Best Business Plan Software Compared

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Companies of any size seeking to grow will want to have a business plan to channel resources. At Crazy Egg, we understand the importance of having help with this process. We know how software can provide advice and structure when developing a business plan. By studying multiple software options and taking the pulse of those who use this software regularly, we choose LivePlan as the best business plan software. LivePlan is easy to use, and it offers extensive documentation and resources for helping with plan development for beginners. For those who need advanced features, LivePlan’s huge library of templates delivers these needs.

The Best Business Plan Software for Most

With LivePlan, those seeking to create a business plan will not have to worry about where to start. LivePlan has several hundred templates built into the software and offers step-by-step instructions. Even beginners can jump right into constructing a plan without wasting time. For those who need help from experts, this software delivers video tutorials and customer support.

LivePlan offers customers a starting price of $15 per month. They don’t have to agree to long-term contracts with any pricing tier either. LivePlan has service levels that will fit the needs of almost any size and style of business.

The 5 Best Business Plan Software Options to Consider

1. LivePlan — The Best for Most
2. Bizplan — The Best for Businesses Seeking Investors
3. GoSmallBiz — The Best for Businesses That Have Complex Planning Needs
4. Enloop — The Best Easy-to-Use Business Plan Software
5. PlanGuru — The Best for Making Financial Projections in a Business Plan

When It Makes Sense to Invest In Business Plan Software

Making a business plan with software provides a wide range of benefits for businesses of all sizes. Companies in multiple stages of their development will be able to use this software successfully, too. 

In other words, there’s no single perfect time to start with business plan software. These business planning tools will work for you at almost any point in the development of a business. It just depends on the business’ needs.

At Startup

When a business seeks a loan or investors early in its development, having a business plan is vital. It shows investors the business’ financial expectations, its long-term goals, the items that make it unique, and its expansion plans. 

When Growth Is Imminent

Some businesses move along at a steady pace before suddenly hitting on a popular product or service. When significant growth is on the near horizon, creating or updating the business plan can help the company focus its growth in the desired direction.

When the Business Is Struggling

If the market is changing or the business is struggling to maintain its current trajectory, creating a business plan can help the business refocus its efforts. An analysis of the current market conditions through business plan software can help the company successfully refocus on what’s important. 

Your business plan may reveal areas where the business is overspending or underspending. The plan may even unveil a new direction the business can try to spark new growth. 

When It’s Time to Sell or Merge

A fresh business plan gives potential purchasers a complete picture of the business for an owner who wants to sell to another company. The purchaser will see everything that makes the business unique, accurate financial records and projections and the items that give it the best chance at success after the merger or sale.

#1 – LivePlan — The Best for Most

LivePlan consistently ranks among the most well-rounded and popular business plan software packages among customers and reviewers. After our time spent investigating it, we agree entirely. 

It has tools that can help a business from the startup phase to the growth phase and beyond. When it’s time to seek investors, LivePlan provides the ability to create reports and professional-looking documents that will place the business in the most favorable light.

For beginners, LivePlan offers step-by-step instructions for creating a business plan. It also has more than 500 templates that help the business create the framework for a business plan based on a specific idea or need.

When wanting to create a business plan containing the most accurate financial projections, LivePlan can source the actual data. It can integrate with accounting software like QuickBooks and Xero.

As a final benefit, LivePlan is extremely affordable, and it doesn’t cost extra when you need to add more users. It offers two pricing tiers:

• Standard — $15 per month with a pitch document builder and 500 sample plans
• Premium — $30 per month with industry benchmark data and performance dashboards

#2 – Bizplan — The Best for Businesses Seeking Investors

Whether a business needs to raise capital in its early days or when it’s ready to expand after a few years, Bizplan has multiple features to obtain funding.

For starters, Bizplan provides business plan templates that focus on creating professional-looking documentation that will impress potential investors. It also helps businesses track down sources of funding.

Because many business startups seeking funding may be new to operating business plan software, Bizplan focuses on simplifying the process of building plans. It provides step-by-step instructions and helpful templates.

It includes multiple educational tools available to customers that aid in understanding what features are most important to include in a business plan.

Bizplan only has one usage tier that contains all of the software’s features. However, it does offer three pricing options, including:

• Annual: Pay $20.75 per month when agreeing to an annual contract
• Monthly: Pay $29 per month without a contract
• Lifetime: Pay $349 one time to have access to Bizplan forever

#3 – GoSmallBiz — The Best for Businesses That Have Complex Planning Needs

Depending on the type of business involved, some companies will need detailed plans requiring multiple building steps. GoSmallBiz can handle business plans that require complexity. 

GoSmallBiz has a wide range of features built into its business planning software. These can include features for those businesses that need to create a roadmap or that need consulting services. 

Because of the multiple steps available, GoSmallBiz isn’t the easiest software to sit down and use immediately. But for those willing to put in the time required, they’ll gain significant advantages for the business planning process.

It does offer multiple templates for business plans, so businesses have a framework they can use to start the process. Those who need to make financial projections will find plenty of helpful features in GoSmallBiz.

For business planning needs alone, GoSmallBiz has a single pricing plan of $15 per month. For additional fees, businesses can select from several other add-ons, if desired, including:

• Help with incorporation
• Consultation services
• Website building
• Building HR documentation

#4 – Enloop — The Best Easy-to-Use Business Plan Software

For businesses that want to create a detailed business plan in a time-efficient manner, Enloop is the easiest business plan software to use.

Enloop focuses only on business plan creation, removing any other distractions and features that complicate the process. Enloop will study your business data and automatically create text for the plan to speed up the process further. Users can edit the text later as needed.

The Enloop software offers only one type of template, but it will create a professional-looking business plan. Businesses will feel comfortable presenting this plan to potential investors or business partners. It mixes text, charts, images, and tables to showcase the best aspects of the business.

One of Enloop’s most interesting features is its business plan scoring system, through which it assigns a numerical score to the finished business plan. Businesses then can make editing changes to try to improve the score.

After the free trial period, customers can select among two pricing tiers with Enloop, including:

• Detailed — $19.95 per month for up to three total users
• Performance — $39.95 per month for up to six total users

#5 – PlanGuru — The Best for Making Financial Projections in a Business Plan 

When a business needs to create accurate financial projections in its business plan, PlanGuru is a smart choice. 

PlanGuru integrates with accounting software the business may already be using, such as QuickBooks or Xero, to gain access to historical financial data for the company. It then can create budgets and financial forecasts for as much as 10 years into the future.

It even provides a breakeven analysis tool for those businesses trying to show investors when the company expects to become profitable.

It can help the business incorporate those financial projections into a professional-looking business plan. Potential investors will be able to trust the projections because the business plan uses actual data from the business’s historical performance to create them.

For those who don’t need financial projections and reporting in a business plan, other software on our list will deliver better results. PlanGuru doesn’t offer sample templates for generic business plans, making it challenging to use for basic business plans.

PlanGuru is available as either a cloud version or an on-prem version. These versions are pricier than others on our list, as both have a starting price of about $75 per month for one user. Additional users cost about $25 per month.

Methodology for Choosing the Best Business Plan Software

Finding just the right business plan software involves understanding exactly where the business needs advice. Different software tools on our list can help with specific problems.

We used the criteria below to select the best business plan software tools and broke them down into a methodology. Focusing on these key criteria should help the business find just the right software for its needs. 

Our best pick, LivePlan, delivers good results in all of these categories. But we’ll also mention some of the top software tools for business plans that have a strength in a particular category. 

Focusing on the Business’ Goals

As a business grows and evolves, the owners’ initial goals for the company may become outdated. By creating a new business plan, team members can revisit the original objectives and see whether they still apply. 

A crucial part of working on a business plan involves thinking about where the business sits now and where it’s going. 

LivePlan is a strong goal-setting software. It works well for those who need to turn general ideas into actual goals and targets. For startup businesses that are looking to set goals for investment and seed money, Bizplan works well.

Needing an Attractive Plan and Presentation

For businesses looking to attract major customers or new investors, a business plan is a key component. 

However, the plan itself simply isn’t enough on its own. It needs to provide a sense of professionalism. A plan that looks amateurish will leave potential investors disappointed, no matter the strength of the actual message.

LivePlan offers multiple templates that help businesses build a plan quickly that looks great, as it provides professionally styled frameworks. Enloop gives businesses the chance to create a plan quickly, but that still looks like a pro did it.

Analyzing the Competitors

Business plans should give employees a good idea about where their own business stands. However, some businesses also need to analyze the market as a whole and determine what their competitors are doing.

With this information in hand, the business has a better sense of areas where it needs improved performance to challenge competitors and to take advantage of market shifts.

Both LivePlan and GoSmallBiz create business plans that can take the market as a whole into account. These software tools will help the business measure its standing against the market and competitors.

Creating Accurate Financial Projections

The bottom line for a business trying to measure its success involves its finances. Any high-level business plan software must incorporate the business’s current financial situation, any upcoming investments, and expectations for future sales. 

Some packages can even integrate with financial accounting software to pull actual data. This feature ensures the most accurate calculations and the most useful financial projections.

PlanGuru and Bizplan are among the best business plan packages that place finances at the forefront of the plan-building process.

Summary

Business plan software is available in a wide range of configurations. Our favorite overall business plan tool is LivePlan. During our deep dive into this type of software, we determined the robust feature set found with LivePlan can handle almost any type of planning needs.

If LivePlan doesn’t quite meet the focused needs of a particular business, multiple other options will do an excellent job for those businesses that need specific features. 

Most business plan software packages carry a reasonable price. And when the professional-looking business plan helps the company gain the investor funding it needs, the cost of the software will represent an outstanding investment.