In our evaluation of Smartsheet vs monday.com, we found that monday.com is the overall winner, better suited for budget-conscious businesses new to project management solutions and those that need robust third-party integrations. Meanwhile, Smartsheet is ideal for teams who prefer spreadsheets to oversee project tasks and collaborate. In summary, the best use cases for Smartsheet vs. monday.com are as follows: monday.com: Better for intuitive project tracking Smartsheet: Better for spreadsheet-style project management If your project requires close coordination with team members, choose a tool that features instant collaboration tools, like chat and screen recording. For this, we recommend: ClickUp: Best for real-time team collaboration Smartsheet vs monday.com Compared Price (per User, per Month) $9* $10** Free Trial 30 days 14 days Project Views Milestone Tracking ✓ ✓ Task Dependencies ✓ ✓ File Storage Unlimited 1,000GB Uptime Guarantee 99.9% 99.9% Workflow Automation Unlimited 250,000 actions Customer Support For More Information *Pay only $7 per user, per month when you choose annual billing. **Pricing is based on a minimum of three team members. Save 18% with annual billing. Best Alternatives While Smartsheet is an excellent project management solution, some may find the spreadsheet format intimidating. At the same time, monday.com may be too limiting for niche projects, like software development. If you weren’t able to pick an option from the head-to-head comparison between Smartsheet vs monday.com, consider a few monday.com and Smartsheet alternatives, including: ClickUp: This project management solution offers multiple project views, which may be more familiar to non-tech-savvy users. Some of the display formats include list, board, table, and timeline. On top of this, the platform offers collaboration tools, like real-time chat and whiteboards. ClickUp’s base-level plan costs $10 per user, per month. Jira: This is the ideal software for companies working on app development projects, as it features specific tools for Agile project management. These include sprint planning, scrum boards, story points, and version management. Subscribe to Jira for $8.15 per user, monthly. Wrike: This is the best platform for organizations wanting to streamline project management through artificial intelligence (AI). It automatically recommends tasks based on the team’s priorities and offers insights about project risks, allowing companies to take appropriate action swiftly. Wrike’s monthly subscription starts at $9.80 per user. If you want to explore more software options, read our extensive guide on project management for small businesses. It outlines the top platforms and their respective best use cases. Best for Pricing: monday.com Pricing is based on monthly billing for a minimum of three seats. Save 18% with annual billing. Pricing is based on monthly billing. Pay only $7 and $25 per user for the Pro and Business plans. respectively, when you choose annual billing. When comparing Smartsheet vs monday.com’s subscription costs, Smartsheet has a slightly more affordable monthly entry-level plan, priced at $9 per user. monday.com’s base-level package costs $10 per user on a monthly basis. However, when you look at the rest of the providers’ subscription plans, monday.com offers more accessible pricing points. Smartsheet goes from a $9 per user entry-level plan to a $32 per user second-tier package, a huge difference that may alienate some budget-conscious businesses needing an upgrade in features. Meanwhile, monday.com offers more flexibility since it starts at $10 per user, moves up to a Standard plan that costs $12 per user, per month, and a Pro package priced at $20 per user, monthly. As monday.com offers more plan options with affordable fees, it wins in the pricing round. However, if you’re looking for a free project management solution, Smartsheet is a better option than monday.com since it features automation and more project views. Access up to 100 automation actions monthly and monitor activities through Gantt, grid, card, and calendar display formats. monday.com’s automation offering starts at the second-tier plan. Moreover, its free version has the Kanban view only. Learn more about monday.com’s subscription plans in our comprehensive monday.com review. The article discusses which businesses benefit most from the platform. Best for Project Views: Smartsheet To assess which project management tool allows users to oversee tasks and activities better, we compared monday vs Smartsheet’s project views. In our evaluation, Smartsheet offers an excellent display format, primarily because of the Dynamic view. The Dynamic view allows users to customize project views for different stakeholders. It operates on granular sharing, allowing businesses to control access to data on a per-user or per-team level. With Dynamic View, you’ll enable partners or vendors to access specific data relevant to them (e.g., a certain row in the sheet) and keep the rest of the information confidential and untouched. This excellent flexibility promotes better collaboration among project stakeholders. On the other hand, monday.com features good project views, like the files and blank views. The files view displays all the documents or images uploaded to the board, while the blank view allows users to see different display formats for a project in one page. Both Smartsheet and monday.com share the following project views: table, card, Kanban, Gantt, calendar, timeline, chart, workload, and forms. Best for Activity Tracking: monday.com For monitoring changes made in the workspace, monday.com is a better option than Smartsheet as the platform offers activity logs in all its subscription packages. The free version and the base-level plans show records within one week. The second-tier paid package displays data up to six months, while the third-tier plan lets users access information up to a year. The highest-tier plan has a maximum of five years of activity log. In contrast, Smartsheet doesn’t offer activity logs in its free and base-level packages. Moreover, the supported duration of data isn’t clear. However, the report in its activity log displays the last seven days of events by default. When you export the logs, each download is restricted to 90 days of sheet activity data. Best for Team Collaboration: Smartsheet To settle the debate on monday vs Smartsheet team collaboration features, we looked at the range of capabilities each provider offers. In our evaluation, Smartsheet emerged as the clear winner for having valuable tools for different areas of team productivity, from coordination and digital asset proofing to file management and curated dashboards and reports. Its document builder automatically generates documents using the data entered in the sheets. With this, your team won’t have to fill out individual PDF forms manually. By clicking the necessary information on your sheets, the document will be automatically generated and ready to be sent out to signatories. As relevant parties view and sign the document, the rows in your sheets are automatically updated on the task status. Smartsheet’s WorkApps enables users to gather sheets, forms, dashboards, and reports in one powerful app customized for a particular team’s needs. The Brandfolder, on the other hand, lets you search digital assets, add them to a sheet, and annotate them. On top of these, Smartsheet helps teams coordinate with each other through conversations (leaving comments on the sheets), image and video proofing, and shareable calendars. monday.com has valuable collaboration tools too. The whiteboard is the one feature that is unique to Smartsheet. This lets users illustrate ideas on an empty canvas using text, pictures, shapes, and colors. Best for Workflow Automation: Smartsheet Smartsheet is superior to monday.com on workflow automation, as it offers unlimited automations. Like most intuitive project management solutions, the system has an easy-to-use, trigger-condition-action platform for building custom automations. A time-based trigger involves specifying a date, time, and frequency of the desired automated process. A change-based trigger is set off when a new row is added or updated. Alternatively, you may use the prebuilt automation recipes on Smartsheet to get started quickly. The best thing about the provider’s automations is it provides 100 credits in the free plan. In contrast, monday.com allows only up to 250,000 automation actions each month. Moreover, its free and base-level subscription plans don’t include automations. You must upgrade to the second-tier plan to unlock 250 credits. However, similar to Smartsheet, monday.com features prebuilt automations to help businesses set up automated processes easily. Best for Third-party Integrations: monday.com When you compare monday.com vs Smartsheet third-party integrations, monday.com is slightly a step ahead primarily because it connects with more apps than Smartsheet. These integrations include popular productivity and collaboration tools, such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, Dropbox, Google Drive, Miro, and Zoom. Similarly, monday.com seamlessly works with other project management solutions, allowing you to get real-time updates on tasks tracked elsewhere. These integrations include Trello, Asana, and Jira. monday.com’s two-way sync allows data on connected platforms to be updated whenever changes are made on either tool. While monday.com integrates with 200-plus platforms, Smartsheet only works with over a hundred. However, if you’re settling for a free project management solution, Smartsheet is the better option than monday.com because it offers integrations without upgrading to the paid plans. Best for User-friendliness: monday.com In the user-friendliness battle between Smartsheet vs monday.com, monday.com is far easier to navigate as it offers a cleaner, more familiar interface. It allows users to customize column labels and board item colors to easily refer to data. Setting up project trackers, regardless of the desired project view, is simple, given the hundreds of project templates available. Meanwhile, Smartsheet is somewhat user-friendly, especially for those who have already been using spreadsheets to manage projects and monitor tasks and activities. Those who are not fond of the sheet format may experience a steep learning curve navigating the platform. However, the prebuilt project templates help users get started. How We Evaluated Smartsheet vs monday.com To come up with an objective comparison between the project management tools, we considered the priorities businesses take into account when choosing software solutions. Our evaluation criteria include subscription costs, project monitoring features, ease of use, and value for money. Here’s a complete breakdown of these factors: Pricing: To weigh how accessible the providers’ pricing points are, we looked at their respective entry-level subscription plan fees. We checked if they offer discounts for annual billing and bulk users. The duration of the free trial was likewise a consideration. General features: The general features we evaluated were milestone tracking, task dependencies, and project views. We assessed each provider’s range of third-party integrations and service level agreement uptime availability. Ease of use: We determined ease of use by evaluating how simple the setup and navigation of the platform are. We checked if the interface is intuitive and that those new to project management solutions are able to use it even without formal training. Expert score: This includes standout features and value for money. We studied the reviews on third-party websites to gauge the popularity of the platforms among business circles. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) Yes. Although Smartsheet and monday.com have free plans, some businesses explore alternative solutions with robust features. Wrike is a great option, as it features an unlimited number of users and a generous storage space (2GB per account). Create tasks and view them in table and Kanban views. The best part about the platform is its AI features, including smart search, AI-recommended tasks, smart replies, and quick reactions. No, Smartsheet doesn’t natively integrate with monday.com. But you may use an automation app like Zapier or Integrately to connect the two platforms. Google doesn’t have a project management solution like Smartsheet. However, Google Sheets is the platform closest to Smartsheet’s functionality. It features rows, columns, and cells where data is entered. Users may customize the colors of sheet elements to quickly refer to specific information. Bottom Line Smartsheet and monday.com are project management tools for different business needs. But monday.com is the overall winner for winning more rounds than Smartsheet—ideal for the majority of users, especially those who don’t have prior experience using project management solutions, as it features a more intuitive interface. Choose monday.com if you prioritize affordable subscription plans, an excellent system for tracking activities, and an extensive set of third-party integrations. On the other hand, Smartsheet is better for users already familiar with the spreadsheet-style of overseeing tasks and activities. It should be your platform of choice if you want customized project views, unlimited workflow automations, and robust team collaboration tools. Sign up for the project management solutions’ free trials to know which fits your business needs best.
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