Most project management systems are either overkill, inadequate, or frustratingly chaotic. Teams struggle to adopt them, information scatters everywhere, and complexity trips people up. It’s especially tough on small and medium-sized businesses. Luckily there’s Basecamp. For 20 years and running, it’s hit the sweet spot. Check out all the stuff people tried before finding the perfect fit in Basecamp.
Wrestling with projects and process?
It doesn’t have to be this hard.
The wrong fit ends in frustration.
The right fit sets you free.
Get somewhere.
- Too many tools? Stuff scattered? Keep falling behind? Even simple things feel like a grind?
- Your projects need Basecamp.
- Basecamp frees you up. It’s for makers, not micromanagers. For shipping, not slipping. It’s all about making progress.
- Asana, Slack, Monday, and ClickUp make project management tools for big, boring, conforming companies. Just like them.
- We build Basecamp for smaller, hungrier, independent companies. Like yours — and ours. Discover what a great fit feels like.
- Talking about the work isn’t the same as doing the work. Being super busy isn’t the same as making progress. Starting a project isn’t the same as shipping it.
- Basecamp is a fundamentally different way to run projects and make things happen. It’s like night and day.
- How does Basecamp work?
10 seconds after you sign up, clarity sets in.
The home screen organizes your projects, assignments, and upcoming events together on one screen. It’s your calm, comfortable, simple starting point every morning.
Projects get teams — and keep teams — organized.
A project is where the tasks, discussions, deliverables, and decisions happen. Projects hold everything — and everyone — together in one tidy, predictably structured place.
Reports give you confidence to hold people accountable.
Basecamp’s reports aren’t numbers, percentages, or abstract representations — they’re the real work, actual evidence of progress being made (or not made).
Visualizations are for seeing, not squinting.
Basecamp’s Lineup, Mission Control, and Hill Charts are visual tools that help you clearly see where projects really stand. Notice progress at a glance, know reality in an instant.
Ping! Hey! It’s for you.
The Hey! menu aggregates your notifications in a never-annoying single menu. And “Pings”, our flavor of direct messages, let you kick off ad hoc chats 1:1 or in small groups.
Got clients? Be partners, not adversaries.
Basecamp keeps both sides organized, everyone’s feedback on the record, and all decisions, approvals, files, tasks, deadlines, and communications safe and centralized.
The answer is YES!
Can software be simple, straightforward, and easy, yet powerfully full-featured?
With Basecamp the answer is absolutely YES!
- Can I prevent our clients from seeing unfinished work?
- Can I link up files from Google Docs, Figma, Dropbox, Airtable, and other apps?
- Can I see everything I need to do on a single screen?
- Can I see everything that’s overdue on a single screen?
- Can I use Basecamp even if some of my team prefers just to use email?
- Can I see all the work that was completed on any given day?
- Can I set up projects that only some of my team can see?
- Can I see everything that’s happened across multiple projects in one place?
- Can I @mention someone so they’re notified about something?
- Can I see all the work someone’s done over a long period of time?
- Can I see everything that’s assigned to someone on a single page?
- Can I see exactly who worked on what today? Yesterday? Last week?
- Can I easily reference an entire conversation from a year ago?
- Can I follow a project quietly without receiving notifications?
- Can I assign tasks to multiple people at once?
- Can I see all our projects laid out on a visual timeline?
- Can I keep all the discussion about a to-do attached to that to-do?
- Can I follow-up directly with someone without anyone else knowing?
- Can our clients respond to our questions via email?
- Can our clients see a record of everything we’ve asked them?
- Can I organize ideas and setup workflows on a Kanban board?
- Can Basecamp tell me when someone completed an assignment?
- Can Basecamp help me get a client to approve a design?
- Can Basecamp help me hold my team accountable for deadlines?
- You wrote some books on how to run a business, too, right?
You wouldn’t be here if the
way you’ve been working was working. It’s time for Basecamp.
Team super busy, but running in circles? It’s time for Basecamp. Finding stuff easy to start, but hard to finish? It’s time for Basecamp. Things taking longer than they should? It’s time for Basecamp. Info increasingly scattered across different apps? It’s time for Basecamp. Subscription fees keep adding up?
It’s time for Basecamp. Growing into dysfunction? It’s time for Basecamp. Tired of looking disorganized in front of clients? It’s time for Basecamp.
How long have you been around? Can we trust you?
The company that designed, owns, and operates Basecamp is called 37signals, and we’ve been around as a company since 1999. We launched Basecamp, the product, in 2004 and have been improving it weekly ever since. Running a sane, responsible, sustainable business is part of our commitment to you.
We’ve been profitable for 25 straight years, we have zero debt, we’re privately held, and built to stay, not exit. Our employee handbook is also public for everyone to see how we run our business and treat our employees.
We’ve also written a number of bestselling books (REWORK, Remote, It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work) as well. The books detail how we’ve built, and run, such a unique, long-lasting company in a field full of sameness and short-term thinking.
You can email Jason Fried, our Co-Founder and CEO, any time at jason@37signals.com. He doesn’t have an assistant, so he’ll read and respond to your emails personally.
What about reliability and uptime?
We can make endless promises, but the numbers are what matter here. Our historical uptime over multiple decades is well over 99.99%, and you can see recent real-time history on our Status Page.
What’s your refund policy like?
We aim to be fair and reasonable, just as we’d want to be treated. Our refund policy reflects that.
Can I ask ownership a question directly?
Absolutely. Our Co-Founder and CEO (Jason Fried) is available direct at jason@37signals.com, and our other Co-Founder and CTO (David Heinemeier Hansson) is at david@37signals.com. Please do reach out. They don’t have assistants or anyone who reads their emails, so you’ll hear from them directly.
How secure is Basecamp?
We have a full security write-up available on the 37signals site. 37signals is the company behind Basecamp.
Is our data backed up? How often?
Data customers enter into Basecamp is stored in multiple, redundant data centers. That data is backed up several times a day, and copies of those backups are stored both locally and off-site to further reduce points of possible failure. Files customers upload are stored off-site and backed up to servers in a different geographic region.
Where are the servers that store our data?
Our servers are located in multiple data centers in the United States. We service customers from over 160 countries from these servers. We do not currently have data centers outside the US.
Can you fill our custom security questionnaires?
We don’t fill out custom security questionnaires, but we’ve prepared a summary security PDF which you can provide to your IT staff.
Can I export our data if we ever want to leave?
Absolutely, you can do it as often as you’d like. Plus, it’s entirely self-service and easy so you don’t need to ask anyone for help or permission. Further, we provide it in a format that allows you to browse it in a web browser so it’s actually useful. Here’s how exporting works.
Does Basecamp have an API? Can we integrate with Basecamp?
Yes, Basecamp has a full-featured API (docs are hosted on GitHub). Hundreds of companies have written custom integrations, and our Integrations page links up third-party solutions for invoicing, accounting, time tracking, reporting, planning, asset management, contracts, proposals, and more.
What’s your customer support like? What if we need help?
Our customer support is widely considered to be among the best of the best. Everyone who works on our support team are expert specialists who know Basecamp inside and out, many having been with us for years and years, some over a decade. Further, we occasionally cycle every employee through support — including our CEO — so everyone has a chance to directly interact with customers.
You can ask support a question, or watch tutorials, or review the help guides, or attend a live walkthrough class and Q&A.
Is Basecamp available in languages other than English?
Currently we only offer Basecamp’s interface in English, although we have people in over 160 countries writing and sharing in their own native languages using Basecamp.
If we go with Basecamp, will we still need stuff like Slack? Asana? Dropbox?
Nope, Basecamp replaces a whole set of separate products and saves you a ton of money. Basecamp has chat built in (no more Slack). Basecamp has exceptional task management in the form of to-dos and kanban-style Card Tables (no more Asana). And you can store and share all the files you need in a project (no more Dropbox). Basecamp also replaces document-based tools like Google Docs, Notion, etc. And yet, if you need to continue to use some of those tools, you can always link them up right from inside Basecamp using the Doors feature.
What kind of companies, in which industries, use Basecamp?
Basecamp is used by top notch marketers, ad agencies, designers, client services firms, consultants, software developers, freelancers, PR agencies, contractors, religious institutions, schools, non-profits, first responders, and many others. Over 75,000 organizations, across every industry imaginable, in 166 countries, use Basecamp for project management.
Our customers are primarily small or medium-sized companies with fewer than 100 full-time employees, but Basecamp is also used by teams inside many of the world’s largest companies.
Do you offer classes to learn more about Basecamp?
Yes, see our upcoming classes below. We’ll answer questions about setting up Basecamp, rolling it out to your team, and anything else you’d like to ask. We’ll teach you the basics of using Basecamp, with plenty of time set aside for questions. See all our upcoming classes.