Keel
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Project management for people who hate managing projects.

Drag a timeline. Paste your updates. Keel writes the weekly report, keeps the register, and chases the people who owe you something.

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This is the real thing. Drag a phase.

Friday, before and after.

Before

  • Five update emails, read twice each.
  • A register spreadsheet nobody has opened since kickoff.
  • A status deck rebuilt from last week's.
  • Chasing three people on Slack for Tuesday's answer.

After

  • Paste your updates, or let contributors submit their own.
  • Read what Keel proposes for the register and the plan.
  • Accept what is right, correct what is not.
  • Send the report. The chasing already went out.

How it works

A timeline you can grab.

Drag a phase to move it, drag its edges to resize it, drag it downward to run work in parallel. Dependencies are real edges on the canvas, so everything downstream follows. There is nothing to configure and no Save button.

The timeline canvas

Updates in, register out.

Paste plain-text updates — a transcript, a client email, your own notes. Keel proposes risks, issues, actions, decisions and plan changes. Nothing changes until you accept it.

The proposal inbox

Contributors without logins.

Each person gets a private link, not an account. They see only their phases, answer Done, Still on it or Blocked, and every submission goes on the record.

The contributor portal

Start from a template.

Software delivery

Discovery through release for a software product or feature set. ~12 weeks.

Automation & AI engagement

Assess, design, build and tune an automation or AI solution with a hypercare tail. ~10 weeks.

Consulting engagement

Discover, analyse, recommend and hand over. ~8 weeks.

Marketing campaign / launch

Plan, produce, launch and measure a campaign or product launch. ~8 weeks.

What your client sees.

Weekly report · Northwind portal rollout

Design is closing; migration is the one to watch

Week ending 14 Sept 2026 · Status: on track

Design & solution finished its review cycle this week and is on course to close on 25 Sept 2026. Two open questions on permissions were answered by the client on Wednesday, so nothing is blocked going into sign-off.

Data migration is running in parallel and remains the item with the least float. The first extract landed, record counts reconciled, and the second pass is scheduled before 09 Oct 2026. If the legacy export slips again we will flag it as an issue rather than a risk.

Build & configure starts 28 Sept 2026 and depends on design sign-off. No change to the go-live date.

Next milestone

Design signed off — 25 Sept 2026

Waiting on you

  • Confirm the two remaining integration accounts (4 days late).
  • Nominate a UAT lead for the test window.

Pricing

Early access — free while we're in beta. Unlimited contributors and viewers, always.

Paid plans will be per project-owner seat. Contributors and clients never pay.

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Data hosted in Sydney, Australia.

Built by Customer Science, an Australian delivery consultancy.

We use Keel on our own client projects.

Questions

›What is Keel?

Keel is a delivery timeline you can drag, a risk and action register that keeps itself current, and a weekly client report drafted from what actually happened on the project. You plan on one canvas, paste in the updates you already receive, and review what Keel proposes before anything changes.

›Who is it for?

Consultants, delivery leads and internal project owners who run a handful of client projects at once and spend more time reporting on them than planning them. It suits phase-based delivery with milestones and external contributors, not permanent teams working a sprint backlog.

›How is Keel different from Monday, Asana or Jira?

Those tools organise tasks for a team that logs in every day. Keel organises a delivery plan and the reporting around it: phases and finish-to-start dependencies on a business-day timeline, a register, contributors who never create an account, and a weekly report written for you. There are no boards, backlogs or sprints, and we are not planning to add them.

›Do my clients or contributors need an account?

No. You invite someone by email address and Keel issues them a private link. They see only the phases you have scoped them to, mark their deliverables and actions done, and answer with Done, Still on it, or Blocked plus a note. Only project owners have logins, and contributors and clients never pay.

›What does the AI actually do, and can it change my plan without me?

It reads the updates you paste in — meeting notes, client emails, your own scribbles — and proposes register entries and schedule changes. It also drafts the weekly report and the nudges you send to people who owe you something. It never changes your plan on its own: every proposal sits in an inbox until you accept it, and you can edit anything before it is applied or sent.

›Where is my data stored?

In Sydney, Australia. Keel runs on an Australian-region database, and AI features send only the text needed for the request you have triggered. Workspace owners can see every AI call the workspace has made and set a daily cap on them.

›Can I export my data?

Not yet through a one-click export. Your reports and register entries are plain text you can copy out of the app today, and proper export in the formats clients actually ask for is on the near-term list. We will not hold your data hostage.

›Does Keel work for non-software projects?

Yes. Nothing in the model is software-specific: a phase is a block of work with dates, dependencies and deliverables. Two of the four built-in templates — a consulting engagement and a marketing campaign or launch — are not software projects at all.

›What does it cost?

Nothing while we are in beta, with unlimited contributors and viewers. When we introduce paid plans they will be priced per project-owner seat. Contributors and clients will never pay.

›Is there a template for my kind of project?

There are four built-in templates: software delivery, an automation or AI engagement, a consulting engagement, and a marketing campaign or launch. You can duplicate any of them, edit the phases on the same timeline canvas you use for real projects, or save one of your own projects as a template for next time.