Best project management software for interior designers in 2026

A studio can know exactly which sofa is on order, from which supplier, at what markup, and still not know whether anyone chased the stone samples for the lobby floor. Those are two questions, and they need different software. A solo designer with a few projects can often answer both with a spreadsheet. Arkscape, a project tracking tool for architects, designers, and engineers, is among the work trackers, listed with what it doesn't do.

Arkscape makes one of the tools below. Prices checked on vendors' own pages in October 2026.

Do you buy product, or do you need the work tracked?

Design-business software answers "what did we specify, what did we order, and what do we bill?" It is built around the product schedule: items, suppliers, purchase orders, deposits, markups, client invoices, and usually time billing. This is where Programa, Studio Designer, Mydoma Studio, Design Manager, and Houzz Pro are strong, and where a general tool can't follow.

Work tracking answers "who is doing what by when?" It is built around the task: send the fixture schedule to the lighting designer, get the client's brand team to sign off the signage. Trello, Asana, and Arkscape are built for this. Most lists rank the two together, which is why designers end up comparing a procurement system with a to-do app. Decide first which question costs you more time.

The design platforms also have task features. Programa offers Board, List, and Timeline views of the same data, and Mydoma Studio's tasks take deadlines and dependencies. If you're already on one, try its tasks before adding a second tool. A separate work tracker earns its place when the tasks involve people the platform doesn't reach, such as the architect and engineers on a fit-out, or when your team simply won't work in it.

When is a spreadsheet enough?

A solo designer or a studio of two or three, with a handful of residential projects, can run on the spreadsheet you already have, plus your calendar. Keep it while you can see every open task on one screen and everyone who owes you something is in the room.

It stops coping when you have more open items than anyone reads to the bottom of, when the client, the lighting designer, or the architect owes you answers and you copy their emails into the sheet by hand, and when a task goes quiet for three weeks and nothing tells you.

The project tracker guide works for interior projects too. It sets out one row per task across all your projects, with a Responsible person, whether they accepted it, who owes it (your team, a consultant, or the client), and a due date.

Design-business software: specification, purchasing, and invoicing

We couldn't find interior designers discussing these five tools in any forum we could read, and we don't repeat review-site scores we couldn't open ourselves. So what each one does well, and its limits, come from the vendor's own pages.

Programa

Programa is studio software built around FF&E schedules and specifications, with procurement, a client dashboard, tasks, time tracking, and invoicing. It is made in Australia, and fits solo designers and small studios that work schedule-first and source a lot of product. Purchase orders come straight from the schedule ("Tick products, pick the supplier, create the PO"), with several POs per line, such as a deposit and a balance. Billable items feed client invoices, which sync to Xero and QuickBooks, and time tracking is linked to tasks, phases, and projects.

There is one plan, Pro, priced as a base that includes 1 seat plus a monthly charge for each extra seat. When we checked, the page didn't make clear whether the figure shown is the monthly or the annual-billed rate, or which currency it is in, so we don't quote it. The trial is 7 days, with no card. The Client Dashboard & approvals is included in the plan, but the pricing page doesn't say whether clients on it take a seat.

It has no general ledger of its own, so the books stay in Xero or QuickBooks. Choose it if your work starts from the product schedule and you want specs, POs, and invoices to come from the same list.

Studio Designer

Studio Designer is interior design business management with accrual accounting built in: proposals, purchase orders, invoicing, procurement, time billing, and a client portal. It is the parent company of Mydoma Studio, and fits established firms that want accounting and purchasing in one system. Because the accounting is built in, there's no separate bookkeeping system to keep in step.

Per user a month, Essentials is $69 billed annually or $79 monthly, Professional $79 or $89, and Premier $109 or $119. Proposals, POs, invoices, procurement, the client portal, and time billing are on every plan, and Professional and Premier add billable rate menus. No client fee is stated.

There's no trial; sign-up goes through a sales demo, and moving your books into it is a bigger change than moving your tasks. Choose it if you want your accounts and your purchasing in the same system and are ready to move your books.

Mydoma Studio

Mydoma Studio is project management and a client-facing platform for interior designers: design boards, sourcing, a client portal, proposals, invoices, and purchase orders, working with QuickBooks for the books. Studio Designer bought Mydoma in July 2024, and both are still sold separately; Mydoma's pricing page calls Studio Designer "our parent product". It fits small studios that keep their books in QuickBooks and want a branded client portal with sourcing.

Its pages promise to "Turn proposals into invoices and send purchase orders directly to vendors", with a branded hub where clients "collaborate, approve, and pay". Tasks take deadlines and dependencies, and billable and non-billable hours are logged on web or mobile.

It costs $58 per user a month paid yearly (prepaying yearly "saves 10%"), plus a one-time $450 onboarding fee, and it auto-renews with 30 days' notice to cancel. No trial is listed; it offers a free demo, so with the fee you commit before using it on a real project. Choose it if you use QuickBooks and want clients to approve and pay in a portal with your branding.

Design Manager

Design Manager is accounting and project management made for interior designers: purchasing, time billing, a client portal, and margins tracked item by item. It fits firms of up to 10 people that want designer-specific accounting instead of generic QuickBooks. Its pages list "Automatic Markup, Discount, and Freight Calculations", purchase orders and procurement tracking, retainers and deposits, billing rates by activity and employee, time tracking from an iPhone, and a client portal where clients view, print, and pay documents online.

It costs $79 per user a month. There's a discount for prepaying annually, but the figure isn't published. Teams over 10 users contact sales, so a growing studio can't see its future price, and the showroom and data collection modules cost extra. The trial is 7 days, with no card.

Scheduling on its project management page comes down to automated status reports for project schedules. Choose it if you want purchasing, markups, and accounting kept by one tool built for designers, and you're 10 people or fewer.

Houzz Pro

Houzz Pro is business software for home design and remodeling professionals: CRM, proposals, invoicing, 3D floor plans, and mood boards, tied to the Houzz marketplace and its leads. Its Design tier is aimed at "Interior designers and design studios", and it fits residential designers who want leads from Houzz alongside their back office. It offers invoicing and online payments, purchase orders that track vendor pricing and markups, and a 24/7 client dashboard.

It's priced per account, with users added on. Prices are shown per month, but the free trial "converts to an annual subscription" and "Minimum contract lengths are 12 months", which turns a trial into a year's commitment. Advertising is sold separately, from $499 a month according to Houzz's pricing blog. We don't list tier prices, because which features sit in which tier wasn't clear when we checked.

Choose it if Houzz is where your clients find you and you want the leads and the back office together.

Work tracking: the project, the team, and the client

Trello

Trello is boards of cards and lists for tracking tasks, with more views on higher plans. It fits solo designers and small studios that want simple visual boards. An architect on Archinect wrote: "We've started using Trello for PM. It seems easy enough to get to grips with" (2015).

Standard is $5 per user a month billed annually, or $6 monthly. Premium is $10 or $12.50 and adds the Timeline view. The free plan covers up to 10 collaborators and 10 boards per Workspace. Single-board guests are free, but guests on two or more boards are billed as members on Standard and Premium.

We found no designer complaints in forums we could read, and its own pages show no time tracking or invoicing. Choose it if you want the simplest board at the lowest price and your clients each need only one board.

Asana

Asana is work management: tasks and projects in list, board, timeline, and calendar views. It fits studios that want a timeline for each project and free guest access for clients and consultants. One architect found the move easy: "It was pretty easy to convert from our paper/pencil and excel spreadsheet methodology to this software" (AIA Community Hub, 2020).

Starter is $10.99 per user a month billed annually, or $13.49 monthly, with Timeline and Gantt views and unlimited free guest seats. Advanced is $24.99 or $30.49. The free Personal plan covers up to 2 users.

It has no product schedules, POs, or invoicing; native time tracking needs Advanced, and timesheets are a paid add-on. Choose it if you want a project timeline and free client guests, and someone will keep the plan current.

Arkscape

Arkscape is project tracking and team task management for architects, designers, and engineers. Each project is a group with its own Arkboard, a board of cards in columns. When someone accepts a card there, the same card sits on their own board, Your Ark, so the project plan and each person's list never drift apart. It fits studios that run several projects with consultants and clients and either charge for design only or keep specs and purchasing in another tool, and solo designers on the Personal plans.

Business Growth is $25 per user a month and Scale $40, billed monthly (there is no annual plan), with a 14-day trial and a card at checkout. For one person, the Personal plans are Free (1 group of your own, no reports), Connect at $10 (5 groups, with reports), and Pro at $20 (10 groups, with reports). The people you invite join free.

Arkscape is new, and we found no independent reviews or forum threads about it, so judge it on what you can check yourself. Share one card, such as "Present stone samples for the lobby floor", with the client through Add people: they see that card and its discussion, never the rest of your work, and they Accept or Decline it. Each project's Reports tab counts what is Overdue, Due in 7 days, and Unowned, and lists Stalled cards (undated and untouched for 14 days).

Choose it if the products and money are handled, and what slips is the work around them: samples nobody chased, a schedule the lighting designer never confirmed, a client decision buried in a chat group. Its own documentation lists what it lacks: no product specifications or FF&E schedules, no purchase orders, markups, or invoicing, no client portal for approvals and payments, no timesheets, no Gantt chart, no attachments on cards (files live in the group's Files tab), and no native phone app yet, since it runs in the phone's browser. So choose something else if you buy product for clients (any of the five design platforms above), want clients to approve and pay in a portal (Programa, Studio Designer, Mydoma Studio, Design Manager), or want the lowest-priced board (Trello).

What it costs for 1, 5, 10, and 20 people

Per-seat prices hide the bill. This table multiplies each plan's price by the team size. All figures are per month.

Programa and Houzz Pro publish prices, but we couldn't confirm the billing period and currency for Programa, or what each Houzz Pro tier includes, so we left their numbers out rather than guess. Check both on their pricing pages.

Mydoma's onboarding fee makes the first year of a 5-person studio $3,930 ($290 × 12, plus $450). Arkscape is billed monthly only; billed monthly, Studio Designer Essentials is $395 for 5 people and Asana Starter $67.45.

Studio Designer, Mydoma Studio, and Design Manager include time billing, purchasing, and invoicing in the prices above. Trello, Asana, and Arkscape include none of these, so their lower price buys less.

What clients and consultants cost

A design platform's portal is built for the client to approve items and pay. Arkscape gives the client a card or a project group to work on with you, with no payments and no approval step: their answer goes in the card's discussion, and the card's History shows when it was completed.

What two tools cost together

Some studios keep a design platform for specs and money and add a work tracker for the tasks. For a 5-person studio on Studio Designer Essentials, billed annually ($345 a month):

The cost not shown is keeping two tools current. Arkscape doesn't connect to any design platform or accounting tool, so each project is set up in both. Add a second tool only when the platform's own tasks don't reach the people you work with.

Comparison table

Common questions

What apps do professional interior designers use? There's no single standard. Studios that buy product for clients tend to choose a design-business platform such as Programa, Studio Designer, Mydoma Studio, Design Manager, or Houzz Pro, with accounting in the platform or in QuickBooks or Xero. Around it, the tasks often live in email, chat groups, and spreadsheets, which is where a work tracker comes in.

What is the best interior design project management software for a small studio? If you resell product, Programa or Mydoma Studio for a small team, or Studio Designer if you want the accounting built in. If you charge for design only, a work tracker: Trello for the simplest board, Asana for timelines, Arkscape for tracking consultants and clients on the same project.

Can I track FF&E in a general project management tool? Only as a list of tasks, without specifications, supplier POs, markups, or client invoices. If product is a large part of your fee, use a design platform.

Is there a free project management tool for interior designers? Trello is free for up to 10 collaborators, Asana's Personal plan for 2 users, and Arkscape's Free plan gives you 1 group of your own and shared cards with up to 10 people. None of them handles purchasing.

Read next: how shared cards work, the best project management software for architecture firms, and Asana alternatives for architects and designers.