If you’ve just signed up for monday.com, congratulations—you’ve entered the big leagues of project management. But truth be told, diving into a robust platform like monday.com can feel like trying to drink from a firehose.
That’s where this guide comes in. Whether you’re a newbie user trying to make sense of all the shiny buttons or a seasoned professional looking to take things up a notch, I’ve got you covered—based on our testing, trials, and productivity triumphs using monday.com.
When I first jumped into monday.com, I expected a steep learning curve. However, getting started was smoother than I thought and, honestly, kind of fun. Here’s how I did it—and how you can too.
I headed to monday.com, clicked sign up, and boom—done. Picking a plan was easy (hot tip: take the free trial, you’ll thank me later).
Step 2: Onboarding
Once inside, I was greeted with an onboarding process that didn’t make me want to tear my hair out. I appreciated how it let me choose what I wanted to focus on. It's also a great time to watch a tutorial video, like this one from the "Mastering monday" YT channel:
Step 3: Start Small and Use the Templates
Here’s what saved me: templates. I wasn’t about to build everything from scratch, and thankfully, monday.com offers templates for just about anything. I grabbed a Content Calendar Template, tweaked it a bit, and suddenly, I looked like I knew what I was doing.
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Overview of monday.com
In the simplest terms, monday.com is a cloud-based work management software. If you’ve ever felt like your work is spread across a dozen apps and a million tabs, this is your solution.
The magic of monday.com is that you can plan, manage, and track every moving part of my projects in one place. Instead of juggling Post-Its and Slack threads, I build out boards that give me instant clarity. Deadlines? Front and center. Progress? I can see it unfolding in real-time. I don’t have to guess where things stand because it’s all laid out, crystal clear.
What makes monday.com stand out is how adaptable it is. Whether I’m mapping out a marketing campaign, organizing content, or planning a digital product launch, I can bend it to fit whatever I’m working on.
No limits, no rigid structures—just workflows that evolve as I do. And the best part? monday.com plays well with everything else I use. Slack, Google Drive, Zoom—it all plugs right in. Meetings, files, and team chats sync seamlessly, cutting down the time I’d usually waste flipping between tools.
monday.com
The easiest to use project management software solution, with great security options
4.8
Overview
monday.com is highly customizable, but definitely built with the general user in mind. It doesn't take a tech whizz to quickly master its menus or create custom automations. There are lots of support options on hand if you get stuck, including a live chat function that we found very useful.
“Jumping into monday.com felt a little daunting at first. A bit of a "whoa" -- this feels like a lot. But I started incorporating it into my workflow and added my team to our first shared workspace. It took some work up front, but now we're getting more done, I get a better view into what my remote team is working on, and things don't get lost in the shuffle.
I also started sharing small tips that I found were working for me with my team so that we could all develop our skills in the platform together. No one expects you to be a pro with project management tools on day one -- you have to work at it.”
Joanna Ericta
Founder of The Assist
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Key Features of monday.com
When I say monday.com has everything, I’m not exaggerating. This platform became my go-to because it handles entire workflows like a personal project manager. Let me break down the features I use.
1. Boards and Tasks
Every project I run lives on a board, and I track everything—deadlines, assignees, random thoughts at 3 a.m.—right there. Tasks are rows, and columns let me add whatever details I need (I rely on status updates, priority levels, or even just notes to myself).
I’ve built boards for projects, weekly to-dos, and even personal stuff like novel writing and other creative writing projects. Tasks evolve with the project, shifting and expanding as things progress.
Pro-Tip: Start with a simple board for one project. Assign tasks, set deadlines, and track everything in real-time.
2. Columns
Columns are what turn your boards into productivity hubs. I’m talking due dates, assignees, budgets, checkboxes—whatever you need, there’s a column for it. I slap “In Progress,” “Stuck,” or “Done” labels on tasks, and at a glance, I know exactly where things stand. It’s color-coded, simple, and low-key addictive.
Need to attach invoices or track hours? Drop in a file column or a numbers column—no more hunting through emails for attachments.
Pro-Tip:I use the formula column to calculate total project costs directly on the board. No spreadsheets are required.
3. Automations
Why waste time manually updating statuses when monday.com can do it for you? I’ve set up automations that trigger reminders, reassign tasks when they stall, and even send Slack messages when deadlines creep up.
4. Views
Not in the mood for lists? Cool, switch to kanban. Need to see timelines? They’ve got that too. I flip between different views depending on what I need for the day. If you’re a visual learner like me, this one’s for you.
5. Integrations
monday.com talks to all my favorite tools with more than 200 integrations. Google Drive, Slack, Zoom—you name it. This means no more digging through ten apps to find what I need.
Pro-Tip:Integrate one app at a time. Don’t overwhelm yourself with everything on day one.
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6. Templates
I can’t overstate how much time templates have saved me. Whether I’m planning a product launch or just trying to organize my week, there’s a template ready to go. From marketing campaigns to hiring pipelines, monday.com’s template library covers everything. I tweak them a bit to match my workflow, and I’m off to the races. Using templates ensures my boards don’t look like they were thrown together by different people. Everything follows the same structure, which keeps my team on the same page.
Pro-Tip: Use templates as a starting point for new hires. It’s an easy way to get them acclimated without drowning them in details on day one.
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User Review
"If it weren’t for monday.com, these Go-To-Market launches would have required twice as much work and taken twice the amount of time to complete. The process is now much more seamless because if something is close to being overdue or potentially at risk, I get notified right away."
Xanthe Smit
Marketing Manager, Datacom
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Advanced Features
Once I had the basics down, I realized monday.com had way more under the hood with the advanced features.
1. Time Tracking
I used to think I knew how long things took—until monday.com called me out. The Time Tracking column gave me cold, hard data. Now I know exactly where my hours go, and spoiler: It wasn’t where I thought. I finally caught the time-sinks that were killing my day and found ways to streamline them. Plus, it’s a game-changer for accurate client billing.
Pro-Tip: Track estimated vs. actual time. Seeing the difference in black and white forced me to start planning realistically.
2. File Management
Gone are the days of searching through 30 different Slack threads for that one file. monday.com’s Files Column lets me dump everything—PDFs, images, spreadsheets—right next to the task it’s tied to. Everything stays version-controlled and lives exactly where it needs to. No more “Where did I put that attachment?” panic.
Pro-Tip: Integrate Google Drive or Dropbox. That way, your existing files sync directly to monday.com, and you’ll never misplace a thing.
3. Reporting and Analytics
I’m not a data nerd by nature, but monday.com’s reporting tools made me one. Dashboards track my project KPIs, budget, and team performance in real-time. Spotting patterns (or disasters) before they explode saves me from so much unnecessary chaos. It’s all visual, so I don’t have to dig through boring spreadsheets.
Pro-Tip: Use restricted boards for sensitive projects—let people in only when needed. Check out this video tutorial for a visual walkthrough of board permissions.
5. Permissions and Privacy
Not everyone needs to see everything. monday.com lets me lock down sensitive info while keeping the rest transparent. Freelancers? Contractors? No problem. I control who can edit, view, or manage boards. No accidental task deletions here.
Pro-Tip: Build different dashboards for different audiences. Execs get the big picture. Project managers get the nitty-gritty. Everyone wins.
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monday.com Use Cases
I’ve used monday.com to handle everything from freelance projects to creative brainstorming, and it keeps delivering. Let me break down how it works.
1. Projects & Tasks
I create boards for every project, break down tasks, assign people, and slap deadlines on everything. Gantt charts and timeline views? Yep, they’ve saved my butt more times than I can count when things start slipping.
“For my piece, we're a global engineering and consulting firm and have been using monday for 3+ years. We've matured significantly, both as a firm and in our use of it since then. Our standard projects each get a Board, more complex scope projects have multiple Boards rolling into an overall Dashboard. Each of our regions also has its own Dashboard with a Timeline, Workload, and Graph widget to track upcoming deliverables, team utilization, and tasks by category and type. 200+ Boards, 150+ users, and over $35M in project revenue being tracked.” —ACatNamedSimon via r/mondaydotcom
Pro-Tip: Automate task reminders. Trust me, nothing keeps a project on track like a system that nags your team for you.
2. Marketing
I use monday.com to handle content calendars, ad performance tracking, and team workflows—all in one spot. Seeing my campaign data roll in on a single dashboard makes reporting way easier (and makes me look more organized than I actually am).
"With monday.com, we’re 30% more efficient at delivering hundreds of campaigns seen by millions of customers."
Tye Rapley-Hawkins
Head of Delivery, Priority by 02, Telefonicar
3. Sales (Tracking Deals)
While I haven’t used monday.com for this particular use case, I can count two different organizations that I know of personally that used it to build a sales pipeline board that tracks leads, deals, and revenue. It integrates with their CRMs and notifies their reps the second a lead hits the next stage.
Pro-Tip: Set up automations to alert the sales team when leads need follow-ups. That way, no one forgets (and you close more deals).
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4. Product Development
Tracking product roadmaps and feature development is way easier when everything lives on monday.com. You can link dependencies between tasks, so if one feature stalls, everyone knows what’s impacted. No surprises. This is how The Assist team kept the development of their first product—a journal—on track.
Pro-Tip: Time tracking. If you don’t know how long it actually takes to build a feature, start tracking it now. It’ll change how you forecast launches. Check out this 5-minute read if you’re looking for how to set up the time tracking widget.
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5. HR (Streamlining Hiring)
monday.com makes recruiting and onboarding painless. You can track every candidate, from application to offer letter, in a single board. Performance reviews? Automated reminders will keep you on top of that, too.
Pro-Tip: Automate performance review dates. Let monday.com nudge your team when deadlines are creeping up.
“We build our own recruitment module. Candidates fill out monday form -> from there each group is a stage and they move through stages with status columns. If they get to “1st interview” they will automatically receive an email with a Calendly link to book time. If we reject they automatically receive rejection email. If we hire them they automatically get put into employee directory and get sent the employee onboarding form to capture all their details.” — FireRose22 via r/mondaydotcom
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User Review
“We build our own recruitment module. Candidates fill out monday form -> from there each group is a stage and they move through stages with status columns. If they get to “1st interview” they will automatically receive an email with a Calendly link to book time. If we reject they automatically receive rejection email. If we hire them they automatically get put into employee directory and get sent the employee onboarding form to capture all their details.”
Inventory, logistics, vendor management—you name it. I use monday.com to keep operations running smoothly and monitor everything in real-time. Linking it to QuickBooks means I can track budgets without flipping between tools. monday.com even has a purpose-built Operations Management Software.
Pro-Tip: Integrate financial tools. Watching budgets in real-time from the same place I manage tasks saves me hours every month.
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7. IT & Support
Run IT requests like a help desk. Tickets are assigned, prioritized, and resolved without losing track of anything. Urgent tickets? monday.com bumps those to the front of the line automatically.
Pro-Tip: Use automations to prioritize tickets marked “urgent.” No more digging through lists to figure out what’s on fire.
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8. Creative & Design
Design projects can get messy—feedback everywhere, files scattered. monday.com keeps all my drafts, comments, and final versions in one place.
Pro-Tip: Add a status column. Watching a design move from concept to final delivery is weirdly satisfying.
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Tips and Best Practices: How I Make monday.com Work for Me (So It Works for You Too)
monday.com can be a beast, but there’s a way to tame it. Here’s my winning gameplan:
1. Actionable Tips for Workflows and Collaboration:
When I first jumped in, I wanted to build a dozen boards, automate everything, and basically create the Matrix. Start with one board for a single project. Nail it. Expand later.
Start Small
Notifications, status changes, deadline reminders—automate the heck out of them.
Automate Everything You Can
Budgets, priorities, links—whatever you need to track, there’s a column for that.
Custom Columns Are Clutch
Tag team members directly in tasks. Forget email black holes or Slack threads that disappear into the void. monday.com keeps all convos tied to the task, so there’s no excuse for “I missed that.”
Tag People
2. Avoiding the Classic Pitfalls:
I learned this lesson fast. Just because you can add 20 columns doesn’t mean you should. Keep your boards lean. If it’s not actionable, ditch it.
Pitfall: Overcomplicating Everything
People resist change. It’s human nature. I held a 30-minute monday.com crash course for my team. After seeing how easy it was, everyone jumped on board (pun intended).
Pitfall: Team Pushback
If monday.com can talk to your other tools, let it. Slack, Google Drive, Zoom—I made monday.com the epicenter of everything.
Pitfall: Ignoring Integrations
Pro-Tip: Every month, I audit my boards and workflows. If something’s clunky or outdated, I tweak it. Tiny adjustments add up to major efficiency. The compound effect is real.
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Pricing Breakdown: Plans for Every Team
monday.com offers flexible pricing tiers to fit businesses of all sizes and budgets. Here’s an overview:
1. Free Plan:
Best for individuals or small teams testing the waters.
Includes basic features like 3 boards, unlimited docs, 200+ templates, and 8 column types
2. Basic Plan:
Cost: $9 per seat/month.
Unlocks unlimited free viewers, unlimited items, 5GB file storage, and a dashboard based on 1 board
3. Standard Plan:
Cost: $12 per seat/month.
Adds timeline and Gantt views, calendar view, guest access, automations (250 actions per month), integrations (250 actions per month), and a dashboard that combines 5 boards
4. Pro Plan:
Cost: $19 per seat/month.
Advanced private boards, chart view, time tracking, formula column, automations (25k actions per month), integrations (25k actions per month), and a dashboard that combines 20 boards
5. Enterprise Plan:
Custom pricing for large organizations.
Includes enterprise-scale automations and integrations, multi-level permissions, enterprise-grade security and governance, advance reporting and analytics, tailored onboarding, enterprise support, and a dashboard that combines 50 boards
Pro-Tip: Small teams can thrive on the Standard Plan, while larger, scaling teams benefit from Pro’s advanced features.
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Pros and Cons: Is monday.com Worth It? (Yes, But Let Me Break It Down)
After using it to manage everything from launches to chaotic team workflows, here's my honest perspective:
Pros:
Customizable –monday.com bends to fit whatever twisted workflow I throw at it. Whether I’m planning a personal creative project or writing event copy for a tradeshow, it adapts. I haven’t found a project it can’t handle yet.
Easy to Use – I didn’t need a manual. The interface feels like it was designed by someone who knows what frustration feels like.
Automation = Less Repeating Myself – If I can automate something, I will. monday.com handles repetitive tasks, deadline nudges, and project updates without me lifting a finger. Less micromanaging, more actual work.
Plays Nice With Others – Slack, Google Drive, QuickBooks—you name it, monday.com integrates with it. I stitched together my whole tech stack, and now everything flows like it’s part of the same ecosystem.
Multiple Views, Zero Excuses – Kanban boards, Gantt charts, calendars—sometimes I switch views just because I can. Different views for different moods, baby.
Cons:
Feature Overwhelm – I remember opening it for the first time and thinking, “Wow, this is... a lot.” If you try to do everything at once, your brain will melt.
Solution: Start with one board. One project. One goal. Build from there.
Pricey for Tiny Teams – If you’re flying solo or with a small team, monday.com can feel like a luxury. It’s not dirt cheap, but neither is wasted time.
Solution: Milk the free or Basic Plan until you can’t live without the paid features.
The Free Plan is... Good (Until It’s Not) – The free version is great, but some of the best features—time tracking, advanced reports—sit behind a paywall. Annoying, but fair.
Solution: Pick the features you need. monday.com is a bespoke productivity solution after all.
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User Testimonials: Real Feedback from monday.com Users
1. Streamlining Project Management
2. Improved Team Collaboration
3. Perfect for Scaling
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New Features & Updates from monday.com in 2025
monday.com is constantly working to improve the product. Here are some recent updates and released features that real users asked for:
Duplicate Workflows – Stop wasting time rebuilding the same process. Duplicate workflows and get things running in half the time. (Added July 2024)
Workspace Transfers – One click and your entire workspace jumps between products. (Added July 2024)
Password-Protected Forms – Gatekeep like a pro. Only the people you want to see your forms. Everyone else? Blocked. (Added June 2024)
Multi-Axis Data Visualizations – Your reports just got a glow-up. Plot multiple columns on the Y-axis for data that actually makes sense. (Added June 2024)
AI Text Summaries – Let AI handle the boring part. monday.com now auto-summarizes your text fields and item names like it’s nothing. (Added May 2024)
Board Discussions – Blast updates across entire boards. No more chasing team members down one by one. (Added May 2024)
Weekend Controls – Work smarter (not harder). Turn weekends on or off in your project timelines with the flick of a switch. (Added August 2024)
Form Drafts – Don’t get halfway through a form and lose it. Now, you can save drafts and pick up where you left off. (Added August 2024)
Canvas Sharing – Share polished PDFs with annotations and digital signatures like you own the place. No more sloppy screenshots. (Added August 2024)
monday.com earns a solid 4.7/5 in my assessment, standing out as one of the most intuitive and feature-packed project management platforms on the market. If you’re after software that scales with your projects, automates the boring stuff, and keeps your team in sync without the learning curve headache, monday.com delivers.
The platform shines in workflow automation and customization for its ability to adapt to any project, big or small. Features like duplicate workflows, workspace transfers, and AI-powered text summaries mean you’re streamlining them at lightning speed.
If you’re on the fence, take advantage of the free trial to see it in action. While platforms like Trello and Asana offer similar capabilities, monday.com consistently rolls out new features faster, keeping your tools as agile as your projects. Bottom line? If productivity and ease of use top your list, monday.com is the smart pick.
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Resources for Learning: Stay Ahead with monday.com
Getting the most out of monday.com is easy with its extensive library of learning resources:
1. Help Center: Access comprehensive guides, FAQs, and troubleshooting tips directly from monday.com’s help Center.
2. YouTube Tutorials: The monday.com YouTube channel offers step-by-step video tutorials for beginners and advanced users alike.
3. Community Forums: Join the monday.com Community to connect with other users, share ideas, and solve challenges together.
Pro-Tip: Bookmark the Help Center and forums for quick reference during setup and beyond.
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Conclusion: Monday Just Got Better
monday.com adapts to your business needs, keeps you organized, boosts collaboration, and scales with ease.
From intuitive boards to powerful automations, I’ve walked you through everything you need to hit the ground running.
Time-saving features like automations and templates.
Customization options that fit any workflow.
Scalability for teams of all sizes and industries.
Why It’s Worth It:
Ready to experience the power of monday.com firsthand? Sign up for a free trial, explore the features, and see how it transforms the way you work. Whether you’re a small team or a scaling powerhouse, monday.com can help you work smarter, not harder.
Click here to get started today and take the first step toward seamless productivity!
Your Next Step:
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About our links
Some of the links on our site are affiliate links, meaning if you click, sign up, or make a purchase through them – or if you use our tools to receive personalized quotes – we might receive a commission from the product or service provider. This allows us to offer you in-depth reviews and valuable content at no extra cost.
Forget chasing down email threads—monday.com keeps team communication tied directly to tasks. I tag team members, leave comments, and keep all the updates in one place.
Conversations stay where the work happens, so nothing slips through the cracks.
Pro-Tip: Create a separate board just for brainstorming. It keeps ideas flowing without clogging up the main project board.
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User Review
"When we moved everything over to monday.com the team immediately became much more engaged. People on my team started creating and requesting more and more campaigns. As a result, we nearly tripled the amount of our weekly campaigns, simply because it’s now easier and more intuitive to create campaign requests."
Yoav Banai
Vice President of Customer Engagement, Deezer
Don’t wait to “figure it out first.” Just dive in. I added random tasks, dragged things around, and broke a few things (on purpose). That’s how you learn fast. monday.com is forgiving, and messing up is part of the process.
Tip from The Assist
Written by:
Connor Garrett
Reviewed by:
Joanna Ericta
Last Updated:
Bookmark this page because it will be your best friend as you navigate the first week of your monday.com journey.
Our content is funded in part by commercial partnerships, at no extra cost to you and without impact to our editorial impartiality.
Free Plan
Free
Best for individuals or small teams testing the waters.
Includes basic features like 3 boards, unlimited docs, 200+ templates, and 8 column types
Basic Plan
$9 per seat/month
Unlocks unlimited free viewers, unlimited items, 5GB file storage, and a dashboard based on 1 board
Standard Plan
$12per seat/month.
Adds timeline and Gantt views, calendar view, guest access, automations (250 actions per month), integrations (250 actions per month), and a dashboard that combines 5 boards
Pro Plan
$19per seat/month.
Advanced private boards, chart view, time tracking, formula column, automations (25k actions per month), integrations (25k actions per month), and a dashboard that combines 20 boards
Enterprise Plan
Custompricing for large organizations.
Includes enterprise-scale automations and integrations, multi-level permissions, enterprise-grade security and governance, advance reporting and analytics, tailored onboarding, enterprise support, and a dashboard that combines 50 boards
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User Review
“We are currently using it to track candidate progress through the different stages of a program. From recruiting, interviewing, and training. We have automated all the email correspondence to be done via triggers on the boards. The trigger will automatically pull the email address associated with them and send an email with their name in the body of the message. When they fill out the form to register for our workshops, a confirmation is sent that includes the time, date, and location of the workshop chosen. It is saved my team a ton of time so far with the hundreds of candidates that we interact with.”
“For my piece, we're a global engineering and consulting firm and have been using monday for 3+ years. We've matured significantly, both as a firm and in our use of it since then. Our standard projects each get a Board, more complex scope projects have multiple Boards rolling into an overall Dashboard. Each of our regions also has its own Dashboard with a Timeline, Workload, and Graph widget to track upcoming deliverables, team utilization, and tasks by category and type. 200+ Boards, 150+ users, and over $35M in project revenue being tracked.”