Wrike Review 2026: Best for Agencies — If You Can Navigate the Folder Hell

Wrike is the agency tool that does what every agency needs and the tool that every agency’s new hires take 3 weeks to learn. Native time tracking (billable vs non-billable), resource workload views (who’s overloaded, who has capacity this week), client-portal access controls, and native Gantt charts are all in the Business tier. These are features that Asana doesn’t have, monday.com parcels behind Pro tier, and ClickUp partially delivers but less elegantly.

The honest limitation: Wrike’s folder/project/task hierarchy is the most complex in the top-5 PM tools. Folders contain Spaces contain Projects contain Tasks contain Subtasks — five levels deep before you’ve created a single piece of work. Monday.com is two levels (workspace/board). Asana is three (team/project/task). Wrike’s depth is genuine power for large agency portfolios; it’s organisational overhead for small teams.

The honest verdict: Best for agencies running multiple client accounts simultaneously where time tracking and resource conflict visibility are operational necessities. Skip if you’re a product team, an internal ops team, or any team where simpler alternatives at the same price (ClickUp Business at £10/seat) cover the need.

TL;DR

• Score: 8.0/10
• Price: £0 Free (5 users) / £8.21/seat Team / £19.95/seat Business
• Year-1 realistic cost (15 people): £1,720–£2,500 Team, £3,500–£4,800 Business

Time tracking — what makes Wrike different for agencies

Native time tracking is included in the Business tier. This is not a Harvest integration or a Toggl connector — it’s built into the task view. Start a timer on a task, log hours manually, mark hours as billable or non-billable, and export time reports by project, client, or team member.

The billable-vs-non-billable distinction is the feature that matters for agencies. Most agencies track total hours but not billable hours — which means they have no mechanism to separate “3 hours building the thing” from “2 hours in client meetings about the thing”. Wrike’s time tracking enforces this distinction at the logging step.

What Wrike’s time tracking can’t do: Invoice generation. The time reports export to CSV or integrate with billing tools (Harvest, FreshBooks) but Wrike is not an invoicing tool. For agencies that need time → invoice in one tool, QuickBooks Time or Harvest remain necessary.

Resource workload — the feature nobody else does as well at this price

The resource workload view shows each team member’s hours allocated for the current and upcoming weeks against their capacity. Drag tasks to redistribute load. Set capacity per person (40 hours/week is default, or custom per contractor). Flag when a team member is overloaded before the deadline, not after.

Comparison: Asana’s resource management is behind the Business tier at an additional cost. monday.com’s workload view is on Pro. Smartsheet’s resource management requires the Resource Management add-on at £20/seat extra. Wrike includes resource workload in the Business tier at £19.95/seat — cheaper than the equivalent on any of the above.

Client portal — the agency-specific differentiator

Wrike’s client portal gives external clients view-and-comment access to specific projects without exposing internal boards, margins, or team communication. The access is controlled at the project level — a client can see the “Website Redesign” project but not the “Internal resourcing” space.

Guest seats on Business tier: Charged at the Business rate after 2 free guests. For an agency with 5 active clients, budget 3 paid guest seats Ã- £19.95/month = £60/month additional. Still cheaper than managing client communication by email.

Pricing — the Team vs Business decision

The Team tier is not an agency tool. No time tracking, no custom fields, no resource management. It’s a basic task management tool at £8.21/seat — usable for internal ops teams but not for agencies that need to bill clients. Most agency evaluations land on Business from the start.

The free-to-Business jump (£0 → £19.95/seat) is the steepest in the top-5. ClickUp has meaningful paid tiers at £5 and £10 before you hit feature parity. Wrike essentially has two tiers that matter: free (5 users, limited) and Business (£19.95, full features). If you need Wrike’s features, you need Business.

Import friction — the test result

We timed Wrike’s import from three sources on 2026-05-03:

• From Asana: 13 minutes 20 seconds via the Wrike Importer. Task structure transfers but the mapping from Asana’s sections to Wrike’s folders requires manual configuration for each project. The hierarchy mismatch (Asana uses sections; Wrike uses folders-in-spaces) means a typical Asana migration adds 20–30 minutes of restructuring per major project.
• From CSV: 8 minutes 10 seconds. The CSV importer handles standard fields well but requires the Wrike-specific field labels (not generic column names like “Due Date” — must be “Scheduled date”). Documentation is adequate but adds a setup step that monday.com’s auto-detection eliminates.
• From Trello: 15 minutes 45 seconds — slowest Trello import in our test. The importer works but the label-to-tag mapping has the same default-to-custom-fields issue as ClickUp. Checklist items import as individual subtasks (correct) but lose their completion status.

Import friction score: 5.5/10 — the weakest in our top-5. The Asana hierarchy mismatch and the CSV field-name requirement add meaningful migration friction. For teams migrating from Trello or Asana, budget an additional half-day of manual restructuring per Wrike project.

Comparison with the nearest alternatives

Wrike vs Teamwork: Wrike wins on resource workload and pure project management depth. Teamwork wins on client billing features (invoicing, budget tracking) and the client portal UX — Teamwork’s client view is cleaner than Wrike’s. For agencies that invoice clients directly from their PM tool, Teamwork has the edge.

Wrike vs Asana: Wrike wins on time tracking (Asana has none natively), resource workload (Asana’s is behind an extra-cost add-on), and the client portal. Asana wins on cross-functional task clarity, mobile experience, and onboarding speed. For internal ops teams, Asana. For client-services agencies, Wrike.

Wrike vs ClickUp: At the Business tier, ClickUp is £9.95/seat cheaper (£10 vs £19.95) and includes many of Wrike’s features plus developer-native tooling. ClickUp wins on price and breadth. Wrike wins on resource workload polish and the client portal clarity. For a non-dev agency, the £9.95/seat premium for Wrike’s resource management may be worth it.

FAQ

Does Wrike have a Gantt chart?

Yes — native Gantt is included in all paid tiers, including Team (£8.21/seat). The Gantt is interactive: drag to reschedule, set dependencies, and see critical path highlighting. Better than Asana’s Starter timeline (which lacks dependency linking) and comparable to monday.com’s Standard Gantt.

Is Wrike good for construction project management?

No. Wrike is a general PM tool — it has no RFI management, no submittal tracking, and no field-mobile workflow. For construction, use Procore (quote-only, typically £400–£1,000/month) or Buildertrend ($399/month Core flat). Don’t force a general PM tool onto a construction workflow.

How does Wrike compare on price to Teamwork?

Teamwork Deliver: £9.99/seat/month. Wrike Business: £19.95/seat/month. For an agency of 15 people, Teamwork is £1,800/year cheaper than Wrike for comparable features (both include time tracking and client portals). Wrike’s resource workload view is more mature; Teamwork’s invoicing and billing integration is more complete. Run a trial of both.