You had jobs to track. Projects in progress, tasks assigned to people, work that needed to move from open to done without falling through the cracks. A spreadsheet was getting out of hand. You needed something your team could look at and understand immediately.

Someone recommended Monday.com. Colourful boards. Drag and drop. Easy to get started. You signed up, set up a board, added a status column and some assignees, and it worked.

That was the board. You have used it ever since. The automations, the dashboards, the timeline views, the intake forms, and the integrations are still in the sidebar, untouched, while the subscription renews every month.

The Four Things Your Business Actually Opens

A list of jobs or projects. A status column. Who is assigned. Notes or updates per job.

That is the job most small businesses hired Monday.com to do. And Monday.com does all four.

It also does automation recipes, Gantt and timeline views, cross-board dashboards, workload charts, time tracking, intake forms and portals, third-party integrations, and a column type library that keeps expanding. You pay for all of it. Most small businesses open four things.

What your Monday.com subscription pays for
  • Automation recipes and workflow triggers
  • Timeline and Gantt views
  • Cross-board dashboards and reporting
  • Workload view across team members
  • Time tracking per item
  • Forms and intake portals
  • Third-party integrations
  • Expanding column type library
What most small businesses actually open
  • Jobs or tasks list
  • Status column
  • Who is assigned
  • Notes or updates per job

Who Monday.com Is Actually Built For

Monday.com is a serious tool for operations and project teams managing dozens of concurrent projects. Teams that need cross-board reporting to see what is overdue across every department. Businesses with a dedicated operations manager who actively maintains the board structure, builds the automations, and trains new staff on how the system works.

Picture a trades business with a handful of active jobs at any time, or a small agency running a few client projects in parallel. They do not need a workload chart. They do not need cross-board dashboards. They need to know what is on, who is doing it, and what the current status is. Monday.com is built for a different scale of operation. Small businesses pay for that scale every month without using it.

The Cost of Paying for the Platform You Do Not Use

Monday.com Basic starts at around A$14 per seat per month with a minimum of three seats. Standard, which includes automations and integrations, runs A$18 to A$22 per seat per month depending on the plan and billing cycle.

If you manage a small team of five people on Standard, that is A$90 to A$110 a month. Over three years, that adds up to A$3,240 to A$3,960 for a board with a status column and some assignees.

Monday.com Standard over 3 years
A$3,600
A$100/mo for 5 users. Recurring. Forever.
Merebase Merebase job tracker
A$499
Once. No monthly fee after that.

What a Merebase job tracker Includes

A Merebase job tracker is built for the job your business actually has. You describe your statuses, your fields, the way jobs move through your process, and who needs to see what. The app is built to do exactly that.

What a Merebase job tracker includes:

A list of jobs or projects with your custom status options. Assignee tracking. Notes per job. Due dates. Search and filter. Data export. Unlimited users. A$499 once. You bring your own hosting. A basic plan runs A$5 to A$20 a month.

There is no automation builder you will never configure. No Gantt view nobody asked for. No intake portal sitting empty. The app does the job. Nothing else clutters the screen.

Your Data Is Already in Monday.com

This is the most common reason people stay. Their job history is in Monday.com and moving it feels like effort.

Monday.com lets you export any board as an Excel or CSV file. The data is yours and always has been. A custom Merebase app can import that export and continue from where Monday.com left off. Your job history comes with you.

Once it is in your own app, the data stays there. No platform can reprice it, restrict access to it, or hold it if you decide to leave.

Common questions
Is there a cheaper alternative to Monday.com for small businesses?
Yes. A Merebase job tracker built by Merebase does what most small businesses actually use Monday.com for — a list of jobs, status tracking, assignees, and notes per job — for A$499 once. No monthly fee. No per-seat pricing. Your data on your own hosting.
Can I get my data out of Monday.com?
Yes. Monday.com lets you export any board as an Excel or CSV file. Your data is yours. A custom Merebase app can import that export and continue from where Monday.com left off. The scope for how your data migrates is agreed in writing before any payment.
What does a Merebase job tracker include?
A Merebase job tracker from Merebase includes a jobs or projects list with your custom status options, assignee tracking, notes per job, due dates, search and filter, and data export. Unlimited users. Your data on your own hosting. A$499 once, agreed in writing before payment.
What if my process changes and I need to update the tracker?
Additional changes can be scoped as a separate build. Each change is priced in writing before any payment. You are never locked into a recurring fee or dependent on a platform's roadmap.