monday Sidekick Credit Billing Starts July 27: What Changes, What It Costs, and How to Prepare

monday has been moving its whole AI portfolio onto a single, transparent credit model, and on July 27, 2026, Sidekick joins it. Instead of a patchwork of separate add ons, your team gets one currency across every AI capability, with usage you can actually see and govern.

For admins, that is genuinely good news. It also means a small amount of prep pays off. Here is what is changing, how to budget for it with real numbers, and how to get ahead of it before the date.

Sidekick moves onto the shared credit model, drawing from the same pool your agents, AI blocks, Notetaker, and Vibe already use. One model, one dashboard, one set of controls.

Credit use is based on the complexity of each interaction, so you only ever pay in proportion to the work Sidekick actually does. Three things influence the cost of any message: how deep the request is, how much board context Sidekick reads, and which tools it uses, such as search, updates, charts, or asset generation.

That gives you clear levers to keep usage efficient: ask focused questions, point Sidekick at the right board or view, and use richer tools deliberately. Simple requests stay inexpensive by design.

monday uses a complexity based model rather than a flat per message rate, and it publishes a helpful example you can plan around.

The documented example is a Sidekick task that scans a sprint board each morning, lists what is overdue, and summarizes changes. Across 22 workdays that comes to roughly 770 credits a month, or about 35 credits per moderate interaction. You can use that as a planning anchor:

Line that up against monday’s credit buckets. Minimum monthly credits are 1,000 on Basic, 2,000 on Standard, and 3,000 on Pro, with Standard scaling to 8,000, Pro to 20,000, and Enterprise quoted by sales. If your team uses Sidekick heavily, this simply tells you which bucket fits, so there are no surprises. These figures are directional, and lighter requests cost well under 35 credits, so treat the table as a sizing guide, not a ceiling.

Sidekick is available on Standard, Pro, and Enterprise. The credit model applies to accounts that joined on or after May 6, 2026, and to earlier accounts that never purchased AI add ons. It does not apply to monday CRM, monday dev, or monday service.

Most of monday’s documentation, including the Sidekick and pricing pages, lists July 27, 2026. One older article still shows July 20. Plan around July 27, since the Sidekick and pricing pages are the most recently updated, and if the exact date matters for your billing cycle, your account team can confirm it in writing.

This is the same update that brings monday vibe and AI workflows onto complexity based credit use, so the whole portfolio now runs on one consistent model. Vibe gets a three level structure covering publishing, building, and running, and AI workflows shift to per run credit use based on complexity. Worth knowing as you plan your overall AI budget, not just Sidekick.

monday gives you full visibility. Go to Administration, then AI governance, then the Credits tab to see credits used this billing cycle, remaining quota, and a breakdown by feature, so you always know what is driving usage. Please note: The page is not shown on Trial and Free accounts.

You stay in control at the edges too: notifications arrive at 80% and 100% of quota, the admin gets an email at the limit, and if you need more room you can move up to the next credit bucket without changing your seat count by contacting support or your account team.

1. /01Record your current credit usage and remaining quota. This is your baseline.
2. /02Check the breakdown by feature. Sidekick usage will land on top of whatever is already there.
3. /03Ask your team how often they actually use Sidekick. It is free today, so it will not show in your credit breakdown yet. A quick survey is the only baseline you can get.
4. /04Multiply that habit by roughly 35 credits and compare it to your bucket.
5. /05Set per user limits in the Usage limits tab before the meter starts.
6. /06Move anything deterministic, like a status change or a routine notification, into a regular automation, which does not consume AI credits.