⏼ Why Teamwork?

Teamwork's built for the agency world—client portals, budgets, billable hours, and profitability tracking all baked in. It's not trying to be everything to everyone.

✔ Client-Facing Features

Unlike generic project tools, Teamwork lets you give clients portal access without exposing your internal chaos. They see their projects, you see everything. The permission controls actually make sense.

✔ Profitability Tracking

Track budgets against actual time and costs in real-time. You'll know if a project's bleeding money before it's too late. This alone has saved agencies from scope creep disasters.

✔ Integrations

Connects with your existing stack—accounting software, CRMs, time tracking. API access for custom builds when needed.

✔ Scales With You

Works for 5-person shops up to 100+ person agencies. You're not forced to migrate as you grow.

⛭ How Teamwork Works

Create client accounts, set up projects under each client, break projects into task lists, assign work, track time. Pretty standard workflow.

Setup Time

Small teams get up and running in a few hours. Agencies with complex workflows, integrations, and custom fields? Plan for a week to get everything configured properly.

Daily Operations

Check your dashboard for what's overdue, update task status, log time, communicate in comments. The interface is clean enough that you're not hunting for features. Advanced automation and templates take longer to master.

Reporting & Insights

Built-in reports show project health, team utilization, and profitability. For deeper analysis or custom reporting, you'll export to Excel or your BI tool.

⍟ The Verdict: Our Assessment

Overall Rating: 8.4/10 — Strong choice for client-facing professional services.

Teamwork nails the agency use case. Client portals, profitability tracking, and workload management solve real problems that generic PM tools ignore. The trade-off? You're paying for features you might not need if you're not doing client work.

Bottom Line: Choose Teamwork if you're managing client projects and need visibility into profitability and team capacity. Skip it if you're focused on internal work—you'll pay for features you won't use.

⚠ 3 Critical Mistakes to Avoid

Mistake #1: Underestimating Per-User Costs

The Problem: Trial shows one price, but scaling up reveals the real cost. A 15-person agency budgeted based on the "Deliver" plan at $10/user ($150/month), then realized they needed "Grow" at $18/user for required features.

The Cost: $270/month instead of $150—an extra $1,440/year. Budget approved, but delayed other investments.

⚡ How to Avoid It: Map your must-have features to the actual tier that includes them. Calculate cost for your full team size at that tier before committing.

Mistake #2: Poor Project Template Setup

The Problem: Rushing into live projects without creating reusable templates. Every new project becomes a manual rebuild.

The Cost: 2-4 hours wasted per project setup. Over a year, that's 50+ hours for agencies running 20+ projects annually.

⚡ How to Avoid It: Spend your first week building 3-5 project templates for your most common work types. Include standard task lists, milestones, and client portal settings. The upfront investment pays back immediately.

Mistake #3: Skipping Team Training

The Problem: Assuming the tool is intuitive enough that people will figure it out. Results in inconsistent usage and low adoption.

The Cost: Teams report 40-60% adoption instead of 80-90% target. Fractured communication as some people stay in email while others use Teamwork.

⚡ How to Avoid It: Run role-specific training sessions—what project managers need differs from what designers need. Create a simple quick-start guide for your team's specific workflow. Check adoption weekly and address issues before they become habits.