Basecamp vs Make Comparison 2026
Both cover project management. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
At a glance
- Make starts cheaper, at $12.
- Both have a genuinely free tier.
Side by side
Basecamp | Make | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (they differ) | From $15 | From $12 |
| Pricing model | Free plan, paid tiers | Free plan, paid tiers |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Not stated |
| Free trial | 30 days | Not stated |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Data export | Not stated | Not stated |
| Their cut | None | None |
Shaded rows are where the two answers disagree and both listings have answered. A row where one side has not stated a fact is left plain, because silence is not a difference.
Basecamp
Flat pricing that stops caring how big you get
Basecamp organises work as projects containing message boards, to-do lists, files and a chat room, and it has stayed close to that shape for twenty years. The reason to choose it is the pricing rather than the features: above a certain team size it is one flat monthly fee for everybody, and clients and guests are never billed at all. That makes it unusually easy to reason about for a studio that grows and shrinks. The free package runs a single project, which is a real way to test it rather than a demo.
Only on this side
- Covers hiring & freelancers
Make
Automation you can see as a diagram
Make wires apps together on a canvas where each step is a node you can watch data move through, which is why people who bounced off text-based automation tools tend to stay. Branches, loops and error handlers are all drawable rather than configured in a form. For a creator it is the thing that files a new upload, posts the announcement and adds the sponsor to a tracker without anybody opening three tabs. Billing counts operations rather than seats, so cost follows how much actually runs.
Only on this side
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.