Microsoft Project review 2026: pricing tiers from $10 to $55 per user, Gantt charts, resource management, and how it compares to Asana, Monday and Smartsheet.
Microsoft Project is Microsoft's dedicated project and portfolio management application, first released in 1984 and now sold as a set of subscription plans (Project Plan 1, 3, and 5) alongside Microsoft Planner. It is built for detailed scheduling, budgeting, and resource management rather than lightweight task tracking, and integrates with the wider Microsoft 365 ecosystem including Teams, SharePoint, and Power BI.
The product spans a browser-based experience for grid, board, and timeline views, an optional Windows desktop client for advanced Gantt-chart scheduling and critical-path analysis, and enterprise portfolio management tools for organizations juggling many concurrent projects. It remains a standard tool in construction, engineering, IT, and government project management.
At the center of Microsoft Project is Gantt-chart scheduling with task dependencies, critical path calculation, and baseline tracking, which lets project managers see exactly how a schedule slip in one task cascades through a plan. Resource management tools allow leveling workloads across people and tracking cost against budget.
Higher tiers add timesheets, enterprise resource planning, and portfolio-level dashboards that help PMOs compare, prioritize, and optimize competing projects. Native Power BI connectors turn raw project data into executive-ready reporting, and Teams integration keeps project conversations and files attached to the plan.
Microsoft Project pricing is structured into three subscription tiers: Project Plan 1 at $10/user/month for web-based task and timeline tracking, Project Plan 3 at $30/user/month adding the desktop client and resource management, and Project Plan 5 at $55/user/month for full enterprise portfolio and demand management.
There is no permanent free tier, though Microsoft offers a 30-day free trial. Because pricing is per user per month, costs scale directly with team size, and organizations typically mix tiers, assigning Plan 5 only to PMO staff who need portfolio tools while giving individual contributors cheaper Plan 1 seats.
It is sold separately as add-on subscription plans rather than included in standard Microsoft 365 Business or Enterprise plans, though it shares the same billing and admin infrastructure.
There is no permanent free tier, but Microsoft offers a 30-day free trial on its paid plans.
Planner is a lightweight task and Kanban tool, while Project is for formal scheduling with Gantt charts, dependencies, and resource leveling; Microsoft has merged both into a unified Planner app experience with Project plans layered on top.
The web-based Project for the web works in any browser, but the full desktop Project client is Windows only.
.mpp, a proprietary format widely supported by import and export tools in competing project management software.
Mid-size and enterprise teams with formal scheduling needs, especially organizations already standardized on Microsoft 365.