Basecamp: My Cloud Collaboration Toolbox
As one of two administrators, I use Basecamp to support professional, personal and volunteer projects. The range of projects that I've …
Starting at $15 per month per user
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What is Basecamp?
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.
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Popular Features
- Task Management (117)5.050%
- Team Collaboration (117)4.444%
- Document Management (109)3.939%
- Resource Management (98)3.838%
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Author, Analyst, Editor, Researcher
Self Employed (Information Services, 1-10 employees)
Pricing
Basecamp Business
$99
Cloud
Per Month [Unlimited Users]
Basecamp Personal
Free
Cloud
Limited Capabilities
Entry-level set up fee?
- No setup fee
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://basecamp.com/pricing
Offerings
- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Starting price (does not include set up fee)
- $15 per month per user
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Basecamp - 2-minute Demo
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Basecamp Project Management Review
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- Competitors
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What is Basecamp?
Basecamp is a web-based project-management tool developed by 37signals in Chicago and launched in 2004. The Ruby on Rails framework was extracted from the Basecamp project.
Basecamp offers features standard to project management platforms, including to-do lists, wiki-style web-based text documents, milestone management, file sharing, time tracking and a calendar, and a messaging system. Mobile accessibility is supported. Notably, it supports unlimited users. It also offers integration with 37signals' own Campfire product, which expands the group messaging functionality of the core platform. Customization, accessibility, and functionality are extended further by the broad range of apps available for free from 3rd parties. A 2-month free trial is available. Pricing is dependent upon space requirements and the number of concurrent projects, not the number of users.
Basecamp offers features standard to project management platforms, including to-do lists, wiki-style web-based text documents, milestone management, file sharing, time tracking and a calendar, and a messaging system. Mobile accessibility is supported. Notably, it supports unlimited users. It also offers integration with 37signals' own Campfire product, which expands the group messaging functionality of the core platform. Customization, accessibility, and functionality are extended further by the broad range of apps available for free from 3rd parties. A 2-month free trial is available. Pricing is dependent upon space requirements and the number of concurrent projects, not the number of users.
Basecamp Integrations
Basecamp Competitors
Basecamp Technical Details
| Deployment Types | Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems | Unspecified |
| Mobile Application | No |
Frequently Asked Questions
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.
Basecamp starts at $15.
Reviewers rate Quotes/estimates highest, with a score of 8.3.
The most common users of Basecamp are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).
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Community Insights
TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!
- Recommendations
Based on user reviews, here are the three most common recommendations for Basecamp:
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Learn and Utilize Basecamp's Features: Users recommend taking the time to learn about all of Basecamp's features and functions. They suggest getting training or working with someone experienced in Basecamp to fully utilize the platform. This recommendation helps users make the most out of their Basecamp experience.
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Set Up a Standardized System: Many users suggest setting up a system or process that everyone can follow when using Basecamp. This recommendation helps to ensure consistency and streamline project management within teams.
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Consider Other Tools for Advanced Functionalities: While users find Basecamp handy for organizing projects, offering instructions and feedback, some reviewers suggest using a more advanced tool, like Monday.com, for large teams collaborating on projects. They advise evaluating additional functionalities and comparing prices before deciding on Basecamp.
Overall, users recommend considering Basecamp as a low-cost option for small teams with straightforward projects. It is recommended for organizing projects, managing workflows, facilitating team cooperation, linking departments, coordinating tasks, and storing data. However, users caution against using it for purposes other than its intended use and highlight that compared to more advanced tools, it might seem basic and limited in benefits. It is also suggested to stay updated with appropriate titles and efficiently organize projects while using Basecamp. Additionally, Google Drive is recommended for file management purposes.
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Basecamp is used across the whole [organization] to coordinate staff and volunteer teams at various levels. It helps to foster communication between teams, especially when it is difficult for all of the members to be in the same place at the same time. It is helpful for keeping records of meetings and work that has been done, as well as setting up reminders for tasks and recurring events.
- Easy to organize teams and projects
- The project templates are helpful if you have yearly events, etc
- Customizable notifications settings are great
- It would be great to be able to integrate the to-dos into the calendar
May 02, 2021
Happy With Basecamp
Our agency uses Basecamp exclusively to manage projects and workflow. It allows us to track progress on tasks and work in a way that incorporates visual rendering of varied media. It became especially essential to us when teams were forced to work remotely. We had a seamless transition due to the efficiency of Basecamp being a remote work option. We are pretty content with its functionality.
- Creating and assigning work tasks
- Tracking progress
- Keeping in touch with the team on tasks
- I wish there was a timeline view for seeing how far tasks are moving toward [an] end goal
- A more front and center chat area for the team
We use Basecamp to communicate with our offshore development team for our digital learning platform. It is only used by our digital learning team to communicate with this specific vendor. No other department or team in our organization uses it. We use it to discuss new features for the platform in depth, in order to keep the user stories on our development tracking platform cleaner and less cluttered. It is a great way to keep in touch with the dev team on more complicated features that will span multiple sprints, and to work out strategies for how to build and deliver those features.
- Provides a consolidated feed of recent activity (messages posted, discussion threads, sprint planning and recap posts, etc.).
- Provides email updates on what has been happening on the board, with the option to not email you during non-work hours.
- Allows for both synchronous and asynchronous discussions, which is great for working with offshore teams.
- Does not allow for information to be automatically ported over (via API or similar) to our user story tracking platform.
- Doesn't provide an easy way to search for file or image attachments that were added in various discussion threads.
- Unclear how or why some files are accessible via the Docs & Files tab, and some aren't.
My team used Basecamp as a task management tool to track our projects and progress. It was also used to communicate with an external vendor and keep all of our collaboration in one place. With each thread, we can pick and choose who to include and attach documents and links as needed.
- Basecamp has a user friendly interface that's quite straightforward and intuitive
- Basecamp allows organization by "projects" and "discussions" so everything is easy to find if you label things
- Basecamp sends an email for every new post or reply so that you get notified for updates in the platform
- When selecting and uploading files, there isn't an option to drag and drop
- To my knowledge, there isn't an option to include a link as an anchor text. It will be the entire URL that's being displayed if you insert a link
April 14, 2021
A project management tool that streamlines our process
We currently use Basecamp only in our department, though we've recommended it to other departments on campus. Basecamp is great for organizing all of our project details, comps, and final files - as long as everyone agrees to use it in the same way. With large projects it can get to be overwhelming, so it's recommended to plan out how you want to organize your files, overview, milestones etc.
- Communication. Since it sends you emails as well as gives you a notification in the top bar when you're needed, it's easy to stay on track with comments and feedback.
- File sharing. It supports a lot of different file types, so when referencing a file you can see it right on basecamp without having to download it on your computer first.
- Organization. With large projects it can get overwhelming with lots of comments, comps, and feedback. But with some planning and the use of the Project Activity timeline, it's easy to stay on track.
- 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.
Basecamp was implemented as a project management software to improve coordination, accountability, and file exchange between events, brand/communications, and fundraising teams. Individuals and distinct teams also were encouraged to explore Basecamp as a to-do/personal project management software to keep track of deadlines and workflows. This was the first attempt at an org-wide project management software.
- To-Do lists
- Collaboration
- Accountability
- Privacy controls
- Mobile app/desktop app syncing
- Cost
- Relational deadlines and workflows
- Calendar-view project management
- Design
- Prioritization
April 08, 2021
Cost-Effective and Feature-Rich
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Basecamp is our core platform for the management of all projects across the business division. It is used by all my delivery teams as well as my clients who are users in multiple departments within the organisation. We also provide access to users from external organisations that are a blend of subcontractors working for us and collaboration clients from other businesses.
The primary role for Basecamp is our unified platform for tracking and progressing work across all our delivery programmes. We wanted to centralise this in a single toolset to ensure all stakeholders have full and clear visibility on all communications, progress and plans. A key driver for this choice of platform is to do away with multiple services that result in disjointed flow, such as email, document repositories and desktop documentation tools.
The primary role for Basecamp is our unified platform for tracking and progressing work across all our delivery programmes. We wanted to centralise this in a single toolset to ensure all stakeholders have full and clear visibility on all communications, progress and plans. A key driver for this choice of platform is to do away with multiple services that result in disjointed flow, such as email, document repositories and desktop documentation tools.
- Ease of use meaning that non-technical users can be onboarded with minimal training required
- Range of features meaning that you can use Basecamp as your core project management platform and don't need to rely on other tools in conjunction
- Good collaborative features to encourage adoption and management of end-to-end process on Basecamp
- Ability to create project & task list templates to speed up new project/task creation
- Reporting is limited; some export facilities to track task progression would help
- The ability to create recurring tasks
April 08, 2021
Great basic project management tool. No frills.
We use Basecamp in our marketing department. It could easily be used across the company, but only the marketing department uses it currently. It's used to manage all of our projects and tasks in the marketing department. I don't particularly like logging in every day or even reading the daily recap emails. Instead, the way we use it is this: If I have a task or a new project, I meet with my team, and have my project manager take notes as to what needs to be done. Also, any one-off tasks to any team members are copied to the PM. The PM creates those projects and tasks in Basecamp, and each morning, the PM reviews tasks completed, tasks over due, tasks due that day, and tasks coming up due over the next week and makes sure the team is aware of the tasks.
- I enjoy the calendar view. As long as you're always assigning deadline dates to the tasks, the looking at the calendar view can really help you determine your outlook for the day, the week, and quickly see any tasks past due that need to be addressed or moved.
- It's easy to bring in outside people in on projects and give them access to that particular project to collaborate just on that.
- Duplicating projects or task lists is a helpful feature when you have a recurring task list. It makes it easy to have the same process every time you want to execute the task list.
- I use Basecamp V2 because the newer V3 misses some functionality of V2. It seems it was built for a slightly different purpose. Unfortunately, V2 is not seeing feature updates as often as V3
- Integration with other platforms would be nice. For example, I'd love to see my personal calendar or my business Outlook calendar overlaid on the Basecamp calendar, but this is not a possibility currently.
- I can subscribe to Basecamp's iCal to show the Basecamp calendar on my personal calendar, which is handy, but it is quite limited. I can't see any detail about the task aside from the title. None of the description or information on what project or task list the task is attached to.
I use Basecamp as a project organization system that is used by myself and some other coworkers. We use it to create and assign tasks, input descriptions and due dates, attach files, etc. We can keep up with the status of the tasks together, get email notifications about when the tasks are updated or come due, etc. They are grouped into different projects for each client so we can keep things organized, but we each have our own personal dashboard that shows tasks that are due soon across all projects. It is used across the whole company as well as some external contractors so we can coordinate marketing efforts, development efforts, design efforts, etc. If we didn't use Basecamp, we would not be as organized and accountable for the projects and tasks we're working on.
- The interface is beautiful and intuitive
- It is very easy to see what tasks you need to work on
- Coordination between other users is simple and effective
- I'd like to see some other visual representation of tasks, like a Kanban board
- The calendar-based report of tasks would be helpful but it was too crowded
- Recurring templates were a pain to use (e.g., if you want the same tasks every month)
March 04, 2021
Basecamp is all the Buzz!
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
I use Basecamp to connect with donors, members, and others especially leading up to a meeting or event. A couple of us use this in our department. It allows us to easily communicate updates for events, meetings and to market our events easily to groups. We are able to quickly share information and have a discussion about our upcoming meetings. It is a great way to create buzz about focus groups and other donor and member opportunities.
- Unlimited users and projects. It's great for multiple purposes and it allows you to receive a free two month trial without providing a credit card and it gives you access to every tool and feature unlike many other softwares.
- User friendly. It's a simple design and you don't need to worry about losing information as it auto saves everything. You are able to retrieve any deleted files for about a month. The mobile apps are great and Basecamp allows you to make a to do list.
- Customer support is efficient even though they don't provide the level of support other software does, they are quick to respond to emails and questions.
- It's great at allowing you to have a detailed discussion with a group, advertise an upcoming event and easily provide updates. They send email communications when there is an update in a group you are in however you could filter and opt out of this feature.
- Unable to customize your interface. You are unable to insert a logo or change features like color schemes.
- It's limited in features. It's great for task management and communication. There needs to be more reporting and budgeting.
- To do items are unable to be set to recurring, i wish there were more in depth features for customization. There's a lack of a traditional calendar view.
May 10, 2020
Solution for projects and team communication.
It has helped me a lot to keep in better communication with the clients and employees of the company, thus improving the relationship within the workplace. I have been able to obtain better results in the management of a project, thus being able to specify each objective correctly, completely, and without any setback. It has kept us really up to date, organized and synchronized with projects and team communication, and at the same time with the client. It has been possible to have a pleasant and comfortable experience with this platform, and it has not taken much effort to learn how its tools are used.
- The interface has been very useful since it is intuitive and easy to configure since this platform is based on simplicity.
- No professional recruitment is needed to be able to operate within the platform.
- It is very simple to be able to create and assign tasks to users, in addition to being very simple to be able to follow up on it.
- The ability to manage users is incredible and you can also include clients in projects that are carried out.
- It is not very customizable in terms of aesthetics, hopefully, it could be adapted to the characteristics of the company.
- Sometimes it is a little difficult to keep the thread of the conversation since everything is together and you cannot make comment sections if you have to ask a separate question.
- I think Basecamp is very basic for great projects as it lacks many functions and tools.
January 24, 2020
I love Basecamp
Basecamp is used for a project with different parties to stay connected and share experiences.
- Message board where people can share news or ideas.
- Creates a dashboard suited for your needs.
- Notifications may get a bit excessive if you don't set them right.
- I'm not sure if there's an ability to hold video meetings, that would be really good.
December 12, 2019
Basecamp brought us all together!
We used Basecamp to be part of a joint promotion on Facebook - It was a giveaway where 12 various businesses needed to access and share info. it was a great 'all in one' place to keep things organised and to see at a glance what was completed and what still needed to be done.
- Easy to see what actions had been completed and what was outstanding.
- Quick way to get a message to multiple users.
- It all worked really well for our promotion - nothing extra was needed.
December 10, 2019
Communicate easily using Basecamp
We have a Ceridian Dayforce user group that is being administered via Basecamp. I am a part of the group and it is only being used to facilitate communication with the group members. Basecamp is a good tool that integrates information from all questions initiated. It is a good repository of past information.
- Easy to add new users and access user information.
- Easy to integrate with email.
- Data is organized well in Basecamp, by new discussions, calendar, projects etc.
- Base camp is good for communicating with other users but not apt for project management.
- It lacks advanced features in project management like milestones, and schedule charts.
- Many reports or files can be stored within the system and accessed easily. But it is difficult to filter files by document type.
November 27, 2019
Basecamp, where everything happens under one roof
It is being used by an organization to oversee a sales team's activities within a new construction condo project. It helps the director follow up with teh sales team and ensure that they complete their tasks when it comes to contract and document signatures.
- Shareable documents as a reference tool
- History of each file or project
- Creation of new sections for specific projects
- Rearranging already uploaded documents within Basecamp without having to delete and upload again
- Limiting permissions
- Correcting or editing attached documents
November 19, 2019
Decent Application but Could Use Some Improvements
We have clients with multiple locations that require inspections, work, and reports. We started using Basecamp to keep track of the progress and status of each of these different locations. Basecamp allows us to create individual task lists, schedules, to-dos and upload specific files for each location to help organize our projects. Since Basecamp is an online application, we are able to use the program from anywhere without having to log onto our servers. This has allowed our remote employees to collaborate and manage projects while out in the field, increasing our overall company productivity.
- Allows for a central location to manage multiple projects without having to log onto a VPN or company server.
- Create schedules and task lists for a project, as well as help organize documents that are associated with that project.
- It's a little clunky to use and doesn't always fit what our company needs, but it works for now.
- Wish there was a way to turn off email notifications for when a user is added to a new project so our employees do not feel like they are getting spammed whenever a new folder is created.
October 26, 2019
Basecamp - a great tool for first time project management software users, small groups, and those needing flexibility
We use Basecamp to manage marketing, data entry, and personal tasks lists for a mid-size regional non-profit. Before using Basecamp, everything was managed through email and Excel. Conversations would digress, attachments would go missing, and the amount of emails going back and forth was simply overwhelming. Once we switched over to Basecamp, every project and every task has its own place.
- It's incredibly easy to use. I believe the company intentionally doesn't build in a ton of features to ensure that users focus on their work not how to use the product.
- The product is reasonably priced. In a market where competing tools charge per user, Basecamp gives you unlimited users and projects for one price.
- Support is fantastic. If you ever do have a problem, their customer service folks get back to you quickly and clearly to keep you moving. No expensive support contracts here!
- I've used Basecamp since the first edition, now called classic. While the company continually improves their core functionality, they also remove features used and loved by their customers. I give them credit for unapologetically sticking to when they feel is the right direction for their product, but their customers then have to balance upgrading to the new version or continuing to use an older version just to continue their current business processes.
- No option to pre-select users on a project to receive notifications. When creating a new task/message/event, the creator has to manually select every person on the project who should receive notifications. While this is great for small teams or to ensure that not everyone gets every email, some businesses just work differently and need to involve many people in certain situations.
- While the product is incredibly easy to use, there is not defined structure on how to use the software. I have noticed that this sometimes causes uncertainty and confusion among new users. It's up to each individual customer, and user to define their own business processes for how they use Basecamp.
Basecamp was used to communicate and track a project when we were working with another development team from an outsourced company.
- Easy and simple to use
- Find all project-related info, communications, tasks and files in one place
- Easy to collaborate or discuss with teams who are not in the same office
- Free to use
- Getting updates is easy and documented
- The discussion thread can become cluttered
- Unable to sort the discussion thread messages by time, etc.
- Unable to track/link a task with time
We use Basecamp to manage all projects and clients in the company. Once a client is signed on, a project is set up in Basecamp, and Tasks, To-Dos, and Discussions are created and assigned to the appropriate person or department. Once a task is completed, it is checked off and marked as completed. Any team member can add to the project or reassign tasks as needed, whether it is a review of the task, or required additional information.
- Easy project set up.
- Templates can be created for redundant projects or projects with similar tasks or set up.
- You can easily add users to a project or send messages to collaborators on a project.
- A task or To-Do can not be assigned to multiple people. One task can only be assigned to one person.
- It's not too easy to get a round up of tasks or jobs that one person has, or exporting tasks or reassigning them in bulk.
- There is no rating system to Prioritize tasks or To-Dos.
October 02, 2019
Use Basecamp if you want a no-fuss, streamlined project management tool (and make sure to check out their take on Agile!)
Basecamp is used by a very small portion of our team. This project management tool is the application of choice for our mobile developer team who work remotely. It helps us communicate with them in a space that they are used to, thus streamlining how we manage tasks, bugs and projects with them.
- Very simple interface anyone can use
- Inexpensive if you have a huge team or want to use it for multiple clients
- An amazing founding company story and vision
- Can't do the advanced things you can in other project management tools
- Not the best at forecasting or measuring how many resources your teams have
- Not as strong if you use it for everything (e.g., file storage and messaging)
October 01, 2019
To accomplish your mission, you need a good Basecamp.
Basecamp was the organizing system for all of our client work. Each client had their own folder in Basecamp, and each folder was shared between the team members involved with that client. Very organized. It brings together everyone involved with a single project, while always keeping each project in its own distinct silo.
- Basecamp makes it easier to stay organized when you have a large number of concurrent projects, each with its own associated team and needs.
- Streamlines communication about projects by keeping specific teams of people grouped together as needed, and keeping all project-related files in one go-to location.
- Gives each project it's own distinct space, preventing clutter and other confusion between projects.
- I do wonder if Basecamp could be better integrated with other software. We often had to resort to keeping important links in text files in Basecamp folders. I don't know what the obvious improvement is, but that wasn't always ideal.
- I also wonder if the email notifications could be cleaned up a bit. I remember getting large numbers of email notifications, and you just become numb to them after a while, nullifying the intended effect. If there was a way to lump the notifications into a summary, thereby reducing the overall number of emails, that probably would have been better.
September 27, 2019
A good, innovative, collaborative tool
We were collaborating with a US-based company for our marketing efforts and were using Basecamp as a collaborative tool to share various documents, meeting recordings, and discussions. We only use it for our department but considering its ease of use and utility, we have been pushing to get it in other departments too.
- Document sharing
- Discussion around Basecamp is great
- Flat pricing seemed good, although it was the client that was paying for it
- Reporting is not very comprehensive
- The interface is slightly cluttered
- Highly customizable features confuse the admin at times
September 27, 2019
A tool with an intuitive design that has excellent management features
It is one of the creative tools that helps you in organizing your things and lists according to your choice. Now the projects are not in anymore scattered form, instead, they are in synchronization and listed in a pattern. It helps you by judging which one needs to be completed first.
- It helps you in assigning tasks to your teammates well.
- You can add notes or any attachments to your work and project.
- You can keep the track of your work about how far it has gone.
- You can make a message board and start talking about how to complete a task by chatting with your mates.
- It should give notification if any update arrives from any employee about any project.
- It should be providing a worksheet so that progress can be noted and editions made in the work can be seen as well.
- I think its price should be lowered so that more people can take benefit from it.
September 25, 2019
Cost effective collaboration tool for large teams
Basecamp is a flexible, cost effective collaboration tool for large teams. In our project we are used it as a knowledge repository. The tool slowly gained traction and now being used across the whole organization. We could upload documents on Basecamp and ask for reviews and enhancements, comments from the team. We could track each team members tasks and ask for updates.
- It is a great tool for large teams. There is no limit on the number of people one can add.
- It comes with a good user interface. For people who were used to old tools, this is a god send.
- It is a cloud application and does not need a big team to maintain it.
- For a person working on multiple projects, it is difficult to flip between different portals.
- Reports can be run out of basecamp. They are very basic, there is scope for improvement there.
- There is no way to track time or record time in basecamp as of now.
September 25, 2019
Basecamp for Simple Collaboration
I use Basecamp to organize with external vendors and collaborate on projects that are being done by agencies. It allows sharing of documents and ideas that aren't part of internal networks, so this is a way to add some transparency for others who might not have or have difficulty accessing information.
- Share documents
- Creating tasks
- User interface
- More expansive options to manage projects