Podio Reviews

"Do it all system!"

Comments: Podio's flexiblity and ease of use is unparalleled. We are running bug tracking, CRM, management, marketing and one time projects on Podio. Customizing the apps is simple and fast. No coding skills required! The best part is that all discussions happen in the correct context in the app items. No need to find discussions from email anymore. Also, tasks can be assigned to app items which gives them the correct context.

Pros: - Infinitely flexible and expandable
- No coding skills needed to customize
- Can bring in external people for free
- Annual pricing gives 20% discount

Cons: - can be built too big and complicated but the person guilty of such actions is staring back from the mirror
- notification flood can be overwhelming but it is easy to adjust

"Disappointed :-("

Comments: I originally set up my Podio account to try out the service and see if it would fit my needs (filmmaking and video production). The price is a bit higher that other solutions I evaluated, but it seemed to be much more customizable than something like Basecamp. To try it out I did a detailed setup of a tentative project, and populated my "Employee" network (you can have 5 employees in the free version) with some initial volunteers who were interested in the project and willing to help me test things (not knowing that they couldn't be removed later without upgrading to the premium version), now that the project is moving forward, I'm trying to remove those initial people to put in actual volunteers to take this test to the next level, but I can't do that without paying $$. This is a real aggravation as I have expended a fair amount of effort to setup a real project in Podio for an actual test, but it's still too early to commit to paying for the premium service. This frustration has me now looking at other options since (from what I've read in Podio's help site) Podio has no desire to create a fix for this issue in the free version of their service. It really makes me concerned how helpful they will be with fixing other problems even after paying for their service. This issue has not only impaired my ability to try out the service for my application, but has significantly tarnished my opinion of a service I was initially very excited about.

"All in one system"

Pros: It allows you to create tasks, projects, and create new apps, its amazing.

Cons: Client pipeline might be enhanced. It is not that useful for such purposes.

"Beware Before You Upgrade"

Pros: Customizable organization. Love that I have archives of projects.

Cons: I upgraded in error. When I asked for assistance that very moment, I was told I would be prorated. No one at Podio can be bothered to have an actual phone conversation with me. I clearly was confused when upgrading. It would only allow me to do so with 3 employees [you pay for each employee] I figured out how to remove the employees since only myself uses the program and once I did so I was told, "Yeah, you'll see that refund in a year." really? Horrible customer care. Feel like I was tricked into spending more than our company actually uses- Looking for an alternative to Podio.

"Podio comes to the rescue"

Pros: Podio is a great asynchronous project and team management tool that is sure to keep your team focused, to improve transparency, and to accomplish much more that is anticipated. The support staff is eager to assist, and there are plenty of tutorials to help get you started.

Cons: The only negative component to Podio is how the workspaces and apps work with members. To be used as an effective CRM tool, the relationships need to work better.

"Project Management Tool for Aspiring Entrepreneurs"

Pros: Podio is a great platform. Or it was for many years my go-to suggestion for budding entrepreneurs who were growing true businesses from the ground up. It's quite feature rich. The usual project/task management, file sharing and workflow monitoring are present, as well as Podio's unique Apps feature (use pre-built internal apps or create your own). You could truly have a entire org with all of it's departments running within the Podio ecosphere. And with their openAPI functionality, the sky's the limit. Pricewise there is a free tier if you have 5 or fewer users, and several options for larger group use. Not cheap if you have dozens of employees, but if you are a small start-up or business the price is right.

Cons: Last I used it, my major grip with Podio was system stability, when last I used Podio (it's been about 12 months now) it was suffering from downtime/tech issues.

"Terrible software and the most frustrating, ridiculous customer support experience I've ever had"

Pros: It was suggested to me by a friend, but I hated just about everything about it - it was frustratingly complicated and overly difficult to use.

Cons: After purchasing a subscription, I found the software to be overly complicated, so I cancelled my account. However I continued to be billed for the next 2 months. I began contacting them about those charges, asking for a refund. While communicating with their "support", they stated they do not provide refunds, and refused to do anything. So I filed a dispute with my credit card company for the 2 charges. The CC company found in my favor and refunded both charges back to me. As soon as that happened, it must have marked the invoices as "unpaid" in Podio's system, and they began sending them to me again on a daily basis asking for payment. I resumed communication with them, asking for them to close out my account, close out the pending invoice and stop sending me emails. They responded to every ticket stating that they don't process refunds. I wasn't asking for a refund, I had already been refunded by my CC company. I was asking them to stop emailing me about the invoice that had already been decided in my favor. Finally I get an email stating my account was closed and I wouldn't get anymore emails. 5 days later, the emailed invoices resumed - this time being sent to not one, but TWO of my email addresses. The lengths they will go to, to harass a customer over a bill is asinine. It has been four months and the issue is still not resolved, and I continue to receive daily emails about my "outstanding" invoice.

"An exclusive application which helps us to make deadlines, responsibilities and goals very well organised."

Pros: Incredible flexibility is one of the unique features of this app. You can design the way how your contents, reports and overviews looks like. It is not bound by rigid software. Podio puts all your projects at a single place, so that any person working in the team can access the projects from anywhere and can stay up to date. It will help you and your team to stay updated with the statuses of your current projects as well as upcoming projects. With it on your side, you never have to waste your time checking everything is right on track.

Cons: There is no lackluster permission structure. It doesn’t have an overall group admin for the total organisation. Our feed gets spammed with activity from every workspace, making it useless for a certain extent.

"Podio, our project management tool that's a hair short of a CRM"

Pros: Highly customisable, we have our own app modules created. IThere are also many available add-ons that can significantly enhance the scope all the way towards different methodologies of work.

Cons: Podio sorely lacks the email/phone communication features including easy adding of the relevant content thus generated.
The only way to add that is by using copy/paste in the comments and that's not only impractical but feels silly with otherwise such a great app.

"NOT recommended for any mission-critical uses due to frequent slowdowns & outages"

Pros: We like the versatility of Podio: it really enables you to build a full-feature CRM with pretty complex workflow automation (using Globiflow) without having to code.

Cons: The frequent slowdowns & outages. We use Podio every minute and find that it is slow at the best of times (for instance, loading a simple message template takes 10-15 seconds) but often suddenly slows down to the point that tasks take 3-4 times as long. Podio then disables certain functions in a way that we cannot control. And sometimes (like today) Podio stops working altogether for a few hour, killing our business activity completely. It looks like they are chronically short of server capacity: the severity of the problems has fluctuated over the years but we are now at the point where we'll probably have to migrate.

"Podio is an amazing asset to any team"

Pros: I like the fact that it is easy to use - you can get a new team member started on Podio right away. Other software takes time to train someone, but Podio works well for new members of the team from the start.

Cons: Sometimes it can be a challenge to convince teams to use Podio for all Project Management needs. We still have a few team members using emails or trying to create an Excel sheet to track progress. Once we get them on Podio and they're comfortable with it, they will use it all the time.

"The most flexible project management tool I've seen"

Pros: I've been using it for years and the things I like most are the fact that you can create your own apps and intake forms for these custom apps.

Cons: Can be complex. I don't use it with clients because of this.

"Favourite software"

Comments: Podio is an extremely powerful tool - the only CRM I know of that adapts to suit your business; it doesn't expect your business to adapt to it's methods. You build your own solution, so can use Podio as a CRM for Project Management, Asset Management, IT Support - anything under the sun. It's extremely flexible and the Podio team are fantastic for support. It's easy to use too which makes participation on a new system a lot easier within a team.

Pros: Flexible
Easy to use
Fun to use
Great support
Can be used for any industry, small to medium sized
Can expand functionality with GlobiFlow extension (and many others)
Great API allows integration with multiple solutions

Cons: Might not be ideal for enterprise solutions.

"Great, but setup is a pain"

Comments: Great software but not very user friendly at all. Be prepared for a long, but worthwhile, undertaking.

Pros: Automation!! If you can dream of it, Podio can do it. Saves hours upon hours each and everyday. Eliminates user error that used to occur.

Cons: It’s a pain to setup, almost to the point of giving up. It will take months to understand how it works and getting it the way you want it.

"Create processes the way you want them"

Pros: I love that you're able to customize the processes/work flow. Literally, any workflow that you would want, you can build.

Cons: This isn't necessarily a con, but if you don't know how the backend of the software works, it can be hard to set up. Luckily, we have an employee who is familiar with the product and set up everything for us. If I were a new user with no experience, I could see myself becoming confused.

"Great project Planning Software"

Comments: To organize specific projects was very helpful and have it pull all the data

Pros: You are able to sort out a variety of different tasks and then regroup them for better planning when you need them later.

Cons: I wish there was a better way to link certain areas of the program or an easier set up system to do that.

"Great for reporting and tracking"

Pros: Podio is super easy to use. It gives us the ability to track and report on everything from our client lists to financials and ongoing projects. It's also HIPPA compliant which is important for us. It's been a real life saver!

Cons: The application options we want are not always feasible, however, a work around is always obtained.

"Class Management System"

Comments: As an online tutoring firm, we were able to monitor and track class progress, share lesson plans and interact live with all tutors through Podio.

Pros: Podio was literally the first class management tool I used during my initial terms of employment. It had all features and functionalities that was required to successfully run an online tutoring firm. It took a long time for me to get a hang of the way it functions though. We tutors all has personal accounts and were able to interact on our classes, schedules, and the progress we are making. It removed the necessity of having separate apps for different purposes.
File sharing, Resource websites, reminders on meeting and classes etc. We have real time communication and can always track the progress of each classes.

Cons: It has many features, it takes a long time to learn about it. Otherwise it is really comfortable to work with

"Not the BEST But Very Affordable"

Comments: Real time tracking of sales and easy to calculate commissions

Pros: You can customize pretty much any field imaginable to build anything you want and need. It doesn't require you to fit everything into their box or what they say you need. Integrated with Zapier it is very powerful.

Cons: You can't search by email address (there are errors with any email that has more than 1 period which is almost a deal breaker. Reports can't be accessed in the app which is one of my primary uses. I have a workaround scripted in my phone, but I feel like you shouldn't have to be an expert to find what your sales are.

"Customer Support and Billing Horrible!"

Comments: Podio customer service and billing is horrible! I am so angry that I upgraded to the $24 per month plan and was charged $244.56! The invoice and payment receipt came in at the same time without giving any notice that the $24 plan that I signed up for was now up to over $200.
The customer chat said I could request a phone call to get the issue resolved, however, no one ever called. The email resolution department was NO help! All they could say was it would be corrected on the next billing cycle. I need it corrected Now! Had I wanted to spend that much per month I would have signed up for the 5 person $120 per month plan.
No phone support to assist customers and extremely disappointing customer service.

Pros: I like the program but not for $250 per month when I am the only person in my organization

Cons: NO PHONE SUPPORT! Although they tell you that you may request phone contact if you have a billing problem. There is No phone support.

"Worth the money you pay!"

Pros: Podio has been a huge help for the project management purposes as the platform offers highly customizable and flexible settings to adapt even the internal user interface to the requirements/characteristics of the project. What's more, the functionality and the adaption to the external apps as well as the useful add-ons give the platform more functionality that saves a lot of time and effort searching for those in another system.
For the smaller organizations, you can start with free plan/trial, however, if you want to take it seriously and benefit fully, I'd advise going for the paid versions.

Cons: There are few cons of the system. Sometimes it seems to be lagging and it's hard to determine whether it's due to the load it puts on the browser and the computer lags or the system as well as it's cloud-based.
What's more, for the new users, due to extended functionalities after some time of customization, it's hard to be easily acquired.

"Transformative Software"

Comments: Podio has enabled me to completely change the way several companies share specific tasks. What's exciting? Two things. First - get rid of those awful little spreadsheets and put the data where the team can all access it concurrently. Second - wrap around it a neat package of task management, status updates, messaging, voting, and chat. And more. Voila. We have an internet for collaboration that converts office comma from the old "Outlook model" to the new, more open, "Facebook model".
The way in which users (permitted users) can edit the system while it is in use - could not be easier. I have been astonished to see non-IT professionals take up serious development and love it.
There's much more to say. Let's just say there is hidden depth. It looks so simple and it is, but one is always finding new gems that offer flexibility- such as webforms, or embedded JavaScript options! I think I could build a career in the Podio platform.

Pros: Flexibility. Ease of use.

Cons: Check the pricing model, but even that has been great for my clients who are registered charities.

"Overall - Decent CRM software, definitely needs some more competitive enhancements to stay uptodate"

Comments: Overall- this is the main CRM software my company uses. It was sink or swim for me. I did a lot of research while home (after work). It should be easily adapted to new employees , in my opinion. Even now, 2 years later, I still struggle at times , figuring out the available functions, etc.

Pros: I like the ability to upload as many docs as needed for the project/customer. All departments (in my workplace) can view what is going on with the project. It keeps the project organized and allows as many details as needed.

Cons: Podio to me, isn't user friendly. It took quite some time to learn the quirks and how to maneuver through the different pages for the project. Definitely could use some enhancements.

"Podi - O?"

Comments: We used it for 1-2 years for marketing projects and an internal goal alignment project.

Pros: I used it for 1-2 years but really never got to a point where I liked the software. It did allow for team communications and project tracking, but I do not believe we used it appropriately.

Cons: Podio seems to be a very specific style of project/task management software. We tried using it for implementation projects, so there was a lot of customizations that had to occur before it was usable. I did not feel like it was overly intuitive to use and had to do several follow up trainings.

"The best CRM and working software"

Pros: It is amazing how it can integrate with so many things, send emails, sms, signatures. The files can be organized with just a click. It is also suitable for any type of business sin it can be customize. At a good price

Cons: Extremely difficult to set up. Requires additional help to do it