Work Management Software Cost Index

Updated August 6, 2026 · 8 tools checked against their own pricing pages

The per-seat price is not what a small team pays. 4 of the 8 tools in this index constrain how many seats you may buy, and one of them, monday.com, would bill a team of 2 for a seat nobody is sitting in. So this index ranks on what a whole team pays a month once each vendor’s own rules are applied, and prints the sticker beside it. For a team of 2 the cheapest is Trello at $12 a month; for a team of 5 it is Trello at $30, against $120 for Airtable at the other end. Before any of that, check the free tiers: 7 of the 8 tools publish one, and every one of them would hold a team of 2without a bill at all. Every figure is quoted from the vendor’s own page and dated.

RangeYourself has no affiliate relationship with any tool on this page as of August 6, 2026: every link here goes straight to the vendor’s own site and earns us nothing. We may pursue one in this category, and if we do we will say so here. Either way the ordering follows published prices and each vendor’s own stated seat rules, and a vendor that pays nothing is listed on exactly the same basis as one that does. See how we make money and our editorial standards.

What a team of 2 pays

Ranked by the cheapest month-to-month total, ascending. The seats-billed column is where the seat floor shows up: it is the number the vendor charges for, not the number of people on the team. The last column asks the question the rest of the category skips, which is whether this team needs to pay anything at all.

What a team of 5 pays

Above the floors, the comparison becomes an ordinary one about the seat rate, and the ordering changes. This is the table to use if your team is already past three people.

How the seat floor is decided

It is not a judgement. A vendor is recorded as having a seat floor only where its own site states one: a minimum number of users a paid plan can be bought for, a purchase increment above one seat, or a maximum team size on a tier. The floor is applied mechanically when computing what a team of a given size pays, and the vendor's own words are printed beside it. As of August 6, 2026, 4 of the 8 tools state a constraint of some kind and 4 state none.

• monday.com: “Plans start from 3 users.” This applies to every paid plan, so it sets a floor under the whole bill.
• Asana: “Between 2 and 5 total users: add seats in increments of 1” This is a purchase step rather than a minimum: it costs nothing below six users and rounds up above it.
• ClickUp: “To upgrade ClickUp, you'll need to upgrade your entire Workspace, which means all members in your Workspace.” There is no minimum seat count, but a paid tier cannot be applied to part of a workspace.
• Smartsheet: “3+ Members, unlimited Guests and Contributors” This is written on one tier’s card only, so it does not reach the cheaper tier, and the arithmetic above treats it that way.
• Trello:states no constraint on how many seats you may buy. “Trello Standard and Premium are designed for all teams—even teams of one!”
• Notion:states no constraint on how many seats you may buy. “Each time your billing period starts (monthly or annual), your count of paid seats will be synchronized so it exactly matches the amount of members present in your workspace.”
• Airtable:states no constraint on how many seats you may buy. “Airtable plans are charged per seat.”
• Basecamp:states no constraint on how many seats you may buy. “we only bill you $15/user/month for employees or full users, not clients or temporary contractors.”

A seat floor is a normal commercial decision, not a trick, and none of these vendors hides one. It is simply the difference between the number on the card and the number on the invoice, and nothing else in this category publishes it.

Which teams should not be paying at all

7 of the 8 tools publish a free tier, and the caps on them are not remotely comparable. Smartsheet names none on itspricing page, only a trial — which is a statement about the page rather than a claim about the product.

• monday.com: capped at 2 seats. Fits a team of 2: yes. Fits a team of 5: no.
• Asana: capped at 2 seats. Fits a team of 2: yes. Fits a team of 5: no.
• ClickUp: no stated headcount cap. Fits a team of 2: yes. Fits a team of 5: yes.
• Trello: capped at 10 seats. Fits a team of 2: yes. Fits a team of 5: yes.
• Notion: no stated headcount cap. Fits a team of 2: yes. Fits a team of 5: yes.
• Airtable: capped at 5 seats. Fits a team of 2: yes. Fits a team of 5: yes.
• Basecamp: capped at 20 seats. Fits a team of 2: yes. Fits a team of 5: yes.
• Smartsheet: no free tier on the pricing page.

Which tier carries automations and a timeline view

This is the other reason a headline price misleads: the cheapest paid tier is often not the one that does the thing you are buying the software for. Of the 6 tools whose pricing pages name a timeline or Gantt view, 2 gate it above their own cheapest paid tier and 4 include it at the entry price (Asana, ClickUp, Airtable and Smartsheet). A blank below means the vendor’s pricing page names no such capability, which is a statement about the page and not a claim about the product.

What a year’s commitment saves

Between 20% and 43% on the entry tier across this set, computed from each vendor’s own two published figures. 3 of the 8 pricing pages load with the annual option already selected; 4 print both figures at once so nothing is hidden behind a toggle. The largest gap is ClickUp, where staying monthly costs 43% more.

• Trello: $6 a seat month to month against $5 billed annually, so staying monthly costs 20% more.
• Notion: $12 a seat month to month against $10 billed annually, so staying monthly costs 20% more.
• Airtable: $24 a seat month to month against $20 billed annually, so staying monthly costs 20% more.
• Asana: $13.49 a seat month to month against $10.99 billed annually, so staying monthly costs 23% more.
• monday.com: $12 a seat month to month against $9 billed annually, so staying monthly costs 33% more.
• Smartsheet: $12 a seat month to month against $9 billed annually, so staying monthly costs 33% more.
• ClickUp: $10 a seat month to month against $7 billed annually, so staying monthly costs 43% more.

Costs that sit outside the seat price

Add-ons and consumption charges each vendor prices separately from the seat. None of these is included in the totals above, because none of these vendors treats them as part of a seat.

• monday.com, AI credits, billed as a monthly line item on top of the seat price and currently offset in full by a stated discount: On Standard at ten seats the page's own breakdown reads 2,000 credits = $20 then Special monthly discount = -$20. The credit line has a price; a current promotion is cancelling it. The four parts of that quote are four separate lines of one tooltip, shown here separated by dots. “$12 x 10 seats = $120 · 2,000 credits = $20 · Special monthly discount = -$20 · Total = $120”
• Asana, Timesheets and Budgets add-on: A separately priced per-seat add-on available only on the paid tiers. “$5.99 per user, per month billed annually. Available on Starter, Advanced, Enterprise, and Enterprise+ plans”
• ClickUp, Brain AI, a second per-seat subscription: Priced separately from the plan seat, in its own block with its own billing toggle. “Brain AI”
• ClickUp, AI Super Credits: Consumption pricing on top of both subscriptions. “AI Super Credits”
• Airtable, Portals, a separately priced guest add-on: Priced from a floor that differs by tier, and quote-only on Enterprise Scale. “Portals: Starting from $120 for 15 guests/month”
• Basecamp, Timesheet upgrade, flat rate: Sold separately on Pro, bundled into Pro Unlimited. “The Timesheet upgrade is $50/month flat no matter how many people you have on your account.”
• Basecamp, Admin Pro Pack upgrade, flat rate: Sold separately on Pro, bundled into Pro Unlimited. “The Admin Pro Pack upgrade is $50/month flat no matter how many people you have on your account.”
• Smartsheet, Dynamic View, a premium add-on: Priced separately from the seat, and only on Business and Enterprise. “From $125/month”

Vendor-stated details worth knowing before you buy

Each of these comes from the vendor’s own page or is a plain reading of what it publishes. None is a claim about how any tool performs.

• monday.com: monday.com is the only tool in this index whose own site states a minimum team size that applies to every paid plan it sells: "Plans start from 3 users." A two-person team pays for three seats. Smartsheet also states a minimum, but on one tier's card only.
• monday.com: The per-seat figures here were read at monday.com's default team size of ten seats. Its page lets you change that number; we did not verify whether the per-seat rate moves with it, so we do not claim either way.
• monday.com: Above forty users monday.com stops publishing a price at all: "If you want to sign up more than 40 users, you can request a quote to get an exact price."
• monday.com: monday.com advertises an 18% yearly discount. On its own two published figures the gap differs by tier: Basic, Standard and Pro do not all come to 18%, and the index computes each one.
• Asana: Asana sets no minimum team size, but it does publish the increments seats are sold in: "Between 2 and 5 total users: add seats in increments of 1", then "Up to 30 total users: add seats in increments of 5". A team of six therefore buys ten seats, and a team of eleven buys fifteen.
• Asana: Asana states plainly that it does not refund: "We do not offer refunds. If you cancel your plan before the next renewal cycle, you will retain access to paid features until the end of your subscription period."
• ClickUp: ClickUp sets no seat minimum, but it does state that the upgrade is workspace-wide: "To upgrade ClickUp, you'll need to upgrade your entire Workspace, which means all members in your Workspace." A team cannot put two people on a paid tier and leave the rest free.
• ClickUp: The seat price is not the whole per-seat cost if you want the AI: ClickUp runs a separate AI pricing block with its own per-seat prices and its own billing toggle, plus consumption-priced AI Super Credits.
• ClickUp: ClickUp publishes a satisfaction guarantee: "We have a 100% satisfaction guarantee. If for any reason, you're not satisfied with your purchase, simply let us know within 30 days and we'll be happy to issue you a full refund."
• Trello: Trello counts guests as billable in a case worth knowing about: "Any Guest that is on more than one board within the Workspace is considered a Multi-Board Guest and is billed at the same rate as Standard or Premium Workspace members."
• Trello: Every member of a paid Workspace is billable: "A Trello user who is added as a member to a Workspace—either as a normal member or as a team admin—is considered a billable team member that is included in the cost of Trello Standard or Premium."
• Trello: Trello's Enterprise tier is sold on annual billing only; it publishes no month-to-month figure for it.
• Notion: Notion footnotes its own paid tiers: "* Plans may not be available for every workspace." It does not say which workspaces.
• Notion: Notion publishes a refund window rather than a trial: "we'll be happy to refund you the full amount (not pro-rated) if you downgrade your subscription within three days of signing up for monthly billing, or within 30 days of signing up for annual billing."
• Airtable: Airtable bills only the people who can edit: "you will be charged for all users who have edit permissions for at least one base in the workspace", and it states that read-only collaborators, form submissions and share links are not charged.
• Airtable: Airtable's free tier is capped on editors at five, which is the tightest headcount cap in this index after monday.com's two and Asana's two.
• Basecamp: Basecamp's Pro Unlimited plan does not charge per user, and Basecamp puts the extreme case in its own FAQ: "Could we really add 1000 users and still just pay $299/month total on Pro Unlimited?", answered yes. That makes it the cheapest option in this index at large headcounts and the most expensive at small ones.
• Basecamp: Basecamp publishes no annual per-seat rate for Pro and no monthly option for Pro Unlimited, so its two paid plans cannot be compared on the same billing term.
• Basecamp: Basecamp's pricing page names no automations, timeline or Gantt capability. That is a statement about the page, not a claim about the product.
• Smartsheet: Smartsheet's cheapest tier has a ceiling as well as a floor: Pro reads "1-10 Members, unlimited Contributors", so a team that grows past ten members has to move to Business at twice the seat price.
• Smartsheet: Smartsheet Business states "3+ Members", so a two-person team cannot buy it at all and has to take Pro.
• Smartsheet: Smartsheet's pricing page names no free tier, only a trial: "30 days free, no credit card required". That is what the page publishes; it is not a claim that no free product exists anywhere.

How this index is verified

Every figure on this page was read from the vendor’s own pricing page and is stored with that page’s URL, a verbatim quote, and the date it was checked (most recent: August 6, 2026). 4 of these 8pages render their prices in the browser rather than in the served HTML, so they were read in a browser with each billing option selected in turn. Where a vendor publishes no number, we say so instead of repeating a figure from elsewhere. A blank in the automations or timeline column means the vendor’s pricing page names no such capability, which is a statement about the page and not a claim about the product. Seat floors are applied only where the vendor states one, and only as widely as the vendor states it: a minimum written on a single tier’s card is applied to that tier alone. Totals and percentages are arithmetic on published figures only. See our editorial standards and how we verify.

Which tools are in it. The eight tools a two-to-twenty-person team actually shortlists when it searches for project or work management software, chosen before any pricing was read and not revised afterwards. A tool is included whether or not it publishes a price and whether or not RangeYourself could ever earn anything from it. Nothing is excluded for being expensive, for having a seat minimum, or for declining to publish a figure; a tool that publishes nothing is listed saying so.

Frequently asked questions

Work management tools with a free plan · Work management with no seat minimum · How much does monday.com cost? · Is monday.com worth it?