ClickUp is hired to do one job: give a team a shared place to plan and track work, with docs and chat alongside. Teams often adopt it for tasks and pay for a suite. Below: what the plans cost as published, the realistic replacements, and the procedure for leaving without dropping a process somebody depends on.
It starts as a task list and grows docs, dashboards and chat around it. Once a team keeps its notes next to its tasks, moving the tasks alone leaves the context behind.
The data is the easy part. The work in leaving is deciding which of those pieces still earn their place, which is why we inventory before we recommend anything.
Only alternatives we have checked. An open-source project is listed with the license its repository reports, on the date shown; one whose license could not be read as a single standard id is not offered as open source. Read the license guide before running any of them.
| Alternative | Kind | License | Read from |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plane | Open source | AGPL-3.0 | Plane repositoryChecked Oct 25, 2026 |
| OpenProject | Open source | GPL-3.0 | OpenProject repositoryChecked Oct 25, 2026 |
| Vikunja | Open source | AGPL-3.0 | Vikunja repositoryChecked Oct 25, 2026 |
Each feature below is what the product's own page or README says, linked to where we read it on the date shown. Pros and cons are limited to what those pages state and to what the path itself changes. We do not rank products on quality.
| Plan | Price as published | Includes | Read from |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free Forever | $0 | Unlimited tasks and subtasks, unlimited free members, 60 MB storage, collaborative docs, Kanban boards | ClickUp pricingChecked Oct 25, 2026 |
| Core | $9 per user per month, billed yearly (regular price shown as $12) | Custom fields, unlimited storage and spaces, unlimited Gantt charts, 1K automations per month | ClickUp pricingChecked Oct 25, 2026 |
| Business | $17 per user per month, billed yearly (regular price shown as $25) | Advanced dashboards, webhooks, 10K automations per month, timesheets, private views and docs | ClickUp pricingChecked Oct 25, 2026 |
| Enterprise | Custom pricing through sales | Advanced SSO, audit logs, data residency, 1M automations per month | ClickUp pricingChecked Oct 25, 2026 |
List prices as printed on ClickUp's pricing page on the checked date, per user per month and billed yearly. The page shows a higher regular price next to each figure and an earlier set of plans lower down; only the current set is listed here. An AI plan (Max) is priced separately and left out.
ClickUp's own page lists tasks, docs, views, dashboards, automations and chat. A team that uses all of them is replacing a suite; a team that uses only tasks is replacing a task list. Settle which one you are before choosing, because a narrower tool is a smaller migration.
Samples are made up and are not ClickUp's prices. Type in the figures from your own invoice or order form.
The honest yearly cost of running open-source software yourself, set against the bill it replaces, with the seat count where it stops paying.
Paid seats against seats in use: what the idle ones cost a year, and what you save by right-sizing at renewal.
Arithmetic only, not tax, accounting or legal advice. Check the figures against your own order form.
In outline:
List every space and list, who touched it in the past 90 days, and every automation, form and integration attached to it. Archive what nobody has used.
Pick the destination and move one team's work first. Run the team's real week on it before moving anyone else.
Export the task data, import it into the destination, and compare task counts and assignees on both sides. Move docs by hand or export, and rebuild the automations the team actually relied on.
Tell people the date, make the old workspace read-only, and update links and integrations that pointed at it.
Wait a full month, keep an export, then end the plan inside the contract's notice window.
Run the vendor report for QuickBooks Online or Xero, then open the free audit.
General information, not legal advice. See cancelling without penalties. Last reviewed Oct 25, 2026. Product names belong to their owners and are used only to identify them.
Send us the export and see which lines are worth a second look. A connected version is planned. ClickUp is one of the lines worth a look.
Worked example. Type over it.
Result
| Self-hosting, per year | Amount |
|---|---|
| Hosting, backups, tooling | 720.00 |
| Admin and restore-test time | 2,640.00 |
| Total | 3,360.00 |
| One-off set-up (not in the yearly total) | 1,200.00 |
The saving holds only if the time is real. Price the admin hours at what that person's time costs the company, not at zero.
Worked example. Type over it.
Result
“In use” is your call: last sign-in in the past 30 or 90 days from the vendor's admin report. A seat for someone on leave is not idle.