Monday.com vs Smartsheet
A source-aware comparison of pricing, documented capabilities and workflow fit.
Short answer
monday.com is a visual work OS: boards with status columns, automation recipes, dashboards and templates for marketing, CRM and development teams. Smartsheet keeps the spreadsheet as its core object and adds Gantt, dashboards, forms and enterprise governance. Both track projects; the difference is who sets them up. monday.com is built for teams that configure boards themselves and want an automation-heavy workflow; Smartsheet is built for planners and PMOs who need formulas, cross-sheet references and control over large portfolios.
Monday.com is the pick when
- visual boards and automations set up by the team, not IT
- marketing, sales pipeline and ops on one platform
- onboarding speed and a friendly interface matter
Smartsheet is the pick when
- formulas, cell linking and spreadsheet logic inside the plan
- portfolio-level reporting and resource management
- enterprise admin and governance across many workspaces
Written by hand from both vendors’ own documentation, checked 2026-09-15. Sources: monday.com, Smartsheet. Prices below come from the pricing we track. How we score tools.
What Monday.com is
What Monday.com isMonday.com is a 'Work OS' that turns business processes into a visual feast. Its colorful and intuitive boards make it pleasant for teams of all sizes to track their projects. Monday's success lies in simplifying complex database logic so that 'anyone can use it.' With drag-and-drop automations and 'Workdocs,' it unites marketing, sales, dev, and HR departments under one common visual language.
What Smartsheet is
What Smartsheet isSmartsheet manages work in a spreadsheet-like grid with automations, dependencies and reporting layered on. The grid is deliberate: teams that already run projects in spreadsheets can move across without learning a new mental model, then gain Gantt views, approval workflows and cross-sheet reporting they could not build in a spreadsheet. It suits operational and portfolio work more than software development, where board-based tools fit the rhythm better.
Side by side
| Monday.com | Smartsheet | |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Project Management | Project Management |
| How to start | $9/user/moverified | $9/user/moverified |
| Public API | Yes | Yes |
| Mobile app | Yes | Yes |
| Open source / self-hostable | No | No |
| SSO (SAML) | Yes | Yes |
| Visit | Monday.com ↗ | Smartsheet ↗ |
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What Monday.com is built to do
- Visual Boards
- Track tasks based on status, person, and date through colorful tables.
- Dashboards
- Visualize data from multiple projects in one single management panel.
- Monday Workdocs
- Collaborate on smart documents that talk live with your project boards.
- Sales CRM
- Manage your leads and sales processes within the same interface as your projects.
What Smartsheet is built to do
- Grid, Gantt and card views
- The same data shown as a sheet, a timeline or a board without duplicating it.
- Cross-sheet reporting
- Roll many project sheets into one portfolio view for reporting upward.
- Automated workflows
- Approval chains, reminders and status updates triggered by field changes.
- Forms
- Collect structured requests from people who never open the sheet itself.
Choose Monday.com if
- Teams that want boards, automations and dashboards without building them from scratch
- Two-person setups: the free plan covers 2 seats and 3 boards
- Committing annually — the vendor lists an 18% saving over month-to-month
Skip Monday.com if
- You are three people on the free plan — it stops at 2 seats and 3 boards
- You want to buy exactly the seats you use: paid plans start at a 3-seat minimum
- You need a firm USD figure; the price is set by your billing country and shown in local currency
Choose Smartsheet if
- Teams that think in spreadsheets but need automation, forms and dashboards on top
- Small groups: Pro starts at $9/member/month billed annually
- Trying it fully first — 30 days with no card
Skip Smartsheet if
- You need unlimited automations or timeline view; those start at Business, $19/member/month annual
- You want a free tier; Smartsheet has none, only a trial
- You are an existing customer hoping to move to Pro — the vendor lists Pro as available to new customers only
Evidence and freshness
Where a claim on this page comes from a vendor page, it is linked here.
Monday.com: pros & cons
- Best Visual Experience: The most understandable UI due to its color-coding and design.
- Ease of Use: Even non-technical teams can adapt to it in under 10 minutes.
- Ready Templates: Hundreds of industry-specific solutions for HR, construction, and more.
- Strong Automations: Setting up 'notify X when date arrives' logic is incredibly simple.
- User Minimums: Certain plans require a minimum purchase of 3 users.
- Cost: Moving to higher tiers for advanced features and automation limits is expensive.
- Depth: Does not offer the same 'change everything' flexibility as ClickUp.
Smartsheet: pros & cons
- Familiar to anyone comfortable in spreadsheets
- Handles dependencies and resource views
- Strong automation and forms
- Interface is dense
- Per-user pricing with feature gates
- Spreadsheet metaphor breaks on complex work
Our verdict on Monday.com
The most pleasant and fastest-to-adopt project management tool on the market.
Our verdict on Smartsheet
The easiest migration path off spreadsheets. Teams that never liked spreadsheets will not like this either.
Published plans, side by side
Every figure below was read from the vendor's own pricing page and is shown with the sentence it came from. Where a vendor publishes no plan prices, we say so rather than guess.
Monday.com
No published plan prices verified. Monday.com either quotes on request or renders its prices in a way we could not read from the pricing page.
Smartsheet
- Pro$9/user/mo billed annually
Pro from $9 per member/month billed annually
- Business$19/user/mo billed annually
Business from $19 per member/month billed annually
Monday.com vs Smartsheet: common questions
- Is Monday.com cheaper than Smartsheet?
- They start at the same price: $9/user/mo each. Both figures come from the vendors' own pricing pages.
- Does Monday.com or Smartsheet have a free plan?
- Monday.com has no free plan listed, while Smartsheet has no free plan listed.
- What is the difference between Monday.com and Smartsheet?
- On the criteria we check, on what we checked they match — both offer public api, mobile app and sso (saml). The table above lists every criterion side by side.