

Asana offers a broad ecosystem of integrations across productivity, communication, document management, reporting, and business applications.

Its published free-plan documentation references more than one hundred integrations.

Paid editions provide additional integration capabilities depending on the plan.

This can be valuable for organizations using a mix of software vendors.

Zoho Projects also supports integrations with third-party services, including collaboration, development, and automation platforms.

Its strongest native connections, however, are often within the Zoho ecosystem.

The important question is whether the specific integrations your organization needs support the relevant triggers, fields, permissions, and actions.

An established Asana integration may be worth retaining if rebuilding it would be expensive or operationally disruptive.

Unlimited Starter automations

Asana Starter includes unlimited automation actions under its published usage terms.

That can matter when a business uses frequent rule-based updates across many projects.

Zoho Projects offers workflow automation, but applies monthly execution allowances based on the edition.

The automation feature sets differ, so this should not be treated as a claim of complete functional equivalence.

Nevertheless, Asana's lack of a published Starter automation-action cap is a practical advantage for the right environment.

Where Zoho Projects Wins

Time tracking and budgets at a lower price

This remains Zoho Projects' most compelling advantage for professional-services teams.

Premium includes time logs, timesheets, approvals, project budgets, and earned value management for $4 per user per month, billed annually.

Those capabilities are closely related to the daily financial management of client projects.

A consulting firm, for example, may need to know:

• How many hours were budgeted for a project?
• How many hours have been logged?
• Which hours are billable?
• Which time entries have been approved?
• Is the project likely to exceed its budget?
• What should the customer be invoiced?

Zoho Projects is designed to help answer those questions through its project, timesheet, and budgeting features.

Asana can support comparable categories of financial tracking, but may require its Timesheets and Budgets add-on.

The difference in subscription pricing can become substantial as the number of billable employees grows.

Native connection to Zoho financial applications

Zoho Projects integrates with Zoho Books and Zoho Invoice through supported native integrations.

This can simplify the process of turning approved project work into customer billing.

For organizations already using Zoho CRM, Zoho Books, or Zoho Invoice, these connections may reduce the need for additional integration services.

However, the integrations still require configuration and appropriate application access.

Customer mapping, billing methods, approved time, and synchronization must be validated.

The advantage is native integration, not automatic invoicing without any setup.

Project budgeting and earned value management

Zoho Projects Premium includes project budgeting tools that help managers evaluate financial performance.

Budgets can be tracked against planned and actual time or cost.

Budget status and forecast information can help identify projects at risk of overrunning their original estimates.

Earned value management adds another method of evaluating project performance.

For businesses delivering fixed-fee or time-and-materials projects, those controls can be particularly useful.

Asana's Timesheets and Budgets add-on also supports rate-based cost tracking and budget forecasts.

Zoho's advantage is the availability of these core capabilities in its lower-cost Premium subscription.

Lower license costs for larger teams

Zoho Projects Premium costs $4 per user per month on annual billing.

Asana Starter costs $10.99.

Zoho Projects Enterprise, at $9 per user per month on annual billing, is still below Asana Starter's published entry price.

Zoho Projects Ultimate, at $14, provides additional resource and timesheet capabilities while remaining below Asana Advanced's $24.99 list price.

These price differences can make Zoho Projects attractive when many employees need paid access.

But pricing should not replace a requirements review.

An organization that depends on Asana-specific collaboration, proofing, or integrations may find the additional license cost justified.

What Switching Involves

Zenatta has reviewed Asana exports for migration feasibility and has built Asana-to-Zoho Projects integrations.

However, our firsthand Asana migration precedent is not as extensive as our CRM and accounting implementation work.

We would rather make that distinction clear than imply every aspect of a full Asana migration has been completed on a named client engagement.

The main migration challenge is usually not creating task records.

It is preserving the relationships, historical context, automations, and operational processes around those tasks.

• Export projects and tasks before designing the import Asana supports exporting project information in formats such as CSV and JSON. Zoho Projects supports importing task data from XLS, CSV, JSON, and Microsoft Project files. Its published import limit is 5,000 tasks per import. Basic task fields can be mapped into the destination, but the structure should be reviewed before migration. Confirm how projects, milestones, sections, task lists, and subtasks will be represented.
• Validate subtasks, dependencies, and assignees Task titles and descriptions are only part of the project structure. Dependencies, parent-child relationships, start and due dates, assignees, and task statuses may require additional mapping. Destination users should exist before importing records assigned to those people. Test representative complex projects before proceeding with a full migration.
• Preserve historical comments separately Comments and conversations may not be included in a standard Asana CSV export. Depending on the source data and required fidelity, additional export or API-based retrieval may be necessary. Zenatta encountered a similar challenge on a separate Smartsheet-to-Zoho Projects engagement. In that project, adding historical comments to synchronized tasks required dedicated work after the tasks themselves were transferred. That is a firsthand Smartsheet migration example, not a claim that the same task was completed during an Asana migration. It illustrates why task history needs separate planning.
• Review attachments and documents Standard task exports do not necessarily include the original attachment files. Identify important documents, images, proofs, and files associated with tasks. Determine how those files will be retrieved, stored, and linked to destination tasks. Preserve the original project records until important attachments have been validated.
• Rebuild custom fields and statuses Asana custom fields do not automatically become equivalent Zoho Projects fields. Document field types, allowed values, formulas, and required statuses. Create the necessary destination fields before importing. Zoho Projects supports field and status mapping during supported imports. Validate field lengths, data types, and any values that do not map cleanly.
• Recreate workflow automations Asana rules do not automatically become Zoho Projects workflow rules, macros, or blueprints. Document the triggers, conditions, actions, notifications, and external integrations used by the existing process. Determine which workflows should be rebuilt and which can be retired. Compare expected execution volume with the Zoho edition's available automation allowance. Test the new workflows before deactivating their Asana equivalents.
• Review timesheets and billing history If the existing Asana environment includes time tracking or the Timesheets and Budgets add-on, identify historical time entries, billable classifications, user rates, and budget records. Determine which records need to be imported, preserved for reporting, or retained as references. Do not assume historical financial and time-tracking records transfer automatically. If billing is already being performed through an external system, verify the cutover process before changing project ownership.
• Consider integration instead of migration If Asana already works for the team, moving every project may not be necessary. Zenatta has built Asana-to-Zoho Projects integrations and evaluated integrations as alternatives to full migration. If the business requirement is primarily connecting project progress, time, or billing information with another system, a targeted integration may be less disruptive. The integration still requires clear record ownership, field mapping, error handling, and reconciliation.

Official references: Zoho Projects task imports and Asana export and migration documentation .

The Third Option: Keep Asana and Connect It

Replacing the project management platform is not always the best solution.

A business may be satisfied with Asana's interface, team adoption, and collaboration features, while still needing project information to reach Zoho or another financial system.

In that situation, an integration may solve the actual problem without changing how employees manage their daily work.

For example, an organization might want to synchronize:

• Project records. Keep selected project information consistent across systems.
• Task status. Reflect important delivery milestones in customer or operational records.
• Assignees and dates. Coordinate important ownership and scheduling information.
• Approved time. Transfer relevant billable time into a financial workflow.
• Customer references. Associate projects with the appropriate CRM or accounting records.

The specific integration approach depends on the required applications, APIs, available connectors, and business rules.

Zenatta has built Asana-to-Zoho Projects integrations.

That experience makes the integration option worth considering before committing to a full migration.

However, connecting two systems introduces its own ongoing responsibilities.

The implementation should define which application owns each record, how updates are synchronized, how conflicts are resolved, and how errors are monitored.

If Asana is performing well and the primary gap is downstream billing, compare the cost of the integration against the cost and disruption of a migration.

So, Which Should You Pick?

If your organization delivers billable client projects, Zoho Projects deserves serious consideration.

Its combination of timesheets, approvals, budgets, earned value management, and native finance integrations is compelling at $4 per user per month on annual billing.

If your organization primarily coordinates internal work across departments, Asana may be the better operational fit.

Its project views, collaboration tools, unlimited Starter automations, and integration ecosystem can justify a higher subscription price.

And if your team already uses Asana effectively but needs improved financial integration, consider connecting the existing system rather than replacing it.

Common Questions