Gantt charts in Asana: the timeline view and which plan unlocks it

Asana does have a Gantt chart. It is a project view called Gantt, and it sits next to a second schedule view called Timeline. Neither one is available on the free Personal plan. Both start on Starter, which Asana's pricing page listed at $10.99 per user per month billed annually, or $13.49 billed monthly, when checked on October 8, 2026. If the team is already on Starter or above, the Gantt view is one click away: open a project, press the + icon in the project tabs, and choose Gantt.

That is the short answer. The rest of this article covers the parts the answer leaves out: what actually separates the Gantt tab from the Timeline tab, which scheduling features are locked to the Advanced plan, how to set the view up so it stays accurate after the first week, and what the bill looks like for a team of three to ten people.

Which Asana plans include the Gantt view

Asana's help center lists Gantt view as available on Starter, Advanced, Enterprise, and Enterprise+, plus the legacy Premium, Business, and Legacy Enterprise tiers. The official Gantt view article states this at the top of the page. The free Personal plan gives list, board, and calendar views only.

Here is how the current plans line up for schedule work, as shown on Asana's pricing page on October 8, 2026.

Plan	Price per user per month	Who it is for	Schedule views
Personal	$0	One or two people	List, board, calendar
Starter	$10.99 annual, $13.49 monthly	Small teams	Adds Timeline and Gantt
Advanced	$24.99 annual, $30.49 monthly	Growing teams	Adds portfolios, goals, resource management
Enterprise and Enterprise+	Contact sales	Large organizations	Adds admin, security, and compliance controls

Two lines on that pricing page matter more than they look.

The first is the user limit on Personal: up to 2 seats per project and team. A third person who needs to edit tasks pushes the team onto a paid plan whether or not anyone wants the Gantt view.

The second is that Starter includes unlimited free guests. A client or contractor can be invited to see a project without taking a paid seat. If the main reason for wanting a Gantt chart is to show a client the plan, that changes the math, because the client does not need to be counted.

There is also a seat rule that catches small teams by surprise. The pricing page says seats are added one at a time between 2 and 5 users, but in increments of 5 up to 30 users. A team of six therefore buys ten seats. At the annual Starter rate that is $109.90 a month, not $65.94.

Gantt tab or Timeline tab: what is different

Asana's pricing page describes Timeline as "a Gantt-style timeline to plan and visualize project schedules and dependencies" and Gantt as a view that shows "project tasks, dependencies, and milestones mapped on a timeline". On paper they sound the same. In use, they lean in different directions.

The Gantt view is the more structured of the two. According to the help center article, it adds:

• A list pane on the left, divided into the same sections as the project's List view.
• Zoom levels of Days, Weeks, Months, Quarters, Half-years, and Years.
• A filter for All tasks, Completed tasks, or Incomplete tasks.
• A baseline, which captures a snapshot of tasks, dates, and durations so the current plan can be compared against the original. Each project can have only one baseline, and a new snapshot replaces the old one.
• Auto-scheduling, switched on by default, which gives each new task a one day duration placed after the previous task.
• Bar colors mapped to a custom field, such as team or priority.

Timeline is where Asana places the critical path feature. The help center article on critical path says it highlights the longest chain of dependent tasks in yellow on the Timeline tab. That feature is limited to Advanced, Enterprise, and Enterprise+, it works on projects with up to 2,000 tasks with due dates, and it does not count subtasks.

So the practical split is this. On Starter, the Gantt tab is the better choice for a plan that needs a baseline and a clean left-hand task list. On Advanced, Timeline becomes worth opening too, because it can show which chain of tasks actually decides the end date.

Pick one tab as the team's shared picture of the schedule. Both views read the same task dates, so they will not drift apart, but two views that different people prefer leads to two conversations about the same plan.

Setting up the Gantt view step by step

The steps below follow the screen names in Asana's help center. They assume a project already exists on a Starter plan or higher.

Add the tab

1. Open the project.
2. Click the + icon in the project tabs menu.
3. Choose Gantt from the drop-down. A new Gantt tab appears.

Removing the tab later does not delete any tasks. It only removes the view, and it can be added back at any time.

Decide on auto-scheduling before entering tasks

With auto-scheduling on, the first task starts on the project start date, or today if the project has none, and each following task is placed one day after the one before. At the Half-year and Year zoom levels new tasks get five days instead of one. This is convenient for sketching a sequence, but it produces a chart of evenly spaced one day bars that look planned when they are not.

If the dates already exist somewhere, switch it off first: open Gantt options in the upper right and toggle off Auto-schedule tasks. Turning it back on later does not overwrite dates that have already been entered.

Draw the dependencies

Hover over a task bar until the dependency handle appears, then drag it onto the task that cannot start until this one ends. A drop-down arrow then lets the dependency type be changed. To link a whole sequence at once, select several tasks and choose Chain dependencies from the bar that appears at the bottom of the screen.

Link a task only when the second one genuinely cannot begin until the first finishes. A chart where everything depends on everything turns red at the first slip and people stop reading it.

Set the baseline at kickoff

Open Options, then Dependency settings, and add a baseline date. The Show baseline toggle switches on automatically. The original plan then appears as hatched rectangles behind the solid bars of the current plan. Since only one baseline exists per project, set it on the day the plan is agreed, not the day the project is created.

Color the bars

Open Options, then Layout options, pick a field under Color tasks by, and press Save view. Coloring by team or by priority makes a long chart readable at a glance. Compact mode, found in the Display tab of the settings, fits more rows on the screen.

Keeping the chart true after the first week

Most Gantt charts are right on the day they are built. They go wrong slowly, as dates move in conversation but not on the screen.

The rule that keeps them right is simple: each person moves their own bars. When only the project lead updates dates, the chart is always as far behind as the lead's inbox. When the owner of a task drags it the moment it slips, the chart is current without anyone chasing.

A few habits support that:

• Give every task a start date, not only a due date. Asana lists start dates and times as a feature from Starter upward. A task with only a due date shows as a single day, so the chart looks full but says nothing about overlap.
• Name sections after phases, not people. The Gantt list pane follows the project's sections. Phases such as design, build, and review let anyone see which stage is late. Assignees already show who owns what.
• Use milestones for commitments. Client sign-off and go-live dates give the chart fixed points that everything else is read against.
• Look at the bars left of today. Any bar that ends before today and is not complete is late. That one check replaces most of a weekly status meeting.
• Read the baseline once a month. The gap between hatched and solid bars shows where estimates were wrong. That is useful for the next plan, not only this one.

If a phase needs a long checklist, keep those items as subtasks under a single dated task. The chart stays short enough to read, and the detail is one click away.

What the bill looks like for a small team

Because the Gantt view starts on a per-seat plan, the real cost depends on headcount and on the seat increments described above. These figures use the prices shown on Asana's pricing page on October 8, 2026, before tax.

Team size	Seats billed	Starter, annual	Starter, monthly billing
2	2	$21.98 a month	$26.98 a month
3	3	$32.97 a month	$40.47 a month
5	5	$54.95 a month	$67.45 a month
6	10	$109.90 a month	$134.90 a month
10	10	$109.90 a month	$134.90 a month

Two points follow from this. A team of three pays for Gantt from the first day, since the free plan stops at two. And the jump from five to six people doubles the bill, so a team near that line should price twelve months at the size it expects to be, not the size it is today.

Guests do not count. If two of the people who need to see the chart are clients, they can be guests on Starter and the seat count stays lower.

When a different route makes more sense

Asana's Gantt view is a sound choice when the team already does its daily work in Asana on a paid plan. Adding a second tool only for the chart would mean two sets of dates, and one of them always loses.

Other situations point elsewhere.

The chart is a one-off. For a single proposal that nobody will maintain, a spreadsheet or a slide is enough. It will be out of date within a week, but if no one is going to update it, that does not matter.

The team is three to five people and the budget is tight. In that range, every person who edits the plan is a paid Starter seat. Some project management tools include a Gantt board on a free plan that covers a small team. One such tool allows up to 5 people and 10 boards at no cost, with the Gantt board included; dragging a bar there moves the start date and deadline together, and the scale switches between days and weeks. It does not offer Asana's baseline, auto-scheduling, or critical path, so the trade is fewer scheduling tools for no seat cost. The Asana comparison page sets the two side by side, and the pricing page shows where the free limits end.

The plan lives in another tool already. If tasks are tracked in Trello or a spreadsheet, adopting Asana only for its Gantt tab splits the work in two. Either move the tasks to where the chart is, or put the chart where the tasks already live. The features page lists the board types that can sit side by side on the same cards.

What to change first

If the team is on Starter or above, add the Gantt tab today, turn off auto-scheduling, enter real start dates, and set the baseline on the day the plan is agreed. If the team is on the free plan with three or more people, price twelve months of Starter at the seat count it will actually be billed for, then compare that figure with a free Gantt board such as Pinateca before upgrading.

Q1. Does Asana have a Gantt chart on the free plan?

No. Asana's pricing page lists Timeline and Gantt views as Starter features, and the free Personal plan offers list, board, and calendar views only.

Q2. How do I add a Gantt chart to an existing Asana project?

Open the project, click the + icon in the project tabs, and choose Gantt from the drop-down. A Gantt tab is added. Removing it later does not delete any tasks.

Q3. Why are all my new tasks one day long on the Asana Gantt view?

Auto-scheduling is on by default and gives each new task a one day duration placed after the previous task. Turn it off under Gantt options in the upper right, then set start and due dates by hand. Turning it back on will not overwrite dates already entered.

Q4. Can I compare the original plan with the current one in Asana?

Yes, with a baseline. In the Gantt view, open Options, then Dependency settings, and add a baseline date. The original plan appears as hatched bars behind the current ones. Each project can hold only one baseline, so a new one replaces the old.

Q5. Is critical path available on Asana Starter?

No. Asana's help center lists critical path on Advanced, Enterprise, and Enterprise+. It is shown on the Timeline tab, highlights the longest chain of dependent tasks in yellow, and supports projects with up to 2,000 tasks with due dates.