Project management for indie studios

Where it comes from

We are an indie studio ourselves. Think Projects is the tool we built because we were unhappy with the tools on offer — enterprise process at one end, a wall of sticky notes at the other — and thought a smaller, better-thought-through one would suit studios like ours. What a small studio needs is narrower than either: know what everyone is on, know when the build is likely to land, keep the decisions somewhere findable, and let the publisher, the contract artist or the sound person in without buying them a seat.

What it looks like day to day

Each product is a project. Its Messages tab is where the design argument happens and the decision is recorded — threads, not chat, so it is still readable in six months. Task lists hold the backlog, one list per milestone or feature, with subtasks five deep for the fiddly bits, tags for platforms, and quick entry that understands Fix the save bug @jo 2d !high #ios. The Kanban board shows the same tasks in columns for the people who think that way.

Give tasks estimates and the timeline forecasts when each runs, when the milestone lands and what is holding it up — around your working week, bank holidays and the week Jo is away. When a task slips, the forecast moves and the app says so. Milestones are the things you promise the publisher; a fixed milestone the plan can no longer reach shows red, so you find out in week three rather than week nine.

Time tracking is there when you want the number for a grant report or a co-development invoice, and out of the way when you don't. Insights shows each project's health score, its burn-up and who is carrying it.

Who gets in for free

Everyone who is not on your payroll: the publisher's producer, the contract artist, the localisation agency, the QA firm. They are guests — free, unlimited, and they see only the projects you put them on.

How it fits your process

Think Projects plans by estimates, dependencies and dates; it has no sprints, story points or velocity charts. Many studios run that way happily. If your process is built on sprints and velocity, a tool made for that — ClickUp, Jira — will serve you better, and we say so on the comparison pages.

What it costs

A five-person studio: $15 a month. Up to fifteen: $39. Up to forty: $79. Every feature on every plan; guests never count; two months free if you pay yearly. Growing past a band means moving up a size, and nothing else changes. Pricing · Switching from Trello, Asana or ClickUp