Is monday.com worth it for freelancers and solo practitioners?
I'm a freelance web developer working solo. I currently use a combination of Trello (free) and Notion (free) for project management and documentation. Is monday.com worth the cost for a one-person operation? The Basic plan is $9/seat but with the 3-seat minimum that's $27/month. What unique value does monday.com offer that justifies the cost for freelancers?
2 Answers
I made the switch from Trello to monday.com 6 months ago as a solo consultant. Here's my honest assessment: The $27/month minimum is annoying but worth it for the automation capabilities alone. I set up automations that: create invoices when project status changes to 'Complete', send client updates every Friday automatically, and track time without manual entry. The timeline and Gantt views are far superior to Trello for client work with deadlines. The mobile app is actually usable - I can update project status from client meetings. For documentation, I still use Notion (free tier) and link to it from monday. The integration between the two covers all my needs. If you're doing client work with any complexity, the paid version pays for itself in time savings within 2-3 months.
Honestly, for solo use, monday.com is probably overkill unless you're doing complex client work. I tried it for 3 months and went back to Notion + Todoist ($4/month). The 3-seat minimum makes it feel like they're punishing solo users. However, if you have any ambition to hire or collaborate, the platform scales well. One alternative: use the free 2-seat trial indefinitely by creating a 'dummy' account - but that's against ToS and risky for client work.