monday.com or Asana: which fits your team and its annual budget?

Four colleagues and six colleagues buy different-sized plans

A seat is a paid licence assigned to a user. monday.com's paid plans start at three seats, then use seat blocks. Asana offers two, three, four and five seats, then five-seat steps up to 30. Four colleagues therefore buy five seats on monday.com and four on Asana; six buy ten on either.

Unused seats can matter more than the per-user price. Ask for the billable seat count for today's team and the next likely hire. For larger monday.com teams, confirm the offered quantity in checkout or the quote rather than extrapolating a seat count from an abbreviated example.

Japan annual rates: compare seat charges first

The Japan pages list Standard at ¥1,650 per seat/month on annual billing and Asana Starter at ¥1,200 per user/month on annual billing. These figures exclude applicable tax. The table calculates the annual seat charge as rate × purchased seats × 12. monday.com's column excludes separately required AI credits; it is not a full order quote.

Scroll the table horizontally on a small screen.

At six people, Asana's annual charge is ¥1,200 × 10 × 12 = ¥144,000. Buying four unused seats adds ¥57,600 compared with the mathematical cost of six seats, which is not a purchase option at that size. The difference from monday.com's Standard seat charge is ¥54,000 before credits and tax. An exchange-rate conversion is unnecessary for these Japan yen offers.

For a US purchase, Asana Starter lists $10.99 per user/month annually or $13.49 monthly. Use your billing region's monday.com quote as well; the Japan table is not a US price comparison. Annual totals are for a full year of the quoted subscription. Confirm the payment schedule and amount due at signing, including tax and required additions.

The AI purchase changes what “Standard costs” means

monday.com's new model applies to eligible customers joining the monday AI work platform on or after 6 May 2026 who were offered seats and AI credits. Credits must be purchased; Standard's minimum is 2,000 per month. The help distinguishes this model from CRM, dev and service. Check which model is offered for your account.

The Japan page's three-seat Standard example shows ¥4,950 in monthly-equivalent seat charges plus ¥2,750 for 2,000 credits, with a special monthly discount of ¥2,750. That produces ¥4,950 per month equivalent under the displayed offer. Without that discount, the same components total ¥7,700 per month, or ¥92,400 over 12 months. These are calculations of the displayed components, not a prediction of renewal or a guaranteed quote.

Put one real project into each tool

For Asana, try a project with owners, dates and custom fields, and place one shared task in two projects. Multi-homing keeps one task in several projects instead of creating copies; updates stay on the same task. Starter includes timeline and Gantt views as well as rules. AI Studio credits are a separate allowance from ordinary rules.

For monday.com, build a board using your real fields and the views you need. Standard includes timeline, Gantt and calendar views and monthly allowances of 250 automation actions and 250 integration actions. One trigger can spend several actions. Estimate the notices, field changes and transfers in your workflow; article 12 explains the accounting.

Both products support custom fields or columns. Being able to design a ledger is not unique to monday.com, and having a task list is not unique to Asana. Judge how your colleagues enter, find and hand over the same work. If you only need a simple list and two users, their free plans may be sufficient; monday.com Free has three boards and 200 items, while Asana Personal has unlimited tasks and projects.

If Asana's shared-task model and Starter features fit, its smaller minimum and four-seat option can reduce the bill. If monday.com's board workflow fits better, test its action allowance and request the seats-plus-credits total. If neither improves a real handover or review, keep the existing process. Price can narrow the options; the completed trial should decide between them.

Sources checked 10 October 2026

monday.com: Japan seat and credit offer / monday.com: required credit model / monday.com: seat blocks / Asana: Japan annual rates and features / Asana: US rates and free plan / Asana: subscription sizes / Asana: shared tasks

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