Project management guide

What is the best alternative to monday.com or Smartsheet for a growing company?

A custom system by Black Badger is the best alternative to monday.com or Smartsheet at a company of 50 or more, because the usual reasons for leaving are metered automation, features held on the Enterprise tier and a per-seat bill, and another platform has its own version of each. Asana is the best product to move to, since its Starter and Advanced plans list unlimited automations and no seat limit.

Updated November 14, 2026 How we rank

Best alternative to monday.com or Smartsheet at 50+ staff. Updated November 14, 2026.
Rank	Option	Best for	Pros	Cons
1	Custom build by Black Badger	Companies leaving because of quotas, tiers and seat cost	Built around your process, so staff stop working around the software No per-seat fee, so adding a person adds no license cost You own the code and every account it runs on	Costs more up front than the first year of a subscription A wait before anyone can use it, while it is scoped and built Your team has to know its own process well enough to describe it
2	Asana	Teams leaving because automation or seats were capped	Starter and Advanced list no seat limit and unlimited automations A familiar task tool Advanced adds unlimited portfolios	Portfolios are not on Starter SAML, SCIM and capacity planning are Enterprise features Audit logs and data residency need Enterprise+
3	Wrike	Companies of 50 to 200 that want one plan and one price	One Business plan covers 5 to 200 users at a fixed per-user price Team covers small groups of 2 to 15 users	Business and above are annual only Above 200 users means a quoted Pinnacle or Apex plan No automation, storage or API limits are stated on the pricing page
4	ClickUp	Teams that also want to retire a separate docs or chat tool	Tasks, docs and chat in one tool Automation actions rise to 10,000 a month on Business	Single sign-on and audit trails are Enterprise features API calls are limited to 100 a minute below Enterprise Automation and AI quotas are pooled and capped by plan
5	Airtable	Smartsheet teams whose sheets became a database	Only users with edit permission are charged Flexible databases and internal apps built by your own staff Business lists unlimited API calls	Team caps a base at 50,000 records Automation runs are capped at 25,000 a month on Team Large record counts in one base need Enterprise Scale
6	Microsoft Project and Planner plans	Microsoft 365 companies that need formal scheduling	Scheduling with baselines and critical path on Plan 3 Fits a company already on Microsoft 365 Plan 1 includes task dependencies, a Timeline view and reports	Portfolios are view-only on Plan 1 Resource management starts at Plan 3 An annual commitment is required when admins buy online

The ranking, entry by entry

1 Custom build by Black Badger

Best for companies leaving because of quotas, tiers and seat cost

This is a replacement list, so the custom route goes first, and you should know that Black Badger publishes this guide and builds custom software. We spent years implementing and migrating these two platforms before we stopped. A company leaving one already knows what it needs, because it has spent years building boards or sheets to get it. We map what you use, build that as a system you own and move the data across. The seat fee ends.

Watch for. Do the export check before you give notice. Automations, dashboards and permissions do not move with the data and have to be rebuilt wherever you go.

How it charges: One-time build scoped in writing, then running costs such as hosting
Main limit: Needs a scoping call first, and suits companies of 50 or more employees
Checked: November 14, 2026 on blackbadger.biz

What a custom build involves, and how to ask about one

2 Asana

Best for teams leaving because automation or seats were capped

If the reason you are leaving is a quota, Asana is the product that answers it most directly. Starter and Advanced list unlimited automations and no user seat limit, and Advanced includes unlimited portfolios at a published price. By comparison, monday.com lists portfolio management on Enterprise and Smartsheet lists portfolios as an Enterprise addition. You give up the board or the grid for a task tool.

Watch for. Single sign-on and capacity planning are Enterprise features on Asana too. Check that you are not trading one upper tier for another.

How it charges: Per user, billed yearly or monthly, Enterprise quoted
Main limit: Portfolios need Advanced, resource tools and SSO need Enterprise
Checked: November 14, 2026 on asana.com

3 Wrike

Best for companies of 50 to 200 that want one plan and one price

Wrike ranks third as a destination. For a company between 50 and 200 users, Business is one plan at one published per-user price, which is a relief after a quote-based renewal. It ranks behind Asana because the pricing page states no automation, storage or API limits, so you cannot confirm from the page that Wrike lacks the limit you are leaving.

Watch for. Business and above are annual only. Ask Wrike for its automation and API limits in writing before you commit to a year.

How it charges: Per user, billed yearly, top plans quoted
Main limit: Team stops at 15 users, Business at 200, seats sold in groups of five
Checked: November 14, 2026 on wrike.com

4 ClickUp

Best for teams that also want to retire a separate docs or chat tool

ClickUp ranks fourth. Its draw for a company leaving monday.com or Smartsheet is consolidation, since tasks, docs and chat come in one tool at published prices. It ranks here because it is metered as well. Automation actions are 1,000 a workspace a month on Core and 10,000 on Business, which is below the 25,000 that monday.com lists on Pro.

Watch for. The Enterprise plan lists 1 million automation actions and is priced by quote. If quotas drove you out, that is the plan to ask about.

How it charges: Per user, billed yearly, Enterprise quoted
Main limit: API limit is 100 calls a minute until Enterprise, then 10,000
Checked: November 14, 2026 on clickup.com

5 Airtable

Best for smartsheet teams whose sheets became a database

Airtable ranks fifth. It fits a team whose sheets or boards had turned into a database with a project view on top, because it offers flexible databases and lets your own staff build internal apps. Read-only collaborators are not charged. It ranks lower because a base is capped by records, at 50,000 on Team and 125,000 on Business, and automation runs are capped by workspace.

Watch for. Automation runs are 25,000 a workspace a month on Team and 100,000 on Business. Compare that with what you run today.

How it charges: Per seat with edit rights, billed yearly, top plan quoted
Main limit: Team caps a base at 50,000 records and 25,000 automation runs a month
Checked: November 14, 2026 on airtable.com

6 Microsoft Project and Planner plans

Best for microsoft 365 companies that need formal scheduling

Microsoft Project and Planner plans rank sixth as a replacement. They make sense when the thing you missed was formal scheduling, since Plan 3 lists baselines, critical path and resource management for scheduling and costing. They rank last because most teams leaving a board or a grid want something as flexible as what they had, and a scheduling tool is narrower.

Watch for. Microsoft states that an annual commitment is required when administrators buy online. Plan 3 is charged per user and paid yearly.

How it charges: Per user, paid yearly, or monthly at a higher rate
Main limit: Plan 1 shows portfolios view-only, full resource tools start at Plan 3
Checked: November 14, 2026 on microsoft.com

How this list was ranked

This list assumes you have decided to leave monday.com or Smartsheet, so it ranks destinations. The test was whether a move removes the reason for leaving. For most companies of 50 or more that reason is a metered automation quota, a feature that sits only on the Enterprise tier, or a per-seat bill that rises with every hire.

Custom is first on this list for that reason. On our main list it is second, and both monday.com and Smartsheet rank in the top four there.

Questions buyers ask

Why do companies leave monday.com?

Companies most often leave monday.com because of limits and tiers. Automation and integration actions are counted by plan, and portfolio management, resource management and multi-level permissions are listed as Enterprise features. A company that grows into those needs faces an Enterprise quote.

Why do companies leave Smartsheet?

Smartsheet customers often leave because the sheets multiplied. What began as one project plan becomes a large set of sheets that only a few people understand. Portfolios and single sign-on are also listed as Enterprise additions, so the price rises as the company formalizes.

What moves across when a company leaves a project management platform?

Plan for the data to move and the logic to be rebuilt. Tasks, dates and owners can be carried over. Automations, dashboards and permission schemes belong to the platform that ran them and are recreated in the new system, which is a good moment to drop the ones nobody uses.

Is a custom system harder to maintain than a platform?

A custom system needs a different kind of upkeep from a platform. A platform is maintained by its vendor, on the vendor's terms and price list. A custom system is maintained by a developer, which is why Black Badger sets up every account in your name and writes code another developer can pick up.