Wrike Review
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- Date Established
- 2006
- Location
- San Jose, CA
Pros
- Free plan available
- Numerous features
- Good mobile apps
Cons
- Steep learning curve
- Limited integrations
Overview
Wrike is a fully-featured project management solution. It’s been around since 2007, and time has been kind to the company. Wrike has consistently received industry accolades, from being on Gartner’s “Cool Vendor” list in 2014 to being named one of 2015’s “Best Places to Work” by the San Francisco Business Times/Silicon Valley Business Journal. Wrike claims its success comes from a focus on easy collaboration and efficient project management. By creating a digital space for status updates on projects, resource allocation, and group communication, Wrike is forging ahead on a mission to rethink productivity.
We are particularly impressed by Wrike’s strong feature set, such as the organizational features as well as time tracking tools for specific tasks and subtasks. Wrike also provides adaptable Gantt charts, customizable reports, and flexible resource management tools.
However, to access those features, you also have to overcome Wrike’s steep learning curve. Wrike is a complicated solution that requires time and patience to learn. This learning curve might make Wrike less of a desirable option for some users, especially those who are concerned about getting their employees on board with new software.
Keep reading for our complete review of Wrike. We’ll discuss pricing, available features, customer support options, and potential drawbacks. Read on to learn more.
Table of Contents
Pricing
Rating: Excellent
Wrike is available in multiple pricing plans. Pricing for these plans increases with the available features and the number of users, and they are priced per user per month. While Wrike’s pricing is listed at a monthly rate, the software is actually billed annually. Be prepared to pay for a full year in advance when you sign up for a paid plan. Of course, before you sign up for any of the paid plans, there is a 14-day trial that will help you decide what subscription is right for you. Here is a breakdown of Wrike’s available pricing plans:
Free
Wrike’s Free plan costs $0/month and includes:
- Up to five users
- Task management
- File sharing
- Board view
- Real-time activity stream
- Spreadsheet view
- Basic integrations (Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, MSFT Office 365, OneDrive)
- Cloud storage integrations (Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, OneDrive)
- 2GB of storage space
Professional
Wrike’s Professional plan costs $9.80/user/month and includes everything in the Free plan, plus:
- Five, 10, or 15 users
- Task and subtask management
- Gantt charts
- Advanced integrations (MS Project, Excel, RSS)
- Shareable dashboards
- Unlimited collaborators
- 5GB of storage space
- 15GB of video uploads per month
Business
Wrike’s Business plan costs $24.80/user/month and includes everything in the Professional plan, plus:
- Five to 200 users
- Custom fields and workflows
- Shared real-time reports with scheduled notifications
- Report templates
- Graphical analytics
- Calendars
- Request forms
- Project and task approvals
- Time tracking
- User groups and permissions
- Salesforce integration
- Branded workspace
- 50GB of storage
- 15GB of video uploads per month
Enterprise
Wrike’s Enterprise plan is available at custom pricing and includes everything in the Business plan, plus:
- Unlimited users
- Azure Active Directory integration
- SAML 2.0 single sign-on
- Two-factor authentication
- Password policies
- IT controlled admin permissions
- User audit reports
- Network access and compliance policies
- Business intelligence integration
- Advanced user access controls
- 100GB of storage space
- 15GB of video uploads per month
Wrike For Marketers
Wrike For Marketers is available at custom pricing and can be added on to the Business and Enterprise plans. Wrike For Marketers includes:
- Wrike Proof
- Wrike Publish
- A Wrike extension for Adobe Creative Cloud
- Tailored templates and workspaces
Wrike For Professional Services
Wrike For Professional Services is available at custom pricing and can be added on to the Business and Enterprise plans. Wrike For Professional Services includes:
- Wrike Resource
- A Wrike extension for Adobe Creative Cloud
- Tailored templates and workspaces
- 50GB of storage space
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
Wrike is cloud-based and does not require any downloading or maintenance.
Hardware & Software Requirements
Rating: Excellent
Since Wrike is cloud-based software, you only need an up-to-date web browser and a strong internet connection to run the software. Wrike supports the latest two versions of the following browsers: Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari.
To use Wrike on a mobile device, you’ll need to download one of its apps (mobile browsers are not supported). Wrike’s mobile apps are compatible with iOS 11.0+ and Android 5.0+.
Specific Size Of Business
Wrike fits businesses of many sizes. Since the company offers flexible pricing plans, and it charges per user/month, Wrike’s software is affordable for many businesses. Wrike is especially suitable for businesses that need a full project management solution and that don’t mind overcoming a learning curve. Because Wrike does not offer any shift scheduling or geofencing features, it’s best suited to companies that are office-based with regular shifts.
Ease Of Use
Most criticisms of Wrike have to do with what several users call a “steep learning curve.” For me, this is a significant problem. In my opinion, if your intention is that users spend the majority of their time in your software, you owe it to them to make it visually appealing and functionally efficient — a nice place to be, in other words. Wrike does manage to meet some of my expectations, but not all.
What I do like is Wrike’s common-sense organization. The way Wrike organizes workspaces — with nesting folders, projects, tasks, and subtasks — makes good sense to me. This organizational system allows you to easily create new projects, file them into a logical place, and relocate them further down the road.
That said, I sometimes found my user experience frustrating. It was difficult, at first, to locate many of the features. And when I did find what I was looking for, I had to research how to use it. It’s clear to me that anyone new to this software will have to dedicate some time and energy to learning the program.
Features
Rating: Excellent
Wrike is a feature-rich software, which contributes to its steep learning curve. Fortunately, once I figured things out, Wrike worked well for me; I feel that everything Wrike has to offer is worth the effort of learning the software. Here are some of Wrike’s key features:
- Dashboard: Like many of its competitors, Wrike provides a dashboard for users that is filled with useful information, such as upcoming tasks, analytics of your recent efficiency, and others. You can rearrange your projects in the sidebar and use the filtering tool to find things faster.
- Project Management: As you might imagine, this is the real star of the show. Wrike’s method for managing your projects is similar to other programs I have seen, with projects containing tasks and subtasks. Each task and subtask has assignable due dates and can be set up with dependencies. But what Wrike really does to make the program stand out to me is its folder system. To further organize your projects (and organization is the key, right?), you can create folders for your projects. If you have recurring clients, you can use folders to group all these projects together. It is a nice touch, I think, and further aids you in setting up a well-oiled machine for project completion.
- Tasks: Wrike lets you easily create tasks and subtasks and view those tasks in both list and timeline views. Wrike also allows you to add custom categories to your tasks, an ability that can be found in the Table view of the project page. Use this to add specificity to your projects: the more customized, the better.
- Resource Management: Wrike lets you monitor your employees’ workloads with resource management features. Use the drag-and-drop interface to view which tasks employees already have assigned to them and to assign tasks to employees who have space in their schedules.
- Gantt Charts: Wrike’s Gantt charts are very well implemented, with simple dependency functions, due date manipulation, and statuses for your tasks.
- Time Tracking: Wrike includes a timer function on each task and subtask. Click the start button to track time. You can also add entries later if you forget to start the timer. Wrike includes a time log view, where you can see how much of your time you spend on various tasks.
- Calendar: See tasks for specific projects in a calendar view. Wrike gives you many options for viewing your calendar. You can add additional projects onto your calendar as “layers” and adjust view settings by status, task types, and more.
- Messaging: Wrike wants team members to be able to communicate quickly and easily: One way you can take advantage of this is through the inbox. Here, you can find all notifications and comments in which you are mentioned. To respond, you can add comments to projects, tasks, and subtasks. You cannot send messages directly from the inbox.
- Reports & Analytics: Where other companies make you choose from a few premade reporting options, Wrike allows you to generate reports on any aspect of your projects and tasks. From one perspective, these reports are quite complicated and require a lot of knowledge to use most effectively. On the other hand, there is a lot of functionality packed into one place. Once you learn how to use it, the reporting feature could become a useful tool, especially since it is available on mobile as well as desktop. Wrike has also made its reports interactive and shareable, adding another level of useful functionality to this feature.
- Workflow Automation: In the last year, Wrike has added workflow automation to the already sizable pile of features boasted by this program. It allows you to predetermine several “stages” of your project and fill them with the appropriate tasks. Once each stage is completed, Wrike will automatically assign tasks from the next stage to members of your team. Plan it carefully enough, and you will be able to set-and-forget your projects from the very beginning.
Customer Service & Support
Rating: Excellent
One of the most informative tests of any company is how it interacts with its customers. Wrike provides multiple forms of support for its users. Take a look at the list below:
- Phone: If you are on any paid plan, you can contact Wrike directly by phone. Phone support is available 24/5 for paying Wrike users and 24/7 for users who purchase the premium support plan (contact Wrike for pricing).
- Email: Email support is available for all users, even those on the free plan.
- Live Chat: Contact a support representative in seconds via Wrike’s live chat. Find live chat within your dashboard and on Wrike’s website.
- In-Software Help: You can access the live chat from your Wrike dashboard. You can also access the help center by clicking “Help” in your drop-down account menu.
- Help Center: Wrike’s help center is pretty thorough, with information on workspaces, integrations, and all other aspects of the program.
- Community Forum: Wrike has an active community forum, which is searchable within the help center.
- White Papers: Look on Wrike’s “Featured Resources” page to find eBooks, infographics, case studies, and more. These resources provide information and training on project management in general.
- Videos: Like most web-based software companies, Wrike provides several tutorial videos. Most videos are between three and five minutes. In addition to the shorter help videos, Wrike also provides past editions of its live webinars, which are worth a watch for an in-depth view of how Wrike works.
- Training: If you would rather participate in the webinar in person, you can sign up with your name and email. Webinars are available a couple of times a month. Wrike also provides its training program, Wrike Discover, which you can use to learn a bit more about using the software.
- Blog: Wrike’s blog contains both project management tips and product news.
- Social Media: Wrike has active accounts on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and YouTube.
User Reviews
Negative Reviews & Complaints
In general, users like Wrike. Wrike earns a solid 4.1/5 stars on G2 Crowd and a decent 3.5/5 stars on Trustpilot. That said, there are a few complaints that we see users frequently voicing about Wrike. Here are some of the complaints we’ve found:
- Steep Learning Curve: This is the most common complaint about Wrike by far. Users say Wrike takes a very long time to learn and become accustomed to it. This can be a major obstacle for businesses that have trouble getting employees to implement new software.
- Expensive: I’ve seen a couple of reports that say Wrike is too costly. A few more comments lament Wrike’s method of billing its software annually. In a few cases, users forgot to cancel their subscription and were automatically billed for the following year.
- Bad Interface: Some people find the interface to be, well, uninspired. When compared with the UIs of competitors such as Redbooth and Trello, they might have a point. Wrike’s interface is not going to win beauty contests anytime soon.
Positive Reviews & Testimonials
Like I said, most users love Wrike. Here are some of the reasons:
- Organization: This is the feature that I see praised most often. Wrike offers numerous ways to organize your work. Most project management software allows you to separate work into projects, tasks, and subtasks. Wrike takes it one step further with the introduction of team spaces and folders. You can use folders to group projects within a team space.
- Ease Of Use: While Wrike is difficult software to learn, users say that it becomes significantly easier to use with time. Day-to-day operations take very few clicks to implement, and you can set up workflow automation to handle common steps.
- Collaboration: Wrike makes collaboration easier by defining who gets assigned to each task. It also gives teams the ability to communicate within the software with commenting features, @mentions, and inbox space.
Here are some excerpts from positive customer reviews:
It’s a great product for managing complex tasks. The automatically generated gantt charts were really helpful for my team and helped us organize tasks with a lot of levels and dependencies. My team and I enjoyed using it.
Without Wrike, it becomes threads and threads of emails… sometimes you might have 5 or 6 threads of emails about the same project. With Wrike, we have a central location for the stakeholders and all the content creators to communicate; work out the timeline, content, design, or copy issues together.
Wrike’s Activity Stream became a quick, online way for everyone to observe what’s going on without sitting through briefings 5 times per week. Updating colleagues happens instantly without waiting for the next face-to-face, which makes collaboration between scheduled meetings much easier.
Integrations & Add-Ons
There are a few avenues you can take if you’d like to integrate an external software with your Wrike account. You can first look into Wrike’s selection of 30 integrations to see if your software is already connected. These prebuilt integrations include connections with file storage software (Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive), communication software (such as Slack), and email platforms (Gmail and Outlook). Wrike’s selection of prebuilt integrations is admittedly a bit limited.
However, if the software you’d like to use is not on this list, you have a couple more options. Wrike offers its connection software called Wrike Integrate (available for purchase), which opens up the possibility of connecting to 400+ additional software. Although, I have to admit that it seems strange to me that Wrike doesn’t just offer those apps to its users as regular integrations.
Finally, Wrike offers an API, so developers can build their own apps and integrations if they’d prefer.
Security
Rating: Excellent
Wrike supports its users’ security in many ways. The company ensures the security of its physical data centers with 24/7 security personnel, power backup systems, and digital surveillance. It also has an uptime record of over 99.9%. Wrike performs full daily backups and keeps redundant data located in multiple data centers. Wrike also allows you to set up 2-factor authentication to make sure that only the right people access your account. Check out Wrike’s full webpage on security for even more information.
Final Verdict
Okay, so what have we got here? This hugely popular project management program checks all (or at least most) of the boxes, it focuses on communication, and it offers lots of ways to analyze your progress. It is competitively priced and, in general, seems an excellent choice for your project management needs.
That said, Wrike is rather complicated when compared to rivals such as Asana and Trello. When you first get started, it can be pretty tricky to locate simple features. But I don’t want to criticize too much because Wrike works very well at what it does, especially when you have learned how to get the most out of it. The features available do just what you need them to, even if they aren’t quite where you would expect them to be.
All in all, Wrike is a satisfactory product and well worth trying out (via either the free version or the free trial). If you want access to excellent reporting features, communication tools, and project organization, Wrike is the tool for you. Most likely, you will be one of the thousands of pleased customers: not a bad place to be at all.
Compare Wrike 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 |
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: Rich Brilliant WIlling
Many users rave about the Gantt charts is Wrike. After using MS Project for 15+ years I find them very frustrating. When I create sub-tasks it makes the main task a new project. I don’t want a new project I just want to organize my tasks. If the last task on the list is indented a cannot add another task to the project that is not a subtask. Gantt charts are the heart of scheduling. If Wrike can’t do that well why do I need it?
Organization Name: Natural Brick
Program is ok…some really glaring problems like not having a decent meetings management system…kludgy workarounds get us by. You can even print a list of minutes/actions from a list view…have to always export to excel, clean it up and print to pdf for management….just not good enough. I have viewed many video articles on meetings and they all have major flaws. Besides basic functionality flaws, main gripe is customer service and contact ; I have EMAILED 5 times with no reply. When we were on trial period, they were freely available, as soon as we signed I have not had 1 reply to any mails. I am not renewing unless there is some serious change…in fact Im so upset that Im looking at alternatives at the moment.
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
Sorry, but we were very unhappy with Wrike. The training was insufficient, user interface is not great. We made a decision not to renew our contract but before we could send a notice to cancel, our credit card was charged for the renewal fee. Still trying to iron that out and if I have a good experience, I’ll definitely write a new review. But as of right now, their customer service and accounting are awful.
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
Wrike Customer Service finally contacted me and they have given us the credit we asked for, which to me rectifies my dissatisfaction with their customer service and accounting. Wanted to add that to my review, as promised. Thank you.
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
After being a customer for 2 years they massively increased our renewal price. It’s now totally unaffordable and we’re having to move to an alternative, which is especially annoying after the amount of time it took to train our staff in Wrike.
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
Organization Name: The Natural Brick Company
I totally agree PM…I left that out of my review above…its like they got me hooked in, so much set up time and then upped the price dramatically. I also spent a lot of time liaising about sub tasks…which didnt exist previously and no concession for my time…which I get paid decently for as a programmer.
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
We are using wrike in our company since 4 or 4 and half years ago. Since we find wrike we found that scoping projects are very easy with this tool, the ease of use the tool is very fascinating; you can log into wrike and start to use like a game for a kids made it, you can log into wrike and starting to create tasks and projects and adding subtask into each task and projects, you can manage your folders and your projects like your portfolio of projects, for real is very easy to use, like Wrikers says: Wrike it down!!!
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
We are thrilled with Wrike. This past year, we were able to set up all the tasks for our biggest project yet! It helped us stay on track and aware of responsibilities. Additionally, we were able to more effectively use sub-tasks to detail smaller parts of a task and create multiple projects within a folder which aided with deadlines since the the different project tasks had some dependencies. I think that one of the most important things to work well in wrike is to set up and customize the dashboard to see what you need to see when you need to see it. This is key in being productive in one glance.
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
We are using Wrike since nearly 4 years. Wrike is very useful tool for managing projects and tasks which makes your work easier and more effective and it helps the department in our company to keep organized.It is flexible and powerful, tasks can be easily categorized to allow you to handle your work in a variety of ways.The communication between other departments in our company is much better and helps to get things done more effectively.
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
Wrike has been perfect. The tools are exactly what you need to stay productive and in communication with your team. Everyone is able to stay on the same page while working on the same or separate projects. I’ve been much more organized than I was before using Wrike!
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
Wrike has helped our team be more productive, more efficient, and surpass expectations when it comes to production time and workload! Highly recommended!
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
I’ve been using Wrike since 2015 for over a year now. It has changed my way of work dramatically. Transparency has been something that Wrike attacks directly, everybody can go into a task/project and see the current status. Personalization is a big factor with Wrike, you can make reports, generate dashboards and widgets that best suit your needs and your team’s needs. Also (obviously) productivity increases instantly because you know where your priorities are and where you need to keep track of things.
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
Superb website you have here but I was curious about if you
knew of any user discussion forums that cover the same topics discussed here?
I’d really like to be a part of online community where I can get opinions from other experienced people that share the same interest.
If you have any recommendations, please let me know. Thanks a lot!
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
When in doubt, try Reddit! I found a Project Management subreddit quickly and easily. It seems like people post here regularly.
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
We have used Wrike for 9 months. It has been buggy and terrible. We would try to use and then discard it. But the worst part….wrike doesn’t stand behind their product. They don’t care. They don’t care about their customer. They don’t care. After 9 months of awful performance, they put our account to a new server…and things started working. But they took NO RESPONSIBILITY for our 9 months of down time. NONE. I would strongly urge any small company, NOT TO GET SUCKED IN. There are many good project management systems. Wrike has alot of missing features, no customer chat, no bug tracking and limited integrations. And when a company who won’t stand behind their software, and simply points to their terms and conditions as a remedy, isn’t a company I wouldn’t EVER recommend.Don’t waste 9 month of trying to figure it out. Don’t waste your money or the time.
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
I’ve been using it since 2013… Coming in 9mo ago, I’m sure your experience is spot-on. There have been more technical bugs lately (mid-2015 and on), and the once-legendary customer focus is fading. I think this is due to the addition of some large-scale new features that affect the very idea of how the software works. Basically, I sense they’re going through some serious growing pains behind the scenes.You now have multiple new features. While they have distinct aspects, they overlap enough to leave you wondering why they don’t combine 2 or 3 features into 1 really slick one (I’m looking at you – Table, Reports and Analytics). It’s becoming needlessly complex. The clean efficiency is disappearing.I was so enthusiastic in the past, you would’ve thought I secretly worked for Wrike. But I’ve fallen out of love. I’m having trouble defending it’s Pro’s vs. Con’s to those in my company who were never overly keen on it. While we aren’t considering dropping it yet, it’s on the horizon. I hope they decide on a clear vision for the new features, get their ducks in a row, and iron out the mounting hiccups. It can’t happen soon enough.
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
I don’t agree on your comment when you said Wrike has a steep learning curve. I’m not sure in comparison to what you said it. So far, Wrike has been the easiest to learn.
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
Ruwantha – You’re right, Wrike is certainly more towards the user-friendly end of the spectrum compared to other full-featured project management solutions, but it does require an initial investment of time that you don’t have with simple PM programs like Trello or Basecamp. Hope that helps!
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
I think the learning curve depends entirely on how you are using it. If you are using it to get a handle on tasks for a small team, it’s very straightforward. But once you try to expand into full company organization, with large numbers of projects (we have hundreds, approaching a thousand), client-collaboration, reports, etc…. it’s overwhelming for many new users, especially the techno-illiterate. Deliberate training is a must. At least, that’s been my experience: Rolled out wrike for 1 department = Easy as pie, everyone loved it. Expanded wrike for company-wide project management = everything went to hell. admittedly, we executed this expansion poorly. Once again – deliberate training is a must.On the other hand, I’m not sure any alternative would be easier. I’ve demo’d like 20 of their competitors, and I foresee a give & take from one to the other! (off the top of my head: hiveflux, basecamp, podio, asana, wunderlist, teamworkprojects, easyworkflow, air sheet, dapulse, liquidplanner). Either it is easy, but lacks features… Or it’s got lots of features, but is complicated, with a learning curve.
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
My organization has currently starting using the Wrike software. I am in the process of identifying the Rules of Engagement. Does anyone have examples of what has worked and what has not worked with their organizations Rules of Engagement. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
I have been using the tool for more than six months and it brings success to the team. Have a fast and clear communication with your team using this efficient tool.
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
Great review Julie. I am just wondering why this review does not appear on the list of review/project management software. All the more than it should be one of the best.
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
Alexandre,
That was my fault. I didn’t properly categorize the review. It should show up in the project management category now.
Best,
Amad
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.