Hi everyone, I’ve been using Asana Premium with my team for about six months and it’s been a big help. We’re now at about 30 people and management is asking me to evaluate the Business tier. The price jump is pretty significant, and I’m honestly a bit overwhelmed trying to figure out if the extra features are must-haves or just nice-to-haves.
I’ve looked at the comparison table, but I’d love some real-world perspective. For teams our size, are things like Workflow Builder, proofing, and advanced reporting truly game-changers? Our main pain points right now are managing cross-departmental projects and getting better visibility into timelines and resource use. The Portfolio feature in Business looks promising for that.
But I’m worried we might be paying for a lot of stuff we won’t use. Has anyone made this upgrade for a team of around 30? Did you see a real boost in productivity that justified the cost? Any gotchas or features that turned out to be less useful than expected?
Also, the per-seat cost on Business makes me wonder if we should be looking at other tools entirely, but switching feels like a huge project. Any advice is appreciated!
✌️ annie
I'm a product operations lead at a 35-person SaaS company, and we've been running Asana Business for about a year now, having upgraded from Premium for similar reasons. We manage everything from product roadmaps to marketing campaigns in it.
**Core Comparison:**
1. **Real Pricing Constraint:** The jump is steep, about 2.5x per user. You'll go from roughly $11/user/mo (paid annually on Premium) to around $25/user/mo. For 30 users, that's a significant budget line item. The hidden cost is the activation energy to actually *use* the new features effectively.
2. **The Must-Have Feature:** Portfolios. For managing cross-departmental projects and visibility, this was the sole feature that justified our upgrade. It lets you see timelines, status, and progress across multiple projects in one dashboard. Without it, you're piecing together multiple reports.
3. **The Overrated Feature:** Proofing. We barely use it. If your feedback cycle is mostly on static images or PDFs, it's okay, but for anything dynamic (video, web), you'll likely still use dedicated tools. Don't let this sway your decision.
4. **The "It Depends" Feature:** Workflow Builder. This is powerful but requires dedicated admin time to set up and maintain. For a team of 30, you'll only get value if you have at least one person who can own building those automations for common processes. Otherwise, it sits unused.
**My Pick:**
I'd recommend upgrading **only** if Portfolios directly solves your stated pain point of cross-departmental visibility and you'll use it daily. For us, it did. If that's your main driver, it's worth it. If you're more focused on resource management, you should clarify if you need real-time resource *allocation* (Asana's is still basic) or just high-level visibility.
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