monday.com vs Microsoft Planner: Which Is The Right Platform for Task Management?
In an earlier blog, we compared Microsoft Teams with monday.com. During research, our team realised that some are also looking for an answer to the monday.com vs Microsoft Planner debate.
The thing is, both Microsoft Planner and monday.com have prominent task management capabilities. However, they differ based on user preferences and needs.
According to Fortune Business Insights, the task management market will have a CAGR of 13.3%, reaching USD 4,535.50 by 2026. Even with this growth, only 16.8% of teams accomplish >70% of their planned operational tasks each week.
With hundreds of SaaS tools in the market, how will you differentiate between the best ones? In this blog post, we'll aim to answer the monday.com vs Microsoft Planner debate.
Microsoft Planner vs monday AI Work Platform: At a Glance
Recent G2 reviews suggest that Microsoft Planner has 4.2 out of 5 stars. Similarly, reviewers rated monday AI Work Platform as 4.7/5 stars.
Take a look at the basic differences that affect this rating:
| monday.com | Microsoft Planner | |
| Features | Workflow automations Template customisation Different views (Kanban, Timeline, etc.) | c**ard-based system like Kanban boards Basic task templates Microsoft 365 access |
| Ease of use | Visual interface with drag-and-drop features | Easy for Microsoft 365 users. |
| Integrations | 200+ third-party apps like Slack, Jira, HubSpot, Zoom, Mailchimp, etc. | Seamless integrations with Microsoft products, Viva Goals, Timeneye, etc. |
| Use cases | Collaboration, work management, automation, etc. | Task management within Microsoft 365. |
| AI | Deep, standalone workflow automations with AI agents. | Microsoft Copilot integration and Planner Agent to manage tasks. |
monday.com vs Microsoft Planner: The Basics
A PwC report highlights that 77% of enterprises have a well-documented project management method. However, there's still room for improvement.
Before onboarding your team on monday.com or Microsoft Planner, you must know a few basic things about both tools.
monday AI Work Platform
What Is It?
Used by over 225,000 people, this monday product was named a 2024 Magic Quadrant Leader for Adaptive Project Management and Reporting. Being a top global software, monday comes with unique features to help teams manage projects, teams, and more.
Standout Features
The monday.com platform comes with customisable templates. You can create and shape the tool per your team's needs. Easy-to-use dashboards, 200+ integrations, and pre-made automation recipes make this software ideal for workflow management.
Who Is It For?
monday AI Work Platform can create an intuitive workspace for teams of all sizes and industries. Organisational leaders across various industries can use monday because of its adaptable, customisable, scalable, and flexible design.
Best Part?
The best thing about this platform would be the monday consultants. For instance, implementation experts at Fruition will help mitigate top leadership and team challenges with monday.com. They will adapt your team to the monday workflows and automations with process discovery, system integration, and more.
Microsoft Planner
What Is It?
Microsoft Planner can help you with task management. This tool is specially designed for team collaboration, project organisation, and more. It's part of the Microsoft 365 product.
Stand-Out Features
Microsoft Planner has intuitive features to help you create plans, set deadlines, and assign tasks. Users can also track progress, enabling real-time communication and collaboration within departments. There are features like drag-and-drop task management, customisable labels, progress charts, and more.
Who Is It For?
Microsoft Planner is ideal for teams of all sizes needing basic task management. However, it's mostly targeted towards companies already using the Microsoft 365 product.
Best Part?
Similar to monday, Microsoft Planner can also help streamline workflows, improve productivity, and simplify project management. By integrating all Microsoft products into the Planner app, you can streamline workflows and organise operations.
MS Planner vs monday AI Work Platform: Core Feature Comparison
According to Statista, the SaaS market will witness a 19.38% CAGR between 2025 and 2029. By then, the industry will be worth USD 793.10 billion.
This popularity can be attributed to the unique features offered by such tools. Take a look at the core features that make MS Planner and monday.com stand out.
Customisation Capabilities
Microsoft Planner has limited customisation compared to monday.com. For instance, the latter offers custom fields, automation, and views to help generate tailored reports.
| monday AI Work Platform | Microsoft Planner |
| This flexible platform can help users create custom workflows, task boards, and dashboards to meet operational needs. | It offers basic project organisation and task management, allowing you to group tasks into buckets, assign them, and track progress. |
| Teams can easily assign tasks, track progress, set due dates, and add powerful integrations. | MS Planner only integrates with Microsoft Office 365 apps and MS Teams. You’ll need additional CRM and SharePoint tools for advanced functions. |
Communication Features
Both MS Planner and monday.com facilitate communication within the task or project. As a result, every team member can track discussions and share updates through comments in real-time.
They can integrate with third-party tools like Gmail and MS Teams for easier and seamless collaboration. Users can send notifications, send progress updates, and more.
The only difference is monday WorkDocs. This feature helps your team reduce file-sharing and work on the platform live.
Automation Capabilities
Reports suggest that over 85% of IT professionals consider automation an effective and important part of SaaS operations. That's why tools like monday.com and MS Planner have this feature.
| monday | MS Planner |
| The monday platform comes with highly advanced automation capabilities to streamline workflows, send notifications, and reduce repetitive tasks. | You can\\ e basic automations through the Microsoft Power Automate (Microsoft Flow) feature. With this, you can automate task status updates and notifications. |
| Comes with pre-built automation recipes, or create custom automations without any coding. | The automations are limited compared to monday.com. You’ll have to set up flows for complex tasks. |
All in all, automations on monday.com are easy to set up with custom triggers. Once done, users can get automatic updates, easily notify team members, and automatically move items across boards.
monday.com vs Microsoft Planner: Pricing Plans
Gartner had forecasted that annual SaaS expenditure might grow by 19%. Even then, 25% of the products will be over-deployed or underutilised.
When investing in a project management tool like monday or MS Planner, you must be aware of all the pricing plans.
monday AI Work Platform Pricing Plan
monday comes with a free forever plan for its Work Management product. Beyond that, the plans offer a 14-day free trial.
Take a look at the monday plans' cost (based on 10 seats)
- Basic: USD 9 per seat per month.
- Standard: USD 12 per seat per month.
- Pro: USD 19 per seat per month.
- Enterprise: Get a quote from the monday sales team.
Microsoft Planner Pricing Plan
MS Planner will be available in the Microsoft 365 suite if you buy it. Beyond that, you'll have the following plans:
- Planner Plan 1: USD 10 per user per month.
- Planner and Project Plan 3: USD 30 per user per month.
- Planner and Project Plan 5: USD 55 per user per month.
The Plans 1 and 3 come with a free 30-day trial period.
Can You Integrate monday.com with Microsoft Teams and Planner?
Do you want to use MS Planner along with monday AI Work Platform? Melinda Miller did that with the GraphQL API.
It'll duplicate the work in MS Planner and generate reports through dashboards on the monday tool. Many users have also suggested using Webhooks and other plugin options.
However, the team at Fruition believes that the monday and Microsoft Planner integration will be best suited to the Make.com platform. We'll help you sync data between these two platforms to enable automated workflows and seamless integrations.
Being a certified Make Gold partner ensures we're highly qualified to offer advanced automations and enterprise integration solutions. Collaborate with our Make professionals to streamline operations, improve efficiency, drive innovation, and more.
monday vs MS Planner: The Limitations
No SaaS tool has it all. They aren't perfect. MS Planner and monday also come with some limitations, like:
| monday | MS Planner | |
| Task | Limited views for cheaper plans, but access to all templates. | 9,000 tasks\\ r plan with only 2,400 active ones. |
| User | Two users in the free plan and unlimited in all paid ones. | Users that can subscribe to delta-sync are only 100. |
| Usage | Limited automations and integrations in cheaper plans. (250 actions in Standard and 25,000 in Pro) | 20,000 tasks per user, and each task can only be assigned to 20 users. |
| Item limit | 10,000 items per board in all plans, excluding Enterprise. | Users can own 400 plans with a limit of 200 buckets per plan. |
monday.com vs Microsoft Planner: Which One to Choose?
A G2 report states that monday wins the monday.com vs Microsoft Planner debate. It has better task creation, drag-and-drop features, portfolio management, file sharing, and more.
However, choosing between monday.com and Microsoft Planner depends on your business needs.
Want advanced features, integrations, and customisations? Go for monday! It will give you visual project tracking, extensive automations to streamline work, detailed reporting, and more.
If your organisation operates within the Microsoft 365 ecosystem, choose MS Planner for straightforward task management. It will give you basic automations, reporting, a card-based interface, and more.
Let's say you've decided to go for the monday AI Work Platform. In that case, feel free to reach out to a monday.com expert consultant at Fruition. We will help create a personalised approach to enhance your team's productivity and match the monday platform to your operational workflow.
FAQs
How does monday.com differ from Microsoft Planner?
monday has a highly customisable and visual interface to handle complex workflows. Whereas MS Planner works on a card-style (Kanban) interface. monday AI Work Platform is great for teams that need flexibility and personalisation. However, the latter would be perfect for Microsoft 365 users needing a simple task management tool.
Is monday better for larger teams than Microsoft Planner?
Usually, monday.com is considered to be better for larger teams because of the extensive customisation options. It also has advanced features that cater to unique project and work management needs. Compared to that, Microsoft Planner has limited functionality and is suitable for smaller teams or larger companies needing basic task management requirements.
Can you integrate monday.com with MS Planner?
Yes, you can integrate monday.com with MS Planner. Unfortunately, it will require some technical setup. Third-party apps like the GraphQL API, Zapier, and Webhooks can help. However, the experts at Fruition suggest going for a Make.com integration to sync data from Microsoft Planner and the monday AI Work Platform.
