Active Collab is a project management solution built around features such as task management, collaboration, time tracking, and invoicing.
$8
per member/per month
Basecamp
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Basecamp is a web-based project-management tool. Basecamp offers features standard to project management platforms, as well as mobile accessibility, unlimited users, and 3rd party integrations. Basecamp is priced by space requirements and concurrent projects.
$15
per month per user
Picsello
Score 10.0 out of 10
N/A
Photography business management software is for photographers, and helps them manage, market, and manage their business at every stage. It includes a client booking system, where the user can create and view sessions and events right from a calendar, as well as promote upcoming events right from a public profile. Integrated email supports communicating with clients, and its streamlined process guides clients through the entire booking process so they can view availability and proposals, sign…
We chose Active Collab overall because we liked its easy to use user interface, project management suite and agency/vendor/client interaction capabilities. We also chose it primarily because it was offered as a web-based platform that offered very clean and easy mobile access …
ActiveCollab has similar features to Basecamp for both project management and communication purposes. However, Basecamp has a better interface for organization of projects within clients and allows for linking to specific comments. However, ActiveCollab is more affordable than B…
ActiveCollab is easier to use and simpler in its setup. It has the right mix of features and simplicity. It's also project-oriented which is important for our workflow. Other tools are often too task-oriented, making it hard to track projects. Overall, ActiveCollab has a great …
Scenarios where ActiveCollab works well 1) ActiveCollab works well for small teams specifically T&M teams.Its invoicing feature is unique & can make your life easy. 2) It is very easy to use & posses good range of filters like on the task list, we can drag/drop tasks, Filter by assignee's, tasks lists, due dates, or completed tasks. 3) It has some simple but awesome features like when you're in the middle of writing something i.e a comment on story and get interrupted, it retains what you wrote. 4) It allows you to tag team members in threads of comments to grab their attention, its really needed when teams are distributed. Thus helping team members to collaborate easily & stay on same page. 5) It integrates pretty well with other web apps like quickbooks , Slack, Trello, HubSpot, Zapier etc Scenarios where ActiveCollab did not work well 1) Tasks can not have multiple assignee's here so if two members are working on same task it did not allow you to reflect that. 2) Sorting capability is not their under invoicing 3) It did not work well for larger teams 4) Search option is not very detailed & you may end up wasting lot of time searching one particular bug or issue.
Basecamp is a wonderful tool for teams of varying degrees of technical knowledge, teams managing lots of different types of "agifall" and waterfall projects, and teams that are remotely distributed. It's probably less useful for more strictly agile-focused development teams, compared to other more flexible software applications like Jira and Asana.
Picsello helps you stay on task. I have struggled with being too nice to clients in regards to when they pay for my services but Picsello fixed that. A payment schedule is included in the proposal process so when you send the email to your client, they'll get their contract, questionnaire, pricing details and a request for payment to secure booking. That's one less item on my to-do list and I can move forward with my workflow.
Task management - It is very easy to add, organize and discuss tasks within Basecamp's interface.
The "Campfire" function is great for communicating when you just have a quick question for someone on the team.
Notifications - Basecamp lets you decide how often and about what you'd like to be notified. The ability to respond to messages in Basecamp directly via email saves a lot of time.
It isn't possible to set members of staff as part time, so if someone is unavailable on certain days you must manually enter them as OOO every single day that they are not in, that other teammates work. Hours also can't be edited individually - everyone is treated as working the same hours in a day, rendering capacity planner useless for flexi working teams
Subtasks cannot be assigned their own hours and deadlines, meaning the To Do list view can't be seen in actual date order and capacity planner does not reflect all time allocated to an individual's schedule unless every task is set up as a separate task rather than subtask
There is no way to see all tasks of a certain type across multiple campaigns (e.g all copywriting tasks vs all technical tasks) - support team suggested exporting data and making spreadsheets
Kanban view isn't available for people's own task lists ('board' view here shows a list)
Not possible to have one task be assigned to more than one person
Notifications are not sent when tasks are updated, so you have to leave comments and tag people each time
High Learning Curve. It's true that it can be easy to use, but to use well and effectively takes some time to learn. It's recommended to have an agreed-upon system in your team of what tools to use and when.
Notification Overload. If people aren't careful they could send a notification to everyone when only a couple people were meant to be prompted. And since emails are sent by default, you could have your mailbox overloaded with unnecessary updates. This is where it takes a bit of training in your team to have an agreed-upon system.
Lack of organization with Archived Projects. I will often need to reference an archived project to make a new one, but there is only a list of archived projects in alphabetical order, with no way to organize by archive date, or even search.
People like flexibility and being able to work with previously established vendors that are different from the print vendor currently available in Picsello. I know additional partnerships are forthcoming and once they do I think this product will only increase in popularity.
One feature that would be helpful is to be able to block off time in the calendar so potential clients can view your availability.
I'd like to be able to enter multiple contacts under a single client. If you have a large group and you have their email addresses you could send the gallery to more than one person but from the same job.
When I bring new people onto a project, it's immediately obvious how to use Basecamp. I don't have to worry about teaching them the features or walking them through it, it's just incredibly user-friendly. For this reason, I'll continue to renew my subscription even as new people are brought onto production jobs or the client changes.
It is easy to use, even for clients who have no experience with the platform. It can only get a little cumbersome to ensure that a client can't see certain documents you might want to keep in the Docs & Files folders. And sometimes, getting a client to actually use an unfamiliar platform can be a challenge.
Picsello is a 10 because it has everything I need to successfully run my photography business. I can communicate with my client, get them booked and paid all in one location. I don't need a separate gallery manager, I don't need to remember gallery passwords, I don't have to worry if I remembered to send a contract to a client, I don't have to worry if I don't hear back from a client about their gallery because Picsello will tell me when they logged in to view it. And best of all, I know what I need to charge in order to earn the goal I set for myself and at the end of the day, it's all about earning money doing something you love!
I've never experienced downtime while using Basecamp, or been unable to access it when I needed it. That's not to say they've never had downtime, but I've been lucky enough not to encounter any, and I work odd hours, including late nights when maintenance is often undertaken.
We have not required support for ActiveCollab as it works pretty seamlessly. We didn't have any issues with using the platform or with any billing issues. The self-service aspect of the platform is robust and easy to navigate so we have not encountered any errors that required assistance from the support team.
For the many reasons I've given, Basecamp is a very strong program. There are a few features I can imagine that might make it even better, but I don't have a basis for comparison to be able to say that there is definitely a better one out there. I've noticed that Basecamp has evolved a bit from the time I started using it until now, so that makes me think that the producer of this program values it and believes in continuous improvement. If you could use the features offered by Basecamp, I would think you could use it with confidence.
The people at Picsello are genuinely interested in seeing you succeed! Are you having trouble deciding what to charge? They have a Mastermind Facebook group, and they have business coaching available. Are you frazzled and just need a little extra help, Customer Success is there to listen and dive into the app with you. Are you new and just need some guidance? Customer Success is there to walk you through the process or send links to demo videos or to sign you up for a one-on-one meeting. These people have been truly nice to me as I've gotten help and learned the product. Customer Service is a big deal to me and this company is going to have my business for a long time.
Decide the process before implementation - i.e. when it's due 8/9 does that mean 8am, noon, 5pm, 11:59pm? Check your to-do list frequently Set-up templates - just not with the dates (they can be funky)
ActiveCollab is easier to use and simpler in its setup. It has the right mix of features and simplicity. It's also project-oriented which is important for our workflow. Other tools are often too task-oriented, making it hard to track projects. Overall, ActiveCollab has a great mix of simplicity with good features.
Pretty good, but [Basecamp] has its drawbacks. Honestly I find the interface non-intuitive and sometimes have trouble figuring out how to change the status of a task. Perhaps it has something to do with the way it was originally set up by the admin, but I'm not sure. I liked Jira's drag and drop obvious functionality, but the project management side of the software was lacking. Smartsheet has excellent project management functionality, but the task management isn't as good.
Against Pixieset: I like Picsello better for a client experience and managing pricing and galleries. Pixieset is too complicated and cumbersome. Setting up the store is required before you can sell products on Pixieset and that's one large step more than Picsello. Against Honeybook: This is a product that's too generic and doesn't have even half the features of Picsello. It might work for freelance type work but a photographer needs way more than what is offered. It's just not made for photographers so it fails to hit the mark. Shootproof is another I tried but it's just not robust enough. There aren't enough features to help you successfully run your business, but if you'd like to add music to a photo montage, they've got you covered. That's fun to have but it's more important to earn a livable income and Picsello has them all beat with the Smart Profit Calculator!
It has saved me time when having to get the same message out to multiple restaurants
It has helped us make smarter operational decisions because we can all collaborate on an answer in a shorter amount of time (instead of calling a meeting!!!)
The calendar function allows us to plot out our marketing agenda for the month and add/change it together as needed. The chef will post his recipe, the managers will cost it out, the social media manager will post pictures on it, and ultimately we will get that information out on an info sheet to the staff by printing the page.
By incorporating everything I need in a single email to my client, it saves me time. The contract, questionnaire, pricing details and payment are all sent over in one email and the automation takes over from there as the client signs everything and returns it with payment. So much time saved!
Having all my clients saved in this platform is a space saver for my Contacts app and so easy for me to contact them on the go since Picsello is mobile-ready. I can use it's full features anywhere!
The questionnaires are a godsend! I use to have word documents saved all over my laptop from clients but having everything in the Picsello app is way move convenient!
The photo galleries are given a password and it's automatically entered into the email you send your clients when you share the gallery. I used to have to come up with a password and keep track of it in case a client lost it. Such a pain! This is so much easier and I literally don't even think about this anymore since Picsello does it for me!
