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Flowboard vs Basecamp

Keep the calm. Add what the hour cost and what the client earned.

Basecamp is deliberate about its scope and publishes where the rest goes. Its pricing page names no invoicing, no profitability, no margin, and no budget, and it says what to do instead: you can also export the data to bring into an accounting or billing system of your choice. That is a design position, not an oversight, and Basecamp 5 is all new for 2026 without changing it. Flowboard runs the same delivery work and keeps the money side attached to it: hours on the task, margin per client computed from those hours, invoice lines generated from the same entries. Client seats are free on both sides.

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For agencies who chose Basecamp on purpose and now need the money side of the work in the same place.

Complete enough to replace the everything-app. Simple enough your clients actually use it.

Agencies churn on a pendulum. You move up to ClickUp or Jira chasing power and one place for everything, then the bugs, the setup time, and the clients who never log in push you back down to Trello or Notion for something simpler, and you outgrow that too. Across 6,357 agency reviews of the six tools agencies actually use, the two biggest reasons people switch are opposites, more power and more simplicity, and nobody serves the middle. Flowboard is built for the middle: the whole agency in one workspace, and a client view your clients will open.

Feature comparison

FeatureFlowboardBasecamp
Billable time trackingIncluded on the one plan. One-click timer from the Kanban card, the List row, and the task detail panel, with a billable filter on the time entry listTimesheet is included on the flat plan. On the per-user plan it is an upgrade: the Timesheet upgrade is $50/month flat USD. Basecamp positions the output as an input to billing, to help with resource allocation or client billing
Margin per clientPer-project and workspace-wide profitability computed from logged hours, with cost rate per hour returned to Owner and Admin onlyProfitability and margin are not named on Basecamp's pricing or features pages. Basecamp routes it outward by design: export the data to bring into an accounting or billing system of your choice
Invoicing from tracked timeInvoice line items generated from time entries, grouped by team member or by task, and generating locks those entriesInvoicing is not named on Basecamp's pricing or features pages. The same export line is where Basecamp points this work
Forward capacityCapacity heatmap with a utilization percentage per member per period and the per-project allocation behind it, plus a capacity-versus-actual report against logged hoursCapacity and utilization are not named on either page. The published reports are retrospective by design, including Someone's assignments, Timesheets and Overdue
Client seatsFree and unlimited. Portal users live in a separate identity table and are never counted against the workspace member limitFree. In Basecamp's words, clients and contractors can be added to your account for free. Parity
Client-facing surfaceStandalone client login by magic link or password, with task, comment, and file visibility scoping, a Preview as Client toggle, and invoices in the portalClients are invited into the project itself, with visibility control: invite co-workers, colleagues, clients, volunteers, even AI Agents, and hide unfinished work while keeping conversations in the project and on the record. Near parity, different shape
Plan structureOne plan, $39 per seat per month USD, no seat minimumsTwo paid shapes plus a free plan. Per-user at $15/user, billed monthly USD, or flat at $299/month, billed annually USD with unlimited users, no per-user fees. Free runs 1 project with up to 20 users. The same core features are included with every package

Where Flowboard differs

The hours already contain the margin

Every hour your team logs updates that project's margin, per client, with no spreadsheet. Cost rate per hour is returned only to Owner and Admin, so members and clients never see internal cost rates, and billable capacity is measured against weekdays rather than calendar days. So what: you catch the overrun in week two, not at invoice time. Honest limit: the numbers come from hours already logged. There is no forecasting and no margin alerting. Where Basecamp stands on this: it sends the data out. In its own words, you can also export the data to bring into an accounting or billing system of your choice. Two systems, one reconciliation, by design.

The same entries become the invoice

Invoice line items are generated from the time entries themselves, grouped by team member or by task, and generating an invoice locks those entries so the same hours are not billed on a second invoice. Stripe invoices carry a hosted payment link stored on the invoice record, and the client sees the invoice in their portal. So what: the hours are typed once, and month end is a review rather than a rebuild. Honest limit: expenses do not flow onto invoices. The line-item generator groups from time entries only. There is no auto-recurring client invoice.

Capacity before the week starts, not after

The capacity heatmap puts one team member per row and a utilization percentage in each cell, with the per-project allocation behind it, so you see which projects put them there. Allocations edit in bulk, and a capacity-versus-actual report compares what was planned against the hours actually logged. So what: the who-has-room question gets answered from logged hours instead of a guess. Where Basecamp stands on this: its published reports look backwards on purpose. Someone's assignments, Timesheets and Overdue tell you what has been assigned and what has been spent, and Basecamp names no capacity or utilization view on either page read today.

What Flowboard does not have

No integrations marketplace. No native mobile app: the mobile screens are mobile-optimized web views. No Gantt or timeline view, since Board, List, and Calendar are the only views, and Calendar places a task only if it carries a due date. No Basecamp import wizard: the four shipped importers are CSV, Trello, ClickUp, and Asana, so a move from Basecamp runs through the CSV wizard. Portal branding is three fields, workspace name, logo, and accent color, on a Flowboard-hosted portal with no custom domain.

Where Basecamp is the right answer

Basecamp is deliberate, and the deliberation is the product. The same core features are included with every package: from Free to Pro Unlimited, you get the essential fundamentals built in, with optional upgrades such as Timesheet layered on top of the per-user plan. Message Boards, To-dos, Card Tables, Campfires and Pings, Scheduling, Docs and Files, Reports and Automatic Check-ins are the published set, and clients come into the project itself with unfinished work hidden and the conversation still on the record. Automation is scheduled and notification-shaped rather than a general builder: questions asked on a regular schedule, and rules for who gets notified when a to-do is completed or a card lands in a column. Basecamp 5 shipped well over 100 significant improvements, a refreshed API, a CLI, and Skills, and its founder states the position plainly: it's AI accessible, but not agent hysteric. The company describes who it builds for as the small to medium-sized teams we've been serving in the Fortune 5,000,000 for decades. If the money side of your work genuinely lives in your accounting tool and you want it to stay there, that is the shape Basecamp is built to be, and it is a coherent choice rather than a missing feature. Flowboard is the other choice: one workspace where the hours, the margin, and the invoice are the same record.

Keep the workspace calm and put the money back in it. The hour, the margin, and the invoice are one record.

Why agencies choose Flowboard over Basecamp

Billable time on the one plan

Basecamp includes Timesheet on the flat plan. On the per-user plan it is an upgrade, and Basecamp prices it as one: the Timesheet upgrade is $50/month flat USD, on top of $15/user, billed monthly USD. Flowboard has one plan, so the timer, the billable flag, the time reports, and the margin they feed are all in it. The timer starts from the Kanban card, the List row, or the task detail panel, so nobody opens a second surface to log an hour.

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Margin per client, in the workspace that does the work

Profitability, margin, and budget are not named on Basecamp's pricing or features pages, and Basecamp is explicit about where that work belongs: export the data to bring into an accounting or billing system of your choice. Its nearest published line is the time report, which it frames as help with resource allocation or client billing rather than as the billing itself. Flowboard computes per-project and workspace-wide profitability from the logged hours, with cost rate per hour returned only to Owner and Admin, so the margin number exists in the same place the hours were logged.

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Reports that answer money questions

Basecamp publishes nine named reports: The Lineup, Someone's activity, Someone's assignments, Mission Control, The Hilltop, Added/Completed, Overdue, Unassigned, and Timesheets. They are status and activity reports by design, and they are more complete than Basecamp is usually given credit for. Flowboard ships five report engines built around the billable question instead: time and billing, project profitability, team utilization, invoice summary, and capacity versus actual, each with a filter panel, chart, table, and scheduled delivery to a named recipient list.

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The client surface, where both tools already agree on price

Client seats cost nothing in either tool. Basecamp states it directly: clients and contractors can be added to your account for free. The difference is shape. Basecamp brings the client into the project with visibility controls, so you hide unfinished work and keep the conversation in the project and on the record. Flowboard gives the client their own login by magic link or password, against a separate portal-users identity table rather than a seat, with task, comment, and file visibility scoping, their invoices in the same place, and a Preview as Client toggle that filters your own screen with the live portal's visibility rule.

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Two pricing shapes against one

Basecamp sells two paid shapes: $15/user, billed monthly USD, or a flat $299/month, billed annually USD with unlimited users, no per-user fees. Basecamp confirms the flat shape holds at scale, answering its own question about adding 1000 users on that plan with a yes. Flowboard sells one plan at $39 per seat per month USD billed monthly, or $390 per seat per year USD on annual billing, $32.50 per seat per month effective, with no seat minimums. Basecamp publishes no monthly-billed price for the flat plan, so the honest comparison holds both sides on annual billing: read that way, at ten staff seats and above Basecamp's flat plan costs less per month than Flowboard's effective rate, and the gap widens with every hire. At nine seats Flowboard is still cheaper, $292.50 against $299. What that buys is the money loop attached to the work, which is the thing Basecamp routes to another system by design.

Frequently asked questions

Move off Basecamp without starting over.

Flowboard ships import wizards for ClickUp, Asana, Trello, and CSV. You run them yourself from inside your workspace.

One plan, $39 per seat per month USD. Client seats free.

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Self-serve import from ClickUp, Asana, Trello, or CSV
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