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SyncHQ vs Asana

A sourced comparison of SyncHQ and Asana for agency client delivery: client portals, time tracking, billing, plan pricing, and which one fits your studio.

Last reviewed August 9, 2026

The short answer

Asana is the stronger internal work-management tool. SyncHQ is built for the part Asana leaves to you: the client side and the money side.

  1. 01Asana has no native invoicing and no client portal, so an agency running on it typically also runs a billing tool and a portal tool.
  2. 02Time tracking arrives on Asana Advanced at $24.99/user/month annually - and time tracking is table stakes for billable work.
  3. 03Asana is better than SyncHQ at goals, portfolios, and cross-team dependency management. If that is your bottleneck, it is the right tool.
What each one costs

SyncHQ

Free plan (3 projects, 5 members). Professional $29/mo. Enterprise $99/mo.

Asana

Personal free. Starter $10.99/user/mo annual ($13.49 monthly). Advanced $24.99 annual ($30.49 monthly). Enterprise custom.

The thing that changes the bill: Time tracking is an Advanced-tier feature, so billable teams start at the $24.99 tier rather than $10.99.

Prices as published on August 9, 2026. Vendors change pricing without notice - check the source links below before you budget.

Capability by capability
Capability
SyncHQ
Asana
Winning the work
Conversational AI client intake
Yes
PartialForms from the Starter plan; structured, not conversational, and no brief is produced.
Auto-generated project brief
Yes
No
Contracts / e-signature
On the roadmapE-signature contracts are not shipped. Scope lives in the brief and the SOW document.
No
Meeting scheduling
NoNo built-in meeting scheduler.
No
Doing the work
Tasks, boards, and views
Yes
Yes
Time-boxed cycles / sprints
Yes
PartialSprint-style work is modelled with sections and custom fields rather than a first-class cycle.
Native time tracking
Yes
PartialNative from the Advanced plan.
Capacity / resource planning
PartialTeam capacity and workload views ship; scenario-based forecasting does not.
PartialPortfolio workload on Advanced; universal capacity planning is Enterprise.
Workflow automations
PartialRule-based automations exist inside modules; there is no general-purpose visual automation builder.
Yes
The client relationship
Built-in client portal
Yes
NoGuests can be invited into projects, but there is no client-facing portal surface.
White-label / own branding
Yes
No
Clients do not consume a paid seat
YesClient portal access does not consume a paid seat.
PartialUnlimited free guests, who see the project itself rather than a curated client view.
Threaded discussion in-product
Yes
Yes
Getting paid
Invoicing from tracked time
Yes
No
Retainer / milestone billing
Yes
No
Delivery + revenue analytics
Yes
YesReporting and portfolios, oriented to delivery rather than revenue.
Platform
Roles and per-project permissions
Yes
Yes
Third-party app marketplace
NoNo third-party app marketplace. Integrations are built in-house.
Yes
Native mobile apps
On the roadmapThe web app is responsive; native iOS/Android apps are not shipped.
Yes
YesPartialPaid add-onOn the roadmapNoNot published
Choose SyncHQ when
  • Billing and client visibility are the parts of your week that hurt, not task coordination.
  • You do not want to run and reconcile a separate invoicing tool.
  • Your clients should see a curated view of their project, not your internal project.
Choose Asana when
  • You run large cross-functional programmes where goals, portfolios, and dependencies are the hard part.
  • Your organisation already standardised on Asana outside the delivery team.
  • You need a mature integration ecosystem and native mobile apps.
Questions people actually ask

Can I use Asana for client projects?

Many agencies do, successfully. The usual shape is Asana for delivery plus Harvest or similar for time, plus a billing tool, plus something ad hoc for the client. That stack works - it just means the client view and the invoice are downstream of three systems that have to agree.

Does Asana have a client portal?

Not as a distinct product surface. You can invite a client as a guest into a project, which shows them the project as your team sees it. Whether that is acceptable depends on how much internal conversation lives in the same place.

Sources

Every claim about Asana on this page comes from its own public pages, listed here so you can check them yourself.

See whether it fits before you commit

The free plan runs three projects with five people - enough to put a real client through intake, delivery, and an invoice before you decide anything.

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