What Asana does well
Asana is excellent at structured internal execution: clear task ownership, dependencies, timeline and portfolio views, and reliable notifications. For a team coordinating its own delivery pipeline, it's a polished, proven choice.
Where Asana gets stretched for agencies
Clients are guests at best
Asana's guest access shares your task list — it doesn't give clients anything designed for them. No way to book your team, sign a scope, or join a kickoff from inside the project.
The meeting layer is missing
Agency projects run on meetings — kickoffs, reviews, weekly check-ins. In Asana-land those live in Zoom and Google Docs, and their outcomes have to be manually turned into tasks.
Another seat-priced line item
Asana's per-seat pricing plus the Calendly/DocuSign/Zoom stack around it adds up fast for a small agency — and each tool multiplies onboarding for every new hire and every new client.
| Progress | Asana | |
|---|---|---|
| Tasks / board / calendar | Built in | Built in (deeper timeline/portfolio views) |
| Client booking pages | Built in | None — external |
| E-signatures for scopes/SOWs | Built in | None — external |
| Meetings with AI notes → action items | Built in; guests join by link | External + manual follow-up |
| Team chat | Built-in channels + DMs | Comments; chat lives in Slack |
| Price today | Free (open beta) | Per-seat plans |
Why agencies pick Progress
Each client engagement is one workspace: board, brief, files, chat, booking page, contract signature, and meetings whose AI notes turn into action items on the same board. New account manager? One tool to learn. New client? They interact through clean, no-account surfaces instead of guest seats.
Switching from Asana
Run one upcoming engagement in Progress end to end — it's free during the beta, so the trial costs nothing but an afternoon. If you'd like existing projects brought across, message in-app support and we'll help migrate them by hand.
Common questions
Does Progress have timelines and portfolios like Asana?
No — Progress focuses on per-project boards, calendars, and the client-facing lifecycle rather than cross-project portfolio management. If roadmap-level portfolio views are your core need, Asana remains strong there.
How do meeting notes become tasks?
Progress meetings can record and transcribe automatically; the AI produces a summary with action items tied to the project, so decisions don't die in a Google Doc.
Can clients see the board?
You choose what's client-facing: publish specific docs and files as clean public pages, run meetings they join by link, and keep the internal board internal.
What does Progress cost?
Free during the open beta, with pricing to come later — beta users hear first.