Over the past 20+ years, Growthink has helped over 500,000 entrepreneurs, executives and business owners develop business plans, start their small businesses, and exit successfully with a focus on business planning and capital raising. In doing so, we’ve tried all the best business plan software solutions out there, and have also built two business planning software options of our own.
This article provides a brief overview of business planning, defines what business plan software is, covers other key questions related to business plan writing software, and reviews 5 business plan software options. Working on a budget? Take a look at the best free software options to help you write a great plan.
Quick Links
- Business Planning Overview
- What is Business Plan Software?
- What Does Business Plan Software Do?
- Do I Need Business Plan Software?
- Key Features of Business Plan Software
- Why You May NOT Want To Use a Planning Program
- Paid vs. Free Business Plan Software
- Benefits of Using Business Plan Software
- 5 Best Business Plan Software Solutions
Business Plans & Planning
Starting and growing a small business is exciting, but can also get daunting very fast. Even getting a small company off the ground involves making significant decisions every day around operations, marketing, human resources, and financial data. The success of your business directly hinges on how and when you make these decisions. Also, none of these business decisions can be made in a vacuum, they require market research, competitor analysis, and industry analysis.
As a passionate entrepreneur, you might think that since you have a great idea you will figure out the rest with time and everything will fall into place. Unfortunately, that rarely happens. In fact, successful businesses the world over are almost always a combination of solid ideas backed by solid planning and wise use of business plan tools.
The right plan will not only provide you with a roadmap to grow your business, but it is a required business planning tool if you hope to raise capital to start or grow your business.
What is Business Plan Software?
Business plan software helps individual entrepreneurs and small businesses develop and polish their plans. It provides a robust framework or template which allows you to explore your idea and present your vision in concrete ways. Software-driven business plan templates and other business plan software tools are powerful assets for a small or large business.
A comprehensive plan not only gives your company’s history and provides market intelligence, but it also lays out the roadmap for the future. Your plan will help you predict future roadblocks and how the market and your company might look down the road. This allows you to be proactive in helping you survive and thrive.
The right software also helps you create a well-thought-out and well-researched plan which can prove instrumental in attracting investors. With investors comes funding and the chance to see your business start or scale-up. Every investor first thinks of their return on investment before funding any enterprise. By going through a business’s detailed plan, investors are able to gauge the viability and profitability of that business, and hence the probability of them earning a solid return. If your plan is vague and incomplete, then you will have an exceptionally hard time finding investors willing to fund you. Likewise, banks will refuse you a loan if they do not find your plan comprehensive and convincing. As a result, a detailed plan is a must for obtaining capital or a loan.
What Does Business Plan Software Do?
Business plan software allows you to easily create or write a successful plan. The software guides you through the questions your plan must answer. Rather than starting with a blank sheet of paper, the software lets you know exactly what to include in your plan and the order in which it should be completed.
You’ll also gain focus. Rather than thinking about what to include in your plan, you simply answer the questions the software lays out for you. Once you answer the questions, the software organizes and prints your business plan document in the format preferred by investors and lenders.
Finish Your Business Plan in 1 Day!
Don’t you wish there was an easier way to finish your plan and raise money faster?
With Growthink’s Ultimate Business Plan Template, you can finish your plan in just 8 hours or less!
Click here to finish your plan today.
Do I Need Business Plan Software?
Business plan software is extremely helpful to certain individuals. If you like working in web applications and are ok having less control, then software is probably the best option for you. Conversely, if you like typing into a Microsoft Word document, appreciate maximum flexibility, and are comfortable with manipulating Excel spreadsheets, then getting a template in Word and Excel is probably your better option.
Typically, the business plan program you choose will allow you to quickly answer questions rather than having to develop comprehensive answers. For example, when discussing your promotions plan, the software may list your promotional options such as radio advertising, social media marketing, pay-per-click advertising, etc. With planning software, you simply click the options you will employ. Without the program’s aides, you would need to write paragraphs describing each promotional method you will use.
A small business owner may find the strict guidance and assistance a good fit for their needs. Financial planning and forecasting and business goals guidance can be especially valuable for a small company, but the value ultimately depends on the owner’s experience, planning needs, and business planning process.
Key Features of Business Planning Programs
Great software programs make it quick and easy for you to complete your plan. The following features allow you to accomplish this:
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- No matter the tool or application you end up using, you will have to write complete sentences. As an example, you’ll need to craft content to describe your company, products, etc. Great software gives you sample sentences that you can use and edit.
Automated financial statements: creating your plan’s financial statements can be a lengthy and tedious process. Great software allows you to simply enter your assumptions, such as your salaries, prices, expected initial units sold, and business growth rates, and the software then calculates and presents your full financials.
Design options: An important feature of the software is its ability to allow you to choose the look and feel of your plan. For instance, a bakery’s plan should look different than a plan for a hedge fund.
Ability to omit sections: All plans must have the same core sections such as an executive summary, marketing plan, competitive analysis, and financial plan. However, some sub-sections are not relevant for all companies. For example, a distribution plan is required for companies that don’t sell directly to customers. You should be able to omit sections while working through the plan creation process.
Check boxes: An important feature of the software is to show buttons or boxes that you merely need to click. For example, your company’s unique success factors can include the strengths of your management team, marketing plan, partnerships, competitive advantage, etc. Ideally, your software already lists each potential success factor for you. If so, it’s much less work for you to simply check the relevant boxes and explain them, rather than trying to brainstorm your success factors and documenting them from scratch.
Why Shouldn’t I Use Business Planning Software Tools?
If you are uncomfortable working online or are frustrated with technology, then you shouldn’t use business plan software. Rather, you should work in traditional spreadsheets and word processing programs.
Also, if you’d like complete control over your plan, then an online business planning app may not be right for you. Your program will generate your plan for you (typically as a PDF document) when complete. If you want to make several customizations, your software may not be able to handle them. Such customizations might include changing your footers, adding watermarks, including oversized pictures, including documents in your appendix, etc.
Paid vs Free Business Plan Software
The old saying “you get what you pay for” is often true, and in this scenario, the old adage is accurate once again. While there are some free software tools available, they tend to have significant drawbacks and limitations.
The biggest drawback of free software is that they don’t include financial modeling capabilities. Your financial model is one of the most important parts of your plan and the hardest to complete from scratch. If you don’t have a CPA or significant financial and spreadsheet experience, creating your financial model will be very difficult.
Also, free software often skips key questions that investors and lenders must know before considering your company as a funding candidate. For example, if you don’t convey your unique success factors, which most programs neglect, you’ll be at a significant disadvantage in raising funding.
Benefits of Using Business Plan Software
Business plan software provides multiple benefits.
Makes the Process Simple
Business planning software makes the whole process of writing or learning to write a plan easier and more manageable. A business novice would need all the help they can get, but even an expert can sometimes make do with a little helping hand. The right software gives you a step-by-step wizard to guide you through each component of your plan and advise you on what to include and/or exclude from your detailed business plan. The right software will often include sample plans as well.
Saves Time
Working with planning software saves you time. You’ll quickly transform your business ideas and market research into a viable business proposition full of supportive and meaningful data. A business plan app has your plan pre-organized saving you much time and energy.
Collaborative in Nature
Another value-adding feature is that it allows multiple team members to contribute individually to the plan. You can see and review items that have been incorporated by other members of your team. This collaborative spirit lets you take full advantage of the varied talents and competencies of the people on your team.
Assists with Your Financial Projections & Statements
Most people with a non-finance background find it incredibly hard to work on the financial aspect of a plan. Your financial projections include calculating an income statement, projecting cash flow, and creating a balance sheet.
This is a difficult but necessary part of your plan since potential investors will scrutinize this financial data to determine the viability of your business. So, you cannot afford to project incorrect or incomplete numbers. The right software helps convert your assumptions into a complete financial model to insert into your plan.
There is a lot to be gained from working with a good program. The key is finding out which software is right for you and your business. Below we review the 5 best software programs in the market to give you a holistic view of what is available and how to choose wisely.
Review of the 5 Best Business Plan Software Solutions
PlanBuildr
[Note that PlanBuildr is a subsidiary of Growthink.]
PlanBuildr is one of the fastest growing business plan software in the world.
It is also the only software that allows you a free trial: this is the direct link to try PlanBuildr for free.
With over 150,000 entrepreneurs and counting registered on the platform, this business plan builder is a great starting point to masterfully build your plan. PlanBuildr was created by influential leaders and experts in business and financial planning and raising capital for businesses. With a vast array of features available to you, you are able to create the first draft of your plan in just ten minutes. Such a quick delivery time without compromising on quality is unparalleled right now in the market.
Features Available at PlanBuildr
Ease of Use
PlanBuildr offers a great yet simple way to help you get started on your plan. With PlanBuildr you get to complete simple fill-in-the-blank questions that cover every element of your plan. In this short and simple way, PlanBuildr constructs a draft of your plan by using your answers as the base. You just fill in the blanks and PlanBuildr does the rest. Within minutes you get a working draft of your plan.
Strong Financial Modeling Capabilities
PlanBuildr goes the extra mile when it comes to creating complete financial projections for your plan. You just have to enter elementary figures like the number of products you think you will sell in the coming years and PlanBuildr will compute your full five-year financial forecasts.
With this software, you can easily create your income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement within minutes. PlanBuildr is also able to create charts to display these numbers and informative graphs to help present your real accounting data in a way that makes it easy to understand and analyze.
Experience in Every Industry
PlanBuildr has comprehensive experience creating business plans in every industry from hospitality to travel and tourism and from food service to non-profits. PlanBuildr’s portfolio is quite wide and impressive. So, no matter what field your business is in, PlanBuildr can help turn your idea into a successful reality.
Professional Designs
PlanBuildr offers ten skillful designs that will make a professional business plan. Choose any design and see your plan transform into an amazingly well-outlined document that will immediately impress even those who see hundreds of business plans on a daily basis.
On the whole, PlanBuildr is a highly strategic planning tool that creates a world-class plan for you while also suggesting several improvements to further enhance the quality of your plan. It is a great resource to have on your side as you venture out to create a business legacy for yourself. PlanBuildr is deservedly the top of our picks of great business plan software.
Summary:
Price: Free and Paid options
Rating: 5 stars
Quick pros list: user friendly, easy, free/inexpensive
Quick cons list: need an internet connection
Why it’s recommended: PlanBuildr is a quick, easy and inexpensive way to create your plan.
Visit PlanBuidr.com Business Plan Software Here
Growthink’s Ultimate Business Plan Template
Growthink’s Ultimate Business Plan Template is the result of 20+ years of hard work by the renowned business planning expert, and co-founder/president of Growthink, Dave Lavinsky.
Called the business plan expert by sources including Business Week, Lavinsky has been instrumental in helping hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs complete their business plans and raise billions of dollars in funding. After earning his MBA from UCLA’s prestigious Anderson School of Management, Lavinsky has dedicated his career to helping entrepreneurs create winning business plans.
Growthink’s Ultimate Business Plan Template is also one of our top picks because of the sheer number and quality of features it provides a budding business entrepreneur. Also, since it comes as Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel document there is no complicated software to use and you can quickly and easily complete your plan.
Below is a non-exhaustive list of what you can expect when you get the Ultimate Business Plan Template:
Investor Focused
Sometimes when you are working on a business plan by yourself it’s easy to be swept away by the passion and leave practical considerations behind. This becomes evident only when you present your plan to actual investors who then find that your plan lacks focus and direction. With Growthink’s Ultimate Business Plan Template, you are guided into creating a business plan which covers each of the key points investors and lenders need to see. This maximizes your chances of securing funding in the form of equity and/or business loans.
Excellent Customer Service
Apart from step-by-step guidance throughout the whole business plan creation process, Growthink’s Ultimate Business Plan Template provides free customer service year-round. Here dedicated customer support professionals will answer all your queries and help you walk through the different features of Growthink’s Ultimate Business Plan Templates.
They also offer a “Members Area” where you get immediate answers to all your business questions and additional support in the form of samples and resources to aid your developing business plan.
Lifetime Access
When you get Growthink’s Ultimate Business Plan Template you also get lifetime access to it. You can use it multiple times for multiple business endeavors in the future. You just make a single payment and that is it. There are no pesky monthly charges. This is a great deal for a great product.
With tremendous operational, financial, and design capabilities Growthink’s Ultimate Business Plan Template is a comprehensive system to which you can trust your business plan. Growthink is so confident in its services (and rightly so!) that it offers a 365-day money-back guarantee. So, you can try out this immensely useful resource without any monetary pressure.
Summary:
Price: $97
Rating: 5 stars
Quick pros list: quickly and easily create a professional business plan for funding from investors and/or lenders; extremely flexible.
Quick cons list: more expensive than PlanBuildr
Why it’s recommended: This is the gold standard for an easy planning process. If you need funding then there’s no better option.
Check out Growthink’s Ultimate Business Plan Template here
LivePlan
LivePlan, by Palo Alto Software, is another business plan software that offers some decent learning tools and financial services. However, it loses out to the first two business plan software because of its slightly steep learning curve. With LivePlan, you need to invest some time in understanding the software and some might even experience difficulties in working with it.
The user interface can be smoother and more user-friendly. Their pricing model is competitive; their annual and monthly plans are priced at $139.92 and $19.95 respectively which you can choose from depending on your need and budget.
Summary:
Price: $20/month
Rating: 3 stars
Quick pros list: easy to use; fairly intuitive
Quick cons list: clunky in places; expensive ($240/year if paying monthly)
Why it’s recommended: Liveplan is a solid software solution based on years of development and updates.
We’ve done a comparison of Liveplan vs Growthink too for your reference.
PlanGuru
As a business plan software solution, PlanGuru provides over twenty forecasting features that help you create a unique business plan for yourself. Here, you can expect to receive plenty of help with both financial and non-financial aspects of a business plan. PlanGuru assists in creating cash flow statements, income statements, current and future sales projections, P&L statements and balance sheets- all quintessential in a robust business plan.
Unfortunately, pricing is extremely expensive. Their monthly plan is $99/month while their annual plan is $899/year.
Summary:
Price: $99/month or $899/year
Rating: 2 stars
Quick pros list: good software with good financial forecasting capabilities
Quick cons list: their pricing model is too expensive for most entrepreneurs and small business owners
Why it’s recommended: if money isn’t an object, you can use this business plan creation software to build a strong financial model
ABS Ultimate Business Planner
The ABS Ultimate Business Planner helps simplify the process of writing a business plan by providing numerous business resources and sample plans. Their step-by-step guide directs you expertly through your individual business plan while providing some pertinent suggestions along the way.
The product however is a bit “clunky” and hasn’t changed much since it was first launched many years ago.
Summary:
Price: $99
Rating: 2 stars
Quick pros list: includes sample business plans; good financial forecasting capabilities
Quick cons list: price is high for limited features and a bit clunky to use
Why it’s recommended: if none of the other options above fit your needs, this is a worthwhile alternative.
Summary
A well-written business plan will attract and influence investors, giving you the necessary funding, and hence an opportunity, to set up and/or grow your idea. The right tools are essential for helping you and your team accomplish this goal. While there is no best business plan app or best business plan software, it’s worth reviewing the options available to see if there might be a user-friendly, business plan creator that will help you create a successful business plan.
Business Plan Software FAQs
What is Business Plan Software?
Business Plan Software is a suite of applications intended to provide users with the tools they need to build business plans. These programs are designed for entrepreneurs, start-ups, and established businesses looking to expand their operations. The purpose of this software is not only to offer users an easy way to create business plans but also help them monitor their sales efforts and measure their financial performance.
They are typically created for small- and medium-sized companies that operate locally or regionally, although they can be used to create business plans for any size company looking to take advantage of the additional features and functions available within this type of software. Users can also monitor their competitors and offer services and products at a competitive price.
Business plan software is used to identify potential obstacles and opportunities, analyze business environments or markets, and measure the performance of a company's workforce for better business management. It allows users to create budgets and forecasts in order to project cash flow and income statements, manage expenses and revenue streams, establish development strategies, establish employee benefits and compensate executives, and monitor performance.
What is the Easiest Way to Complete My Business Plan?
Growthink's Ultimate Business Plan Template allows you to quickly and easily complete your Business Plan.
What Should Entrepreneurs Look For In Business Plan Maker Software?
Many entrepreneurs seek a free business plan generator online to develop their business plan. Importantly, you must make sure the free plan maker not only includes the body of your plan but the financials. The business plan financials, which must include your income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement, are essential to your business plan, particularly if you are seeking funding.
Finish Your Business Plan in 1 Day!
Don’t you wish there was a faster, easier way to finish your business plan?
With Growthink’s Ultimate Business Plan Template you can finish your plan in just 8 hours or less!
Click here to finish your business plan today.
