Creating Your Net Net Workspace: The Three Setup Steps

In brief: Creating a Net Net workspace takes about a minute: sign up, confirm your email, then set workspace details, service types, and team invites.

Applies to: Anyone starting a new workspace. You become its Owner, and the free tier never asks for a card.

See also: Getting Started With Net Net: How It All Fits Together is the mental model this setup assumes, and Joining an Existing Workspace: Invites and Join Requests is the path for teammates arriving after you.

Creating a workspace takes about a minute and costs nothing. You sign up, confirm your email, and then a short three-step setup asks for your workspace details, the kinds of work your shop sells, and who you want to invite. You become the Owner of the workspace you create. Nothing is on a clock during any of this, because your 60-day trial does not start at signup, it starts the first time you activate a Job.

You will find this at the very start, right after signing up at netnet.app.

Before the setup steps

Sign up with your email address and Net Net sends you a confirmation code. Enter it, and both your account and your first workspace are created together. You are the Owner of that workspace.

If you were invited to a workspace by someone else, this is not your path. An invite creates your account and drops you into their workspace, with no workspace of your own to set up. See Joining an Existing Workspace: Invites and Join Requests.

What a workspace is

A workspace is your team's shared operating environment. The same Jobs, tasks, Deliverables, time, and conversation live there for everyone on the team, along with the settings, roles, and rules that shape how that team works.

One workspace usually means one company. If you belong to more than one team, you can belong to more than one workspace, each with its own people, structure, and permissions, and you switch between them without logging out.

The reasoning behind keeping planning, time, and tasks in one environment instead of three separate tools is spelled out in why integrated project, time, and task software beats disjointed tools.

Step 1: Workspace details

Four fields, and only two of them will make you think.

Workspace Name

What your team calls itself. Use the name you would say out loud, not a legal entity name with an LLC on the end. It shows up in the workspace switcher, on invitations, and in the email people get when you invite them.

You can change it later.

Industry

Net Net asks you to choose the primary industry that best describes your workspace. The picker opens on "Choose one" with nothing pre-selected, and it is alphabetical. Start typing and it filters, or scroll the list.

You have to pick one to continue, and whichever describes the bulk of what you do is the right answer. There is an "Other Professional Services" option for anyone the list does not cover.

This label does almost nothing, on purpose. It does not touch your planning, your rates, your permissions, or your billing. It exists so Net Net has context for onboarding and so your numbers can eventually be compared against shops that look like yours. You can change it any time in Settings → Workspace, with no confirmation step, because changing it changes nothing about how your workspace runs.

More on the options and how to choose between the close calls in Deliverable Types and Setting Your Primary Industry.

Workspace URL

This is the short handle that becomes your workspace address. Lowercase letters, numbers, and dashes only, no spaces and no capitals.

Net Net suggests one from your workspace name, so most people never touch it. Keep it short, because your team will see it in the address bar every day.

Primary Domain

Your company's email domain, like acme.com. This one is quiet but useful, so it is worth understanding.

Your domain is how Net Net recognizes your colleagues. When someone from your company signs up on their own with an @acme.com address, Net Net can suggest your workspace to them instead of letting them start a second one by accident. They still have to ask, and you still have to approve, but the suggestion is what stops your team from ending up split across two workspaces.

If you signed up with a business email, Net Net has already worked your domain out and filled this in. If you signed up with a personal address like Gmail or Outlook, it will be blank, and that is correct. Consumer domains never match workspaces, because half the internet shares them.

Step 2: Your service types

Service Types are the kinds of work your shop actually does. Design. Development. Project Management. SEO. Copywriting. Whatever you would put on a line of an estimate.

This is the one setup step that rewards a few minutes of thought, because everything downstream speaks in Service Types. Effort budgets on Deliverables are broken out by service type. Task allocations carry a service type. Logged hours land in a service type pool. Every performance breakdown in the product reads in these terms.

You do not have to get the full list right on day one. You can add, rename, and reorganize them later in Settings → Service Types, and group them into Service Groups once you have enough of them to want the tidier reporting view. Start with the six or eight you sell most often.

Full detail in Service Types and Service Groups: What Each One Does.

Step 3: Invite your team

Add the email addresses of the people who work with you and pick a role for each one.

Invite everyone. Net Net is priced by active Job, never by seat, so adding your part-timers, your contractors, and the freelancer you use twice a year costs exactly nothing. The point of the product is seeing effort honestly, and effort you never invited is effort you never see.

Roles are explained in User Roles Explained: Owner, Admin, Lead, and Member, and managing invites afterwards is covered in Managing Team Members, Invites, and Join Requests.

You can skip ahead and invite people later. Nothing about the workspace depends on doing it now.

Nothing is on the clock yet

This is the part worth reading twice, because people rush setup out of a fear that does not apply here.

Your workspace works on the free tier the moment it exists, and the free tier never expires and never asks for a card. On it you get your workspace, your team, Contacts, Quick Tasks, My Lists, and the ability to build Job plans.

Your 60-day trial starts the first time you activate a Job. Not at signup. Not when you finish setup. Not when you build a plan.

So take your time. Set up your service types properly. Build a real Job plan for a real piece of work, shape the Deliverables, get the effort estimates honest, and look at it for a day before you switch it on. None of that costs you a trial day.

The reverse is also true, and it catches people out. Activating a Job is a one-way door: the plan freezes as your baseline and there is no route back to Pending. Read Activating a Job: What Happens When the Plan Locks before you click it, not after.

What the trial includes, and the one rule about email addresses that surprises people, is in Activating Your Free 60-Day Trial: When the Clock Starts.

After setup

You land in your workspace, on My Tasks. From here the natural next move is to plan something real: Plan Stepper: How to Build a Job Plan Step by Step.

Anything you skipped or want to change lives in Settings, which Owners and Admins can reach at any time. Your workspace name, URL, industry, domain, and logo are all under Settings → Workspace.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I create a Net Net workspace?

Sign up at netnet.app, confirm your email with the code you are sent, and a three-step setup opens: workspace details, service types, and team invites. Your account and your first workspace are created together, and you become the Owner of it. The whole thing takes about a minute.

What does the primary industry setting actually do?

Almost nothing, and that is deliberate. It is a single label for the workspace used for onboarding context and for benchmarking against similar shops. It does not affect planning, rates, permissions, or billing. You must pick one to finish setup, and you can change it any time in Settings → Workspace with no confirmation step.

No. It starts the first time you activate a Job. Signing up, setting up service types, inviting your team, and building complete Job plans all happen on the permanent free tier without touching your 60 days. Nothing is on a clock until you switch a Job on.

What is the Primary Domain field for?

It is how Net Net recognizes your colleagues. When someone with a matching business email domain signs up on their own, Net Net can suggest your workspace to them rather than letting them accidentally create a second one. It only suggests. An Owner or Admin still has to approve every request by hand.

Do I have to invite my team during setup?

No, you can skip it and invite people later from Settings → Team. It is worth doing early anyway, because Net Net charges by active Job rather than per seat, so adding contractors and part-timers costs nothing.

Can I change the workspace name or URL later?

Yes, both live in Settings → Workspace. The URL is lowercase letters, numbers, and dashes only. Keep it short, because your team sees it in the address bar every day.

Can I have more than one workspace?

Yes. Net Net is built for it. A person can belong to several workspaces, each with its own people, structure, and permissions, and switch between them without logging out. Several workspaces can even share the same email domain, which is common when one company runs separate teams.

What can I do on the free tier without paying anything?

Your workspace, your team, Contacts, Quick Tasks, My Lists, and building Job plans. Activating a Job, Chat, advanced reporting, and connecting your own AI require an active trial or a paid plan. Full breakdown in Net Net Pricing: Free Tier, 60-Day Trial, and Paid Plans.

If you have not read it yet, Getting Started With Net Net: How It All Fits Together is the mental model this setup assumes, and Joining an Existing Workspace: Invites and Join Requests is the other half of onboarding, for the teammates arriving after you. The two setup decisions worth revisiting once real work starts are covered in Service Types and Service Groups: What Each One Does and Managing Team Members, Invites, and Join Requests, which also handles invites that were skipped or need chasing. When the structure is in place and you want to plan something real, Plan Stepper: How to Build a Job Plan Step by Step takes it from there.

Updated on: 08/04/2026

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