The Best monday.com Alternatives in 2026: Prices and Features Compared
The Coavon team · · 13 min read
The best monday.com alternative for most teams is Coavon. monday.com gives you boards to build your own system on, then sells its CRM as a separate product and keeps the calendar view, timeline and automations for its Standard plan. Coavon comes ready to use: Flow for projects, Scope for clients (a real CRM), Docs for documents, Drive for files, Chat, Notes and Calendar, on one account and one price, from $8 a person a month. Time tracking, approvals and a calendar view are on every plan.
Below we look at why teams move away from monday.com, then go through seven alternatives (Coavon, Asana, ClickUp, Wrike, Trello, Notion and Basecamp) with what each one includes and costs, and we are upfront about what Coavon does not do yet.
Every price and plan detail for other companies on this page was read from their own pricing pages on October 19, 2026. Prices are per person a month, billed annually, in US dollars, unless we say otherwise. They change often, so check before you buy.
Why teams look for a monday.com alternative
- Paid plans start at 3 seats. monday.com's pricing page says its plans start from 3 users, so a team of two still pays for three.
- The basics sit on Standard. On Basic ($9 a seat), there is no calendar view, timeline or Gantt chart, automations, integrations or guest access. Those start on Standard, at $12 a seat. Time tracking, private boards and task dependencies start on Pro, at $19.
- Automations are counted. Standard includes 250 automation actions a month and Pro 25,000.
- The CRM is a second product. monday CRM has its own plans, from $12 a seat a month billed annually ($18 month to month), on top of what you pay for boards.
- AI runs on credits. Each paid plan includes a monthly allowance of AI credits (1,000 on Basic, 2,000 on Standard, 3,000 on Pro), and more can be bought.
- Paying monthly costs more. Month to month, Basic is $12 a seat, Standard $14 and Pro $24.
monday.com alternatives at a glance
| Tool | Lowest paid plan | Main strength |
|---|---|---|
| Coavon | $8 a person (Starter) | Projects, a CRM, documents, files and chat on one account |
| Asana | $10.99 a person (Starter) | Project tracking, with goals and portfolios on Advanced |
| ClickUp | $7 a person (Unlimited) | One app with tasks, docs and chat |
| Wrike | $10 a person (Team, 2 to 15 people) | Detailed planning for larger teams |
| Trello | $5 a person (Standard) | Simple boards |
| Notion | $10 a member (Plus) | Pages, wikis and databases |
| Basecamp | $25 a month flat (Freelancer) | A fixed price with no per-person fees |
1. Coavon: the best monday.com alternative
Coavon is a suite of connected apps under one sign-in. Flow is the project app that replaces monday.com's boards; Scope, Docs, Drive, Chat, Notes and Calendar sit beside it. Every plan includes every app, the Free plan included, and each one opens ready to use, with nothing to design first.
A CRM included, not sold separately
Scope keeps your companies, people and deals, moves them through pipelines and has its own automations and forms. A won deal can start its project in Flow from your own template, and a client's record links to its projects, tasks and files. With monday.com, the same job means buying monday CRM as well.
Project management in Flow
- Board, list and calendar views on every plan, and a Gantt chart with task dependencies on Pro.
- Subtasks and milestones. A subtask is a real task with its own assignee, dates and comments, and a milestone marks a key date in a project.
- Approvals with a separate approver, on every plan. The task cannot be marked done until it is approved or rejected, and the approver can be a guest, such as a client.
- Free guests for clients and freelancers: unlimited on every paid plan, and two on Free. A guest sees only the projects they are invited to.
- Time tracking on every plan, with a timer or time entered on the task itself. monday.com starts it on Pro.
- Forms whose responses become tasks: 1 form and 20 responses a month on Free and Starter, unlimited from Pro.
- Recurring tasks and automations. Repeat a task every few days, weeks or months, and set rules such as "when a task moves to Review, assign it to the editor". Automations in Flow and Scope run as often as you need: plans limit how many rules you have, never how often they run.
- Custom statuses and custom fields on Pro.
Status updates, goals and portfolios
On Pro and above, each project can post a status update (On track, At risk or Off track, with a note), and Flow can remind someone each week to post one. On Business, goals follow how projects move the organization forward and portfolios group projects to show their status, progress and dates together. monday.com lists portfolio management on Enterprise.
Documents, files and chat in the same place
Docs is a document editor with pages, comments, suggested edits and Word or PDF download. Drive holds your files, with 30 GB a person on Starter, pooled across the team. Chat has channels, group chats and direct messages. All three are part of the same account, one click from the task they belong to.
Works with Claude and other AI tools
The Coavon connector lets Claude and other AI assistants read and update your work across the apps: tasks, clients, notes, documents and your calendar. It is listed in Claude's connector directory and included from Starter, with no credits to count and no per-request charge.
Price
Starter is $8 a person a month billed annually ($10 month to month), Pro is $16 and Business is $24, with no seat minimum. monday.com Basic is $9 a seat for at least 3 seats, and Standard, the first plan with a calendar view, timeline and automations, is $12, with the CRM extra. Coavon is free for one person, and every new workspace starts with a free trial. See pricing.
What Coavon does not do yet
We would rather you hear it from us. Coavon runs in a web browser and has no phone apps yet; monday.com has iPhone and Android apps on every plan. Coavon does not connect to Slack or Microsoft Teams (it has its own Chat instead), has no single sign-on through an identity provider, and cannot turn an email into a task. Flow has no workload view or whiteboards, and a task belongs to one project at a time. monday.com also lets you build boards from many column types, if designing your own system is what you want. If any of these is essential to your team today, factor it in.
2. Asana
Asana is a work management tool for planning and tracking projects.
- List, board and calendar views on every plan, with timeline and Gantt views from Starter.
- Forms, reporting dashboards, custom fields and unlimited automations from Starter.
- Unlimited free guests from Starter, and status updates on every plan.
- Portfolios, goals, resource management, approvals and built-in time tracking on Advanced.
- More than 100 integrations on the free plan.
- Price: Personal is free for up to 2 people; Starter $10.99 and Advanced $24.99 a person a month billed annually ($13.49 and $30.49 month to month). AI requests are charged separately, at $0.50 each prepaid.
Compare in detail: Coavon vs Asana, or read our Asana alternatives guide.
3. ClickUp
ClickUp is an all-in-one work app that puts tasks, docs, chat and many optional features in one place.
- Kanban boards, calendar view and docs on Free Forever, with unlimited Gantt charts from Unlimited.
- Native time tracking, goals and portfolio management, and ClickUp Chat from Unlimited.
- Forms: one on Free Forever, unlimited from Unlimited.
- 5,000 automations a month on Business.
- Mind mapping and private whiteboards on Business.
- Price: Free Forever with 60 MB of storage; Unlimited $7 and Business $12 a person a month billed yearly ($10 and $19 month to month). AI is sold separately: Brain AI $9 and Everything AI $28 a person a month.
Compare in detail: Coavon vs ClickUp, or read our ClickUp alternatives guide.
4. Wrike
Wrike is a project management tool built for larger teams and detailed planning.
- Board and table views on Free, with interactive Gantt charts and shareable dashboards from Team.
- Templates and standard integrations on Business.
- Advanced resource and capacity planning and budgeting on Pinnacle.
- Web, desktop and phone apps on every plan.
- Price: Free; Team $10 a person a month for 2 to 15 people; Business $25 a person for 5 to 200 people, billed annually. Pinnacle and Apex are priced on request, and Wrike Whiteboard is an add-on at $15 a person a month.
Compare in detail: Coavon vs Wrike.
5. Trello
Trello is a simple board tool: boards, lists and cards.
- Boards with built-in automation and unlimited Power-Ups on every plan.
- Quick capture of to-dos from email, Slack and Microsoft Teams.
- Unlimited boards, custom fields and card mirroring from Standard.
- Calendar, timeline, table, dashboard and map views on Premium.
- Phone and desktop apps.
- Price: free for up to 10 collaborators and 10 boards per Workspace; Standard $5 and Premium $10 a person a month billed annually ($6 and $12.50 month to month).
6. Notion
Notion is a workspace of pages and databases, often used for wikis, notes and docs.
- Databases with subtasks, dependencies and custom properties on every plan.
- Forms and published sites, basic on Free and customizable from Plus.
- Notion Calendar included.
- Database automations from Plus.
- Notion Agent and AI meeting notes on Business.
- Price: Free (10 guests); Plus $10 and Business $20 a member a month billed yearly ($12 and $24 month to month).
7. Basecamp
Basecamp is a project tool sold at a fixed monthly price, with no per-person fees.
- Message boards, to-dos and card tables (Basecamp's take on Kanban) in every project.
- Campfires and Pings for group chat and direct messages.
- Scheduling, docs and files, reports and automatic check-ins.
- Connectors for ChatGPT and Claude on every plan.
- Time tracking from Pro.
- Price: Free for 1 project; Freelancer $25 a month (3 projects, 5 GB, up to 20 people), Studio $59 (10 projects, 25 GB), Pro $99 (25 projects, 100 GB) and Unlimited $299 a month billed annually (unlimited projects, 1 TB). Studio and above have unlimited users.
monday.com vs Coavon, feature by feature
| Coavon | monday.com | |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest paid plan | $8 a person (Starter) | $9 a seat (Basic), 3 seats minimum |
| Free plan | One person, every app | Up to 2 seats, 3 boards and 3 docs |
| Calendar view | Every plan | From Standard ($12) |
| Timeline or Gantt chart | Pro | From Standard ($12) |
| Task dependencies | Pro | Pro ($19) |
| Time tracking | Every plan | Pro ($19) |
| Automations | No limit on how often they run | 250 actions a month on Standard, 25,000 on Pro |
| Guests | Free: unlimited on paid plans, 2 on Free | From Standard ($12) |
| CRM | Included: Scope, with pipelines, records and automations | A separate product, monday CRM, from $12 a seat |
| Documents | Included: Docs, with suggested edits and Word or PDF download | monday workdocs (3 on Free) |
| File storage | Included: Drive, 30 GB a person on Starter | Not stated on the pricing page |
| AI | Connector for Claude and other AI tools from Starter, no credits | A monthly allowance of AI credits, from 1,000 on Basic |
| Portfolios | Business | Enterprise |
| Workload view | Not yet | Resource management on Enterprise |
| Phone apps | Not yet (runs in the browser) | iPhone and Android |
For the full table and a year's cost for a team of ten, see Coavon vs monday.com.
How to choose a monday.com alternative
- Decide whether you want to build or to start working. monday.com gives you boards to design; Coavon gives you finished apps for projects, clients, documents and files.
- Price the plan that has the features you need. A calendar view, a timeline, automations or time tracking are often on a higher plan than the headline price.
- Check seat minimums and team-size bands. Some plans start at 3 seats or stop at 15 people.
- Add up the whole bill: a separate CRM, a chat app, file storage and any AI credits or AI plan.
- Try it with one real project for a week before you move everything.
How to move from monday.com to Coavon
- Export a board from monday.com to a spreadsheet and save it as a CSV file.
- In Flow, open Settings and import the file. Match its columns to Flow's fields and check the preview before anything is added.
- Import companies and people into Scope from a CSV file, and upload your files to Drive.
- Invite your team, and add clients or freelancers as guests on their projects.
Comments, automations and integrations do not come across in the file, so set those up again in Coavon.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best alternative to monday.com?
For most teams, Coavon. Instead of boards you design yourself and a CRM sold separately, it gives you a project app, a CRM, a document editor, a file drive, team chat, notes and a calendar on one account, from $8 a person a month billed annually. Time tracking, approvals and a calendar view are on every plan.
Is there a cheaper alternative to monday.com?
On October 19, 2026, monday.com Basic was $9 a seat a month billed annually, for at least 3 seats, and Standard, the first plan with a calendar view, timeline and automations, was $12. Coavon Starter is $8 a person with no seat minimum and includes a CRM, documents, file storage and chat. Trello Standard is $5 and ClickUp Unlimited $7, and Basecamp charges a flat monthly price instead, from $25 a month for 3 projects.
Does Coavon have a CRM like monday CRM?
Yes, and it is included in every plan rather than sold separately. Scope keeps companies, people and deals, moves them through pipelines, has its own automations and forms, and can start a project in Flow when a deal is won.
Is there a free monday.com alternative?
Coavon is free for one person, with every app. monday.com Free is for up to 2 seats and 3 boards, Trello Free is for up to 10 collaborators, Asana Personal for up to 2 people, and ClickUp and Notion also have free plans with limits.
What does monday.com do that Coavon does not?
monday.com has phone apps, boards you can build from many column types, a workload view through resource management on Enterprise, and integrations from Standard. Coavon has no phone apps, Slack or Teams connection, or workload view yet. Coavon instead includes the CRM, documents, file storage and team chat on one account, and puts time tracking and a calendar view on every plan.
Can I import my monday.com boards into Coavon?
Yes. Export a board from monday.com to a spreadsheet, save it as a CSV file and import it into Flow, matching its columns to Flow’s fields. Comments, automations and integrations do not carry over and are set up again.