No two vendors mean the same thing by “seat”

Send the same 10-person company out for quotes to the five vendors that charge by seat (Squarespace is left out here, because it bills per site) and the number of billable seats comes back as 4, 5 or 10. The headcount is identical in every case.

The order of unit prices and the order of total spend do not match either. The cheapest, monday.com Basic (annual billing, $9 per month equivalent), is sold in a block starting at 3 seats, and the next cheapest, Asana Starter ($10.99), charges the same rate for staff who never do anything but read.

Three terms are all you need

A seat (also called a user) is the unit of billing, and "one person, one seat" is each vendor's own policy rather than an industry rule. Three mappings cover the English labels: Member / Core Seat / User = the people you pay for; Viewer / View-only = internal staff who only read; Guest / collaborator = people outside your company. Domain means the part of an email address after the @ (for @example.com, that is example.com), and it decides whether Asana's free allowance applies.

Vendor	Types of paid seat	Who can be added at no charge	How to read this row
HubSpot	4 types (Core / Sales / Service / Revenue)	View-only seats (free, unlimited), Partner seats	Each product you buy brings its own seat type, so the invoice gains lines
monday.com	1 type (Member)	Viewers are unlimited; guests depend on the plan	One line on the invoice. Internal readers and outside collaborators both have a free allowance
Asana	1 type (everyone at the same price)	Guests (external domains only; the pricing page now says unlimited)	Internal read-only staff have no free allowance
Semrush	1 type (1 user is included with the plan)	Guests (sharing at the level of individual assets)	A guest is not a seat that sees the whole product
Shopify	No concept of a seat	Collaborators (Shopify Partners only)	There is no per-seat price; the plan sets the ceiling on headcount

Sources: HubSpot seat assignment and management / monday.com user types and pricing for guests / Asana guests FAQ and view-only license / Semrush user management / Shopify user limits by plan (checked August 2026, rechecked 6 September 2026). Asana's pricing page states that guests cost nothing extra, do not count toward your user total, and are unlimited; in August it did not carry the word unlimited.

The same 10 people — how many seats get billed?

The case below is 4 people entering data, 6 who only read, and all of them on the company's own domain.

Vendor	Billable seats	What actually leaves the account in a year (annual billing, excluding tax)	The calculation, and how to read the figure
HubSpot	4	$2,160	4×$45×12. The 6 View-only people cost zero. The Hub subscription itself is charged separately
monday.com	5	$720	Standard 5×$12×12. Even 4 people start at 5 seats. The 6 Viewers cost zero
Asana	10	$1,318.80	Starter 10×$10.99×12. The 6 who only read are charged the same rate
Semrush	4	$3,028	SEO plan on annual billing $117.33×12 = $1,408 plus 3 additional users 3×$45×12 = $1,620
Shopify	9 user accounts	$3,588	Advanced $299×12. Grow stops at 5 user accounts, which does not stretch far enough

Sources: each vendor's US pricing page (checked August 2026, rechecked 6 September 2026). All five figures are US list prices in USD. The $3,028 for Semrush is $117.33×12 rounded to the dollar, plus the three added users; the form below carries the cents and returns $3,027.96.

Every figure here is annual billing — one year paid in full at the point of contract. Against a display price of $12 a month, the number that reaches the approval request is $720. Across the five the range runs from $720 a year (monday.com) to $3,588 a year (Shopify): $3,588 ÷ $720 = about 5.0 times.

Work out the seat count for your own headcount

Nothing is sent anywhere. The figures stay in this browser, and “Save” keeps them for your next visit. Start from one of the 4 vendors that price by seat, or type your own rule.

The presets reproduce the table above. Internal readers are free at HubSpot (View-only) and monday.com (Viewer), free at Semrush only through asset-level sharing, and charged at Asana. Outside collaborators are free at Asana when their email domain differs from yours; at HubSpot and Shopify the free route requires a certified partner, so they are counted as paid seats here. Shopify is not in the list: it does not sell seats, and the plan sets the ceiling on user accounts.

Start fromPeople entering dataPeople who only read (inside the company)People outside the company (agencies, clients)Are the read-only people charged?Are the outside people charged?Price per seat per month, annual billingPlan fee per month on top of the seats, annual billingSeats already included in that plan feeMinimum number of seats you can buyHow seats are sold (people:increment; the last number applies above that)

Seats cannot be bought in the exact number you need

monday.com states it plainly: "Our pricing plans start at a minimum of 3 seats, and then ascend in multiples of 5." A company of 4 is invoiced for 5 seats.

The same thing happens at Asana. Its pricing page states the rule as "Between 2 and 5 total users: add seats in increments of 1. Up to 30 total users: add seats in increments of 5. Up to 100 total users: add seats in increments of 10." A company of 7 pays for 10 seats. Rounding up is not a monday.com peculiarity.

The invoice rises without adding even one person

HubSpot is bought as packaged products (Hubs) added to the account one at a time. The FAQ on the pricing page puts it this way.

All Core Seats in an account are priced based on the highest level across all products of your subscription.

An organization on Marketing Hub Professional that adds one Sales Hub Enterprise has every existing Core seat repriced at Enterprise. 4 seats ×($75 per month − $45 per month) = $120 more per month → $1,440 a year. The number of people added is zero.

monday.com has the same structure. The vendor states that "When bundling, each product can be on a different plan and have a different number of seats", and then that "For Enterprise accounts, all bundled products must be on the Enterprise plan." Semrush likewise varies the price of an additional user with the grade of the plan.

At HubSpot, people who only read cost zero, however many there are

These seats are free and unlimited for Starter, Professional, and Enterprise subscriptions.

The vendor also lists what these seats cannot do: saving reports, editing records, changing settings, managing tools, granting super admin permissions, and email logging (the feature that files a sales email onto the customer record automatically). A director, an accountant or an IT manager who reads the numbers and asks questions in a meeting is covered by a free seat; a sales assistant who also comments and turns items into tasks is not. Demoting a salesperson to a view-only seat to save money means their correspondence from that point on stops being recorded on the customer record.

Outside collaborators, and what happens when headcount falls

Asana's free guests come with a condition attached. The vendor's wording is "Guests do not contribute toward your overall membership count when upgrading an entire organization," which leaves open that a division — a contract covering only part of the organization — may be handled differently. HubSpot's Partner seats and Shopify's collaborators both require the other party to be a certified partner. One question to the sales team is enough: is this person's email domain the same as ours, or are they a certified partner? Asana opens its free allowance on the first; HubSpot and Shopify only on the second.

When headcount falls, monday.com states that "To select a smaller plan, you'll need to deactivate users first." The other four vendors do not state on their own pages whether seats can be reduced part-way through an annual term.

Organizations this structure does not suit

SaaS COMPASS model — calling a structure unsuitable is our judgment, not a vendor statement. It assumes you buy the cheapest plan that clears your feature list, and that a seat you cannot avoid buying is a cost rather than headroom you will grow into.

monday.com does not suit a 1- or 2-person business: even one person on Standard pays $432 a year (3×$12×12). Asana runs expensive for organizations with many readers, since showing progress to a director puts that director on a full seat. Moving Shopify from Grow to Advanced costs $299 − $79 = $220 more per month, or $2,640 a year, and what that buys is room for more people rather than more features. At HubSpot, every additional Hub can move the unit price of the seats already in place. Semrush guests are shared at the level of individual assets, which does not suit showing analysis widely across the company.

Send this sentence before you ask for a quote

Q0: Is the number of people needing a paid seat exactly a multiple of 5 (for monday.com, exactly 3 also works)?

YesNo rounding up will occur. Go to Q1

Nomonday.com and Asana round up to the next step and bill for it: 6 people means 10 seats, 11 people means 15 seats. Put the rounded-up seats into the quote from the start (HubSpot, Semrush and Shopify do not round up)

Q1: Are there more people who only read than people who enter data?

Yesmonday.com with free Viewers, or HubSpot with free View-only seats. At Asana and Shopify that headcount converts straight into money

NoGo to Q2

Q2: Will you invite people from outside the company (agencies, clients)?

YesIf their email domain differs from yours, Asana; if they are a Shopify Partner or a HubSpot Solutions Partner, Shopify and HubSpot bring them inside the free allowance

NoGo to Q3

Q3: Do you expect to add a higher plan or a further product?

YesHubSpot, monday.com (Enterprise) and Semrush raise the unit price of the seats you already hold. Budget for an increase even with headcount unchanged

NoIf in doubt, have each vendor quote the annual total for the data-entry headcount alone, and add readers and outside collaborators afterwards

Seat increments and the conditions for free seats are as stated on each vendor's own pages (checked August 2026). Sources: support.monday.com "Plans and pricing for monday.com", "How does plan pricing work", "User types explained"; help.asana.com "Guests FAQ", "View-only licenses"; knowledge.hubspot.com "Manage seats"; help.shopify.com "Users and permissions plan requirements", "Collaborator accounts"; semrush.com/kb/1409-user-management

Sources: each vendor's own help and pricing pages (checked August 2026, rechecked 6 September 2026). Figures are annual billing at US list prices in USD and exclude tax; what is added at checkout is set by your billing address.

SaaS COMPASS model — putting the gap down to the definition of a seat rather than to features is our reading of the five published price lists. It holds for the case set out here (4 people entering data, 6 who only read, one company domain); a buyer whose feature list only one vendor clears would decide on features instead.

Giving the sales team a single headcount will not produce the right number. Send this sentence instead: "We have ___ people entering data, ___ people inside the company who only read, and ___ outside collaborators. Please tell us whether the readers and the outside collaborators fall inside a free allowance, the per-seat price if they do not, the number of seats we will actually be buying after rounding up, and the annual total." What creates the gap between these prices is the definition of a seat, not the difference in features.

Sources (checked August 2026)

HubSpot: Seat assignment and management (View-only free and unlimited, what it cannot do, no email logging, Partner seats) / Marketing pricing (additional Core seat, Professional $45 per month and Enterprise $75 per month, the FAQ on the highest level across products, the basis for $2,160 and $1,440) / Product and Services Catalog (conditions for granting Partner seats)
monday.com: Plans and pricing (minimum of 3 seats then multiples of 5, different plans and seat counts when bundling, all bundled products on Enterprise for Enterprise accounts, deactivating users before reducing seats) / How does plan pricing work (the example of 4 people billed as 5 seats) / User types explained (Viewers unlimited and not billable) / Pricing for guests / Pricing table (Basic $9 / Standard $12 / Pro $19, the basis for $720 and $432)
Asana: Pricing table (Starter $10.99 / Advanced $24.99, seat increments, guests at no extra cost, the basis for $1,318.80) / Guests FAQ (definition of an external domain, the condition when upgrading an entire organization) / View-only license (Enterprise and Enterprise+ only)
Semrush: User management (1 user as standard, additional users Pro $45 / Guru $80 / Business $100 with the SEO toolkit and $20 without it, definition of a guest) / Pricing table (current plan names SEO / Starter / Pro+ / Advanced, SEO annual billing at $117.33 per month equivalent and $139 monthly, additional users "from $45 per month", the basis for $3,028)
Shopify: User limits by plan (Basic 0 / Grow 5 / Advanced 15 / Plus unlimited, the owner and collaborators excluded) / Collaborator accounts (collaborators are limited to Shopify Partners and do not count against the user limit) / Pricing table (annual billing, Basic $29 per month / Grow $79 per month / Advanced $299 per month, the basis for $3,588 and $2,640)

The Semrush user management article now prices additional users against both naming sets — $45 / $80 / $100 for Pro / Guru / Business with the SEO toolkit, and the same three figures for Starter / Pro+ / Advanced under Semrush One — and adds that a subscription without the SEO toolkit pays $20 per additional user, the lowest price for an extra seat anywhere in this piece (rechecked 6 September 2026). Monthly billing costs more at every vendor (Asana Starter $13.49 per month, Advanced $30.49 per month; Shopify Basic $39 / Grow $105 / Advanced $399 per month). For the treatment of tax, please check each vendor's own display page. Terms change, so confirm the current wording on each official page before you sign.

Buying from Japan? See the Japanese edition for the same 10-person case with Shopify priced in yen →

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What changed on this page

editorial basis7 September 2026 Article 9: how many seats get billed — how a reader works it out for their own headcount
the 10-person case and the seat rules quoted in the text → a form in the article that applies each vendor's minimum, increments and free allowances to your own headcount, with a link that carries the figures
The form computes only what the tables state: billable seats after rounding up, the annual total, and what the rounding and the read-only staff cost. Shopify is left out because it does not sell seats. The Semrush total is $3,027.96 rather than the $3,028 in the table, which is $117.33 x 12 rounded to the dollar; the table now says so. Entries stay in the reader's browser and are not sent anywhere.
scope change6 September 2026 The English edition — currency and tax assumptions
yen prices, Japanese consumption tax and a card issuer’s foreign transaction fee → US published prices in US dollars; sales tax is described as determined by the billing address and no rate is assumed
Buying from Japan is covered in the Japanese edition, which keeps the yen figures.
Where: Processing rates do not decide the Shopify plan until monthly volume passes $25,000, Is the free trial actually free, Budgeting from the list price times twelve leaves you short, On which plan does support stop being a help article?, Which country will your customer data sit in?, monday.com or Asana: which should you choose?, How many months until that SaaS pays for itself?

Every recorded change to this site is in the change log.