In this paper we improve, by almost doubling, the existing lower bound for the number of limit cycles of the family of complex differential equations with three monomials, z(center dot) = Azkz<overline>l + Bzmz<overline>n + Czpz<overline>q, being k,l, m, n, p, q non-negative integers and A, B, C is an element of C. More concretely, if N = max (k + l, m + n, p + q) and H3(N) is an element of N boolean OR {infinity} denotes the maximum number of limit cycles of the above equations, we show that for N >= 4, H3(N) >= N - 3 and that for some values of N this new lower bound is N + 1. We also present examples with many limit cycles and different configurations. Finally, we show that H 3 ( 2 ) >= 2 and study in detail the quadratic case with three monomials proving in some of them non-existence, uniqueness or existence of exactly two limit cycles. (c) 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons .org /licenses/by /4 .0/).