How to share your monday.com boards with external users and guests

Q: Can guests access main or private boards in monday.com?

No. Guests can only be added to Shareable Boards. They cannot access Main or Private Boards in monday.com.

Q: What plan do I need for Shareable Boards and Guests?

Shareable Boards and Guests are available from the Standard plan and up. The Basic plan does not include Shareable Boards.

Q: Why use a client portal instead of guests or shared boards?

A client portal provides a branded, external-facing interface that scales better, hides sensitive data, and offers a polished client experience compared to guests or shareable boards.

Sharing monday.com boards with external users and guests is easy. In this post, we’ll cover the built-in options, their pros and cons, and why a monday.com client portal is often the best solution.

Use the navigation below to quickly jump to your desired section and learn more about each topic.

One of the most common questions monday.com users ask is: “How do I share my monday.com boards with clients or external stakeholders without giving away too much access?” If you want clients to follow progress, contractors to check assigned tasks, or stakeholders to see dashboards, monday.com gives you several built-in options. But each approach comes with specific rules and limitations.

In this article, we’ll break down the three official ways to share your monday.com boards with external users. Shareable Boards, Guest Accounts, and Shared Views or Dashboards and why many teams ultimately choose a dedicated solution like the Client Portal Builder for monday.com.

Shareable Boards

How to use Shareable Boards on monday.com

Shareable Boards are one of the three board types in monday.com, alongside Main and Private boards. They are designed specifically for collaborating with people outside your organization.

You can invite external collaborators to a Shareable Board.
Depending on permissions, they can view, comment, update, or edit items.
Shareable Boards keep external collaboration separate from your Main boards, so you can manage client projects without exposing your entire workspace.

Guests can add updates, edit items, attach files depending on permissions, and collaborate alongside your team on that monday.com board. Guests cannot be board owners, create new boards, or access Main and Private monday.com boards.

Pros of Shareable Boards

Built specifically for external user collaboration.
Flexible permissions, such as view only or edit items.
Keeps client projects separate from internal boards.

Cons of Shareable Boards

Only available from Standard plan and above, not on Basic.
Sensitive information often requires creating a duplicate board.
More boards to manage if you work with many clients.

Guest Accounts

How to use Guest Accounts on monday.com

A Guest Account on monday.com is a user role for people outside your company, defined by an email domain different from your organization. Guests are added to Shareable Boards, but they cannot join Private or Main boards. Using Guest Accounts is useful if you want specific external people to collaborate directly on monday.com, but in a controlled way.

Pros of Guest Accounts

Good for one-to-one client collaboration directly on monday.com.
Guests can interact with tasks, comment, update statuses, and upload files.
No need to purchase a full user license for each external contact.

Cons of Guest Accounts

Guests on monday.com are limited to Shareable Boards only.
Hard to restrict access to just a filtered view, guests see the full board.
Scaling gets messy if you manage dozens of client contacts.
Domain restrictions: guests must use a non-company email.

Shared Views and Dashboards

How to use Shared Views and Dashboards

The third native monday.com option allows you to create Shared Views or Dashboards for read-only sharing. A Shared View is a filtered snapshot of a board that you can publish via a public link or embed on a site. A Dashboard aggregates data from multiple boards, but can only be shared with users in your account, it is not fully public.

Pros of Shared Views and Dashboards

Easy way to share status updates with external users.
Shared views can be accessed without a monday.com login.
Perfect for quickly reporting snapshots outside of monday.com

Cons of Shared Views and Dashboards

Read-only, therefore no collaboration.
Missing data, e.g. files and mirrored items.
Dashboards are not publicly shareable.
Often too limited for client-facing needs.

Client Portal on monday.com

How to share monday boards in a Client Portal

While Shareable Boards, Guest Accounts, and Shared Views or Dashboards each serve a purpose, they aren’t always ideal for client-facing communication. Clients may find the monday.com interface confusing, or you may end up duplicating boards just to hide sensitive information.

That’s where a dedicated monday.com client portal such as the Client Portal Builder for monday.com comes in. Instead of inviting clients into monday.com directly, you provide them with a secure, branded portal that shows only what you want them to see. How it works:

Keep managing projects and clients on monday.com
Connect the Client Portal Builder to your boards
Configure exactly what data clients should see
Invite them into a branded and secure portal

Pros of a monday.com Client Portal

Share monday.com boards securely without duplication.
Branded experience with your logo and colors.
Granular control over what clients see.
Scales easily across multiple clients and projects.
Cleaner, more professional interface for external users.

Cons of a monday.com Client Portal

Requires third party app installation and configuration.
Additional cost beyond monday.com’s core subscription.

Questions & Answers

Frequently Asked Questions

Can guests access main or private boards in monday.com?

No. Guests can only be added to Shareable Boards.

What plan do I need for Shareable Boards and Guests?

They are available from the Standard plan and up. The Basic plan does not include Shareable Boards.

Can clients edit items in a Shareable Board?

Yes, if you give them permission. Guests can add updates, edit items, and attach files. They cannot be board owners or create new boards.

Are Shared Views editable?

No. Shared views are strictly read-only. Clients cannot edit or comment, and files in File Columns are not visible.

Why use a Client Portal instead of guests or shared boards?

A client portal gives you a branded, external-facing interface that scales better, hides sensitive data, and provides a polished client experience.

Conclusion

Which approach should you choose?

Use Shareable Boards for structured collaboration on specific projects with external users.
Use Guest Accounts if you need to invite specific clients to collaborate inside monday.com
Use Shared Views if you only need to provide collaborators quick and read-only reporting.
Use Client Portal Builder for monday.com if you need a branded and scalable solution.

Overall, monday.com offers several native ways to share boards with external users via Shareable Boards, Guests, and Shared Views, but each apprach has limitations. If you want the most professional, scalable, and client-friendly option, the Client Portal Builder for monday.com gives you exactly that: a branded, secure client portal connected to your monday.com boards.

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