We’re Vidual, a project studio built in Oxford for makers and design studios — framebuilders, tailors, furniture makers and, since this summer, practices whose finished work is a design rather than a thing you can pick up: interior designers, architects, and colour and brand consultants. It’s one product, not a variant per trade, and this page is the architect-specific way into it.
The record of the decision is the deliverable
When a scope question or a dispute surfaces months into a build, what settles it is the record of what was decided, when, and with whom. That record is part of what a practice sells — and none of the friction above is a scheduling failure. It’s that the conversation, the decision and the money each sit somewhere else, and only the conversation has any memory of why.
Vidual puts them on one timeline. Every project is a record organised by the stages you define, holding client messages, internal notes, files, photographs, decisions and payments in the order they happened. What you write for the team is never visible to the client, and what you send the client stays in their view. A decision sits in the stage it belongs to, with the date and the person attached.
What an architect actually uses, part by part
| The daily friction | Where it lives now | What it becomes in Vidual |
|---|---|---|
| “Did we agree to move the skylight?” | Email, WhatsApp, a phone call nobody logged | A dated message or note on the project timeline, filed under its stage |
| Drawing versions going stale | PDFs attached to threads | Files uploaded into the project, attached to the message that explains them, with a Files panel per project |
| Client inspiration arriving piecemeal | Screenshots and forwarded links | A moodboard in the client’s own portal that the client curates — colours pulled from any pinned image and named, so “that sort of green” becomes a specification |
| Consultants and engineers seeing too much or too little | CC lists | Partner access at two levels: All Project, or Minimal — which shows only internal notes, files and shipments. No partner can message a client |
| Fees and stage payments | A spreadsheet, and chasing by email | A ledger on the project: agreed fee, what’s been paid up front, what’s due at each stage and what’s left — Stripe links you send from within the project, with payments taken elsewhere logged in the same place |
| Quoting a scheme, not a parts list | A Word template | A service-mode worksheet that leads with money the way a consultant does: a fixed fee, or hours against a day rate, plus ancillaries |
| Invoicing | Re-typed into the accounts package | Send a work order and the invoice is raised in QuickBooks Online or Xero, provided you’ve connected one |
| Knowing which projects are stalled | Memory | The Activity page: every live project on one row showing its stage and the last thing that happened, with tallies of those awaiting a client reply, stalled, or carrying an overdue payment |
On a service project, the parts of the app built for stock, ordering and point of sale simply aren’t in your way — a practice quoting fees has no use for an inventory prompt. Each project is marked at creation as a physical piece or a service, and a studio that only does service work sets the default once for the whole account. The Activity page in that last row is the same view the rest of the studio runs on — fifty projects at once, sorted by what needs attention.
Landscape architects, and practices with engineers in-house
The workflow doesn’t change when the site is a garden rather than a house, or when the drawing goes to a structural engineer down the corridor. Project management software for landscape architects has the same shape of problem — long conversations, seasonal timing, planting schedules that live as decisions rather than tasks, a client who wants to see progress photographs from site. Practices searching for project management software for architects and engineers are usually asking about collaborator access, and that’s the partner permission levels above: the engineer sees the project without seeing the client thread, and can’t message the client by accident.
Where a scheme does produce something physical — joinery, a made piece of furniture, a fabricated element — mark that one project as a physical piece and it carries a proper bill of materials. Everything else stays where it was: one timeline, one portal, one set of payments.
Is there free project management software for architects?
Not from us, and it’s worth being straight about what “free” usually buys. Free tiers of generalist boards cap the people, the storage or the integrations, and none of them give your client a portal wearing your name. What we offer is a 30-day free trial on every plan, with no credit card, so you can run a live project through it rather than click around a demo account.
After that, pricing follows how many projects you have running at any one time rather than headcount: Maker is £12.99 a month and covers three active projects, Studio is £34.99 a month for ten, and Atelier is £69.99 a month with no project limit. You can add as many team members as you like on any plan, every feature is included whichever you pick, and UK VAT is in the price. Most software aimed at practices charges per seat, which means the bill climbs each time you add a part-time technician or bring a consultant inside the system — the opposite of what you want when the whole point is having everyone looking at the same record.
Common questions
Is Vidual built specifically for architects?
No. Vidual is project management software for makers and creative studios generally, and architects are one of the studio types it now serves first-class. The core workflow — client conversations, decisions, files, progress photos, fees and invoicing on one timeline — is the same one a framebuilder or a tailor uses, with a service mode that prices a job by fee and day rate rather than by materials.
Can a structural engineer or consultant be given access without seeing client messages?
Yes. A partner can be brought in at either of two levels: All Project, which takes in client messages, financials and the work order, or Minimal, which shows only internal notes, files and shipments. No partner can message a client, bring anyone else in, or alter a project’s settings.
Is there a free plan for architects?
There is a 30-day free trial on every plan with no credit card required, but no permanently free tier. Plans start at £12.99 a month for three active projects, and every feature is included on every plan, so the plan you pick only decides how many projects can run at once.
Does it work for landscape architects?
Yes, and it’s the same product rather than a variant. A landscape commission runs the same shape as any other design project: a long conversation, a scheme to agree, site photographs, staged fees. The moodboard, the client portal and the fee-based worksheet all apply directly.
What does my client see?
A private portal carrying your identity throughout — logo, colour and the domain the emails come from — with stage updates, messages, files, photographs and their payment history. Clients don’t sign up or set a password: they reach it through a link in an email, and a reply to a notification lands in the project timeline.
Does it connect to our accounting software?
Vidual integrates with QuickBooks Online and Xero. Send a work order to a client and the customer record is created or matched, and the invoice is raised in your accounts package. Records already there are left as they are.
More: the client’s moodboard, in full · the full FAQ · pricing
Try it on a live project
Set it up with a project you’re genuinely running and give it a fortnight of ordinary use — that tells you far more than any feature list. Start a 30-day free trial, no card required, or take a free 30-minute demo with Pete to see the portal your clients would get.