EspoCRM vs monday CRM Comparison
Compare EspoCRM vs monday CRM features, pricing, and more.
Last updated: November 2026
EspoCRM
6.9/10
Open-source CRM for small and mid-sized businesses that can be self-hosted free or bought as a per-user cloud subscription.
monday CRM
7.4/10
Sales CRM built on the monday.com work platform, with pipeline, lead and contact boards, email tracking, sequences and AI sales agents, for small and mid-sized sales teams.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
| Feature | | |
|---|---|---|
| Scores | ||
| Overall Rating | 6.9/10 | 7.4/10 |
| Analytics | 6/10 | 7/10 |
| Cost | 9/10 | 6/10 |
| Customization | 9/10 | 8/10 |
| Ease of Use | 6/10 | 8/10 |
| Integration | 6/10 | 8/10 |
| Scalability | 6/10 | 7/10 |
| Security | 6/10 | 8/10 |
| Support | 5/10 | 7/10 |
| Pricing | ||
| Free plan | Yes | No |
| Cheapest paid plan | €13/user/mo Basic | $18/user/mo Basic |
| Estimated cost for 10 users | Free Open Source (self-hosted) | $180/mo Basic |
| Features | ||
| Collaboration | ||
| Contact Management | ||
| Integrations | ||
| Lead Management | ||
| Marketing Automation | ||
| Opportunity Management | ||
| Reporting & Analytics | ||
| Sales Automation | ||
| Built-in Calling | Not listed | |
| Customer Support Management | Not listed | |
| Mobile Access | Not listed | |
EspoCRM vs monday CRM cost by team size
| Team size | EspoCRM | monday CRM |
|---|---|---|
| 1 user | FreeOpen Source (self-hosted) | Contact for pricing |
| 5 users | FreeOpen Source (self-hosted) | $90/moBasic |
| 10 users | FreeOpen Source (self-hosted) | $180/moBasic |
| 25 users | FreeOpen Source (self-hosted) | $450/moBasic |
| 50 users | FreeOpen Source (self-hosted) | $900/moBasic |
The plan that fits each team size, billed monthly, before add-ons and usage charges. Each cost opens that tool's pricing calculator for the team size.
Which One Should You Choose?
Why choose EspoCRM
- Has a free plan (monday CRM does not)
- Higher Cost score (9/10 vs 6/10)
- Higher Customization score (9/10 vs 8/10)
- Better fit for small business (9/10 vs 7/10)
- Better fit for startups (8/10 vs 6/10)
Why choose monday CRM
- Higher Ease of Use score (8/10 vs 6/10)
- Higher Integration score (8/10 vs 6/10)
- Better fit for enterprise (6/10 vs 4/10)
- Better fit for mid-market (8/10 vs 6/10)
Pros & Cons
EspoCRM
Pros
- The Entity Manager lets administrators add custom entities, fields and relationships without writing code.
- Every cloud plan includes all official extensions at no extra cost, among them the Sales Pack, VoIP, Google, Outlook and Mailchimp.
- The free, self-hostable open-source core keeps costs very low for small teams.
- You own your database and files and can request copies, which limits lock-in.
- Hosting in Germany is available for teams that need GDPR-friendly data residency.
Cons
- Reviewers say the initial setup of entities, roles and automations takes time and some technical skill.
- G2 reviewers point to a steep learning curve and limited documentation.
- A few reviewers reported slower performance with large datasets.
- Cloud support runs only 12 hours a day, 5 days a week, and the vendor team is very small.
- Self-hosted users must pay for reporting and BPM through the Advanced Pack.
monday CRM
Pros
- Uses the same flexible board model as monday work management, so teams already on monday.com can link sales pipelines to project delivery.
- Built-in AI agents score and enrich leads, flag stalled deals and summarize calls without a separate tool.
- Gmail and Outlook sync fills CRM fields from emails automatically, which cuts manual data entry for reps.
- Strong review scores of about 4.6 on G2 and 4.7 on Capterra, according to third-party summaries.
Cons
- Three-seat minimum and bucketed seats mean small teams pay for seats they do not use, and there is no free plan.
- Basic is very restricted, with one dashboard, 1,000 contacts and five columns per board, which pushes most teams to Standard or Pro.
- G2 reviewers often say it lacks features found in dedicated sales CRMs, especially native calling, texting and template automation.
- Email sequences and mass emails are reserved for Pro, and monthly billing costs much more than annual billing (41 versus 28 USD per seat on Pro).
Not sold on either?
Frequently Asked Questions
Monday CRM scores higher on our CRM criteria: 7.4/10 against 6.9/10 for EspoCRM. The largest gap is in Cost: 9/10 for EspoCRM and 6/10 for monday CRM.
EspoCRM has a free plan; monday CRM does not list one.
Monday CRM is the better fit for enterprise: we rate it 6/10 for them, against 4/10 for EspoCRM.
