Best Project Management Tools for Startups 2026: 10 Tools Ranked & Reviewed
Most startup founders pick their project management tool the same way they pick a dentist — grab whatever looks decent, don't think too hard about it, and quietly regret it later. Don't do that.
Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels
Picture this instead: your startup just crossed the 10-person threshold. Suddenly, Slack threads are buried under 300 messages, someone's working from a spreadsheet that nobody else can find, and your sprint deadline snuck up like a cat in the dark. Sound familiar? That's the exact moment every founder realizes they need a real project management system — not just a shared Google Doc and good intentions.
Finding the best project management tools for startups in 2026 isn't just about picking the shiniest dashboard. It's about finding a tool your team will actually use, one that grows with you from five people to fifty, and one that doesn't eat your runway with bloated enterprise pricing. The right tool becomes the nervous system of your company — connecting tasks, people, timelines, and goals into one coherent story.
This guide covers ten tools in depth: ClickUp, Notion, Linear, Asana, Trello, Monday.com, Basecamp, Todoist, Hive, and nTask. We've dug into their features, pricing, learning curves, and where they genuinely shine (or quietly disappoint).
What to Actually Look For in Project Management Tools
Before we dive in, let's establish what actually matters for startups specifically. Enterprise teams can afford to spend three months onboarding a new tool. You can't.
Speed of setup is crucial. If it takes a week to configure your workspace, that's a week you're not shipping. You'll also want flexible views — kanbans for your developers, calendars for your marketers, lists for your ops people. Nobody wants to fight over workflow format.
Pricing transparency is another big one. Honestly, this is where a lot of tools get sneaky. They lure you in with free tiers, then gate the features you actually need behind a $20/user/month paywall. Watch for that. And finally, integrations matter — your project management tool needs to play nicely with Slack, GitHub, Google Workspace, Figma, and whatever else lives in your stack.
Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels
How We Evaluated These Tools
Here's the deal — we assessed each tool across five key areas:
- Feature depth — Does it handle task management, docs, time tracking, and reporting without requiring five different apps?
- Ease of use — Could a new hire get productive in under an hour?
- Pricing fairness — Is the free tier actually useful? Are paid plans reasonable for a 10-15 person team?
- Startup fit — Does it work for small, fast-moving teams, or is it clearly built for 500-person enterprises?
- Support & community — Documentation quality, response times, and user community size.
We weighted startup fit and pricing especially heavily, because a tool that's perfect for Goldman Sachs is almost certainly overkill for a seed-stage SaaS team.
8-chapter comprehensive budgeting guide with 3 interactive calculators. Stop living paycheck to paycheck.
Quick Comparison Table
| Tool | Best For | Starting Price | Free Tier | Our Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ClickUp | All-in-one teams | $7/user/mo | ✅ Yes | ⭐ 9.4/10 |
| Notion | Docs + project hybrid | $10/user/mo | ✅ Yes | ⭐ 9.0/10 |
| Linear | Engineering teams | $8/user/mo | ✅ Yes | ⭐ 8.9/10 |
| Asana | Growing teams | $10.99/user/mo | ✅ Yes | ⭐ 8.7/10 |
| Monday.com | Visual planning | $9/user/mo | ❌ No | ⭐ 8.5/10 |
| Trello | Simple kanban | $5/user/mo | ✅ Yes | ⭐ 8.0/10 |
| Hive | Collaboration-heavy teams | $12/user/mo | ✅ Yes | ⭐ 7.9/10 |
| Basecamp | Flat-rate simplicity | $99/mo flat | ✅ Limited | ⭐ 7.7/10 |
| Todoist | Solo founders & small teams | $4/user/mo | ✅ Yes | ⭐ 7.5/10 |
| nTask | Budget-conscious teams | $3/user/mo | ✅ Yes | ⭐ 7.2/10 |
Photo by Startup Stock Photos on Pexels
Detailed Reviews: Best Project Management Tools for Startups 2026
1. ClickUp — Best All-in-One Project Management Tool
Think of ClickUp as the kitchen-sink solution that somehow actually works. It's the tool that looked at every other project management app and said, "what if we just did all of that, in one place?" And honestly? They mostly pulled it off.
ClickUp is the closest thing to a complete operating system for startups. Tasks, docs, goals, time tracking, whiteboards, dashboards, automations — it's all there. For a seed-stage startup that can't afford five separate SaaS subscriptions, this kind of consolidation is genuinely powerful. The customization is almost overwhelming at first (there are a lot of settings), but once you've configured your workspace, it becomes incredibly sticky.
When I tested ClickUp with a 12-person team, the most surprising part was how much less we relied on other tools. Slack became less of a project management medium, Figma integrations handled design handoffs directly in tasks, and I stopped maintaining separate spreadsheets for timelines. Context-switching between apps is a real productivity killer, and ClickUp actually reduces it.
Key Features:
- 15+ views including List, Board, Gantt, Calendar, Timeline, and Workload
- Native Docs with real-time collaboration
- Built-in time tracking and reporting dashboards
- Goal tracking tied directly to tasks
- Over 1,000 integrations including Slack, GitHub, Figma, and Zapier
- AI assistant (ClickUp Brain) for task summaries, writing, and automation suggestions
- Custom automations with a drag-and-drop builder
Pricing:
- Free Forever — Unlimited tasks, limited storage (100MB), basic features
- Unlimited — $7/user/month — Unlimited storage, integrations, dashboards
- Business — $12/user/month — Advanced automations, timelines, workload views
- Enterprise — Custom pricing
Pros:
- Extraordinary feature depth for the price
- Free tier is genuinely usable, not just a teaser
- Constant product updates and a responsive roadmap
Cons:
- Steeper learning curve than most competitors
- Mobile app can feel sluggish on complex workspaces
- Feature overload can paralyze new teams
Hot take: ClickUp is the best project management tool for startups in 2026 — but only if you're willing to invest a weekend into setting it up properly. Seriously, block out a Friday afternoon. Don't just throw your team in on day one and wonder why nobody uses it.
2. Notion — Best for Documentation-Heavy Startups
Notion occupies a unique space: it's a project management tool that thinks it's a wiki, and a wiki that's secretly a decent project manager. For startups where knowledge management and task tracking are equally important — think product teams, content studios, or research-heavy companies — this duality is its superpower.
Notion's 2025 updates brought significantly improved database speed and the maturation of Notion Projects, which now genuinely competes with dedicated PM tools. It's not going to replace Linear for a pure engineering team, but for a 5-15 person startup that needs one place for SOPs, meeting notes, project boards, and roadmaps, Notion might genuinely be the last tool you need to buy.
Here's what I noticed after using Notion as a team wiki for two months: the biggest win wasn't the task management — it was having your operating procedures, product specs, and sprint tasks all living in the same searchable space. The friction of context-switching between a doc tool and a PM tool just vanishes.
Key Features:
- Flexible databases with table, board, calendar, gallery, and timeline views
- Notion AI for summarizing, drafting, and auto-filling properties
- Notion Projects with sprints, task dependencies, and team views
- Nested pages for building a comprehensive internal wiki
- Real-time collaboration with inline comments
- Integrations with Slack, GitHub, Figma, Jira, and 50+ others via native or Zapier
Pricing:
- Free — Unlimited pages and blocks for individuals, limited collaboration features
- Plus — $10/user/month — Unlimited guests, 30-day history, file uploads up to 5MB
- Business — $15/user/month — Advanced analytics, private teamspaces, 90-day history
- Enterprise — Custom pricing
Pros:
- Unbeatable flexibility for mixed doc/task workflows
- Beautiful, distraction-free interface
- AI features are genuinely useful, not just bolted on
Cons:
- Not ideal for pure task management at scale
- Performance can lag with very large databases
- Lacks native time tracking
3. Linear — Best for Engineering and Product Teams
If ClickUp is a Swiss Army knife, Linear is a scalpel. It's designed with an almost obsessive focus on software development workflows, and it shows in every single interaction. The keyboard shortcuts are everywhere, the interface loads instantly (we're talking sub-100ms transitions — it's almost unsettling how fast it is), and the issue tracking system is built around how engineers actually think.
Linear has become the darling of Y Combinator-backed startups for a reason. It doesn't try to do everything — it tries to do sprint planning, bug tracking, and product roadmapping better than anyone else. If your startup is engineering-led or your primary deliverable is software, Linear belongs at the very top of your shortlist.
After a week with Linear, the speed alone started feeling addictive. No lag, no three-second waits for dialogs to open. Plus, the GitHub integration actually works — close an issue from a commit, and Linear updates in real-time. It's the kind of polish that's rare in SaaS.
Key Features:
- Cycles (sprint management) with velocity tracking
- Projects and roadmaps with status and progress tracking
- Git integration with GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket — auto-close issues from commits
- Triage workflows for managing incoming bugs and requests
- Blazing-fast keyboard-first interface
- Notion-like document editor for specs and RFCs
- Slack, Figma, Zendesk, and Sentry integrations
Pricing:
- Free — Up to 250 issues, 10MB file uploads, basic features
- Standard — $8/user/month — Unlimited issues, integrations, API access
- Plus — $14/user/month — Advanced analytics, priority support, admin controls
- Enterprise — Custom pricing
Pros:
- Speed and UX are in a class of their own
- Developer-first integrations are deep and genuinely useful
- Simple enough to onboard in under an hour
Cons:
- Limited use for non-technical teams (marketing, sales, HR)
- Not a great fit if you need a doc/wiki hybrid
- Reporting is less comprehensive than ClickUp or Asana
4. Asana — Best for Growing Startups Scaling Past 20 People
Asana is the reliable sedan of project management tools. It's not flashy, it won't surprise you, and it's been refined over fifteen-plus years into something genuinely excellent. For startups scaling from seed to Series A — suddenly needing cross-team visibility and actual portfolio management — Asana's workload features start earning their keep in a way they simply don't at five people.
The 2025-2026 version of Asana has leaned hard into AI with Asana Intelligence, which can auto-assign tasks, flag at-risk projects, and surface blockers before they become fires. It's one of the more useful implementations of AI in PM tools right now, as opposed to AI that just writes task descriptions nobody reads.
Key Features:
- Timeline view (Gantt-style) with task dependencies
- Portfolio management for tracking multiple projects simultaneously
- Workload view to prevent team member burnout
- Asana Intelligence — AI features for risk detection, auto-summarization, and prioritization
- Rules and automations for recurring workflows
- 300+ integrations including Salesforce, Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom
Pricing:
- Personal — Free for up to 10 users, basic task management
- Starter — $10.99/user/month — Timelines, automations, dashboards
- Advanced — $24.99/user/month — Portfolios, workload, advanced reporting
- Enterprise / Enterprise+ — Custom pricing
Pros:
- Polished, professional interface that stakeholders and investors love
- Strong automation capabilities on mid-tier plans
- Excellent for cross-functional project tracking
Cons:
- Pricier than alternatives at the mid tier
- Free plan is quite limited at 10 users max
- Can feel bureaucratic for a small, scrappy team
5. Monday.com — Best for Visual Thinkers and Sales-Driven Teams
Monday.com absolutely nails the first demo. The colorful dashboards, the drag-and-drop simplicity, the CRM-meets-PM hybrid feel — it all looks incredible in a slide deck. And to be fair, it delivers on that promise pretty well in practice, especially for teams that live in spreadsheet-style views but want something more dynamic.
Where Monday.com really shines for startups is in its CRM module (Monday CRM) and its sales pipeline management. If your startup is revenue-focused and you want to manage deals, projects, and team tasks in one ecosystem, Monday.com creates an unusually coherent picture. But here's the thing: the complete lack of a real free tier for teams is genuinely frustrating — a 2-user limit is basically useless and feels like a deliberate bait-and-switch.
Key Features:
- Highly customizable boards with 20+ column types
- Monday CRM built into the same platform
- Automations with conditional logic (200+ templates)
- Monday AI for task generation and workflow suggestions
- Gantt, timeline, calendar, and kanban views
- Dashboards with widget-based reporting
- Strong marketplace of integrations (300+)
Pricing:
- Free — Up to 2 users only (not great for teams)
- Basic — $9/user/month (min. 3 users) — Unlimited boards, 5GB storage
- Standard — $12/user/month — Timelines, calendar view, automations (250/month)
- Pro — $19/user/month — Time tracking, private boards, unlimited automations
- Enterprise — Custom pricing
Pros:
- Visually intuitive, minimal training needed
- Great CRM integration for sales-heavy startups
- Strong automation templates out of the box
Cons:
- No real free tier for actual teams (2-user limit is almost useless)
- Gets expensive fast at the Pro tier for larger teams
- Less suited for pure engineering workflows
6. Trello — Best for Simple Kanban and Small Teams
Trello is where a lot of startup stories begin. The kanban board format is so immediately understandable that you can walk a non-technical co-founder through it in about four minutes flat. Cards, lists, boards — there's zero conceptual overhead. For a two to five person team in the earliest days, Trello's simplicity isn't a limitation. It's genuinely a feature.
The honest truth about Trello is that it doesn't scale especially well past about 15 people or three simultaneous projects. And that's okay — it doesn't pretend to. For what it is — a beautiful, dead-simple visual task manager — it's still one of the best options in 2026. Atlassian has been steadily adding Power-Ups (integrations and extensions) that expand its capabilities without cluttering the core experience.
(Side note: Atlassian's whole product ecosystem — Trello, Jira, Confluence — is actually a clever growth trap. You start on Trello, outgrow it, and slide naturally into Jira. Whether that's genius or evil probably depends on how your Jira migration goes.)
Key Features:
- Classic drag-and-drop kanban boards
- Butler automation for rules, triggers, and scheduled commands
- Timeline and calendar views (on paid plans)
- Power-Ups for integrations with Slack, Jira, GitHub, and more
- Templates library with hundreds of pre-built boards
- Unlimited cards on all plans
Pricing:
- Free — Unlimited cards, 10 boards per workspace, 1 Power-Up per board
- Standard — $5/user/month — Unlimited boards, custom fields, 1,000 automations/month
- Premium — $10/user/month — Dashboard, timeline, calendar views, unlimited automations
- Enterprise — $17.50+/user/month
Pros:
- Lowest learning curve of any tool on this list — bar none
- Extremely generous free tier
- Atlassian's ecosystem (Jira, Confluence) is there when you outgrow it
Cons:
- Doesn't scale well for complex multi-project management
- Reporting and analytics are minimal
- Limited views on the free plan
7. Hive — Best for Collaboration-Heavy and Agency-Style Startups
Hive doesn't get nearly enough attention in the "best project management tools for startups" conversation, and honestly that's a shame. It's genuinely strong for teams where collaboration — not just task completion — is the primary work mode. Think creative agencies, content teams, consulting startups, or any company where the work product is inherently something people build together.
Hive combines project management with a built-in chat system, making it a partial Slack alternative. It's also one of the few tools with a genuinely useful native email integration, letting you turn emails directly into tasks. It won't replace Linear for engineers, but for a people-oriented startup, it absolutely deserves a serious look before you default to whatever tool is most hyped this month.
Key Features:
- Multiple project views: Gantt, kanban, calendar, portfolio, table
- Native messaging and chat (reduces Slack dependency)
- Action templates for recurring project workflows
- Hive AI for task automation and prioritization
- Proofing and approval tools for creative workflows
- Time tracking and budget management built in
- Resourcing views for workload management
Pricing:
- Free — Up to 10 users, basic features
- Starter — $5/user/month — Core features, limited storage
- Teams — $12/user/month — Full feature set, analytics, integrations
- Enterprise — Custom pricing
Pros:
- Built-in chat meaningfully reduces the need for a separate messaging tool
- Strong for creative and approval-based workflows
- Good value at the Teams tier
Cons:
- Smaller integration ecosystem than ClickUp or Asana
- UI can feel cluttered with all features enabled
- Less name recognition means a smaller community and fewer third-party resources
8. Basecamp — Best for Flat-Rate Simplicity and Remote Teams
Basecamp plays a completely different game than everyone else on this list, and that's exactly why it belongs here. While most tools charge per user (which effectively punishes growth), Basecamp charges a flat $99 per month for unlimited users. For a startup scaling from 10 to 40 people, that pricing model alone can represent thousands of dollars in annual savings.
The philosophy behind Basecamp is deliberately anti-complexity. There are no views, no automations, no AI, no customization rabbit holes. There are to-dos, message boards, documents, schedules, and campfire chats. That's it. Founders who've been burned by teams ignoring overly complex systems often come back to Basecamp for its beautiful, enforced simplicity. It's genuinely underrated in 2026, especially for remote-first teams who are exhausted by tool sprawl.
Key Features:
- Message boards for project discussions (replaces endless email threads)
- To-do lists with assignments and due dates
- Docs & Files for shared documents and assets
- Campfire (group chat) and Pings (direct messages)
- Automatic check-ins to replace status meetings
- Client access for sharing specific projects with external stakeholders
- Schedule view with iCal feed sync
Pricing:
- Basecamp — $99/month flat (unlimited users, 500GB storage)
- Basecamp Plus — $299/month flat (unlimited users, 5TB storage, priority support)
- Free trial — 30 days, no credit card required
Pros:
- Flat-rate pricing is exceptional value once you hit 12+ users
- Opinionated simplicity aggressively reduces tool sprawl
- Purpose-built for async, remote-first teams
Cons:
- No Gantt charts, resource planning, or advanced views
- Not suitable for engineering sprint management
- Limited reporting capabilities
9. Todoist — Best for Solo Founders and Very Small Teams
There's a specific type of startup operator who's already Todoist-brained: the solo founder, the COO juggling fifteen workstreams, the early employee who IS the ops team. Todoist has been refined for years into arguably the best personal task management experience available — clean, fast, available on every platform, and deeply satisfying to use in a way that's hard to explain until you try it.
And honestly, it's worth being direct: Todoist is a task manager, not a full project manager. For a team of one to five with relatively independent workstreams, it works beautifully. Push past that and you'll hit its ceiling fast — there's no real resource planning, no workload views, and the reporting is minimal at best.
Key Features:
- Natural language task entry ("every Friday at 3pm" just works — it's genuinely magic)
- Projects, sections, and labels for organization
- Priority levels and recurring task scheduling
- Karma system for productivity gamification
- Board view (kanban) and calendar view on paid plans
- Todoist AI for task suggestions and goal-setting
- Integrations with 60+ apps including Gmail, Slack, and Zapier
Pricing:
- Free — Up to 5 projects, basic task management
- Pro — $4/user/month — 300 projects, reminders, calendar view, AI assistance
- Business — $6/user/month — Team workspace, admin controls, member roles
Pros:
- The cleanest, most intuitive task entry experience of any tool on this list
- Outstanding mobile apps on both iOS and Android
- Very affordable even on paid plans
Cons:
- Not built for team-level project management
- No Gantt, timeline, or workload views
- Limited reporting and analytics
10. nTask — Best for Budget-Conscious Startups Needing Core Features
nTask doesn't have the brand recognition of ClickUp or the sleek reputation of Linear, but it punches well above its weight class for startups working with tight budgets. At $3/user/month for the Premium tier, it's the most affordable tool on this list that still includes meeting management, risk tracking, and time tracking in the same package.
Think of nTask as the startup that hasn't raised a Series A but knows exactly what it's doing. It covers the bases — task management, issue tracking, timesheets, meeting notes, risk matrices — without trying to be everything to everyone. For a pre-revenue team watching every dollar, nTask deserves a real evaluation rather than being dismissed just because you've never heard of it.
Key Features:
- Task management with multi-level subtasks
- Issue tracker with severity and status tracking
- Meeting management with agendas, notes, and follow-up tasks
- Timesheets and time tracking built in
- Risk management matrix (genuinely unusual at this price point)
- Gantt charts on paid plans
- Integrations with Slack, Zoom, Google Calendar, and Zapier
Pricing:
- Free — Unlimited workspaces, up to 5 members, basic features
- Premium — $3/user/month — Unlimited tasks, Gantt charts, custom fields
- Business — $8/user/month — Advanced reporting, custom roles, priority support
- Enterprise — Custom pricing
Pros:
- Cheapest fully-featured option on this list, full stop
- Meeting management feature is genuinely unique at this price
- Risk tracking included where tools costing 4x as much skip it entirely
Cons:
- UI feels dated compared to Linear or Notion
- Smaller integration library
- Customer support can be slow on free and premium tiers
Detailed Feature Comparison Matrix
| Feature | ClickUp | Notion | Linear | Asana | Monday | Trello | Hive | Basecamp | Todoist | nTask |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free Tier | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Kanban View | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Gantt / Timeline | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Time Tracking | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Native Docs | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Sprint / Cycles | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| AI Features | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Git Integration | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Automations | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Flat-Rate Pricing | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Mobile App | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Min. Paid Price | $7 | $10 | $8 | $10.99 | $9 | $5 | $5 | $99/mo | $4 | $3 |
How to Choose the Right Tool for Your Startup
Here's a decision framework based on common startup profiles. Think about where you are right now — not where you hope to be in two years. Over-tooling for future scale is one of the most common and expensive mistakes early-stage teams make.
You're a Solo Founder or 2-3 Person Team
Start with Todoist or Trello. Don't over-engineer your workflow before you've found product-market fit. Simple tools create less friction and more shipping. You can always upgrade later — but you can't get back the hours you spent configuring a complex ClickUp workspace when you had three customers.
You're an Engineering-Led Startup
Linear is the obvious answer. Full stop. Its speed, developer integrations, and sprint tooling are purpose-built for your team. Pair it with Notion for your product specs and internal docs — that combination covers about 90% of what most engineering startups need.
You Need Everything in One Place (Under 20 People)
ClickUp on its Unlimited plan ($7/user) gives you more tools per dollar than anything else on this list. Yes, the setup takes time. Do it on a Friday afternoon, not on a Monday morning before a big sprint.
You're a Content, Creative, or Agency-Style Startup
Hive or Notion deserve your attention here. Notion's doc-first approach works beautifully for content calendars and brand wikis. Hive's built-in approvals and proofing tools suit agencies managing client deliverables and the inevitable "can we get one more round of revisions" conversations.
You're Scaling Past 20 People and Need Cross-Team Visibility
This is where Asana earns its premium price. Portfolio management, workload views, and Asana Intelligence start genuinely paying dividends at this scale. The $10.99/user Starter plan is where most teams in this category should begin.
You Want Predictable Pricing as You Grow
Basecamp's $99/month flat rate becomes extraordinary value the moment you pass about 12 users. If you value simplicity and have a distributed team, it's one of the most startup-friendly pricing models in all of SaaS — not just PM tools.
You're Bootstrapped and Watching Every Penny
nTask at $3/user/month covers the core bases and even includes risk management features that tools costing four times as much don't bother offering. It's not pretty, but it works — and working is what matters when the runway is short.
Verdict: Top Picks by Startup Type
After reviewing all ten tools, here's the honest summary of who should use what:
- 🏆 Best Overall for Startups: ClickUp — The combination of features, value, and flexibility makes it the top recommendation for most startup teams in 2026
- 🔧 Best for Engineering Teams: Linear — Nothing else comes close for developer experience and sprint management
- 📝 Best for Docs + Projects: Notion — When your startup lives in its wiki as much as its task board
- 📈 Best for Scaling Teams: Asana — Once you're past 20 people and need real portfolio visibility
- 💰 Best Budget Pick: nTask — Maximum features per dollar for pre-revenue teams
- 🎯 Best for Simplicity: Trello — The easiest onboarding experience on this entire list