Redbooth Review
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- Date Established
- 2014
- Location
- Redwood City, California
Pros
- Well-designed user interface
- Low monthly cost
- Easy to use
Cons
- Limited features
- Limited customer support
Overview
Redbooth began in 2008 as Teambox, a simple, Barcelona-based project management program geared toward smaller organizations. After six years of relative success, the company underwent a major rebranding. Teambox redesigned the software to prioritize speed and ease of use, and with that new version came a new product name: Redbooth.
Redbooth is a unique product that merges task management features, file sharing, and live collaboration tools. The name ‘Redbooth,’ a nod to the iconic crimson telephone booths found throughout Britain, is indicative of the company’s strong focus on communication and cooperation. And with a dedicated “Conversations” tab and numerous commenting features, it is safe to say Redbooth wants teams to be talking to each other.
Redbooth’s approach to project management seems to click with customers. With 3,000 companies onboard, Redbooth is clearly succeeding in its industry. Even more compelling, though, are the big names who attribute much of their effectiveness to Redbooth’s platform, including Unicef, Ritz Carlton, and NBC.
Redbooth is what we call a task management software. It is missing a few of the features (project budgeting, risk assessment, etc.) that typically come with full project management solutions. That said, Redbooth is still a great option for small teams that need an easy-to-use task management solution.
Read on to learn more about Redbooth’s pricing, customer support, and available features.
Table of Contents
Pricing
Redbooth has several pricing plans available, all of them priced per user. When you set up your account with Redbooth, you are given the option of paying monthly or annually for your plan. If you choose to purchase a full year of the software upfront, you’ll benefit from a 20% discount.
Redbooth also offers a 25% discount to nonprofits, educational institutions, teachers, and students. Additionally, groups of three students or more are eligible for a 50% discount.
If you’re interested in using Redbooth, but you don’t want to commit to a payment plan yet, you can try out the software risk-free with a 14-day free trial. Alternatively, there’s a free plan available, which you can use indefinitely.
Here are Redbooth’s four payment plans (all prices listed represent the monthly billing model):
Free Plan
Redbooth’s Free Plan costs $0/month and includes:
- Up to two users
- 2GB storage space
- Up to two workspaces
- Unlimited comments and conversations
- Email support
- Basic Gantt charts
- Basic reporting
Pro Plan
Redbooth’s Pro Plan costs $12/user/month and includes everything in the Free Plan, plus:
- Unlimited workspaces
- 5GB storage space
- Unlimited users
- Gantt charts with task dependencies
- Time tracking
- Tag manager
- Multiple task assignees
- Workload reporting
- Video meetings
- Due date recommendations
Business Plan
Redbooth’s Business Plan costs $18.75/user/month and includes everything in the Pro Plan, plus:
- 50GB storage space
- Custom tag groups
- Assignable subtasks
- Trend reports and timeline overview
- OneDrive for Business integration
Enterprise Plan
Redbooth’s Enterprise Plan is available at custom pricing and includes everything in the Business Plan, plus:
- 500GB storage
- Phone support
- Free training
Compare pricing to other popular software:
| Service | Pricing | Ease of Use | Web-Based or On-Premise | Next Steps |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free - $250/month | Very Easy | Web-Based | |
| $25/user/monthly | Easy | Web-Based | |
| $23.99+/month Web-Based, $360+/user On-Premise | Very Easy | Both | |
| $49 - $199+/monthly | Very Easy | Both |
Cloud-Based Or Locally-Installed
Redbooth is primarily a cloud-based software. It also offers desktop apps for Mac and Windows.
Hardware & Software Requirements
The Redbooth web application works best with the most updated versions of Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, and Safari.
Redbooth also offers mobile apps for iOS (11.0+) and Android (4.1+). You can use these apps to track your projects, make comments, and create new tasks.
Specific Size Of Business
We recommend Redbooth to teams of 50 people or fewer. Redbooth is a fairly simple task management solution, and larger teams may find that they need more robust software.
Ease Of Use
Redbooth focuses on giving its customers an easy-to-use task management program, and it succeeds in that goal! Redbooth’s UI is simple, with four main menu items: Dashboard, Workspaces, HD Meetings, and Reports. The Dashboard section takes you to your account with all the tasks assigned to you. A workspace is essentially Redbooth’s name for projects. Within each workspace, you can find tabs for Tasks, Convos, Notes, and Files. The HD Meetings tab gives you access to video calls, and the Reports tab gives you tools to view your entire account at a glance. Redbooth is quick to learn and well designed.
In addition, Redbooth provides a variety of other time- and effort-saving features. With the Redbooth quick-add feature, you can create multiple new tasks in your Workspaces by quickly typing in the task name and hitting enter. What’s more, you can use the easy comment features to communicate about each task and use @mentions to notify someone quickly. Every function in Redbooth is simple, quick, and intuitive.
Features
As a task management software, Redbooth’s features focus primarily on creating, assigning, planning, and organizing tasks. More complex features that help project managers budget for a project (such as job costing and employee scheduling) are not available. That said, Redbooth is great for Kanban board planning, and it works well for communicating across a small team.
Here are a few of Redbooth’s key features:
- Dashboard: Redbooth’s Dashboard shows each user an overview of the tasks assigned to them. You can see what’s due soon and what is overdue. The “Updates” section shows activity on the tasks you have been assigned.
- Project Management: In Redbooth, “Workspaces” represent projects. You can use the Kanban board view to plan and track your projects using columns, such as “To-Do,” “In Progress,” and “Done.” You can also view your workspaces using the timeline view (which is Redbooth’s Gantt chart).
- Tasks: Redbooth allows you to create tasks and assign them to team members quickly. Redbooth also allows you to create subtasks and set due dates for these subtasks. If you find yourself creating the same task repeatedly, you can simplify the process by creating a template.
- Gantt Charts: Gantt charts in Redbooth are called “timeline view.” You can use the timeline to create and assign tasks, more easily adjust task duration, and establish task dependencies. Changes you make to the Gantt chart transfer over to the Kanban board view. Redbooth is created to operate primarily as a Kanban board, so you cannot set the timeline view to be your default view, which may be frustrating for some. What’s more, to add a task to your Gantt chart, you first have to set a due date. In some programs, you can just add task duration and task dependencies, and the software schedules due dates based on that information — Redbooth is missing this feature.
- Team Management: The Workload Reports feature lets you view the tasks assigned to each team member. This workload management feature is fairly basic because it does not give any indication of how many hours each task requires, and it does not take into account employee schedules.
- Calendar: The calendar in your Reports section lets you view tasks assigned to select individuals. You can also add tasks from the calendar view.
- Time Tracking: Although Redbooth does not have a time tracking stopwatch feature, you can manually enter hours worked in the comments section on each task.
- Messaging: Redbooth offers a few communication tools. Each workspace has a Conversations tab, which serves as a discussion page. Team members can also share documents directly into the conversation and view them without leaving the page. Additionally, team members can communicate using the comments and task description fields on each task. Use @mentions to quickly notify another team member about a task that requires their attention.
- Email Settings: Customize your email settings to notify you (or never notify you!) of activity on your tasks and projects. With the Redbooth + Gmail plugin, you can also quickly convert email conversations into tasks.
- Reports & Analytics: Redbooth offers multiple reports that you can use to view each workspace and check how many tasks are late, on time, or not yet begun. These reports are fairly basic, but they are also nicely structured and easy to use.
- HD Video Calls: Redbooth partners with Zoom to offer video calling features to its users. Schedule one-on-one meetings or conference calls.
Customer Service & Support
Redbooth offers customer service primarily through email and self-help resources. Phone support and training are only available on the Enterprise-level plan. Here are Redbooth’s support options:
- Phone: Phone support is only available for users on the Enterprise plan.
- Email: All users get access to email support. You can send an email or submit a form to get help.
- In-Software Help: Your Redbooth account includes links to the help center and video tutorials. In your admin panel, you can also find links to download the desktop and mobile apps and add integrations.
- Help Center: Redbooth’s help center contains a series of written tutorials to help you answer simple questions, navigate Redbooth’s features, and troubleshoot some common problems. The help center includes support articles with text, screenshots, and videos.
- Videos: Redbooth has a page in its support center that includes about a dozen tutorial videos. Most of these videos are a couple of minutes long, and there is one twenty-minute product demo. You can also find more tutorial videos on Redbooth’s YouTube page, but you should keep in mind that they are a year old and might be slightly outdated.
- Training: Users on the Enterprise Plan get access to personalized training.
- Blog: The Redbooth blog is infrequently updated with project management tips and information about product updates.
- Social Media: Redbooth has accounts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. In general, these accounts are inactive and haven’t been updated since 2018. The one exception is Redbooth’s Twitter account, which it uses to notify users about scheduled maintenance and system outages.
User Reviews
Negative Reviews & Complaints
In general, reviews of Redbooth are positive. However, it’s clear that Redbooth is not perfect software. We’ve noticed a few trends among customer complaints. Current users mention the following negative aspects of Redbooth:
Redbooth is still in the process of working out some kinks. Users have complained about the following:
- Basic Features: Redbooth is designed for Kanban board task management. The software’s Gantt chart features are fairly basic, and Redbooth is missing a few additional project management tools. Most noticeably, Redbooth does not provide any budgeting features for setting and tracking project expenses.
- Poor Customer Support: For most users, support is only available by email, which can be inconvenient if you need immediate assistance. I’ve also seen a handful of complaints that say the customer support team was not helpful.
- Difficulty Viewing Documents: A number of commenters mentioned problems with viewing Word documents from within their Redbooth account. To view these documents properly, users sometimes have to go through the extra step of downloading the file.
Positive Reviews & Testimonials
Despite the negatives presented above, Redbooth earns positive reviews from current users. Redbooth currently boasts a solid 4.4/5 stars on G2 Crowd and 8.7/10 stars on TrustRadius. Here’s what Redbooth users love about the software:
- Easy To Use: This is the most common comment we see across software review boards. Users agree that the software is intuitive and quick to learn.
- Visually Appealing: It can difficult to get your team members to use a complicated and ugly project management solution. Because Redbooth is easy to use and visually appealing, many users find that team members are quick to implement the software in their daily work.
- Keeps Everyone Organized: Redbooth provides users with a central hub for their information. Each workspace includes tasks, conversations, and relevant files to each project. This helps team members stay on the same page, and it reduces the amount of time that individuals spend looking for information.
The following are excerpts from positive customer reviews:
Redbooth is an integral part of our organization. It has changed the way we communicate with our clients, staff and vendors. It is truly revolutionary and has save us time and money. Our customers, staff members and vendors love Redbooth.
The integration of Box into the Redbooth platform takes Box to a whole new level. Having integrated tasks, discussions, calendaring and Group chat in one centralized location has increased our productivity tremendously. Bottom line, we get more done with Redbooth.
Integrations & Add-Ons
Redbooth supports just 15 integrations, including tools for file sharing, communicating (Gmail, Slack, and Outlook), and time tracking (Clockify).
This is a very small selection of integrations. Fortunately, Redbooth integrates with Zapier, which is a service that allows you to connect software such as Redbooth to hundreds of other third-party software.
If your favorite integration is not available, Redbooth has an open API, and the company is willing to work with you to make sure you get what you want out of the product.
Security
Redbooth protects users in the following ways:
- Secure Hosting: Hosted by Amazon Web Services, Redbooth’s web platform is secured in a “fully redundant data center which has achieved PCI DSS Level 1, ISO 27001 certification and has successfully completed multiple SAS70 Type II audits.” AWS also offers protection against DDoS attacks, packet sniffing by other tenants, and Man-In-The-Middle attacks.
- Vigilant Monitoring: Both the Redbooth servers and data are carefully monitored 24/7 for intrusion detection and availability, with a special emphasis on maintaining 99.9% uptime.
- Restricted Access: There are strict regulations regarding physical access to the Redbooth servers; the servers themselves are fully protected with power redundancy, temperature controls, and fire detection systems.
- Safe Connections: Redbooth guarantees a secure connection at all times. Customer data is encrypted for transfer using SSL and is accessible exclusively via HTTPS.
- Password Encryption: User passwords are stored with one-way, 256-bit encryption.
Final Verdict
Redbooth is a great software for small teams that are looking for an easy to use, visually appealing way to track their tasks and projects. Although the software does not include all of the budgeting features some businesses may need, small teams will appreciate the low cost and the immediate usability of the platform.
Does Redbooth sound like a good option for your business? If so, we recommend signing up for a free 14-day trial. It’s risk-free, and at the end of the trial, you can always choose to downgrade to Redbooth’s free plan.
However, if Redbooth doesn’t seem like the best software for you, try looking into a few more robust solutions, such as Wrike, Teamwork, and Smartsheet. These solutions have a steeper initial learning curve, but they might be a better fit for your business in the long run.
Wesley Kriz
Writing from the Pacific Northwest (read: the Best Coast), Wesley graduated from George Fox University in 2014 with a degree in History, then again from George Fox in 2016 with a Masters of Arts in Teaching. He has been writing about project management for 2 years, and keeps a running list of wacky software brand names; seriously, it's wild out there.
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Organization Name: InnerSpace Strategies Inc
How long have you been a user and how do you back up the information on redbooth? You don’t, so keep that in mind on how long the system is used or what data you put in the system…
Have you ever lost your password and had to use support to regain it? With redbooth and your an admin, forget it, your account is deleted and another admin in the group HAS to restore you. Redbooth support washes their hands of it and is no help.
Extension support, forget it, “we are working on that” can last up to 6-8 months.
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
We have been using Redbooth for 9 months now to manage our global marketing team and over 50 external contractors. We like the product a lot and have observed that Redbooth has very good support. We met Carlo, their new VP of support, and he has taken support and customer success to a very high, professional level, so previous reviews are likely no longer accurate. We highly recommend the product
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
Warning: NO supported file backup service. I have been using the pro account for several years. I just tried to leave redbooth and needed to download all my data. Though they currently offer a backup service for what they term as ‘Premium data backup’ with the business account. Quite unbelievably this does not include physical files. ( word docs, pdfs’ etc) . The only download solution they offer for your physical files is to login and download files per project one by one. ( I currently have over 1000 files in folders and sub folders) NOTE: When I first signed up to the service ( as the brand teambox) it had a dropbox synch backup service. This was removed when teambox was taken over by Redbooth. Redbooth replaced this time with a file archive service ( which I can still link to but it no longer works properly, though they are currently refusing to admit this ever even existed. ) The only other alternative currently offered was a heavily advertised feature for box.com / Enterprise app integration. ( another upgrade in cost ) QUOTE: ‘Once you’ve synced your accounts, all files will be migrated to Box and will no longer be stored in Redbooth. ‘The problem with this: Neither Box or Redbooth support this app, once you hit that button all files will be wiped from redbooth and you have no way of knowing if the backup will work. Who in there right mind would do this ? I have gone round in circles wasting so much time on email support, just hitting a wall of obstinance regarding this complete failure of service provision. There is no safe or sensible supported file backup service for this paid project management software. (unless you have time to download one by one….)My advice: Do not touch this company with a bargepole.
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
I am sorry for your troubles! Have you tried contacting Redbooth directly? Every interaction I have had with them has been extremely positive. They seem to want to make your experience as good as they can, so there might be something they can do.
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
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Wesley’s review is spot. Redbooth is the best collaboration solution in the market. Comprehensive, easy to use, agile enough to be easily implemented for any project or business process and a great value. Redbooth has been a integral part of our operations for 2 years. We have a distributed team, working across many projects. Redbooth is the platform that allows to remain coordinated and productive. We manage our selves and collaborate with our clients using Redbooth. Every consultancy should use it
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
Redbooth as transformed our business development teams productivity and performance. Before Redbooth, we endured long staff mtgs that updated everyone on what happened leaving only minutes to discuss strategic and important topics. With Redooth, everyone knows status and state of everyone’s activity, we don’t need to sift through mountains of email. We now spend the vast majority of staff mtgs on how to drive the business forward rather than “wake driving”. We are much more productive and effective. Redbooth is an indispensable tool for us!
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
I would give this site a minus-1 stars, if possible.There is NO help, after two days of writing back and forth the company finally agreed to give me a tutorial at 8:30AM my time.They also expected ME to pay for the international call. On their “help” website, they say to click on the gear-icon, which doesn’t exist. They also say to click on a sub-menu of the notifications-icon, which doesn’t exist. It is only by luck that you can view whichever side of the page you wish.If this site existed in the USA I would report them to the BBB.
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
I’m sorry about the problems you encountered – they may have had something to do with being international, as I have never encountered similar problems using the Redbooth website in the states.
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
Very poor customer service. There are multiple problems when trying to use the site and trying to get help is darn near impossible. The FAQ’s are seriously lacking and when I reached some guy named Josh, he said to send an e-mail to support and “they will get back to you in the next several days.” I explained my urgency, but he declined to help. I am the site administrator, and there is no help available either online or by phone.
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
Great product. They have made changes in pricing (no free plan anymore, with starter package at $49/m when billed annually or $62.50 when month to month and up to 10 users: that means if you have 10 users is a better deal than other plans that charge about $30 per user). The biggest disadvantage is the task orientation and manual work related to keep updating and following up (in contrast with comindware or liquidplanner). Redbooth has also a timer integration that makes it a much desirable product. Other integrations are there and actually has probably the most integrations than any other project management software.
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.