ClickUp vs monday.com for Agencies: An Honest Comparison from Someone Who Has Built in Both

The agency meeting that goes round in circles

You've had the meeting. Half your team thinks monday.com is cleaner. The other half says ClickUp can do everything monday.com does and more. Someone who used Asana at their last job has entered the chat. Nothing has been decided.

I've built agency workspaces in both ClickUp and monday.com. Not demos. Real operational systems for real agencies — digital agencies, creative studios, consultancies, marketing teams. This is my actual take, not a feature table comparison.

Spoiler: there's no universally right answer. But there is a right answer for most agencies. Let me show you how to find yours. And if you want a second opinion on your specific setup, you can book a call here.

What monday.com does well for agencies

Onboarding is fast

Monday.com is genuinely intuitive. A new account manager can be productive within a day. The visual board layout is clean, the colour-coding is immediately clear, and the learning curve is manageable without formal training. For agencies with high staff turnover or frequent new starters, this matters.

Client-facing views are polished

If you show clients their project status, monday.com looks professional out of the box. The dashboards are clean, the views are attractive, and you can share a board with a client without them needing an account. ClickUp can do this too, but it requires more configuration to get to the same visual standard.

Status tracking for repeatable processes

Agencies with a consistent, repeatable delivery process — same project types, same phases, same handoffs every time — benefit from monday.com's structured workflow columns. If you do the same thing for every client, monday.com is fast and frictionless.

Where monday.com struggles for agencies

It gets expensive fast

Monday.com pricing scales steeply. The Pro plan runs around £19 to £24 per user per month. For a 15-person agency that's £285 to £360 per month before any add-ons. ClickUp Business runs around £12 per user per month — the same team costs £180. At scale, that's a meaningful difference.

Flexibility has a ceiling

Monday.com's structure is opinionated. When your workflows don't fit the standard board-column model — multi-type projects, different delivery processes per client, complex inter-team dependencies — you start hitting walls. You can work around them, but you're fighting the tool rather than using it.

Automations are more limited

Monday.com has decent native automations for common triggers. But complex conditional logic, multi-step sequences, or automations that need to talk to external tools quickly hit limits. Zapier extends it, but you end up paying for both tools to cover what ClickUp does natively.

What ClickUp does well for agencies

One tool to run the whole operation

ClickUp's pitch is that it replaces multiple tools. For agencies, that genuinely holds up. Tasks, project management, client records, docs, time tracking, reporting, and automations — all in one place. For agencies currently paying for Asana, Notion, Harvest, and a CRM, consolidating into ClickUp saves money and context-switching.

Automations that actually change how you work

ClickUp's native automations are stronger than monday.com's, and combined with Zapier the possibilities are extensive. Client onboarding, invoice triggers, CRM sync, Slack notifications — I've built agency automation stacks in ClickUp that eliminate hours of manual work every week. The same stacks in monday.com require more workarounds.

Custom data for complex client management

ClickUp's Custom Fields are richer than monday.com's columns. Formula fields, relationship fields, rollup fields, custom views — this lets you build something genuinely close to a lightweight CRM inside ClickUp. For agencies managing 10 or more clients simultaneously with different project types and billing models, this depth matters.

Where ClickUp struggles for agencies

The setup investment is real

ClickUp requires a thoughtful build. You can't just sign up and go. The flexibility that makes it powerful also means there are more decisions to make upfront. Agencies that launch ClickUp without a clear structure typically end up with a workspace that everyone tolerates but nobody loves.

It can slow down with large workspaces

Performance is an ongoing theme in ClickUp reviews. Workspaces with thousands of tasks across many Spaces can feel sluggish. Monday.com is generally faster and more consistently snappy.

The honest agency recommendation

Choose monday.com if your team is non-technical and you need fast onboarding, your project types are consistent and repeatable, you regularly share project boards directly with clients, you'd rather pay more for something polished out of the box, or you have under 10 people with simple workflows.

Choose ClickUp if you run complex multi-client operations with different workflow types per client, you want to automate significant chunks of your delivery or onboarding, you're willing to invest in a proper setup, you want one tool to eventually replace your project management, docs, and lightweight CRM, or cost at scale matters and you're growing.

What about switching from monday.com to ClickUp?

ClickUp launched a native monday.com importer in 2026. It works — boards import reasonably cleanly. But imported workspaces rarely take advantage of ClickUp's architecture. A straight import gives you a ClickUp that works like monday.com rather than a ClickUp that works like ClickUp. If you're switching, the smarter approach is to map your agency workflows first and build a fresh ClickUp structure around how you actually work.

Frequently asked questions

Is ClickUp better than monday.com for agencies?
For complex multi-client agencies with varied workflows and automation needs, ClickUp is typically better value and more powerful. For agencies with consistent repeatable projects and a priority on easy onboarding, monday.com is often the cleaner choice.

Can I switch from monday.com to ClickUp?
Yes. ClickUp has a native monday.com importer. For agencies, a fresh build mapped to your workflows is usually better than a direct import.

Does Toki build monday.com workspaces as well as ClickUp?
Yes. Toki builds ClickUp and monday.com workspaces for businesses across the UK and internationally. A discovery call is a good starting point for an honest, tool-agnostic recommendation.

Almost done! When you're ready, here are four ways I can help you:

1. Read it. A guide on how to use ClickUp and actually make it work for you.
2. Connect it. Let's be LinkedIn pals. I make funny videos sometimes.
3. Workshop it. Book a 30-minute chat to talk processes and build a Miro together.
4. Go for it. Fill in my contact form — let's talk ClickUp or Automations. Whatever tickles your pickle.

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