monday.com vs Airtable
monday.com and Airtable side by side: what each one is, what it costs to start, and whether you can try it free. Everything below comes from the vendors' own sites and other public sources, not from hands-on testing.
At a glance
| monday.com | Airtable | |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Business & Ops | Business & Ops |
| Starting price | Free; paid plans from $9/mo (checked October 2026) | $20/mo (checked October 2026) |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Profile | Read profile | Read profile |
Prices are in US dollars unless shown otherwise. Confirm the current price on the vendor's site before you buy.
Key differences
Both list a free tier, so you can try each before paying.
monday.com has the lower starting price ($9/mo against $20/mo for Airtable). The cheapest plan rarely has the same limits or features, so compare plans before choosing on price.
Both are in our Business & Ops category.
About each tool
monday.com
Work management platform with boards, docs, automations and AI credits on paid plans. Free plan has 2 seats; Basic is $9 per seat a month billed annually.
Who it is for
Teams that want to plan and track projects and tasks on shared boards, from small groups on the Free plan to larger organizations on Enterprise. The vendor sells paid plans starting at 3 users, and separate products for CRM, dev and service.
Strengths
- The pricing page lists a Free plan for work management with up to 2 seats, 3 boards, 3 Docs, 200+ templates and iOS and Android apps.
- The pricing page lists monthly AI credits on paid work management plans: 1,000 on Basic, 2,000 on Standard and 3,000 on Pro, with Enterprise on custom allocation. A support article lists higher optional buckets (4,000 or 8,000 on Standard; 4,000, 8,000 or 20,000 on Pro).
- The pricing page lists Standard with 250 automation and 250 integration actions a month and Pro with 25,000 of each; Enterprise is listed with up to 250,000 combined and a 99.9% uptime SLA.
- A support article lists storage of 500 MB on Free, 5 GB on Basic, 20 GB on Standard, 100 GB on Pro and 1,000 GB on Enterprise.
- The vendor's AI Trust Center says it does not use customer input or output to train machine-learning models, and that AI follows the data region of the customer's account. The AI FAQ lists AES-256 encryption at rest, TLS 1.3 in transit, and ISO/IEC 27001, SOC 2 Type II and ISO/IEC 27701 certifications.
- Admin controls for AI include notices at 80% and 100% of credit use, a credit usage view under AI governance, and an AI permissions tab on Enterprise.
Limitations
- AI actions use credits: AI blocks use 8 credits per action, the AI Notetaker 120 credits per meeting hour, and agents and sidekick roughly 10 to 250+ credits per run or message depending on complexity. The vendor says usage rates are subject to change and some capabilities pause once credits run out; admins can move up to a larger credit bucket.
- The AI credit model article says it applies to customers who joined the work platform on or after May 6, 2026, so older accounts may be on different terms. It also lists credits at $0.01 per credit in USD.
- Features sit in higher tiers: guests, automations, integrations and Timeline/Gantt start at Standard; AI notetaker and AI columns at Standard; the AI workflow builder, private boards and time tracking at Pro; SSO/SAML, audit log and SCIM at Enterprise (per the support article). AI workflows are capped at 3 active on Standard, 20 on Pro and 250 on Enterprise.
- Vendor pages disagree on some figures: the pricing page says the Free plan has up to 3 Docs while the plan-types support article says unlimited workdocs; the same article says Standard integrations are unlimited yet lists 250 actions a month; and it lists the Free item cap as 200 plus 100 per successful referral. Per-seat prices are quoted without a currency code and exclude tax.
Airtable
No-code database and app builder with views, interfaces, automations and AI (Omni, field agents). Free plan; paid plans are per seat, from $20 a month billed annually.
Who it is for
Individuals and teams that track structured data and build workflows or internal apps without writing code. Airtable sells Free, Team, Business and Enterprise Scale plans.
Strengths
- A free plan with up to 5 editors and 1,000 records per base
- Paid plans raise limits to 50,000 records per base on Team and 125,000 on Business (self-serve)
- Paid plans include AI credits: 15,000 per user on Team and 20,000 on self-serve Business
- One year of revision history on Team and Business, two weeks on Free
Limitations
- Paid plans are charged per seat, for each user with edit access to at least one base
- Free caps: 5 editors, 1,000 records per base, 1 GB of attachments per base and 500 pooled AI credits
- At the record or attachment limit you can keep working but cannot add more until you upgrade
- AI features use credits, and extra credit packs are sold separately and are not available on Free
- Enterprise Scale pricing is custom and not listed
