Cleo vs Asana.
Asana is a project planner. Cleo is built for work that arrives as email. Which one fits depends on where your work starts.
Pick Cleo if
- Your work arrives as emails from clients or colleagues, and you retype each one into a task list.
- You want the AI to read the email and draft the client, tasks and dates (Cleo Pro), with you confirming before they are saved.
- You are one person or a small team and want the workspace itself to be free.
Stay with Asana if
- You plan projects with timelines, Gantt views, portfolios or goals.
- You need time tracking, approvals, forms, or connections to tools like Salesforce.
- Your team is already in Asana and the work starts there rather than in an inbox.
Side by side
| Topic | Cleo | Asana |
|---|---|---|
| What an email becomes | With Cleo Pro, an email becomes a draft you review: the client or project it belongs to, a summary, an urgency, tasks with due dates, and calendar entries. One email can give several tasks, and you tick the ones to keep. No tasks or dates are saved until you confirm. On the free plan the email still lands in your queue as a draft, and you fill in the details yourself. | A task. Forward an email to Asana's email address and it becomes a task assigned to you; for a new email you write there, the subject is the task name and the body the description. In Asana's Gmail and Outlook add-ons you choose the assignee and due date yourself. Starter and up also include AI Teammates and AI Studio; check Asana's help for what they do with email.[1][2] |
| Price to start | The workspace is free with no card: clients or projects, a task board, a calendar feed, team invites and reports. Cleo Pro (the AI, and linking clients to projects) is the only paid part. | Personal is free for up to 2 users. Starter is $10.99 per user a month billed annually, or $13.49 billed monthly.[2] |
| The AI | Cleo Pro: $15 a month for a solo workspace, or $12 a seat a month for a team ($120 a seat a year). The first 14 days are free; a card is required. | Starter and Advanced include AI Teammates and AI Studio, with a monthly allowance. Extra AI requests are sold in prepaid packs at $0.50 each.[2] |
| One person, one month | $0 for the workspace. With Cleo Pro: $12.50 on annual billing ($150 a year), $15 on monthly billing. | Personal is free for up to 2 users, so one person can use Asana for nothing. Paid plans are priced per user (Starter: $10.99 on annual billing, $13.49 on monthly billing); Asana's pricing page does not say whether a single seat can be bought.[2] |
| Five people, one month | $0 for the workspace. With Cleo Pro for all five: $50 on annual billing, $60 on monthly billing. | Starter for five: $54.95 on annual billing, $67.45 on monthly billing (5 × $10.99, 5 × $13.49).[2] |
| Views and project tools | A task board by status or priority, a list and a calendar, a record for each client or project, and reports you can export to CSV. | List, board and calendar views on every plan. Timeline and Gantt views, dashboards and forms from Starter. Portfolios, goals, approvals, resource management and time tracking on Advanced.[2] |
| Connections | A private forward-to address for email, and a calendar feed you can subscribe to in Google or Apple Calendar. The feed is one-way: Cleo to your calendar. | More than 100 integrations on the free plan, and Salesforce, Tableau and Power BI connections on Advanced.[2] |
Where Asana is ahead
- Timeline and Gantt views, reporting dashboards, forms and unlimited automations, from the Starter plan.[2]
- Portfolios, goals, approvals, resource management and built-in time tracking on the Advanced plan.[2]
- More than 100 integrations, with Salesforce, Tableau and Power BI on Advanced.[2]
- Unlimited free guests on Starter, so people outside your team can follow along.[2]
Where Cleo is behind
- Cleo has no timeline or Gantt view, no time tracking and no custom fields.
- A Cleo task has a checklist but no subtasks, and tasks cannot depend on each other.
- Cleo takes email by forwarding and gives you a calendar feed to subscribe to in Google or Apple Calendar, and that is all it connects to: no Slack, no Zapier and no public API.
- There is no iPhone or Android app. Cleo runs in the browser, on a phone too.
Cleo and Asana: common questions
Can Cleo replace Asana?
For a person or small team whose work starts as email, often yes: with Cleo Pro, Cleo files each email to a client or project and drafts the tasks and dates, and the app keeps a board and calendar. For project planning with timelines, portfolios, approvals or time tracking, no. Cleo does not have those.
Does Asana turn emails into tasks?
Yes. Forwarding an email to Asana's email address makes a task assigned to you, and for a new email you write there the subject is the task name and the body the description. Asana's Gmail and Outlook add-ons let you choose the assignee and due date. With Cleo Pro, Cleo reads the email and drafts the client, several tasks and the dates for you to confirm. Asana's AI features change quickly, so check its help pages for what they do today.
Which is cheaper, Cleo or Asana?
Cleo's workspace is free, team invites included, and Asana's free plan is limited to 2 users. With the AI, Cleo Pro is $15 a month for one person ($12.50 on annual billing). Asana's paid plans are priced per user (Starter is $13.49 a user monthly, $10.99 on annual billing), and its pricing page does not say whether one person can buy a single seat. For five people Cleo Pro is $60 a month ($50 on annual billing) against Starter's $67.45 ($54.95), so Cleo is a little cheaper. The two do different things for that money, so compare what you would use.
Can I use Cleo and Asana together?
You can, but they are not connected: a task made in one does not appear in the other. One split that works is Cleo for the inbox, where with Cleo Pro each email is read and filed, and Asana for planning larger projects. You would copy across anything that belongs in both.
Where this comes from
Everything said here about another product comes from the pages below, last read on 1 November 2026. Plans and prices change, so check the source before you decide. Cleo's side comes from Cleo itself. Asana and Trello are trademarks of their owners, and Cleo is not affiliated with either.
Try it on your next email.
The workspace is free, no card. Paste or forward an email and see what Cleo drafts: the drafting is Cleo Pro, free for 14 days with a card. No tasks or dates are saved until you confirm.