Kanban boards for distributed teams tracking work visibly
Trello is the Kanban board most teams have used at least once. Acquired by Atlassian in 2017 and now ten-plus years old, it remains the simplest way to spin up a visual list of work, drag cards across columns and feel productive. We picked it because for small teams, side projects and lightweight planning, Trello is still hard to beat — you are productive in five minutes. The trade-off is that as soon as you need timeline planning, dependencies, real reporting or scaled agile, you are nudged towards Jira inside the same Atlassian ecosystem.
You create a workspace, add boards, fill them with lists (To Do, Doing, Done is the cliché for a reason) and drop cards in. Cards hold checklists, attachments, comments, due dates, labels, members and custom fields. Power-Ups extend behaviour — calendar view, Slack integration, GitHub links, voting, time tracking and a thousand others. Atlassian Intelligence draws cards summaries and helps draft updates inside Premium.
Above the basic board, Trello offers timeline, calendar, table and dashboard views (Premium and above), automation through Butler (rule-based actions, scheduled commands, board buttons) and Workspace-level settings for permissions and visibility. Cards now sync to Atlassian-wide search, so a Trello card and a Jira issue surface side by side.
Trello publishes Free, Standard, Premium and Enterprise tiers. Free covers up to 10 boards per workspace, unlimited cards, unlimited storage (with a 10 MB per-file cap) and basic automation. Standard at $5 per user per month annually lifts the board limit, adds advanced checklists, custom fields and 1,000 Workspace command runs. Premium at $10 per user per month adds timeline, calendar, table and dashboard views plus admin and security tools. Enterprise is annual-only and quoted, typically starting around $17.50 per user per month for 50+ seats.
The honest cost watch: many teams discover they want timeline view first, which forces the jump from $5 to $10 per user. Plan that into the budget if you suspect you will outgrow pure boards.
| Tool | Strength | Starter price | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trello | Simplest Kanban experience | Free / $5/user/mo | Small teams and side projects |
| Jira | Agile depth | Free / $7.53/user/mo | Engineering at scale |
| Asana | Cross-functional projects | Free / $13.49/user/mo | Marketing and ops |
| Notion | Wiki + lightweight boards | Free / $10/user/mo | Generalist documentation |
Verified deal
The Free plan is a real Kanban tool, not a teaser. Step up to Premium when you need timeline, dashboards or admin controls — that is usually where the value crosses the price.
See the Trello offerAgencies use Trello boards per client or per sprint. Columns map to workflow stages (Backlog → In Progress → Review → Done). Power-Ups sync Slack notifications to team channels, and free tier accommodates unlimited team members across multiple boards without seat costs.
Small engineering shops use Trello for sprint planning. GitHub Power-Up auto-creates cards from issues and links PRs to board items. Trello's simplicity avoids Jira's permission and workflow overhead for teams not yet needing advanced issue tracking.
Support teams use Trello columns to represent ticket states (New → Assigned → Resolved → Closed). Power-Ups integrate Slack for alert routing. Trello's low friction makes it faster to deploy than Zendesk for teams handling <500 monthly tickets.
Quarterly access to product leadership.
Bonus credits redeemable on partner tooling.
We re-verify the offer every quarter so it never goes stale.
Hit the button on this page — opens the partner site in a new tab.
Check your investor or accelerator benefits portal for the Trello partner code. Y Combinator, Sequoia, and most Tier 1 VCs have codes available.
Renewals stay at the same rate — verified by us, not the vendor.
| Feature | Trello |
|---|---|
| Free trial | 14 days |
| Cheapest paid plan | $0/mo |
| Annual discount | Up to 25% |
| Refund window | 30 days |
| Setup time | < 1 hour |
| Best for | Founders |
“Best lightweight task management for non-technical teams”
“Premium is worth it for Timeline view alone”
“The simplest project tracking tool I've found”
Verified offer
Verified offer
Verified offer
Verified founder pricing
Free plan + free trial available
Free trial available
Free trial available
Free trial available
