ClickUp vs monday.com (2026): Which Fits Your Team, and What It Costs
We’re a monday.com partner: we set up monday.com for clients and can earn referral fees from it. So every row below names its source, ClickUp’s wins get the same space as monday.com’s, and staying put is a real answer. Here’s how we compared.
ClickUp costs less and puts more in one app; monday.com, in our experience, is quicker for a whole team to learn. For software sprints, one flat price or your own server, look at neither.
Pick ClickUp if
- You want time tracking on the cheapest paid plan
- You are one or two people (no seat minimum)
- You want docs, whiteboards and chat in one app
- Your team likes to shape its own setup
Pick monday.com if
- People who aren’t technical must use it from week one
- Many colleagues only read: viewers are free
- You run more automations than ClickUp Business allows
- You want a 14-day trial of Pro, no card
Starting prices
- ClickUp Core $9
- ClickUp Business $17
- monday.com Basic $9 (3 seats at least)
- monday.com Standard $12 (3 seats at least)
Per user a month, billed yearly (USD). Both have a free plan: ClickUp’s for any number of members, monday.com’s for 2 seats. Checked on Nov 11, 2026. Work out your team’s cost
What brings you here?
Pick one and your answer shows below.
Choosing between the two:
ClickUp suits teams that want tasks, docs, chat and time tracking in one app and will take the time to set it up. monday.com suits teams where many people must pick it up fast. The matrix gives each row with its source, our time to settle in included.
ClickUp vs monday.com, row by rowAsana vs monday.com vs ClickUp
Checking the price:
At the same level, ClickUp’s paid plans cost less a user, and monday.com sells 3 seats at least, in set sizes. Many colleagues who only read can tip it the other way: monday.com’s viewers are free.
Work out the cost for your teamWhat each monday.com plan includes
Already on one, thinking of moving:
A move costs weeks either way: automations, views and forms are rebuilt, and the change history stays behind. ClickUp imports monday.com boards; monday.com has no ClickUp importer. If your team is trained and the tool fits, staying is often the better answer.
What moving takes, either wayMoving from ClickUp to monday.com: what moves
Maybe neither fits us:
Software teams on sprints may be better on Jira, small teams that only need boards on Trello, teams that want one flat price on Basecamp, and teams that must host their own data on Plane or OpenProject.
Who should pick neitherClickUp alternatives, by why you’re leaving
- ClickUp
- monday.com
ClickUp and monday.com are the two work management tools readers ask us to compare most. This page sets them side by side at your team size, from both vendors’ own pages, read on November 11, 2026. For each tool on its own, read our ClickUp review and our monday.com review.
What Each Costs at Your Team Size
Set your team size and billing. ClickUp’s two paid plans sit beside monday.com’s three, with monday.com’s seat minimum and seat sizes applied.
What ClickUp and monday.com cost for your team
ClickUp Core
$90.00 a month
$1,080.00 a year
$9.00 per user per month
ClickUp Business
$170.00 a month
$2,040.00 a year
$17.00 per user per month
monday.com Basic
$90.00 a month
$1,080.00 a year
$9.00 per user per month
monday.com Basic is sold from 3 seats.
monday.com Standard
$120.00 a month
$1,440.00 a year
$12.00 per user per month
monday.com Standard is sold from 3 seats.
monday.com Pro
$190.00 a month
$2,280.00 a year
$19.00 per user per month
monday.com Pro is sold from 3 seats.
10 people: 10 seats.
| People | ClickUp Core, a month | ClickUp Business, a month | monday.com Basic, a month | monday.com Standard, a month | monday.com Pro, a month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $9.00 | $17.00 | $27.00 (pays for 3 seats) | $36.00 (pays for 3 seats) | $57.00 (pays for 3 seats) |
| 3 | $27.00 | $51.00 | $27.00 | $36.00 | $57.00 |
| 5 | $45.00 | $85.00 | $45.00 | $60.00 | $95.00 |
| 10 | $90.00 | $170.00 | $90.00 | $120.00 | $190.00 |
| 11 | $99.00 | $187.00 | $135.00 (pays for 15 seats) | $180.00 (pays for 15 seats) | $285.00 (pays for 15 seats) |
| 25 | $225.00 | $425.00 | $225.00 | $300.00 | $475.00 |
| 40 | $360.00 | $680.00 | $360.00 | $480.00 | $760.00 |
| 50 | $450.00 | $850.00 | $450.00 | $600.00 | $950.00 |
Before tax, checked Nov 11, 2026. ClickUp’s page shows “$” with no currency code; monday.com’s page data says USD. Above 40 users monday.com offers a quote, so treat its prices for 50 or more as list prices. Free viewers and read-only guests aren’t in the sums, nor are the free plans: ClickUp Free for any number of members (60 MB, 100 automation actions), monday.com Free for up to 2 seats (3 boards, no automations). Confirm on ClickUp’s pricing page.
Prices from ClickUp’s pricing page and monday.com’s pricing page, checked Nov 11, 2026. Billed monthly, ClickUp Core is $12 and Business $25 a user; monday.com Basic is $12, Standard $14 and Pro $24 a seat. Compare like with like: Core sits closest to Standard (Gantt and automations), and Business to Pro (dashboards, workload and time tracking on both).
What the sums don’t show:
monday.com sells seats in set sizes
Three at least, then 5, 10, 15 and so on: 11 people buy 15 seats. Above 40 users you can ask it for a quote.
ClickUp puts the whole workspace on one plan
You can’t put five people on Business and the rest on Core, and colleagues from inside your organization are always paid users.
The cheapest plans leave out what most teams buy for
monday.com Basic has no automations, Gantt or timeline. On ClickUp Core, dashboards, Timeline and Workload views come as a fixed number of uses: “Uses are cumulative throughout a Workspace and they do not reset”.
Who rides free differs
monday.com gives unlimited viewers (read-only) from Basic, and guests who edit from Standard, 4 billed as 1 seat. ClickUp gives each paid user guest seats that can edit (on Core, 5 for the first paid user and 2 per extra one) and unlimited read-only guests on paid plans; guests are for people outside your organization.
Automations are counted differently
ClickUp’s monthly cap is shared by the whole workspace; monday.com counts automation actions and integration actions apart, each with its own cap.
What changed this year: by November 10, 2026, ClickUp’s pricing page had dropped its older Unlimited and Business plans ($7 and $12 a user) for Core ($9) and Business ($17), so the same team now pays 29% more on Core than on Unlimited, and 42% more on Business than on the older Business plan (what changed in ClickUp’s plans). ClickUp says workspaces on earlier plans keep their AI credit limits; ask it what your plan costs at renewal. We found no monday.com price change in the same period.
Outside the US: currency and tax
monday.com shows Canadian visitors prices in CAD: Basic $13, Standard $17 and Pro $26 per seat a month, billed yearly, and says “Prices do not include tax.” From Canada, ClickUp’s page shows “$ 9” and “$ 17” with no currency code; its own savings calculator lists other tools at their US-dollar prices, so we read it as USD. ClickUp’s terms add tax where the law requires it.
ClickUp vs monday.com Side by Side
One rule for both columns: Yes = on the free plan or the cheapest paid plan (ClickUp Core, monday.com Basic); Partly = only on a higher plan, named; No = not on its plan list. Prices are per user a month, billed yearly (USD); the last column says where the row comes from.
| Feature | ClickUp | monday.com | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes: unlimited members and tasks, 60 MB, 100 automation actions a month | Yes: 2 seats, 3 boards, 500 MB, no automations | Pricing pages |
| Gantt chart | Yes, from Core ($9); a few uses on Free | Partly: Standard ($12) | Pricing pages |
| Timeline view | Partly: Business ($17); a few uses on Free and Core | Partly: Standard ($12) | Pricing pages |
| Dashboards | Partly: Business ($17); a few uses on Free and Core | Yes, every plan: 1 board each on Free and Basic, 5 on Standard, 20 on Pro | Pricing pages |
| Workload view | Partly: Business ($17) | Partly: Pro ($19) | Pricing pages |
| Time tracking | Yes, from Core ($9); timesheets from Business | Partly: Pro ($19) | Pricing pages |
| Automation actions a month | Yes: 1,000 on Core, 10,000 on Business, for the whole workspace | Partly: none on Basic, 250 on Standard, 25,000 on Pro | Pricing pages |
| Automations that act in other apps | Partly: Business (webhooks, email, SMS, integrations) | Partly: integration actions from Standard, counted apart | Pricing pages |
| Docs | Yes, every plan; one wiki below Enterprise | Yes, every plan; 3 on Free | Pricing pages |
| Whiteboards | Yes: 3 on Free, 10 on Core, unlimited from Business | No: WorkCanvas is a separate monday.com product | Pricing pages |
| Team chat | Yes: ClickUp Chat; Free keeps 90 days of history | No: an updates thread on each item, but no team chat on its plan list | Pricing pages |
| Forms | Yes: 1 on Free, unlimited from Core | Yes: shareable forms; branded and conditional ones on higher plans | Pricing pages |
| AI | Yes: credits on every plan (500 for the workspace on Free); the full Brain² assistant from Business | Yes: credits on every paid plan, 1,000 a month on Basic, 2,000 on Standard, 3,000 on Pro | Pricing pages |
| Storage | Yes: unlimited on paid plans | Yes: 5 GB on Basic, 20 GB on Standard, 100 GB on Pro | Pricing pages |
| Google sign-in | Partly: Business ($17) | Partly: Pro ($19) | Pricing pages |
| SAML SSO, SCIM, audit log, HIPAA | Partly: Enterprise | Partly: Enterprise | Pricing pages |
| Integrations | Yes: 1,000+, about 50 native | Yes: 850+ | Integrations pages |
| Imports the other tool | Yes: imports monday.com boards | No: no built-in ClickUp import | Import page; our migration page |
| Free trial of a paid plan | No: no timed trial; a full refund within 30 days of a first purchase | Yes: 14 days of Pro, no card | Pricing pages; ClickUp’s terms |
| Mobile app rating | 4.7 on the App Store, 3.6 on Google Play | 4.8 on the App Store, 4.6 on Google Play | App stores, Canada, Nov 10 |
| Time for a team to settle in | 2 to 4 weeks | 1 to 2 weeks | Our experience |
Sources: ClickUp’s pricing page and monday.com’s pricing page (read Nov 11, 2026; monday.com’s full feature list with a browser), ClickUp’s integrations page, monday.com’s integrations page, ClickUp’s import page and ClickUp’s terms (read Nov 10), and our ClickUp to monday.com migration page for what monday.com imports. The last row is our experience from client projects, not a measurement.
Where ClickUp Wins and Where monday.com Wins
Five points each, and each with its catch. The numbers behind them are in the matrix above.
ClickUp wins on:
- Price for the same job. Core costs what monday.com Basic costs but brings automations and Gantt; Business costs less than monday.com Pro. Catch: dashboards and workload need Business.
- Very small teams. One person buys one seat, and the free plan holds any number of members. Catch: free storage and the trial uses of paid features run out and don’t reset.
- Time tracking early. It comes with the cheapest paid plan. Catch: timesheets wait for Business.
- One app for more of the work. Docs, whiteboards and chat come with every plan, so some teams drop a separate tool. Catch: one wiki below Enterprise, and screen recording (Clips) needs Business.
- Room to shape it. Five levels, custom fields from Core, and an importer for monday.com boards. Catch: someone has to set it up and keep it tidy.
monday.com wins on:
- A quick start for the whole company. In our experience, boards of items and columns are easy to read, so people outside the core team join in fast. Catch: 3 seats at least, in set sizes.
- Readers are free. Managers and other departments can follow boards as viewers at no cost. Catch: viewers can’t edit, and guests who edit cost a seat per four.
- Planning views sooner. Timeline and Gantt from Standard (not on Free or Basic), and dashboards on every plan. Catch: dashboards on Free and Basic read one board each, and Standard’s automation cap is lower than ClickUp Core’s.
- Heavy automation. Pro allows more automation actions a month than ClickUp Business. Catch: Pro costs more a user, and time tracking and workload wait for it.
- Try before you pay. A 14-day Pro trial with no card, and phone apps rated higher. Catch: the free plan stops at 2 seats.
Area by Area: What the Differences Mean
The matrix gives the plan each feature starts on. Here is what that means in daily use.
Structure and Setup
- ClickUp: work nests five levels deep (Workspace, Space, Folder, List, task), with custom statuses, and custom fields from Core.
- monday.com: boards of items and columns, with subitems under each item, 8 column types on Free and over 20 from Basic, and 200+ templates on every plan.
- What it means: ClickUp fits more shapes of work, but someone has to design the structure and keep it tidy; that is most of why a team takes longer to settle in. A monday.com board is quicker to build and to read, and work that spans boards comes together in dashboards.
Planning: Gantt, Timeline and Workload
- ClickUp: Gantt charts from Core, with task dependencies on every plan; Timeline and Workload views from Business.
- monday.com: Timeline, Gantt and Calendar views from Standard; Workload and the dependency column from Pro; resource planning and portfolios only on Enterprise.
- What it means: for one project plan, ClickUp Core and monday.com Standard both do the job. To see who is overloaded across projects, compare ClickUp Business with monday.com Pro.
Automations
- ClickUp: if-then rules with 100+ templates, a builder for triggers, conditions and actions, and AI that drafts a rule from a plain-English request. The monthly cap is shared by the whole workspace: 20 people on Core share 1,000 actions. Rules that act in Slack, email or through webhooks need Business.
- monday.com: automations read as sentences you fill in, such as “when a status changes, notify someone”; there are none on Free or Basic. Integration actions have their own cap, beside the automation one.
- What it means: a few rules fit either tool. Count each rule by how often it fires: a busy board can pass Standard’s cap in a month. Above 10,000 actions a month, monday.com Pro holds up to 25,000; on ClickUp the next step is Max ($100 a user) or Enterprise.
Time Tracking
- ClickUp: a timer on every task, manual entries, billable flags and hourly rates from Core; timesheets from Business and their approval on Enterprise. It exports invoice-ready reports but sends no invoices.
- monday.com: a time tracking column on Pro and Enterprise only.
- What it means: a team that tracks time pays less than half as much a user on ClickUp. Agencies that invoice from a time tool often keep Toggl or Harvest beside either one.
Reporting and Dashboards
- ClickUp: dashboards mix charts, tables, workload, time tracking and calculations, updating as tasks move; Free and Core get a few uses, Business the full feature.
- monday.com: dashboards on every plan, each combining a set number of boards; dashboard email notifications and pivot reports sit with Enterprise.
- What it means: on ClickUp the question is whether you pay for Business. On monday.com it is how many boards one dashboard must read: a manager watching ten team boards needs Pro.
Docs, Chat and Whiteboards
- ClickUp: docs that embed tasks, whiteboards whose sticky notes become tasks, and Chat with channels, threads and SyncUps video calls, on every plan. Since August 2026, Chat can import your Slack history.
- monday.com: docs on every plan, an updates thread on each item, and a Zoom integration; whiteboards come with WorkCanvas, a separate product.
- What it means: if you want to drop Slack or a separate docs tool, only ClickUp is built for that. Most teams we work with keep Slack beside either one.
AI
- ClickUp: Brain² answers questions from your docs, comments and wikis with a link to the source, and chatting with it uses no credits. Free and Core get a trial; Business adds premium models. Agents and AI automations spend credits, given per user: 1,000 a month on Core, 1,500 on Business.
- monday.com: credits from Basic, with one monthly number per plan, for AI agents and the Sidekick assistant; AI columns come from Standard and the AI workflow builder with Pro.
- What it means: both include AI in the plan price, and both meter the heavy use. Neither is a reason on its own to pick the tool.
Security and Admin
- ClickUp: SOC 1, SOC 2 and SOC 3 reports and five ISO certifications; Google sign-in and private docs from Business; SAML, SCIM, audit logs, HIPAA and a choice of US, EU or Asia Pacific data region on Enterprise, the region at no extra cost.
- monday.com: SOC 2 Type II, and ISO/IEC 27001 and 27018; Google sign-in and private boards and docs from Pro; single sign-on, SCIM, an audit log and HIPAA on Enterprise.
- What it means: below Enterprise, the security step is ClickUp Business against monday.com Pro. Regulated teams price Enterprise on both.
Sources: ClickUp’s pricing page, ClickUp’s Brain page, ClickUp’s security page, ClickUp’s release notes and monday.com’s pricing page, read Nov 10 and 11, 2026; monday.com’s time tracking, on Pro, is on its pricing page.
What Moving Takes, Either Way
Staying is often the better answer: a trained team on a tool that fits loses weeks in any move. If you do move, plan to run both tools side by side for a week or two while people learn the new one, and expect two things either way. Automations, views, forms and dashboards are rebuilt by hand, because no export carries them. And the change history (who changed what, and when) stays behind, because an import can’t write the new tool’s activity log.
How long either move takes depends on how many boards or Lists, items and files you have and how much is rebuilt; for a move to monday.com we fix the dates in a quote after a free assessment.
Moving from ClickUp to monday.com
No built-in importer
monday.com has no ClickUp import. A CSV from ClickUp comes in as a spreadsheet: subtasks arrive as plain items, and comments and files stay behind.
Check your ClickUp plan before you export
List view exports are included from Business, with a few uses on Core and none on Free; every plan has ClickUp’s API.
How the structure maps
Spaces, Folders and Lists become workspaces, folders and boards; tasks and subtasks become items and subitems; custom fields become columns of the matching type. Comments can go into each item’s updates and files into a Files column, with a migration that reads ClickUp’s export (ClickUp to monday.com migration).
Moving from monday.com to ClickUp
A built-in importer
ClickUp’s import page brings monday.com boards across “in just a few simple steps” (ClickUp’s import page). It doesn’t list which columns, files and updates come with them, so import one board first and check.
Check the automation cap
ClickUp counts automation actions for the whole workspace; if your monday.com account runs more each month than ClickUp Business allows, plan which rules to drop.
Pick the plan by what you use
Dashboards, Timeline and Workload views need ClickUp Business, where Core has them only as a few uses, and so do timesheets.
Who Should Not Switch, and Who Should Pick Neither
Stay where you are if:
- You’re on ClickUp Core and rely on its time tracking: the same on monday.com needs Pro
- You’re on monday.com Pro and use more automation actions a month than ClickUp Business allows
- Most people in your monday.com account are viewers: on ClickUp, colleagues who only read are still paid users
- Your team is trained and the tool fits: any move rebuilds your automations and leaves the history behind
Pick neither if:
- Jira: your team runs software sprints and bug tracking (our Jira review)
- Trello: a small team only needs boards; Standard is $5 a user billed yearly (our Trello review)
- Basecamp: you want one price for the whole team, not per seat (our Basecamp review)
- Teamwork.com: you bill clients by the hour; it has billable time on every plan and free client users (our Teamwork.com review)
- Plane: your data must live on your own servers; it has a free edition you host yourself (ClickUp alternatives)
- OpenProject: the same need, with Gantt charts and time tracking in its free self-hosted edition
Frequently Asked Questions
Is ClickUp cheaper than monday.com?
Usually. For 10 people billed yearly, ClickUp Core is $90 a month and monday.com Standard $120; with dashboards, workload and time tracking, ClickUp Business is $170 and monday.com Pro $190 (USD). At the bottom they tie: monday.com Basic is also $90, without automations or Gantt. monday.com sells 3 seats at least, so one or two people pay more there. If many colleagues only need to read, monday.com can cost less: its viewers are free, while ClickUp bills everyone inside your organization as a paid user.
Can I use ClickUp or monday.com for free?
Yes, both have a free plan. ClickUp Free has unlimited members and tasks, 60 MB of storage and 100 automation actions a month; paid features come as a few uses that never reset. monday.com Free has 2 seats, 3 boards and no automations; its pricing page says each free account starts with 200 items and can reach 1,000 by referring friends.
Which is easier for a team that isn’t technical?
In our experience, monday.com: its boards of items and columns are quicker to learn than ClickUp’s five levels and many settings. ClickUp repays that time when your team likes to shape its own setup.
Which is better for software teams?
ClickUp: sprints are on every plan and sprint points from Business. monday.com sells a separate product for software teams, monday dev, which we didn’t price here. If your team lives in sprints and bug tracking, compare Jira too.
Which is better for one or two people?
Both have a free plan for one or two people: ClickUp’s holds any number of members, monday.com’s 2 seats and 3 boards. Once you pay, ClickUp costs less: one person on Core pays $9 a month billed yearly, while monday.com bills 3 seats at least, $27 a month on Basic.
Can I move between ClickUp and monday.com without losing data?
Mostly. ClickUp imports monday.com boards; monday.com has no ClickUp importer, so that move runs through ClickUp’s exports or API. Either way, automations, views and forms are rebuilt, and the change history stays behind.
Can we use both, one per department?
You can, but each tool bills its own seats, so people in both are paid for twice, and work tracked in one doesn’t show in the other. If two departments each keep their own tool, keep the projects they share in one of them.
Final Verdict: ClickUp or monday.com?
The bottom line: ClickUp costs less and puts more in one app; monday.com, in our experience, is quicker for a whole team to learn. For software sprints, one flat price or your own server, look at neither. Choose by who uses the tool every day: if they will shape their own setup and you want time tracking, docs and chat on the cheapest plan, pick ClickUp. If many people across the company must use it, or only read it, monday.com starts faster and its viewers are free.
Our recommendation: Run one real project in both for two weeks, on ClickUp Free and monday.com’s 14-day Pro trial, with the people who will use it most, before you buy seats.
Need Help Choosing?
We’ve helped 110+ clients choose and set up their business software (see the disclosure). We’ll tell you which tool fits, even when the answer is ClickUp or neither.
How We Compared ClickUp and monday.com
How we compared ClickUp and monday.com:
- Both vendors’ pricing pages, read on November 11, 2026, one request at a time (monday.com’s full feature list with a browser), and their integrations, import and terms pages, read on November 10; each linked where it is used
- Help centres behind a bot check (ClickUp’s, monday.com’s) and review sites weren’t read; app ratings are the App Store’s and Google Play’s in Canada on November 10; we give no score of our own
- The time to settle in is our experience from client projects; we ran no test imports
- We’re a monday.com partner (see the disclosure), so “stay where you are” and “pick neither” are real answers here
Choosing between ClickUp and monday.com?
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