How to Build a Client Portal on monday.com Without Buying Guest Licenses

The monday.com Client Access Problem

Monday.com is one of the best project management platforms available. But it was designed for internal teams, not external clients. When you need to give clients visibility into their projects, you face an expensive dilemma.

The native approach is guest access. You invite each client as a guest user, which costs $10-16 per user per month depending on your plan. For an agency or service business with 30 clients, that is $3,600-5,760 per year just for licensing — and it grows with every new client.

Worse, guest users see your internal board structure. Column names, automation labels, internal notes — all visible. You end up creating separate "client-facing" boards and manually duplicating data, which defeats the purpose of centralized project management.

There is a better approach: use a no-code portal builder like Softr as a frontend layer on your monday.com data.

How Softr Portals Work with monday.com

Softr is a no-code application builder that connects directly to monday.com via API. It lets you create a branded web application that displays monday.com data through a completely separate interface — one that you fully control.

Here is how it works. Your monday.com workspace stays exactly as it is. Your team continues working on the same boards, using the same workflows, with the same automations. Nothing changes internally.

Softr connects to specific boards and columns through monday.com's API. You choose exactly which data to expose. Softr then renders that data through a clean, branded interface on your own domain.

Clients log into the Softr portal with their own credentials — completely separate from monday.com. They never see your workspace, never need a monday.com account, and never add to your licensing costs.

The connection is real-time and bidirectional. When your team updates a project status in monday.com, the client sees it in the portal immediately. When a client submits a request or uploads a file through the portal, it appears in your monday.com board automatically.

What You Can Build: Portal Features

A Softr portal on monday.com typically includes several key components.

• Project dashboard — shows filtered, client-specific data from your project boards. Each client logs in and sees only their projects with real-time status, milestones, and progress indicators. You control which columns are visible — so internal notes, pricing, and team assignments stay hidden.
• File sharing module — lets clients upload brand assets, briefs, and documents directly to your monday.com file columns. They can also download deliverables you have uploaded. No more email attachments or shared Google Drive chaos.
• Request and communication system — allows clients to submit requests, feedback, or support tickets that land directly in your monday.com workflow as new items. Your team processes them through the normal workflow without switching tools.
• Approval workflow — lets clients review and approve deliverables directly in the portal. Their approval updates the status in monday.com automatically, triggering the next step in your process.
• Onboarding checklists — guide new clients through setup steps, document collection, and initial briefings — all tracked in monday.com so your team knows exactly where each client stands.
• Reporting dashboards — can pull monday.com data into charts and summaries that clients can review on their own schedule, eliminating weekly report compilation.

Step-by-Step: Building Your First Portal

While the specific implementation depends on your use case, the general process follows these steps.

1. 1.Prepare your monday.com data structure. Ensure your boards have a client identifier column (usually a dropdown or connection column) that links items to specific clients. This is what Softr uses to filter data per user.
2. 2.Set up your Softr application. Connect your monday.com account, configure the data source, and map the columns you want to display.
3. 3.Build your portal pages. Create the dashboard, file sharing, request submission, and any other modules your clients need. Softr's drag-and-drop builder requires no coding.

1. 4.Configure user authentication and filtering. Set up login, define user roles, and create the filter rules that ensure each client sees only their own data.
2. 5.Brand and deploy. Add your logo, colors, custom domain, and SSL certificate. Launch the portal.

For simple use cases, an experienced builder can complete this in one to two weeks. Complex portals with multiple modules, automations, and integrations typically take two to four weeks.

The key decision is whether to build it yourself or work with a specialist. DIY is viable for simple, single-board portals. For multi-board architectures with automations, role-based permissions, and production-grade reliability, working with a certified partner saves time and avoids costly architectural mistakes.

Cost Savings: Real Numbers

The financial case is straightforward.

A monday.com guest license costs $10-16 per user per month. For 20 clients, that is $2,400-$3,840 per year. For 50 clients, it is $6,000-$9,600 per year. And it grows linearly — every new client adds cost.

A Softr portal costs $49-$169 per month for the Softr platform (depending on features needed), plus a one-time development cost of $2,500-$10,000. There are zero per-user fees. Your 50th client costs the same as your first.

For a business with 30 clients, the Softr approach breaks even within 4-8 months and saves $10,000-25,000 over three years. The savings accelerate as you add more clients.

Beyond direct cost savings, consider the operational efficiency gains. Teams using portal solutions report 40+ hours saved monthly on status update communication. That is the equivalent of a quarter of a full-time employee redirected to billable work.

GDPR and Compliance Considerations

For businesses serving European clients, compliance is not optional. A properly configured Softr portal addresses the key GDPR requirements.

Softr offers EU data center options for data residency compliance. Row-level security ensures each client accesses only their own data. SSL encryption protects all data in transit. Both Softr and monday.com provide Data Processing Agreements for legal documentation.

Additionally, because clients access a separate portal rather than your monday.com workspace, you maintain complete separation between your internal operations and client-facing data. This makes compliance documentation significantly simpler.

Mindflows, based in Frankfurt, Germany, specializes in GDPR-compliant portal architecture. As a certified monday.com Partner and Softr Partner, Mindflows configures portals that meet GDPR, CCPA, and PIPEDA requirements across EU, US, UK, and Canadian jurisdictions.