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When it comes to project management solutions, monday.com and ClickUp are two of the best around. But while both offer a slick user experience and an abundance of useful features — our research suggests monday.com‘s offering is slightly more competitive.
monday's slick, intuitive interface and easy setup process make it ideal for businesses of any size. If it's value for money you're looking for, however, ClickUp might be your best bet. ClickUp offers feature-rich plans at affordable price points, perfect for businesses looking to shave down costs. Plus, ClickUp is even more affordable with Tech.co's exclusive discount code– input TECHCO20 at checkout for 20% off the first year of your subscription.
With the contenders essentially standing neck and neck, the best solution will largely depend on the unique needs of your business. To help you choose wisely, this guide pits the project management tools head-to-head, giving a particular focus to their value, usability, and the quality of their business and security features.
Price All prices listed are per user, per month (billed annually) | User Limit | Project Limit | Pros | Support | Verdict | ||
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A great task management system due to strong customizablity and support team, with a generous Free Trial period. | Slick, simple software with a powerful core, plus a genuinely usable free tier for individuals, and great value plans for teams. |
monday vs ClickUp: Head to Head
If you've been browsing the web for project management tools, you've probably seen the names monday and ClickUp crop up a lot — and for good reason. In terms of unique business features and usability, both solutions are second to none.
One of the best things about both of these offerings is that they can be used by anyone – thanks to their flexible pricing structure, intuitive software, and a broad range of features. That being said, for smaller businesses or sole traders on a budget, ClickUp may be more appropriate. This is because ClickUp's software is more affordable than monday.com's, and they don't require a user minimum.
But ClickUp and monday's price point isn't their only distinguishing feature. Below we discuss some other key differences between the two.
What sets them apart?
- Design — Both applications are designed well. However, in comparison to monday's smooth interface, ClickUp's might feel a little crowded and overwhelming, especially for new users.
- Customer support — ClickUp offers amazing round-the-clock support, both via email and a real-time chat function. In comparison, monday's customer support options are basic at best.
- Smart speaker compatibility — If you're looking to link your project management software to smart speakers like Amazon Echo and Google Nest, you'll have to go for ClickUp, not monday.
- Instant messaging — ClickUp's chat channel lets teams message in real-time, making remote collaboration easier. monday lacks this chat feature, but does let teams collaborate instantly through their ‘Interactive Whiteboard' tool.
- Project view — ClickUp's software allows users to view their projects schedule simply using Gantt charts, however with monday.com this feature is only available with more premium plans.
monday.com Highlights
monday.com is a cloud-based platform that allows users to manage projects and teams in the most streamlined way possible. Developed in 2010 as an internal tool for Wix, the product now serves over 100,000 businesses worldwide — and its use is growing day by day.
monday's project management software makes delivering projects simple, whether you're spearheading a global operation or running something a little more modest. However, the solution can help you to do far more than just manage projects, with the operating system also offering sophisticated pipeline management, marketing, product roadmap, video production, and recruitment tools.

Due to the simple and visually engaging design of its platform, minimal training is required for staff members. This makes monday.com more suitable for teams that are new to project management software compared to ClickUp, which offers slightly less user-friendly software.

Pros
- Highly customizable platform
- Custom fields feature available on all plans (including the free plan)
- Rule-based automation can be used to complete simple tasks, like archiving items
Cons
- Free plan has a 2-person limit
- Limited third-party integrations
- Higher tiers are required for basic features
ClickUp Highlights
ClickUp is a cloud-based collaboration tool that's been serving teams since 2016. Unlike monday.com, which prioritizes transparency over everything else, ClickUp's focus is on productivity. To help users be as productive as possible, the product combines a raft of useful features on one centralized platform, including spreadsheets, to-do lists, notepads, and time trackers.

Similar to monday.com, ClickUp is cloud based, meaning that users can access the application anywhere with an internet connection. ClickUp's cloud compatibility also means that companies don't need to host their data locally, saving them money and resources.
ClickUp also lets users view their project progression in multiple different ways, offering them a flexible and dynamic perspective on their work. From Gantt to Mindmap and everything in between, the product actually boasts over 15 customizable project views. That's more than any other software of its kind.

ClickUp is project management software that combines simple project updates and status alerts with quite sophisticated cross-team collaboration and task-tracking functions. Its cloud-based software can neatly suit small, growing or large businesses – there's even a great free tier you can try, and paid plans are exceptional value.
Best Value Winner: ClickUp
monday.com and ClickUp are both affordable project management tools. But when the two are put head to head, ClickUp is easily better value for money.
In terms of available features and user limits, ClickUp's free tier is second to none. Retailing at $5 per user, per month, ClickUp's cheapest plan is more affordable than monday's, which is available at $8 per user, per month. Not only is the plan cheaper, but it also offers a much more generous project and user limit, and a greater range of useful project management features. For businesses looking to up their productivity on a budget, ClickUp's free and basic plan can be a real lifesaver.
However, while ClickUp's offering is more affordable overall, this isn't to say monday's solution isn't great value for money. monday's Standard and Pro plan are comparatively less than ClickUp's Unlimited, Business, and Business Plus packages. They also offer more options for customization and advanced automation features, as well as a cleaner interface than most of their competitors.
All things considered, we still think ClickUp wins on overall value. But with monday's offering being extremely compelling, it's no surprise that its price tag slightly exceeds that of ClickUp's. Moreover, the price of both solutions increase if users choose to pay monthly. Therefore, if you're serious about getting the best deal possible for your business, we would recommend paying for the plans on an annual basis.
monday.com Pricing Plans
Currently, monday.com offers four basic plans. Read on to learn more about them, or see our full monday.com pricing and features guide for an even more detailed overview.
Price (annually) The amount you'll pay per month, when billed annually | ||||
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Individual | Basic | Standard | Pro | Enterprise |
Individual Plan
monday's only free plan is available for up to two users. The limited plan offers limited customer support and no automation or integrations. However, those on the plan can benefit from 500GB storage and unlimited boards.
Basic Plan
monday's stripped-back plan currently retails at $9 per user, per month, when charged annually. This plan can be used by an unlimited amount of users to carry out an unlimited number of projects. 24/7 support is also offered alongside a storage limit of up to 5GB per user.
Standard Plan
This plan includes everything featured in the basic plan, with an additional 20GB of storage, guest access, and a 250 action per month limit on integrations and automation. monday's Standard Plan is available for $12 per user, per month, when charged annually.
Pro Plan
monday's Pro Plan contains everything in the Standard Plan, alongside time tracking tools, flexible chart views, and a 25,000 automation and integration limit. This plan also lets users create dashboards that combine up to 10 boards. It's available for $20 per user, per month, when charged annually.
Enterprise Plan
monday's most comprehensive plan is designed for big and growing businesses. It offers custom onboarding, premium support, advanced analytic and reporting tools, and scalable automations and integrations. Prices for this plan are available on request.
ClickUp Pricing Plans
ClickUp's pricing structure consists of five basic plans and five different price points. We break them down below:
Price (annually) The amount you'll pay per month, when billed annually | Price (monthly) The amount you'll pay per month, when paying on a rolling monthly basis with no 12-month commitment | Users | Projects/Boards | Storage | Number of automations | ||
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TRY FOR FREE | BEST FOR SMALL TEAMS | ||||||
ClickUp Unlimited | ClickUp Business | Business Plus | ClickUp Enterprise | ||||
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Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | |||
5 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | |||
100MB | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | |||
100 automations/month | 1,000 automations/month | 10,000 automations/month | 25,000 automations per month | 100,000 automations per month |
ClickUp Free Forever
ClickUp's Free Forever plan offers 24/7 support, up to 100MB of storage, and lots of useful features including collaborative docs, whiteboards, time tracking, real-time chat, and in-app recording.
ClickUp Unlimited
As the name suggests, ClickUp's most basic paid plan offers unlimited storage, integrations, and dashboards — and is available to an uncapped amount of users. ClickUp Unlimited can be secured for $5 per user, per month, when charged annually.
ClickUp Business
Clickup Business contains everything in the Unlimited plan, alongside advanced time tracking, workload management, public sharing, and goal-finding tools. The plan is available for $12 per user, per month, when charged annually.
ClickUp Business Plus
If you're looking for a more advanced version of ClickUp Business, ClickUp's Business Plus plan offers additional admin tracking, team sharing, and subtask tools. This plan is slightly more costly at $19 per user, per month, when charged annually.
ClickUp Enterprise
ClickUp Enterprise is the provider's most generous plan. It features everything in ClickUp's Business Plus plan, in addition to access to managed services, white labeling functions, unlimited custom roles, and default personal views. Prices for ClickUp Enterprise are available on request.
monday vs ClickUp: which has the best free plan?
Not every business will have a budget for project management tools. If you're looking to manage projects with a complimentary plan, we would recommend using ClickUp's free service.
ClickUp Free Forever is an excellent package for sole traders or small teams looking for feature-rich project management software. It's available to an unlimited number of users, tends to unlimited tasks, and offers a suite of useful tools from a real-time chat function and whiteboard tools to in-app recording. Compared to monday's free plan, which only caters to two users, ClickUp's is a clear winner. In fact, we think ClickUp Free Forever is probably the best complimentary package on the market.
While ClickUp's free tier is one of the best around, free plans always have limitations. Therefore, for larger teams or those handling complicated projects, paid models will be much more suitable.
Best for Business Features: monday.com
When it comes to picking the top project management software, business features play a major role. Pick a solution with a variety of handy tools, and you'll be able to manage tasks and teams with ease. Opt for a less feature-rich package, and its use will be much more limited.
Both ClickUp and monday offer incredibly versatile software, with a plethora of useful features. This makes picking between the two extremely difficult. But while ClickUp offers a greater number of business features, our research suggests that monday's tool kit is slightly more advanced. Below we explain why we came to this decision, by summarizing the main functions of each app and putting individual features head to head.
monday features:
- Intuitive interface
- Interactive whiteboard
- Individual and team workload management
- Gantt project view (for Standard tier and above)
- Real-time reporting
- Knowledge base
- Sub-task management
ClickUp features:
- Customizable dashboard
- Process management
- Real-time chat function
- Color-coded calendar view
- 24/7 support
- 15+ project views
- Milestone tracking
- Custom automations
monday vs ClickUp: time tracking
Both monday and ClickUp offer useful time tracking tools, but ClickUp's go above and beyond. monday's ‘Calendar' feature lets you view your upcoming tasks for the week, and the solution is also fully compatible with Google Calendars. ClickUp's software, on the other hand, syncs up to Google, Outlook, and Apple Mail, and lets you add time estimates, start and due dates, and even allows you to time tasks and record them to your calendar with its ‘Pomodoro Timer' integration.
monday vs ClickUp: task management
monday is a cut above when it comes to task management. Businesses using the software can use its ‘items' feature to add tasks to project boards, color code them based on their level of completion, and even accompany them with other items like locations and time trackers. This isn't to say ClickUp is a poor option for task management. The tool lets you assign and organize tasks easily, and even prioritize them based on their importance.
monday vs ClickUp: project view
Both monday.com and ClickUp let users use both the Gantt chart and kaban board view to visualize their workflows. However, ClickUp limits the amount of time the Gantt feature can be used depending on the chosen pricing plan. Therefore, unless you're paying for a premium package, monday's software will offer more versatile project views.
monday vs ClickUp: communication tools
When it comes to team collaboration, ClickUp is in a league of its own. The platform offers real-time chat channels, live-editing features, and a unique ‘Pulse' mode that lets you see which members of your team are online, as well as what they're working on. While monday.com's communication features aren't as robust, its handy ‘Online Whiteboard' does let users interact and collaborate in real time.
monday vs ClickUp: data visualization
If tracking your project's progression visually is important to you, monday will be a safer bet. Its interactive ‘Stacked Bar' feature lets users compare categories of data side by side. This tool also lets you add benchmark and cumulative data, making it easy to track progression over time. ClickUp's ‘Dashboard' feature also uses a variety of techniques to display your metrics. However, the tool isn't as robust as monday's and its use is limited on certain price plans.
Best for Security: monday.com
When delivering projects, security should be a top concern. If the solutions you are using aren't completely secure, your company's private information could be put at risk. Therefore, when settling on a project management software, it's important to pick tools with advanced security and privacy features.
monday.com and ClickUp both take security seriously. Both providers offer server-side encryption, two-factor authentication, advanced permissions, and single sign-on (SSL), among a range of other data-protection features to their ‘Business' and ‘Enterprise' users. However, with monday.com encrypting and backing up data every hour, we believe it goes the extra mile. Don't let this put you off ClickUp's software though, your data will be in safe hands with whichever solution you decide to move forwards with.
Best for Ease of Use: monday.com
Planning and managing a project is hard enough. The last thing teams need to do is complicate things further with inaccessible and complex software. Luckily, both monday.com and ClickUp are simple to use, even for those new to the tools. However, while both options offer intuitive design and a strong user experience, our research suggests that monday's product is a little more straightforward to use.
Compared to ClickUp's somewhat cluttered interface, monday boasts a much more minimal design. This makes the platform much simpler and easier to navigate, especially for project management software newbies. Users are also able to set up boards and automize key processes within a couple of clicks. In contrast to ClickUp and its slightly lengthier setup process, monday is the perfect solution for businesses looking to hit the ground running.
While monday is renowned for its slick design and fuss-free setup, ClickUp doesn't fall too far behind. The platform is extremely customizable and offers lots of user-friendly features, particularly when it comes to task and resource management. And for those struggling to get to grips with the software, ClickUp also offers free training and 24/7 support so no user will remain confused for long.
Price All prices listed are per user, per month (billed annually) | Free Version | User Limit | Pros | Cons | Verdict | |||
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BEST FOR SPREADSHEET USERS | BEST VALUE ALTERNATIVE | |||||||
monday.com | ClickUp | Smartsheet | Wrike | Jira | Scoro | Asana | Zoho Projects | Trello |
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A great task management system due to strong customizablity and support team, with a generous Free Trial period. | Slick, simple software with a powerful core, plus a genuinely usable free tier for individuals, and great value plans for teams. | A great tool for spreadsheet-natives, which can take your Excel-based task planning to the next level, and there's a free trial, too. | A feature-rich service with a plain interface that's easy to learn, and has a free tier option to try. | All-around great software, thanks to ease of use and a scalable pricing scheme. | Scoro's clean interface allows for easy use of its dedicated financial tools and full CRM features, automatically collating all essential information | A simple task-list-based project management platform with an acceptable free tier. | A solid project management solution with an attractive free tier for small teams, as well as great automations that can help speed up workflows | A fairly-priced, stripped-down option best for small teams. |
Verdict — Should You Use monday or ClickUp?
There's a reason these providers are industry titans. Both products are highly versatile, customizable, secure, and easy to use — even for beginners. Yet monday.com's incredibly simple interface and custom automation feature truly set it apart from its competitors. Its affordable pricing structure and sophisticated tool kit also make it a great option for most types of businesses.
This being said, ClickUp does offer a broader range of business features and trumps monday when it comes to collaboration and timekeeping. It also retails at a lower price point and offers a more generous plan. This makes the software ideal for smaller businesses looking for an all-in-one solution.
That means when it comes to picking a winner, it really does depend on your business' unique needs. If you're ready to move forward with either monday.com or ClickUp, follow the links below and receive money off the products today.