Best for
Best for professional services teams that want staffing, hours, invoicing and project margin in a single system.
- Small and mid-sized
- Enterprise
Resource Planning Comparison
Birdview PSA vs. Retain
At a glance
At a glance
Best for
Best for audit, tax, advisory and consulting firms that need skills-aware scheduling and, in some cases, the option to run it on their own servers.
- Small and mid-sized
- Enterprise
Cataleo does not name a winner. Both statements come from the vendors themselves.
Full Comparison
| Criterion | Birdview PSA | Retain |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $9 / user / month Lite is billed yearly for 1 to 10 users, Team is $24 / user / month billed yearly for 5 to 100 users, Enterprise is quoted. These are the Birdview Project Management plans; the professional services plans are quoted separately. | Quote-based Retain publishes no price list; the contact form routes pricing requests to sales. |
| Free trial | 14-day trial | Demo on request |
| Users | Not stated | Retain cites more than 1.5 million resources managed worldwide and over 100 large customers |
| API | Yes, RESTful API | Yes, secure APIs for programmatic access to resources, bookings, jobs and operational data, plus middleware support through MuleSoft and Azure Logic Apps |
| Hosting | Cloud, with hosting in the USA, Canada and Europe; single-tenant deployments available | Cloud as Retain Cloud, or on your own servers as Retain On-Premise |
| Made in | Canada (Toronto; formerly Easy Projects) | United Kingdom (Retain International, company number 01593831, part of AdvT Group) |
| Resource planning | Yes, workload per person and week, capacity against demand, skills-based staffing suggestions, hiring forecasts and drag-and-drop rebalancing | Yes, bookings against jobs and engagements with capacity and availability views, recurring bookings, conflict management and AI suitability matching on skills, experience and availability |
| Task planning | Yes, projects and task workflows in table, kanban, Gantt and calendar views | No, work is planned as bookings against jobs and engagements rather than as individual tasks |
| Time tracking | Yes, time entry on mobile, desktop and calendar with weekly approvals that flow into invoicing and project actuals | Yes, built-in timesheets that capture actual time against projects and tasks and compare it with planned allocations |
| Reporting and controlling | Yes, more than 250 prebuilt reports and dashboards, estimate-at-completion tracking and margin alerts | Yes, utilisation dashboards, revenue and delivery cost forecasting, operational notifications and audit logs |
| AI features | Yes | Yes |
| Deployment | Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based | more entries Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based, On-premise |
| Support | Chat | more entries Email helpdesk, Phone |
| Onboarding | Documentation and knowledge base, Guided onboarding | Not stated |
| Company size | Small and mid-sized, Enterprise | Small and mid-sized, Enterprise |
| Integrations | Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Project, SharePoint, OneDrive, Jira, ServiceNow, QuickBooks, Xero, NetSuite, Sage Intacct, Adobe, TimeControl, Zapier, Workato | more entries Abacus, Aderant, Access APS, BambooHR, CCH, Employment Hero, IRIS Practice Management, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Microsoft 365, Outlook, Microsoft Synapse, MYOB GreatSoft, Oracle, Oracle NetSuite OpenAir, PracticePro 365, Salesforce, SAP, SugarCRM, Thomson Reuters GoFileRoom, Workday, MuleSoft, Azure Logic Apps |
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Adds a column to the table, from the tools in this category.
Row where the values differ The small markers point at the lower number, the longer list or the stated feature. They describe the data, they are not a verdict.
The short version
Key Differences
- Starting price Birdview PSA From $9 / user / month Retain Quote-based
- Free trial Birdview PSA 14-day trial Retain Demo on request
- Deployment Birdview PSA Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based Retain Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based, On-premise
- Hosting Birdview PSA Cloud, with hosting in the USA, Canada and Europe; single-tenant deployments available Retain Cloud as Retain Cloud, or on your own servers as Retain On-Premise
- Support Birdview PSA Chat Retain Email helpdesk, Phone
Every line is one datapoint from the table above, picked automatically. Nothing here is written text.
The trade-offs
Strengths and Limitations
Birdview PSA
Strengths
- Planning, time, invoicing and margin sit in one platform
- Skills-based staffing suggestions and hiring forecasts 60 to 90 days out
- Twenty guest seats for client collaboration are included
Limitations
- Portfolio hierarchy and resource allocations require the quoted Enterprise plan
- The published prices cover the project management plans only, not the professional services ones
Retain
Strengths
- Available both as a hosted cloud platform and as an on-premise installation
- Timesheets are part of the product, so planned and actual hours sit in the same system
- Integrations cover practice management, HR, CRM and finance systems, with middleware support and secure APIs
Limitations
- No published prices, so every quote comes from sales
- No task-level planning; work is tracked as bookings against jobs
- Shaped around audit, tax, advisory and consulting work, which narrows the fit outside professional services
Plans
Pricing
Birdview PSA
- Lite $9 Per user / month billed yearly, 1 to 10 users. Unlimited projects and tasks, table, kanban, Gantt and calendar views, 100 GB storage.
- Team $24 Per user / month billed yearly, 5 to 100 users. Adds time tracking, custom workflows, workload management, project budgeting, 500 GB storage and the AI assistants.
- Enterprise Not stated Quoted, from 5 users upwards. Adds portfolio hierarchy, resource planning and allocations, SSO, 1 TB storage and four licence types.
Retain
- Quote-based Not stated Retain publishes no price list; quotes come from sales.
What users say
Review Scores · opens after launch
Birdview PSA
- Ease of use
- Not rated yet
- User interface
- Not rated yet
- Onboarding
- Not rated yet
- Support and service
- Not rated yet
- Value for money
- Not rated yet
- Features
- Not rated yet
No reviews yet. Nothing has been published here yet, and no score is shown. How a review is checked before it appears is described below.
Retain
- Ease of use
- Not rated yet
- User interface
- Not rated yet
- Onboarding
- Not rated yet
- Support and service
- Not rated yet
- Value for money
- Not rated yet
- Features
- Not rated yet
No reviews yet. Nothing has been published here yet, and no score is shown. How a review is checked before it appears is described below.
How we check reviews
Before sending, the author has to confirm three things: that they have used the product themselves, that they work neither for the vendor nor for a competitor, and that nobody is paying them for the review. We also ask whether the vendor invited them to write it. That answer is required, either answer is accepted, and it stays with the review.
Every review is read by a person before it appears. An email address is required and is confirmed: we send a link to it, and a review does not reach us until the author opens that link, so a review has a sender who was reachable at least once rather than being anonymous. Where what somebody writes needs backing, we ask them for evidence that they used the product, and a review that does not get it is not published. We publish positive and negative reviews alike, we pay nothing and offer nothing for a review, and we accept none that was bought or incentivised.
What we cannot do is verify a purchase. There is no shop here and no account, so whether the author really used the tool rests on their own declaration, on whatever we ask them for, and on the plausibility of what they write. We say so rather than implying a check that does not exist.
A vendor cannot buy a review, and cannot have one removed or changed because they dislike it. We remove or edit a review only if it breaks our rules or the law, for example a false statement of fact. Paid placement has no effect on which reviews appear or on any score.
Where this comes from
Where this comes from
Birdview PSA https://www.birdviewpsa.com · no check date recorded yet
Retain https://www.retaininternational.com · checked against the official source on 2026-09-11
This table lists factual criteria taken from information the vendors publish themselves. For how we put it together, see the methodology.