monday.com for Nonprofits: 10 Free Seats, and the Terms That Cost Money Later

monday.com runs one of the more generous nonprofit programs in software: the first 10 seats on its Pro plan are free, across four products, and every seat after that is 70% off. The catches are in the terms rather than the headline. You must take an annual plan, reconfirm your eligibility every year or be charged full price, claim back sales tax after every purchase if you are exempt, and accept that monday excludes whole categories of charity. We read monday’s nonprofit pages, eligibility terms and support articles on 10 November 2026. Prices are in US dollars.

What the nonprofit program gives you

The free seats are on Pro, monday’s third tier, which is the one with time tracking, private boards and 25,000 automation and integration actions a month. Its support article says the 10 free seats apply to the “AI Work Platform, CRM, Service, and Dev”, so a small charity can run projects and a donor pipeline in the same account without paying for either. monday’s nonprofit page adds free group consultations four times a week, a nonprofit academy on donor, grant, project and volunteer management, and templates for grants, events and volunteers.

What it costs above 10 seats

monday’s nonprofit calculator prices an extra seat at $68.40 a year, which is 30% of Pro’s list price of $19 a user a month billed annually. At 25 seats it shows $1,026 a year. The eligibility page says extra seats “are only available in lots of 5 seats”, so the table below steps in fives.

Our arithmetic from monday’s own figures: 15 extra seats at $68.40 is the $1,026 the calculator shows for 25, and the list column is Pro at $19 a seat a month for twelve months. One inconsistency is worth knowing. The calculator also offers a 13-seat option, which the lots-of-five rule says should not exist. Price your real headcount in the calculator before you budget, and if you are at 11 or 12 people, ask whether you will be billed for 13 or 15.

For comparison, Pro at list price for 10 people is $2,280 a year, and the free plan allows only two seats. A charity of up to 10 staff on the nonprofit plan pays nothing at all, which no other tool in our project management software comparison matches at Pro-level features.

Volunteers without paying for seats

Most charities have more volunteers than staff, so who counts as a seat matters more than the seat price. monday has three kinds of user.

The user types article says “You can invite an unlimited number of viewers, regardless of your plan”, and that viewers do not count toward billing. Viewers can read boards but cannot post updates or make changes, which suits a board member who only needs to see progress. The guest article says that on Pro “you can invite an unlimited number of guests”, and since the nonprofit plan is Pro, volunteers who need to update their own tasks can join as guests at no cost.

There is a catch that matters for volunteers. A guest “must have an email domain that is different from the email domain(s) associated with the account admin’s organization”. A volunteer using a personal Gmail address can be a guest. A volunteer you gave an address on your own domain cannot, and becomes a paid member. If you give volunteers organizational email accounts, through Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, decide which ones need monday before you do. More on running volunteers is in how to recruit volunteers, and dedicated tools in volunteer management software.

Planning for the eleventh person

The free tier ends at a cliff, not a slope. Going from 10 paid members to 11 means buying a lot of five extra seats, $342 a year at the nonprofit rate, for one person. That is still cheap, but it arrives in the middle of a budget year, often when a new hire starts, so put it in the budget before it happens.

Before buying, check who actually needs to be a member. Board members who only read progress can be viewers. Volunteers and contractors with their own email addresses can be guests. Review the member list each quarter, and remove people who have left. Keep the list honest rather than squeezing it: sharing one login between several staff loses the record of who changed what, and undermines your own password security. If the twelfth person is a permanent hire who works in monday every day, they are a member, and $342 a year is a fair price for that.

Who monday excludes

The eligibility page requires charitable status, which for a US organization means 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, checked by Goodstack. Then it rules out:

• hospitals, inpatient care facilities, health insurers and group medical practices;
• schools, colleges, universities and related organizations;
• chambers of commerce, business improvement districts and trade or business associations;
• government-managed or government-owned nonprofits without an independent board;
• professional sports organizations;
• fraternal beneficiary societies;
• legislative and political activity organizations;
• organizations that advocate, support or practice discrimination, including on religion; and
• UK Community Interest Companies.

Two of those are broader than they look. “Educational organizations” excludes a PTA-style group or a school foundation that monday treats as “related” to a school. And “legislative and political activity organizations” is not defined, so a 501(c)(3) that does a lot of permitted lobbying may want to describe its work carefully. Religious organizations are not excluded as such; only those that discriminate are. monday says it decides eligibility “at its sole discretion” and can end the program at any time.

The terms that cost money later

You must reconfirm every year. The eligibility page says that if you do not reconfirm on time or are no longer eligible, “you will be charged the full service price”, unless you cancel before the end of the subscription year. For 25 seats that is the difference between $1,026 and $5,700. Put the renewal date in a shared calendar with a month’s notice, and make it someone’s job, not the founder’s.

Annual only, and no refund for the time before approval. monday does “not honor any monthly plans or discounts to monthly plans”, and it does “not offer refunds for subscription fees paid prior to being approved”. Use the free plan or the trial while Goodstack verifies you, rather than paying for a month at full price that you will not get back.

Sales tax is charged and then refunded. The support article says “our billing processor cannot remove tax before charging you”, and that a tax-exempt organization can request a refund after the purchase. That applies to every purchase, renewals included. If your state exempts your purchases, as our sales tax exemption guide explains, budget for the time it takes to claim it back each year.

A payment method for the paid seats. monday’s nonprofit page says no credit card is needed, which is true for the free seats. For discounted seats, the eligibility page asks for “A credit card, PayPal account, or wire transfer (above 7,000 USD payment)”.

The case study. monday asks recipients for information to create a case study or testimonial. It is a request in the terms, and worth clearing with whoever owns your communications.

How to apply, in order

1. Check you are not excluded against the list above, especially if you are school-related, health-related or political.
2. Create a monday.com account on the free plan. The support article says you apply after the account exists.
3. Complete the Goodstack form linked from the eligibility page, with your IRS determination letter or equivalent. monday says you will hear back in 2 to 3 days, and that it then moves your account to the program.
4. Do not pay in the meantime. Fees paid before approval are not refunded.
5. Invite people as the right type. Staff as members, the board as viewers, volunteers with personal email addresses as guests.
6. Diary the annual reconfirmation and the tax refund claim.

If Goodstack declines you and you think it is wrong, the support article says appeals go through a Goodstack form, with an initial reply within 48 hours.

Is monday the right tool?

For a charity of up to 10 staff that is not excluded, monday’s offer is hard to beat on price: Pro features, a CRM and unlimited guests for nothing. It is the wrong choice if you are a school, hospital or political organization, if your board will not commit to an annual renewal task, or if you need a real donor database with gift processing and receipting, which monday’s CRM product is not built for. For that, see our nonprofit CRM comparison. For grant tracking specifically, compare it with the dedicated tools in grant management software.

If you are deciding between project tools, our project management software comparison prices monday against Asana, Trello, Airtable, Notion, ClickUp and others at 10 and 25 seats, with each vendor’s exclusions. Most nonprofit offers, including monday’s, are verified through Goodstack or TechSoup, and our nonprofit software discounts guide explains how to check any offer at source. monday.com has no commercial relationship with this site, and we take no referral fees.

This is reference information, not legal or tax advice. Rules vary by state and change over time. For a decision that carries real consequences, check the current text at irs.gov or your state registry, and talk to a nonprofit attorney or CPA.