Compare Trello Plans: Which Is Best For Online Business Owners? | 115

(Note: This is a formatted and slightly edited, AI-generated transcript to make it easier for you to read through. Please excuse any spelling, grammar errors and filler words – it’s just how I speak LOL)

  Before you upgrade your Trello plan or before you decide to stay on the free one, there are just a few things that you need to understand.  Hey, I’m Lucy Reyes. I’m  a productivity and Trello strategist, and I help solopreneurs create simple systems that make running your business feel lighter and more organized.

And one question I get all of the time is,  which Trello plan  should I be using?

 In this video, I’m going to go through the real differences between the Trello plans, the free, the standard, and the premium at the time of recording this, and more importantly, how to choose the one that actually supports the way you want to run your business and how you want your systems to work together to really streamline your workflow.

But before we dive in, if you want to make Trello even easier for you to use, then you’ll definitely want  to grab my free Trello Hacks guide with my nine favorite time saving hacks that you can do right inside of Trello. These are small tweaks you can make in your daily routine to save time.  You can grab that in the link in the show notes or the description, wherever you are listening.

 All right, so let’s start with choosing the right Trello plan. And don’t worry, this isn’t going to be some boring feature breakdown. Okay? We are going to really dive into a more strategic lesson that’s really going to help you figure out which plan is actually going to support the way that you want your business systems to run. And if you’re currently on the free plan, don’t skip this video. Okay? 

I still want you to stick around so that way you can get insights that will really help you think ahead, avoid  unnecessary rework, and really set yourself up for systems that stay simple and organized in the long term. Because at the end of the day, it’s not really about which plan is better overall, but it’s about which one will be better for the way you specifically want to run your business. So this is not going to be a video that’s really going to be, “Choose this one.

This is the top plan that I pick for everybody.” No, in some cases, free might be best for you and that’s okay, or paid. It might be best for you and that’s great, but this video is going to help you make the best decision for yourself. So Trello at the time of recording this offers three main plans to consider, and they each have different levels of functionality.

So the free plan is really their basic, starting point type of plan just as any tool offers, right? Standard is what I believe is the best fit for most solopreneurs, and the premium offers, advanced visibility and control. There’s also an enterprise plan, but if you’re watching this video, chances are you are a small business owner.

So the that part really isn’t going to be for you. That is more for large organizations. So we’re not going to be covering that in this video. So again, the goal here is really to pick, not, to pick the so-called best plan in general, but to pick the one that is going to be best for you. So let’s start with the free plan.

So it is best if you want to keep your costs at zero and you are okay with a more simpler setup that requires some workaround for you to achieve the things that you want to do. And it might be a little bit messier in the beginning, okay? But it is really good if you work solo and you just want straightforward systems.

This is typically the plan that I recommend if you are especially someone who is brand new to project management and you are maybe coming from something like a planner, like a paper planner, then this, this free plan is going to be more than enough for you because it’s really already going to blow your mind.

But of course, there are some trade-offs. So again, at the time of recording this, you will need to juggle multiple workspaces because  as a business owner, there’s a lot that you have going on. You have so many tasks and projects, so chances are you are going to reach the max 10 boards per workspace limit maybe pretty quickly. 

And if you follow my systems, my templates, then you’ll see that I definitely recommend having one board per project. So you might outgrow this pretty quickly and it doesn’t come with some extra, really neat organization features, which means that your boards could get a little bit more cluttered faster.

And if clutter overwhelms you,  that’s gonna have to be something that you kind of toss up to see if you are fine dealing with it just to keep the free plan. So yeah, free does work, but it does come with juggling those extra trade offs and that you just need to be aware of.

Next is a standard plan, and this is what I would consider as the solopreneur sweet spot. This is where it really adds an extra level of organization and efficiency to really make your trouble system run so much smoother in the long term. It does this because it removes the limits and the workarounds of free, which gives you so many more cleaner boards, more organized, and easier to use, and it really unlocks that feature of giving you more control over some of the details and the automations that will ultimately save you time and clicks as your systems grow. Okay?  

It comes with advanced features, so some extra features that are super neat, like list coloring, card mirroring, collapsible list, advanced checklist, custom fields. So for most solopreneurs, this plan is really going to be a balance of costs and functionality, and it’s really a good, strong foundation that will support your systems long term. So if you were to ask me for my recommendation, it would be this one because it at least gives you extra flexibility and you’re not constrained to 10 boards per workspace, which when you have to juggle so many workspaces,  that can become a lot as well. 

So I personally prefer to keep everything in one workspace and having all of the features on that one workspace. And I will add, again, at the time of recording this, the plans are per workspace. So yeah, you definitely wanna try to work with one workspace as much as possible,  or at least have one paid workspace and keep the other ones as a free plan.  

Next, let’s talk about the premium plan. So this one is really designed for solopreneurs that want even more advanced visibility and control. So it gives you multiple different ways to see how you’re working, to see the projects and tasks that are kind of scattered across your entire Trello ecosystem, so it helps you manage a lot of different boards in one place and adds that flexibility to help you track and oversee your business. 

However, again, if you are a solopreneur, I actually recommend the standard plan over the premium plan because most solo businesses don’t really need this extra level of control in your day-to-day operations. It is a powerful plan, but it’s really only worth it if you actually know that you’re going to use these extra visibility perks and options that it includes. And in a lot of cases, and with a lot of business owners that I work with,  it’s not. So standard, is really what I would recommend,  it’s up to you though.

Like I said, this whole time, I’m gonna give you my recommendation, but then it’s ultimately going to be up to you. So I really want you to ask yourself, “What do I actually need?” So  the questions that we’re going to cover in just a minute are not going to be about which plan is better, but they’re really going to help you really see and help you figure out which plan is going to best support the way that you want to work and the way that you want your systems to feel.

So let’s kick it off with the first question here, which is, “Do I want the simplicity of keeping all my boards in one workspace?” a paid workspace, or, “Am I okay managing multiple workspaces in order to keep it free?” “Is it enough to see my work in a board and list of view?” or, “Would a calendar, a dashboard, and timeline views make planning easier?”

These extra views are what’s included in the premium,  plan, so if that sounds interesting to you, then premium it might be the best choice for you. But if you’re fine with the simple Kanban style, which is honestly, mostly the only version I use along with the calendar, which there’s a workaround for that one.  It’s up to you again. The next question is, “Am I fine spending extra time to work around limitations and save money?” or, “Would paying for the upgraded features be worth it  if they make managing my systems easier, faster, and simpler?” So we’re talking about things like,  fun things and some more practical things.

So one of the biggest ones for me is custom fields. Custom Fields is something that I use across almost every single Trello board that I have to just keep it overall more clean. So this is where I have things like, chat threads or extra links, or, in content boards, I have like the episode numbers, the publish dates, things like that  so that I’m not overwhelming my description with all of this information, and instead it’s like neat, neatly plugged into the Trello board. So that for me is the biggest one as a perk that I really highly recommend using. But if not, again, there’s workaround, so you can just add everything in the description and that’s totally okay too.

But again, personally I love the custom fields. This next question is, “Do I get by just fine with basic automations?” which means you’ll save a little bit of time, which is still better than not saving any time at all. Okay, so you’ll still get automations on the free plan,  or would you want advanced automations that make your system even a smoother and save you even more time?

So for example, part of the bonus features that you get in a paid plan is the ability to assign dates to certain checklist items. And when you do that, you can add that feature into an advanced automation to automatically do some cool things with that. 

So some of these features go very hand in hand if  the advanced automation only works for the free and paid features. So  if you only have free features available to you, then you’re not gonna have the advanced automations because you don’t have some of the paid features that the advanced automations would help you with.

Does that make sense? Either way, basic automations are included in the free plan, so you’ll at least be saving on time. And again,  my free Trello Hacks Guide, which the QR code is right here if you’re watching on YouTube, otherwise go to the link in the show notes, but that is still included in the free plan, and I’ll show you how to use them in the Trello Hacks guide,  or you can use some more advanced automations that will save you even more time.

 And lastly, “Am I okay keeping information in descriptions, labels, and comments?” which is messier, but still functional and still better than something like a paper planner where things are even messier, or, “Would something like custom fields help make it clear and more organized?”

So again, these are all pure preferences. And if you’re just getting started and not even entirely certain on whether Trello is a tool for you, a hundred percent go with the free plan. But if you are on the free plan and you’re considering whether it’s worth upgrading or not, these questions can help  you make that decision for yourself.

So now I quickly just want to personally share what I use just to give you some context, because I’ve said the free plan is fine. I recommended the standard plan for most solopreneurs, but I actually am currently on the premium plan. Again, at the time I’m recording this, but the main reason why I am on this plan is because I teach Trello. So I teach Trello and premium just makes it a whole lot easier for me to deliver my Trello templates to you so that I can create more comprehensive trainings for my students. That’s another reason why. So those are the main reasons why I have the premium plan.

Besides that, I don’t really use all of the extra premium plan features. So if I wasn’t a Trello strategist, I would probably be on the standard plan. So yeah, I don’t really use, I do use some of the premium views sometimes, and that’s more because I force myself to, because I’m like, well, I might as well.  But honestly, again, that’s something that didn’t happen until later on in my journey after I was incredibly comfortable with Trello. So, definitely just keep that in mind. My choice reflects my personal and business needs.  

 So again, my recommendation for most solopreneurs is the standard plan because it keeps your systems simple and organized without needing to juggle the extra things that you would need to juggle if you were on the free plan. It gives you just enough advanced features to really save you loads amount of time, reduce clutter without overwhelming you with things that you don’t actually need or will use, and it really strikes that best balance between cost and functionality and making a sustainable long term.

So it grows with you, meaning you don’t have to redo boards or rebuild systems when your business expands. I actually recorded another video where I talk about if you have heard this myth that you will outgrow Trello as your business grows. It’s a myth. Definitely go listen to the last episode then watch the last video where I talk more about that and why it’s not true.

But yeah, free is fine. Free is fine. So if you’re watching this and you’re like, “You said you weren’t going to tell us, but then you told us.” That is my recommendation for most people based on all of the clients and students that I have worked with. But again, free is fine if you are just starting out or if you really, truly need to keep your costs at zero, but it does come with that extra juggling, a little bit, extra clutter and the chance that you might need to redo your boards later.

But if that’s something that you’re willing to put up with and that you’re fine with, then great start with the free plan. But I definitely recommend just getting started because  yeah. At the end of the day, it’s really just going to come down to do you want to save money and accept that you’re going to need to put in this extra effort, or do you want to invest in a plan that is really going to save you time and prevent rework?

And as a business owner, we can spend our time doing other things that are going to make us more money. That is why I recommend the standard plan.

So let’s go ahead and wrap this up.  Every Trello plan is going to support you with some strong systems but the difference is really how simple or how advanced you want those systems to be.

The paid plans, remove limits, and give you more efficiency. But the free plan can still work if you’re okay with these trade-offs, even if it’s just for a temporary amount of time. But the most important thing for you to do right now is to decide. Decide and make a decision. Pick a plan that feels right to you today.

You can always change your mind later, but the decision is going to give you clarity and a really clear starting point as you move forward, and I really hope that  this video just helped make it so much easier for you to make that decision whether you’re just diving into Trello or trying to figure out whether you should stick with free for a little bit longer, or if it’s time to upgrade.

 The most important thing is for you to choose what is going to work for you right now and in the future.  All right, and before you go, if you want to make Trello even easier for you to use, don’t forget to  grab my free guide with nine essential Trello Time Saving Hacks. These are small tweaks that can save you hours each week and help your boards run so much more smoothly and adds a little bit of fun to them as well.

So if you’re watching this on YouTube, go ahead and scan the QR code here on the screen or if you’re listening on the podcast, and be sure to check the link in the show notes.  And if you found this helpful, please subscribe wherever you are listening so that way you know once the next episode is released.

 All right, thank you so much for being here, and I’ll see you in the next one.