Monday.com Pros and Cons: The No-BS Review

If you're looking at monday.com for project management, you're probably comparing it against Asana, ClickUp, and a dozen other tools. Let me save you some time: monday.com is genuinely good, but it's not for everyone—and there are some gotchas you need to know about before signing up.

I've used monday.com extensively and dug through hundreds of user reviews to give you the real picture. Here's what actually matters.

Monday.com Pricing Quick Reference

Before we dive into pros and cons, let's talk money—because monday.com's pricing structure trips people up.

The catch: Paid plans require a minimum of 3 users. And you can only add users in increments of 5 after that. So if you have 4 team members, you're paying for 5. If you have 6 members, you're paying for 10. This bucket pricing can inflate your costs quickly if you're not careful.

Want the full breakdown? Check out our detailed monday.com pricing guide.

The Pros: What Monday.com Does Well

1. Genuinely Intuitive Interface

This isn't marketing fluff. Monday.com is one of the easiest project management tools to actually use. The interface is clean with smart use of white space—you don't feel overwhelmed like you might with Smartsheet or even ClickUp.

New employees can typically get up to speed in a day or two without heavy training. That's rare in this category. The visual, color-coded boards make it easy to see status at a glance, and the Kanban view is particularly well-executed.

2. Highly Customizable Workflows

Monday.com excels at letting you build workflows tailored to your specific processes. Whether you're in construction tracking subcontractors, marketing managing campaigns, or operations running daily standups—you can customize boards, columns, and views to match how your team actually works.

The 200+ templates give you a solid starting point, but the real power is in building exactly what you need. You can add time tracking columns, formula columns for calculations, status columns with custom labels—whatever your workflow demands.

3. Strong Visual Project Views

You get multiple ways to visualize your work:

The timeline and Gantt views are particularly useful for anyone managing projects with dependencies and deadlines. If you need to see when things overlap and what's blocking what, monday.com handles this well.

4. Solid Automation Builder

The no-code automation builder is genuinely useful. You can set up automated actions triggered by status changes—like notifying someone when a task moves to "urgent" or automatically assigning follow-ups when items are completed.

Standard plans get 250 automation actions per month. Pro jumps to 25,000. Enterprise goes to 250,000. For most small teams, 250 is tight but workable. Growing teams will likely need Pro.

5. Extensive Integrations

Monday.com connects to over 200 native integrations including Slack, Google Drive, Zoom, Trello, and more. It also works with Zapier for connecting to pretty much anything else. The integrations are actually functional—not just checkbox features.

6. Good Customer Support

Support is available 24/7 via email and live chat. Response times are typically fast—many users report getting help within minutes. This is one area where monday.com outperforms competitors like ClickUp, which has notoriously inconsistent support.

The Cons: Where Monday.com Falls Short

1. Gets Expensive Fast

This is the big one. Monday.com isn't cheap, and the bucket pricing makes it worse.

A team of 10 on the Pro plan costs $2,280/year. A team of 25? That's $5,700/year. And remember—if you have 11 people, you're paying for 15.

Compare this to ClickUp charging $12/user/month for similar features, or Zoho Projects starting at just $4/user/month. Monday.com is firmly mid-market pricing, which is fine—but it adds up.

2. Critical Features Locked Behind Higher Tiers

This frustrates a lot of users. Here's what you DON'T get on lower plans:

That SSO limitation is particularly painful. It's a basic security feature that small businesses need, but monday.com gates it behind their most expensive tier.

3. Limited Free Plan

The free plan supports only 2 users and 3 boards with 500MB storage. It's basically a demo, not a real working option. Competitors like ClickUp offer free plans with unlimited projects and up to 10 users.

If you're looking for genuinely free project management, see our free project management software roundup.

4. No Native Recurring Tasks

Want to add a recurring task that repeats weekly? You can't do it natively—you have to use automation to achieve this. It's a strange omission for a project management tool, and it eats into your monthly automation allowance.

5. Mobile App Has Issues

Multiple reviewers report bugs and glitchy behavior in the mobile app. Time tracking sometimes doesn't capture accurately when switching between tasks. This is problematic for field teams or anyone who needs reliable mobile access.

6. Interface Can Get Cluttered

While the basic interface is clean, things get cluttered fast when you have many active boards. Finding specific items during busy periods can be frustrating, especially if you're under pressure. The search function helps, but organization requires discipline.

7. Onboarding Can Be Overwhelming

Despite the intuitive interface, getting everything set up takes time. Some users report the onboarding videos are outdated. Setting up triggers and columns correctly requires patience—once it's running it works great, but that initial setup curve is real.

8. Occasional Platform Issues

Some users report the platform freezing or incorrectly loading data. Broken board linkages and automations can disrupt workflows and cause data issues. These seem to be edge cases, but they're worth noting if you're managing critical processes.

Who Monday.com Is Best For

Monday.com works well for:

It's particularly good if you value visual organization and don't want to spend weeks training your team on complex software.

Who Should Skip Monday.com

Consider alternatives if:

For budget-conscious teams, explore our monday.com alternatives guide.

Bottom Line: Is Monday.com Worth It?

Monday.com is a legitimately good project management tool with an excellent interface and strong customization. It's not the cheapest option, but for teams that can afford the Pro tier, you get a polished product that most team members can actually use without extensive training.

The main issues are pricing-related: the bucket pricing model, critical features gated to expensive tiers, and that frustrating SSO limitation on Enterprise. If you can live with these constraints and the price works for your budget, monday.com delivers.

My recommendation: Start with the 14-day Pro trial to test the features you actually need. If Standard's 250 automation actions and lack of time tracking work for you, you can save money there. But most serious teams end up needing Pro.

Try monday.com free for 14 days →

Further Reading