10+ Best Business Plan Software Solutions In 2024

Discover the top business planning software to create and forecast business plans that meet your needs. Pick the best Business Plan Software for perfect goal management as per your budget:

It is very important for a business to plan its goals, objectives, finances, etc. Business plans help give a business direction and track its growth.

A good plan can do wonders for any business.

Business Planning Software: Market Trends

There are many ways of getting a business plan built.

For example: A Do-it-yourself Business Plan with the help of software. You can create your business plan using the software. This is the most time- and cost-efficient way of building a business. A business plan software would cost you around $12 – $100 per month. Apart from business planning, they help businesses through:

• Templates for building a business plan quickly.
• Step-by-step guidance, so that you do not miss an important business detail.
• Integration with your business systems.
• Tracking the progress of your goals and objectives.
• Visualization tools
• Team collaboration, task assignment tools.
• Some help in financial forecasting and strategy making.

Hiring a Freelance/Professional Business Plan Writer: You can look for a professional freelance business plan writer and get good results. He would charge you on a per-hour basis. However, finding a suitable plan writer will consume a lot of time. Plus, it will be a lot costlier than buying a business plan software subscription.

A business plan software may not suit a large, complex business model. Here, you would require expert help. Otherwise, I would say that if a business plan software fulfills your needs, then it would be a great cost saver.

Watch this video to learn some tips on how to create a professional and useful business plan.

Paid Vs. Free Business Plan Software

You can get a business plan software for free, or look for its paid version for more advanced features. Free software usually comes with limited, basic planning features like plan-building templates, basic security features, etc.

But for more powerful features like team collaboration, integrations, advanced automation, financial reporting, forecasting, and business strategizing tools, you’ll have to go for paid software, and I must say, they deliver good returns on investment.

Benefits of Business Plan Writing Software

Among many advantages of the Business Plan software, some are:

1. They integrate with your systems and let you automate tasks.
2. They help you in tracking business growth.
3. They help in financial forecasting.
4. Some offer guidance for building a proper, growth-oriented plan.
5. They let you collaborate with your team while planning.
6. You can share the plan with anyone right away.

Watch this video to understand how business plans can benefit entrepreneurs.

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Who is this article for?

This article is for startups and businesses of all sizes and types, who want to create a business plan for tracking their growth, raising funds, etc.

If you are wondering how to develop a business plan, then in this article, you will find detailed reviews of the top software in the industry that makes business planning quite easy.

We have provided a well-researched list of the best business planning software, with a detailed description of the features they offer, price plans, and other information. Give the article a reading to find a suitable platform for your business.

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List of the Best Business Plan Software

Here is the popular list to consider:

1. LivePlan
2. Venngage
3. Bizplan
4. PlanGuru
5. Enloop
6. GoSmallBiz
7. PlanBuildr
8. Business Sorter
9. IdeaBuddy
10. iPlanner
11. Wise Business Plans

Comparing the Top Business Planner Software

Detailed Reviews:

#1) LivePlan

Best for their exceptional financial tools, useful for small businesses, startups, consultants, educators, Incubators & Accelerators.

LivePlan is a reliable business plan software, that is trusted by businesses from Retail, Healthcare, Restaurants, Services, and many other sectors.

I must say, the software helps in business growth, saving time, and making operations easier through team collaboration, financial forecasting, and more useful features. This cloud-based business planning tool is offering a good deal of features at reasonable prices.

You will get almost anything you have ever looked for in business plan software. Their financial tools, including reporting, forecasting, and what-if scenarios, are praiseworthy. The software lets you create fundable business plans and their in-built financial tools help in bringing the plan to life.

You can reach their team for professional Business Plan Writing, Business Plans Review, Financial Forecasting, and Market Research. Read articles about how to get started with LivePlan from their site.

Features:

• Financial Reporting: Simple tools for creating financial reports with automatic calculations
• AI assistance: AI-powered assistance for writing plans helps in creating the best possible plan.
• Forecasting: Create financial forecasts with the help of their easy-to-use drag-and-drop tools. The forecast will include a sales forecast, expense budget, profit and loss statement, and much more.
• What-if scenarios: Tools for running forecast scenarios, so that you can get to know about the best-case and the worst-case scenarios
• Quick Data Extraction: Tools for extracting data from your QuickBooks or Xerox accounts instantly
• Performance Analysis: Tools for comparing your profit margin, revenue per employee, and other data with similar businesses

Pros:

• A 35-day money-back guarantee.
• 550+ sample plans based on specific industries.
• Customer onboarding support through one-on-one video calls.
• Live Chat, Email support.
• They also provide educational webinars to help you learn how to reach your goals faster.
• Bank-level security of your data.
• You can get someone who can professionally review your plans, at an additional cost.

Cons:

• Can be difficult to use at the beginning.

Why we chose LivePlan to be the best Business Plan Software: Trusted by over 1 million entrepreneurs from around the world, LivePlan is a suitable platform for small businesses, startups, consultants, educators, Incubators & Accelerators.

It offers you step-by-step guidance, automation, and some very useful integrations that make the software stand apart. I found the customer ratings on the platform to be quite impressive. Read some of their astonishing customer success stories from their site.

Price: Their price plans are:

• Standard: $20 per month
• Premium: $40 per month ($20 for the first month).

Website: https://www.liveplan.com/

#2) Venngage

Best for offering easy-to-edit templates for creating plans for businesses of all sizes and types.

Venngage is a business planner software that helps in building eye-catching and informative business plans with the help of their easy-to-use tools. This online planner has an advanced set of features for building a business plan, financial plan, marketing plan, etc.

You can use their editable templates to create professional, attractive plans quickly. Another plus point about the platform is that there is no learning curve. You can start using the platform right away, without even buying a subscription plan.

Follow these steps to use Venngage to create a plan:

• Create a free account with your email, Google, or Facebook profile.
• Select a pre-built template.
• Add your business data to the template. You can choose photos from their gallery of over 2 million stock photos.
• Once you are done, you can download your plan or create a link for sharing it.

Features:

• Charts, Graphs, and Diagrams: Helps in building charts, graphs, and diagrams for your business data, that can be added to the plan
• File sharing: Lets you download the business plan as a PDF file or a PowerPoint file; or create a link to share it with anyone
• Templates, stock photos, and icons: Offers a vast library of free templates, 3 million+ stock photos, and 40,000 professional icons for building a business plan
• Ease of use: Easy-to-use plan builder with drag-and-drop editing tools
• Data upload: Lets you upload your data in a .CSV file with a single click, or you can just copy-paste it
• Team collaboration: Collaborate with your team in real time.

Pros:

• Offers templates for business plans, financial plans, and more.
• Over 3 million stock photos available for your business plan
• A free version that allows you to create 5 designs.

Why we chose Venngage for this spot: With over 40,000 clients, including Google, Cisco, Airbnb, The New York Times, Harvard University, and more, Venngage comes across as a trusted business plan software.

The hundreds of free business plan templates that they offer, millions of stock photos, the very intuitive interface, and collaboration tools are the top plus points of this software. Their flexible price plans make the platform suitable for individuals, professionals, businesses, classrooms, and many kinds of organizations. They offer discounts for nonprofits and educational uses.

Price: Venngage offers a free version. Paid plans are:

• Premium: $18 per month per user (paid annually)
• Business: $24 per month per user (paid annually)
• Enterprise: Starts at $499 per month for 10+ seats

Website: https://venngage.com/features/create-business-plan

#3) Bizplan

Best for helping startups build guided business plans and raising funds.

Bizplan is a business planning platform dedicated mainly to startups. It offers easy-to-use tools to build a gorgeous-looking business plan while guiding you on each step so that you do not forget to mention any important detail. Their step-by-step guidance tools make the whole planning process quite easy, painless, and quick.

The software is quite useful for fundraising. They have helped startups in raising more than $500 million to date.

Their customer support services, access to business plan experts and over 20,000 startup founders, 650 expert masterclass videos, and the learning/educational resources they offer for startups are quite appreciable.

Features:

• Access to Fundable: This gives you access to Fundable, which is an online fundraising platform, where you can share your business plan with the investors directly.
• Automated Plan Creation: You just need to set your goals and Bizplan will handle everything, including setting salaries, projecting revenue, etc. as per your goals.
• Security and Collaboration tools: Team collaboration, access controls, and more useful features make the software a very powerful one.
• Plan Building Tools: Drag-and-drop tools for adding templates, photos, etc.
• Financial Tracking: This lets you track all of your finances.
• Step-by-step guidance: Step-by-step guidance on building a plan and sharing it with the investors.
• Professional Consulting: Lets you get advice from over 20,000 mentors.
• Usage: Gives unlimited usage with its plans.

Pros:

• Each plan offers unlimited usage.
• 650 masterclass videos and 1,000+ articles on how to build a startup.
• Get expert guidance on any topic.
• Integration with Xero and QuickBooks.

Cons:

• No free trial or a free version.

Why we like Bizplan: I found the customer reviews about the platform to be quite impressive. It is an all-in-one platform for startups that offers tools for planning, marketing, fundraising, and more.

I must say the platform is easy to use and offers an attractive UI, making the whole experience a lot better.

Price: Their price plans are:

• Monthly: $29 per month
• Annual: $249 per year
• Lifetime Access: $349

Website: https://www.bizplan.com/

#4) PlanGuru

Best for helping small businesses, accountants, and advisors in making better business decisions through their financial forecasting tools.

PlanGuru is a unified platform for business budgeting, planning, and financial analytics. It offers tools for dynamic financial forecasting, unlimited budgeting, running what-if scenarios, reporting, and much more. Users can access the software through a desktop or a mobile application.

They provide you with tools for setting up your financial goals and assigning accountability for the results so that the financial performance can be analyzed for making better decisions.

Their forecasting tools enable you to evaluate how your decisions will affect revenue and profitability before implementing them. The software adopts 20 different methods for forecasting so that projections can be made for up to 10 years.

Go through their site to find a series of videos for getting started, setting up, and more. You can also request a free Live demo from them.

Features:

• Decision Making: Tools for setting financial goals and analyzing performance to make better business decisions.
• Forecasting: Forecasting tools that help you in analyzing the effects of a decision, and taking decisions quickly, with more confidence.
• Performance Analysis: Tools for analyzing performance by comparing your budget with the actual reports and building rolling forecasts.
• What-if Scenarios: Tools for running what-if scenarios that help in planning strategically.
• Integrations: Integration with QuickBooks, QuickBooks Online, Xero & Excel.
• Security Features: ISO 27001:2005 Certified, PCI-DSS Level 1 compliant platform with User-based access control features

Pros:

• Useful, free educational resources.
• A team to help you through the process.
• Budgeting and Forecasting for up to 10 years.
• Business Valuation tool, Standard Report Export to PDF, Word, & Excel, Online Dashboard, Scorecard, and Reporting Tools, and much more.
• A free trial for 14 days.
• A 30-day money-back guarantee.

Why we like PlanGuru: PlanGuru offers a good set of useful features for businesses. You can use their free trial to check the usability of the platform for your business. They even offer a money-back guarantee.

Trusted by thousands of businesses, entrepreneurs, nonprofits, and accountants; PlanGuru is known for its easy-to-use tools for business planning and delivering good value for money.

Price: Price plans are:

• Single Entity: $83 per month
• Multiple-Department Consolidations: $250 per month

Website: https://www.planguru.com/

#5) Enloop

Best for business owners, accountants, entrepreneurs, and students who want to get a business plan created on its own, based on the information they provide.

Enloop is a leading, affordable business plan writing software. It runs on all operating systems. The software works by asking you about your company details, and it will create your business plan on its own, which can be edited as you want. It’s as simple as that!

Besides this, Enloop allows its users to collaborate with their teams, accountants, or business partners to share and edit the plan. The tools they offer for analyzing financial performance by generating financial ratios are praiseworthy.

This cloud-based software lacks some advanced features like running what-if scenarios; but offers a good value for money.

Take a look at this video demonstrating how Enloop writes your business plan for you.

Features:

• Automated Plan Creation: They create customizable text for your plan, and automatically sync financial data into the text, thus making the whole process extremely simple and smooth.
• Forecasting and Performance Analysis: Tools for financial forecasting, analyzing performance by comparing your ratios with your peers.
• Performance Score Calculator: You can know about your performance score in real-time so that you can stay motivated during the whole process
• Finding Critical Issues: Tools that let you understand the critical issues quickly
• Charts, diagrams: Colored charts to show your data

Pros:

• Performance analysis tools
• A free trial for 7 days
• Automated financial reporting
• Easy to use
• Automated text creation, data synchronization

Why we like Enloop: Enloop has been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur, and more prestigious platforms; and has over 330k clients. Enloop makes making business plans quite easy with the help of its automated text writing, data syncing, reporting, real-time performance analysis, and other useful tools. I would recommend Enloop to those who want to create business plans quickly.

Price: Their price plans are:

• Detailed: $19.95 per month
• Performance: $39.95 per month

*You can save money by paying yearly.

Website: https://enloop.com/

#6) GoSmallBiz

Best for being an affordable, easy-to-use platform, highly suitable for small businesses.

GoSmallBiz is an award-winning and easy-to-use plan-building and progress-tracking software. Their features are lesser as compared to leading software in the industry, but overall you will find the software delivering a great value for money. They have a dedicated plan for business planning, which comes at quite a low price.

A higher plan is available that offers business plan building, online business consultation, website builder, Google Business Profile Optimization, and more useful features. All of this is available at $49 per month, which is quite appealing. Get a step-by-step guide on how to create a business plan with GoSmallBiz from their website.

Features:

• Templates: A library of pre-built templates for building complete plans.
• Step-by-step Guidance: There is a step-by-step plan-building process.
• Plan Building: Lets you include your financial statements, including balance sheets, income statements, etc. in the business plan.
• Other Services: Business consultation, website building, and more essential services are available with their plan.

Pros:

• They offer video tutorials for every part of plan building
• Mobile apps for Android and iOS users
• Easy to use

Cons:

• Lacks advanced tools used for strategizing.

Why we like GoSmallBiz: GoSmallBiz is suitable for businesses in all industries. Small businesses and startups would find the software immensely useful because of its ease of use, affordability, and good feature set.

Over 400,000 small businesses from all over the world have benefitted from GoSmallBiz to date.

Price: Their price plans are:

• Business Plan Software: $15 per month
• Essentials: $49 per month

Website: https://gosmallbiz.com/business-plan-software/

#7) PlanBuildr

Best for quick plan-building tools, suitable for businesses of all sizes.

PlanBuildr is a leading business planner software that is suitable for businesses of all sizes and industries. Built by business plan experts themselves, PlanBuildr is loved by entrepreneurs and business owners.

Some of the useful tools they offer include business plan templates, financial forecasting, quick business plan making, and more. They offer quick support and thus their clients are all praises about the platform.

Features:

• Pre-built plans: 10 professionally designed business plans to choose from.
• Templates: Industry-specific templates for building a plan.
• Automated Plan Creation: You will have to fill in some blanks for providing business details and the software will create the plan for you.
• Other Tools: Additional business planning assistance, including expert market research, helps create a plan suitable for raising funds.
• Plan Download and Sharing: Lets you download and print your business plan as soon as it is created.

Why PlanBuildr is chosen for this spot: The main plus point about the platform is that it is fast and easy to use. Plus, it helps in business strategy making.

Over 125,000 businesses have used PlanBuildr for building plans. It has been featured in The New York Times, Forbes, The Huffington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and many more prestigious media sources.

Price: PlanBuildr has a free trial for 7 days. After that you will have to pay as per the following subscription plans:

• 60-day subscription: $47
• Annual subscription: $7.99 per month

Website: https://planbuildr.com/

#8) Business Sorter

Best for quick planning and progress tracking tools for individuals, teams, and business entrepreneurs.

If you are looking for a cloud-based integrated business planning software, then Business Sorter is for you. It lets you create multiple business plans, assign tasks, set deadlines, track progress, and more while keeping your data secure through encryption.

You can create up to 40 plans with Business Sorter, by using any device. Their free trial can help you check whether the software is suitable for you or not.

Features:

• Templates: Offers cards/templates for building plans
• Step-by-step Guidance: Provides tips and guidance on each step, so that you can work on your business strategy
• Compatibility: Works on a mobile, laptop, tablet, iPad or a computer.
• Security: SSL encryption of all data
• Plan Sharing: Lets you share the plan and choose whether you allow the viewers to only view or edit the plan too
• Other Useful Features: Lets you assign tasks, check progress

Why we like Business Sorter: Business Sorter has flexible plans to suit businesses of all sizes. Another plus point is that the software lets you plan quickly and easily. Companies including KPMG, AKL Plumbing and Gas Fitting Services, Elektron, and many more are currently their clients.

Price: Business Sorter offers a free trial for 14 days. Price plans are as follows:

• Small Team: $10 per month
• Medium Team: $30 per month
• Large Team: $80 per month
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

Website: https://businesssorter.com/

#9) IdeaBuddy

Best for offering tools for building and testing a modern-looking plan instantly for entrepreneurs, startups, and business organizations.

IdeaBuddy is a reliable, trusted business plan software that is simple and very useful. The AI assistance and team collaboration tools they offer are the main plus points of the software. The editable industry-specific templates make the whole experience exceptional.

It is available at quite low prices. I would recommend it for small to mid-sized businesses and startups.

Features:

• Templates: Offers editable templates for creating business models and business plans
• Team collaboration: Collaboration tools that allow you to work together with your team
• Planning and Forecasting: Financial planning tools include building a financial plan, cash flow forecasting, and profit and loss projections.
• Plan creation and sharing: Easy-to-use tools for creating a plan and sharing it in PDF, Excel, or Word form, or through a link.

Why we like IdeaBuddy: IdeaBuddy is a mobile-friendly, easy-to-use platform for bringing your business ideas to life. The platform has amazing customer reviews.

With IdeaBuddy you can create modern-looking business plans and get AI-based tips for elevating your business plan, on each step.

Price: There is a free trial for 15 days. Price plans are:

• Founder: $12 per month
• Team Pro: $16 per month
• Enterprise Plan: Custom pricing

Website: https://ideabuddy.com/features/business-plan/

#10) iPlanner

Best for building detailed, strategic plans suitable for businesses and non-profits.

iPlanner.NET allows you to create strategic plans while collaborating with your team throughout the process. The software is quite productive and useful for businesses of all sizes.

I found their users are quite impressed with the business plan templates and the ease of use that the platform offers.

Features:

• Templates: Offers plan-building templates suitable for specific business models
• Collaboration: Collaborate with your team in real-time, for plan creation
• Training: On-site training is also available, at extra costs
• Plan creation tools: It lets you upload Excel files that can be converted into worksheets and added to the document. PDFs, images, and presentations can also be added.

Why we picked iPlanner for this spot: iPlanner is a user-friendly platform with collaboration tools. Their impressive customer reviews and the value for money that they deliver make the platform a highly recommended one.

They do not have a downloadable mobile application. You can only access the platform online. They allow you to use only English language; no regional languages are supported.

Price: Price plans offered by iPlanner are as follows:

Website: http://www.iplanner.net/business-financial/online/start.aspx

#11) Wise Business Plans

Best for professionally written business plans helpful for fundraising.

The 5-star average ratings tell a lot about Wise Business Plans. They have a 30-day money-back guarantee in case you are not satisfied with their services. They do not have a subscription plan. You will just have to buy the Wise Business Plan Template Suite, which gives you access to the downloadable templates.

They have a team of 100,000+ business consultants and let you hire a professional plan writer. They have created over 15,000 business plans to date. They can deliver a tailored business plan in as less as 14 days.

Features:

• Templates: Offers pre-built templates for creating business plans.
• Automated plan creation: You just need to fill in your business information in the blanks and you will get your plan created, ready for sharing and printing.
• Consultation: They provide consulting services for business plans and have a good reputation at it.
• Business plan outsourcing: You can hire a professional business plan writer.
• They also offer market research reports.

Why we like Wise Business Plans: Wise Business Plans has been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur, and more prestigious media platforms. They have helped their clients in raising millions of funds to date. Many of the leading corporations trust Wise Business Plans for planning, building, and funding their business vision. Businesses from over 400 industries have been their clients.

Price: Contact them for pricing information.

Website: https://wisebusinessplans.com/

How We Picked These Tools?

We examined the following aspects to find the top software for business planning:

1. Ease of use
2. Feature set
3. Value for money
4. Suitability for different business types
5. Scalability
6. Security features
7. Reliability, customer ratings

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

Business plan software is quite in demand all across the globe due to many reasons, such as the digital transformation of businesses, the ease of use that it offers, and many other benefits.

Our study on these software suggests that LivePlan, Venngage, and Bizplan are the top 3 business plan software. LivePlan is the most feature-rich software in the industry today, that delivers great value for money and is suitable for businesses of all sizes.

They even offer professional guidance. Venngage offers a very useful free version and their paid plans have some exceptionally advanced features like easy uploading of data, 3 million+ stock photos, and more. Then comes Bizplan, which can be a savior for the startups.

Other software that we recommend include PlanGuru, Enloop, GoSmallBiz, PlanBuildr, Business Sorter, IdeaBuddy, iPanner, and Wise Business Plans.

Whatever the size and industry of your business, you will find a suitable business planning application from our list because we have tried to include software to suit a diverse range of businesses.

Research Process:

• Time taken to research this article: We spent 31 hours researching and writing this article so you can get a useful summarized list of tools with a comparison of the top 5 of them.
• Total Business Plan Software researched online: 37
• Top tools shortlisted for review: 11