Where the free plans stop

Each of the three figures above carries a condition.

What differs between the three is where the step up sits and how much leaves the account on the day you sign. The products are not equivalent: HubSpot is a CRM for managing customers and deals, while the other two manage work and progress (monday.com offers a free plan on its work management product).

Four terms. A free plan is a tier of a paid product that stays free with no end date, unlike a free trial, which expires on a fixed day. A "seat" is one person's right to log in, but the three do not sell them the same way: HubSpot and Asana add seats one at a time, while monday.com sells them only in groups, so a team of four buys five (a separate piece sets out what each vendor counts as a seat). An "item" is a single row on a monday.com "board" (one table, close to an Excel sheet). A "deal pipeline" lays out where an opportunity sits between inquiry, quote and close, and each of those points is a "stage".

What are the free plan limits at HubSpot, monday.com and Asana?

Two people at all three; beyond that the ceilings are placed differently across nine categories. Which one you meet first is worked out in the next section.

The table below lists each free-plan limit vendor by vendor, with a column on how to read it. Of its 27 figures — nine limits across three vendors — seven could not be confirmed on the official pages (checked 2026-08-17).

Sources: HubSpot pricing / HubSpot Product and Services Catalog / Understanding the Free Plan / How does plan pricing work / Asana pricing / Subscription size and users (English-language pages, checked 2026-08-17)

What does the third person cost?

On annual billing, between $252 and $395.64 on the day you sign, because 12 months are taken up front. Monthly billing works out differently; the note above gives the figures.

monday.com is not the only vendor that makes you buy seats in blocks. monday.com sells them in groups: "The pricing works per group of seats and not per seat." The minimum is 3 seats, and official support gives the example of choosing 5 seats for a team of 4. Asana sells 2 to 5 seats one at a time, so there is no step-up through 5 people, but the sixth person jumps the plan to 10 seats.

The table below gives the seats you must buy, the monthly equivalent and the first payment at each headcount, on each vendor's entry-level paid plan.

All prices are monthly equivalents (billed annually, US dollars, excluding tax). Unit prices are $9 for monday.com Basic, $10.99 for Asana Starter and $7 for HubSpot Starter. Annual billing collects 12 months' payment up front, so the "at signup" column is what actually leaves the account first.

Sources: monday.com pricing / Asana pricing / HubSpot pricing (checked 2026-08-17)

For HubSpot, the billing cycle matters more than headcount. Starter (officially the Starter Customer Platform, an entry bundle covering marketing, sales, service and two further areas) lists at $20 per seat per month, with a limited-time price for new customers of $7 billed annually (65% off) and $10 billed monthly (50% off). Monthly costs $10 / $7 = 1.43 times annual, and once the discount ends that becomes $20 / $7 = 2.9 times. For 3 seats, annual billing takes $252 at signup, while monthly billing runs from $30 a month at the discounted rate to $60 at list. monday.com also discounts annual billing (18% by its own figure), but its monthly rate could not be confirmed. Which cycle to pick is worked through in a separate piece on annual versus monthly billing.

Which limit stops you first: volume, fields or features?

It depends on the vendor: monday.com runs out of rows, HubSpot runs out of custom fields, and Asana does not offer the features at all. Each of the three is set out below with the arithmetic.

monday.com stops on volume. At one row per deal and one deal per day, 200 items is 200 / 30.4 = about 6.5 months; at three rows per deal it is 200 / (3 x 30.4) = about 2.2 months. Decide how many rows a deal consumes, then divide 200 by it.

HubSpot stops on field count. Custom properties (fields specific to your business that are not there out of the box) are capped at 10 across contacts, companies and deals combined, against 1,000 per object on paid tiers. Industry, renewal month and assigned reseller alone use three. With a single deal pipeline, the deciding line is not how many businesses you run but whether you need two distinct sets of deal stages.

Asana stops on features. Four are unavailable: timeline (the Gantt view that lays out task durations as horizontal bars), dashboards, automation rules and custom fields. The first two are presentation problems, since deadlines and owners can be tracked in a list. The one that halts real work is the absence of custom fields: tasks cannot carry an amount or an owning department, so nothing can be totaled.

What happens to your data when you hit the ceiling?

Nothing is deleted on monday.com, but the official wording goes only as far as existing data staying "accessible in view-only mode" — whether editing still works is not stated. For HubSpot and Asana the answer could not be confirmed on any official page (checked 2026-08-17).

On monday.com, existing data is not deleted when you pass a limit, but "your existing data remains accessible in view-only mode" and no new items or boards can be created. Whether editing remains possible is not stated officially, so confirm with support before you sign. Returning to the free plan requires cutting back to 2 seats first and converting private and shareable boards into regular boards. Column types the free tier does not support cannot be re-added once you remove them, unless you upgrade again. HubSpot's behavior above 1,000 contacts, and Asana's on downgrade, could not be confirmed officially.

So which one should you choose?

It depends on headcount. For two people Asana Personal is the least restricted free plan; from three to six people HubSpot Starter is the cheapest paid option at $21 to $42 a month for the whole team; at six people Asana resizes the plan to 10 seats and jumps to $109.90 a month ($1,318.80 at signup) (checked 2026-08-17).

All figures are US dollars, excluding tax, billed annually (12 months taken at signup). Sources are the same as the pricing table above (checked 2026-08-17).

Readers who should look elsewhere

• Teams that need seats for three or more people but are not ready to commit to an annual software cost. All three vendors bill from the third person.
• Organizations with nobody who reads English help pages. Prices and specifications come from the English-language official pages.
• Anyone planning to stay on monday.com with two people for a long time. For the same two free users, monday.com gives 200 items, three boards and no automation or integrations, while Asana Personal gives unlimited tasks and projects and does allow integrations. Over a long stretch at two people, Asana Personal is the less restrictive plan.
• Anyone who wants to total amounts or completion rates per deal in Asana. Personal does not offer custom fields.
• Anyone considering HubSpot for tracking work progress. It is a tool for managing customers and deals; whether a CRM is needed at all is worked through in a separate piece on whether you need one.

The one action to take before you sign

Load 10 records of your own real data — not fabricated samples — into the free plan you are leaning toward, and see which limit you meet first. That one test, run while the account still costs nothing, is what tells you whether the ceiling above is 6.5 months away or 2.2 — on your own numbers, not ours.

Sources (English-language official pages, all checked 2026-08-17)

• HubSpot Free Tools: 2 users, 1,000 contacts, 1 deal pipeline, 2,000 marketing emails per month with HubSpot branding ("2,000 email sends per calendar month, with HubSpot branding.") → HubSpot pricing
• HubSpot Starter (officially the Starter Customer Platform): $20 per seat per month at list, with limited-time pricing for new customers only at $7 per seat per month billed annually (65% off) or $10 billed monthly (50% off). "Starts at $7/month per seat billed annually" / "Starts at $10/month per seat billed monthly" / "New customers only. Select offers available for a limited time." → HubSpot Starter Customer Platform and HubSpot pricing
• HubSpot Free Tools custom properties: "Custom properties: Associate specific data points with contacts, companies, and deals. 10 custom properties in total." Paid tiers allow 1,000 per object. → HubSpot Product and Services Catalog
• monday.com Free (work management): 2 seats, 3 boards, 200 items, 500MB, no automations or integrations ("If you choose the Free Plan, you will not be able to use automations or integrations."), no guests or viewers, 100 items per referral up to 800 for a total of 1,000 items, view-only above the ceiling ("your existing data remains accessible in view-only mode"), the seat and board-type conditions for downgrading, and the restriction on removing unsupported columns ("certain column types aren't supported on the Free tier. If you remove these while on the Free plan, you won't be able to re-add them unless you upgrade again.") → Understanding the Free Plan
• monday.com paid minimum of 3 seats, sold in groups: "The minimum number of seats you can have on a paid plan is 3." / "The pricing works per group of seats and not per seat." / "If you have a team of 4 for instance, you may choose the 5 seat option." → How does plan pricing work
• monday.com work management: Basic $9 per seat per month billed annually, Standard $12, Pro $19, with an 18% discount for annual billing → monday.com pricing
• Asana Personal: "Up to 2 users can collaborate for free." Unlimited tasks and projects, unlimited storage (100MB per file), with timeline, dashboards, automation rules and custom fields out of scope. Asana Starter: $10.99 per seat per month billed annually, $13.49 billed monthly → Asana pricing
• Asana seat increments: "Asana offers 2-, 3-, 4- and 5-seat plans; increments of 5 up to 30 users (5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30); increments of 10 up to 100 users…" and automatic resizing beyond the plan: "If you've surpassed your seat plan, Asana will take care of resizing your plan automatically" → Subscription size and users

Items that could not be confirmed on the official pages, and worth putting to the vendor in writing while the account is still free: whether you can reduce seats and return; Asana's refund terms on annual billing; whether data entered on the free plan carries over to paid; monday.com's monthly prices, the minimum seat count on work management specifically, and the full list of seat-group increments; HubSpot Free Tools' limits on automation, integrations and storage, and its seat minimum; HubSpot's behavior once contacts exceed 1,000; and Asana's handling of timeline and custom fields when moving from paid back to free.

Local sites may differ on currency, tax treatment and the plans offered, so check your local pricing page before signing.

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