How do you deal with item and subitem limits in monday.com?
Use of monday.com often grows faster than expected. Teams add columns, processes expand and boards fill up with thousands of items and subitems. At some point you notice:
- slower-loading boards
- slow or inconsistent filters
- automations that falter
These are clear signs that you are approaching the item and subitem limits: limits that monday deliberately applies to protect performance and stability. With mondayDB 2.0 the technical foundation has become much faster, but poor board architecture still has a direct impact on speed and scalability.
Why do item limits exist?
monday.com isn't a database but a collaboration platform. Although mondayDB 2.0 performs considerably better, monday's strength lies mainly in visual display, filtering and automations.
That is why limits are necessary:
- the UI has to stay fast
- automations mustn't grind to a halt
- collaboration has to stay smooth
A well-designed structure gets the most out of mondayDB 2.0.
When should you opt for a single board?
Use a single board when:
- you work within one clearly defined process;
- columns mean the same thing to everyone;
- you want to keep reporting centralised;
- the data volume per item remains limited;
- the complexity of the process remains low.
A board is powerful as long as it remains unambiguous, clear and predictable.
When is it time to split a board?
Split as soon as:
- the number of subitems per item keeps rising;
- automations have to perform more and more operations;
- loading or filtering becomes noticeably slower;
- the number of columns is heading towards 60–80;
- the data volume reaches >10,000 items.
A good time to split is before performance drops, not after.
Architecture principle: “Masterboard + Process boards”
A scalable structure often follows a three-part set-up:
- Masterboard
Summary and overview. Contains core information, minimal columns and clear statuses. - Process boards
Detail boards per process step, phase or discipline. Fewer columns, clear ownership. - Automated flows
Automations and/or Make.com or Zapier take care of synchronisation, archiving and data routing.
This model prevents one board from having to hold everything and protects performance.
5 best practices to avoid limits
- Use masterboards as your entry point
Keep the overview central and move detailed data to process boards. - Only use subitems when they serve a purpose
Subitems are suitable for small tasks or individual lines, not for data structures. - Archive based on logical boundaries
For example by status, period or phase. That keeps every board clean and fast. - Deliberately keep the number of columns low
Limit mirror chains, duplicates and rarely used text columns. - Design before you build
Decide on data flows, connections and column types before you start clicking.
Checklist: is your board still scalable?
Your board probably needs attention once you have:
- 10,000+ items on the board
- 30+ subitems per item
- load times of more than 5 seconds
- more than 50 columns in the main table
- automations slowing down or throwing errors more often
When do you need a tool like Make.com or Zapier?
Use Make.com or Zapier as soon as monday itself reaches its limits, for example for:
- automatic archiving or clean-up
- dynamically splitting large boards
- more complex data structures with relationships
- logging and audit trails outside monday
- automations that process a lot of data at once
Make.com or Zapier then acts as a flexible intermediate layer between your processes and monday.com.
Conclusion
monday's limits aren't a restriction but a way of keeping the platform fast and reliable. With a well-thought-out board architecture, and Make.com or Zapier for heavier processes where needed, you create a future-proof environment in which teams can work efficiently and scalably, without performance problems.
