Asana is excellent at ordering goals, portfolios and team workload. It does not know what a version is, or a 40 GB master, or a purchase order for a shoot.
LITE plan free forever, with 3 internal users and unlimited external collaborators.
Updated: September 2026
Asana is a work management platform: tasks, projects, goals, portfolios and team workload, with a very carefully considered design and a logic that works as well in marketing as in operations. Play Platform is vertical: the project is a piece of video, so it brings versions, videofeedback, a media library, budget and real cost, plus a talent network and production services. The practical difference: in Asana you record that the video is in edit, in Play the edit happens inside.
You need to align goals, project portfolios and workload across several departments. As a management layer above everything a company does, it is among the best there is.
Your project is a piece of video with large files, several versions, client approvals and a budget that has to be justified.
Both solve the task list. From the moment a video file appears, they stop resembling each other.
| Capability | Play | Asana |
|---|---|---|
| Tasks, projects and views | YesProduction views already built | YesIts core |
| Goals, portfolios and team workload | NoPlay does not manage the company, it manages production | YesHome ground for the category |
| Use outside production: operations, product, HR | NoPlay is vertical | Yes |
| Media library for heavy files | Yes250 GB on LITE, 1 TB on PRO | No100 MB per-file cap on the free plan |
| Ordered versions of a piece | YesEach cut is a version | No |
| Video review with comments on the cut | YesTimestamped videofeedback | NoBasic image proofing on attachments |
| Automatic AI tagging of video | YesFrom the PRO plan | No |
| Budgets, rate cards and production cost control | YesCost Control, expenses and purchase orders | NoCustom fields typed in by hand |
| CRM, opportunities and sales funnel | YesOn the PRO plan | No |
| Talent and crew management | YesMore than 1,200 vetted professionals | No |
| Production services you can hire | YesPLAY /Services, in the same environment | No |
| External collaborators at no per-seat cost | YesUnlimited on LITE, PRO and Enterprise | NoEveryone who works takes a licence |
| A free plan a team can actually use | Yes3 internal users and unlimited external | NoUp to 2 users |
Asana is a work management platform. Its basic unit is the task, and on top of it it builds projects, portfolios, goals and workload views that let an organisation see what it is working on and whether that is taking it closer to what it set out to do. It is designed to be cross-functional, not to know any particular craft. It charges per user per month, and its free plan is limited to two people.
Play is a Production-Tech company. It combines three pieces in one flow: Play Platform, the software where production is planned, managed, approved and optimised; PLAY /Services, the creative, production and post-production team that makes the content; and KAMI AI, the assistant that structures briefs, organises projects and tags footage. Play comes out of having run more than 10,000 video projects, so the platform reflects how a production actually works.
A DAM only stores. A project tracker only organises tasks. Review software only covers one stage. And a traditional production service hands you the video but gives you no platform and no control. Play is the only option that puts platform, services and AI in a single flow, from brief to publication. Asana is among the best in the second box, and precisely because it is cross-functional it does not enter any of the others.
They all come down to one: Asana records the work, Play is where the work happens.
With a 100 MB per-file cap on the free plan, the real video always lives somewhere else and the task holds a link. When that link expires, or the freelancer closes their account, the material is gone and the task is left telling a story with no ending. In Play the file lives inside the project.
The material and its context in the same place, not in a link that can die.
The third pass on the edit, in Asana, is a comment inside a task with the feedback spread between the thread and email. In Play each cut is a version of the piece, and comments sit on the video, timestamped and grouped by version.
Feedback stops getting lost between version 2 and version 3, which is where it always gets lost.
You can create a field called budget, but it stays a number somebody remembered to update. Play includes the rate card, the budget, the expenses and the purchase orders inside the project, so the cost comes from what was actually charged.
Real cost per piece and per campaign, comparable across projects.
When capacity runs short, the best project portfolio in the world does not shoot anything. Behind Play there is a network of more than 1,200 vetted professionals and an in-house creative, production and post-production team in Barcelona, Madrid and Toronto.
You scale volume without building an internal team or opening a procurement process.
Asana barely competes with Play at all. That is why the choice is usually easy.
Asana charges per user and Play per workspace. With small teams the difference is small; with external people inside, it stops being so.
0 €
149 €/month /workspace
Custom
Annual billing works out at 10 months. Extra storage at 29 €/TB per month.
| Internal team size | Play | Asana (Starter plan) |
|---|---|---|
| 2 people | 0 € on LITE · 250 GB | 0 $ on the Personal plan · 2 users maximum |
| 5 people | 149 € on PRO · 1 TB and every module | 54.95 $ · 10.99 $ per user |
| 10 people | 244 € on PRO · 149 € plus 5 extra users | 109.90 $ |
| 15 people | 339 € on PRO · or Enterprise with a discount | 164.85 $ |
| 30 external collaborators | 0 € extra · unlimited on every plan | Each one takes a licence if they work inside |
To be straight about it: on licence cost alone Asana is cheaper than Play at almost any internal team size, and it does a lot that Play does not. The comparison changes on two fronts: the 30 external people on a shoot, who in Asana are 30 licences, and everything that has to be bought separately to produce video — review software, somewhere for the media and a cost spreadsheet. See all of Play's plans and add-ons.
Almost nobody leaves Asana entirely, and there is no need to. What moves is the execution of the pieces.
The LITE plan is free, allows 3 internal users, unlimited external collaborators and 250 GB. Already one user more than Asana's free plan.
Brief, tasks, media, versions, approval and cost. With one complete piece it becomes clear straight away which Asana tasks were only a mirror of something happening elsewhere.
Files that in Asana are a link to another service move to living inside the project, tagged and searchable.
Client, freelancers and production company come in without taking a licence. It is the most visible difference from a per-user model.
If your organisation uses portfolios and goals, Asana is still better there. Play takes the production and hands the status back.
For video production, yes: Play covers briefing, tasks, calendar and delivery queues, and adds video versions, videofeedback, a media library and cost control. For managing goals and portfolios across the whole company, no: Asana is better there and they do not compete.
Asana records and coordinates an organisation's work, whatever that work is. Play is where one particular kind of work happens: video production, from brief to publication, with its material, its versions and its cost inside.
With limits. Asana's free plan accepts files up to 100 MB, so the real video lives in another service and the task holds the link. In Play the material lives inside the project: 250 GB on the free plan and 1 TB on PRO.
Play has a free LITE plan, a PRO plan at 149 € per workspace per month with 5 users included and 19 € per extra user, and a custom Enterprise plan. Asana charges per user: a free Personal plan up to 2 users, Starter at 10.99 $ and Advanced at 24.99 $ per user per month billed annually.
Only up to two people. Play's LITE plan allows 3 internal users and, above all, unlimited external collaborators, which is what makes a production team genuinely fit inside a free plan.
Yes. The Media Library includes timestamped videofeedback and public links so the client can comment without needing an account, available on the free plan too. Asana has no video review with versions.
No. Play does not manage company goals or project portfolios across departments. If that is what you need, Asana does it and Play does not.
Open a free LITE workspace, take a whole piece through Play from start to finish, upload the material that currently lives in links, invite the team and the external people, and switch on budget and cost. The goals layer stays in Asana.
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No card required. 250 GB and unlimited collaborators on the free plan. More than 350 brands and agencies already produce with Play.