Radical simplicity
Lists and cards. Anyone gets it in two minutes.
Plaanly vs Trello
Plaanly vs Trello for small businesses
If all you need is a board with cards, Trello is enough and it's free. This page is for when the board starts needing to know things it doesn't.
Let's be fair
What Trello does well
Free to start
One board for a small team costs nothing.
Power-ups for everything
Calendar, custom fields, automations — each as an extra.
The problem
Where it breaks in a small business
Trello doesn't know who the client is, what the project is worth, or that Ana is on leave.
The card doesn't know the client
The “Aveiro Clinic website” project lives on a board; the proposal, the email and the contact live elsewhere. Linking it all is your job.
No notion of money
There's no sold value, hourly rate or margin. Knowing whether the project made a profit is a separate spreadsheet.
No real team
Leave, capacity, cost per person — none of it exists. The week's plan doesn't know who's out.
Side by side
What changes
| Trello | Plaanly | |
|---|---|---|
| Kanban | Lists and cards, very simple. | Real-time kanban with status, priority, owner, due date, subtasks. |
| Planning | Timeline and calendar as power-ups. | Timeline, sprints and backlog included. |
| Client | A name on a card. | Project linked to the lead, the contact, the accepted proposal and the email. |
| Money | Not covered. | Costs, hour timer, hourly rate, live margin vs. sold value. |
| Team | Board members. | Employees with permissions, leave, absences on the calendar and the plan. |
| Documents | Attachments and the Drive power-up. | Google Docs created and linked to each task. |
| Cost | Free; features by plan and power-ups. | Per user, everything included, no lock-in. |
Trello features as per the product's public information at the time of writing; always confirm on their site.
Migrate
Bringing the boards from Trello
A Trello board is a project in Plaanly. Lists become statuses; cards become tasks.
- 1
Export the board
JSON or CSV from Trello. One file per board.
- 2
Create the project and statuses
Trello lists become kanban columns. Import the cards as tasks with owner and due date.
- 3
Link to the client
Attach the project to the lead or the company. From there, everything that happens lands in the client's history.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Is Plaanly as simple as Trello?
The kanban is. The rest — costs, timeline, client link — is there when you need it, not before.
Is there a direct Trello import?
Via CSV/JSON. There is no live connection.
Can I have internal-only boards?
Yes — projects with no client attached work as regular boards.
What about the power-ups I use?
Tell us which. The common ones (calendar, fields, simple automations) are already native features.
Shall we put your company in one place?
Tell us what you're using today. We'll show you how it looks in Plaanly.