In category theory, a monoidal monad is a monad on a monoidal category such that the functor
is a lax monoidal functor with
and
as coherence maps, and the natural transformations
and
are monoidal natural transformations.
By monoidality of , the morphisms and are necessarily equal.
This is equivalent to saying that a monoidal monad is a monad in the 2-category MonCat of monoidal categories, monoidal functors, and monoidal natural transformations.
The Kleisli category of a monoidal monad has a canonical monoidal structure, induced by the monoidal structure of the monad. The canonical adjunction between and the Kleisli category is a monoidal adjunction with respect to this monoidal structure.