The price on monday.com's pricing page is per seat, but the bill is not. monday.com's help centre calls it bucket pricing: plans start at a minimum of 3 seats and then go up in multiples of 5, so a team of 4 picks the 5-seat option and a team of 6 needs the 10-seat plan. That rule matters more than the headline price for almost every team. Here is the arithmetic for three real headcounts, using the annual-billing prices monday.com listed on October 25, 2026. Prices change; check the pages before you decide.
1. The Rule, in monday.com's Words
Seats are sold in groups, not singly: 3, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and so on. The work management plans are listed at $9 a seat a month on Basic, $12 on Standard and $19 on Pro, billed annually, and the pricing page itself shows the example of $12 times 10 seats for $120. The yearly price carries an 18% discount over monthly billing. You cannot buy fewer seats than you have active users; to step down a bucket, you deactivate people first.
2. A Team of 6, 12 and 22
A team of 6 rounds up to 10 seats: $90 a month on Basic, $120 on Standard and $190 on Pro. A team of 12 rounds up to 15 seats: $135, $180 and $285. A team of 22 rounds up to 25 seats: $225, $300 and $475. In each case you pay for 3 or 4 seats nobody sits in. The rounding is the same shape as Asana's, which sells one seat at a time up to 5 users and then in steps of 5 up to 30, so Asana Starter at $10.99 a user a month billed annually also bills a team of 6 for 10 seats. ClickUp's comparison page says it charges paid plans per member, so 6 paid members need 6 seats.
3. Guests Can Move You Up a Bucket
Outside collaborators are where the bucket bites twice. Basic has no shareable boards, so no guests. On Standard, every 4 guests count as 1 billed seat, and your seat count includes members and guest groups together. Take a team of 12 on a 15-seat Standard plan: 3 spare seats carry up to 15 guests. Invite a 16th and the fourth guest group makes 16 seats, so the account is upgraded automatically to the next seat tier, which under the multiples-of-5 rule is 20 seats. monday.com says it sends two emails before that happens. On Pro and Enterprise, guests are unlimited.
4. The Same Teams on Kavanah
Kavanah bills one member at a time, with no buckets, and clients you invite to its client portal are not members, so they are not seats. Basic is $3 a member a month, or $2 billed yearly, with 100 AI credits a seat pooled for the workspace: $18 a month for 6 people, $36 for 12 and $66 for 22, or $12, $24 and $44 on annual billing. Pro is $6 a member, or $4 yearly, with 250 credits a seat. The Pay as you go plan drops the seat fee entirely: unlimited seats and projects, and you buy AI credits in packs from $10 per 1,000. And a team of up to 5 can start on the free Starter plan, with 10 projects, 2 GB and 100 credits a month.
5. What the Seat Price Leaves Out
Kavanah's seat price is low because AI is metered separately, in credits at roughly one cent each, and its pricing page says a typical agent reply costs about 70 credits on the default model. A team that leans on its AI agents should price that usage alongside the seats. monday.com meters AI in credits too, with 1,000, 2,000 or 3,000 a month on Basic, Standard and Pro. Compare the whole bill at the headcount you expect in a year, including guests, not the list price times today's team.
Bucket pricing is not a trick, but it is easy to miss until the invoice arrives. For the full dated comparison of Kavanah, monday.com, ClickUp and Asana, including guests, automations and imports, see our monday.com alternative page.
