monday.com HR Software Review and Pricing

Why We Chose monday.com for Performance Management

Monday.com has a combination of features that make it well suited to track and manage employee and team performance. When we tested the software, we were impressed with how comprehensive its project management features are. Users can completely customize project and task boards and then search and filter those boards based on numerous criteria. With an array of data and information views, managers can keep a close eye on projects and employee statuses and quickly intervene if they notice someone falling behind.

Monday.com makes it easy to track employee and project status. Source: Monday.com

Collaboration can improve employee performance, and we like that monday.com has several features that facilitate teamwork regardless of worker location. Employees, freelancers and clients alike can access certain information based on predetermined security settings. With digital whiteboards and embedded documents, your people can work together in real time. Keeping everyone in the know can be a game changer when it comes to employee performance. 

However, it’s important to note the platform is missing some typical HR software features, such as payroll tools. That’s because monday.com is less of a traditional HR solution and more of an employee management system. Still, the program can be useful for managing some HR-related processes. If you’re looking for a way to manage and pay your remote or hybrid workers from one singular platform, check out our review on Paychex. The vendor offers HRO and PEO plan options, as well as standalone HR software plans.

Ease of Use

Monday.com is known for its usability. Once you have the software up and running, you can easily navigate through the platform’s tabs to manage your projects and workflows. The digital workspaces can be quickly searched, filtered and sorted by a variety of details, such as group, person, names, status and date. We also like that the company offers mobile apps for iOS and Android devices for on-the-go management. Although mobile HR applications are somewhat common in the HR industry, they can lend themselves to the overall usability of a given platform.

Monday.com has web-based and mobile applications. Source: Monday.com

When we tested the program, we liked that it offered several customizable features that make it simple to identify important tasks and sort through specific projects. For example, you can customize how information is laid out (via tables, dashboards, charts, kanban, Gantt, cards, forms or file galleries), and you can use color coding to differentiate certain statuses. This level of customization is more extensive than that of many competitors we reviewed, and it’s a great way to ensure employees stay on task.

Monday.com users can find an update feed and bell notifications at the top of their screen, to easily navigate to important updates. Source: Monday.com

Enhancing monday.com’s usability is its many integration options – it can integrate with more than 200 third-party applications. Additionally, the system can support a human resources information system (HRIS) through a partnership with Achievan and an HR management system through g-company. These embedded solutions allow you to execute key HR tasks directly in the monday.com platform.

Monday.com’s Gantt view uses a horizontal bar chart to indicate project schedules. Source: Monday.com

Monday.com Features

Monday.com is a comprehensive platform that can help you manage employee projects and workflows. Through its various features, you can ultimately manage employee performance. Although the specific tools you can access will depend on the plan you select, here are some of the popular components.

Recruitment and Onboarding

If you’re looking for a way to streamline your recruitment and onboarding process, monday.com has features that can help with that. For example, you can easily start using the platform to manage your recruitment process by adding a new workspace for recruitment. When testing the software, we liked that monday.com even has a recruitment and onboarding template that can be customized to match your recruitment pipeline. You can automate recruitment workflows and track candidates through the entire recruitment process. This is similar to what BambooHR offers – our best pick for employee onboarding. If you are curious to learn more about BambooHR’s applicant tracking and onboarding process, read our BambooHR review.

Once a candidate moves through the monday.com recruitment pipeline, you can then track their information with an employee onboarding checklist. It offers this board as a premade template as well, although it can be customized to match your onboarding needs. We also like that the software can turn your recruitment metrics into digestible data, giving you a clear look at your recruitment pipelines by department.

Performance Management

One way to manage employee performance is through effective project management. We like that managers or other business leaders can assign employee tasks within the monday.com system and the software will automatically notify workers of their new assignments. As employees work on and complete each one, they can change their statuses within the system. Time spent working on each task can also be automatically tracked and monitored within the system as well, which is similar to some competing solutions we reviewed. [Read related article: How to Implement Continuous Performance Management]

Users can access a variety of information and data views to get a clear look at project status. Source: Monday.com

When testing the monday.com platform, we liked that users can set deadlines within the program, which allows you to see who is on track and who might be falling behind on any given project. If an employee is late to submit an assignment, you’ll be able to tell with a few clicks of a button. Tracking project completion and success can be an indicator of whether an employee is doing well or might need to be put on a performance improvement plan.

Workforce Collaboration

Workforce collaboration is another key contributor to employee performance. When we tested the monday.com software, we noticed an abundance of collaboration tools to help keep employees in sync. For example, the software has shareable forms that can be created and customized directly from a board within the platform. You can also automate repetitive work and set up dependency workflows (e.g., an employee can start a task only after a teammate has completed another) to ensure tasks are being done in order and on time. 

Users can collaborate remotely through the Monday.com platform. Source: Monday.com

Security and Compliance

Although monday.com gives multiple users the ability to work within the same boards, it has security settings in place to ensure your information is protected. For example, you can keep projects and tasks secure with security settings such as two-factor authentication, Google authentication and IP restrictions. We like that monday.com also offers private boards and documents, HIPAA compliance, SOC 2 Type II compliance and single-sign-on capabilities. When testing the platform, we noticed there are also integration permission settings, which isn’t something we noticed in many competitors.

Monday.com has permission settings so you can restrict worker access within the platform. Source: Monday.com

Views and Reporting

When we used the monday.com platform, we found its reporting views and dashboards to be one of its strong suits. We weren’t limited in how we could display information on the software. For example, monday.com offers timeline and calendar views for those who want to track time-sensitive tasks. If you’re interested in location-driven data, you can use a map view. A great way to review and manage employee capacity is with the kanban view as well as monday.com’s workload metrics. Capacity load can play a crucial role in employee performance, so it’s essential to keep track of this measurement. [Read related article: 10 Ways to Prevent Employee Burnout]

We like that the software also has a chart view to visualize workforce data. All of these are different ways to view workforce metrics, and this flexibility is ideal for employers and company leaders who want to track and manage employee performance and workload in the way that makes the most sense for them.

Although we were please with monday.com’s reporting features, its competitor Paycor made our list as the best HR software for analytics. If you want more in-depth reporting and analytics, read our review on Paycor.

Monday.com Pricing and Terms

Similar to other vendors on the market, Monday.com offers multiple tiered plans. Monthly and annual pricing are both available, although businesses save 18 percent if they opt for annual billing. One thing that sets monday.com apart from HR software providers we reviewed is that it groups its pricing into seat (user) increments. This can be a pro or con, depending on how many users your business will have.

Here is a quick look at the plans Monday.com offers. Pricing is for monthly billing. Note that all paid plans have a three-user minimum.

• Individual: This plan is free for up to two users. It includes three work boards, unlimited documents, 200-plus templates, eight column types, and mobile app access.
• Basic: This plan is $10 per seat per month and includes everything in the Individual plan, plus unlimited viewers and items, 5GB of file storage, a dashboard based on one board and prioritized support.
• Standard: This plan is $12 per seat per month and includes everything in the Basic plan, plus calendar view, guest access, timeline and Gantt views, a dashboard for up to five boards, up to 250 integration actions per month, and up to 250 task automations per month.
• Pro: This plan is $24 per seat per month and includes everything in the Standard plan, plus private boards, chart views, time-tracking and formula capabilities, a dashboard for up to 10 boards, up to 25,000 integration actions per month, and up to 25,000 task automations per month.
• Enterprise: This plan requires a custom quote for pricing. It includes everything in the Pro plan, plus enterprise-grade security, enterprise-scale automations and integrations, advanced reporting and analytics, multilevel permissions, tailored onboarding, premium support, and a dashboard for up to 50 boards.

We appreciate that monday.com has a free plan, as well as a 14-day free trial for businesses to test the software before making a commitment. None of the HR software competitors we reviewed offer free plans, and very few offer a free trial.

Implementation and Onboarding

When we tried monday.com, we found the implementation and onboarding process to be relatively straightforward. There are a lot of customization options that you can configure upfront, which will add to your setup time, but we believe they are helpful for streamlining processes later down the road. We like that you can quickly invite people onto the platform through a simple invitation link or email. When inviting a new user, you can decide whether they should be added to the system as a member or a viewer (someone with read-only access).

Once members are in the system, they can start managing their boards and tasks. When creating a board for the first time, you can choose between using provided templates or customizing boards on your own. We like that monday.com offers a best practices methodology for building boards to help users who are new to the platform. This all aids the implementation and onboarding process.

Customer Service

Although we found the monday.com platform to be easy to use, the vendor does offer customer support if needed. On the monday.com website, you can find a wealth of educational resources, like blogs, live and on-demand webinars, a help center, tutorials, and how-to guides. We found the on-demand demos to be especially helpful. We also like that monday.com provides hundreds of templates, which is a great way for users to get started with the platform right away.

If you have additional questions, you can contact a company support representative through the platform, which facilitates email and live chat correspondence. You can also request a phone call for billing inquiries. This is similar to what rival companies offer in terms of support.

Limitations

Unlike many of the HR software providers we reviewed, monday.com doesn’t offer traditional HR features like payroll processing and benefits administration. The software does have more than 200 integration options, though, so there is a good chance you can connect the system with a highly rated online payroll service. However, if you prefer a more well-rounded HR platform that comes with in-house payroll and benefits administration features, check out our Gusto review and our review of Rippling.

Another potential downside is monday.com’s user minimum. The vendor offers a free plan for up to two users, but the features are limited. If you want to purchase a paid plan with more advanced features, you are required to pay for at least three seats. From there, plan size is confined to set seat amounts (5, 10, 15, 25, 30, 40, 50, 100, 200+). These options may be cost-efficient for some businesses, but they may require others to pay for more seats than they need (e.g., even if your organization has only seven users, you’ll have to sign up for the 10-seat package). If you want to pay for an HR solution purely on a per-employee basis, read our review of Zenefits, which is especially great for startups, though there is a five-employee minimum.

Methodology

We investigated and analyzed dozens of HR systems to determine the best HR solutions on the market. We examined pricing, contracts, usability, recruiting and onboarding capabilities, employee benefits administration, time-tracking features, payroll processing, performance management tools, reports, integrations, legal compliance assistance, and customer service. We also watched product videos and conducted demos when possible.

When searching for the best HR software options for businesses looking for performance management tools specifically, we prioritized aspects like performance management, project management, collaboration, usability, reporting and customer service.

Bottom Line

We recommend monday.com for …

• Businesses that want an easy way to manage employee workflow and performance.
• Organizations looking for extensive project management features.
• Companies that want a highly customizable solution.

We don’t recommend monday.com for …

• Businesses that need built-in payroll capabilities.
• Companies looking for benefits administration.