awork

What Is awork?

Picture a Hamburg digital agency in 2020. The project manager is tracking tasks in Asana, logging hours in Harvest, checking capacity in a shared Google Sheet, and emailing PDF invoices to clients separately. Four tools, four logins, four monthly subscription fees, and a constant synchronisation tax every time a project timeline slips.

awork was built to collapse that stack. Founded in Hamburg in 2019 and operated by awork GmbH, the platform integrates multi-view project planning, time tracking with budget monitoring, capacity and resource planning, and external client collaboration into a single product. The company raised €5M in a Series A in January 2023, bringing total funding to approximately €12M.

What distinguishes awork from the crowded project management space is its deliberate focus. The product is designed specifically for agencies, creative studios, and professional services teams — the category of business where client projects have hard deadlines, time is the billable unit, and freelancers and clients need controlled access to project information without consuming full software seats. Around 60,000 users across 10,000 teams use awork, primarily in the DACH region.

The infrastructure story is also deliberate. Servers run exclusively in Germany (Frankfurt). The company holds ISO 27001 certification. A GDPR Data Processing Agreement is available. For German enterprise clients, public-sector buyers, or any team for whom "where is my data?" is a procurement question rather than a technicality, awork provides a clear answer.

Key Features

Multi-View Project Planning

awork supports four views across all plans: Kanban board, list, timeline (Gantt), and table. Each view reflects the same underlying project data — switching between a Kanban board for daily standups and a timeline for client presentations is instantaneous, with no data duplication.

The timeline view supports task dependencies and critical path highlighting, giving project managers a realistic picture of which delays cascade to the project deadline. For agencies managing multiple concurrent projects against overlapping resource pools, the ability to spot cascading impacts visually rather than calculating them manually reduces replanning time considerably.

Integrated Time Tracking with Budget Monitoring

Time tracking in awork is woven into the project layer rather than bolted on as an add-on. Team members log hours against specific tasks, which updates the project's time budget in real time. Project managers can see at a glance whether a project is on track, running over budget, or has unused capacity — without exporting data to a separate tool.

The budget view surfaces a comparison between planned hours, logged hours, and remaining budget, colour-coded by health status. When a project is burning through hours faster than planned, the warning appears in the project dashboard rather than surfacing later in a finance review. For agencies running thin margins on fixed-price projects, this visibility is the difference between catching a problem at 40% complete versus discovering it at 90%.

Compare this to the typical approach of using a separate time-tracking tool — Harvest, Toggl, or Clockify — with a project management platform like Asana. The integration between those tools requires a Zapier workflow or a native connector, and even then the budget dashboard requires manual reconciliation. awork makes it native.

Capacity and Resource Planning

Capacity planning in awork is based on actual team availability rather than theoretical working hours. The system reads from logged absences, leaves, and existing task assignments to calculate true available capacity per person per day. When scheduling new work, the planner shows a realistic picture of whether the team can absorb additional tasks within the required timeframe.

This feature is available from the Standard plan at €12 per user per month — not gated to an enterprise tier. In Asana, Workload (the capacity equivalent) requires an Asana Business plan at roughly twice the cost per user. In Monday.com, Workload is a premium add-on. In awork, it is part of the Standard tier that most teams will use day-to-day.

awork Connect: External Collaboration Without Extra Seats

awork Connect allows clients, freelancers, and contractors to access specific projects — view tasks, add comments, track progress — without purchasing a paid awork seat. External collaborators are invited by email and interact with a scoped view of the project, controlled by the account administrator.

For a design agency managing twelve active client projects simultaneously, this eliminates the choice between paying for twelve additional client seats or running a separate client communication channel (typically email, which creates information silos). The client sees what they need; the agency does not pay a per-seat premium for the access.

This is one of awork's sharpest competitive advantages over US-headquartered platforms where external seats are a revenue line item, not a feature.

AI Features

awork includes AI-assisted rescheduling that detects resource conflicts — when a team member is overbooked due to a scope change or absence — and proposes automatic timeline adjustments that respect task dependencies and remaining team capacity. It also provides AI-generated effort estimates for new tasks based on historical patterns, AI status reports synthesising project progress, and AI-powered template suggestions.

These are included from the Standard plan, not reserved for an Enterprise tier. The AI rescheduling in particular addresses the most time-consuming part of project management: the manual replanning work that follows any unexpected change.

Pricing

awork operates on a per-user, per-month subscription model with annual billing. There is no free plan. A 14-day trial is available without requiring a credit card.

The Basic plan at €5 per user per month covers unlimited projects, personal task planning, and basic time tracking. Most agency teams will find this insufficient for collaborative project work. The Standard plan at €12 per user per month is where awork's core value lives: capacity planning, automations, absence management, project documents, and awork Connect. For a team of ten, that is €120 per month — a modest cost compared to the alternative of running three separate tools.

The Professional plan at €22 per user per month adds Salesforce and Personio integrations and a custom subdomain, relevant primarily for larger agencies with existing CRM infrastructure. Enterprise pricing is custom, covering SSO/SCIM, premium SLAs, and migration assistance.

These prices compare favourably to the leading US platforms. Asana Business is priced at approximately €24.99 per user per month, with capacity planning and automation at that level. Monday.com Standard is €14 per user per month but workload management requires Standard or higher. awork's Standard at €12 per user per month, incorporating time tracking and capacity planning, represents good value for an agency-specific platform with EU hosting.

EU Compliance & Privacy

awork GmbH is a German company headquartered in Hamburg. Servers run exclusively in Germany (Frankfurt), the company holds ISO 27001 certification, and a GDPR Data Processing Agreement is available for all paid plans. awork is a member of BVDW, the German digital industry association.

The ISO 27001 certification is meaningful in procurement contexts. German public-sector buyers and enterprise companies frequently require ISO 27001 as a supplier qualification criterion. awork meets this requirement; most of its US-headquartered competitors do not hold the same certification for their EU data processing.

For teams that have moved away from Asana or ClickUp specifically because those tools store data on US infrastructure, awork's Germany-only hosting is a structural resolution rather than a contractual workaround. There is no Standard Contractual Clause arrangement to document, no data transfer impact assessment to write. The data stays in Germany.

For project management tools generally, the combination of ISO 27001 certification, Germany-only infrastructure, and a German legal entity puts awork in a small group of options that satisfies strict EU data governance requirements without compromising on feature capability.

Who It's Best For

Digital agencies and creative studios running client projects with external collaborators. The combination of multi-view project planning, built-in time tracking, capacity planning, and free external seats via awork Connect maps directly onto the typical agency project workflow.

Professional services firms — consulting practices, architecture firms, marketing agencies — where projects are the billable unit and time tracking against tasks is a daily operational requirement rather than an optional add-on.

German and DACH-region businesses for whom ISO 27001 certification and Germany-only data hosting are procurement requirements. awork is one of the few capable project management tools that satisfies both conditions without requiring a custom enterprise agreement.

Teams migrating away from US-headquartered platforms on data governance grounds. awork is not a stripped-down EU alternative — it is a genuinely capable tool that competes on features as well as compliance.

awork is less suited to software development teams that need sprint planning, story points, velocity tracking, or deep Git and CI/CD integrations. For those workflows, OpenProject or Taiga are stronger choices within the EU ecosystem. awork is also not designed for very large enterprise deployments with complex reporting hierarchies and multi-level OKR tracking.

The Verdict

awork makes a specific bet: that agencies and professional services teams are under-served by tools designed either for developers (Jira, Linear) or for large enterprise programme management (Monday.com, Asana Business), and that time tracking, capacity planning, and client collaboration belong in the same product rather than three separate subscriptions.

The bet holds up. The combination of features at the Standard tier compares well to paying separately for project management, time tracking, and a client portal. The ISO 27001 certification and Germany-only infrastructure address a real procurement gap in the DACH market. The awork Connect model for external collaborators is genuinely differentiated in a market where external seats are typically a separate cost centre.

The honest limitations are worth naming: the agency-first design means developer-specific features are absent, the DACH-centric brand recognition requires more stakeholder persuasion than deploying Asana, and the smaller integration marketplace means some bespoke workflow automation will require Zapier. None of those limitations are disqualifying for the target user. For a Hamburg agency managing ten concurrent client projects with a team of fifteen, awork is a more coherent tool than any of its US-headquartered competitors — and the data never leaves Germany.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is awork Connect and does it cost extra?

awork Connect lets external clients, freelancers, and contractors access specific project areas in awork — viewing tasks, tracking progress, and adding comments — at no additional seat charge. You invite them by email and control exactly what they can see and do. This is included from the Standard plan and is designed specifically for agencies managing multiple client relationships simultaneously.

Is awork ISO 27001 certified and where is data hosted?

Yes. awork holds ISO 27001 certification and all data is hosted on servers in Germany (Frankfurt). awork GmbH is a German company in Hamburg, subject to German data protection law (BDSG) and GDPR. A Data Processing Agreement is available for all paid plans. This combination meets the data governance requirements of most German enterprise and public-sector procurement processes.

How does awork's time tracking integrate with project budgets?

Time tracking in awork is native to the project layer, not a separate module. When team members log hours against tasks, the project's time budget updates automatically. Project managers see a real-time comparison of planned versus actual hours, with colour-coded health indicators. There is no export, import, or synchronisation step between time logging and budget monitoring because they share the same data model.

Does awork work for non-agency teams?

awork is optimised for agencies, creative studios, and professional services firms where client projects, time budgets, and capacity planning are central to operations. It works well for any team with these characteristics. It is not designed for software development teams that need sprint planning, story points, or code-tool integrations. For those use cases, OpenProject or Taiga within the EU ecosystem, or Jira globally, are stronger choices.

How does awork compare to Asana or Monday.com?

awork is more focused and more affordable for agency-specific workflows. Asana Business (capacity planning equivalent) costs approximately €24.99 per user per month; awork Standard with capacity planning is €12. awork includes native time tracking; both Asana and Monday.com require third-party integrations for time logging. awork data is hosted exclusively in Germany (ISO 27001 certified); Asana and Monday.com use US infrastructure with EU Standard Contractual Clauses. The trade-off is ecosystem: Asana and Monday.com have larger template libraries, more native app integrations, and significantly broader brand recognition.