Your team is growing. Projects are becoming more complex. And suddenly that simple task list is no longer enough. I thoroughly tested Wrike for a month for various projects – from content strategy to product development. And honestly? It’s powerful. But also overwhelming.
Wrike: the company
Wrike has been around since 2006 and was founded by Andrew Filev. It started as a simple tool to reduce email chaos – something every growing team struggles with. It has since evolved into a full-fledged enterprise project management solution.
The company is headquartered in San Jose, California, and primarily focuses on medium to large organizations. Think marketing teams, creative agencies, and IT departments that need to manage complex workflows. In 2021, Wrike was acquired by Citrix, which only reinforced the enterprise focus.
What sets Wrike apart? The extreme customizability. Where many project management tools force you into their way of working, Wrike lets you customize almost everything to your liking. That’s both their greatest strength and weakness.
Who is Wrike actually for?
Let’s be honest: Wrike isn’t for everyone. Are you a freelancer or small team that simply wants to track tasks? Then this is probably overkill. The learning curve is steep and you’re paying for features you’ll never use.
Wrike is really built for teams of 10-15 people or more running complex projects. Marketing teams that need to plan campaigns with dozens of deliverables. Creative agencies that need approval processes for designs. IT departments that want to manage sprints with dependencies between tasks.
Sound familiar? You have multiple departments working together. You want detailed reports on who’s doing what. You need automation because manual work becomes too time-consuming. Then Wrike is the right place for you.
Do NOT choose Wrike if you want to get started quickly without hassle. Or if your budget is tight. Or if your team is allergic to complex software. Then Asana or Monday.com are better options.
Wrike features
Okay, let’s see what you get for your money.
- Interactive Gantt charts – This is where Wrike really shines. You drag tasks back and forth, instantly see what dependencies exist, and immediately get an overview of your critical path. Perfect planning for project managers who want control over complex timelines. But note: this feature is not included in the free plan.
- Customizable dashboards – Here you can really go wild. Build your own overviews with exactly the metrics that matter to you. Want to see how many tasks need to be completed this week? Or which team members are overloaded? Just add widgets and you’re done. It does take some time to set up the way you want it.
- Time tracking – Starting with the Business plan, you can track how much time tasks take. Useful for billing or to see where your time goes. It works intuitively: start a timer or fill in afterwards. Simple but effective.
- Proofing and approvals – For creative teams, this is worth its weight in gold. Upload a design, team members can give feedback directly on specific spots, and you keep all versions neatly organized. No more endless email threads with “see attachment_final_v3_really_final.pdf”.
- Request forms – Other departments can request work from your team through standardized forms. All the info you need is collected right away, and it automatically becomes a task in your project. Saves a ton of back-and-forth communication.
- Workflow automation – When a task gets the status “Ready for review”, the right person can automatically get a notification. Or tasks can automatically move to a different folder. You save hours of manually shuffling tasks around.
- Cross-tagging of tasks – A task can exist in multiple projects at once without having to create duplicates. Super useful when working with matrix structures where people contribute to multiple projects.
Those Gantt charts deserve some extra attention. In many tools, Gantt charts are kind of an afterthought – static and not really usable. At Wrike, they’re the heart of planning. You can see at a glance which tasks are blocking each other, where you have delays, and whether deadlines are realistic. During my test, I moved an important milestone by a week, and all dependent tasks automatically moved along. That saves hours of manual adjustments.
The proofing feature is also really well thought out. I tested it with a team of designers and marketers. They could indicate exactly what the feedback was about – no more confusion about “that button at the top” when there are three buttons at the top. All feedback is collected, the designer adjusts, uploads a new version, and everyone can see what has changed. This alone can save weeks of frustration in a creative process.
Wrike pricing
And then we get to the pain point. Wrike is not cheap.
There is a free plan with unlimited users, which sounds nice on paper. But in practice, it’s too limited. You get basic task management, but no Gantt charts, no dashboards, and only 2GB storage. For a real team, this isn’t workable.
The Team plan costs $ 10 per user per month with an annual subscription (so $ 120 per year per person). Here you do get Gantt charts and more storage space. So for a team of 10 people, you’re looking at $ 100 per month, or nearly $ 1200 per year. That’s already a significant amount.
The Business plan – where you get time tracking and automations – costs $ 5 per user per month ($ 300 per year). For that same team of 10 people, you’re talking about $ 250 per month. Nearly $ 3.000 per year. That’s serious money.
The Enterprise and Pinnacle plans don’t have public pricing. You need to contact them for a quote, which usually means: even more expensive.
Fortunately, there’s a free 14-day trial. Use it. Really. Because you don’t want to discover after a month that your team isn’t using the tool because it’s too complex.
Is it worth it? That depends on your situation. For a marketing agency that bills € 100+ per hour and saves weeks of time on project coordination? Absolutely. For a startup still looking for product-market fit? Probably not.
What should you watch out for?
Okay, time for the honest warnings. Because there definitely are some.
The learning curve is really a problem. I’m no slouch with software, but it easily took me a week to become truly productive with Wrike. There are so many options, settings, and possibilities that you can’t see the forest for the trees. New team members were completely lost at first. “Where do I enter this?” and “How does this work again?” were daily questions.
Then those loading times. With large projects with hundreds of tasks, it sometimes became frustratingly slow. Especially the Gantt charts can lag when you have a lot of data. You click, wait, click again out of impatience, and then suddenly too much happens at once. Not ideal when you want to work quickly.
The pricing structure is also confusing. Wrike works with minimum numbers of users per plan, and that’s not always clearly communicated. You think you’re paying for 5 users, but you have to get at least 10. Those kinds of surprises aren’t fun.
And while the customizability is an advantage, it’s also a pitfall. You can completely get stuck by customizing too much. I saw during my test that teams sometimes built such a complex structure that nobody understood how it worked anymore. Sometimes less is more.
The mobile apps are okay, but not great. Fine for quickly checking a task, but you really work on your laptop. The interface feels cramped on a phone screen, and some features are simply missing.
What do others think?
I’m not the only one with these experiences. The general sentiment about Wrike is mixed positive – people appreciate the power, but struggle with the complexity.
What keeps coming back in positive reviews: the customizability for complex projects, the all-in-one approach so you don’t need ten different tools, and the powerful reporting capabilities. Enterprise teams are often enthusiastic about the security features and the ability to truly work custom.
But the complaints are also consistent. That steep learning curve is mentioned by almost everyone. New users really need time to become productive. The slowness with large projects is a frequently heard frustration. And the unclear pricing structure with minimum numbers of users causes unpleasant surprises.
In YouTube reviews, you see the same pattern. TechPrism compared Wrike with Asana and Monday.com and concluded that Wrike has the most enterprise features, but is the least user-friendly. For teams that already have experience with project management software, that’s not a problem. For teams just starting out, it is.
What’s interesting is that almost nobody calls Wrike “bad”. It’s more like: good, but not for everyone. And that actually sums it up perfectly.
Wrike alternatives
Doesn’t quite fit what you’re looking for? Check out these alternatives:
- Asana – Easier to use and more intuitive than Wrike. Choose this if your team wants to get started quickly without a steep learning curve. The interface is cleaner and new users understand it within a day.
- Monday.com – More visual and easier to customize. Choose this if you prefer colorful, visual project planning. It feels more playful and less corporate than Wrike.
- ClickUp – Cheaper and more features in the free plan. Choose this if you have a limited budget but want a lot of functionality. You get more for less money, but the interface is sometimes cluttered.
Frequently asked questions
Is Wrike free to use?
Yes, there is a free plan with unlimited users. But don’t expect Gantt charts or dashboards – you only get basic task management and 2GB storage. For serious use, you really need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Does Wrike have a desktop app?
Yes, there are desktop apps for both Windows and macOS. They work fine, though you won’t really notice a difference from the web version. It’s mainly useful if you want to get notifications without having a browser open.
Can I track time in Wrike?
Time tracking is included starting with the Business plan ($ 24.80 per user per month). This feature is not available in the cheaper plans. So if time tracking is important for your team, you’ll need to invest significantly.
Conclusion
Wrike is a powerful project management tool for teams that can handle complexity. If you have a medium to large team with complicated workflows, need extensive reporting, and want to invest the time in a proper setup – then Wrike is a solid choice.
But it’s not for everyone. The learning curve is really a thing. You pay quite a bit of money. And if your team just wants to quickly check off tasks without hassle, there are better options.
My advice? Use that 14-day trial. Not just you, but your whole team. See if people are still using it after a week or falling back on spreadsheets and email. That says enough.
For me personally? I appreciate the power, but miss the simplicity. I would recommend Wrike to a marketing agency or IT department with 20+ people. For smaller teams, I’d look at Asana or Monday.com instead. Sometimes good enough is better than perfect-but-complicated.
