Trello is the kanban board that made project management visual and simple. Drag cards, move columns, get things done — no training required. It's elegant for what it does, and millions of people use it for exactly that reason. But Trello is a single-project tool. One board, one project.
Agencies don't run one project — they run six, ten, fifteen at once, across multiple clients, with pitches and proposals in the mix. Kavaro is built for that reality: a multi-project view of your entire agency, not a collection of separate boards you have to check one at a time.
Kavaro vs Trello at a glance
| Feature | Kavaro | Trello |
|---|---|---|
| Primary purpose | Agency project management for client delivery, pitches, and proposals | Visual task management using kanban boards |
| Built for | Agency founders, operators, and delivery teams | Anyone who wants simple, visual task tracking |
| Architecture | Multi-project — designed to show all agency work (projects, pitches, proposals) in one place | Single-project — each board is one project; no unified cross-project view |
| Project views | Phases, timeline, kanban — structured for agency delivery | Board (core), plus timeline, table, calendar, dashboard on Premium |
| Pitches and proposals alongside delivery | Yes — projects, pitches, and proposals in one unified view | No — each board is a standalone project; no unified pipeline view |
| Client-facing project view | Yes — clean, shareable overview for clients | No — clients added as board members see everything on the board |
| Client approvals tracking | Yes — tracks viewed, approved, waiting, and who needs to respond | No — Power-Ups and checklists can approximate this but nothing tracks approval status natively |
| AI first drafts | Yes — generates project plans and task content from a short brief | Limited — Atlassian Intelligence for card descriptions on Premium and above |
| Checkpoints | Yes — mark key decisions, reviews, and handovers to spot slippage | No — due dates and labels serve a different purpose |
| Estimates vs actuals | Yes — compare planned vs actual effort per client, phase, and work type | No — no native time tracking or effort comparison |
| Daily cross-project planning | Yes — see the day's priorities across every client, pitch, and proposal | No — each board is separate; no cross-board daily planning view |
| Multi-project dashboard | Yes — all projects, pitches, and proposals with health indicators | Limited — Workspace table view on Premium shows cards across boards, but no project health |
| Project health reports | Yes — real-time status of timelines, deliverables, approvals, and risks | No |
| File and link management | Yes — searchable across all projects | Per-card attachments only |
| Setup complexity | Minimal — AI-generated plans from a brief | Very low — Trello's simplicity is its core strength |
Why agencies choose Kavaro over Trello
Trello is a good product for managing a single project visually. But agencies never have just one project — and that's the fundamental mismatch.
1. Trello shows you one project. Kavaro shows you the agency.
Trello's architecture is one board per project. That works when you have two or three things in flight. But most agencies are running six client projects, two pitches, and a proposal at any given time — and each one is its own Trello board. To understand where the agency stands today, you're opening nine tabs, scanning nine boards, and assembling the picture in your head. There's no single view of what's on track, what's slipping, and what needs attention.
Kavaro is built around multi-project visibility from the ground up. Projects, pitches, and proposals sit in one dashboard with health indicators. The founder or operator sees the whole agency — not one board at a time, but everything at once — and knows in five minutes where things stand.
2. Client work needs structure, not just cards
Trello cards are good for tracking individual tasks, but agency work isn't just tasks. It's phases (strategy, creative, production, delivery), it's checkpoints (the review that determines whether the campaign launches on time), it's the gap between the estimate you sold and the effort you're actually burning.
Kavaro is structured around these concepts natively — phases, checkpoints, estimates vs actuals — because that's the operational reality of running client work. Agencies that try to manage this in Trello end up using labels, colour codes, and checklists to approximate a system that Kavaro provides out of the box.
3. Client visibility you can actually control
Adding a client to a Trello board means they see everything on that board — every card, every comment, every label. There's no separation between the internal view and the client view. Kavaro has a dedicated client-facing project overview: clients see progress, deliverables, and status in a clean format while the team keeps internal conversations and detail private. No duplicate boards. No permission anxiety. No accidental exposure.
4. Approvals don't live in checklists
Agency work stalls when client approvals stall. Trello has no native concept of client approvals — nothing tracks whether a client has viewed a deliverable, who has approved, who is still sitting on it, and which projects are at risk because someone hasn't responded. Kavaro tracks approvals with that level of specificity because that's the mechanism that keeps agency projects moving forward instead of quietly stalling.
5. New projects start from a brief, not a blank board
When a new client comes in, the Trello approach is: create a board, add lists, create cards, write descriptions, add checklists. Kavaro's approach is: describe what you want to achieve, and AI generates a working project plan — phases, tasks, descriptions — from a short brief. For agencies that spin up new projects every week, the difference between "build it from scratch" and "review and refine what's generated" saves hours of admin that nobody at the agency started the business to do.
Other comparisons agencies have asked us about
- Kavaro vs Asana — If you're comparing Kavaro against an enterprise work management platform rather than a kanban tool, see how Kavaro compares to Asana.
- Kavaro vs Monday.com — If Monday.com's horizontal Work OS is the alternative you're considering, see how Kavaro's agency focus compares.
- Kavaro vs ClickUp — If ClickUp's "everything app" approach is tempting but the complexity concerns you, see the comparison.
- Kavaro vs Bonsai — If you're weighing Bonsai's invoicing and contracts against Kavaro's agency delivery focus, see how the two differ.
- Kavaro vs Notion — If you're thinking about Notion as a Trello replacement and wondering whether a docs-first platform handles agency work, see the comparison.
Frequently asked questions
Is Trello good for agencies?
Trello is fundamentally a single-project tool — one board, one project — and agencies almost always have more than one thing in flight. Once you need cross-project visibility, client-facing views, approval tracking, estimates vs actuals, or a way to manage pitches alongside delivery, Trello becomes one board in a larger system you're assembling from spreadsheets, email, and other tools. Kavaro replaces that assembled system with one platform built for multi-project agency work.
Can I manage client approvals in Trello?
Not natively. You can use checklists, labels, or custom fields to approximate approval workflows, but Trello doesn't track whether a client has viewed a deliverable, who has approved, or who needs to respond. Most agencies using Trello for approvals end up managing the approval process in email alongside the board, which defeats the purpose. Kavaro's approval tracking handles this natively.
Does Trello have a client portal?
No. Clients added to a Trello board see the same board your team sees. There's no way to show clients a curated view of progress without exposing internal detail or maintaining a separate board. Kavaro's client-facing project overview is designed for exactly this — giving clients the information they need while keeping your working detail private.
Why do agencies leave Trello?
The pattern is consistent: the agency starts small, Trello works perfectly, then the agency grows. More clients, more projects, more team members. Suddenly there are 15 boards with no way to see them together, clients being managed via email, and the founder spending Friday afternoons in a spreadsheet trying to figure out which projects are on track. Trello's single-project architecture means the more you grow, the more fragmented your view becomes. Kavaro is built for the opposite — the more projects you have, the more valuable the multi-project dashboard becomes.
Is Kavaro harder to use than Trello?
Kavaro is designed for simplicity. AI generates project plans from a short description, templates standardise your workflows, and the interface is built so the team can use it from day one. It's more capable than Trello — phases, checkpoints, approvals, estimates vs actuals — but that capability doesn't come with the complexity you'd expect. The goal is momentum, not admin.
See how Kavaro handles your agency work
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