monday.com vs Smartsheet

monday.com

The most visual of the big work platforms, and the easiest to get a non-technical team onto. The AI layer is broad — agents, notetaker, triage, workflow builder — but metered by credits, which makes it hard to predict what heavy use costs. Splitting CRM, service and dev into separately priced products means the real bill is usually higher than the headline seat price.

Pros

• +Boards, automations, forms, docs and dashboards without writing code
• +Four product lines share one platform: work management, CRM, service, dev
• +AI notetaker, ticket triage, workflow builder and agent workforce built in
• +Public company with a long track record, founded 2012 and listed

Cons

• −Free plan is capped at two seats, effectively a trial
• −AI features consume a separate credit pool on top of seat cost
• −CRM and Service lines are priced well above the work-management tiers
• −Pricing is billing-country dependent, so quoted currency and figures shift by region

Smartsheet

The choice for teams whose planning already lives in spreadsheets and who need governance on top — portfolio rollups, approvals, resource views. The AI features are competent additions to that, not a reason to switch. Per-member pricing plus free contributors works well for small core teams with many occasional participants, and badly the other way round.

Pros

• +Grid interface that project managers can adopt without retraining
• +Unlimited free contributors on every plan, with free guests added from Business up
• +Conversational AI features built into the sheets on all paid plans
• +Connections to external AI tools such as Claude, Gemini and Copilot on Business and above

Cons

• −No free plan; entry is $9 per member/month on annual commitment
• −Pro caps at 10 members and is restricted to new customers
• −Advanced Work Management and Enterprise are quote-only, so real cost is opaque
• −The pricing page renders prices by locale, which makes comparison shopping awkward

Is monday.com cheaper than Smartsheet?

Both publish the same entry price, $9/seat/mo. The difference is what each plan includes, which the fact table above sets side by side.

Does monday.com or Smartsheet have a free tier?

monday.com has a free tier; Smartsheet has paid plans only.

Which has a public API, monday.com or Smartsheet?

Both ship a public API, so either can be built on; the fact table above shows the platforms each one runs on.