ClickUp vs monday.com: which should your agency run on?
Short answer: ClickUp and monday.com both run agency project work well, and the gap between them is smaller than either vendor's marketing suggests. ClickUp packs more into its mid tier at a lower price, with time tracking and reports built in from its Core plan. monday.com's boards are more visual and easier for non-technical clients to glance at, but it holds back time tracking until its Pro tier and charges more at that level. Neither one gives clients a clean, branded view of their own project without extra setup, which is the real gap agencies run into with both.
You're deciding whether ClickUp or monday.com actually fits how your agency runs client work, not just which one has the nicer demo.
I'm Ranjit, and I run Blur Studio: 15+ years building software, 120 apps taken live, and clients who have gone on to raise $10M+. I build AI systems and processes that help businesses do a lot more with a lot less time. I also work differently from most of what else is out there, more on that further down this page. Say hello.
What are ClickUp and monday.com?
ClickUp is a project management platform that bundles tasks, docs, chat, goals and time tracking into one tool, priced per user a month. monday.com is work-management software built around colorful, customizable boards that teams shape into almost any workflow, also priced per seat a month with a seat minimum on paid plans. Both are general-purpose tools that agencies adapt to client work rather than software built specifically for agencies, which is the root of most of the gaps covered below.
How do ClickUp and monday.com prices compare?
As of October 2026, both companies price per seat a month and push you toward annual billing with a discount.
| Plan | ClickUp | monday.com (Work Management) |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Yes, unlimited members | Yes, up to 2 seats |
| Entry paid | Core, $9/user/month billed yearly (list price $12) | Basic, $9/seat/month billed yearly, 3-seat minimum |
| Mid paid | Business, $17/user/month billed yearly (list price $25) | Standard, $12/seat/month billed yearly, 3-seat minimum |
| Upper | — | Pro, $19/seat/month billed yearly, 3-seat minimum |
| Top | Enterprise, custom quote | Enterprise, custom quote |
So for a 10-person agency on each tool's main paid plan, ClickUp Business runs about $170 a month while monday.com Pro runs about $190 a month (see monday.com pricing for agencies). monday.com also sells a separate CRM product on its own pricing, so if you want monday to double as both your project tool and your sales CRM, you're paying for two separate subscriptions on top of each other, something ClickUp doesn't require since task and project tracking are native to every tier.
How does time tracking compare?
This is where the two tools genuinely diverge. ClickUp includes native time tracking from its free plan and adds time-in-status reports on Business, so a small agency can track billable hours without paying for a top-tier plan. monday.com holds time tracking back until its Pro plan, meaning an agency on Basic or Standard has no built-in way to log hours against a task at all and has to bolt on a separate time tracker or an app-store add-on. For an agency that bills by the hour, that gap alone can decide the comparison.
How does client and guest access compare?
Both tools let outside guests see and comment on work, but neither was built with a branded, limited client view as the default experience. ClickUp's guest permissions scale with your paid seat count, so the number of guests you can safely add grows as your team grows. monday.com's guest access works similarly, tied to seats on paid plans, with the free plan too limited (2 seats) to realistically host clients at all. In both cases, giving a client a clean view of just their project, without exposing your whole workspace or other clients' boards, takes deliberate setup with permissions, filtered views or a separate workspace per client. Neither tool solves this out of the box the way purpose-built client-facing software does.
ClickUp vs Smartsheet
Smartsheet is spreadsheet-style project and work-management software built for larger organizations running complex, cross-team programs, priced noticeably higher than ClickUp or monday.com. As of October 2026, Smartsheet's Pro plan costs $129 a user a month and its Business plan costs $241 a user a month, both well above ClickUp's or monday.com's equivalent tiers. Smartsheet suits a bigger operations team that lives in spreadsheets and needs heavier automation and reporting across many departments. For most agencies under 50 people, that price gap is hard to justify next to ClickUp or monday.com.
monday.com vs Smartsheet
The same gap applies here. monday.com's Pro plan at $19 a seat a month is a fraction of Smartsheet's Pro plan at $129 a user a month. Smartsheet's spreadsheet-grid interface and heavier automation genuinely suit certain operations-heavy teams, but very few agencies need that level of structure for client delivery work, and the price difference is large enough that it's worth testing ClickUp or monday.com first.
What does a real 10-person agency actually pay?
Take a 10-person agency on each tool's main paid plan, billed yearly, with 3 clients added as guests on each. On ClickUp Business at $17 a user a month, that's $170 a month for the team, and guest access scales with those 10 paid seats at no extra charge, since ClickUp's guest allowance is seat-based rather than billed per guest. On monday.com Pro at $19 a seat a month, the team costs about $190 a month, and because monday.com's guest access is also tied to paid seats, those 3 clients need to fit within whatever guest allowance your seat count unlocks, or you add more seats to cover them. The gap is roughly $20 to $30 a month in this example, small on its own, but it compounds once you're running the comparison at 20 or 30 seats instead of 10.
ClickUp vs monday.com: which should you pick?
- Pick ClickUp if: You bill by the hour and want time tracking and reports built in at a lower price, or you want tasks, docs and chat in one tool without separate add-ons.
- Pick monday.com if: Your team and clients respond better to visual, colorful boards, and you're willing to pay more or add a separate time tracker to get there.
If neither tool's take on client access or time tracking fits how your agency actually works, my ClickUp alternatives guide, my monday.com alternatives guide and my Teamwork.com alternatives guide all cover other project tools built more specifically around client-facing agency work.
How would I approach this?
I'd test both on the one thing that actually matters for your agency: if it's billing, run a real week of time tracking in each tool's trial before picking. If it's client visibility, try building one filtered client view in each and see how much setup it really takes, because that's the part no pricing page tells you honestly. Most agencies do fine on either tool with some setup work. The cases where a custom build pays off are narrower: when your billing, project status and client reporting need to pull from one connected system instead of three separate subscriptions, or when clients need a branded portal that neither tool's guest permissions can cleanly deliver. If Notion is also on your shortlist, see Notion against ClickUp for agencies.
Need something completely custom?
Everything above is a path to get it running quick and cheap. But sometimes the honest answer is that none of those quite fit, and what you actually need is something custom that you own, built uniquely for your business from the ground up, with AI thoughtfully designed into the parts of it that your processes actually benefit from. An asset that grows in value, not a generic, one-size-fits-all boilerplate that's an expense with a lock-in. This is a complete bespoke build, and it's something I do very well. Get in touch to know more.
Questions people ask
Is ClickUp cheaper than monday.com?
At the main paid tiers, yes. As of October 2026, ClickUp Business costs $17 a user a month billed yearly, versus monday.com Pro at $19 a seat a month billed yearly. monday.com's entry Basic plan at $9 a seat is close to ClickUp's Core plan at $9 a user, but Basic doesn't include time tracking the way ClickUp Core does.
Does monday.com have time tracking?
Only on its Pro plan and above, at $19 a seat a month billed yearly, as of October 2026. Its Basic and Standard plans have no native time tracking at all.
Can clients see their own project in ClickUp or monday.com?
Both support guest access tied to your paid seat count, but neither gives clients a clean, branded view by default. You need to build filtered views or separate client workspaces yourself to keep clients from seeing other clients' work.
Is Smartsheet worth it over ClickUp or monday.com?
Usually only for larger operations teams. As of October 2026, Smartsheet's Pro plan costs $129 a user a month, far above ClickUp's or monday.com's comparable tiers, and most agencies don't need its spreadsheet-grid depth for client delivery work.
Which one is easier for a non-technical team to adopt?
monday.com's board-and-color interface tends to be the gentler on-ramp for teams with no project-management background. ClickUp has more depth once set up, but that depth comes with a steeper learning curve in the first few weeks.
Roughly what does this cost?
As a broad reference, fixes and finishes start at around $1,500, and new builds start higher, always a fixed price agreed in writing before I start, never an hourly rate. My AI app cost guide explains what actually drives a quote up or down.
Is my project too small for this?
No. Most of the owners I work with have no tech team at all, that is the whole point. If the smarter move is a cheap software subscription instead of custom software, I will tell you that on the first call, even though it means I do not get paid.