Accelo Review (2024): Features, Pricing, and Alternatives

Accelo is an excellent client work management platform built upon six key components: sales, projects, billings, retainers, tickets and reports. It is a multifaceted solution that uses an all-in-one approach to enable businesses to manage all aspects of their operations on a single platform.

In this Accelo review, we will comprehensively analyze the software’s capabilities, including its pricing models, core features, pros and cons, integrations, top alternatives and competitors.

Jump to:

• What is Accelo?
• Hands-on Accelo review results
• Accelo pricing
• Core Accelo features
• Accelo ease of use
• Accelo customer service and support
• Accelo pros and cons
• Top Accelo integrations
• Best uses for Accelo
• Accelo alternatives
• Accelo review methodology

What is Accelo?

Accelo is a client work management platform that provides automation, collaboration and reporting tools for various professional service businesses. It offers a range of features, such as client relationship management, project management, time tracking, billing and invoicing and client communication.

Hands-on Accelo review results

We conducted hands-on testing of the Accelo platform. It received an overall TechRepublic (TR) score of 3.7 out of 5 based on its performance and features.

Accelo pricing: 1.4/5

Accelo doesn’t offer a free forever plan but provides a 7-day free trial to enable potential buyers to test the platform’s capabilities before purchasing it.

Core

Accelo’s core plan is the cheapest, priced at $20 per user per month. The plan features client task management, client files and attachments, address book sync, client relationship management and contact relationship management, as well as a client and contact communication stream. Although this plan allows you to manage client tasks, it lacks project management capabilities. Teams looking to manage projects with Accelo should look towards its Professional and other higher tiers. This plan is only available to a minimum of three users.

Professional

Accelo designed this plan for profitable professional service firms. The plan costs $50 per user per month and requires a minimum of five users. It includes all the features of the Core plan plus additional features such as client project management, client sales management, client quote management, time logs, timers and timesheets, client invoices and payments, as well as financial insight dashboards.

Business

Like the Professional plan, this requires a minimum of five users, but it has a different price point. It costs $70 per user per month. In addition to the capabilities available to Professional plan users, the Accelo Business plan lets you “manage all types of client work with power and collaboration.” It features client retainer management, ticket management, shared request inbox, expenses and materials, time approvals for billing and unlimited client portal users.

Advanced

If you need automation capabilities, you may find Accelo’s Advanced plan to fit your needs. Accelo charges $90 per user per month for this plan, requiring a minimum of 10 users. The key features of this plan are as follows:

• Advanced custom workflows.
• Advanced triggers and automation.
• Smart scheduling and utilization.
• Adaptive project scheduling.
• Client asset management.
• Three advanced reporting users.

Elite

Accelo doesn’t advertise the price of this plan on its website. The company requires potential buyers to contact its sales team for custom quotes based on their needs. The Elite plan is designed for large enterprises looking for custom features. It includes everything in the Advanced plan plus role-based users from $39 per month, unlimited collaborator users, premium support with SLAs, a dedicated account manager, SAML or enterprise SSO and a division module.

Core Accelo features: 5/5

Accelo received a perfect TR score of 5 out of 5 for its extensive and strong feature set. Whether you need it to manage sales, projects, reports and billing or even retain customers, Accelo offers tools to help you manage all aspects of your workflow.

Sales quoting

Accelo offers tools to help you create, nurture and convert leads into sales. You can create professional quotes, track opportunities, forecast revenue and manage your sales pipeline on the platform. Accelo provides templates and checklists (Figure A) to streamline repetitive tasks and optimize sales processes. Its forecasting and automation capability automatically tracks the time you spend sending sales emails, doing meetings and working, giving insights into your sales performance and efforts.

Project management

The Accelo project management tool allows you to manage clients’ projects throughout their lifecycle, from planning to delivery (Figure B). The project management module allows you to manage project budgets, schedules and resources in real time. To keep track of employees’ productivity and billable hours, Accelo has timesheets and timers integrated into projects, milestones and tasks, making it easy for managers and clients to see the time it takes to complete tasks and projects.

Retainer management

Enterprises that manage long-term, recurring client work contracts often struggle to track and manage their retainer agreements. Accelo tackles this issue with its retainer management module designed to manage recurring client work (Figure C). It helps you manage your client retainers by providing tools to track the retainer budget and timeline and automate the retainer time logging and invoicing process. You can set up retainer budgets, monitor retainer performance and track the time and expenses of each retainer agreement.

Real-time reporting

Accelo provides powerful reporting and analytics capabilities to help you gain valuable insights into your business. You can generate custom reports, track key performance indicators (KPIs) and analyze data to make informed business decisions. The reporting module in Accelo allows you to create detailed reports on various aspects of your business, including sales, projects, time tracking and financials (Figure D).

Key capabilities of Accelo reporting and analytics include:

• Time and value of client work.
• Revenue analysis and forecast.
• Planned vs actual report.
• Task overdue report.
• Team member performance dashboard.
• Client payment and profitability reports.
• Expiring retainers.

Accelo ease of use: 4.5/5

Accelo is generally easy to learn to use at all levels. All the modules are designed to be simple enough for individuals new to the platform; hence, it received an excellent TR score of 4.5 out of 5. To calculate Accelo’s score for ease of use, we analyzed its mobile apps, built-in automation, ease of setup, user interface, scalability and onboarding/learning curve. Our analysis found that you will have to learn many features across all modules, but they are generally easy to understand.

Accelo customer service and support: 4.4/5

Knowledge Base/Help Center

Accelo offers a comprehensive Knowledge Base and help center to assist customers with questions or issues. The Knowledge Base includes articles and tutorials on various topics, such as getting started with Accelo, using different features and functionalities, troubleshooting common problems and more. Customers can search for specific topics or browse categories for the needed information.

Email support

Customers can also reach out to Accelo’s client success team via email for any questions or issues they may have. The support team is available to help customers with technical or product-related questions, provide assistance with account setup and help troubleshoot any issues that may arise. According to Accelo, customers can expect a response within 24 hours.

Phone support

If you prefer to talk to a customer representative, you can contact Accelo’s service teams via phone to receive live assistance with any questions or issues.

Accelo pros and cons

Top Accelo integrations

Although Accelo is a powerful and feature-rich project management tool, it falls short when it comes to integrations with other third-party services and applications, as it only integrates natively with 17 third-party services, such as:

Google Workspace

Accelo integrates with Google Workspace (formerly G Suite), allowing you to sync your contacts, calendar events and emails between Accelo and Google Workspace. This integration makes it easy to organize all your communication and information in one place.

Xero

Accelo integrates with Xero, cloud-based accounting software. This integration allows you to sync your client and project data between Accelo and Xero, making it seamless to track and manage finances related to your projects. You can easily create and send invoices, track payments and reconcile accounts without switching between multiple platforms.

QuickBooks Online

Accelo also integrates with QuickBooks Online, another popular accounting software. Like the Xero integration, you can sync your client and project data between Accelo and QuickBooks Online. This streamlines your financial workflows and ensures accurate billing and tracking of project expenses.

Zapier

Accelo also integrates with Zapier, a popular automation tool connecting hundreds of apps. With Zapier, you can create custom workflows and automation between Accelo and your other apps.

Best uses for Accelo

As a versatile project management tool, Accelo can be used in various industries and for different purposes.

Professional service teams

Accelo is especially well-suited for professional services firms such as IT consulting firms, marketing agencies, managed service providers and engineering, architecture and accounting firms. It helps streamline project workflows, track time and expenses and manage client relationships.

Project management

Accelo provides a centralized platform for project collaboration and ensures everyone is on the same page. You can easily create and manage projects, assign tasks to team members, set deadlines and track progress.

Time tracking and billing

Accelo has built-in time tracking and billing capabilities, allowing you to accurately record and bill for the time spent on client projects. It streamlines the invoicing process and helps you get paid faster.

Accelo alternatives and competitors

Asana

Asana is a versatile project management solution that enables remote and distributed teams to manage their projects and tasks with ease. It’s one of the best enterprise project management software and is ranked highly for its scalability. Asana works well for internal teams as well as external partners and clients. Compared to Accelo, Asana integrates with hundreds of third-party applications, making it easy for enterprises to extend the tool’s capabilities.

For more information, read our comprehensive review of Asana to determine if it is the best option for your company.

ClickUp

If you find Accelo too pricey for your organization, consider ClickUp. It ranks best for teams on a tight budget in our review of the best project management software and tools due to its generous free plan, which includes the necessary features required to manage basic projects.

For more information, read our in-depth ClickUp review to determine if it is the best option for your company.

Trello

Trello is one of the best project management tools for small businesses. It is an excellent  Accelo alternative for those who prefer a more straightforward and intuitive project management tool. It uses a board-and-card system to help you organize and prioritize your tasks. Cards can be dragged and dropped across different lists or boards to reflect progress and status.

For more information, read our in-depth Trello review to determine if it is the best option for your company.

Accelo review methodology

To write this review, we conducted extensive research about Accelo’s key modules and their capabilities. We evaluated its pricing, core features, ease of use, customer service and support, as well as expert analysis. To determine the TR score across each category, we assigned weights based on their importance and then scored each category — with the maximum criterion weight being 30 and the minimum being 10, totaling 100. We then calculated the weighted average of each category’s score to obtain the overall TR score.

We conducted hands-on platform testing to gain first-hand experience with the tool’s features and functionalities. We also evaluated real-world user feedback on reputable review websites to gain insights into the experiences of actual users.