How monday.com employees can decode equity compensation offers
A monday.com equity offer can mean very different things depending on whether it is options, RSUs or an ESPP buy-in. The award type changes risk, taxes and what you actually own.
At monday.com, an option grant and an RSU grant can carry the same headline value and still mean very different things for pay, taxes and upside. That confusion usually starts when employees treat every award like the same thing. The more useful question is simpler: what kind of equity did you get, and when does it become real value?
Start with the award type, not the headline number
Equity compensation breaks into a few basic buckets: stock options, restricted stock, restricted stock units, phantom stock, stock appreciation rights and employee stock purchase plans. That distinction matters because each award creates a different mix of upside, risk and timing. Stock options give you the right to buy shares later at a fixed price, while restricted stock units give you the right to receive shares once the company’s restrictions are met.
For monday.com employees in engineering, product and sales, that difference is not a technical footnote. Options can deliver outsized gains if the share price rises above the exercise price, but they can also end up worthless if the market never moves far enough. RSUs are usually easier to value on day one because they settle into shares when they vest, but they still depend on the stock price at the time they are taxed and sold.
Restricted stock is different again because it is actual stock subject to restrictions, while phantom stock and stock appreciation rights are cash-value substitutes that track share performance without giving direct ownership. An employee stock purchase plan sits somewhere else entirely: it is a way to buy company shares through a structured program, often at a discount, rather than waiting for an award to vest.
The words inside the offer letter matter as much as the number of shares
Once the award type is clear, the next layer is the language that turns a promise into something you can actually use. Vesting is the schedule that determines when the grant belongs to you. Exercise price is the fixed price you would pay to buy option shares. Spread is the gap between the market price and that exercise price. Option term is the window during which the option can be exercised.
Those terms drive the confusion gap. A grant with a big headline value can still be less attractive if it vests slowly, if the exercise price is too close to the current share price, or if taxes hit before you have an easy way to sell. The Internal Revenue Service treats different forms of equity differently for tax timing, which is why the same grant value can mean very different take-home value depending on the award type and when you decide to act.
Ask whether you received options, RSUs, restricted stock or an ESPP opportunity first.
monday.com makes equity concrete because the company is already public
monday.com is headquartered in Tel Aviv and also has offices in New York, Denver, London, Warsaw, Sydney, Melbourne, São Paulo and Tokyo. In March 2025, the company said its platform had about 245,000 customers across more than 200 industries and more than 200 countries and territories. By March 2026, it said more than 250,000 customers worldwide were using the platform.
In a public company, the stock has a visible market price, but that does not make the grant itself simple. The market is constantly repricing the company’s growth, its margins and its product execution. For monday.com employees, especially people close to shipping product or closing revenue, equity is tied to how the market values the company’s ability to keep expanding its work-OS business.
monday.com reported $1.232 billion in fiscal 2025 revenue, up 27% year over year, and $175.3 million in non-GAAP operating income, up from $132.4 million in fiscal 2024. Fourth-quarter 2025 revenue reached $333.9 million, also up 25% from a year earlier. The company said customers with more than $50,000 in annual recurring revenue represented 41% of total ARR, and it said monday vibe became the fastest product in company history to surpass $1 million in ARR.
The company’s own filings show equity is built into the business model
Share-based compensation is not a side detail at monday.com. In its quarterly results materials, management said it cannot forecast GAAP operating income without unreasonable effort because share-based compensation expense is so variable and difficult to predict.
The company’s June 2025 SEC filing put unamortized share-based compensation expense at $241.268 million as of June 30, 2025, expected to be recognized over a weighted average period of 1.88 years. A year earlier, that figure was $173.557 million over 1.84 years.
monday.com also uses its 2021 Employee Share Purchase Plan. In the first half of 2025, employees bought 37,861 ordinary shares through the plan at an average price of $226.01 per share, compared with 39,840 shares at $150.10 per share in the first half of 2024.
monday.com has disclosed performance-based options for its co-CEOs, Roy Mann and Eran Zinman, with grants totaling 73,074 in 2022, 74,108 in 2023, 22,481 in 2024 and 20,217 in 2025.
How to read a monday.com offer without getting lost
When a grant or refresh lands in your inbox, the fastest way through it is to break it into parts:
1. Identify the award type first. Options, RSUs, restricted stock and ESPP rights do not behave the same way.
2. Find the vesting schedule. A grant that vests over four years does not belong to you all at once.
3. Check the tax and exercise mechanics. For options, the exercise price and option term matter. For RSUs, the taxable event comes when the shares vest.
4. Compare the grant to the stock’s actual market value, not just the headline number. The spread is what creates upside in options, but it is not the same thing as guaranteed cash.
5. Ask how the award fits your own liquidity plan. A public company can make ownership easier to value, but not automatically easier to sell at the right time.
This article was produced by Prism’s automated news system from verified source data, official records, and press releases, then run through automated quality and moderation checks before publishing. The system is built and supervised by the people who set the standards it runs under. Read our full AI policy.
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