To effectively manage a project, organizations are usually forced to combine multiple apps such as project and task management, time tracking and invoicing software for billing clients. This means joggling between multiple platforms, which can be inefficient. Paymo offers an all-encompassing solution by combining all these features into one platform.

In this Paymo review, we will analyze the tool’s features, pricing, usability and customer support. Should Paymo not meet your needs, we will also evaluate its top alternatives and competitors to help you find a suitable solution for your organization’s needs.

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What is Paymo?

Paymo is a work and project management software designed for freelancers, small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as educational institutions. The platform helps users manage their projects, tasks, timesheets, resources and invoices. Paymo is available as both a web application and a mobile app, making it accessible across different devices and platforms.

Hands-on Paymo review results

Paymo pricing

Pricing score: 3.5/5

Free

Paymo’s free plan gives you access to its basic features, such as unlimited time tracking, invoices and tasks. The plan is suitable for individuals or teams on a budget or those looking to test Paymo’s usability before making a financial commitment. The downside of this plan is that it supports only five clients and up to 10 projects. Storage is limited to 1GB.

Starter

The starter plan is priced at $9.9 per user per month (billed monthly) or $5.9 per user per month (billed monthly). It includes all the free plan features, along with additional features like flat rate project, retainer project, task calendar, kanban board view and guest access. File storage is limited to 5GB.

Small Office

Paymo claims the small office plan is their most popular. The month-to-month subscription costs $15.9 per user per month, while the annual subscription costs $10.9 per user per month. This plan is ideal for small teams or fast-growing businesses. It includes a task spreadsheet view, meta kanban board, recurring tasks, bulk time entries, integration and API access. This plan gives you up to 50GB of file storage space.

Business

At $23.9 per user per month when billed monthly or $16.9 per user per month when billed annually, the business plan offers advanced features such as task dependencies, automatic ghost bookings, portfolio Gantt chart and priority support. Paymo’s business plan is suitable for larger teams and businesses that require more robust project management capabilities.

Core Paymo features

Score: 4.8/5

Project planning and scheduling

The platform gives you an extensive library of project templates that you can use to kickstart your project planning. You can create milestones, set deadlines, assign tasks to team members and track their progress. Instead of starting a new project from a blank page, Paymo allows you to duplicate an existing project with similar task structures and select which items to keep and discard.

Paymo offers an automatic scheduling feature that helps you create project schedules based on task dependencies, duration and available resources (Figure A).

Figure A

Real-time communication/collaboration

On Paymo, you can collaborate in real time with your team members using “dedicated discussions and comments area.” The platform’s activity stream lets you see all the recent activities performed by all users on a project level. It lets you stay updated on the progress and changes made within the project. Its guest access feature (Figure B) allows you to invite external users to your account and keep them updated on the progress of their projects. When it comes to accessibility, you can decide what’s been shared with the guests and what they can and cannot access.

Figure B

Time tracking

Paymo has a web and desktop timer that captures employees’ time on their tasks. The desktop app features automatic time tracking, allowing users to conveniently and accurately track time spent on different activities. The desktop app allows you to manually enter time at intervals or as a bulk entry (Figure C), enabling you to track their time even in unstable or offline situations.

Figure C

Financial management

Paymo combines project and financial management features to help you properly manage your finances within the context of your projects. With this capability, you can track project budgets, expenses and invoices and get your overall financial overview within the same system.

Paymo’s financial management capability allows you to set project budgets and measure an outcome against them, track expenses for a project or work item and tag them for ease of filtering, view the financial health of your project in terms of estimate vs. actual budget, set fixed time rates or time-based rates and choose billing priority. This gives you a clear view of how project expenses impact your overall budget and allows for better financial planning and control.

Invoicing and online payment

Paymo also offers invoicing and online payment capabilities, allowing users to create and send professional invoices to clients directly from the platform (Figure D). Paymo supports multi-language invoices, allowing you to create invoices from templates in 15 languages. Invoices can be generated based on tracked time, expenses or fixed prices, making it easy to bill clients accurately. The platform supports different payment gateways, including PayPal, Stripe, Authorize.net. and PM payments, making it convenient for clients to make payments online.

Figure D

Third-party integrations

You can extend Paymo capabilities by connecting it with third-party software and services that you commonly use in your work processes. Top Paymo’s integrations include:

• Google.
• Google Calendar.
• Slack.
• QuickBooks Online.
• JotForm.
• Xero.
• Integromat.
• Typeform.
• Pabbly.
• Pomodone.
• LambdaTest.
• Shift.
• Skyvia.
• Rethink.
• Zapier.

Paymo ease of use

Ease of use score: 4.5/5

Paymo is reasonably easy to set up, learn and use. Most reviewers praise its intuitive user interface and straightforward navigation. The tool gives you the flexibility to customize the display and layout of your dashboard, as well as the display and layout of your work areas. It also allows you to easily add tasks, projects, time entries or users – depending on your role.

Another feature that makes Paymo easy to use is its global search functionality. This capability lets you search for materials in Paymo by using a specific keyword or filter.

Paymo customer service and support

Service and support score: 4.5/5

Knowledge Base/Help Center

Paymo has a comprehensive knowledge base that serves as a self-help resource. It includes articles, tutorials and FAQs to guide you through different features and functionalities.

Service Channels

You can submit a ticket by filling out a form on the Paymo website to contact the support team directly with your queries or concerns. You can also visit their U.S. or E.U. office or contact them on social media. Paymo doesn’t offer live chat support, but our research found that their service teams are generally responsive to support tickets.

Community

Paymo has an active community forum where users can ask questions, share ideas and provide feedback. Paymo’s community has four categories, with subcategories covering various topics, in order to help users find relevant discussions without hassle.

Paymo pros and cons

Best uses for Paymo

Invoicing and work time tracking

Paymo is a top choice for individuals or organizations shopping for time tracking and invoicing tools. Think of it as getting the best of both worlds in one platform. With Paymo, you can easily track your time on different tasks and projects, allowing you to bill clients accurately or track your productivity. The built-in invoicing feature allows you to create invoices and send them directly to clients – and clients have the option of paying you online via Stripe or PayPal.

Reporting and analytics

Paymo reporting and analytics features give you insights into your team’s performance and project progress. You can generate detailed reports on the time spent (both static and live time), user, client and project overall health, enabling you to monitor performance across the board.

Collaboration

If you need a tool that allows you to collaborate with teammates and clients, Paymo is a suitable choice. It allows real time communication among team members and grants guest access to clients, making it easy to share project progress updates.

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Paymo alternatives and competitors

nTask

nTask is a simple project management software that caters to the needs of SMBs by allowing teams to collaborate, plan, analyze and deliver projects. If you are on a budget, nTask is an affordable alternative to Paycom, offering similar features and functionalities at a much lower price point.

For more information, read our comprehensive nTask review to determine if it is the best Paymo alternative for you.

Trello

Trello is a visual, card-based interface project management software that allows you to move tasks through different stages – from to do, to doing and done. Although Trello does not offer financial management capabilities like Paymo, it makes up for this with its extensive list of integrations known as Power-Ups and customizability.

For more information, read our in-depth Trello review to determine if it is the best Paymo alternative for you.

Todoist

Todoist is a to-do list and task management solution that helps you keep track of tasks and stay organized. If you are looking for a simpler and more focused task management tool, Todoist is an excellent alternative to Paycom. Todoist allows you to create tasks, set due dates, assign priority levels to tasks, add labels and create recurring tasks for repetitive work.

For more details, read our in-depth Todoist review to determine if it is the best Paymo alternative for you. You can also check out the top Todoist alternatives to compare them.

Paymo review methodology

To write this review, we collected primary product data (pricing, features, use cases, etc.) from the Paymo website and gathered secondary information from various sources, including user feedback and our own experience using the software. We signed up for Paymo’s free trial, downloaded its Mac desktop app and tested its key features and functionality.

We assigned score values to different aspects of the software, such as ease of use, feature set, pricing, customer support and expert analysis. These scores were based on our own observations and analysis of the software. Paymo received a total rating of 4 out of 5 based on our review methodology.