monday.com Demo: What You Actually Get and How to Request One
Looking for a monday.com demo before committing? Smart move. The platform isn't cheap-we're talking $9-19 per seat per month for most teams-so you want to know what you're getting into.
Here's the deal: monday.com handles demos differently depending on your team size. Smaller companies get pointed toward the free trial and self-service resources, while enterprise buyers can request personalized live demos with the sales team.
Let me break down your options so you can pick the path that makes sense for your situation.
Your Three Options for Seeing monday.com in Action
Option 1: The 14-Day Free Trial (Best for Most Teams)
For teams under 40 people, this is honestly the better route. monday.com offers a 14-day free trial that gives you full access to explore the platform's features firsthand. You can:
- Create boards and test different views (Gantt, Kanban, timeline)
- Set up automations and see how they work
- Try integrations with tools like Slack, Google Drive, and Zoom
- Access 200+ pre-built templates
- Invite your team and test real workflows
The free trial beats a demo for one simple reason: you're testing with your actual work, not watching someone else click around. You'll discover whether monday.com fits your workflow way faster than a 30-minute sales presentation.
Start your free monday.com trial here →
Option 2: On-Demand Demo Video
monday.com offers a work management demo that's available on-demand. The company walks you through the most important features using a simple use case to show how it works in practice.
The on-demand demo typically covers:
- Multi-board dashboards for cross-team visibility
- Workload and portfolio views for resource management
- Integration capabilities with your existing tools
- AI features built into workflows
- How to tailor workflows to your organization's structure
This is useful if you're in research mode and want to understand the platform before committing time to a trial setup.
Option 3: Live Personalized Demo (Enterprise Only)
If you're bringing on 40+ users or have complex enterprise needs, you can book a live demo with monday.com's sales team. The live demo option lets you request a customized session focused on your specific use cases-whether that's IT operations, marketing workflows, PMO management, or something else.
Enterprise demos typically include a walkthrough of features like SOC 2 Type II compliance, audit logs, granular permissions, HIPAA readiness, and multi-region data storage. You can also discuss advanced features like 250,000 automation and integration actions per month and dashboards combining data from up to 50 boards.
What You'll Actually See in a monday.com Demo
Whether you go the trial route or watch the on-demand walkthrough, here's what monday.com wants to show you:
Boards and Views
Boards are the core of monday.com-they organize your work into repeatable, scalable pieces. Each board can represent a campaign, client project, department workflow, or any team initiative. You get access to different views including Gantt charts, Kanban boards, timeline views, and calendar views.
Every board uses items as the foundational units of work. Whether it's a customer request, deal, task, or product launch, each item can carry relevant context, owners, and timelines. What sets items apart is how easily they flex to different use cases.
Columns give structure to every board. Beyond the basics (status, owner, date), monday work management supports formula fields, connected dependencies, time tracking, and integrations with financial, HR, and compliance systems. Admins can control permissions at the column level, limiting visibility or editing access where needed.
monday Workdocs
This is their document collaboration feature. Teams can brainstorm, document, and assign tasks without leaving the platform. You can draft onboarding flows, embed live boards and dashboards for real-time context, and assign action items directly from the doc.
Workdocs are flexible, multi-media whiteboards where you and your team can record all notes and ideas related to one central topic. You can collaborate in real-time, meaning multiple team members can edit simultaneously while seeing each other's changes instantly.
Automations and Integrations
The demo will show you how to automate repetitive tasks-sending notifications, updating statuses, moving items between boards, creating recurring tasks. monday.com connects with over 200 apps including Google Drive, Zoom, Salesforce, and Jira.
Fair warning: automation limits are tied to your plan tier. The Standard plan caps you at 250 actions per month, while Pro gives you 25,000. Heavy automation users hit these limits fast.
The platform uses a no-code automation builder that lets you create workflows like "When status changes to Done, notify the project owner" without any technical knowledge. You can also use the workflow builder on Enterprise plans, which spans multiple boards and creates cross-board workflows that pull together every element of your work.
AI Features
monday.com's AI capabilities include automating complex tasks with natural language-no coding required. You can describe your workflow in plain English, like "Summarize this week's updates and send to leadership" or "Extract due dates from briefs and autofill the deadline column."
The platform recently introduced three core AI capabilities: monday magic (AI-powered workflow creation), monday vibe (no-code app builder), and monday sidekick (an intelligent assistant). These tools are designed to shift the platform from work management to work execution, where the platform actually performs tasks on your behalf.
AI Blocks are modular, customizable AI actions that let you harness AI within new and existing workflows with no technical expertise required. Common AI actions include:
- Detect sentiment in text (categorizing as positive, negative, or neutral)
- Extract information from documents, PDFs, or images
- Translate content into multiple languages
- Summarize lengthy updates or communications
- Generate content using writing assistant prompts
- Analyze data and assign labels automatically
Every account receives 500 free AI credits per month. Additional credits can be purchased based on usage needs, with options ranging from 2,500 credits for lighter usage to 250,000 credits for enterprise-scale operations.
Dashboards and Reporting
Dashboards pull data from multiple boards into one view for high-level reporting. The number of boards you can combine depends on your plan-Standard lets you combine 5 boards, Pro gives you 20, and Enterprise goes up to 50.
Dashboards use widgets to visualize your data with various types of charts and graphs. You can track project progress, budget, estimate teammates' workload, and monitor key performance indicators all in one place. Everything updates in real-time, so your whole team stays in sync.
Understanding the monday.com Work OS Concept
During any demo, you'll hear monday.com refer to itself as a "Work OS" (Work Operating System). This isn't just marketing speak-it describes how the platform is fundamentally designed.
A Work OS is a cloud-based platform where teams across an organization can plan, run, and manage work from a single, connected place. It's not limited to one department or methodology. Teams build their own workflows using building blocks like boards, automation, and integrations, then connect them across business units to track and manage work at scale.
When a Work OS is adopted across an organization, the value compounds:
- Teams operate on consistent processes
- Leaders see progress and gaps in real time
- Dependencies are easier to manage
- Workflows evolve without needing to rebuild
This approach differs from traditional project management software that forces you to adapt your processes to the tool. With monday.com, you adapt the tool to your processes.
monday.com Pricing: What to Expect After the Demo
Here's the pricing breakdown you need to know. For a deeper dive, check out our monday.com pricing guide.
| Plan | Price (per seat/month) | Key Features |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Up to 2 users, 3 boards, 200+ templates |
| Basic | $9 | Unlimited viewers, 5GB storage, 1-board dashboards |
| Standard | $12 | 250 automations/month, timeline/Gantt views, 5-board dashboards |
| Pro | $19 | 25,000 automations/month, time tracking, private boards, 20-board dashboards |
| Enterprise | Custom quote | 250K automations/month, advanced security, 50-board dashboards |
Important: monday.com has a 3-seat minimum for paid plans. Even if you're a solo user or two-person team, you're paying for three seats. For a team of three on the Standard plan, that's $36/month billed annually.
The annual billing option saves you 18% compared to monthly payments. For reference, a 100-seat deployment on Work Management Pro costs around $22,800 annually ($228/seat), while 2-year commitments can drop to $18,833 per year.
Hidden Costs to Consider
Beyond the base subscription, be aware of potential additional expenses:
- Professional Services: $15,000-50,000 for implementation
- Data migration: $5,000-15,000 depending on complexity
- Training: $3,000-8,000 for team onboarding
- AI add-on credits: Starting at $200/month for additional AI usage
- Guardian security add-on: Premium security features for Enterprise customers
- Premium Support: Additional cost for enhanced support services
Request a comprehensive quote upfront to negotiate these costs as bundled inclusions rather than paying for them separately.
Enterprise-Grade Security Features
If you're requesting an enterprise demo, security and compliance will be a major focus. Here's what monday.com offers at the Enterprise level:
Certifications and Compliance
monday.com maintains several key certifications:
- SOC 1 Type II, SOC 2 Type II, SOC 3
- ISO 27001, ISO 27017, ISO 27018, ISO 27032, ISO 27701
- GDPR compliant with built-in data protection controls
- CCPA compliant
- HIPAA ready (requires Business Associate Agreement on Enterprise plan)
The platform arrives audit-ready with documentation you can download directly, freeing your security team to focus on strategy rather than paperwork. Regular third-party audits ensure controls stay up to date.
Data Security and Encryption
monday.com uses multiple layers of security to protect your data:
- Data at rest is encrypted using AES-256
- Data in transit across open networks is encrypted using TLS 1.3 (at minimum TLS 1.2)
- Encryption keys are stored using AWS Key Management Service (KMS)
- An annually rotated customer master key (CMK) encrypts all customer data
- Multi-region data storage options (US Northern Virginia and Germany Frankfurt)
Enterprise customers can access Guardian, a security and governance add-on that enhances protection with:
- Tenant Level Encryption (TLE)
- Bring Your Own Key (BYOK)
- Data Leak Prevention (DLP)
- Single Sign-On (SSO) with multiple Identity Providers
- IP restrictions to control access by network location
Access Controls and Permissions
Enterprise plans unlock multi-level permissions that give you granular control:
- Item-level permissions for sensitive data (essential for HR, financial, and client confidential information)
- Column-level permissions to hide specific data from unauthorized users
- Board-level access controls
- Workspace-level restrictions
- Role-based permissions hierarchies
- Private boards visible only to invited team members
Without item-level permissions (available only on Enterprise), every team member can access sensitive data beyond their responsibilities. This can be problematic for organizations handling employee records, financial data, or confidential client information.
Audit Logs and Monitoring
Enterprise plans include comprehensive audit logs that provide account admins with detailed reports of all account security-related activity. You can see when users logged in and out, from which device, and their IP address for each session. This lets you monitor suspicious activities and maintain compliance documentation.
The platform uses a microservices architecture to ensure minimal impact on system health in case of failure. Multiple Availability Zones provide redundancy, and Enterprise customers receive a 99.9% SLA. You can monitor service availability through their status page and subscribe to receive updates via email or text.
Use Case Examples: How Different Teams Use monday.com
Understanding how teams actually use monday.com in practice helps you evaluate whether it fits your needs.
Marketing Teams
Marketing departments use monday.com to plan campaigns, manage content calendars, track budgets, and coordinate across creative, social media, and analytics teams. The platform connects campaign strategy to execution with:
- Campaign boards tracking deliverables, deadlines, and budgets
- Content calendars with approval workflows
- Asset management for creative files
- Integration with design tools like Canva
- Dashboards showing campaign performance metrics
Project Management Offices (PMO)
PMOs manage hundreds of concurrent workstreams across departments. They use monday.com to maintain portfolio visibility, track dependencies, manage resources, and report on project health. Key features include:
- Portfolio views aggregating data from multiple projects
- Resource management tracking capacity and allocation
- Risk management identifying potential bottlenecks
- Standardized project templates ensuring consistency
- Executive dashboards providing real-time status updates
Software Development Teams
Dev teams track sprints, manage backlogs, coordinate releases, and integrate with development tools. monday dev (their dedicated development product) includes:
- Sprint planning boards with story point tracking
- Bug tracking with priority management
- Release management coordinating deployments
- Integration with GitHub, GitLab, and Jira
- Retrospective boards for continuous improvement
Customer Support and Service Teams
Support organizations use monday.com (specifically monday service) to manage tickets, track resolution times, and improve customer satisfaction. The platform offers:
- Ticket boards with automated routing and assignment
- SLA tracking ensuring timely responses
- Knowledge base integration for self-service
- Customer satisfaction surveys
- AI-powered ticket categorization and triage
HR and Operations
Human resources and operations teams manage employee onboarding, track PTO, handle requests, and maintain compliance documentation:
- Onboarding checklists with automated task assignment
- PTO tracking with approval workflows
- Employee directory with organizational charts
- Recruitment pipelines managing candidates
- Facility management coordinating office operations
Should You Request a Demo or Just Start the Free Trial?
Here's my honest take:
Start with the free trial if:
- You have fewer than 40 team members
- You want to test with your real projects and workflows
- You're comparing monday.com to other tools like Asana or ClickUp
- You don't need enterprise security features
- You want immediate access without waiting for a sales call
- You're comfortable exploring software independently
Request a live demo if:
- You're evaluating for 40+ users
- You need to discuss enterprise security, compliance, or custom integrations
- You want to negotiate pricing or discuss volume discounts
- You need specific use case guidance for IT, PMO, or complex workflows
- You require HIPAA compliance or other regulated industry certifications
- You're replacing an existing enterprise system and need migration support
- Your organization requires formal vendor evaluation and approval processes
For most small and mid-sized teams, the 14-day trial gives you more useful information than any demo call. You'll quickly discover whether monday.com's interface clicks with your team or feels clunky.
What to Test During Your monday.com Trial
If you go the trial route, here's a quick checklist to make those 14 days count:
- Import a real project - Don't use dummy data. Bring in an actual workflow you're trying to manage. monday.com supports importing from Excel, Google Sheets, and other project management tools.
- Test the views that matter to you - If you need Gantt charts, use them. If Kanban is your thing, set that up. Try the workload view if you're managing team capacity.
- Build one automation - Even a simple one like "When status changes to Done, notify the project owner." See if you hit limits quickly and whether the automation builder makes sense to your team.
- Connect your tools - Try the Slack, Google Drive, or whatever integrations your team actually uses. Test how seamlessly data flows between systems.
- Invite at least 2-3 team members - You need to see how collaboration feels, not just solo task management. Have them create items, comment, and use @mentions.
- Create a dashboard - Pull data from your boards into a dashboard. See if it gives you the visibility you need without endless clicking.
- Test mobile access - Download the iOS or Android app and see how well you can manage work on the go.
- Try the AI features - Use your trial credits to test AI-powered columns or automations. See if the AI actually saves time or just adds complexity.
- Set up notifications - Configure alerts the way your team needs them. Test if they're helpful or overwhelming.
- Review permissions - If you're on a higher-tier trial, test the permission settings to ensure they match your security requirements.
For a step-by-step walkthrough of getting started, check out our monday.com tutorial.
Questions to Ask During a Live Demo
If you've booked an enterprise demo, come prepared with specific questions:
About Implementation
- What's the typical implementation timeline for an organization our size?
- What professional services do you offer for data migration?
- How do you handle change management and user adoption?
- Can you provide references from similar organizations in our industry?
- What training resources are included?
About Security and Compliance
- How do you handle data residency requirements?
- Can you walk through your incident response plan?
- What's included in the Business Associate Agreement for HIPAA?
- How often do you undergo third-party security audits?
- What happens to our data if we cancel?
About Integrations
- Can you demonstrate specific integrations with [your critical tools]?
- What's the API rate limit?
- Do you support custom integrations through your API?
- How do you handle authentication with SSO providers?
- Are there additional costs for certain integrations?
About Pricing and Contracts
- What's your volume discount structure?
- Are there price locks for multi-year contracts?
- What's included in Premium Support?
- How do you handle seasonal fluctuations in user count?
- What are the contract termination terms?
Alternatives Worth Demoing
If you're in research mode, you might also want to look at:
- Asana - Similar feature set, slightly different approach to project views. Our monday.com vs Asana comparison breaks down the differences.
- ClickUp - More affordable with a generous free plan (unlimited users). Better for budget-conscious teams but can feel overwhelming with feature complexity.
- Notion - More flexible but less structured. Good if you need docs + project management combined, though it lacks native time tracking and reporting.
- Smartsheet - Spreadsheet-based interface familiar to Excel users. Strong for technical project managers but steeper learning curve for less technical team members.
- Wrike - Enterprise-focused with strong Gantt chart capabilities. Timeline-based views are excellent for project planning.
- Teamwork - Provides integrated project management along with help desk and CRM features. Good for agencies managing client work.
- Airtable - Combines spreadsheets and databases for flexible, customizable views. Great for data-heavy workflows but less visual than monday.com.
For more options, see our roundup of the best project management software and free project management tools.
Common Demo Objections and How to Evaluate Them
Sales teams will address common concerns during demos. Here's how to evaluate their responses:
"It looks too complicated for our team"
monday.com is highly customizable, which can initially appear complex. Ask to see a simplified board setup that matches your use case. The platform supports both simple and complex workflows-you don't have to use every feature.
"The pricing seems high"
Compare total cost of ownership, not just subscription fees. Factor in implementation time, training costs, and productivity gains. monday.com is 15-25% higher than Asana and 10-20% higher than Smartsheet, but faster implementation may offset the difference.
"We're already using [another tool]"
Ask about migration paths and integration options. Many teams run parallel systems during transition. Consider whether your current tool truly meets your needs or if you're just comfortable with its limitations.
"What if monday.com doesn't work out?"
Understand the data export process and contract terms. Can you export your data in usable formats? What's the notice period for cancellation? Are there penalties for early termination?
Post-Demo Next Steps
Whether you complete a trial or attend a live demo, here's what should happen next:
If You're Moving Forward
- Request a detailed proposal with pricing, implementation timeline, and deliverables
- Negotiate bundled services (training, migration, support) into your contract
- Clarify user onboarding and change management support
- Establish success metrics to measure ROI
- Create an internal pilot team to test before full rollout
If You're Still Evaluating
- Document what worked and what didn't in your trial
- Compare feature matrices across your shortlisted tools
- Involve actual end-users in the evaluation process
- Test with real projects, not theoretical use cases
- Consider total cost of ownership over 3 years, not just year one
Bottom Line
A monday.com demo is useful for enterprise buyers who need to discuss security, compliance, and volume pricing. But for most teams, the 14-day free trial is the faster, more practical way to evaluate the platform.
You'll learn more in 2 hours of actually using monday.com than in any sales demo. So grab the trial, import a real project, and see if it fits how your team actually works.
The platform's strength lies in its flexibility-it can adapt to virtually any workflow or industry. But that same flexibility means there's a learning curve. Your team needs hands-on experience to determine whether monday.com's approach aligns with how you think about work.
If you're an enterprise buyer with complex security requirements, regulatory compliance needs, or managing hundreds of users across multiple departments, absolutely request a live demo. The sales engineering team can address your specific concerns and design a proof of concept tailored to your environment.
For everyone else: start with the trial. It's free, it's immediate, and it gives you the real answers you need to make an informed decision.