Smartsheet and monday.com take different approaches to work management―but they share many similar project management features. So even though Smartsheet focuses more on spreadsheets and monday.com emphasizes easy-to-read dashboards, it’s not always obvious which software offers the better project management tool for your business.
After digging deep into both options, we’ve found that monday.com offers the better out-of-the-box solution and works better for light project management needs. Smartsheet’s advanced features make it better for scaling businesses or teams that need portfolio management.
Want more details to help you decide? Let’s compare Smartsheet and monday.com.
| monday.com | Smartsheets | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $8/user/mo. | $7/user/mo. |
| Selling point | Intuitive interface | Advanced spreadsheets |
| Integrations | 40+ | 80+ |
| Free trial | Yes | No |
| Try monday.com | Try Smartsheets |
In this article...
Smartsheet vs. monday.com overview
Smartsheet bills itself as a scalable work management solution. You use its powerful spreadsheets to track projects, create reports, automate workflow, and more. While you can set up Smartsheet to display data in everything from a calendar to a Kanban board, everything revolves around the spreadsheets.
The Monday.com work OS, on the other hand, uses drag-and-drop blocks and a highly visual interface to simplify your project management. By default, monday.com uses a simple table to organize your tasks. You can easily switch views (like to a Gantt chart) or create dashboards that draw from multiple tables.
Make sense? Then let’s see how monday.com and Smartsheet compare at a glance.
Standout features
One of monday.com’s best features is its out-of-the-box solutions:
- monday dev
- monday marketer
- monday projects
- monday sales CRM
These products all use the monday.com work OS―but instead of making you set up your own workflow, they come prepackaged with everything you need to hit the ground running. So monday sales CRM, for example, lets you immediately import leads and manage contacts. And monday marketer has a prebuilt content calendar for your marketing team.
We also like that monday.com offers a guest access option. On certain plans, you can give guests limited access to your project management tool. It’s a nice compromise between a view-only mode and complete access―making it a great feature if your team works with lots of freelancers, for example. Plus, you can get four guests for the price of one normal user.
As for Smartsheet? It may not have the out-of-the-box features of monday.com, but it does have everything you need to manipulate and analyze your project data:
- Cell activity logs
- Cell formulas
- Conditional formatting
- Conditional logic
- Cross-sheet formulas
In other words, you get all the tools you’re used to with an Excel spreadsheet or Google sheet―and then some. Because Smartsheet has other great tools.
Take its proofing features. Your team can comment on and approve images and documents within the Smartsheet software. Or look at Smartsheet Control Center, its portfolio management tool that gives project managers one location to manage dozens of projects at once. So while it may take a while to learn how to use Smartsheet for project management, Smartsheet gives you plenty of advanced features worth learning.
Core features
As you can see, Smartsheet and monday.com actually have some big differences. But they do have a lot in common too.
For instance, both Smartsheet and monday.com offer these common project management features:
- Calendar view
- File storage
- Forms
- Free viewers
- Gantt chart view
- HIPAA compliance (on enterprise plans)
- Kanban board view
- Task automation
- Templates
- Unlimited sheets/boards
That means that both Smartsheet and monday.com give you the essential tools for project management. Just keep in mind that you may have to pay for a higher-tier plan to get access to all the best features.
Smartsheet vs. monday.com in Detail
Now that you’ve seen how Smartsheet and monday.com compare in terms of work management, let’s talk about some other factors that may help you decide between the two.
Pricing
For both Smartsheet and monday.com, your price depends on the plan you choose.
Smartsheet has two plans for most businesses: Pro and Business. (It also has an Enterprise plan.)
Smartsheet pricing by plan
| Pro | Business | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|
| $7/user/mo. | $25/user/mo. | Unlisted |
The lower-tier Pro plan comes with everything you need to start managing projects. The higher-tier plan gives you more features, though, like conditional logic, published sheets, and proofing.
monday.com has more plan options than Smartsheet. Aside from the free plan (which is too limited for most businesses), it has four paid plan choices.
monday.com pricing by plan
| Individual | Basic | Standard | Pro | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $0/user/mo. | $8/user/mo. | $10/user/mo. | $16/user/mo. | Unlisted |
Most businesses will want at least the Standard plan. That plan gives you a timeline view, calendar view, automation tools, and software integrations. Of course, the Pro plan gives you even better task management and productivity tools (like time tracking) along with unlimited guests.
One great thing about monday.com’s paid plans? They come with a free trial for 14 days, so you can see if your team likes its project management software.
Bottom line: Smartsheet’s Pro gets you more features for less money than monday.com’s cheapest paid plan. But if you want more advanced tools, monday.com’s Pro plan costs less than Smartsheet’s Business plan.
Integrations
Want to make sure your project management software works with the other software you use?
Smartsheet offers over 80 software integrations. These include popular software like these:
- Adobe Creative Cloud
- G Suite
- HubSpot
- Microsoft Teams
- Slack
- Salesforce
Plus, it includes integrations with software to make your Smartsheet sheets better―like adding work management for legal teams or productivity tools for suppliers.
monday.com has more than 40 integrations. Like Smartsheet, it integrates with popular software like Slack, Microsoft Outlook, Adobe Creative Cloud, and more.
Unlike Smartsheet, though, monday.com has native integrations for other project management software, like Asana, Jira, and Trello. That means you can easily use monday.com alongside some of the other best project management tools out there (like if your dev team is hopelessly devoted to Jira).
Bottom line: While they both integrate with common business apps, Smartsheet has more integrations than monday.com. But if you use other work management software, monday.com likely has more of the integrations you need.
Customer support
With all their features, project and task management software can get really complicated. So it’s worth thinking about what kind of customer support you can expect.
Smartsheet has an extensive training database that walks you through every Smartsheet feature, from customizing your Control Center to setting up an automated workflow. If you can’t find answers there, you can turn to Smartsheet’s forum instead to ask other users for help.
Need more personalized software advice? Smartsheet doesn’t offer phone support with either of its standard plans, but you can pay extra to add 24/7 phone support.
monday.com also has a knowledge base that walks you through managing projects, customizing your dashboard, and setting up task automation. But monday.com also lets you easily contact customer support for help. All plans come through 24/7 support, and you can get in touch via email, live chat, or phone.
Bottom line: monday.com offers 24/7 support to all customers, while Smartsheet expects you to solve problems with its guides or community forum.
Customer reviews
Finally, let’s look at user reviews. Both monday.com and Smartsheet get generally positive reviews, but at the time of this writing, monday.com earns slightly better scores overall.
For example, the monday.com mobile app earns a 4.9 on the Google Play store and a 4.8 on the App Store while the Smartsheet app gets a 4.5 and a 4.8. Likewise, monday.com gets a 4.7 out of 5 on G2, and Smartsheet gets a slightly lower 4.4.
As you’d expect, users like monday.com’s intuitive interface and clean dashboards. They say it sometimes runs a bit slow, though, and automations can be a bit finicky. For Smartsheet, user reviews rave about its powerful project management and collaboration tools, but they say it has a big learning curve.
Bottom line: monday.com and Smartsheet both get very good reviews, though users like monday.com just a bit more.
Which is better for your business: Smartsheet or monday.com?
Though both Smartsheet and monday.com have lots of great tools for managing projects, most businesses will strongly prefer one or the other.
If you have a scaling business that needs to track dozens of projects, you’ll likely prefer Smartsheet and its portfolio management tools. Likewise, teams that want advanced reporting and a super customizable workflow will like Smartsheet’s spreadsheets and its conditional features.
If you care more about getting started quickly, monday.com is the better fit―especially if you pick one of its prepackaged projects. Even if you stick with the basic monday.com work OS, you’ll love how its clean dashboards and drag-and-drop customization make it easy for your team to use.
And on the off chance that neither software seems quite right for your team’s workflow, you can find lots of alternative options in our Project Management Software Guide.
Smartsheet vs. monday.com FAQ
What are the key differences between Smartsheet and monday.com?
The key differences between Smartsheet and monday.com are that Smartsheet offers more powerful customization and analysis than monday.com, while monday.com offers easier setup and more intuitive tools.
Which software is better for project management?
The better software for project management depends on your team’s needs. If you like spreadsheets and reporting, Smartsheet is the better choice. But if you prefer a simpler software, monday.com is a good Smartsheet alternative.
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