Why Monday.com's pricing is considered predatory by SMBs

“Why is your software company charging you for people who do not exist?”

For solo consultants, freelancers, and boutique agency owners, that isn’t a rhetorical question — it’s a painful reality. 

If you’ve tried to scale with monday.com, you’ve likely confronted the Ghost Seat Tax: mandatory seat minimums that require you to pay for three licenses even if only one person uses the platform. 

For SMBs with tight budgets and razor-thin margins, this isn’t just inconvenient — it’s predatory pricing dressed up as “team-based billing.”

 

The Real Cost Behind the Pricing Structure

On paper, Monday.com’s plans appear affordable — starting at around $9–$12 per seat per month — but this pricing only applies when you buy at least three seats for any paid plan.

• No single‑seat paid plan: Paid tiers (Basic, Standard, Pro, Enterprise) are only available with a minimum of three users.
• Artificial seat buckets: According to Monday.com's official documentation, plans are tiered in blocks rather than truly per user, meaning you can be forced into a 5‑seat or even larger block if you don’t deactivate users first.

For a solo consultant or a boutique agency of 1–3 people, this is built‑in financial drag — you’re paying for phantom teammates just to access core features like automation and integrations.

 

Why SMBs Feel Penalized

Small businesses run lean. Every dollar spent on software is a dollar that isn’t invested in client work, salaries, or runway. The seat minimum model isn’t just pricing misalignment — it’s economic inefficiency:

You pay for licenses nobody uses.

• Essential capabilities (like advanced automations or workflow integrations) are locked behind more expensive plans that penalize small teams with higher per‑seat costs.
• Annual billing cycles and bundled product pricing can further inflate total spend.

A 2025 discussion by users on the model highlights this frustration: many solo operators reported that they simply couldn’t justify paying for extra seats they never needed — and that it felt like getting “taken for a ride.” 

 

The Principle Behind the Product

There's a reason Monday.com's pricing feels wrong to you. It is wrong — for your business model, your team size, and your financial reality.

You're not too small for great software. You're not meant to pay a seat premium to compensate for a platform's inability to price fairly. 

You are exactly the kind of operator that modern AI-native tooling was built for: agile, financially literate, and unwilling to subsidize a SaaS company's average contract value with money your business actually needs.

The ghost seat era is over. The only question is when you decide to stop paying for it.

 

Why Kroolo Is the Logical Switch

Kroolo was built from the ground up with a different contract in mind: one where the user is a partner, not a revenue target.

1. No Seat Minimum — On Every Plan 

Whether you're a solo operator on day one or a team of fifty three years from now, you pay for exactly the seats you use. No ghost seat mandates. No artificial floor.

2. Generative AI and Automation Included 

Every paid Kroolo plan ships with the full feature set: AI-powered task management, automated workflows, and advanced integrations. There is no tier where you get a hobbled version of the product and need to upgrade to actually use it. The power of an enterprise-grade WorkOS, at proportional cost.

3. Project Management, Docs, and Chat — Unified 

Kroolo isn't a single-point tool. It's an AI-Native WorkOS that consolidates the work surface your team actually operates on: projects, documentation, and communication in a single high-speed platform. Fewer tools, lower stack cost, less context-switching.

 

Case Study: How One Solo Marketing Consultant Cut Costs and Boosted Productivity with Kroolo

The Challenge

Jane, a solo marketing consultant, was using Monday.com to manage client projects. Despite being a one-person operation, she was forced to pay for three seats just to access automation and integration features. This “ghost seat” requirement was inflating her software overhead and creating unnecessary friction in her workflow.

The Solution

Jane discovered Kroolo, an AI-Native WorkOS designed for small teams with no seat minimums. Using Kroolo’s 1-click importer, she effortlessly migrated her projects, docs, and task history from Monday.com in minutes.

The Outcome

• Reduced software spend by 50%: She switched to a single Plus seat, paying only for what she actually used.
• Faster project setup with AI: Kroolo’s native AI agents automatically organized her tasks, set up project boards, and optimized workflows—saving hours of manual setup every week.
• Unified platform for all content: Jane could manage projects, chat with docs, PDFs, PPTs, and images in one high-speed workspace without juggling multiple apps.

Why It Matters

For solo operators like Jane, every dollar saved and every hour gained matters. By switching to Kroolo, she not only cut costs immediately but also leveraged AI-powered productivity that scales with her business—without paying for unused seats or locked features.

Takeaway

Kroolo’s fair-billing model and AI-first platform empower small teams to work smarter, not spend more, turning software from a cost center into a productivity partner.