Overview
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.
Basecamp: Perfect for Confusing Clients and Losing Business
BaseCamp Review
Basecamp is a fine basic PM software, but there are better options out there
Basecamp Has All the Supplies You Need to Reach the Summit of Your Business
My Favourite Project Management Software
Basecamp Fan for Life
Basecamp - Simple and easy to use all-in-one project management tool for small teams
Basecamp works great for our simple, limited scope of needs
Based at Basecamp and loving it!
Set up your Basecamp and climb to new heights!
Basecamp is a perfect marketing project management tool for external agencies
Great tool for those who want visibility in projects, and need to organize work and docs
Better options out there (for us at least)
Best Project Management
Awards
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Popular Features
- Task Management (117)5.050%
- Team Collaboration (117)4.444%
- Document Management (109)3.939%
- Resource Management (98)3.939%
Reviewer Pros & Cons
Pricing
Basecamp Business
$99
Basecamp Personal
Free
Entry-level set up fee?
- No setup fee
Offerings
- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Starting price (does not include set up fee)
- $15 per month per user
Product Demos
Basecamp Demo
Garmin Basecamp demo - Part III
Garmin Basecamp demo - Part II
Basecamp - 2-minute Demo
Garmin Basecamp demo - Part I
Basecamp Project Management Review
Features
Project Management
Project management software provides capabilities to streamline management of complex projects through task management, team collaboration and workflow automation
- 5Task Management(117) Ratings
This includes the ability to plan, track, collaborate and report on tasks.
- 3.9Resource Management(98) Ratings
Resource management is workload planning to maximize resources.
- 2.9Gantt Charts(40) Ratings
Gantt charts are charts that show tasks or events along the y-axis displayed against time along the x-axis.
- 3.9Scheduling(93) Ratings
Scheduling capabilities allow users to set schedules on tasks, and create timelines and milestones.
- 2.9Workflow Automation(68) Ratings
Workflow automation is the ability to route work requests along an approval process automatically.
- 4.4Team Collaboration(117) Ratings
Team collaboration capabilities let team members work directly with each other and provide team updates.
- 3.8Support for Agile Methodology(49) Ratings
Agile is a time boxed, iterative approach to development that builds software incrementally instead of trying to deliver it all at once near the end.
- 3.3Support for Waterfall Methodology(45) Ratings
Waterfall methodology is a tradition development method that is linear and sequential.
- 3.9Document Management(109) Ratings
Document management provides for centralized management of all project documents.
- 4Email integration(96) Ratings
Email integration allows work requests to be made directly from email.
- 4.2Mobile Access(95) Ratings
Mobile access is the ability to access the software from a smartphone or tablet.
- 3.2Timesheet Tracking(44) Ratings
Timesheet tracking is the ability to track all billable and non-billable hours for each project.
- 3.4Change request and Case Management(55) Ratings
Change request and change management enables tracking of all customer requests including priority and timeframe.
- 7.1Budget and Expense Management(39) Ratings
Budget and expense management provides the capability to track all expenses by employee or department and link them back to department. It also enables hourly rates to be set.
Professional Services Automation
Features that support professional services organizations
- 8.3Quotes/estimates(29) Ratings
Ability to create, manage and send project fee proposals to customers
- 6.9Invoicing(25) Ratings
Ability to create, manage and send invoices to clients during or after completion of a project
- 8Project & financial reporting(34) Ratings
Ability to analyze project and financial data based on custom criteria to gather insights and improve business performance
- 7.9Integration with accounting software(27) Ratings
Real-time, two-way sync with accounting or financial software to facilitate project and financial reporting
Product Details
- About
- Integrations
- Competitors
- Tech Details
- FAQs
What is Basecamp?
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
Comparisons
Compare with
Reviews and Ratings
(1262)Community Insights
- Recommendations
Based on user reviews, here are the three most common recommendations for Basecamp:
-
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.
Attribute Ratings
Reviews
(126-144 of 144)Great for customer onboarding
- This product is a great way to onboard clients. It's really easy to use both for my team and for our clients. Having templates makes it a snap to setup new projects. I can't see ourselves not using Basecamp now that we've been using it. We've also combined using it with our own tools and we've gamified the onboarding experience.
- I would like to be able to assign tasks to multiple people. I would like to be able to update multiple projects at once. I would like to be able to create templates from existing projects.
Basecamp all the way!
- Organizes projects into tickets for fast research
- The search option is great to look through all client projects
- Simple structure, very streamlined
- Very customizable
- I'd like to see an option where multiple people could have multiple dates assigned to them on the same to do ticket, one person assigned at a time on a ticket can slow down the process when multiple people need to touch the ticket.
- I don't like that there's not a central catalog of projects. You have to be invited to everything, I'll miss some projects because someone didn't invite me. Not sure if that's just my company setting or all Basecamp systems.
- Can there be a notice when a third party invited person is looking at ticket, be nice to have statuses of when someone has clicked on to the ticket.
I'm a huge fan of Basecamp
- It allows a "not email" place where a team can collaborate on to-do's, file sharing, and conversations. Threads can be archived to keep the conversation moving along.
- It integrates with email allowing non technical users to simply reply to a Basecamp notification to stay involved.
- Basecamp integrates with other third party services well. Embedding videos or sharing cloud files is easy and useful.
- While Basecamp is geared towards conversation, I'd like to see tools for converting conversations into actionable items (i.e. assigning tickets with priority).
Fantastic file sharing tool.
- This is a great file sharing and collaboration tool. I work for a marketing agency and we use this technology for communication between the account, production and creative departments. It is a central location to provide feedback, view updates, determine next steps and timing.
- Assigning the "client" to the product is not that intuitive and takes a few steps to get the project appropriately classified.
Basecamp: Basically Awesome
- Organization - It's easy to see what's on tap, and who is involved/accountable.
- Progress tracking - I can tell from a quick glance whether we're on track for delivery.
- Remote access communication - Our contributors work in many different locations - Basecamp makes it easy to stay in touch and communicate.
- Online collaboration - The interface provides the next best thing to red pen and paper for editing and critique.
- Conversation threads can be a little confusing with more than 5 contributors.
- The interface is great - but it can be overwhelming for a beginner.
It won't replace MS Project, but it will replace your share drive.
- Though we don't necessarily use this how it's designed, we do use it to coordinate projects across multiple departments. It allows us to have not only a shared calendar for all of our different marketing efforts, it also is a place to keep all of the collateral we need for each project in one place.
- We are able to use this to share documents, images, and various checklists to keep everyone on the same page. It serves as a shared repository of different pieces of information, helping to avoid silos and getting us over having to rely on share drives and email communications.
- We can manage a schedule with Basecamp that holds all of our different teams accountable to the projects that are being managed - which is great when we have so many things going on with departments who don't often communicate with each other.
- There's no way to share just the calendar without also including someone on a project. So, people may receive information that doesn't pertain to them, and then it can create some question of separating the signal from the noise on important projects.
- There is no versioning available for items added to Basecamp - so your options are either to replace historical documents with the new ones, or to append the new documents and try to be clear about the order of importance.
- They removed the milestone functionality from calendar events, which was a nice way to manage things on the calendar and to mark them as complete. We've worked around it by creating a "Done" calendar and migrating completed calendar events to that project.
Basecamp Life
- It keeps us organized and structured such that we know what needs to be provided and by who.
- Tasks are given out to each member with email reminders
- Holds the team accountable for the various tasks that need to be accomplished.
- The initial setup is sometimes tedious, but after it is done, you can copy the format for all other projects
Just a lowly Project Manager review of BC.
- Scheduling of milestones and task tracking
- Simplicity of design....provides little need for advanced training to users who are less computer savvy
- Project template rollout.... generic template setup is easy and intuitive.
- File storage is not good. integration with a dropbox or cloud based server with managed access to files would be very nice. See google drive
- Files should have modernized #tagging for filing.... ie multiple tags to each file, such as #shipping doc #invoice #change order etc etc BC currently limits one file category to each file
- Only designated users should have the ability to shift milestone dates. Currently anyone can manipulate to suit a whim.
Basecamp....meh
- Consolidates project documents
- Increases transparency
- Eliminates the need for 1 off emails
- It can be insanely disorganized depending on the user
- Without the proper training it ends up being more of a hassle than it's worth
- It can be time consuming to manage all projects inside BC
AP Basecamp review
- Threaded messages with attached documents.
- Editability.
- To-do lists.
- Calendar flexibility.
- Tags on uploaded documents.
- Confusing to manage projects and team members within the system at times.
Basecamp is the Best!
- You can organize everything by projects
- You can give your workers access to certain projects, so they do not have to be overwhelmed with everything, just the things they need to pay attention to.
- The calendar feature
- I would like to see some sort of doc sharing feature, like GoogleDocs, so that people can work on a project at the same time and have it always be updated. I don't like the fact that I have to re upload something to the doc.
- I wish there could be an instant messaging feature
- I wish there could be a way that could could see comment history on the forwarded emails, so you can see what the comment is about, not just the topic of the post where the comment was coming from.
Dominic's Basecamp Review
- Poject management - users are able to track the progress of smaller, critical tasks as opposed to just overall project progress. This added level of granularity helps to prevent timeline creep and helps to keep things on track, or at least lets users know when a project is starting to come off the rails.
- File storage - Users are able to store, edit, and share documents much like with Google Docs. Having a cloud storage solution such as base camp helps teammates be aware of each others work/progress and also eliminates the possibility of lost data due to team hardware failure.
- Facilitate team discussion - base camp provides teammates with the ability to discuss their project. Communication is often a key ingredient to project success so this is a very helpful feature.
- I would like to see seamless integration with Google docs. I personally use Google docs a lot and most of my colleagues and friends do the same. I think that Google's offerings are far superior to Basecamp's native Whiteboard.
- Better integration between calendar and base camp would help
- Some way to document optional or hazy start dates for milestones (Gantt charts maybe?)
Project Manager's Dream Come True
- Easy and organized communication. The discussion threads allow you to choose who on the project is receiving a message, sends everyone involved an email, and keeps a record of all attachments. The user interface is intuitive and quick, and I can go back to threads months after the project is over to find a file or look at a specific comment.
- The calendar is clear and well-organized. I can add all events months in advance and easily click and drag deadlines as they inevitably change.
- The "home page" of each project is a great overview of the status and is incredibly user-friendly. They've clearly gone through multiple iterations to figure out the best layout of the dashboard and improve the organization of features, and it shows.
- I'd like to see better integration of the calendar and a deliverables list. They have "to-dos" in a separate section, but there's no easy way to link a deadline with the deliverable that accompanies that deadline. It would be great if the message thread could link to the deadline and deliverable so you didn't have to switch between features to see the complete picture.
- One of the great features of the discussion threads is also one of Basecamp's weaknesses for me. When responding to a discussion, the default recipients are those that received the last response on the discussion thread. When you respond quickly, it's not obvious who is receiving this email. So if someone else removed one person from the thread earlier in the discussion, that person won't receive further communications. It would be helpful if you had to "approve" the distribution list before sending so it was clear who would be receiving your response.
- As I mentioned in my positive reviews, Basecamp keeps all files that have been uploaded over the course of the project. It's a great resource for going back and finding previous files. It would be helpful if the "files" section of the project was organized my discussion thread, so you'd have more context for the file. As it stands, they're organized by date, which is helpful but could be improved.
From mayhem to well-oiled machine
- Keeps large teams on track for project completion.
- Love that you can schedule recurring projects in advance and assign all the tasks out - turns us into a well-oiled machine.
- Linking tasks! I would love it if you could move one task and it would ripple to all the following ones.
Great Asset to our Team!
- This product makes it very easy to share and comment on files, images, etc.
- Because of the layout of the interface, it really helps enhance the initial brainstorming and design processes.
- Because it is hosted online, it is easy to quickly access the system in case we need to quick reference a project in meetings and presentations.
- The interface is a little bit hard to navigate for newer users sometimes. It helps if you clearly label and name your projects so it is easier to locate them later.
Robust but a bit clunky compared to newer entrants.
- If you need a rather robust way to manage to-do lists that have multiple responsible parties, Basecamp is great.
- The conversation/commenting system (especially with attached documents) is fairly clunky and tends to create more confusion among teams who do not share the same physical office.
Excellent, intuitive product.
- Basecamp is excellent at delivering a lightweight and highly usable system for managing a variety of projects. It is intuitive, stable and optimized for web and email collaboration.
- It is very easy to include external customers/collaborators and they rarely required training or hand-holding to figure out how to jump in and participate in the project.
- Multiple connectors are available to integrate third party solutions into your Basecamp experience such as Freshbooks for invoicing.
- A well documented API allows more sophisticated organizations to write creative integrations.
- Basecamp's strength is also its weakness. The lack of a clear point of view on how you are "supposed" to use the system can leave project managers who prefer the rigidity of more sophisticated systems frustrated.
- You may find certain features that you "assume" should be part of a project management tool missing entirely. This is again, reflective of a strong sense that they are giving you only the tools and functionality which *they* consider absolutely necessary.
Great white-label product.
- Great white label product if you are an agency that has multiple customers or clients needing a web-browser accessible sandbox for brainstorming, concept tracking, version control, copy deck review and all communication resulting from the creative digital process. It was easy to create templates of repeatable process steps and reduced manual labor/input in regards to a project tracking/timeline perspective. Dates were altered but high level tasks often were the same.
- Our team at the time did not use it for time tracking. It seemed more of a nuisance than a convenience.
Reliable and affordable.
- We use Basecamp to support processes between our integrated marketing team and an in-house creative team, as well as internal end external freelancers.
- Because Basecamp is web based, the service is easy to access.
- Basecamp allows us to monitor progress on projects, manage assets and ensure only the right people are included on a project.
- The app could benefit from a better mobile interface. Certain components could also benefit from better integration with third party services like Box, Dropbox and Photoshop.