Paid Team & Free Team in same organization collaboration

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1

Hi,

I’d like clarification on the following scenario: If I subscribe to the Starter plan for a specific team in my organization, while the other teams remain on the free Personal plan, can both teams collaborate on the same project created by the “Paid team”? I noticed that I can subscribe at the team level instead of the organization level, as explained in this link.

Pricing and purchases – Asana Help Center

My goal is to have a small group of managers with access to the Starter plan features, while the rest of the team uses the free Personal plan. The managers should be able to manage the project (e.g., set priorities, dependencies) and assign tasks to team members on the free plan. Once a task is assigned, the assignee with the free plan should be able to update progress and communicate via task comments.

Can I achieve this by setting up two teams: one for managers (subscribed to the Starter plan) and another for the remaining team members (using the free Personal plan)? The managers would create the project and share it with the free plan team, granting editor access.

Many thanks!

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2

I don’t think you can. For more detail consult this thread: Can I use guest users at my organization?

3

@Jan-Rienk thank you for the clarification. that’s unfortunate and strange that I have to paid for team member who don’t need the premium feature.

4

Unfortunate indeed.

If they have the same email domain they are considered to be in the same organisation.

5

Welcome, @kevin98,

You’re asking about Team plans, which are similar to Divisions, which are the better choice if you go that route. (I don’t think the link to the thread re “Guests” is germane to your question.)

This is a complex area and you should reach out to Asana Sales (or Support). You can also see this and the help article it links to at the end:

In short, I think (but please review with Sales/Support to be sure) to avoid paying for extra seats, the project could have to exist in a free team, not in a paid team.

Thanks,

Larry

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6

Hi everyone, adding some additional context here, but as @lpb said, it’s best to chat with Sales or Support directly since they can view your organization details and provide more specific information for your case. :slight_smile:

We are currently updating how membership and licensing work in Asana to improve collaboration between paid and free users. With these changes, you can now have both paid and free users working on the same projects within your organization. Essentially, you’ll set up a “container team”, which will be upgraded to your desired plan, and assign paid licenses to the users within that team.

Members of these container teams covered by the paid plan will have access to the plan’s paid features across all of Asana, including in free teams.

If you create projects in the free teams where both free and paid users (members of the paid container team) are members, the paid users will be able to use paid features in these projects, while free users will only have access to free features. Free users will still be able to trigger rules and access forms created by paid users, as these features depend on that ability, but won’t be able to create rules or forms. Other paid features like timeline and custom fields will be available only to paid users.

We don’t have a guide article for this updated functionality yet, because although this change is already available for all mixed organizations (organizations with a mix of paid and free teams) there’s still some work to be done. But we will add an article to our Help Center covering this topic as soon as everything is ready.

I hope this makes sense! :slight_smile:

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Thanks so much, @Vanessa_N, for that detailed explanation. It makes sense to me!

That was my understanding and why I, too, suggested creating the project in a free team but without your helpful explanation.

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Hi Vanessa, do you expect the article to be out this side of Christmas?
I am evaluating Asana vs. MS Teams (Roadmap) for our senior management and product (hardware) teams.
Thanks

9

Hi @Christian_Purnell, I’m so sorry for missing your comment! This new system is still a work in progress, but its already available and you would be possible to set it up with a divisional plan. As I mentioned, it’s best to chat with our Sales team so they can advise you based on your specific organization needs :slight_smile:

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10

Posting this in case this helps anyone (or incase I was told incorrectly by sales).
Divisions cannot interact with one another between subscription levels. That is, if you have a team under ‘Division A’ on the free plan they cannot work or collaborate with tasks created by a team in ‘Division B’ advanced plan.
@kevin98 cannot complete his goal with divisions per my discussion with Sales. @kevin98, can you confirm this was your result.
Thank you

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11

Hi @Christian_Purnell, to clarify, cross-collaboration between users from paid division A and paid division B can’t happen within their respective divisions, as it would count members towards the seats in both divisions. However, they can still collaborate on projects within “neutral” teams (outside of either division). This way, each member will have access to the paid features included in their respective division plans, even though they are not working out of their paid divisions. I hope this helps!

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12

Hi @Christian_Purnell @Vanessa_N

To summarize the situation a bit, I understand it as follows. Is it correct?

  1. Current situation
    -Division A: Sales organization
    -Division B: Practical organization
    A and B are separate organizations with different members. For that reason, it is not desirable for them to join each other’s organizations.

  2. Proposed countermeasures
    -Division C: Joint organization for sales and practical work
    Establish Division C separately from A and B, and have the relevant parties participate there.
    Collaboration will take place within C.

13

Hi @Ka_Nishiyama, you’ve summarized it well! However, just to clarify, in Asana, a division specifically refers to a group of teams tied to a paid subscription. In your example, what you’re calling “Division C” would actually be a free team and not part of any paid subscription.

For cross-collaboration between licensed and unlicensed users, it’s important to note that this must take place within a free team outside of any paid divisions. :slight_smile:

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14

Hi,

I am new to Asana. I would like to set up the following:

  1. A collection of portfolios, each consisting of a number of projects controlled by two paid members (paid team) of which I am one.

  2. A group of free members who contribute to the projects but only have free accounts.

  3. A group of guests who contribute (but are not members of the organisation and do not share domain email addresses).

I would appreciate if anyone could provide a step by step guide for doing this. I am not sure how or where to set up the projects in order to achieve this collaboration between free and paid members.

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15

Welcome, @Ciara_Devine,

I think you should contact Sales or Support to be sure, and you will need to contact them to set up your Division I believe, regardless.

You need one Advanced (or higher) Division in which you can add the one team.

I think the projects would be placed outside that Division, in the free part of your org.

Hope that helps,

Larry

1 Like