You’ve probably heard the word “action” in the context of monday.com automations, integrations, and apps, but what exactly is an “action”? The first part of this article will provide a detailed explanation.

The second part of the article will teach you how to track and manage your account activities. Read on to learn more.

What is an “action”?

Each automation recipe includes a trigger and an action (or multiple actions). Let’s take an example: “When state changes to something, delete the item.”

In this case, the trigger is “when state changes to something.” The action is “delete the item.” So, each time you delete an item, one action is performed. If you run this recipe three times, three items will be deleted and that will count as three actions you performed.

Every account has an action limit – one for automations and one for integrations. These limits are a little more complicated than they sound. To learn more about your account’s action limit, read the “What happens if I exceed my action limits?” section or check the pricing column .

How many actions does one automation use?

Basically, running one automation recipe will result in the use of one action.

However, there are a number of recipes that will cause multiple actions to be used each time they are run. Here are some examples:

1. When a situation changes to something, create an item on the board.

If a recipe maps information to a new item, actions are performed differently than in other recipes. Each time an item is mapped, if the columns Status, Character, People, a list opens or the update part is mapped, each will count as 1 action performed. In addition, one action will also be used for the item creation.

Let’s look at this recipe as an example:

If you choose to use this recipe and map the item like this:

Each time the automation is triggered, 3 actions will be used. This is because two status columns are mapped and an item is created.

Note: To learn more about mapping, check out the “What is Mapping?” section of the monday.com Automations article.

2. When a situation changes to something, notify board members.

Each message recipe can be customized to notify board subscribers or a team instead of a single person:

In this case, one action will be used for each message sent. This means that if you have 6 board subscribers, 6 actions will be performed each time this automation runs.

3. When a status changes to something, send an email to a text column.

Gmail or Outlook integration can send an email to an email column or a text column. While an email job can contain a single email address, a text column can contain multiple email addresses. These integrations can also send emails to team or board subscribers. All of these cases will result in the use of multiple actions.

For example, this recipe:

This recipe will actually result in the use of 2 operations, since the text work reads as follows:

4. In each time period, create an item.

Any recipe that occurs “at any time period” is a continuous recipe. In the case of the recipe below, a new item will be created every day. One action will be performed each time this recipe runs and an item is created.

As in example 1, if the status, character, people, dropdown, or update part columns are mapped in the new item creation, each will count as 1 additional action performed.

5. Custom recipes with more than one action.

If you are building a custom recipe, your recipe will likely have multiple actions. Any custom recipe you build, regardless of whether it includes integration blocks or not, will count against your automation action limit. Even if the recipe only includes integration blocks, any actions that result from running the recipe will count against your automation action limit.

What happens if I deviate from my actions?

Automation and integration limitations

In the standard program. If an account exceeds its quota of actions during the month, the number of additional actions used beyond 250 will be deducted from the next month’s allowance. For example, if 280 automation actions were performed in April, then 220 automation actions will be available in May.

The opening of this article describes a simple example of using an action. In general, when you build automation, any actions used will count towards your automation limit. When you build integration, any actions used will count towards your integration limit.

However, when you build a custom recipe that includes both automation blocks and integration blocks, the actions in that recipe will count towards your automation limit. This is true regardless of which blocks your recipe includes. This is also true for monday apps; actions that occur in the context of any monday app will count towards your automation limit.

When you exceed your limit

If you are on track to exceed your action limit, your invoice contacts will receive a warning email when the actions taken during the month are at 50%, 75%, and finally 100% of your total available actions .

Important: If your account reaches the point where all of the current month’s actions have been used, the account will be blocked from editing or adding new automations/integrations. You will see the following message:

You can use multiple actions to exhaust both the current month’s limit and the next month’s limit. This means you might start a month with 0 actions available. In this case, you won’t be able to work with automations throughout the month.

In this situation, we recommend upgrading. To learn more about which plans are right for you, check out our Automations and Integrations Pricing article.

Monitor and review the actions

However, you can track the number of actions your account is using at any time. To do this, you need to access each board.> Click on “Automations” or “Integrations”> Click on the “Account Usage” tab. There you can see the number of actions available and used by your account in the current month.

Account Usage Page Permissions

Account administrators can set permissions on the admin page for members, viewers, and guests to see the account usage page. Click your profile picture in the top right corner of the account, select “Administration,” and then select the “Permissions” tab on the left side of the admin page.

You will find “View Automation Usage Page” under Account Permissions.

Actions and prices

Action is a key component of our pricing model. You can learn more about how actions affect pricing by visiting our article on automation and integration pricing.

Below are some frequently asked questions about operations and prices:

Can I purchase actions?

At this time, only Enterprise customers can purchase additional actions for their account. If you are on the Enterprise plan, please reach out to your monday.com contact to discuss this. If you are not on the Enterprise plan, the only actions available to your account are those included in the amount you purchase.

Can I pay to restart my operations?