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Blog Business

8 Best Business Plan Software for 2024

By Krystle Wong , Jan 01, 2024

Gone are the days of staring at blank pages and struggling to structure a business plan effectively. With user-friendly interfaces and a wide range of business plan templates catering to various industries, creating business plans that are polished, professional and data-driven can now be done in a fraction of the time.

For startups, business plan software guides them through the crucial early stages with comprehensive business plan templates and financial modeling tools. Established businesses on the other hand benefit from the software’s collaborative features, enabling seamless teamwork as they pivot, innovate and pursue new growth opportunities.

In this article, let’s delve into exploring the seven best business plan software for 2024. Whether you’re an aspiring entrepreneur with a groundbreaking idea or a seasoned business owner ready to elevate your enterprise to new heights, these software solutions have all you need to create a solid business plan.

Click to jump ahead:

What is a business plan software?

• 7 Best business plan software for 2024

Factors to consider when choosing a business plan software

7 steps to create your own business plan, business plan software faq, key takeaway.

A Business plan software is a specialized digital tool designed to assist entrepreneurs, startups and established businesses in creating, organizing and presenting comprehensive business plans. 

Business plan software significantly reduces the time and effort required to create a comprehensive business plan . The availability of business plan templates, financial modeling tools and automated features streamlines the process of business planning and eliminates the need for starting from scratch.

Some advanced business planning software even integrates market research capabilities. This feature provides users with access to market trends, industry benchmarks and relevant data. Access to such data helps users make informed decisions and demonstrate a thorough understanding of their target market.

8 Best business plan software for 2024 

1. venngage.

Venngage specializes in transforming traditional business plans into captivating visual stories. Visuals can communicate complex information effectively, ensuring your ideas stand out and resonate with your audience.

When it comes to business planning, conveying your ideas with impact is just as important as the content itself. In this digital age, visual storytelling has emerged as a powerful way to captivate audiences and leave a lasting impression. That’s where Venngage steps in.

With a rich library of templates, Venngage offers a variety of themes and styles to suit different industries and business types. Customize your business plans with our user-friendly drag-and-drop tools by adding your brand elements, customizing colors, fonts and visuals to make your business plan truly unique. Check out our library of sample business plans to get started today.

However, while Venngage excels in visual storytelling, it might not be the go-to tool for in-depth financial forecasts and analysis. Users seeking extensive financial modeling might want to complement Venngage with a comprehensive business planning tool.

Pricing options:

Create your first 5 designs with Venngage for free and upgrade to a premium or business plan for $10/month per user and $24/month per user respectively to enjoy premium features. For larger teams who need extra support, controls and security, the enterprise plan starts from $499/month for 10+ seats.

Can I collaborate with team members using this business plan software?

Yes, absolutely! Venngage offers collaborative features that allow you to work seamlessly with multiple team members when creating business plans. You can invite team members to join your Venngage account and they can contribute to the design process in real time. 

Can I export my business plan to different file formats?

Upgrade to a premium or business plan on Venngage to export your professional business plan to different file formats. After designing your business plan, you can choose to export it as a high-quality PDF document, which is ideal for sharing and printing. Additionally, Venngage allows you to export your business plan as an image file (PNG or JPG), making it easy to use in presentations or on your website. 

Is this business plan software suitable for startups or established businesses? 

Venngage is great for entrepreneurs and businesses looking to enhance their business plans with visually engaging infographics and visual assets.

Instead of sharing a lengthy, 50-page document that may bore your audience and fail to effectively convey your message — present your business plan with infographics. Here’s how you can create a business plan infographic that will wow your readers and showcase your business at its best. 

2. LivePlan

Source: Screenshot from LivePlan

In the realm of business planning software, LivePlan stands out as a reliable and user-friendly tool. With a focus on seamless financial forecasting and budgeting capabilities, LivePlan streamlines the planning process, helping businesses transform their visions into reality.

The software’s financial forecasting tools provide users with the ability to project revenue, expenses and cash flow accurately. This financial insight is invaluable for making informed decisions and setting realistic goals.

For hassle-free data integration, the business plan software offers seamless integration with accounting software . This feature allows users to import financial data effortlessly, saving time and reducing manual data entry.

While LivePlan excels in financial planning and user-friendliness, some users may find the customization options for design and layout to be limited. For businesses seeking highly tailored visual aesthetics, LivePlan’s template-based approach might be less ideal.

The standard plan is available at $20/month for monthly billing and $15/month for annual billing. For businesses seeking extensive financial tools to support their operations and growth, the Premium plan costs $20 for the first month and $40/month (monthly billing) or $30/month (annual billing) for subsequent months.

LivePlan facilitates seamless collaboration among users within your account, allowing multiple individuals to work on the same plan concurrently. To prevent conflicting edits, LivePlan restricts access to specific sections, allowing only one user to edit at a time while others observe the locked section.

You can export your business plan by using the print to PDF feature. This generates your plan content in a standard file format compatible with Adobe Reader and other free reader programs. Alternatively, you can export your plan to Microsoft Word (2007 or later).

A great tool for small businesses, startups and entrepreneurs looking for easy-to-use software with solid financial planning tools.

3. Upmetrics

Upmetrics is an AI-powered business planning software that helps businesses of all sizes and industries write their business plan.

With Upmetrics AI Assistant, you can write your plan faster, get answers to any business-related queries, and prepare financial forecasts in no time. 

Besides, the subscription includes access to 400+ sample business plans, various informative guides, and video tutorials to keep your business plan writing process on track. 

Additionally, it has collaborative features, so that everyone on the team can share their insights. Not just that, the software provides you with an AI pitch deck generator, so you can make a stellar pitch.

As an AI business plan builder , Upmetrics is suitable for entrepreneurs, startups, and small businesses to write their plans at any stage. Although it has various cover page designs and immense customization options, it might still lack visual appeal. 

Pricing plan options 

• Starter plan – $7 monthly 
• Premium plan – $14 monthly 

Yes, you can collaborate with your team members while using Upmetrics. It offers collaboration tools that allow you to work effortlessly with your team on the business plan. You can invite team members to collaborate, assign tasks, and track the progress together. 

You can download your business plan as a PDF or directly as a document in Word. Besides, you can share the business plan directly to any email, and they will get the viewer access to the plan. 

Upmetrics is a versatile business planning software suitable for startups and established businesses. But its financial planning features, step-by-step guidance, and AI Assistant make it more useful for startups writing business plans for the first time.

4. BizPlan by Startups.com

Source: Screenshot from BizPlan

If you’re a startup aiming to raise investments, BizPlan is the one for you. As a universal professional business plan builder, BizPlan offers the added advantage of seamless integration with all the tools within the Startups.com network.

Designed with startups in mind, BizPlan’s step-by-step approach allows you to break down the entire scope of work into manageable steps and the built-in Progress Tracker tool keeps you on track towards success.

Once you subscribe, BizPlan opens the door to utilizing all the tools offered by Startups.com, making it a one-stop shop for your entrepreneurial needs. Whether it’s lifetime access to the service, connectivity to Findable to attract financial investments, a wealth of online educational programs or the ability to connect multiple owners to a single account, BizPlan delivers comprehensive support.

While the business plan software offers an array of benefits, it’s essential to consider the possible downsides. The absence of a free version and a mobile app, along with a lack of industry-specific templates for business plans may be worth considering before making your decision

Pricing plan options:

• Monthly plan ($29 per month)
• Annual plan ($20.75 per month or $249/year)
• Lifetime access (one-time fee of $349)

Bizplan encourages collaboration with partners, team members, advisors and subject matter experts by allowing threaded comments throughout the entire plan. It provides control over who can access sensitive financial data and enables convenient cloud-based access from anywhere.

Bizplan provides multiple options for sharing your business plan with others. You can generate an online version of your plan, which can be set as private by default or made publicly accessible through a unique shareable URL. Additionally, Bizplan offers the option to create a custom-branded PDF of your business plan. 

BizPlan is great for entrepreneurs and small businesses who value a vast collection of resources and need support in financial analysis.

Source: Screenshot from Enloop

Enloop emerges as one of the best business plan tools for startups, catering to entrepreneurs who crave a streamlined planning process. With the ability to automatically generate basic text for each section of your plan, Enloop saves time and effort in crafting your business vision.

A highlight of the business plan tool is its automatic generation of financial projections, offering accurate insights based on your entered data. This powerful feature empowers entrepreneurs to make informed decisions and project future outcomes with confidence.

For those with a penchant for strategic thinking, Enloop’s “what-if” scenario analysis becomes an invaluable tool. It allows users to explore various business strategies and assess their potential impact on plan outcomes, enabling sound decision-making.

Enloop doesn’t stop at generating numbers; it goes a step further by providing a business plan grading system. This insightful feature assesses plan quality, giving users valuable feedback to refine and enhance their business plans.

However, it’s essential to consider the software’s limitations as customization and design options are relatively limited. Additionally, the basic version of Enloop might not meet the needs of all users, as it lacks certain advanced features. 

• Seven day free trial (no credit card required)
• Detailed plan ($19.95/month or $11/month when billed annually)
• Performance plan ($39.95/month or $24/month when billed annually)

Enloop’s online business plan writing app lets you invite and collaborate with anyone on your business plans using the ‘Invite & Share’ feature.

Enloop allows you to download your business plan in PDF format whenever you’re ready. The plans remain accessible in your paid account, encouraging regular updates to keep track of your business’s health and have an up-to-date plan ready for financing needs.

Suitable for entrepreneurs seeking a tool that simplifies financial forecasting and scenario analysis.

6. PlanGuru

Source: Screenshot from PlanGuru

PlanGuru’s standout feature lies in its ability to forecast all three financial statements – income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement so that users can make data-driven decisions.

Creating detailed analyses becomes a breeze with PlanGuru’s general ledger import utilities, allowing seamless historical data import. The software facilitates budget vs actual reporting and enables building rolling forecasts with just a few clicks each month.

Unlimited budgeting flexibility is another advantage offered by the business plan builder. Users can craft simple high-level small business budgets or delve into intricate multi-department operating budgets with ease.

With scenario analysis capabilities, PlanGuru empowers users to interpret the financial impact of specific events accurately. This feature enables making critical investments and strategic decisions with confidence, knowing thorough due diligence has been performed.

Given its sophisticated features, PlanGuru may be more suitable for financial professionals and analysts looking for in-depth financial analysis and budgeting tools. Users not familiar with financial modeling may face a steeper learning curve when utilizing Enloop’s robust capabilities.

• Single entity ($99/month or $75/month when billed annually)
• Multi-department consolidations ($299/month or $225/month when billed annually)

You can add up to 3 users with the multi-department consolidation plan. Additionally, all plans allow you to add on $29/month (billed monthly) or $25/month (billed annually) for each extra user.

What other apps does PlanGuru integrate with?

The cloud-based platform is also accessible as a Windows-based desktop version, giving you the freedom to choose the format that suits you best. Additionally, PlanGuru seamlessly integrates with MS Excel, QuickBooks Online and Xero, providing further flexibility and convenience in using the software.

The cloud-based version is suitable for SMBs or nonprofits budgeting for a single entity while the multi-department consolidations plan is for companies with multiple departments needing consolidated budgets.

7. Business Sorter

Source: Screenshot from Business Sorter

With Business Sorter’s card sort system, crafting the foundation of your plan becomes a breeze. Featuring 273 cards covering various business situations, the business plan generator offers flexibility, allowing users to customize their plan by adding their cards or modifying existing ones, tailoring the plan to their specific needs.

The platform also provides the convenience of viewing your plan on any device, including smartphones, which not many business plan apps have. Additionally, guidance is at hand with Business Sorter as the software provides valuable tips and advice for every key step, empowering users to implement their business strategy with confidence.

While Business Sorter excels in its interactive features, it may not offer as extensive financial analysis tools as other business plan software. For businesses requiring advanced financial modeling capabilities, Business Sorter might not fully meet their requirements.

• For small teams with up to 3 users ($10/month or $80/year)
• For medium teams with up to 10 users ($30/month or $240/year)
• For large teams with up to 30 users ($80/month or $640/year)
• For enterprises with unlimited users (custom pricing)

Your business plan can be edited by only one user at a time. When a user opens a plan, it automatically locks to prevent any data loss and remains locked until the user finishes their work and exits the plan.

You can print each business plan directly from the plan summaries on your dashboard. 

Suitable for both entrepreneurs and businesses looking for an interactive and visually appealing planning approach.

9. AchieveIt

Source: Screenshot from AchieveIt

AchieveIt stands as a versatile software for business plans, designed to simplify the planning process for businesses of all sizes and planning methods. With AchieveIt, you can easily build plans, ensuring alignment and engagement among your employees and optimizing plans for seamless execution.

Regardless of your preferred planning method, AchieveIt empowers you to construct plans effortlessly, providing a flexible solution for any planning use case. The software ensures your plans are well-aligned with your organization’s objectives, engaging all team members for successful plan execution.

The business plan tool provides robust tracking and reporting features, allowing businesses to monitor the progress of their plans and measure performance against set goals. Users can create customized dashboards to visualize key performance metrics, making it easier to identify trends and insights.

That said, In comparison to most business plan software, AchieveIt’s pricing might be relatively higher with its extensive features. On top of that, for users new to strategic planning software, AchieveIt may present a learning curve during the initial adoption phase.

The business plan software packages for AchieveIt varies based on factors like organization size, required functionality and the number of users. AchieveIt being an enterprise-level software offers custom pricing to cater to the specific needs of each business. For accurate pricing details, it’s best to contact their sales or customer support team.

AchieveIt allows team members, stakeholders and advisors to have shared access to the platform, providing them with visibility into the latest updates and progress on the plans. Users can assign tasks to team members and track their progress within the platform. 

Can AchieveIt integrate with existing systems?

AchieveIt’s Data Integration API lets you import key metric data from existing systems, saving time and reducing errors by eliminating the need for data entry in multiple places.

AchieveIt is best suited for medium to large-sized businesses and organizations that require a comprehensive and collaborative strategic planning platform. It caters to teams and enterprises seeking to improve their planning processes, track performance and drive organizational alignment to achieve business objectives effectively.

No idea what your business plan should look like? Check out these business plan examples for inspiration. 

When searching for the best business planning software, you may be wondering — what features should I look for in business plan software? You want to make sure it meets your specific requirements and streamlines the planning process effectively. Here are the top six factors to consider:

Ease of use

The software should have a user-friendly interface that simplifies the process of creating a business plan. Look for intuitive navigation, clear instruction and a layout that makes it easy to input and organize your information.

Features and business plan templates

Check the range of features and business plan templates the software offers. Look for a diverse selection of business plan templates catering to various industries and business types. The software should provide essential sections like executive summaries, market analysis, financial projections and more.

Financial modeling tools

Your business plan software should allow you to input financial data and generate accurate and comprehensive financial projections. These business plan creation tools are vital for assessing the financial viability of your business.

Collaboration and sharing

If you’ll be working with a team or seeking feedback from others, consider software that enables real-time collaboration and easy sharing. The ability to work together seamlessly can enhance productivity and improve the quality of your business plan.

Built for fast-moving teams that need to be on the same page, Venngage’s real-time collaboration enables you to polish your design with your team in real time, leave comments on each other’s work,and save your designs in one shared folder. With your  Venngage Business  account, you can easily invite and manage your team members to collaborate on a design, all in real time.

Security and data protection

Since a business plan contains sensitive information, prioritize software that prioritizes security. Ensure that the software uses encryption and data protection measures to keep your data safe from unauthorized access.

Exporting and sharing options

Check the software’s export options. You’ll likely want to share your business plan with others, so ensure it can be exported in popular formats like PDF or PowerPoint.

Are you an entrepreneur starting a new business or expanding your existing business? This guide on how to create a small business plan might come in handy for you. 

Creating business plans can be a crucial step in setting your entrepreneurial vision on the right track. To help you through the process, here are 7 steps to guide you in crafting a comprehensive business plan:

Step 1: Executive summary

Start with an attention-grabbing executive summary. This section provides an overview of your business. In your executive summary, make sure to highlight your mission, goals, products or services, target market and the unique value you offer. Keep it concise, yet compelling.

Step 2: Company description

Give a detailed description of your company. Explain your business’s history, its legal structure (e.g. sole proprietorship, LLC, corporation) and the reasons why your business will succeed in the market.

Step 3: Market analysis

Conduct thorough market research to understand your industry, target market and competition. Identify your ideal customers, their needs and preferences. Analyze your competitors and highlight your competitive advantages.

Step 4: Products and Services

Describe your products or services in depth. Explain their features, benefits and how they meet the needs of your target customers. Emphasize what sets your offerings apart from the competition.

Step 5: Marketing and sales strategy

Outline your marketing and sales strategies to reach your target audience. Explain your promotional activities, pricing strategies, distribution channels and sales tactics. Detail how you plan to acquire and retain customers.

Step 6: Financial projections

Project your financial performance over the next three to five years. Include estimated revenue, expenses and cash flow. Detail your startup costs and funding requirements if applicable. Be realistic and supported by market research.

Step 7: Implementation plan

Create a detailed roadmap for executing your business plan. Set specific goals and milestones. Break down tasks and assign responsibilities. Include timelines and a plan for measuring progress.

A great tip here is to start with a well-structured outline. This guide on how to create a business plan outline will help you in creating your blueprint to easily identify your business’ resource needs, including finances, personnel and equipment. 

Is my business data safe with business plan software?

Most reputable business plan software providers prioritize data security and employ encryption and other measures to keep your business data safe from unauthorized access.

What are the benefits of using business planning tools?

Business planning tools offer time efficiency, professional presentation, error reduction, collaborative features and accessibility, making it easier to create a comprehensive business plan that impresses investors and stakeholders.

Do I need any specific skills or expertise to use business plan software?

No, many business plan software solutions are designed to be user-friendly, requiring no specific skills or expertise. They often come with templates and step-by-step guidance to assist you through the planning process.

In the dynamic landscape of 2024, businesses are on the lookout for innovative tools to stay ahead of the curve and drive their growth. These 7 business plan software picks for 2024 offer a wide range of features, from user-friendly interfaces and real-time collaboration to sophisticated financial analysis tools and customizable dashboards.

Whether you’re looking for user-friendly platform business planning tools that aligns with your business planning processes or a business plan writing software that allows you to tailor the business plan according to your industry, goals and unique requirements — I’m quite certain I’ve got them all covered. 

The value of these business plan software options lies not only in their efficiency but also in their ability to save time and reduce errors. By integrating with existing systems through Data Integration APIs, users can seamlessly import key metric data, eliminating redundant data entry and streamlining the process.

If you’re still unsure about which is the right business plan software for your business, you can always take advantage of free trials or video tutorials and demos offered by software providers. Testing the platform firsthand will give you a practical understanding of its usability and suitability for your business.

Best business plan software of 2024

For planning your business finance

Best overall

Best budget, best established, best for speed.

• How we test

The best business plan software makes it simple and easy to plan your business finances in order to present them to a bank or investors.

1. Best overall 2. Best budget 3. Best basic 4. Best established 5. Best for speed 6. FAQs 7. How we test

The whole point of a business plan is that it allows you to evaluate your strengths and weaknesses, not least via your Unique Selling Point (USP) ,and make product or service comparisons with competitors.

Of course, even the best business plan relies on estimates and guesstimates, as it's impossible to predict market changes, developments, and future performance under such conditions. 

Ultimately, though, a business plan will demonstratively prove why your business is a solid enough investment to risk putting money into, and shows that you have properly and thoroughly researched your market, and details the real potential of a new business opportunities.

Here then are the best business plan software providers currently available.

You may also be interested in our featured business guides on best business laptops , best business computers and best business smartphones .

The best business plan software of 2024 in fill:

Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

Reasons to buy

Reasons to avoid.

Bizplan is the online business planning tool that claims usage of 30,000 startup founders from the Startups.co platform. They use a guided creator that can break the big project down into the component pieces that get tracked with a Progress Tracker, and expert guidance each step of the way including templates that can be dropped in, and completed, along with simple integration of visuals along the way.

Additional resources are also provided via the Bizplan Academy, with lessons on relevant topics, for example, “Building a Brand: How to Tell a Powerful Brand Story,” and “Critical Path Your Way to Higher Revenues,” among the many offerings. Those that need even more assistance also can take advantage of an expert consultation from a financial expert.

• ^ Back to the top

2. PlanGuru

PlanGuru is a comprehensive, and powerful software package in the business planning space. Education is provided via a series of case studies at their PlanGuru University and a whole slew of video tutorials.

The feature set includes flexible budgeting that can handle a simple small business, or a larger multi-department operating budget, and financial forecasting that uses multiple methods, including intelligent and turn-key methods - twenty methods in total. Historical results can also be imported with the general ledger import utility which can then applied to produce a rolling forecast. They also offer PlanGuru Launch, a service to bring in expertise and is charged per hour of assistance.

A significant downside is Planguru charges a higher cost than other software options. The cheapest option is around $75 per month for one business entity when billed annually. While there is no free trial, PlanGuru does offer a 30 day money back guarantee. 

Our expert review:

Enloop is a great choice for business planning software for the cash strapped business as it is the rare offering that has a free tier. Step up up to the next tier, and this is no barebones product, as it has over 100 currency symbols, can automatically generate bank-ready financial reports, and even has automated text writing that can sync with financial data to turn it into text. There is also a real time performance score assigned, that dynamically changes as the business plan is strengthened.  

The plans start with the Free tier, which is limited to a single business plan with simple text, no images, and does not offer any advanced features. The next plan up is the Detailed plan, that supports three business plans, and offers a significant 55% discount when paid annually, making it even better value. This plan costs around $20 per month. For a more comprehensive package you can buy the Performance plan costing around $40 per month.

Read our full Enloop business plan software review .

4. LivePlan

LivePlan is business planning software that offers a simple pricing scheme as there is only a single plan to choose from. As they have a 15+ year track record, they offer a clean and simple interface, that can create business plans that look like they were done by an expert consultant, and the software includes a live dashboard that can track day-to-day performance. Those with writer’s block will benefit from the over 500 included sample plans that can be turned to for inspiration.  

Rather than complicate things with too many tiers to choose from, LivePlan only has a single plan which can be paid for monthly or annually.

5. Business Sorter

Business Sorter promises to simplify and speed up business planning and claims to be able to flesh out a plan in an hour or two, via a novel 273 card sort system that covers many common situations.

The ability to reword cards is included, or also to add cards to the already expansive deck, so no worries if there is not a pre-made card for your situation. Unlike some sites that have videos, the educational resources here are provided as PDFs and Word files, which can be quicker to access, but harder to follow for some learners. 

The lowest tier plan, Basic is fully featured, and includes up to three team leaders. 

Read our full Business Sorter review .

Other business plan software to consider

We've only covered some of the most popular business plan software platforms out there, but there are a number of other notables worth mentioning, plus a wide variety of providers of business plan templates. Below we'll briefly cover a range of some of the additional options out there that are worth considering to get your business plan right.

Go Business Plans is more of a consultancy than a software solution, but is worth mentioning for the simple fact that it's one of America's biggest business plan companies. While software might be able to do the job for you, if you're looking for significant funding, it's probably useful to get some professional advice, not least in terms of strategic planning, feasibility studies, and financial projections to ensure you have a solid base for your business plan.

Wise Business Plans provides a very wide range of templates to work from in constructing a business plan. These are particularly designed with funding in mind, no matter what kind of business you run. What is especially helpful is that Wise doesn’t simply deal with business plan templates for a diverse range of business types, the company also provides plan templates for franchises and non-profits.

Plan Writers  is another bespoke service that essentially listens to what you want and then puts the plan together for you. Again, this technically falls outside of business plan "software", but the chances are you'll use a software package as a platform to build from, and Plan Writers can then help you build up from that base.

Bplans is another provider of business plan templates, but goes beyond that with additional pitch and SWOT analysis templates. There are also business plan guides, industry reports, and a free course on writing a business plan. Bplans also publishes a lot of free-to-use articles on business planning, financials, and tax reporting, to help ensure you can keep your figures and projections accurate and compliant.

We've also listed the best free software for small business .

A business plan is essentially your roadmap to profitability from an initial investment. Whether it's your own money, or a loan from a bank, it's still a good idea to set up a business plan for yourself.

Main things to look to are a SWOT analysis to provide an idea of your business idea's strengths and weaknesses, as well as identify a unique selling point (USP) that will give your business an edge.

While business plans inevitably demand the use of figures, and while these can be impossible to be accurate with, at least by making intelligent guesses you can set yourself targets to work towards.

That's another common feature of a plan, so that specific periods you can review your business progress and make adjustments to your plan as required. This allows you to use real figures for your projections, allowing you to better plan ahead.

Which business plan software is best for you?

When deciding which business plan software to use, first consider what your actual needs are, as sometimes free platforms may only provide basic options, so if you need to use advanced tools you may find a paid platform is much more worthwhile. Additionally, free and budget software options can sometimes prove limited when it comes to the variety of tools available, while higher-end software can really cater for every need, so do ensure you have a good idea of which features you think you may require.

How we tested the best business plan software

To test for the best business plan software we first set up an account with the relevant software platform, whether as a download or as an online service. We then tested the service to see how the software could be used for different purposes and in different situations. The aim was to push each business plan software platform to see how useful its basic tools were and also how easy it was to get to grips with any more advanced tools.

Read how we test, rate, and review products on TechRadar .

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Jonas P. DeMuro is a freelance reviewer covering wireless networking hardware.

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Home > Business > Business Startup

• 5 Best Business Plan Software and Tools in 2023 for Your Small Business

Data as of 3 /13/23 . Offers and availability may vary by location and are subject to change.

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A business plan can do a lot for your business. It can help you secure investors or other funding. It can give your company direction. It can keep your finances healthy. But, if we’re being honest, it can also be a pain to write.

Luckily, you don’t have to start from scratch or go it alone. Business plan software and services can help you craft a professional business plan, like our top choice LivePlan , which provides templates, guidance, and more.

You’ve got quite a few choices for business plan help, so we’re here to help you narrow things down. Let’s talk about the best business plan tools out there.

• LivePlan : Best overall
• BizPlanBuilder : Most user-friendly
• Wise Business Plans : Best professional service
• Business Sorter : Best for internal plans
• GoSmallBiz.com : Most extra features
• Honorable mentions

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LivePlan: Best overall business plan software

Data as of 3 /13/23 . Offers and availability may vary by location and are subject to change. *With annual billing

LivePlan has been our favorite business plan software for a while now, despite the stiff competition.

There’s a lot to like about LivePlan. It has pretty much all the features you could want from your business plan software. LivePlan gives you step-by-step instructions for writing your plan, helps you create financial reports, lets you compare your business’s actual financials to your plan’s goals, and much more. And if you ever need inspiration, it includes hundreds of sample business plans that can guide your writing.

LivePlan software pricing

But the best part? You get all that (and more) at a very competitive price. (You can choose from annual, six-month, or monthly billing.) While LivePlan isn’t quite the cheapest business plan builder out there, it’s not too far off either. And if comes with a 60-day money back guarantee. So there’s no risk in trying LivePlan out for yourself.

With a great balance of features and cost, LivePlan offers the best business plan solution for most businesses.

BizPlanBuilder: Most user-friendly

Need something easy to use? BizPlanBuilder fits the bill.

BizPlanBuilder doesn’t have a flashy, modern user interface―but it does have a very clear, intuitive one. You’ll be able to see your plan’s overall structure at a glance, so you can quickly navigate from your title page to your market trend section to that paragraph on your core values. And as you write, you’ll use a text editor that looks a whole lot like the word processing programs you’re already familiar with.

BizPlanBuilder software pricing

Data effective 3/13/23. At publishing time, amounts, rates, and requirements are current but are subject to change. Offers may not be available in all areas.

BizPlanBuilder also offers lots of helpful guidance for actually writing your plan. It gives you pre-written text, in which you just have to fill in relevant details. It offers explanations for what information you need to include in each section of your plan and way. It even gives you helpful tips from experts, so you’ll have all the information you need to plan like a pro.

So if you want planning software with almost no learning curve, you’ll like BizPlanBuilder.

Wise Business Plans: Best professional service

• Custom quote

Unlike all the other companies on this list, Wise Business Plans doesn’t offer software. Instead, it offers professional business plan writing services―meaning someone does all the hard work for you.

Now, you might think that sounds expensive―and you’re probably right (you have to request a custom quote for your plan). But there’s a lot to be said for expertise, and Wise Business Plans has plenty of that. Your business plan will get written by an experienced writer (with an MBA, no less). They’ll get information from you, do their own research, and then write your plan. You get one free revision, and you can always pay for more.  

Wise Business Plans service pricing

Your end result will be a polished, entirely original business plan. (You can even get printed copies.) And best of all, you won’t have to spend your precious time working on the plan yourself. Wise Business Plans takes care of all the hard parts, and makes your business look good while doing it. Sounds like a service worth paying for, right?

Put simply, if you want the most professional business plan possible, we recommend using Wise Business Plans’s writing service.

Business Sorter: Best for internal plans

Many businesses need plans to show to people outside the company (to get financing, for example). But what if you just need a plan for internal use? In that case, we suggest Business Sorter.

Business Sorter uses a unique card-based method to help you craft the perfect business plan. (You can watch a demo video to see how it works.) You’ll plan some of the usual things, like finances and marketing. But Business Sorter also lets you make plans for specific teams and team members. It also emphasizes more internal matters, like operations, that might get overlooked in a business plan for outsiders.

Business Sorter software pricing

After you’ve made your business plan, Business Sorter also helps you stay accountable to it. You can create tasks, give them deadlines, and assign them to team members―giving you basic project management tools to make sure your business plans become business actions. (Oh, and did we mention that Business Sorter has the lowest starting prices of any software on this list?)

It all adds up to a business plan software that works great for internal planning.

GoSmallBiz: Most extra features

Want to get way more than just business planning software? Then you probably want GoSmallBiz.

See, GoSmallBiz offers business plan software as part of its service―but it’s just one part of a much bigger whole. You also get everything from discounts on legal services to a website builder to a CRM (customer relationship manager) to business document templates. And more. In other words, you get just about everything you need to get your startup off the ground.

GoSmallBiz software pricing

Don’t worry though―you still get all the business planning help you need. GoSmallBiz gives you business plan templates, step-by-step instructions, and the ability to create financial projections. And if you get stuck, GoSmallBiz will put you in touch with experts who can offer advice.

If you want business planning and much, much more, give GoSmallBiz a try.

• PlanGuru : Best financial forecasting
• EnLoop : Cheapest tool for startups

We recommend the software above for most business planning needs. Some businesses, though, might be interested in these more specialized planning software.

Honorable mention software pricing

Planguru: best financial forecasting features.

PlanGuru is pretty pricey compared to our other picks, but you might find its forecasting features worth paying for. It has more forecasting methods than other software (over 20) plus it lets you forecast up to 10 years.

EnLoop: Cheapest tool for startups

EnLoop doesn’t have our favorite features or interface, but it does have really, really low pricing plus a seven-day free trial. It's the most affordable software for startup business planning and still provides all the essential features like financial analysis, team collaboration, charting, and more.

Data as of 3 /13/23 . Offers and availability may vary by location and are subject to change. * With annual billing

Several of our previous favorite planning software, including BusinessPlanPro and StratPad, seem to have gone out of business.

A business plan is a written, living document that tells the story of your business and what you plan to do with it. It serves as the source of truth for you—the business owner—as well as potential partners, employees, and investors, but it also serves as a roadmap of what you want your business to be.

Why you need a business plan

While some small-business owners don’t see the point of creating a formal business plan, it can have some concrete benefits for your business. For example, one 2016 study found that business owners with written plans are more successful than those that don’t. 1

Still too vague? Then let’s get specific.

If you ever seek business funding (from, say, banks, angel investors , or venture capitalists ), you’ll have to prove that your business deserves the money you want. A formal business plan―complete with financial data and projections―gives you a professional document you can use to make your case. (In fact, most potential investors will expect you to have a business plan ready.)

Even if you’re not seeking funding right now, a business plan can help your business. A formal plan can guide your business’s direction and decision making. It can keep your business accountable (by, for example, seeing if your business meets the financial projections you included). And a formal plan offers a great way to make sure your team stays on the same page.

What to include in your business plan

Not all business plans are created equal. To make a really useful business plan, you’ll want to include a number of elements:

• Basic information about your business
• Your products/services
• Market and industry analysis
• What makes your business competitive
• Strategies and upcoming plans
• Your team (and your team’s background)
• Current financial status
• Financial and market projections
• Executive summary

Of course, you can include more or fewer elements―whatever makes sense for your business. Just make sure your business plan is comprehensive (but not overwhelming).

How business plan software can help

With so many elements to include, business plan creation can take a while. Business plan software tries to speed things up.

Most business plan software will include prompts for each section. In some cases, you can just fill in your business’s specific information, and the software will write the text for you. In other cases, the software will give you specific guidance and examples, helping you write the text yourself.

Plus, business plan software can help you stay organized. You’ll usually get intuitive menus that let you quickly flip through sections. So rather than endlessly scrolling through a long document in a word processor, you can quickly find your way around your plan. Some software even lets you drag and drop sections to reorganize your plan.

Sounds way easier than just staring at a blank page and trying to start from scratch, right?

Choosing business plan software

To find the right business plan builder for your business, you’ll want to compare features. For example, would you rather write your own text, getting prompts and advice from your software? Or would you rather go with a fill-in-the-blank method?

Likewise, think about the elements you need. If your plan will have a heavy focus on finances, you’ll want to choose business plan software with robust financial projection features. If you care more about market and competitor analysis, look for software that can help with that research.

You may also want to find business plan software that integrates with your business accounting software . Some plan builders will import data from Xero, QuickBooks, etc. to quickly generate your financial data and projections.

And of course, you’ll want to compare prices. After all, you always want to end up with software that fits your business budget.

The right business plan software can make your life easier. With LivePlan ’s wide breadth of features and online learning tools, you can’t go wrong. Plus, BizPlanBuilder 's one-time pricing makes it easy to invest while Business Sorter has a low starting cost. And if you're business is looking to grow, GoSmallBiz and Wise Business Plans will scale with you.

But of course, different companies have different needs. So shop around until you find the software that’s best for you and your business.

Now that you've got a business plan, take a look at our checklist for starting a small business.  It can help you make sure you have everything else you need to get your startup off to a good start!

Related content

• 7 Steps to Build a Successful Project Management Sales Plan
• Best Project Management Software and Tools in 2023
• 4 Cost Management Techniques for Small Businesses

Creating a business plan can take anywhere from a couple hours to several weeks. Your timeline will depend on things like the elements you choose to include, whether you use software or hire a writing service, and how much research goes into your plan.

That said, much of the business plan software out there brags that it can help you create a fairly detailed plan in a few hours. So if you’re going the software route, that can help you set your expectations.

If you want to get the most out of your business plan, you should update it on a regular basis―at least annually. That way, you can continually refer to it to inform your company’s strategies and direction.  

At the very least, you should update your business plan before you start looking for a new round of funding (whether that’s with investors or lenders).

Thanks to business plan software, you can easily write your own business plan rather than pay someone to do it for you. And in most cases, software will cost you less than a professional business plan service.

There are some times you might want to go with a service though. If time is tight, you might find that it’s worth the cost of a service. Or if you’ve got big investor meetings on the horizon, you might want the expertise and polish that a professional service can offer.

Ultimately, you’ll have to decide for yourself whether business plan software or a business plan service will work better for your company.

Methodology

We ranked business plan software and tools based on features, pricing and plans, and connections to project management and other services. The value of each plan and service, along with what it offers, was a big consideration in our rankings, and we looked to see if what was offered was useful to small businesses or just extra. The final thing we looked at was the ease of use of the software to see if it's too complex for small businesses.

At Business.org, our research is meant to offer general product and service recommendations. We don't guarantee that our suggestions will work best for each individual or business, so consider your unique needs when choosing products and services.

Sources 1. Harvard Business Review, “ Research: Writing a Business Plan Makes Your Startup More Likely to Succeed .” Accessed March 13, 2023.

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Starting a Business | Buyer's Guide

6 Best Business Plan Software

Published June 10, 2020

Published Jun 10, 2020

WRITTEN BY: Blake Stockton

This article is part of a larger series on Starting a Business .

Business plan software gives you the tools to create financial projection tables, charts, and other documents you need to plan your business. Software is often better than using a free template because it gives you step-by-step directions and educational materials to help you complete a clear business plan. We review the best business plan software below so you can determine which software is right for your business.

The six best business plan software for 2020 are:

• LivePlan : Best overall business plan software for small and medium sized businesses
• BizPlan : Best for tech startups that need a business plan that appeals to investors
• Enloop : Best for entrepreneurs short on time and need recommended biz plan content
• GoSmallBiz.com : Best for a new small business that also needs marketing and operation tools
• Business Sorter : Best for visual thinkers who want to try an innovative approach to creating a plan
• PlanGuru : Best for businesses that need to create in-depth financial projections

How We Evaluated Business Plan Software

To evaluate the various business plan software, we reviewed factors we believe are essential no matter what type of business plan you’re creating. Primarily, we reviewed pricing and the availability of a trial or money-back guarantee. We also researched the business plan software overall quality and ease of use. Additionally, we reviewed customer service availability, additional services offered, and the quality of educational materials.

LivePlan: Best Overall Business Plan Software for Small Businesses

LivePlan is a well-designed software for business owners looking to create either a one-page plan or a lender-ready plan. What separates LivePlan from competitors is the extended money-back guarantee and quality of educational materials. The software has financial projections that are easy to complete and looks great as a finished product.

Visit LivePlan

LivePlan Pricing

• Pay As You Go : $20 per month
• Six-month Plan : $108 every six months
• 12-month Plan : $180 every 12 months

LivePlan Features

• One-page business plan: If you’d like to create a simple plan, LivePlan provides a fill-in-the-blank template to get your ideas down quickly.
• Educational materials: LivePlan walks users step-by-step through the business planning process with several video tutorials and examples.
• Financial data: As you answer financial questions, LivePlan populates easy-to-read financial charts and graphs.
• Customer service: Phone, email, and online chat support is available for customers Monday thru Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific time.

Why We Like LivePlan

LivePlan provides the necessary tools to get your biz plan created. If you’re creating your first business plan, the educational materials serve as a mini online course to help you complete your plan. LivePlan leads in its 60-day money-back guarantee—most guarantees are one to two weeks. Additionally, if you find that you cannot finish your business plan, LivePlan has a network of writers who can assist.

Bizplan: Best Business Plan Software for Tech Startups

BizPlan is a software aimed for high-growth startups. Typically, these types of businesses are looking to raise funding from an investor, not a bank. BizPlan provides several unique features including a drag-and-drop builder, startup educational materials, and access to a fundraising platform.

Visit Bizplan

Bizplan Pricing

• Monthly : $29 per month
• Annual : $20.75 per month ($249 per year)
• Lifetime Access : $349 one-time

Bizplan Features

• Drag-and-drop user interface: Create a business plan with the elements needed for your type of business.
• Online fundraising platform: Included with the business plan software is access to Fundable.com, an online fundraising platform that connects you to potential investors.
• Lifetime pricing: Bizplan is the only company that provides lifetime access for a one-time $349 fee.
• Startup courses: In addition to the biz plan software, receive access to over 650 videos and 1,000 how-to guides for creating a successful high-growth startup.
• Customer service : Phone, chat, and email availability Monday thru Friday from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Eastern time.

Why We Like Bizplan

BizPlan is perfect for the business looking to raise funds from an investor. One unique feature it provides is the “pitch” document. This doc outlines the most important aspects of your business. It’s easy to share with investors who want a snapshot of your business. We also like the positive online reviews regarding Bizplan’s customer service: fast response, and pleasant to work with.

Enloop: Best for Completing a Business Plan Fast

Enloop is an easy-to-navigate business plan software that focuses on helping customers get their plan completed quickly. It does this through its automated text and performance score that acts as a digital mentor. For an additional monthly fee, Enloop provides an analysis of your financial ratios, which help determine your company’s potential financial health.

Visit Enloop

Enloop Pricing

• Seven-day free trial (no credit card required)
• Detailed plan : $19.95 per month or $11 per month with annual payment
• Performance plan : $39.95 per month or $24 per month with annual payment

Enloop Features

• Automated text: The plan comes with standard business plan text that you can customize and any financial text gets updated automatically from the financial data.
• Financial ratios: Enloop does a great job explaining 16 different financial ratios that indicate the financial health of your business.
• Performance score: As you complete your business plan and enter your financial information, Enloop calculates a completion score from 0-100, which serves as motivation to complete the plan.
• Customer service: Enloop’s service is limited to messages and a help database.

Why We Like Enloop

Enloop provides several features that makes it an appealing business plan software. Users can complete their business plan quickly with their templated text. Enloop also saves time by having financial numbers discussed in the text updated automatically when changed in the financial data and tables section. We also like the one-week free trial that requires no credit card information to start.

GoSmallBiz.com: Best for Additional Small Business Tools

GoSmallBiz.com provides a comprehensive toolkit that those starting a new business will find helpful. In addition to the biz plan software, it provides a website, customer relationship management (CRM), text-based business consultations, and legal business documents. No other biz plan software offers this suite of tools—all for one cost.

Visit GoSmallBiz.com

GoSmallBiz.com Pricing

• Suite of business products : $39 per month

GoSmallBiz.com Features

• Business plan: Save time by choosing a business plan template specifically for your industry and then use a step-by-step wizard to complete it.
• Educational materials: As you create your business plan, you’ll find video tutorials teaching you about different sections of a biz plan.
• Unlimited business consultations: Submit your specific business questions to knowledgeable business consultants and receive an answer within two days.
• Other tools: In addition to the business plan, use GoSmallBiz.com’s software to do additional tasks such as building a website, tracking basic accounting, writing corporate minutes, and creating legal documents.
• Customer service : Available by phone Monday thru Friday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Eastern time.

Why We Like GoSmallBiz.com

GoSmallBiz.com is perfect for the new small business owner looking to save on software needed for their business. We particularly like the ability to get answers specific to your business questions from business consultants. GoSmallBiz.com also has high-quality videos and educational materials throughout. For those new to entrepreneurship, learn best-practices through its downloadable app, videos, and blog.

Business Sorter: Best Business Plan For Visual Learners

Business Sorter uses an innovative card sorting system to help users determine what information needs to go in their business plan. If you’d like the plan to be a team effort, you can assign certain sections to individual employees. Business Sorter provides a test drive with a 14-day free trial with no credit card required to start.

Visit Business Sorter

Business Sorter Pricing

• Small Team : $10 per month or $80 per year (three users)
• Medium Team : $30 per month or $240 per year (10 users)
• Large Team : $80 per month or $640 per year (30 users)
• Enterprise : Customer (unlimited users)

Business Sorter Features

• Card sorter planning system: When first starting the business plan, you’ll be presented with 273 digital cards to sort through and prioritize what’s essential in your plan.
• Team-oriented: Assign certain portions of the business plan to specific employees via email.
• Multiple plans: Create up to 40 plans for your business or other businesses you own at no additional cost.
• Guidance: Business Sorter provides advice every step of the way so you can complete the fundamentals of your business plan in under two hours.
• Customer service : No phone support, but it does have email support, frequently asked questions, and a detailed biz plan guide.

Why We Like Business Sorter

We really like the innovative biz plan creation process behind Business Sorter. Instead of you trying to determine the most critical aspects of your business on your own, Business Sorter walks you through specifics for each section in 273 different digital cards. The desired cards— which indicate sections—then get added to your plan. We also like the overall ease of use and modern design of the software.

PlanGuru: Best for In-depth Financial Forecasting

PlanGuru is a software specially designed for financial analysis and forecasting. You may want to use this software if financial projections and budgeting is essential to your business philosophy and your type of business. With PlanGuru you can use over 20 different forecasting methods to better understand how your business may perform financially in the future.

Visit PlanGuru

PlanGuru Pricing

• Monthly : $99 per month
• Annual : $299 per year
• PlanGuru Launch : $250 an hour

PlanGuru Features

• Detailed financial analysis: Integrate the income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement into one comprehensive financial model.
• PlanGuru Launch: Hire PlanGuru to formulate a financial plan for your business and then learn from its experts about how to track and manage the plan.
• PlanGuru Analyst: This product is when PlanGuru sets up your financial plan, then tracks it for you, and sends updates—for a fixed monthly fee.
• PlanGuru University: This is a seven hour online class that teaches you how to understand and track the finances in your business.
• Customer service: A ticket submission service is available for customers.

Why We Like PlanGuru

For the financially-minded small business owner, PlanGuru has all the tools to implement and track your financial plan. The projections are typically the most challenging part of any business plan. Still, if you will ever need funding for your business, you must have the projections. Use PlanGuru University to learn more about your financials, and then “wow” investors with a detailed financial forecasting model.

Bottom Line

Now that you’ve read through the best business plan software available in 2020, it’s time to decide: which plan is best for you? For the typical small business, LivePlan will provide all the tools they need to write a funding-ready plan. A tech startup may want to consider BizPlan. If you want to write your plan quickly, choose Enloop. PlanGuru is best to complete detailed financial projections. Whichever software you choose, remember, business planning is an exercise to chart your business’s bright and exciting future!

About the Author

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Blake Stockton

Blake Stockton is a staff writer at Fit Small Business focusing on how to start brick-and-mortar and online businesses. He is a frequent guest lecturer at several undergraduate business and MBA classes at University of North Florida . Prior to joining Fit Small Business, Blake consulted with over 700 small biz owners and assisted with starting and growing their businesses.

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7 Best Business Plan Software for Startups in 2024

• Resources for Planning a Business
• Best Business Plan Software

Last Updated: January 23, 2024 By TRUiC Team

Launching a new startup is an exciting yet challenging endeavor. Crafting a comprehensive business plan is a critical first step for any founder to outline their vision, objectives, and strategy. It acts as a roadmap to help guide important decisions and next steps as a company grows.

With so many options available, finding the right business planning tool can be daunting. The best software should be affordable, user-friendly, and offer a robust set of features to aid in financial modeling, strategic planning, and more.

In this review, we'll explore some of the top business plan software solutions designed specifically for entrepreneurs. We'll compare capabilities, ease of use, templates and resources, integrations, pricing, and more. Whether you’re looking to create an investor-ready plan or simply organize your strategy, choosing the right tool can help you get started on the right foot.

Best Business Plan Software for Startups: LivePlan

Top Business Plan Software Solutions

In this review, we'll look at seven of the best business plan software platforms — discussing their pros, cons, features, pricing, and more — so you can decide which one is right for your startup.

Best Business Plan Software for Startups 2024:

• LivePlan - Best Overall
• Bizplan - Easiest to Use
• Enloop - Best Automation Features
• PlanGuru - Best Financial Forecasting
• IdeaBuddy - Best for Idea Validation
• iPlanner - Best for Nonprofits
• Wise Business Plans - Best Professional Services

The following tools all have their own great features. Based on its affordable pricing and usability, LivePlan is our top business plan software choice for startups.

Try LivePlan today or continue reading to explore your options!

Best Business Plan Software: LivePlan

LivePlan is the overall best business plan tool, offering a large number of features at an affordable price.

Visit LivePlan

1. LivePlan - $15/month to $30/month

We love LivePlan overall because it offers great value at an affordable cost. The software lets you quickly create a business plan from anywhere in the world using what is arguably the best business plan software available on the market. It does everything better than its competition and costs way less.

What’s more, the online “cloud-based” platform is easy to use and you are under no contract or obligation to keep paying for the service. Even better, if you decide to stop service for whatever reason, Palo Alto Software, the makers of LivePlan, will keep your account active and data preserved for at least a year should you decide to reactivate your account later.

• Create an unlimited number of business plans
• A forecast feature for those less mathematically inclined. Plug in data, and it will generate charts, graphs, figures, and even the profit and loss, balance sheet, and cash flow statements
• 500+ business plan templates spanning all major industries
• Real-time financial data tracking
• Performance dashboards track sales and budgeting
• Create one-page pitch plans for potential investors
• Milestone scheduling feature — Some people will use it when working with others on their plan; it will let you assign milestones to people.
• Low-cost annual plans
• Affordable pay-as-you-go plans
• No cancellation fees
• Data saved for 12-months, even after cancellation
• Clean, modern platform
• Cloud-based; works on any business machine (Linus, Windows, Mac)
• Integrates with Quickbooks and Xero to import your data easily
• Knowledgeable customer support to get help with your plan
• No valuation capabilities
• Templates built on Palo Alto Software’s earlier software Business Plan Pro require some modifications to be used on LivePlan

Insider Information

Talking to the nice people at LivePlan we learned some inside information that we wanted to share with our readers.

Here's what we learned:

• LivePlan has been used by contestants on ABC's hit show "Shark Tank" to win over angel investors to help them get their ideas and businesses funded.
• Accountants use LivePlan as an added-value service to sell to their clients.
• Businesses continue using LivePlan because of a feature called “Dashboard” which lets you manually enter your actuals or pull actuals from Quickbooks online to do comparative forecasting and analysis.
• LivePlan helps with business continuity planning (BCP).
• LivePlan executives use LivePlan to make important business decisions.
• "Dashboard" does profit and loss, cash flow, and balance sheet reports and lets you compare and contrast your actuals from your forecasts to be able to show to investors.
• LivePlan lets you create business plans in 1/5th the time it takes using templates.

Customer Reviews

LivePlan receives great feedback from customers. LivePlan reviews average 4.5 stars out of 5 on GetApp. LivePlan is an easy company for us to recommend for the best business plan software.

2. Bizplan - $29/month, $249/year, $349 lifetime

Bizplan rates high on our list because they offer a lifetime plan that gets you "forever access" to their business plan software. As an added bonus, you also receive free access to Startup Courses and LaunchRock, a landing page builder.

• Easy, "fill-in-the-blanks" plan builder
• Publish your business plan online
• Unlimited business plans
• Bizplan takes care of the financials
• Cloud-based (use any browser on any computer)
• Options to add more graphics and photos
• Low-cost yearly plans
• Create unlimited business plans
• Xero to import your data easily
• Excellent and responsive customer support (email/chat/phone)
• Free access to Startup.com and LaunchRock.com
• Discount at Fundable.com (connect with lenders and investors)
• Can't export in Word
• Doesn't currently integrate with QuickBooks
• No free trial
• No third-party app integrations

Talking with BizPlan insiders, we learned that the premise behind BizPlan is to help startups easily create professional business plans to give them a leg-up with lenders and investors.

Here's what else we learned:

• BizPlan's does all your financial calculations for you.
• BizPlan strives to be an all-in-one solution for Startups needing funding.
• BizPlan is constantly making improvements to its software.

BizPlan receives great feedback from customers. BizPlan reviews average 4.4 stars out of 5 on GetApp. Still a relatively new option, BizPlan already has over 30,000 satisfied customers. As their platform grows, we wouldn’t be surprised to see them integrate even more valuable features. Keep a close eye on this one.

3. Enloop - Free to $39.95/month

If you’re looking to try before you buy, Enloop is a strong choice as one of the only business planning software tools with a free trial.

• User-friendly platform
• Compare your financials against your industry's performance
• Bank ready financial statements (Profit and Loss, Balance Sheet, Cash flow)
• Lets multiple team members work on a business plan
• 36-Month detailed financial reports
• Sync date and text into your business plan
• Real-time performance rating
• Generated business plan Pass/Fail report
• Multiple currency formatting
• Seven-day free trial (no credit card required)
• Advanced financial ratios
• Financial projections
• Video tutorials to help you with the writing process
• No phone or chat support, just a "contact us" form.
• Three business plan limit per account
• Doesn't integrate with QuickBooks or Xero
• No financial forecasts beyond 36-months
• No 30-day money-back guarantee

We learned that the premise behind Enloop is to make business planning easier for entrepreneurs. Enloop achieves this by making software simple to navigate through and takes risks off the table with their no credit card needed seven-day free trial. Their business plan creation software offers financial forecasting features for up to 36 months.

• Enloop utilizes 16 financial ratios to get your business ready for investors.
• Enloop offers some sample business plans that are easy to modify.
• Enloop's performance score increases as you create your detailed plan.
• A new business or small businesses benefit the most from Enloop's solutions.

Enloop receives fair feedback from customers. Enloop's reviews average 3 stars out of 5 on PCMag. Enloop's main complaint is its lack of instructional text for writing mission statements and other key sections. What they rank high on is their efficiency and the speed at which the software lets you write a business plan.

Even beyond the free version, Enloop Basic is just $9.95/month ($6/month when paid annually), so they’re one of the least expensive tools for writing a business plan.

4. PlanGuru - $99/month to $299/month

PlanGuru is a good option if you’re looking for considerably more robust software that offers quite a bit more. The most notable feature we like is the valuation tool, only present on the desktop version of the software. PlanGuru lets you calculate the valuation of your business using three different methods. No other business plan software offers this that we know of.

PlanGuru also offers budgeting, forecasting, and performance tools to help you put together a business plan. In the main, PlanGuru allows you to get a custom-tailored three financial statement budget model up and running out of QuickBooks or Xero in a matter of minutes. PlanGuru's business plan writing software takes you through a setup process where it asks you questions such as:

• What's the first month of your fiscal year?
• How many historical years do you want to import?

And, once you answer these questions, PlanGuru then generates a model for you that you can then populate with your historical data if you have it. Then you can go through PlanGuru's 20+ projection methods.

Some financial data projection methods include:

• Expenses, like payroll, etc.
• Balance sheet items, like accounts receivable, accounts payable, crude expenses, prepaid expenses, loans, etc.

These are only a few of the features the business plan software offers. Here are some more.

• Budgeting/Forecasting Software
• Analytics Service for Financial Performance & KPIs
• Valuation calculations (desktop software only)
• Desktop and cloud-based options
• Free 14-day trial and 30-day money-back guarantee
• Great customer support and knowledgeable sales staff
• Lower-cost yearly plans offered
• Advanced financial calculations
• Business valuation calculations
• No contracts
• Integrates with QuickBooks and Xero
• Costlier than LivePlan and most other business plan software options
• Additional cost per user can add up quickly

The great thing about PlanGuru is that the only thing you have to worry about is the income statement and balance sheet projections because the cash flow statement is automatically generated.

Then once you have the cash flow statement, income statement, and balance sheet in place, you can then lock down the budget.

• PlanGuru's desktop version has three different types of valuation methods that calculate the worth of your business.
• PlanGuru has some really nice reporting tools that pull together your financial statements into table formats, say, for the bank, line-by-line.
• PlanGuru also has some nice charts, graphs, scorecards, and some easily digestible reports that can help you visualize how your company is performing.
• Exports to Excel, PDF, and Word documents --and, there's even a tool that lets you create customized reports.
• You can print your plan off too to show partners, lenders, and investors.
• PlanGuru now offers a cloud-based version of its software, though it will take some time to catch up to the rich features offered by the current desktop software version.
• With PlanGuru you also get free updates, bug fixes, and new releases as they become available.

Important Note: These tools are important because investors may want to see not only historical performance but also projections.

5. IdeaBuddy - Free to $35/month

IdeaBuddy makes our list because of what's behind their approach. IdeaBuddy focuses on helping entrepreneurs develop their idea first, then share it, and then refine it into a plan. If you have a business idea and don't know what to do next, IdeaBuddy could be what you're looking for in a business plan software.

• Single-page business plan pitch (Idea plan)
• Clean modern design platform combined with great financial tools
• Marketing plan for selling and promoting your products
• Market overview plan where you create targeted customer profiles, identify your competition and calculate the market potential
• Business plan creation that includes forecasting performance and cash flow projections
• A proprietary algorithm calculates a final score for your idea providing recommendations for improvement after you complete "Story Mode"
• Idea Journal, that is an internal business plan for you to show potential investors
• A lifetime plan costs only $178
• Great for developing ideas
• Great for doing market research
• Pay-as-you-go plans offered
• Email-only customer service
• Software lag time issues
• Fewer software options than most other small business options

IdeaBuddy has some great features that are fantastic from idea conceptualization down to cost projections and the laying out of steps to take to start a business. We would have liked, however, to been given more KPIs that would notify us of tasks, help with idea validation, and help us measure other objectives to better monitor the health of our business. Another thing lacking was the design of the finished plan--it contained some noticeable structural issues.

IdeaBuddy has received some outstanding customer reviews on GetApp. IdeaBuddy has earned a 4.6-star rating out of 5 possible stars.

6. iPlanner - Starts at $55/year

iPlanner is a comprehensive business plan software that has been aiding entrepreneurs since 2007, providing a robust framework for developing business plans, models, and financial forecasts online.

• Unlimited Team Members & Collaboration
• A La Carte Pricing Model vs Packages
• Discounts for Serial Entrepreneurs & Business Coaches
• Solid amount of industry knowledge and experience.
• They've got two trademarked business planning services, Startup Framework™ and Strategy Designer™
• All of their business planning packages allow you to have unlimited collaborators and assign people three different roles: Project Owners, Advisors, and Viewers.
•  Their Startup Framework software has a business modeling section where you can design a business model canvas and strategize as much as you need before diving into your plan.
• Doesn't have a month-to-month option for either of their services. Their Strategy Designer is payable only annually, while their Startup Framework is available for 3-month, 6-month, or 12-month payments.
• They don't offer refunds
•  Their website is pretty old school and tough to navigate.
•  Unlike other business planning software, iPlanner doesn't offer a free version or trial. However, you can take a tour of their Startup Framework software or view a demo of the Strategy Designer to get a feel for them.

iPlanner's Business Planning Software

If a simple framework is all you're looking for, iPlanner can help you out. They don't have many bells and whistles, but at these price points, they offer a good value for nonprofits and corporations.

7. Wise Business Plans - Pricing by Request

Wise business plans website is a little confusing to navigate, and pricing is by request only, which can get frustrating. They do have a lot of options for different kinds of business plans for various types of business types, which makes them versatile. They also have business building and funding options as well. And, if you wish to establish business credit, they offer net-30 accounts that get reported to Equifax business.

• Claim to be the only business plan company to write for Fortune 100 and 500 companies
• Business formation services
• Business license searches
• EIN services
• Digital marketing services
• Business website design and branding
• Has a lot of helpful information
• Helpful options for forming your business
• Options to help after you start your business
• Helps small businesses establish business credit
• Not an actual business plan software
• Expensive by comparison
• Website is difficult to navigate
• Pricing is by request only
• Limited products and features
• Turnaround is one month
• Requires some work on your end

Business Plan Software Pros and Cons

• By using business plan software providers, you’ll be able to create a solid outline for your business. Although some of the options above are better than others, each will walk you through from start to finish.
• No matter how you look at it, business plan software is cost-effective. As long as you actually use the tool, you’ll generate significantly more value than you’re spending on monthly subscription fees.
• If you spend the time to create a solid plan, you’re much more likely to hold yourself accountable. Think of planning software like an accountability buddy for entrepreneurship.
• Your business plan tool will help set realistic financial goals, and most can also keep your bottom line in check by integrating your accounting software.
• Business planning software enables you to collaborate with partners, mentors and investors.
• Some of the business plan tools don’t offer support and can have slightly buggy features. That said, if you’re serious about writing a solid plan, go with a tool that’s constantly updated and well made.
• Although some business plan tools have a collaboration feature, none of them can review it when you’re done. All business planning tools lack a human touch.

How to Choose the Right Business Plan Software

With the array of business planning tools available, it can be daunting to select the right one for your needs. Here are some tips for choosing a business plan software solution:

• Consider your skill level – Opt for software like a wizard-guided template if you are less experienced in writing plans. Choose more advanced software with greater flexibility once you know what you are doing. Look for drag-and-drop tools to easily organize sections.
• Determine your budget – Prices range from free to several hundred dollars. Know how much you can spend before shopping.
• Compare features – Look for software with the specific tools you need, like financial projections, sample text, customizable templates, and more.
• Evaluate the financial tool capabilities – The software should provide extensive financial tools like forecasting, modeling, projections, and dashboards to streamline financial planning.
• Check reviews and ratings – Get feedback from other users about their experience with the software. High reviews indicate easier, more user-friendly software.

Which Is the Best Business Plan Software?

You know the unique requirements of your startup better than we do. These are all quality services that offer business planning software tools for entrepreneurs like you. Feel free to read over our full reviews if you’d like to know more about any of them or even visit the websites directly.

In general, we do prefer LivePlan because they have a huge library of business plan templates, and we love their convenient dashboard. They're the planning software that is most likely to help you via customer support, continue updating their tool, and figure out ways to make your business experience better. Enjoy!

What is the purpose of a business plan?

The purpose of a business plan is to provide a structured outline and roadmap for a business's goals, strategies, and operations. It serves as a guide for decision-making, resource allocation, and management. 

Furthermore, it can be a crucial tool for attracting investors, securing loans, and ensuring that all stakeholders have a clear understanding of the business's direction and objectives.

What does business plan software do?

Business plan software assists entrepreneurs and businesses in creating, organizing, and refining their business plans. It provides tools, templates, and guidance to streamline the planning process. 

Features often include financial forecasting, market analysis, visual aids like charts and graphs, collaboration capabilities, and even integration with other business tools. This software aims to simplify the task of creating a thorough and professional business plan.

How do you write a business plan?

To write a business plan, start by writing an executive summary that provides an overview of your business idea, products/services, market opportunity, and projected growth. Outline your company description, industry analysis, target customers, competitive advantage, marketing and sales plans, operations, management team, and financial projections.

How long should a business plan be?

The length can vary based on the complexity of the business, its stage, and its intended audience. In general, it might range from 15-50 pages. However, the key is to ensure that the plan is comprehensive yet concise. 

For many situations, especially when seeking investment, a more detailed one is preferable. Yet, for internal purposes or for businesses at very early stages, a shorter, more concise plan might suffice.

Are there business plan templates on Word?

Yes, Microsoft Word has business plan templates you can download and customize. The templates provide section headings, instructions, sample text, and tables to input your specific business information.

What is Palo Alto Software?

Palo Alto Software is a company that's been around since the late 1980s. They created business management software for startups and existing businesses. The software has since been updated and rebranded as LivePlan and today happens to be one of the most sought-after business plan software available in the marketplace.

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Pitch to Anyone, Anywhere

Start by outlining your ideas & testing your assumptions

Every successful business starts with the right foundation. And with the LivePlan Pitch Builder , you get an easy way to outline the essentials. This includes helping you:

• Figure out who your customers really are
• Clarify what problem your business is solving
• Set smart goals & milestones so you can grow faster

The entire process typically takes just 60 minutes – you can even write it on your smartphone. And once finished, you'll get a better idea of how to position your business for success.

Get a one–page pitch that's built to impress

Crisp graphics and a slick design help make your one–page pitch stand out. Plus it's easy to show off: share a link to your pitch for quick feedback or export it to PowerPoint for presentation–ready slides.

Write your plan in bite-sized chunks with AI assistance

There’s no escaping it: banks and investors want to see a complete, detailed business plan that includes strong financial forecasts.

LivePlan guides you through the entire business–planning process with:

• Simple step-by-step instructions
• Automatically generated content with AI
• Detailed examples for every section of the plan
• 550+ sample plans you can copy and paste from

Create financials without tricky calculations

No spreadsheets. No calculators. No math whatsoever.

Just answer a few questions about your sales and revenue and LivePlan will handle the calculations automatically using built-in formulas. That means you get ultra-accurate cash flow projections with a minimal amount of effort.

Plus the AI LivePlan Assistant gives you suggestions for revenue streams, expense types, and other forecast categories that are specific to your business.

Get a polished, fundable plan that’s easy to share

Your business plan will be optimized to earn you funding

Our plans are approved by the Small Business Administration, which means they give lenders and investors all the information they need to see.

But it's not just about them. You can also customize your plan to match your business by selecting from 10 different document themes.

Once complete, download your plan as a PDF or Word doc. Or you can print it to get a professional document

Then track your actuals against your plan to grow 30% faster

The LivePlan Dashboard is a dashboard that makes it easy to compare the financial projections in your plan to your actuals. That way, you can make adjustments on–the–fly to optimize your business.

The Dashboard connects to Xero or QuickBooks, so there's no manual data entry.

LivePlan features to help you succeed

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See how your business stacks up against the competition. Compare your profit, productivity and other metrics with industry averages .

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Keep your business on track by scheduling milestones for key tasks or projects. It's an easy way to make sure you hit all the most important goals.

Simple Budgeting

Quickly build sales forecasts and budgets without any clunky spreadsheets. It's a simple and visual way to handle your financials.

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10 Best Business Plan Software and Tools in 2024

Do you know what’s common between a global IT firm and a small food truck business?

Like any other business on the planet Earth, they both require a  solid business plan  to make their business a runaway success.

Business plan. No entrepreneur is a stranger to this term, but do they all consider it seriously? Not sure.

Results? Spending a lot of time, money, and resources on the wrong marketing strategies, missing several growth opportunities, and of course, facing tough times raising funds. 

No one wants to be in this situation! 

That’s where a perfect business plan software can help you out. These tools make drafting an investment-ready business a breeze.

So how exactly can these business planning tools help?

Simply put,  business plan software  can help you create a winning business plan, develop marketing strategies, and predict your financial future—ultimately helping your business grow.

Now, how to choose a tool that will suit your business’s requirements and your budget too? The answer is right here.

In this article, we’ve narrowed down our search for the best business plan software to the 10 best paid and free software considering factors like—pricing, features, performance, and credibility. 

So you can easily pick the one that best suits your requirements.

All sorted? Shall we begin? Let’s roll.

Best Paid and Free Business Plan Software and Tools

Jump to section, 1. upmetrics.

Upmetrics  is a top business and financial planning software helping entrepreneurs and small business owners start and grow their businesses.

Its 200+ fully customizable sample business plans, video tutorials, well-written documentation, and go-to guides make writing a business plan a lot easier for someone new to business plan writing.

The best part about Upmetrics is—it’s affordable, reliable, and best for beginners. 

In fact, the creators of Upmetrics believe that creating a business plan requires no special qualifications, nor a degree in finance to draw financial projections.  

And the tool they’ve created speaks volumes of their words—making it a go-to solution for budding entrepreneurs. 

Let’s have a look at the features you get with Upmetrics—the #1 business plan software: 

• 400+ fully customizable business plan templates to get started.
• Easy-to-use business plan builder with drag and drop tools.
• Financial forecasting tool to plan and manage your cash flow with ease.
• Easy to share or collaborate with the team in real time.
• Pitch deck creator to create perfect pitches and impress investors.
• Create actionable business strategies using various business model canvases.
• Easily customize and edit cover pages.
• Real-time updates and cloud storage, eliminating the risk of data loss.
• Business resources, video tutorials, and guides to help get started.
• Intuitive, seamless, and responsive user interface.

The Upmetrics subscription starts at $7/month (billed annually) with one workspace; it also provides a free demo and a 15-day money-back guarantee —so no risk at all!

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2. Liveplan

LivePlan  is one of the best and most renowned business planning, budgeting, and performance-tracking software for startups and small business owners.

Whether you are a startup looking to attract potential investors or an established organization that needs help creating a forecast of your business’s financial future—LivePlan can help.

LivePlan simplifies the process of creating a professional business plan with its instruction manuals, tutorials, and expert guidance, whereas its automated financials built-in with formulas ensure precise financial forecasting.

LivePlan provides a wide range of features which may include:

• Business plan templates
• Budgeting and expense tracking
• Online learning tools & resources
• Collaborative planning
• Pitch deck creator
• Dashboard and reporting
• Integrated document storage

Though LivePlan has been in the market for a long time now, it isn’t suitable for short-term business planning. That’s why we recommend exploring some LivePlan alternatives.

LivePlan’s subscription model consists of two plans: standard and premium. The standard plan costs $20/month, whereas the premium plan costs $40/month. However, they do not have any free trial or demo as a part of their pricing plan.

What I didn't like about LivePlan?

Here are the average user ratings, comparing the experiences on Liveplan and Upmetrics.

Compare Liveplan with Others

Liveplan vs. Enloop: Which is Best for Your Business?

IdeaBuddy vs. Liveplan: Which is Best for Your Business?

Bizplan vs. Liveplan: Which is Best for Your Business?

Enloop  is an advanced business planning and financial forecasting tool helping business owners maximize the potential of their business venture.

Unlike Upmetrics and LivePlan—Enloop is designed for individuals with prior financial knowledge and business planning experience.

Understanding all of its functionalities is tough, but it has a lot to offer once you figure out its basic functionalities. Still, it’s not the most intuitive and user-friendly application in this space, so it may take a while to get used to it.

If you’re not a beginner and are willing to invest some time understanding and learning its functionalities—it’s well worth it. But, if you’re not, you may consider looking for a few other business plan software.

Enloop provides a wide range of advanced financial tools and business planning features, which may include:

• Business plan creation
• Automated financial forecasts
• Collaboration and sharing
• Funding and investor tools
• Exporting and integrations
• Auto-generated financial reports
• Automated text writing

Enloop’s monthly subscription plans range between $19.95 and $39.95, depending on your plan and functionalities. It also has a 7-day free trial with no credit card details required.

What I didn't like about Enloop?

Here are the average user ratings, comparing the experiences on Enloop and Upmetrics.

4. IdeaBuddy

Ideabuddy  is an innovative business plan software helping new-age entrepreneurs turn their ideas into successful business plans.

Customizable templates, industry-based guides, and streamlined idea and business plan creation make it one of the most user-friendly applications on the list.

It is designed on a principle where users can develop, test, and launch their business idea—all in one place. While it’s great for idea creation, it may lack several comprehensive business planning features.

Financial forecasting is vital to a business plan, but IdeaBuddy may not provide all the necessary financial tools for accurate projections.

So if your business is in the idea stage—choosing IdeaBuddy could be a fair call, but if you plan to build a comprehensive business plan, you need another tool.

IdeaBuddy provides a wide range of features, which may include:

• Modern business plan with a click
• Export your plan and financials
• Mobile-friendly platform
• Customizable templates and industry-based guides
• Test to score your idea
• Step-by-step business guide
• Brainstorm ideas with your team

IdeaBuddy’s subscription model consists of four plans: free, dreamer, founder, and team pro.

Depending on the plan specifications and features, these plans may cost between $15 to $40 a month. You can also save up to 60% on annual memberships.

What I didn't like about IdeaBuddy?

Here are the average user ratings, comparing the experiences on IdeaBuddy and Upmetrics.

Planful  is a business planning and financial performance management cloud software. It provides a structured framework for industry-wide businesses to develop, track, and execute their plans.

The tool specializes in financial performance management with advanced features like—financial close management, reporting, and consolidation.

While the tool has numerous advanced features and functionalities—they all come with a high price tag as it’s mainly designed for medium and large-scale enterprises.

Let’s have a look at the extensive financial tools and features you may get with a planful subscription:

• Budgeting and forecasting
• Financial consolidation
• Scenario modeling
• Reporting and analytics
• Financial close management
• Data integration and connectivity
• Responsive web and mobile apps

Planful has no structured pricing model on their website; users may contact their sales team for a custom quotation.

What I didn't like about Planful?

6. iPlanner

iPlanner  is an enterprise business plan software that has been helping entrepreneurs develop their business plans since 2007. It is suitable for businesses looking to secure funding, better understand and manage risks, or communicate the company’s business model and strategy to the team.

Though the business plan software has been around for over a decade now, it didn’t seem to cope with the technological advancements, so it may not provide the most intuitive and visually appealing user interface.

But if you are searching for an affordable business planning and performance tracking tool with KPIs, analytics, and reporting features, iPlanner can be a good investment.

Here’s an overview of the key features of iPlanner—business plan software:

• Financial forecasting
• Secure and accessible
• Data security and backup
• How to articles and guides

iPlanner’s subscription model consists of two plans: professional and corporate. Professional subscriptions start at $24 for a 3-month subscription with one project, while corporate subscriptions start at $59 for a 6-month subscription with 12 projects

What I didn't like about iPlanner?

7. PlanGuru

PlanGuru  is a business planning software that helps entrepreneurs make better decisions, increase profits, and accomplish their business goals through strategic business planning and accurate forecasting.

Budgeting & financial analytics, rolling forecast, and strategic planning are three critical components of PlanGuru’s feature list.

PlanGuru specializes in forecasting financial statements, scenario analysis, budgeting, and gaining insights through reporting tools.

It offers many advanced financial forecasting features but is quite expensive— making it unsuitable for startups with limited investment capital.

PlanGuru provides a wide range of financial tools and business planning features to create business plans, which may include:

• Business valuation tool
• 20+ standard forecast methods
• Budget/forecast for up to 10 years
• Archive budget feature
• Standard report export to PDF, Excel, and Word
• Custom report builder for Excel
• Online dashboard, scorecard, and reporting tools

PlanGuru has two different pricing plans; one for businesses and nonprofits and another for business advisors. Depending on the plan specifications and features, these plans may cost between $99 and $299/month.

What I didn't like about PlanGuru?

8. The Business Plan Shop

The Business Plan Shop  is a business & financial planning and analysis platform for small and medium-sized business owners and financial advisors.

Its business plan templates make writing a business plan relatively easier for beginners. Despite its many features, the business plan software specializes in financial analysis, forecasting, and KPI tracking.

It surely has a few advanced features but can be expensive for startups and small businesses.

This business plan software provides a wide range of features, which may include:

• Financial forecasting software
• Sync accounting data
• Drag and drop templates and editor
• Integration with financial data
• Faster than Microsoft Word

The Business Plan Shop has two different pricing plans; one for businesses and CFOs and another for advisors. The business & CFO plan costs $25.50 per month, and the Advisor plan costs $94.20 per month.

What I didn't like about The Business Plan Shop?

Bizplan  is a comprehensive business plan software helping startups, entrepreneurs, and small business owners create business plans with direct access to planning experts. 

Financial tools help create detailed financial projections and financial and cash flow statements in no time, so entrepreneurs can spend more time growing and scaling their businesses.

The platform also has a fundraising tool to help startups connect with potential investors—which has already helped raise over $500 million for startups.

It has all the features to create a basic business plan but may lack industry-specific guidance or assistance.

Let’s have a look at the wide range of features that come with a Bizplan subscription:

• Financial modeling
• Integration and export
• Reporting and presentation
• Progress tracking
• Step-by-step guidance

Bizplan’s pricing plans start at $29/month, whereas the lifetime access costs $349. You may check their pricing page for more information.

What I didn't like about Bizplan?

Here are the average user ratings, comparing the experiences on Bizplan and Upmetrics.

Brixx  is a financial forecast software for cash flow, budgeting, and financial planning. Apart from helping users create a basic business plan, the platform also helps them with financial modeling, scenario planning, and goal tracking.

Its interactive charts and graphs can help you clearly present your financial data and cash flow statements for enhanced reader understanding.

Integrating Brixx and other accounting software automates the syncing of your actuals and forecasts, giving you a head start using Brixx.

The tool primarily focuses on financial projections and forecasting, so there are only a few features for other parts of the business plan.

Let’s have a look at the wide range of features that come with a Brixx subscription:

• 1-10 year financial forecasts
• Professional charts and reports
• Automated tax forecasts
• Quick-start templates
• Share plans in real-time
• Business Resources
• 3-way forecasting

Brixx has four packages in its subscription model: Foundation, Essentials, Professional, and Enterprise. The pricing for these packages may range from $0 to $66 per month.

What I didn't like about Brixx?

How to Choose the Right Business Plan Software?

All the business plan tools on our list are credible and can help you create a winning business plan. However, it’s critical to understand each tool specializes in certain aspects of business planning.

Let’s understand which factors to consider while choosing the right tool to help you create a professional business plan:

The most obvious factor. Ask yourself how much you can afford to spend on a business plan maker.

A free or low-cost tool may provide only some necessary functionalities to create a detailed plan. So, figure out your budget and shortlist the tools that you can afford to invest in.

2. Your specific requirements

The next step. Learn your specific requirement. For instance, if your business is in the idea stage, you may not require a tool with advanced financial features like—PlanGuru; Ideabuddy may work.

Both tools cater to specific audiences; if you are not sure, you may go with Upmetrics. It has pricing plans suitable for all business sizes.

3. Business plan templates

Custom designing a business plan can be tedious, so make sure the business plan software you choose has industry-specific templates to help you get started.

4. AI assistance

Artificial Intelligence has revolutionalized the way people get their things done. Make sure you select a platform that also provides AI assistance while creating a business plan.

With tools like  ChatGPT  and  AI business plan generators,  you can draft a business plan in a breeze.

5. Charts and graphs

Let’s face it, no one likes to read long paragraphs. The tool you choose must be able to turn your financial data and balance sheets into appealing and easy-to-understand charts and graphics.

6. Financial projections

Most critical section of a business plan. Understand your requirement regarding financial projections and the level of features the tool provides.

For instance, a large-scale organization may require a tool that can easily do  business financials  for ten or more years.

7. Contribution and sharing features

Make sure the tool you choose must provide the contribution and sharing features so that you can work with multiple team members.

8. Convenience and user-friendliness

A no-brainer. Ensure the software you choose has a user-friendly user interface and a manageable learning curve to understand all the working features.

9. Integrations

Some of the best business plan software integrates with accounting software. This feature can be handy while transferring financial details into your business plan.

10. Step-by-step guides

These user guides and tutorials can help you easily outline and prepare the first draft of your business plan, so make sure you consider this as one of the factors while selecting a tool.

11. Support

You are new to business planning software and may need help using some of its features. A responsive support team can help you get back on the right track.

Think of these factors as a checklist while researching the right business plan software. Once you have checked off all the boxes, you will have the right business plan software by your side.

Pros and Cons of Using Business Plan Software

Undoubtedly, business plan software can be a worth-it investment for your business, but it surely has a few disadvantages too. Let’s get to that:

• Time Saving: business plan software can be a big time-saving investment.
• Step-by-step guidance: These guides make it easier to get started for beginners.
• Accurate reporting: Good business plan software guarantee the accountability and accuracy of the reports generated.
• Customizations: Business plan tools also offer options to personalize your reports.
• Generic templates: These planning tools often provide generic templates that may not suit your requirements.
• Limited flexibility: In terms of formatting, content, design, and layout.
• Learning curve: Using these tools requires a learning curve to navigate the software.

There have to be a few disadvantages, but they are negligible when you look at the positive side of having a business plan software onboard.

And this section leads us to our conclusion!

That was the article for today with some of the best business plan software. Now over to you. Revisit the top business planning software on the list, do your research, and select the one that best suits your requirements.

Got any more burning questions in mind? The FAQ section starts right after we wrap this article up, feel free to explore. Happy business planning! 

Other Business Plan Software Alternatives

• Best 8 Liveplan alternatives
• Top Bizplan alternatives & competitors
• 8 Growthink alternatives
• Best Ideabuddy Alternatives
• Best Enloop Alternatives

Say No to Expensive Business Planning Software!

Get Affordable and Feature-Packed Business Planning with Upmetrics

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best business plan software for startups.

We’ve already mentioned the best business plan software in the blog post earlier; you may choose one amongst those depending on your specific needs.

However, Upmetrics can be a go-to business planning software for startups as it only costs $9 per month to get started—which is worth it against the value you get.

Which tool is used as a one-page business plan?

There are many business plan software providing features to create one-page business plans like—Upmetrics and Ideabuddy. You can use Upmetrics’ canvas modeling feature to develop actionable and entrepreneur-focused one-page business plans.

Can I write a business plan myself?

Of course, you can. It’s easier than ever to write a business plan with the emerging use of tools like ChatGPT. Though you can write a business plan, you need assistance making it presentable for your investors.

And business plan software providers like Upmetrics can help you do that. With 200+ sample business plans, you can easily write the first draft of your business plan.

What is the best way to write a business plan?

There cannot be a standard answer to this question. There are various business planning processes, and all of them might not work for you. Still, considering the time-saving approach, using an industry-specific template and editing it as per your requirements can be an easy way to write a business plan.

Using ChatGPT for business plan writing can also be one of the best ways to write a business plan. As mentioned, there can’t be a specific answer to this question; find a way that best suits your needs.

Is there any free business plan software available?

It’s really challenging to find the perfect business plan software, that too, for free. IdeaBuddy from our list has a free plan, but it comes with very limited features, not so helpful for creating a business plan.

Business plan software like Upmetrics, Bizplan, and LivePlan also have free trials, so you may try their features before purchasing. Furthermore, you can get a 30% off on an Upmetrics subscription if you are a nonprofit or student.

How much does business plan software typically cost?

The cost of a business plan software can widely depend on the level of features and functionalities they provide. Still, the monthly subscription of a business plan tool can range anywhere between $5 to $300.

About the Author

Upmetrics Team

Upmetrics is the #1 business planning software that helps entrepreneurs and business owners create investment-ready business plans using AI. We regularly share business planning insights on our blog. Check out the Upmetrics blog for such interesting reads. Read more

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7 Best Business Planning Apps for Entrepreneurs in 2023 (With AI Features)

In the age of startups and online businesses, planning is paramount. A well-structured business plan not only helps in securing investors but also serves as a roadmap for your enterprise. With the plethora of digital tools available today, there's no need for pen and paper or tedious Excel sheets. Here's our roundup of the seven best business planning apps to streamline your entrepreneurial journey:

An AI-powered hub for modern age businesses

Bizway stands out with its holistic approach to business planning. A web app that's user-friendly and intuitive, it's designed keeping digital and internet businesses in mind.

• Page Creation : Users can seamlessly organize their thoughts with preset pages like Market, Product, Channel, Revenue stream, Customer Persona, and Cost.
• Enhanced Productivity : Flesh out ideas with options like page properties, 'Assist' for guidance, 'Prompts' for inspiration, and 'Tasks' to remind yourself of upcoming actions.
• Digital Resources : The option to add Notes, create Pins for relevant URLs, and an in-built 'Pitch' feature to share your business plan effortlessly makes Bizway a game-changer in the business planning domain.

2. IdeaBuddy

Turn Your Idea into Reality

Ideal for budding entrepreneurs, IdeaBuddy is a comprehensive tool that takes you from an idea to a structured business plan.

• Dream, Plan, and Validate stages help in refining and structuring business concepts.
• Financial forecasting for better budgeting and allocation.
• Guidance from industry experts available within the app.

3. LivePlan

A Trusted Companion for Startups

LivePlan has long been a favorite amongst entrepreneurs, and for good reason. It offers simplicity and in-depth planning in one package.

• Customizable templates suitable for various business types.
• Visual projections and financial insights for better decision-making.
• Collaboration tools for teams to work collectively on a plan.

4. Upmetrics

Your Blueprint for Business Success

Upmetrics is all about creating a blueprint that aligns with your business goals.

• Intuitive drag-and-drop interface.
• Financial forecasting and analytics.
• Templates for various industries and business models.

Building Businesses, One Step at a Time

Bizplan breaks down the planning process into digestible pieces, ensuring no detail is overlooked.

• Step-by-step builder for detailed planning.
• Financial tools for budgeting and forecasting.
• Collaboration options for team input.

More Than Just Planning

While primarily a task management tool, nTask is versatile enough to aid in business planning with its wide array of features.

• Task lists, timelines, and Gantt charts for project planning.
• Meeting schedules, timesheets, and team collaboration tools.
• Risk management and issue tracking for smoother operations.

The All-in-One Workspace

Notion goes beyond just business planning. It's a workspace tool that can be used for notes, tasks, and even creating a knowledge base.

• Hybrid tool combining notes, databases, and tasks.
• Customizable templates for diverse needs.
• Collaboration and sharing options for teams and clients.

How to use AI in your Business Plan

In the realm of business planning, AI tools, like ChatGPT, have become invaluable for entrepreneurs and seasoned business professionals alike. Here's how to harness the power of AI for your business plan and what to watch out for:

1. Enhancing Knowledge Base:

‍ ChatGPT and similar tools are equipped with vast knowledge databases. They cover business theories, strategies, market research, and statistics about market sizing. So, if you're stuck or unsure about any concept, asking AI can save hours spent trawling through the internet or books.

• Instant access to a massive information database.
• Up-to-date with the latest validated knowledge (as of the last training cut-off).
• Limited to the last training data, which means ultra-recent trends might not be reflected.
• Might not have hyper-specific or niche industry information.

2. Strategy Formulation and Testing:

‍ With AI, you can play out different scenarios or strategies and receive insights based on historical data and patterns. This is especially valuable when unsure about a specific market move or business decision.

• Provides objective insights without human biases.
• Can process vast amounts of data quickly.
• Lacks human intuition and emotional intelligence.
• Relies heavily on historical data, which might not always predict future outcomes.

3. Market Research and Statistics:

‍ AI tools can provide a general overview of market sizes, segmentation, and other vital statistics. This is especially useful when you're venturing into an unfamiliar market.

• Quick snapshot of market dynamics.
• Saves time and resources on primary research.
• Generalized data might not cater to specific business needs.
• The accuracy might vary based on the niche and specificity of the query.

Using AI Effectively in Business Planning

While AI provides numerous advantages, it's crucial to utilize these tools effectively:

• Complement, Don't Replace : Use AI to complement your human intuition and industry insights. It shouldn't replace human judgment.
• Ask Specific Questions : The more specific you are with your queries, the better the AI can assist you.
• Double-Check Critical Data : For vital decisions, always double-check AI-provided data with other sources.
• Continuous Learning : AI tools evolve and improve. Keeping abreast of their updates ensures you're always getting the best out of them.

In conclusion, AI, when used judiciously, can be a game-changer in business planning. However, a balanced approach, combining AI insights with human judgment, is the key to crafting a robust and effective business plan.

Gerrard + Bizway AI Assistant

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©2024 Bizway Labs

Best Business Plan Software Review (2024 Update)

• by IdeaBuddy Team
• October 20, 2023
• 1 share 1 0 0
• 10 minute read

Table of Contents Hide

The key features of a business plan software, the most popular business plan software in 2024, best business plan software: the verdict.

Sure, you can try to flesh out your idea and plan your future business by using a Word document or spreadsheet. But a good business plan software makes the whole process a lot easier.

These handy business tools help you structure your thoughts and build a business model that’s both workable and presentable. This in turn lets you seize on good opportunities in real-time.

Plus, business plan software usually comes with automated calculations, budgeting, and forecasts. You can assess the feasibility of your idea and then build a robust business plan.

Finally, business plan software saves a huge amount of time as it guides you through the entire planning process.

So, in this piece, we will first look at the key features a reliable business plan software needs to have. We’ll then provide a rundown of the best business plan tools available in the market.

If you’re an experienced business owner, skip right to the business plan software review. But if you’re still new to business making, start with the features. This will help you decide which of the selected software works best for you.

Here is a list of the key product features you should look for in a business plan software. Make sure that your preferred tool ticks all the boxes!

• Step-by-step guide – Business planning wizard is especially convenient for first-time founders, as it provides help at all stages of the business plan.
• Modularity – This allows first-time founders to build and test the basic business idea, gradually expanding the scope and moving towards its other aspects.
• Financial projections – If you’re venturing into a new industry or founding a business for the first time, make sure to find a business planning software that comes with a robust financial planning feature .
• Editable templates – Designing a business plan from zero can lead to significant time loss, so find a tool that offers built-in business plan templates, that can fit your industry and niche.
• Integrations – Being able to connect your business plan software with other tools can streamline your business workflow quite a bit.

So these were the features of a reliable business plan software. Let’s now review best-in-class tools and see how they can work for your niche and expertise.

In order to help you select the right business plan software , we broke down the list into two categories – traditional business plan software and innovative business planning software.

Innovative business planning software:

Traditional business plan software:

We will now dive into a detailed review of each software, pinpointing features, pros, cons, and pricing, as well as who they’re best suited for.

Innovative business planning software

IdeaBuddy is an innovative business plan software that helps aspiring entrepreneurs and teams develop their ideas. With IdeaBuddy, you can create a business model, develop your business idea, make financial projections, validate a business concept, and get a modern business plan.

All this comes with a step-by-step guide and editable templates. Plus, you will have access to documentation that brings an added level of support.

At its core, IdeaBuddy gives a spin to traditional business planning — the tool is simple, easy, and fun to use. Also, it lets you focus on key aspects of your business first. It then gradually leads you towards more complex aspects. As a result, you end up with a customizable and comprehensive business plan.

At first glance, that’s due to its simplicity and stunning visual appearance; also, it is very versatile.

IdeaBuddy Features

So, suppose you’re still sketching your idea. In that case, IdeaBuddy has its own business canvas called Idea Plan , which will help you build a business model.

It’s reminiscent of Business Model Canvas and Lean Canvas, but with its own flavor. Like with any other canvas, your goal is to build your business model by posting idea notes until you’ve covered all your business elements.

Business Guide

The next cool feature is Business Guide , a step-by-step guide that takes you through the five stages of the business planning process.

It helps you create your marketing and sales strategy , define your target customers, compare yourself with the competition, and plan all the other elements of your future business.

IdeaBuddy has automated financials and calculators, which will help you outline your startup expenses, loan payments, profit margins, cash flow, and many other important financial metrics.

After you develop the idea through the Business Guide, IdeaBuddy documents the entire planning process and converts it into an investor-ready business plan, which is quite useful and hassle-free.

IdeaBuddy Features Overview

• Business canvas
• Step-by-step business planning guide
• Automatic financial projections
• Business plan builder
• Idea validation tool

👍 IdeaBuddy Pros

+ Attractive visual appearance + Innovative step-by-step business guide + Idea templates

👎 IdeaBuddy Cons

– Limited features in the free trial – Some of the features are ‘coming soon’

IdeaBuddy Pricing

Dreamer plan – Starts from $15 per month / $5 per month (billed annually), and in this plan you are getting the essential tools to help you flash out your idea.

Founder plan – Starts from $25 per month / $10 per month (billed annually), and in this plan you will get everything you need to plan and start your business.

Team plan – Costs $35 per month / $20 per month (billed annually), and this is the perfect plan for bigger teams, and collaboration.

Who is this IdeaBuddy best suited for?

IdeaBuddy caters to startup founders and entrepreneurs who are working in dynamic markets. Its modularity helps less experienced founders master the essentials first, then move onwards. This business plan software helps build a sustainable business. Its variety of modules are all customizable to your needs.

You have a brilliant business idea, but don’t know where to start? IdeaBuddy can help you will that. Get started today!

Cuttles is an online web app for writing business plans and turning ideas into profitable startups.

Entrepreneurs and startups will get the help they need when starting their business using a business canvas or creating their business plans with budgets and other financial forecasts.

The one-pager offers a simple business plan that has creative visual assistance. At the same time, the finance tool allows you to track your finances and budgets.

You can turn any idea into a business and meet potential investors with proper planning tools and resources. And you can track your progress and performance with a simple roadmap feature.

Cuttles Features

• Budgets and forecasts
• Roadmapping tool

👍 Cuttles Pros

+ Visualize and share one dynamic dashboard + Great budgeting and runway feature + User-friendly

👎 Cuttles Cons

– Some features are still under development – Need more customization, especially when it comes to the financials, such as revenue

Cuttles Pricing

• Dreamer Plan – For the entrepreneur with a great business idea ($15/month)
• Startup Plan – For startups working together to bring one business idea to life ($30/month)
• Unlimited Plan – For entrepreneurs and startups with more ideas to pursue ($50/month)

Who is Cuttles best suited for?

Cuttles can work for newbie founders and solo entrepreneurs still figuring out their business plans. Cuttles is easy to use and comes with powerful visualization capabilities. But, more experienced business owners may have issues with a lack of features and little customization. This is particularly palpable in the financial aspects of your business plan.

Traditional business plan software

LivePlan is a cloud-based business plan software, which comes with a step-by-step wizard that guides you through writing the plan on autopilot. In turn, you can focus on the content, leaving the format of your plan to the software.

LivePlan can track day-to-day performance using a live dashboard. You need to choose from the over 500 included sample plans that can be turned into inspiration in just minutes. It also does automated financial calculations and forecasts for you.

LivePlan Feature Set

• Business Plan Templates
• Financial Projections
• Fundraising Management
• Track actual performance
• Step-by-step wizard

👍 LivePlan Pros

+ Attractive interface + Includes hundreds of sample plans + Simplified pricing of a single-tier + Automated financial calculations

👎 LivePlan Cons

– No free trial – No mobile version – Steep entry price – Outdated design – Can be overwhelming to use, even after the tutorials – Difficult to review projections and actual performance

LivePlan Pricing

LivePlan comes with a simple pricing scheme and two packages. The standard package lets you create a business plan and a premium package includes financial tools, key performance indicators and sync with QuickBooks.

Standard plan pricing:

• Monthly plan for $20/month (1 business plan)
• Annual subscription for $180 (1 business plan)

Premium plan pricing:

• Monthly plan for $40/month (1 business plan)
• Annual subscription for $360 (1 business plan)

Who is LivePlan best suited for?

LivePlan works for mid-size companies and enterprises. It features a walkthrough and educational tutorials, but first-time founders may find it less intuitive. It can also be overwhelming to use, especially when it comes to financing and projections. Overall, LivePlan is aimed towards more experienced users and comes with a traditional feature set. If you want to learn about more modern, market-relevant solutions, keep on reading.

Read Also: Best Liveplan Alternatives (Reviews And Pricing)

Enloop is an online business plan writing and financial forecasting app to create and manage your business plans.

You can choose from over 100 currency symbols and formats to set up your financial reports for your local currency.

It generates basic text for each section of your plan. You can edit the text, add images and tables. You can also insert financial forecast data into your text. It will be updated automatically whenever you change your financials.

Also, it automatically generates financial forecasts as bank-ready reports in your business plan. It can do hard accounting work for you and explain everything in simple terms.

Enloop Features

• Business plan
• Progress tracker
• Drag and drop templates
• Revenue projections
• Team collaboration

👍 Enloop Pros

+ Free plan, and a free trial + Compatibility with various platforms + Unique features like AutoWrite & TextSync

👎 Enloop Cons

– Doesn’t integrate with Quickbooks, Xero, or other accounting software like other business planning software. Therefore, you must import your own financial data. – Lack of assistance for beginner founders

Enloop Pricing

Enloop pricing is feature-based and comes with a free plan, as well as a free trial period.

• Free tier – Limited to a single business plan with simple text, no images, and no advanced features.
• Detailed plan – $19.95 monthly supports three business plans, detailed financials, and 3 ratios analyzed.
• Performance – For $39.95 monthly, it supports three business plans, detailed financials, and 16 ratios analyzed.

Who is Enloop best suited for?

Enloop is praised for its ease of use as well as a robust financial projections and calculations feature set. As such, it might work for first-time founders or owners with little experience who want to test and try their ideas. Plus, it comes with a free plan that has very limited possibilities, but could work for the bare necessities of business planning.

Bizplan is an online business planning software, which is part of a Startups.com platform.

It comes with a guided business plan creator that allows you to make a modern business plan. It also offers expert feedback on every step of the way, including models that can be dropped in and completed, along with quick incorporation of visuals along the way.

And if you get stuck, the Bizplan Academy offers additional resources that can come in handy when starting a business and making a business plan.

Those who need even more assistance can also take advantage of an expert consultation from a financial expert that starts at $999.

Bizplan Features

👍 bizplan pros.

+ Intuitive and user friendly, with drag and drop modules + Good to use for existing businesses + Financial tools that help make automatic financial projections + Fundraising management and collaboration tools

👎 Bizplan Cons

– Overwhelming interface that makes its use slightly difficult at times – Confusing data importing that is often misaligned with existing data formats – Doesn’t offer training

BizPlan Pricing

BizPlan brings simple pricing models that let you get a taste of all their features. Each model includes unlimited business plans, collaborators, and all available features.

• Monthly price: $29
• Annual price: $249
• Lifetime plan: $349

Who is Bizplan best suited for?

Bizplan is best suited for founders with some experience in setting up a business. While the step-by-step wizard can come in handy, some users cite the sheer availability of features to be overwhelming. At first, it takes the focus off the actual planning. Besides, the tool lacks options to customize business planning, which can be a challenge for less experienced founders or those working in a particular niche.

Upmetrics is a useful software if you want to create a business plan. It features a business plan editor, which refines your business plan to make it a lot more impressive.

Furthermore, finance modeling estimates the profit that you will be making from the business in the future. The pinboard is a handy feature that organizes the business inspiration materials in the right order.

Upmetics Features

• Collaboration
• Financial Templates
• Pitch Presentation
• Social Sharing
• Step-by-Step Wizard

👍 Upmetrics Pros

+ Highly customizable and fast + Cloud-based + User-friendly + Supports real-time collaboration + Can be tailored to specific industries

👎 Upmetrics Cons

– No dashboard – Needs more inbuilt templates – No free trial – Lacks investors module

Upmetrics Pricing

• Solo – For a team of entrepreneurs who just started planning, monthly price: $5.42 / annual pricing: $65.5 — 1 workspace, 2 members / workspace, 5 canvases / workspace
• Team – For teams & companies that need to manage multiple business initiatives, monthly price: $8.25 / annual pricing: $99 — 5 workspaces, 5 members / workspace, 8 canvases / workspace
• Premium – For large organizations and professional consultants, monthly price: $29.09 / annual pricing: $349.08 — unlimited workspaces, members and canvases.

All the prices are billed annually.

Who is Upmetrics best suited for?

Given its simplicity and ease of use, Upmetrics can get the job done for less experienced business owners. Besides, its real-time collaboration capabilities can streamline business planning and decision-making.

However, if you’re planning a mid- or large-scale enterprise, you may find some features to be missing at the moment. For instance, there is no investors module, which could be useful for startups looking for capital.

So these were the ins and outs of the best business plan software. Now, assess your business stage , identify the features you need, and select the right tool for you.

That’s the safest way you get a tool that naturally fits your business making. You will avoid paying for features you will hardly use or getting a tool without the capabilities you desperately need.

In case you’re just starting out or need a hand, check out how IdeaBuddy can take your business idea from scratch to a fully-fledged business plan.

IdeaBuddy Team

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Frequently Asked Questions

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• Initiate with Your Business Concept: Lay the Groundwork: Start by introducing your business idea into Plannit AI's Business Plan Generator. This first step is crucial, as it sets the tone for a tailored, insightful business plan that truly resonates with your vision. Capture the Essence: Our platform is designed to grasp the nuances of your concept, ensuring that the generated plan accurately reflects the core and potential of your business.
• Navigate Through the AI-Guided Questionnaire: Tailored Interactive Experience: Plannit AI’s AI-guided questionnaire is your interactive guide through the planning process. It meticulously gathers information about your business's objectives, strategies, and market positioning, ensuring a comprehensive and reflective plan. Intelligent Feedback and Suggestions: As you progress through the questionnaire, benefit from smart prompts and suggestions, ensuring that your plan is not just detailed but also strategically sound and aligned with industry standards.
• Generate Your Plan with Advanced AI: Intuitive Plan Creation: With the questionnaire complete, Plannit AI's advanced algorithms intelligently analyze your responses. They then craft a detailed, customizable, and strategically aligned business plan, providing you with a structured, coherent, and actionable format. Benefit from AI-Powered Insights: Plannit AI offers AI-driven insights and suggestions, ensuring your plan is not just a document but a strategic tool equipped with tailored AI prompts and an in-app plan editor. Get inspired by browsing through our sample business plans, a collection of successful strategies across various industries.
• Finalize Your Plan with Confidence: Dynamic Adaptation and Refinement: Plannit AI recognizes that a business plan is a living document. Our platform allows for continuous adaptation and refinement, ensuring your strategy remains agile, relevant, and aligned with your evolving business goals. Professional Presentation and Sharing: Once your plan meets your standards, utilize Plannit AI's export features to present your plan professionally. Choose between various formats for exporting your business plan, ready to impress stakeholders, attract investors, or guide your team. Review and Adapt: Ensure your business plan is a living document, ready to evolve with your growing business. Plannit AI's dynamic platform allows you to adapt your strategy as new opportunities or challenges arise.

How to Write a Business Plan?

• Roadmap for Success: At its core, a business plan acts as a strategic guide, providing detailed steps on how your business will achieve its objectives. It helps you navigate the startup phase, manage growth effectively, and tackle unforeseen challenges with a well-thought-out strategy.
• Securing Funding: For startups and businesses looking to expand, a business plan is crucial for securing loans or attracting investors. It demonstrates to potential financial backers that your business has a clear vision, a solid strategy for profitability, and a plan for delivering returns on their investment.
• Informed Decision-Making: A well-prepared business plan offers valuable insights into your market, competition, and potential challenges. This information is vital for making informed decisions, from day-to-day operations to long-term strategic shifts.
• Market Analysis and Strategy: It allows you to conduct an in-depth analysis of your target market, understand customer needs, and position your product or service effectively. The marketing strategy outlined in your business plan helps in identifying the best channels and tactics to reach your audience and achieve market penetration.
• Financial Planning: One of the most critical components of a business plan is the financial forecast. It outlines your funding requirements, expected revenue, profit margins, and cash flow projections. This section is essential for budgeting, financial management, and ensuring the financial viability of your business.
• Goal Setting and Performance Measurement: A business plan sets clear, measurable goals and objectives. It provides a framework for monitoring performance, measuring success, and making necessary adjustments to stay on track.

Who Can Benefit from Plannit AI?

• Aspiring Entrepreneurs: If you're at the idea stage, looking to transform your vision into a viable business, Plannit AI offers the tools and guidance to bring your concept to life. Our platform helps you articulate your business idea, define your target market, and develop a solid plan to turn your dream into reality.
• Students and Educators: For students delving into the intricacies of business planning and educators teaching the fundamentals of entrepreneurship, Plannit AI serves as an invaluable resource. It provides a practical, hands-on tool for learning and teaching how to create detailed business plans, analyze markets, and understand financials in a real-world context.
• Startup Founders: In the dynamic startup environment, Plannit AI is the ideal partner for founders looking to pivot quickly, secure funding, or understand their competitive landscape. With our AI-driven insights and market analysis tools, startups can make informed decisions and adapt their strategies to thrive in competitive markets.
• Small Business Owners: For small business owners seeking to optimize their operations, expand their customer base, or explore new markets, Plannit AI offers targeted solutions. Our platform simplifies the planning process, enabling owners to focus on growth while managing the day-to-day challenges of running their business.
• Consultants and Freelancers: Consultants and freelancers specializing in business development, strategic planning, or financial advising will find Plannit AI a powerful addition to their toolkit. It allows them to provide clients with comprehensive, data-driven business plans and strategies, enhancing the value of their services.
• Non-Profit Organizations: Leaders of non-profit organizations can leverage Plannit AI to plan initiatives, secure funding, and manage resources more efficiently. Our platform helps non-profits articulate their mission, set achievable goals, and measure their impact, ensuring they can make a difference in their communities.
• Innovators and Inventors: Individuals looking to commercialize innovative products or technologies can use Plannit AI to navigate the complexities of bringing new ideas to market. From patent strategies to go-to-market plans, our platform covers all bases, ensuring innovators can focus on what they do best.
• Small Business Development Centers (SBDCs) and Government Agencies: Government and SBA backed entities can greatly benefit from integrating Plannit AI into their services, enhancing their ability to support a larger number of clients more efficiently. By facilitating quicker, more in-depth business plan development, these organizations can spend more time assisting with plan execution and less time on creation, ultimately serving their communities more effectively.
• Anyone with a Business Idea: Ultimately, Plannit AI is for anyone with a business idea, regardless of industry, experience, or stage of business development. Our mission is to democratize business planning, making it accessible, understandable, and actionable for everyone.

Why is Plannit AI the best choice for an AI business planning software?

• Interactive Questionnaire and ChatGPT Integration: Plannit AI transforms the business planning process into an engaging conversation. Through our advanced ChatGPT integration, we offer a questionnaire that dynamically adapts to your responses, ensuring your plan is personalized, comprehensive, and aligned with your business goals.
• Dynamic Planning Environment: Unlike static templates provided by many, Plannit AI introduces a living platform that grows with your business. It features real-time updates, strategic insights, and a feedback mechanism that keeps your business plan current and actionable.
• Extensive Educational Resources: Our Education Center is packed with articles, guides, and sample plans to bolster your planning process. It's designed to arm you with the knowledge to navigate the complexities of your industry confidently.
• Enhanced Collaboration and Customization: Recognizing the collaborative essence of business planning, Plannit AI supports team efforts with multi-user editing, annotations, and feedback features, ensuring a comprehensive approach to your strategy.
• Customer Success Stories: Our users' achievements are a testament to Plannit AI's effectiveness. These success stories illustrate how diverse businesses have utilized our platform for strategic planning and growth.
• Tailored Business Plan Creation: Our platform stands out with its tailored approach, featuring customizable templates that directly cater to your business type and industry, making plan creation straightforward and relevant.

How can ChatGPT help me to create business plans?

• Content Generation:: ChatGPT helps draft various sections of a business plan, from executive summaries to marketing strategies, by providing structured and coherent text based on the prompts given.
• Strategic Insights: It can offer suggestions on business strategies by analyzing trends and providing examples from a wide range of industries.
• Financial Planning: While it can't replace professional financial advice, ChatGPT can guide the structure of financial projections and statements, helping you consider important financial aspects of your plan.

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When you’re building a startup there are lots of things you need to figure out and keeping your plan and investor material clearly defined shouldn’t be an extra task to keep you away from building a great product. While it's a sinuous task to write a business plan, Cuttles makes the process of thinking, sketching and writing your business plan seamless. We were able to get our plan ready in a couple of days easily and without issues.

We’ve been missing a tool like Cuttles for years! All our work is usually stuck within folders, within other folders and it’s hard to have a one-stop-shop with all the details of each of our startups. Plus, these changes almost come on a weekly basis! So having an always up-to-date link to the BP is such a nice feature. No more little hacks and workarounds, now business ideas have a home of their own!

Creating something from nothing is hard. Building a startup requires a huge amount of work and that's where Cuttles helps. The versatile and well-organized startup builder is a solution to many of the problems that founders face day by day. It is a must-have tool for every entrepreneur, and especially those in the early-stages.

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The Cuttles team and their first-hand experience of successful start-ups and working with aspiring entrepreneurs has manage to built an amazing startup plan software. The Canvas forces one to succinctly summarise one’s business pitch, the Budget tool provides a powerful but easy to use interface to construct a detailed budget that includes cash flow projections and metrics that investors will require. The Business Plan follows the same ethos of stepwise guidance. A set of task that we thought would take months to complete were shortened to a few weeks. Cuttles is a wonderful resource that we would unequivocally recommend.

Finally business plan software with great UX and a painless process - 10/10 will always recommend! Absolutely love it. The guide will help you in every aspect of your plan, this was such a huge help for us! I've tried most apps out there including LivePlan, Bizplan, and Upmetrics, and found them all either frustrating or missing something critical. The Cuttles web app simplifies the tedious task of thinking what to write in a business plan, a pitch deck, and more. It comes with a great examples, super helpful tips, and very and documentation.

Cuttles is on a mission to help startups and SMEs succeed by providing them the tools needed for a smoother startup journey. That's pretty cool! Starting a company, hiring your team and closing funding should be easy, so startups can focus their energy on what's really important; innovation and growth. Together with Cuttles, we can help startups accelerate their growth and relevance in the market.

Building a business is hard work and you need digital solutions that can make everyday life easier as an early-stage founder. Cuttles is a guided and personalized startup builder that helps you with planning, budgeting, and presenting your startup to investors. Their business plan tool helps you write your plan in a fraction of the time. That’s why we’re so proud to partner with a cool SaaS startup planning tool like Cuttles . We share the same goal – to help you!

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I'm Christian, CEO here at Cuttles.

There are few things as rewarding as building your own business. It's fun, challenging, and can create a deep sense of meaning and purpose, which, these days, most of us desperately desire. But knowing where to begin and how to move forward can be tough.

We may have a dream and see the big picture, but where do we go from there?

A recent finding shows that 63% of people in their twenties would like to start their own business and are drawn to experience life as entrepreneurs. Most, however, never get any further. It’s hard to know precisely how to go about it, and for that reason most aspiring entrepreneurs never dare take the first plunge. This doesn’t come as a big surprise. Building a business is a high-risk mission and there’s no certainty it will work out in the end. All we really have to rely on is our motivation and our willingness to do the work.

For early-stage founders, that work includes business planning. After all, an idea is, well - just an idea. It is how you execute that idea that will define your outcome and create a business.

So, what do you think when I say business planning? Let’s face it. For most of us, business planning kind of sucks. Who wants to sit around and write a plan when you could be building, marketing, selling?

But what if I told you that 90% of startups fail and that 56% do so because of poor business planning – or no planning at all?

It’s not the act of writing a business plan that does the trick, it’s the work you do in the process. Doing the research, understanding the problem you’re trying to solve and empathizing with the people you solve it for. It's the making sure your business and your business model are well thought out, assessing the risks, and through that becoming more sure that your idea is worth pursuing and using it to build a product and a startup that your customers won’t just like, but that they need.

However, the urgency of planning your startup, doesn’t take away the tediousness and time it takes.

That’s why we built Cuttles. We want to change business planning for good, by making it simple and easy to start, build and grow your business. By removing the hassle of business planning for you, we create time and space for you to do what you do best: Create lasting change for your customers. And although we’re not quite there yet, we work tirelessly to revolutionize business planning to make it simple, fast, and fun to plan and share your startup and get the funding you need to grow.

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10 Best Planner Apps To Organize Work Better (2022)

Looking for the best planner apps to organize your schedule? This article compares the top apps for planning your day, week, month, or more.

But why do you need a planning app?

Juggling priorities, both on the personal and work front, can be tough.

Thankfully, today you have a number of software options to set a schedule and get work done. Plus, these applications are available for a variety of platforms — web, desktop, and mobile. 

How do you find the best scheduling and work management app?

That’s what this article is about. We look at the best apps for planning your work and life. Each app in this article serves specific planning needs. So by the end of this article, you’ll find one that meets your requirements.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

Ready to dive in? Let’s start.

What are the best planner apps in 2022?

1. toggl plan.

Toggl Plan is the overall best planner app for businesses and teams .

With Toggl Plan, you can plan and track your team’s schedule using simple drag-and-drop timelines. But if you prefer Kanban boards to manage your tasks, Toggl Plan has them too.

You can also set color-coded milestones on the Project timeline . Optionally, you can share important milestones across other plans. 

You’ll also be able to collaborate with your team by attaching files and checklists and adding comments to your tasks.

Best of all, managers can see their entire team’s plan in one place. This helps them identify scheduling bottlenecks and balance team workloads thus preventing overwork and burnout.

Key features

• Plan project or work schedules (including time off) using simple drag-and-drop timelines.
• Get a weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annual overview of the timeline
• Share a read-only view of Project timelines with external users
• Visualize your entire team’s schedule in one place to avoid overwork and burnout.
• Track tasks visually on Kanban task boards.
• Add color-coded milestones which are optionally visible across timelines.
• In-app and email notifications when something changes in your schedule.
• Integrates with Apple, Google, and Outlook calendars.

Online, iOS, and Android

Price plans

• Forever free plan for solo users
• Team plan at $9 per user per month: Comes with Team timelines and integration with Toggl Track for time tracking
• Business plan at $15 per user per month: Comes with SSO, guest users, and data export for reporting

Try Toggl Plan for free .

If you’re looking for a free task planner app with a calendar view , Trello should be number one on your list.

Everything in Trello revolves around its Kanban board. You can drag and drop a task across columns to change its status and trigger automation workflows.

You can attach files, labels, and checklists to tasks and collaborate with your teammates using comments. But that’s not all. Trello’s task functionality is easily extended to suit your workflows using add-ons (aka powerups).

One such add-on is the calendar view with which you can visualize your plans and scheduled tasks on a calendar.

• Plan and track tasks with simple to-do, in-progress, done, or a custom workflow
• Visualize task schedules on a calendar view
• Visualize tasks on timelines and maps (premium feature)
• Integrates with thousands of other productivity apps
• Automate task works with if/then logic

Online, Windows, iOS, and Android

Trello price plans

• Forever free plan with unlimited tasks and up to 10 task boards
• Standard plan : comes at $5 per user per month with custom task fields and guests on single boards.
• Premium plan : comes at $10 per user per month with dashboard, timeline, and workspace calendar views
• Enterprise plan : comes at $17.50 per user per month with multi-board guests, single sign-on, and unlimited workspaces

If you were to build a list of personal daily planner apps , Any.do would be at the top.

With Any.do, you can visualize your daily plans as a simple to-do list. You’ll see your to-do items segmented by when they are due — today, tomorrow, or someday later.

For each planned task, you can set reminders too.

A planner app isn’t complete without a calendar or a timeline view. Any.do comes with a simple calendar view with which you can filter tasks for a specific date.

In addition to to-do lists, you can also capture notes and file documents.

• Capture and organize to-do items into lists
• Set one-time, repeating, or location-based reminders for to-do items
• Visualize daily plans using the calendar widgets on your phone
• Add grocery items to automatically add them to relevant category lists
• Re-schedule tasks for the day or week with a single tap

iOS, and Android

Any.do price plans

• Forever free plan with unlimited to-do items and lists
• Premium plan : $5.99 per month with advanced reminders, recurring tasks, and customizable color themes

4. TickTick

TickTick is the most versatile work planning app for capturing tasks .

You can capture tasks using voice commands, by sending emails to TickTick as well as via Apple’s Siri app. While capturing tasks, TickTicks natural language processing automatically schedules tasks and creates reminders for a specific time or location.

• Capture tasks via email or voice input
• Organize tasks into lists and folders
• Prioritize and labels tasks
• Visualize tasks on a daily, weekly, or monthly calendar
• Pomodoro timer and white noise for distraction-free work (premium feature)
• Online, Linux, macOS, Windows, iOS, and Android
• Extensions for Chrome, Firefox, Gmail, and Outlook

Pricing options

• Free version : limited calendar functionality
• Premium version : $27.99 per year with full calendar features, progress tracker, Pomodoro timer, and white noise

Todoist is a work organizer and planning app for teams .

With Todoist, you can capture tasks for your personal and professional commitments. Once added, you can organize tasks into projects and subtasks.

You can also prioritize tasks, add projects as favorites for quick access, and set reminders for critical tasks.

Todoist also allows you to delegate tasks to your team and visualize everyone’s work on a Kanban board.

• Quickly capture and schedule tasks using natural language processing
• Organize tasks into projects and subtasks
• Share files and discuss tasks with your team
• See your team’s activity by project or team member
• Visualize the productivity of your team over time

Online, macOS, iOS, Android, and Windows

• Free forever : for 5 projects with up to 5 collaborators per project
• Pro plan : $4 per user per month for 300 projects, up to 25 collaborators per project, and reminders
• Business plan : $6 per user per month for 500 projects, 50 team members per project, and team billing 

Twobird turns your email inbox into a work planning tool .

It works with Google and Microsoft email apps including Gmail, Google Workspace, and Outlook. 

Twobird smartly categorizes your emails by priority. Plus, it sets reminders for emails that can be tackled later. In addition, you also get smart notifications to avoid distractions.

• Integrate with Google and Microsoft email
• Prioritize emails and set reminders automatically
• Get smart notifications for distraction-free work
• Unsubscribe from unwanted emails quickly
• Add notes to email conversations

Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android

Twobird is free to use for now and plans to offer premium plans in the future. 

7. Google Calendar

Google Calendar is one of the best online calendar apps out there. It provides one of the best overviews of your work, meetings, and daily agenda. 

Scheduling remote meetings with Google Calendar is a breeze. It automatically takes care of the participant’s time zones. Plus, with integrations for Zoom or Google Meet, you can hop into the meeting right from the notification.

• Create events with smart suggestions for titles, people, and places
• Automatically add events to calendars from flight or hotel booking emails in Gmail
• Day, week, and month views to visualize your schedule
• Free for personal use
• Google Workspace subscription for business at $6 per user per month

8. Things 3

If you’re looking for a daily planner app for iPhone or iPad, look no further.

Things 3 is an award-winning daily task planning app built specifically for iOS. It also works on desktop Mac devices.

To-do items in Things are organized into projects and areas. Areas represent each sphere in your life such as work, family, finance, etc.

• Organize to-do items into projects and areas
• Plan and visualize your daily and upcoming schedules
• Set reminders 
• Repeat tasks automatically on a set schedule
• Integrates with Apple calendar and shows your events alongside tasks
• Create to-do items via email

All iOS devices including Mac, iPhone, iPad, and iWatch

• iPhone and iWatch version : $9.99
• iPad version : $19.99
• Mac version : $49.99

9. Day by Day Organizer

Day by Day is one of the popular planning apps for Android devices.

It integrates Google Calendar and Google Tasks in one Android app. That way you get the best of both worlds — a powerful calendar with simple task management.  

Day by Day keeps your Calendar and Tasks in sync. You can see all your events and tasks in one simple list. Also, you can plan and track tasks for a specific day, week, or month.

• See events and tasks in one list
• Keep your Google Calendar and Google Tasks in sync
• Birthday reminder
• Capture tasks and events with voice input
• Agenda planner view
• Free version with Google Calendar and Tasks synchronization
• Premium version at $4.99 with recurring tasks, subtasks, and task priorities

10. Habitica

Habitica is one of the best daily routine planner apps that helps you form habits

It gamifies your daily routine and encourages you to form habits and become more productive. Every time you perform a routine task on time, you get in-game rewards as well as praise from the community.

Habitica is useful as a student planner app to form study habits. Or as a fitness planner to stay healthy with daily exercise habits.

Best features

• Track and manage habits, to-do lists, and daily goals
• Get in-game rewards as you check off your tasks and goals
• Battle with your online friends using these rewards to earn real-world rewards

Habitica pricing options

• Free version to track your goals and habits publicly
• Premium version at $9 per month + $3 per user per month for private group plans

What is the best planner app for your needs?

There are a lot of options when it comes to planning apps. You get apps for personal and professional use as well as individual and team use. 

So how do you choose the best planner for your needs? Think about it from these angles:

• Does the app meet your/your team’s needs?
• Does it make you more productive when planning your work?
• Do you like working with the app?
• Does it fit your budget?
• Can it integrate with your existing work management system?

These questions will help you decide on the best planning app for your needs.

Most online tools, including Toggl Plan, have a free trial or a forever free plan. Use this opportunity to try out the planning software, along with your team before you decide on the tool of your choice. 

FAQs about planning apps

A planner app is a work management tool that combines scheduling and task management. It captures, organizes, and schedules work tasks using a timeline or a calendar.

A planner helps you and your team get work done by bringing clarity, accountability, and transparency to work. In addition, planners like Toggl Plan help you avoid scheduling conflicts as well as prevent your team from getting overworked and burned out. In addition, here are nine planner ideas to organize your work

There are many types of planner apps depending on the end-users — personal and professional work planners, paper and digital planners, team project planners, etc. In addition, certain types of planners are designed for specific use cases. For example, financial planners, student planners, health and fitness planners, etc.

First, identify the work you need to get done in a specific period. For example, a month, a week, or a day. Second, schedule tasks and projects using a timeline or a calendar while avoiding scheduling conflicts with other work plans, team members, and time off. And third, ensure that everyone’s workload is reasonable.

Google does not have a daily planner app. However, you can combine Google Calendar and Google Tasks to plan your daily work items. In addition, you also get Google Keep which helps you organize your notes and to-do lists as well as get location-based reminders.

Jitesh is an SEO and content specialist. He manages content projects at Toggl and loves sharing actionable tips to deliver projects profitably.

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10 Best Free Digital Planner Apps in 2024

Vivian Tejeda

ClickUp Contributor

March 25, 2024

It’s the beginning of the week, and it’s time to jot down the top three most important tasks for the day, set up reminders , and look through and edit last week’s notes. 

Should you do it in Google Docs ? The new planning app your friend introduced you to? Or keep it simple and stick with the notes app on your phone? 

You’ve likely found yourself in this scenario more than once if you haven’t had luck finding a digital planner. 

Granted, just about every daily planner out there do most basic tasks. But few unify and centralize just about every one of your planning needs in one platform. 

To help inform your quest for the best digital planner, we’ve compiled a list of all the options worth considering below.

Let’s dive into the specifics.

What Should You Look for in a Digital Planner App?

• 1. ClickUp 

2. Google Calendar

6. mydailyplanners, 8. goodnotes, 10. monday.com.

One of the most significant features of a planner is user-friendliness. It’s hard enough to stick to a digital planner tool long-term—don’t make it harder on yourself by trying to work a digital planner that’s rigid and clunky into your daily life . 

An excellent digital planner makes it easy to centralize all your tasks. This means it’s always a good idea to check what other applications you’re likely already using (think Gmail or Slack) so that it integrates easier with your existing workflow.

Though it’s a matter of preference, the more integrations and features a digital planner has the better. Why? It’s one of the best ways to reduce the number of applications you often have to use to juggle doc creation, keeping track of invoices, reminders, or even the progress of any of your projects. 📚

The 10 Best Digital Planner Apps in 2024

1. clickup  .

As a digital planner, think of ClickUp as the all-in-one tool that takes care of anything from the simplest to the most complex planning needs for teams and individuals alike. Yeah, it comes with tons of features and is hyper-customizable—perfect for the digital planner that’s very particular about how they track and manage work (or their personal lives). 📖

ClickUp best features

• ClickUp’s Calendar View : Arrange your tasks systematically, schedule deadlines, and create a dynamic calendar that enables your team to track progress and stay aligned.
• Automations : Deal with routine tasks that get repetitive quickly with ClickUp’s advanced automation features. It’s a great way to free up additional mind space and plan more efficiently. With automation triggers and conditions, automate task creation, assignee changes, reminders, and task priority to name a few 
• Personalization: The best daily planners are malleable—that way, you don’t have to deal with rigid fields irrelevant to your needs. ClickUp was built around customization, which means you’ll want to take some time to get familiar with how pages, folders, views, and tasks work to lock in a workflow that’s built for you
• Templates: Who doesn’t love templates? ClickUp offers its users hundreds of templates spanning all kinds of needs like resource planning and event planning  

ClickUp limitations 

• Some users cite its limited spreadsheet tools and complex formulas
• Not all views are available on mobile (yet!)

ClickUp pricing

• Free Forever
• Unlimited : $7/month per user
• Business : $12/month per user
• Enterprise : Contact for pricing

ClickUp ratings and reviews

• Capterra : 4.7/5 (2,000+ reviews)
• G2 : 4.7/5 (5,000+ reviews) 

You know Google Calendar as one of the original digital planner platforms. Its scheduling features make it easy to get through the workday in one piece without overlapping meetings , work time, or “me” time.

Though basic, Google Calendar still offers some great planning features that work for the right user or as an integration for an app you’re already using. It’s easy to use as a daily planner or weekly planner app. You can also schedule events throughout the year with its easy-to-use interface.

Google Calendar best features

• Automated reminders: Google Calendar sets automated reminders for upcoming events and tasks so that users stay on top of their schedule
• Agenda view: Google Calendar has an Agenda View feature, which allows users to see their upcoming events, tasks, and notes at a glance
• Calendar sharing: Google Calendar also allows users to share their calendar with others so that tasks, events, and notes are collaboratively managed
• Mobile Friendly: Works on iOS devices and Android devices

Google Calendar limitations

• Limited to mostly scheduling and time blocking
• Lacks the additional features that make it a truly well-rounded planning dashboard 

Google Calendar pricing

Google calendar ratings and reviews.

• Capterra : 4.8/6 (2,000 + reviews) 
• G2 : 4.6/5 (40,000 + reviews)

Todoist is a digital planner app that helps users stay organized and productive. It comes with a range of features and tools, such as task and some basic project management, do-lists (AKA to-do lists ), reminders and notifications, and the ability to create custom filters. 

Todoist best features

• Do-lists: This to-do list feature allows users to break down their tasks and goals into smaller, manageable lists, and it’s accessible on multiple devices for on-the-go planning
• Reminders and notifications: The app comes with automated reminders and notifications, which help users stay on track and organized
• Custom filters: Todoist also has a custom filter feature to easily search and find tasks and data

Todoist limitations

• Lacks advanced features (can’t archive old lists)
• Can be hard to share your to-do lists for online collaboration   

Todoist pricing

• Free : 
• Pro : $4/month billed annually
• Business : $6/month billed annually

Todoist ratings and reviews

• Capterra : 4.6/5 (2,000+ reviews)
• G2 : 4.4/6 (700+ reviews) 

Notion is user-friendly and a great choice for individuals who like getting creative with their digital planner by starting with a blank canvas. It offers useful tools and features, including task management, a calendar view, and customizable task rows and columns.

Plus, its users synchronize their data across multiple devices, share their planning information, and integrate with other applications for maximum productivity.

Notion best features

• Task management : Notion provides users with an intuitive task management system for creating, organizing, and tracking tasks
• Nesting and linked databases : Notion’s nesting and linked databases allow users to easily organize and store pages and related tasks in a format that’s easy to navigate
• Integration and embedding features : Notion also has integration and embedding features, which enable users to connect their Notion data with other services, such as Gmail or Slack, for a better workflow. Also, you can visually embed applications right on your dashboard for easy access

Notion limitations

• Currently lacks the robust automation and task reminder features that other digital planner apps offer
• Mobile app features are a bit limited compared to other digital planners
• Some users say they spend a bit more time getting over the learning curve in the beginning

Notion pricing

• Plus : $8 per user per month billed annually
• Business : $15 per user per month billed annually
• Enterprise : Contact the sales team 

Notion ratings and reviews

• Capterra : 4.7/5 (1,000+ reviews)
• G2 : 4.6/5 (1,000+ reviews)

If you enjoy digital planners with more of a framework or project manager approach to a workflow, then Asana is worth considering. It offers users a wide range of features, such as classic task and project management software , a calendar view , custom templates, easy integration with other cool apps , and plenty of views.

Asana best features

• Custom fields: Organize and sort information like in a spreadsheet with single-select, multi-select, number, and text custom fields
• Forms tied to projects: Collect the exact details needed for each task by directly connecting request forms to specific projects
• Task deadlines: View tasks on an Asana calendar and stay on track, or even view them in your work calendar
• Simple to-do list : Easy to create personal or collaborative to-do lists

Asana limitations

• Asana doesn’t provide true native time-tracking features
• Some say it isn’t a flexible tool compared to other digital planners on this list
• Custom field tools can feel limited
• Free version might be limiting for a simple daily planner

Asana pricing

• Basic : Free
• Premium : $10.99 per user per month billed annually
• Business : $24.99 per user per month billed annually

Asana ratings and reviews

• Capterra : 4.5/5 (11,000+ reviews)
• G2 : 4.3/5 (9,000+ reviews)

Mash GoodNotes, Google, and Apple Calendar together and you get MyDailyPlanners. This daily planner app has to-do list options and offers templated digital planners complete with links and reminder settings. This works a lot like bullet journals and more as digital planners that can be edited “by hand.”

MyDailyPlanners best features

• Hyperlinked pages: Organize and manage each month with easily navigable linked pages
• Digital stickers: Use digital stickers in any of your monthly planning pages, just like in real life
• Reusable PDF templates: Reuse the PDF template if you need to use the same page for additional planning

MyDailyPlanners limitations

• Not so much an application but a template-based digital planner for an iPad or tablet
• Updates to the digital planner templates cost extra

MyDailyPlanners pricing

• Digital planners and bundles range anywhere from $15 to $20+ 

MyDailyPlanners ratings and reviews

• Capterra : N/A

If you’re a fan of a Kanban planning approach, look no further than Trello . As a digital planner, it’s a highly visual tool that uses cards to plan tasks and projects. Tag users, add checklists, link files, and set automated reminders to stay on top of all your tasks.

Trello best features

• Drag-and-drop interface: Trello’s intuitive drag-and-drop interface makes it easy to move cards, lists, or boards around and view the progress of different projects
• Image and file uploads: Trello allows users to view upcoming tasks, upload images and files, and keep track of project deadlines
• Flexible organization: Trello offers an easy-to-use organization system with customizable labels, checklists, and task assignments, which can work great for daily tasks

Trello limitations

• Built around one type of digital planner framework
• Can’t integrate or embed other apps you’re already using
• Can be a lot of work for a simple to-do list

Trello pricing

• Standard : $5 per user per month billed annually
• Premium : $10 per user per month billed annually
• Enterprise : $17.50 per user per month billed annually 

Trello ratings and reviews

• Capterra : 4.5/5 (22,000+ reviews)
• G2 : 4.4/5 (13,000+ reviews)

GoodNotes is an accessible iOS app that allows users to take notes or make sketches quickly and easily. The digital planner app features an intuitive interface that lets you create, organize, and edit documents.

It also includes a virtual library that allows users to store, manage, and access their notes with ease. Of the best digital planners, this one is ideal for more visual organizational tasks.

GoodNotes best features

• Virtual Library: Offers an organized virtual library to store, manage, and access users’ notes
• Handwriting recognition: Allows users to type by simply writing out the words on their device
• Text recognition: Digital planner app recognizes typed or hand-written text to easily convert it into an editable format

GoodNotes limitations

• Only available for iOS devices (Android devices may be coming)
• Lack of pre-made shapes in the shape tool
• No layering function makes the drawing feature really difficult

GoodNotes pricing

• Go Limitless : $8.99 one-time payment

GoodNotes ratings and reviews

• Capterra : 4.5/5 (35+ reviews)
• G2 : 4.8/5 (29+ reviews)

Any.do has an easy-to-use dashboard that lets you create your daily plan on the go. Of the best digital planners on this list, Any.do is quite simple to add notes and attachments to your list. You can even color-code your priorities.

It’s an excellent planner app for creating centralized task lists that are shareable with your team or to create a simple to-do list.

Any.do best features

• Mobile-friendly calendar: Calendar tools are super mobile-friendly and allow you to connect your Google Calendar
• Turn emails into tasks: Once you connect your email provider, it’s easy to turn emails into tasks so you always remember to respond
• Easily sync data: Made for on-the-go planning, it’s easy to work from the app and sync data across all your device

Any.do limitations

• Free version only offers limited features
• Doesn’t integrate well with other work apps

Any.do pricing

• Personal : Free
• Premium : $3 per month, billed annually
• Teams : $5 per month, per user, billed annually

Any.do ratings and reviews

• Capterra : 4.5/5 (100+ reviews)  
• G2 : 4/5 (150+ reviews) 

With Monday , users create projects, collaborate with team members, and track progress in one place. The platform features an intuitive drag-and-drop interface for task management, custom notifications for essential activities, and powerful automation capabilities.

Monday also integrates with hundreds of apps and services to help you work more effectively and get more done.

Monday best features

• Unlimited boards and docs: Free plan offers users unlimited dashboards and doc creation
• Customizable workflows: Create seamless workflows that take to-dos and projects from pending to complete in less time
• Workload management tools: Find tools inside its dashboard for client planning, weekly goals and OKRs , and high-level planning

Monday limitations

• Free version can feel limiting
• Some think it saves its best features for paying premium users
• Certain users don’t find the features as in-depth or flexible as other digital planner app alternatives
• Generally more work management than digital planning

Monday pricing

• Standard : $8 a set per month billed annually
• Pro : $10 a set per month billed annually
• Enterprise : Contact the sales team

Monday ratings and reviews

• G2 : 4.6/5 (3,000+ reviews)

Looking for more digital planner apps? Check out this Sunsama alternatives guide !

Replace All Your Digital Planner Apps

The beauty of planning is that it isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach—it’s highly personal. With ClickUp, your quest to find the best digital planner app finally comes to a close.

Use it to brainstorm from scratch, create templates, and keep track of your most important tasks all in one place. ClickUp even lets you integrate multiple Google Calendars.

So you’re always on top of your personal planning needs and work projects. So start using ClickUp to ensure you have every tool you’ll need for your digital planning needs.

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The 15 Best Digital Planners for 2024 (Free & Paid)

Digital planners enhance productivity by effectively organizing your day and streamlining your productivity workflows. Take notes, track meetings, set priorities, and quickly accomplish your goals with the online planners listed or these other recommended daily planner apps .

What Are The Best Digital Planners for 2024?

1. clickup digital planner.

Format: Online, digital, and mobile app

ClickUp is a project management tool that offers individuals, teams, and small organizations a wide range of premium task management tools without cost. Enjoy intuitive features designed for teams of any size to stay on pace, manage projects, and work together—all in one place with ClickUp's Free Forever plan .

Improve project visibility, get an overview of all your projects, identify blockers and bottlenecks, and communicate updates more efficiently with this all-in-one work solution. It also offers a variety of templates for various use cases and projects to help you get started on any project or task fast and easy.

• Create meeting notes or task lists and collaborate with your team using ClickUp Docs
• Write down ideas using ClickUp’s Notepad
• Schedule events and appointments with ClickUp's Daily Planner Template
• Connect and integrate with over 1,000 other work tools
• Access ClickUp via an iOS or Android mobile, your iPad, desktop, or through its web app
• Free Forever – Free
• Unlimited–$7/user/month
• Business–$12/user/month
• Enterprise–Available upon request

Get started with ClickUp today, no credit card required!

2. Passion Digital Planner

Format: Digital PDF

The Passion Planner has a printable paper version, but their digital planner consists of fun and simple planner PDF pages that you can download for free (requires an email address). Their options include a monthly undated planner PDF, daily layout with hours of the day for scheduling, extra to-do lists , and habit tracker. They also have free downloads for long-term planning, like a reflection sheet, self-care, calorie tracker and more. The Passion Planner is a well-known brand and their PDF template downloads are great if you want to experiment and try multiple formats of planners.

• Trusted name brand for paper planners
• Easy to try and experiment
• Free with an email address

Free Digital Planner PDF

3. Focus Course Digital Planner

Format: Digital PDF on iPad

This daily planner is an interactive way to plan out your day. With this planner you will be able to write out all your tasks and see how best to manage the time you have. This planner is a PDF you can use directly on your iPad. Write out your goals and see projects you can do throughout the different months.

• Daily habit tracker to hold yourself accountable and build good habits
• You can handwrite on it like you would on paper
• Weekly, monthly, and yearly calendar view
• Standard: $39
• Premium: $59

4. Planners Collective Ultimate Digital Planner

Compatible: tablets, mobile, desktop

This planner is a productivity tool and was the #1 Planner on Rolling Stones. It consists of many great features like habit and mood tracker, project tracker, to-do lists, gratitude planner, and much more. There are 8 planners to choose from, and many productivity pages to explore.

• Many hyperlinks for easier navigation
• Over 1500 stickers to customize planner

5. MyDailyPlanners

Format: Digital PDF on iOS

MyDailyPlanners consists of daily planning for everyday tasks and to-dos, weekly pages, and monthly pages. You can access the specific days in the weekly and monthly pages by clicking on the date. This planner is minimal for easy navigation and usage.

• Comes in 4 different languages for accessibility
• Project planner and meeting note templates

6. Monday.com

Monday.com is a digital planner software that provides users with an intuitive platform to plan and manage their workflows effectively. It is a flexible and customizable tool that allows you to build the perfect workflow to suit your business needs. By utilizing automations, you can integrate all your favorite apps and streamline your work management process. Monday.com enables communication across teams, making it easier to manage and track projects effectively. With its real-time data analysis, you get to make informed decisions about the progress of your business.

• Customizable and flexible workflow management
• Integration with multiple apps to streamline processes
• Team management features to help improve communication across teams
• Standard plan starting at $9 per month per user

7. TheDailyPlanners Business Digital Planner

Format : Digital PDF on iPad

This undated planner is great for continuous usage for many years. By just copying the different planner pages you will always be able to use them as many times as you wish. This business planner consists of daily, weekly, and monthly pages, as well as more focused pages like finances, trackers, and note pages.

• Undated so it stays modern and useable
• Clickable tabs to be able to navigate different pages in the planner

8. Digital Personal Planner

Format: Digital PDF on iPad or tablet

This personal planner can be used for organizing your everyday activities, work life, and more. It includes a habit tracker, monthly and daily planner, Eisenhower matrix, note-taking, and more. You can choose between your year preference, or you can pick an undated version. 

• Diverse selection of pages depending on your planner needs
• Use the hyperlinks to navigate through the planner
• Light and/or dark mode for comfort
• Standard: $24.99
• Bundle: $39.99

9. OnPlanners Digital Planners

This is resource site with tons of planning templates. It includes daily hourly planners, daily to-do list sheets, budget planners, meal planners...you name it, OnePlanners probably has a PDF planner template that you can use right away. The only drawback is that if you are truly looking for a digital planner, then this may not be the best option. Technically, a PDF is digital but lacks a lot of the customization that a responsive software program like Friday would offer. If you want a printable planner, then OnePlanners will work.

• Variety of options
• Highly customizable

10. Todoist Digital Planner

Todoist specializes in productivity software and creates tools that simplify and organize your workday. They are designers, engineers, and communicators united by a common goal, not a common location. Their online planner helps you regain clarity by placing tasks into Todoist, no matter where you are or what device you use.

“It's simple, easy and not difficult to learn. I actually like how keeping track of tasks seems like something that doesn't take much time and something that I actually enjoy doing. It has a clean UI and has collaboration tools to work in teams and let each other know what needs to be done.”— G2Crowd

• Easily organize and prioritize assignments
• Get a clear overview of all company tasks
• Use as a personal planner or for work
• Divide and conquer your daily tasks in shared projects

• Basic: Free digital planner
• Premium: $3/person /m 
• Business: $5/person /m  

Integrate Todoist into the Friday planner.

11. Any.do Digital Planner

Format: Online, digital, mobile app, tablet, watch software

Teams can plan their day in seconds with Any.do ’s daily planner app . Use this streamlining application to focus on meaningful action items that will deliver your goals. Any.do’s dashboard consists of your to-do list and calendar, allowing you to plan while staying on top of your agenda. Drag and drop tasks into your schedule to produce an efficient daily plan.

• Reschedule tasks, mark them as done or delete them completely.
• Prioritize tasks to save you hours of extra work and burden.
• Standard: Free digital & online planner
• Premium: $5.99/p /m

12. Google Calendar

Make the most of every day by utilizing Google Calender . Use it as a daily, weekly, or monthly planner. GCal provides multiple views of your day, week, and month prioritization, guest invites, online calendar and more. Safely backup data, so you don't lose your schedule if you lose your device.

"I’ve tried all kinds of available calendar apps, but this one is by far my favorite! I often tell my friends to drop their apps and opt for Google Calendar because I really think it is so much better than any other free-cal app out there." — Apple App Store Review

• Create events in a few taps with smart suggestions for event titles, people and places.
• Events from email are added to your Calendar
• Schedule View brings schedules to life and makes it easy to see what's ahead with images and maps.

• Free Integrate your Google Calendar into the Friday planner. Make a daily schedule using Google Sheets

13. Trello Digital Planner

Trello starts as a free project management solution that delivers a Kanban board approach. Use it with your agile or scrum project management methodologies or use it independently. Each task and set of tasks is then grouped on a board. Move your cards to different progress points, depending on the work that has been done and tasks that still need to be completed. A drawback to Trello is that it's mainly meant for teams, even though they have boards for personal planning, too.

Trello vs ClickUp: Which Tool is Better for Project Management?

• Built-in workflow automation.
• Convenient team playbook
• Syncs with all your devices
• Basic: Free
• Premium plan: $13.49 /month /per user
• Business plan: $30.49 /month /per user
• Enterprise plan: Available by quote

Integrate Trello with the Friday planner.

14. Asana Digital Planner

Asana is a team collaboration tool for people who prefer to mix approaches to tasks and choose to implement their tasks in a list view. With Asana, you can assign team members to cards (within a project board) or to-dos (within a project list). You can add attachments, labels, subtasks, descriptions, and comments.

You can also mark certain tasks as milestones, define dependencies between tasks, and track your tasks' deadlines in a calendar view.

• Keep track of all tasks and projects.
• Share information with the necessary individuals/groups.
• Report on work, all in one central place.

• Starter: $13.49/person /m 
• Premium: $30.49/person /m 

Integrate Asana with the Friday planner.

15. Notion Digital Planner

Notion serves as a workspace for notes, docs, wikis, projects and collaboration. Use it on your own, with your team, or as an entire company. Get started for free, then add your whole team. Notion’s daily planner template includes all kinds of planning in Notion from a Notion daily calendar to a Notion Daily Journal. 

“Notion helps us keep track of the 30+ design projects we have going at once. We can click into any of them to get the full lay of the land right away.” — Justin Watt Director of Operations, Metalab

• Great for securing company information all in one place
• Embed youtube videos and attach files up to 5MB if you are a free user. 
• Easily write essays in blocks and arrange them in order in a way you like.
• Free : For personal use & individuals
• Personal Pro: $4 /person per month
• Team: $8 /person per month

How To Pick the Best Digital Planner for You

How do you determine the perfect planner for you? That depends on whether you need to track assigned tasks, quarterly goals, timesheets, or streamline automation; remember, the possibilities are almost endless. 

It’s important to think about the features and what outcomes they should help drive.

We’d strongly encourage you to answer the following questions as you decide on what digital planning app makes the most sense for you and how you want to use a planner at work .

• Does the digital planner show meetings and important tasks in one place? Any planner app should merge calendar events and tasks into a single view (like an analog/traditional planner does)
• Does the planner integrate with existing tools? If you already use project management software, the planner needs to pull work out of those systems.
• Does the digital planner complement existing tools? You don’t need another calendar app. You don’t need another project management tool. You need a way to roadmap your day and finish with a feeling of accomplishment.
• Is the planner available on multiple platforms and devices? Is a mobile app available? Does the team regularly update the product? Is it easy to chat with support?
• Does the digital planner drive regular reflection and continuous improvement? Can you see how you are allocating your time on a regular basis? Does the tool help you have more successful days? These are a few of the ideas that you could include in your planner that may help you evaluate the right one for you.

Digital Planner FAQs

Get your questions about online & digital planners answered.

What does a digital planner do?

Should i use a digital planner, how do i make a digital planner, is there a digital planner that syncs with google calendar, is a paper planner better than digital, should you switch to a digital planner, why use a digital or online planner, the home for your company, clickup is the easiest way to stay in sync with your distributed team. meetings are optional..

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The best Android apps for business in 2024

Our android expert highlights the standout apps in the categories that matter most to busy professionals..

Trying to find the right app for any given area on Android is a lot like trying to order dinner at a restaurant with way too many options on the menu. How can you possibly find the right choice in such a crowded lineup? With the Google Play Store now boasting somewhere in the neighborhood of 70 gazillion titles (last I checked), it’s no simple task to figure out which apps rise above the rest and provide the best possible experiences.

That’s why I decided to step in and help. I’ve been covering Android from the start and have seen more than my fair share of incredible and not so incredible apps. From interface design to practical value, I know what to look for and how to separate the ordinary from the extraordinary. And taking the time to truly explore the full menu of options and find the cream of the crop is quite literally my job.

Bit by bit, I’ve been figuring out the best Android apps for a variety of areas relevant to you, the modern mobile professional. Whether we’re talking broad themes like organization and collaboration or specific needs like password management and note-taking, I’m making it my mission to find the best of the best for the categories that really matter.

You can find links to stories with all my recommendations below — and be sure to check back regularly, as the recommendations will be revisited routinely and the areas I cover will keep expanding over time.

Android apps for core work tasks

The best office apps for android.

Create an optimal Android office app power-pack with these thoroughly researched recommendations.

The best email and texting apps for Android

Give yourself an edge in business communication with these exceptional Android messaging apps.

The best calendar apps for Android

Strengthen your Android calendar experience with these standout selections for serious professionals with a range of scheduling needs.

The best Android apps for team collaboration

Stay connected and productive wherever you are with these first-rate collaboration apps for Android.

The best note-taking apps for Android

Note-takers, take note: Whether you want gobs of features or uber-simplicity, these are the best apps for collecting and managing info on Android.

Android apps for added efficiency

7 efficiency-enhancing android apps.

These clever tools save you time so you can get straight to work — in a way only Android could allow.

The best Android keyboard apps for on-the-go productivity

Heads up, busy professionals: The right Android keyboard app can save you precious time and unlock your performance potential. So what are you waiting for?

The best Android launchers for enhanced efficiency

Save time and make your Android home screen work better with the help of these eclectic tools.

The best Android widgets for busy professionals

Turn your Android home screen into a powerful productivity hub with these exceptional, business-friendly widgets.

13 useful Google apps you should be using on Android

These easily overlooked Android apps are all made by Google — and they’re all worth your while to install.

Android apps for smarter protection

The best privacy and security apps for android.

Forget malware scanners or over-the-top security suites: These are the apps that’ll actually improve your security and protect your privacy on Android.

The best Android password managers

Not all Android password management apps are created equal — so which one makes the most sense for you?

Android apps for optimal organization

The best android file manager apps.

From optimizing your phone’s storage to integrating your device with the cloud, these standout Android apps will let you juggle files like a pro.

The best Android apps for organizing your life

From projects to places and to-do lists to travel, these Android apps will help you organize all the important areas of your life.

The best travel apps for Android

Save yourself time, headaches and even money with these standout Android apps for business travel.

Android apps for cross-platform productivity

The best progressive web apps for productivity.

These standout PWAs work on any platform, including Android. They’ll help you get more done without any of the usual baggage.

Android apps for Chromebooks: The essentials

Turn your Chromebook into a uniquely versatile modern computing machine with these Chrome-OS-enhancing apps.

The best multiplatform productivity apps

These top-notch tools will help you get down to business consistently — no matter which device or platform you’re using at any given moment.

Related: Find out how to use some incredibly useful apps to enhance your Android experience.

• 8 advanced Android clipboard tricks
• The secret to a smarter Android lock screen
• 12 Gboard shortcuts that’ll change how you type on Android
• 14 handy hidden tricks for Google Calendar on Android
• How to create your own iPhone-15-inspired ‘Action button’ on Android

And be sure to check out this collection of exceptional Android tips  for even more efficiency-enhancing info.

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JR Raphael has been covering Android and ChromeOS since their earliest days. You can ingest his advice and insight in his long-standing Android Intelligence column at Computerworld and get even more tasty tech knowledge with his free Android Intelligence newsletter at The Intelligence .

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Best Project Management Software (2024 Rankings)

Kara is an editor from North Carolina with experience in business technology and services topics as well as health. She is dedicated to delivering clear and captivating content to readers who want to make well-informed choices. Throughout her career, Kara has collaborated with and advised many small businesses in diverse marketing roles. Such experiences offer her a distinct viewpoint on how appropriate technology and services can drive growth for entrepreneurs. Kara’s writing has appeared on Verywellfamily.com, Labroots.com, and SkinnyMs.com.

Teams of all sizes and industries use project management software to stay organized and keep teams on track toward deadlines. Whether you’re working remotely on digital product launches or tackling on-site construction projects, project management apps can help keep your team on the same page. But with so many different tools on the market, it’s key to know which option is the best project management software for you.

Top Project Management Software

Compare today’s top project management tools, chosen for their features, ease of use, customer satisfaction and support options. 

• Best Overall: ClickUp
• Best Customer Support : Smartsheet
• Most All-Inclusive: monday.com
• Best for Team Collaboration : Asana
• Best for Integrations: Jira
• Most Intuitive: Notion
• Best for Workload Management: Teamwork.com
• Best for Spreadsheet Based Projects: Airtable 
• Best for Strategic Planning: Wrike
• Best for Real-Time Activity: Basecamp
• Best for Construction Projects: Buildertrend
• Best for Sales Teams: Pipedrive
• Best for Simplicity: Trello  

ClickUp: Best Overall 

ClickUp earns the title of Best Overall for its robust project management tools and team collaboration extras, like whiteboarding and in-app chat features. Its user-friendly interface offers multiple board views, including Kanban boards, tables, calendars, Gantt charts and lists. Teams can visualize work in any way they prefer, with cards being organized into different board views within one workspace. ClickUp allows users to view all tasks in multiple project views, even in their forever-free version, making it a cost-effective software option for project management. 

ClickUp’s collaboration features also set it apart. Teams can use docs, collaborate on digital whiteboards and chat back and forth, all within the ClickUp platform. This means that a lot of day-to-day collaboration can happen right alongside your team’s project boards. ClickUp’s features are great for remote teams that want to plan projects and collaborate virtually in real time. 

ClickUp offers many helpful features, but it may take some time for new users to adjust to implementing it in their daily workflow. ClickUp offers an intuitive interface, but the sheer number of functions within the platform may have a slight learning curve. ClickUp’s lowest-tier paid plan, Unlimited, is priced at $7 per user per month, billed annually. 

ClickUp Pros and Cons

ClickUp is a top choice for project management software, but it’s key to consider what features matter most for your team.

Pros  

• Team collaboration tools like whiteboards and chat
• Multiple project board views, including Kanban boards and Gantt charts 
• Great forever-free software
• Customer support is limited to a live chatbot and help center
• May be a learning curve for new users

Smartsheet: Best Customer Support 

Smartsheet’s robust customer support options earn it the title of Best Customer Support. In addition to its helpful project management features, Smartsheet offers 24/7 online web support for all plans, with the Smartsheet Community forums available to all users as well. 

Smartsheet isn’t just limited to project management functions and includes team collaboration features like an in-app chat and calendar. Teams can also add custom branding and email domains through Smartsheet so that you can send automated emails right from the platform. 

Teams can use Smartsheet to create spreadsheet-style project views and other board types like a Kanban or timeline. Teams that currently use spreadsheets for project management may find Smartsheet to be a massive upgrade, though there may be a learning curve for teams that are unfamiliar with using spreadsheets for project management. 

Smartsheet offers a free plan for individual users and paid plan options for teams of all sizes. The forever-free plan has much to offer, but it’s limited to one user. The starter plan is priced at $7 per user per month, billed annually.

Smartsheet Pros and Cons

Smartsheet has a lot to offer beyond just their customer service, but there are many factors to keep in mind when deciding on project management software.  

• Ideal for spreadsheet view customizations 
• In-app chat and team collaboration tools
• Custom branding and domains
• Learning curve for teams unfamiliar with spreadsheet software
• Free plan is limited to one user

Monday.com: Most All-Inclusive

Monday.com’s “monday work management” plans include many helpful project management features designed to fit how your team works. Project management features are just one of monday’s offerings in their work management suite. 

Monday’s project management highlights include a variety of project board view options, including Gantt charts and Kanban boards. Their workflows are made of intuitive building blocks that you can customize as you work, which makes for added flexibility. Teams that are trying out different workflows or those that may need to rethink their process on short notice will find monday.com’s customizable features helpful. 

The monday work management free plan is limited to two seats, while larger teams can take advantage of their paid plans, which include the ability to create dashboards for key insights and prioritized customer support. The starter plan starts at $9 per seat per month with annual billing, meaning it may not be as cost-effective for larger teams. Teams can reach out to customer support via phone and live chat. 

Monday.com Pros and Cons

Monday work management offers a ton of useful project management tools within its work management suite, but the plan you choose will determine how it stacks up against alternatives. 

• Flexible project management workflows
• Extra work management features for CRM and sales
• Customer support is available via phone
• Free plan is limited to two seats 
• Pricing may be higher than other competitors 

Asana: Best for Team Collaboration

Asana is a great option for teams that need a fully customizable Kanban board, complete with automated rules, timeline views and task dependencies. While known for its Kanban board functionality, Asana also offers a to-do list, calendar and multiple other views to help teams visualize projects. Tasks templates are fully customizable with options for custom fields and tags. 

Asana is ideal for businesses with multiple teams that collaborate cross-functionally, earning it the title of Best for Team Collaboration. Users can create boards for different teams or functions, move task cards between those different boards and create dependencies between different teams. It’s also easy to include docs and files in Asana tasks and integrate the work software you already use. 

Asana offers customer service via live chat, but they don’t have a customer support phone number. They do have a robust help center and offer live tutorials and trainings every week. 

Asana’s free plan is available for up to 10 team members, while there are two paid plan options meant for small and medium-sized businesses. The Starter plan is priced at $10.99 per user per month, billed annually. Asana also offers custom pricing for enterprise-level users. A paid plan will be required if you want to access features like automations or specific board views like timelines and Gantt charts. 

Asana Pros and Cons

Asana is a great choice for team collaboration features, but it’s worth considering your team’s specific needs when comparing it to other software. 

• Great for multiple team boards 
• Customizable Kanban board, to-do list views and more 
• Extensive help center and live training webinars
• Automations only in paid plans 
• No customer support via phone

Jira: Best for Integrations

Jira is an Atlassian software with features that are great for all industries, but it has a specific emphasis on software development teams. Jira makes it easy for teams to maintain backlogs and get quick overviews of task statuses at any stage of a project. This makes Jira boards easy to use in standup meetings for both waterfall and agile project approaches. 

Atlassian offers its own marketplace of over 3,000 software apps that integrate easily with Jira, earning it the title of Best for Integrations. This allows for tons of customization and makes it easy to add Jira to the apps you’re already using in your team’s workflow. This is especially useful for teams that work cross-functionally or want to add specific features to their Jira project boards. 

Jira is presented as being specifically designed for agile teams, and though it offers a simple user interface, there may be a learning curve for new users. Jira offers a free plan for up to 10 users with limited features and several paid plan options that include full functionality, prioritized support and AI tools, depending on the plan you choose. The Standard plan starts at $8.15 per user per month, estimated for 50 users. 

Jira Pros and Cons

Consider the top features you’re looking for when evaluating project management software. In this case, Jira has a lot to offer for agile teams, but its free version is limited. 

• Great for software development teams
• Simple but customizable user interface for Kanban boards 
• Free plan is limited to 10 users
• Learning curve for the user interface

Notion: Most Intuitive

Notion offers super customizable boards, called teamspaces, which can be set up for project management. Notion’s user interface is so simple to navigate that it earns the title of Most Intuitive, but setting Notion up as a project management solution does require some time and effort. Luckily, Notion offers a ton of project management templates to help teams find what they’re looking for and customize boards to their needs. 

Specifically for project management, Notion allows for Kanban board views, timeline views, lists and more. You can create dashboards to keep everything your team needs in one place. Teams that want to use automations with project boards should note that custom automations are only included in Notion’s paid plans. The Notion Plus plan starts at $8 per user per month when billed annually.

Notion Pros and Cons

Notion offers endless customization options, but it may require a little more setup than other project management tools. Consider how important it is for your team to be able to configure a custom project board and automate routine tasks. 

• Super customizable boards and workflows
• Excellent free version for freelancers or small teams
• Versatile shared docs 
• Setting up custom boards takes some effort
• Full automation functionality is only included in paid plans 

Teamwork.com: Best for Workforce Management  

Teamwork.com is a team collaboration platform with many helpful project management templates. With helpful project planning features like task lists and budget templates, Teamwork easily earns the title of Best for Workforce Management. Teams can track time, plan capacity and run projects all within the same platform. 

Teamwork’s project boards offer lists, Kanban boards, Gantt charts and tables to help teams customize how they visualize project work. For teams that need to be conscious of time tracking and billable hours, Teamwork is uniquely set up to help keep your project under budget. Team members can log time for specific tasks, and hours can be designated as billable directly within the platform. 

Teamwork’s free plan is available for up to five users, but they offer three different paid plan options. For certain plans, project board features like custom fields or templates may be limited. The Starter plan has a three-user minimum and starts at $5.99 per user per month, billed annually. 

Teamwork.com Pros and Cons

Teamwork.com is great for all things workforce management, but look out for the specific project features you’ll need. 

• Free time tracking for tasks and projects
• Workload capacity planning
• Variety of project board views
• Free plan is limited to five users
• Customization features for project boards not included in all plans

Airtable: Best for Spreadsheet-Based Projects 

Airtable offers advanced spreadsheet software that’s ideal for project management and earns it the title of Best for Spreadsheet-Based Projects. If your team is looking to upgrade from a basic spreadsheet when tracking tasks and due dates, Airtable is worth considering. 

Teams can create projects, group tasks together, assign tasks to team members and get insights about project progress. It’s designed with sprints in mind and makes sense for agile teams or cross-functional teams looking to stay on the same page. 

Airtable provides many templates that teams can use to set up specific projects, designed for anything from project planning to resource allocation. The software has an intuitive interface, but it may involve a bit of a learning curve, especially for users who aren’t as familiar with spreadsheet software for project management. 

Airtable offers a free plan for up to five users, with paid plans starting at $20 per seat per month, putting them at the pricier end of the project management spectrum. 

Airtable Pros and Cons

Depending on your team’s needs, Airtable could be an excellent project management tool. Consider the pros and cons based on what’s most important to your business. 

• Variety of templates for project management
• User-friendly spreadsheet interface 
• Great for agile teams working in sprints
• Potential learning curve for new users
• Paid plans may be pricey for larger teams  

Wrike: Best for Strategic Planning

Wrike’s workflow management features and project planning templates for scheduling make it ideal for agile teams and an easy choice for the title of Best for Strategic Planning. Wrike is designed for more than simple project boards and can help teams with many aspects of workforce management, like resource allocation. Teams can templatize projects and automate workflows to keep their process consistent every time. Multiple project board views are available, including Kanban boards and Gantt charts, and teams can create custom dashboards for helpful insights and analytics. 

Teams that have projects involving complex budgets, a variety of due dates and a large team of contributors may find that Wrike can help streamline everything into one easy-to-use platform. 

While Wrike includes a ton of useful features for project management, it does require some set-up in order to customize a project from templates and include the functionality you need. However, Wrike does offer over 400 integrations, making it easy to include with your current workflow. 

Wrike offers a free plan that allows for unlimited users, but teams will need to choose a paid plan to unlock full functionality for features like work schedules, Gantt charts or custom fields. Wrike’s Team plan starts at $9.80 per user per month, billed monthly.  

Wrike Pros and Cons

Wrike is a great choice for project management, but it may work better for some teams than others. Consider what you need out of your project management software and which plan you might need to choose to get your ideal features. 

• Robust workforce management tools for project planning
• Great project templates for agile teams
• Unlimited users allowed on the free plan 
• Paid plans are required to access some key features 
• May take some effort to configure project boards 

Basecamp: Best for Real-Time Activity 

Basecamp is an all-in-one tool for project management that combines project boards with communication features like message boards and group chats in addition to a real-time activity log. This makes it easy to stay up to the minute on what your team is working on. 

Basecamp’s communication features and activity log set it apart and earn it the title of Best for Real-Time Activity. Each project includes a separate timeline of all activity on a project, so you can see who’s working on which tasks and track team progress at a glance. There’s a separate group chat and message board for every project as well, so teams can easily stay connected and keep communication organized. However, teams who are interested in automations for project boards will likely need to rely on integrations, as Basecamp doesn’t offer much functionality for creating rules with project boards. 

Basecamp is a great option for teams that juggle multiple projects at once and want to be able to stay connected all within one app. Basecamp does not offer a free plan, but it does offer both a pay-per-user monthly plan and a flat rate option with unlimited users, which could be worth checking out for larger teams. The starter plan is priced at $15 per month per user when billed monthly. 

Basecamp Pros and Cons

Basecamp combines real-time team communication tools with easy-to-use project management boards, but consider its pricing options and features to get a sense of how it stacks up against competitors. 

• Real-time activity timeline
• In-app group chats and message boards
• Flat monthly pricing option 
• Not many advanced features for project boards 
• No free version 
• No in-app automations

Buildertrend: Best for Construction Projects

Buildertrend offers project management software designed specifically for construction pros and contractors. Teams can use Buildertrend to schedule projects, create daily logs, share documents with key information and track time. It’s also possible to communicate with clients and process change orders through the Buildertrend platform. 

Buildertrend can help teams create more accurate timelines and estimates for construction projects and improve communication between team members, leads and clients. While other project management tools are designed for office or remote work, Buildertrend’s features were made with job sites in mind. Teams can clock in and out with the geofenced mobile time clock, and Buildertrend can easily sync with HR and payroll software. 

Buildertrend does not offer a free plan, though all plans include unlimited projects and users as well as integrations. Buildertrend’s features are great for the construction industry, but they do come with a higher price tag. Buildertrend’s Essential plan starts at $199 per month for the first month and then goes up to $499 per month if a team opts for monthly billing. As there’s no per-user pricing, this may not be cost-effective for small businesses without a large number of employees. 

Buildertrend Pros and Cons

Buildertrend offers advanced features for contractors and construction workers, but its flat monthly fee may not make sense for some small businesses. 

• Project planning designed specifically for construction
• Easy-to-use mobile time clock included
• No free plan 
• Flat monthly pricing may not work for all teams

Pipedrive: Best for Sales Teams  

Pipedrive was designed for sales teams that want to get organized and visualize progress on leads and deals as they happen. As a dedicated customer relationship management (CRM) software, Pipedrive earns the title of Best for Sales Teams. The intuitive interface makes it easy for teams to navigate, even if your business has never used CRM software before. 

With Pipedrive, you can visualize where deals or clients stand within the closing process (or any process) with customizable Kanban boards, timelines and other views. This also gives you insights and analytics regarding team performance and success. Pipedrive also allows teams to automate customer communication, like email follow-ups, so you can save time and focus more on strategy. 

While there’s no free Pipedrive plan, there are five different plans for teams to choose from, and all include 24/7 support. However, the Pipedrive Essential plan starts at $21.90 per user per month (when billed monthly), putting it on the pricier end of project management solutions. Larger teams may find that while it’s ideal for sales teams, it may not be cost-effective. 

Pipedrive Pros and Cons

Pipedrive does not offer a free plan, but it offers powerful features designed just for sales teams. Consider your team’s budget for project management solutions to see if Pipedrive makes sense.  

• Explicitly designed for CRM and sales teams
• Easy-to-use project boards 
• Automated customer communication
• Pricy compared to other project management solutions 

Trello: Best for Simplicity

Trello is an Atlassian software that’s considered the more “visual” cousin to Jira, allowing teams to set up easy-to-scan project boards with drag-and-drop functionality. Its simple interface earns it the title of Best for Simplicity and makes it a great choice for teams that want an easily implemented project management solution. 

Trello’s main board view is the Kanban board, but it does offer other ways to visualize card-based tasks. Teams can customize their boards with different backgrounds and styles and integrate Trello with a wide variety of other software options. 

While Trello is great for teams that need a simple solution, it may not be ideal for teams that are juggling multiple complex projects. Teams must also upgrade to a higher tier of their paid plans to access Trello’s full functionality, like all board views. The free plan is limited in terms of how teams can visualize tasks, but it does allow for unlimited users.

However, Trello is a great choice for small teams that want to keep things simple without spending too much on a project management solution. Trello’s Standard plan starts at $5 per user per month, billed annually. 

Trello Pros and Cons

Trello offers a simple way to organize tasks with an easy project view, but check to see if it has all the functionality your team needs. 

• Simple user interface 
• Great for easy drag-and-drop Kanban boards
• Variety of different project views 
• Not ideal for more complex project views
• Limited free and Standard plans
• Single sign-on (SSO) is priced separately

Methodology

Choosing the appropriate project management software is critical for business owners and project managers as it directly impacts efficiency, collaboration and success. The right tool streamlines tasks, enhances communication, tracks progress and ensures timely delivery, maximizing productivity and profitability while minimizing errors and delays in project execution.

Read our full methodology here.

What Is Project Management Software?

Project management software is designed to help teams organize collaborative projects and usually involves shared project boards or lists where tasks can be assigned to different team members. This allows project managers and team leaders to visualize the work being done and see how the team is tracking toward due dates. 

How Much Does Project Management Software Cost?

Project management software can have a variety of different pricing models, but you’ll commonly see per-user pricing for paid plans, sometimes with a free or “freemium” version. This means teams will have access to a limited free version of the software, with full functionality being available in paid plans. Many project management software companies will usually offer discounts for annual billing and may provide discounts for nonprofits, startups and education. Industry-specific software for construction and home improvement businesses may have higher pricing.

For example, project management software will typically cost anywhere from $5 to $15 per user per month when billed annually. Construction management software can cost anywhere from $49 to $499 a month when billed annually and may only be limited to one user. 

Types of Project Management Software

Project management software can typically be sorted into three major categories depending on what they were designed for and the features they offer. 

Traditional Project Management Software

Traditional project management software is designed to help team leaders plan for capacity and keep up with due dates and deadlines for each step of the project. They often include functionality for Gantt charts or timeline views so teams can get a sense of overlapping tasks and task dependencies to stay on track.

Smartsheet and monday work management both offer great features for traditional project management, with advanced timeline views and customizations for task dependencies. However, they aren’t limited to just traditional projects, as most software offerings now include a variety of features for traditional and agile workflows. 

Agile Project Management Software

Many software options are created with agile approaches in mind. Agile is all about breaking up larger projects into individual tasks, moving them through the project workflow and constantly evaluating the process. Typically, software designed for agile work will include Kanban board functionality and the ability to visualize the multiple due dates and tasks within a particular sprint. 

Software like Jira, Airtable and Wrike are easily used in scrum meetings or daily stand-ups to get the team aligned. Jira and Airtable are especially helpful for creating task backlogs that a project manager or scrum master can easily manage. 

Visual Collaboration Software

Visual collaboration software is designed to help teams work within a shared digital space so they can visualize different workflows through shared docs or whiteboards. 

Software like ClickUp and Notion are examples of project management tools that prioritize visual collaboration and brainstorming. ClickUp’s whiteboard features make it easy for teams to create roadmaps together, separate from the actual project board views. Notion’s customizable templates and docs make it easy for teams to share ideas and visualize different projects. 

Project managers can use the collaborative space to gather ideas and updates from the team, particularly in the case of remote team meetings, and then build out the project boards that the teams need to stay on track. 

How To Choose the Best Project Management Software

When comparing project management tools, consider your business needs and which features are most important to you and your team. What are you trying to solve by implementing a new software for project management? Those pain points can be a great place to start when identifying which features are must-haves for your team. 

Identifying Workflows 

The project management software you choose will depend on what you need but also the makeup of your team and your industry. There are software options specific to sales teams and some designed just for the construction industry. Many tools are also priced per user, meaning the larger your team, the higher the price tag. 

It’s also key to consider how software supports different work styles, like on-site, remote or agile workflows. All of these factors will need to be top of mind when choosing the best project management software for your business. 

Most project management tools will offer a variety of features, but the key functionality to watch out for includes: 

• Multiple board views for project boards (Kanban board, list view, timeline, etc.)
• Customizable task cards with subtasks, assignees and dependencies
• Automations 
• Notifications and communication features (Comments, message boards, chats)
• Reporting and analytics functionality
• Integrations with other work software you already use, like Slack, Zapier, Google Workspace or Microsoft Teams 

Ease of Use

Take advantage of demos and free trials to get a feel for the different user interfaces offered by project management tools. Some may be intuitive but have more straightforward offerings. Others may have more of a learning curve but allow for more customization. 

Also, consider if your team uses Windows or Mac operating systems and if you’ll want to access software via a desktop app or an Android or iOS mobile app. Don’t forget to test out the functionality of those mobile apps as you’re narrowing down your list. 

Reporting and Analytics

Not every project management software will offer in-depth reporting capabilities. Depending on the software you choose, this may mean having to integrate with another tool for the reports and analytics you’re looking for. Be sure to see if there are any built-in reporting features included with the project management software you’re considering. 

Customer Service and Support

Most project management software will offer help centers or user forums, but many do not have a customer support phone number. Many will only allow customers to reach out via live chat or email. If customer support via phone is important to your team, this is something to look out for when comparing your options. 

AI and Automation

More and more project management software options are implementing AI functionality to help teams work smarter. Most AI tools will be included in paid versions of these different software options and are designed to help automate certain tasks, like ClickUp’s Butler or Asana Intelligence. Keep in mind that a project management tool will often still allow for automated rules and integrations even if they don’t have AI features. 

The Bottom Line

Finding the best project management tool for your business can make life easier for your entire team, allowing you to track projects, understand performance against your key metrics and help with overall resource management. Managing projects and hitting milestones requires a streamlined approach, so it’s best to weigh your options before committing. The best project management software for your team will depend on your unique business goals. 

With so many tools offering free plans and free trials, it’s easy to test out your options. While many different software offerings include similar features, most will have added workforce management functionality or extras, depending on the plan you choose.

Narrow down your list to three or more tools to make sure you’re checking out all your options. Consider how many seats you’ll need, what you’re willing to spend and what you’re trying to solve by implementing a project management software to find the best choice for your business. 

Compare software based on features and also on ease of use. Your team’s comfort level with other work apps and software can be a good indicator of how complex a project management software can be before it becomes too overwhelming to be helpful. Make the most of free demos and trials of the top software on your list and get input from key stakeholders, particularly from the team members who will be using the software every day. 

Frequently Asked Questions About Project Management Software

What are the main differences between project management software and task management apps.

The main difference is that project management software is designed to handle large-scale projects comprising many tasks. Task management apps are designed to keep track of multiple small tasks without the full functionality needed to manage everything simultaneously, more like a to-do list. 

Do you need specialized project management software for marketing or product development teams?

Marketing and product teams can benefit from using project management software to keep track of files and assets, keep up with approvals processes, manage deadlines and due dates and keep team communication in one place. 

Even if a tool is not specialized for marketing or product teams, many project management tools offer templates or resources for businesses to customize the platform to whatever works best for them. Look out for software options that offer templates or pre-made workflows designed for your team’s function. 

Which project management tool has the steepest learning curve?

Depending on your team’s familiarity with work software, project management tools that offer more customization for complex projects may have a steeper learning curve. There are many project management tools that offer simpler interfacers that are easier to pick up, but they don’t allow for the same level of complexity or personalization. Ultimately, this will depend on what you need from the software and what your team is accustomed to. 

How do prices compare between popular project management software options?

Many project management software companies offer a free version of their tools. For starter plans, costs will typically run anywhere from $5 to $20 per user per month when billed annually. For example, Trello’s least expensive paid plan is $5 per user per month, while Airtable’s is $20 per user per month. Industry-specific software will typically be more expensive but offer more specialized features. 

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