monday.com vs Trello

monday.com and Trello both organise work visually, but they suit different stages of a team. Trello is a simple board tool from Atlassian: cards move across lists as work progresses. monday.com is a broader work management platform with customisable boards, dashboards, automations and AI agents. Choose Trello if you want the quickest, cheapest way to get a small team organised. Choose monday.com if you need reporting, timelines and more structure across teams.

What is the main difference between monday.com and Trello?

Trello splits work into boards for projects, lists for stages and cards for tasks. Each card holds a description, checklist, due date, assignees, labels, attachments and comments. An Inbox collects to-dos from email, Slack and Microsoft Teams, and Planner shows cards on your calendar. Power-Ups connect Trello to other apps.

monday.com boards are built from items and columns you choose, such as status, owner, date and priority. The same board can show as a table, kanban board, timeline, Gantt chart or calendar. Dashboards, docs and forms sit alongside, and AI agents can generate a project plan, flag delayed work and send status reports. In short, Trello is a board, while monday.com is a platform built on boards.

How do monday.com and Trello compare on price?

Prices below were checked on each vendor's pricing page on 1 November 2026, per seat or user per month.

monday.com lists these prices in US dollars in its pricing data and says prices depend on your billing country. Its paid plans start at 3 seats, so the smallest Basic bill is $27 a month on annual billing.

Trello's listed prices are lower at each step. Compare the plans that add timeline-style views. Trello Premium costs $10 and adds Calendar, Timeline, Table, Dashboard and Map views with unlimited automation command runs. monday.com Standard costs $12 and adds timeline, Gantt and calendar views, with 250 automation actions and 250 integration actions a month.

What the extra money buys on monday.com is depth: Sidekick and 1,000 to 3,000 AI credits a month on paid plans, an AI meeting notetaker from Standard, private boards and time tracking on Pro, and portfolio and resource management on Enterprise. Trello's paid plans add AI to capture and organise messages, summarise cards and generate boards.

Which is easier to set up?

Trello. Its board, list and card model is simple enough that most teams can start without training, and G2 reviewers most often praise its ease of use and visual task management. The trade-off is depth: the most common complaints are limited features, no built-in document creation or useful statistics, and weak budgeting and alerts for complex projects.

monday.com reviewers also praise its ease of use, but some describe a steep learning curve when rolling it out across departments. Because you design each board's columns and automations, someone needs to own the setup.

Which has the better free plan?

Trello's, by a wide margin. Trello Free allows up to 10 collaborators and 10 boards per Workspace, with unlimited cards, unlimited Power-Ups and 250 automation command runs a month. Planner is view-only on Free. monday.com Free covers 2 seats, 3 boards and 3 docs, with no AI features.

Both offer trials of a higher plan. monday.com offers 14 days of Pro with no credit card. Any Trello Workspace can start a free trial of Premium, though Trello does not state its length.

Which works better for marketing teams?

Trello works for small marketing teams that track campaigns and content as cards moving from idea to published. Cards hold briefs, checklists, due dates and attachments, and the Inbox can catch requests from email, Slack and Teams. Premium adds a Calendar view for content schedules. Reporting is the weak spot: G2 reviewers mention limited statistics.

monday.com suits marketing teams that need to report on their work. Content calendars, campaign plans and creative request queues each get a board, forms feed in requests, and dashboards show managers progress and workload across boards. Guest access for agencies and freelancers starts on Standard.

Which works better for sales teams?

Neither work management plan is a CRM. A Trello board can use lists as deal stages and cards as deals, which may be enough for a founder tracking a handful of opportunities. Trello's plans do not list CRM features such as contact records or sales forecasting.

monday.com sells a separate product, monday CRM, on the same board platform, with leads, contacts, accounts and deals. On 1 November 2026 it started at €12 per seat per month billed yearly for a Netherlands visitor (no US dollar price was shown), with a 3-seat minimum. Read our monday CRM review. For a sales team, that dedicated product is the stronger choice of the two vendors.

What do users say about monday.com and Trello?

On G2, monday.com, listed as monday AI Work Platform, holds 4.7 out of 5 from 17,885 reviews. Reviewers praise ease of use and collaboration, and complain about plan limits such as seat minimums and the learning curve across departments. Trello holds 4.4 out of 5 from 14,068 reviews. Reviewers praise its simplicity and flexibility, and complain about limited features, reporting and customisation. These ratings were checked on 31 October 2026.

The bottom line

Choose Trello if you are a small team that wants a free or low-cost board everyone understands on day one. Choose monday.com if you need dashboards, Gantt charts, AI and a platform that can grow with several teams, and you are happy to pay for at least three seats.

Read our Trello review and our monday.com project management review for more.