{
  "id": "monday-com-vs-trello",
  "checkedAt": "2026-10-14",
  "title": "monday.com vs Trello: free plans, guests and paid seats",
  "description": "Compare monday.com work management and Trello for a small team: free-plan caps, guest billing, seat bundles and automation limits, with four worked seat scenarios.",
  "datasetDescription": "Four calculated team-and-guest scenarios for monday.com Standard and Trello Standard or Premium, with checked free-plan caps and automation quotas from official vendor documentation.",
  "sources": [
    {
      "title": "monday.com Free plan",
      "url": "https://support.monday.com/hc/en-us/articles/360010487220-Understanding-the-Free-Plan"
    },
    {
      "title": "monday.com seat bundles",
      "url": "https://support.monday.com/hc/en-us/articles/4405633151634-Plans-and-pricing-for-monday-com"
    },
    {
      "title": "monday.com guest billing",
      "url": "https://support.monday.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000305419-Pricing-for-guests"
    },
    {
      "title": "monday.com current product plans",
      "url": "https://monday.com/pricing"
    },
    {
      "title": "Trello plans and USD fees",
      "url": "https://trello.com/pricing"
    },
    {
      "title": "Trello collaborator limits",
      "url": "https://support.atlassian.com/trello/docs/workspace-user-limit/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Trello single-board and multi-board guests",
      "url": "https://support.atlassian.com/trello/docs/board-guests/"
    },
    {
      "title": "Trello runs and operations quotas",
      "url": "https://support.atlassian.com/trello/docs/butler-quotas-and-limits/"
    }
  ],
  "freePlanRows": [
    {
      "label": "People",
      "monday": "2 members; no guests or viewers",
      "trello": "10 unique collaborators across members, guests and pending invitations",
      "sources": [
        0,
        5
      ]
    },
    {
      "label": "Boards",
      "monday": "3 across the account",
      "trello": "10 open boards per Workspace",
      "sources": [
        0,
        4
      ]
    },
    {
      "label": "Work items",
      "monday": "200 starting items across boards; referral increases are separate",
      "trello": "Unlimited cards",
      "sources": [
        0,
        4
      ]
    },
    {
      "label": "Files",
      "monday": "500 MB shared storage",
      "trello": "10 MB per attachment; no total storage cap stated",
      "sources": [
        0,
        4
      ]
    },
    {
      "label": "Native automation",
      "monday": "Not included on Free",
      "trello": "250 runs and 2,500 operations per Workspace each month",
      "sources": [
        0,
        7
      ]
    }
  ],
  "paidRows": [
    {
      "label": "How seats are bought",
      "monday": "Paid plans start at 3 seats; 4 required seats use the 5-seat bundle, and 6 use the 10-seat bundle",
      "trello": "Each Workspace member and paid multi-board guest consumes a paid seat",
      "sources": [
        1,
        6
      ]
    },
    {
      "label": "External guests",
      "monday": "Basic excludes guests. On Standard, each complete group of 4 guests counts as one seat; up to 3 are free. Pro and Enterprise allow unlimited guests",
      "trello": "A guest on one board is not billable. A guest on 2 or more boards in the same paid Workspace is charged like a member",
      "sources": [
        2,
        6
      ]
    },
    {
      "label": "Automation on Standard",
      "monday": "250 automation actions and a separate 250 integration actions per month",
      "trello": "1,000 runs and 20,000 operations per month, pooled across the Workspace",
      "sources": [
        3,
        7
      ]
    },
    {
      "label": "Views to shortlist",
      "monday": "Standard lists Timeline, Gantt and Calendar views",
      "trello": "Premium lists Calendar, Timeline, Table, Dashboard and Map views",
      "sources": [
        3,
        4
      ]
    }
  ],
  "seatScenarios": [
    {
      "name": "Two colleagues, no external guests",
      "members": 2,
      "guests": 0,
      "multiBoardGuests": 0,
      "note": "Moving beyond free-plan capabilities does not remove monday.com's three-seat paid minimum.",
      "mondayRequiredSeats": 2,
      "mondayStandardPaidSeats": 3,
      "trelloPaidSeats": 2,
      "trelloFreeCollaborators": 2
    },
    {
      "name": "Four colleagues and three single-board clients",
      "members": 4,
      "guests": 3,
      "multiBoardGuests": 0,
      "note": "The guests do not add paid seats in either checked arrangement, but monday.com still needs a five-seat bundle.",
      "mondayRequiredSeats": 4,
      "mondayStandardPaidSeats": 5,
      "trelloPaidSeats": 4,
      "trelloFreeCollaborators": 7
    },
    {
      "name": "Four colleagues and four clients, two on multiple boards",
      "members": 4,
      "guests": 4,
      "multiBoardGuests": 2,
      "note": "One monday.com guest group makes five required seats. Trello charges for the two multi-board guests.",
      "mondayRequiredSeats": 5,
      "mondayStandardPaidSeats": 5,
      "trelloPaidSeats": 6,
      "trelloFreeCollaborators": 8
    },
    {
      "name": "Four colleagues and eight multi-board clients",
      "members": 4,
      "guests": 8,
      "multiBoardGuests": 8,
      "note": "monday.com Standard needs six seats before rounding to its ten-seat bundle. Trello counts twelve paid seats; its Free collaborator cap is also exceeded.",
      "mondayRequiredSeats": 6,
      "mondayStandardPaidSeats": 10,
      "trelloPaidSeats": 12,
      "trelloFreeCollaborators": 12
    }
  ],
  "assumptions": [
    "monday.com means its work-management/AI Work Platform product, not the separate monday CRM or dev subscription.",
    "monday.com external guests meet its eligibility rules, including a different email domain from the account creator.",
    "Trello guests have not also been made Workspace members, and each person is counted once.",
    "Paid seat examples compare monday.com Standard with Trello Standard or Premium; these plans have different features and prices.",
    "The examples cover checked small-team seat bundles through 20 required monday.com seats. No monetary winner, tax or exchange-rate conversion is assumed.",
    "These are calculations from published rules, not observations from a product trial."
  ],
  "trelloUsdPrices": [
    {
      "plan": "Standard",
      "annualMonthlyEquivalentUsd": 5,
      "monthlyBilledUsd": 6
    },
    {
      "plan": "Premium",
      "annualMonthlyEquivalentUsd": 10,
      "monthlyBilledUsd": 12.5
    }
  ],
  "faqs": [
    {
      "question": "Is Trello Free enough for four colleagues and three clients?",
      "answer": "That is seven unique collaborators, below the checked ten-person Workspace cap. The team must also stay within ten open boards, the ten-megabyte attachment cap and the automation quotas. Guests and pending invitations still count."
    },
    {
      "question": "Does monday.com Free allow client guests?",
      "answer": "No. The checked Free work-management plan allows two members and excludes guests and viewers. Basic also lacks shareable-board guest access; Standard is the first checked guest tier."
    },
    {
      "question": "Why can four monday.com users require five paid seats?",
      "answer": "Its paid plans use seat bundles. Official support gives the four-person to five-seat example; required seats also include any billable Standard guest groups."
    },
    {
      "question": "Does unlimited Trello automation mean there are no limits?",
      "answer": "Premium and Enterprise advertise unlimited automation runs, but operations, emails and other execution limits still apply. A run and an operation are different units."
    }
  ]
}