The first question to ask about leaving Smartsheet is whether you want to keep working in a grid. Teams that run financial models, cross-sheet references and formula-driven reports in Smartsheet are using it as a spreadsheet, and most project tools will feel like a step down. Teams that use a sheet as a task list, a row per piece of work with an owner, a status and a date, often find a board fits better. This post compares monday work management, Asana and Kavanah with Smartsheet using what each vendor's own pages said on October 30, 2026.
1. What Smartsheet Charges and Where
Smartsheet's pricing page lists Pro at $12 per member a month, or $9 on yearly pricing, for 1 to 10 members, available only to new customers, and Business at $24, or $19 yearly, for 3 or more members. A Gantt view is on every plan; the Timeline view, workload tracking, unlimited automations and unlimited free guests start on Business, while Pro has 250 automations a month and 20 GB of storage. SAML single sign-on is on Enterprise. Time and expense tracking is part of Resource Management, an add-on for Business and Enterprise with no published price. And a sheet holds up to 20,000 rows, 400 columns and 500,000 cells.
2. monday work management: The Closest Feel
monday is the alternative that feels most like a flexible table. It lists Basic at $9, Standard at $12 and Pro at $19 per seat a month billed annually, from 3 users. Timeline and Gantt views start on Standard, time tracking on Pro, and automation runs on a monthly count: 250 actions on Standard and 25,000 on Pro. AI credits run from 1,000 to 3,000 a month by plan. It suits teams that like Smartsheet's flexibility but want boards and low-code automation.
3. Asana: Timelines, Goals and Portfolios
Asana lists Starter at $10.99 per user a month billed annually ($13.49 monthly) with no seat limit, and Advanced at $24.99. Timeline and Gantt views, unlimited automations and unlimited free guests are on Starter; native time tracking is on Advanced; SAML and SCIM on Enterprise. AI is 5 requests per user a month, capped at 50 per account below Enterprise. It suits teams that want structured projects and leadership reporting more than a grid.
4. Kavanah: Boards, Built-in Time and AI Employees
Kavanah is a task tool, not a spreadsheet: it has list views with sorting and filtering, custom fields, a Timeline view and task dependencies, but no Gantt view, formulas or cross-sheet references. Time tracking and a client portal are on every plan, not add-ons. Workspace members are the only seats: Basic is $3 a seat a month ($2 billed yearly) and Pro is $6 ($4 yearly), and Pay as you go has no seat fee at all, with AI credits in packs from $10 per 1,000. AI employees work inside the projects you choose, with safe mode, approval policies, an action ledger and undo. Moving a sheet is a CSV import; there is no Smartsheet connector or sync.
5. When to Keep Smartsheet
Smartsheet's trust centre names SOC 2, ISO 27001, ISO 27701 and FedRAMP. If you need FedRAMP, Kavanah cannot meet it today: it has no FedRAMP authorisation, and its SOC 2 Type II observation period is underway with no report yet. Smartsheet's AI tools are included on Pro, Business and Enterprise, it says customer data never trains third-party foundation models, and it exports Gantt sheets to Microsoft Project. If your work lives in formulas and reports built over years, stay. If your sheets are really task lists, move those and keep the models where they are.
Most teams leaving Smartsheet move some sheets, not all of them. For the full dated comparison of Kavanah, Smartsheet, monday work management and Asana, including seat types and security, see our Smartsheet alternative page.
