Workflow Software | How Does Workflow SaaS Work?

Yet for most teams, working seamlessly isn’t something that comes naturally. Bottlenecks and miscommunications can easily slow down projects and put teams behind. Not only that, disjointed business applications that don’t integrate well with each other only work to slow your team down.

Issues like these are what workflow software aims to tackle. However, the key is finding the right tool that is built to meet the needs of your team. To help, we’ve compiled a list of some of the top workflow software as well as what they’re each best for.

In this guide, we’ll walk through:

• What is workflow management software?
• How does workflow management software work?
• The 12 best workflow management software options
  • 1. Zapier
  • 2. Vendr
  • 3. Notion
  • 4. Miro
  • 5. Kintone
  • 6. ClickUp
  • 7. Trello
  • 8. KIssflow
  • 9. Monday.com
  • 10. Smartsheets
  • 11. Asana
  • 12. Airtable

What is workflow management software?

Workflow management software is designed to help optimize and streamline your day-to-day business processes. This might look like a sequence of tasks that are automated and run in the background while your team works on higher ROI tasks. Workflow software provides your team with the necessary frameworks and tools to reach milestones and maintain growth.

Integrating workflow software saves your business time, quickens productivity, and helps keep you on track with schedules and deadlines. It can also help you significantly simplify business processes.

How does workflow management software work?

There are a ton of different workflow needs you can optimize for. That’s why it’s hard to find a one-size-fits-all tool that gets the job done in every workflow scenario. Yet workflow software is useful in areas like:

• Project management
• Agile management
• Task management
• Project planning
• Employee onboarding and offboarding management
• Vendor workflows
• Employee workflows
• Database management
• Claims management

The 12 best workflow management software options

Teams that can streamline processes undoubtedly save time. But first, you need to find the best workflow management software that’s built with your team goals in mind. We’ve found the 12 best options to help virtually any of your specific needs and go into more detail for each.

1. Zapier – Best for connecting different applications

Zapier puts connectivity at the forefront as it allows you to connect virtually any tool for a more streamlined approach to shipping work. It makes it so that teams don’t have to toggle back and forth between disconnected applications by easing data sharing and communication between any tools.

Zapier’s top features

• You’re able to start automated workflows from any application
• Zapier connects more than 3,000 web apps (and counting)
• Comes with a free starter option for small teams

To start using Zapier as part of your team’s workflow means you’ll have to pay per task. Zapier starts charging at $19.99 per 100 tasks.

2. Vendr – Best for IT operations

Vendr acquired Blissfully in February 2022. The combined solution is built with the IT workflow in mind. It allows you to manage vendor and employee workflows, IT workflow automations, SaaS operations, and equips you with the ability to create advanced workflow modifications.

Vendr’s top features

• Takes a comprehensive approach to IT and SaaS management
• Offers tools to streamline the employee onboarding and offboarding process
• Comes with its own API to help sync data with more ease

3. Notion – Best for small teams seeking flexibility

You can think of Notion as the building blocks app that lets you create a whole world of workflows with a select set of tools. Notion’s goal is specifically to keep teams organized. Notion allows you to centralize team projects, share anything from images and links to Docs and embedded videos.It even lets you create different types of frameworks to help structure your workflows.

Notion’s best features

• Easy to learn and flexible which means it can fulfill several needs beyond workflow management
• Comes with workflow templates so you don’t have to build them from scratch
• Offers advanced database features

Notion comes with a free starter plan. But even small businesses are better off going with a paid plan–which comes with added features like sharing permissions, admin tools, and unlimited team members.

4. Miro – Best for whiteboard-style collaboration

If you’re a team that’s often collaborating with brainstorming sessions, Miro can be a unique approach to handling your workflow. It allows you to collaborate across teams and share images and files in real-time.

While it doesn’t come with a highly diverse set of tools to help you manage every aspect of your workflow, it does help solve the team collaboration issue. Miro is an efficient tool for highly creative teams who think in “blocks” or that like to visually map out processes.

Miro’s best features

• Enterprise-grade security
• Great for teams that like to get together and brainstorm visually
• Comes with plenty of built-in templates

Miro’s $8 a member plan equips you with custom templates and unlimited editable boards. There’s also a free option, but with limited usage.

5. Kintone – Best for small to medium teams

With Kintone teams can collaborate through workflows they build and share in a way that meets their needs. It’s great for centralizing business data in different formats without creating extra work in the process.

Kintone also allows you to streamline operations by automating repetitive work tasks and tracking projects in the background for your team. As workflow software, Kintone is flexible enough to be used by HR teams all the way through to sales and marketing.

Kintone’s best features

• Set up conditional workflows in real-time
• Send private messages and create threads
• Makes it easy to track project status

Kintone’s professional subscription starts at $24 per month and comes with access to up to 300 spaces and 5 GBs of data.

6. ClickUp – Best for building complex workflows from scratch

Much like Notion, ClickUp offers teams the flexibility to build custom workflows from scratch. Yet ClickUp offers a more advanced set of tools and features for teams that want to manage just about any workflow imaginable.

Tools like whiteboards, custom dashboards, time tracking, and built-in chat help your team stay connected and on top of projects. It also makes it easy to integrate with your existing set of tools. Its drag-and-drop features help team members make quick changes on an intuitive dashboard.

ClickUp’s best features

• Extremely customizable
• Affordable for small teams
• Easy to import work from other tools

The $5 per member plan for small teams comes with unlimited storage, integrations, and dashboards as well as access control features like guest permissions for sharing and collaborating outside of your organization.

7. Trello – Best for simple workflows

The Kanban approach to workflow management is what Trello is built around. Its task cards, automations, labels, and tags help teams stay on top of deadlines and milestones. With the Kanban approach to workflow management, you’re able to get a bird’s eye view of the progress of each project so your team stays nimble.

It’s important to note that Trello is limited to a Kanban framework. So if you need to manage several different types of workflows on different frameworks, you’ll want to look at more expansive tools, like Blissfully, that’ll allow you to create better processes for different contexts.

Trello’s best features

• Extremely easy to use
• Highly collaborative with tags, messaging, and filters
• Built-in workflow automations

You can start using Trello for free and get access to many of its tools including unlimited storage and up to 10 boards per workspace.

8. Kissflow – Best for visual workflow management

Kissflow is a highly visual workflow tool built for nimble teams that want to get going quickly. It allows teams to access data from a multitude of devices for on-the-go work. It comes with a slew of templates for different workflows so you don’t have to start from scratch.

Kissflow’s best features

• Intuitive user interface
• Comes with tools for the creation of low-code applications
• Offers a community platform for higher team engagement

Kissflow’s Basic plan starts at $500 a month for 1,000 members and 5 community staff.

9. Monday.com – Best for data visualization

Monday.com’s color-coded drag-and-drop interface was built with agile teams in mind. Its easy to adopt, intuitive interface makes it accessible to all teams regardless of whether they’re working in sales and marketing or software development.

Its Gantt charts, Kanban boards, calendars, and roadmap views make it flexible enough for teams to optimize their workflows for increased productivity and better collaboration. User-friendly automated notifications keep teams engaged and workflow processes interactive.

Monday.com’s best features

• Easy to use drag-and-drop dashboards
• Works great for remote teams
• Built to be intuitive with less of a learning curve

You can get started using monday.com with up to two seats for free. However, for larger teams, prices start at $8 per seat per month. Its Pro plan, which includes all its best features, starts at $16 per seat per month.

10. Smartsheet – Best for end-to-end work management

Smartsheet is great if you’re looking for a robust workflow software solution that goes beyond simply covering the basics. Its simple color-coded grid view helps your team stay organized and visible. You can also collaborate on tasks and projects with stakeholders within and outside of your team.

Comments, document management, and automated processes keep work consistent and data clear. Smartsheet’s ability to compile information from different sheets to create custom reports eases the workflow management process for teams looking to increase their productivity.

Smartsheet’s best features

• Enterprise-grade workflow solutions and tools for large teams
• Capable of managing resource management workflows
• Comes with content collaboration tools

Smartsheet starts at $7 per user per month which gives you access to private sheets and reports as well as 10 GBs of data.

11. Asana – Best for remote teams

Asana is an easy-to-use workflow management tool that’s flexible enough for remote teams. It makes it easy to collaborate on projects, whether that’s planning and brainstorming sessions or file sharing. It also connects teams with visible status updates and at-mentions.

Asana equips you to increase team visibility and allows you to set custom fields for more nuanced project tasks. It’s an automation tool that helps you get more work done, in less time.

Asana’s best features

• Let’s you easily import data with its CSV importer
• Gives you a glimpse into each team member’s workload for better resource management
• Offers reporting on the real-time progress of your projects

Asana offers a free starter plan, which can be great for smaller remote teams just starting out. But if you’re looking for more flexibility and access to better features it starts at $10.99 per user per month billed annually.

12. Airtable – Best for enterprise organizations

If you want to sync data and operations across enterprise teams seamlessly, consider Airtable as a workflow management tool. Custom scripting and APIs come together to create a connective environment where teams can have access to one central source of truth.

Airtable’s best features

• Security compliant with ISO 27001, SOC 2, and GDPR
• Strong administrative control panels for full control of your applications
• Unlimited workspaces

To get started with Airtable, $10 per seat per month gets you 5,000 records per base and a 6-month snapshot history. However, for enterprise-level pricing, you’ll need to contact its sales team.

Find the best workflow software for your team

While there are a ton of workflow software tools out there, not all of them are created equal. Some are created with IT teams in mind. While others capitalize on simplicity and ease of use.

That’s why it’s important to vet each workflow management solution carefully depending on the workflow management system you want to establish.