Top Business Planning Software and Tools to Watch in 2025

If you’re involved in any kind of business, you understand that having a solid business plan is vital for success.

Whether you acquired an existing business through a business broker or launched your own startup, crafting an effective plan remains crucial.

Creating a comprehensive business plan can be a challenging and lengthy process, especially when gathering accurate industry data and analyzing competitors. A well-prepared plan is essential for entrepreneurs aiming to establish a startup from scratch. It can assist you in securing funding, hitting key business milestones, and managing daily operations like inventory and payroll.

In this article, I’ve reviewed and ranked top business planning software based on factors such as price, features, teamwork capabilities, integrations, and customer support.

Let’s start exploring the best options.

Here are my recommendations for the best tools to develop your business plan.

Ideal for small businesses seeking an affordable and user-friendly planning solution ($15/month).

LivePlan, formerly called Business Plan Pro, is a platform designed to assist with tracking business progress. It provides over 500 sample business plans for inspiration and helps visualize your entire project. It also offers step-by-step guidance via integrated examples.

For small and new businesses, it allows the creation of a single comprehensive plan to present opportunities to clients. You can update and modify this plan anytime to ensure it remains current.

Additional features include building financial forecasts and reports, using an SBA-approved format, team collaboration, and industry benchmarking tools for competitor analysis. Its automated financials and presentation options enable transforming a simple plan into a detailed document, projecting financial outcomes over the next five years.

Key Features:

Pros:

Pricing:

LivePlan offers two pricing tiers:

All plans include automatic financials, access to over 500 sample plans, forecasting tools, a guided planning interface, performance dashboards, and more. Though there’s no free trial, a 60-day refund policy is available.

Designed for startups and entrepreneurs seeking flexible planning options.Small businesses seeking access to a funding platform can subscribe for just $20.75 per month.

Bizplan is an innovative business planning software designed to simplify the process of building a comprehensive business plan. It offers features like a guided builder, drag-and-drop templates, automatic financial projections, and an online fundraising tool, all aimed at helping you craft your plan and secure funding.

The platform guides you through creating a business plan step-by-step by prompting you with questions, making the process straightforward and manageable. You can customize your plan easily using its drag-and-drop templates, choosing what to include or remove. Additionally, Bizplan’s Financial Command Center allows you to monitor critical financial data—such as salary forecasts, revenue estimates, and balance sheets—from a single, centralized dashboard.

Bizplan also provides valuable resources including:

Key features include the ability to raise capital online by connecting with potential investors through Fundable.com, which is free for startups and small businesses. Bizplan also offers over 650 expert-led masterclass videos, self-guided courses, and more than 1,000 how-to guides to assist your growth. Its cloud-based platform allows you to control who views or comments on your sensitive business information from anywhere.

Advantages of using Bizplan include engaging visual layouts for your business plan, a progress tracking system to organize your tasks, and comprehensive reports like income statements, balance sheets, and customer churn analysis. It supports collaboration through threaded feedback comments and enables quick sharing of your plan via simple links.

Pricing options for Bizplan include a monthly plan at $29, an annual plan at $20.75 per month (billed yearly at $249), and a lifetime access option for a one-time payment of $349. All plans provide full access to all features, courses, masterclasses, and guides.

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With options tailored for both startups and established companies, MasterPlan Lean offers various pricing tiers with multiple modules:

Ideal for comprehensive forecasting and budgeting tasks using innovative business planning tools ($99/month).

PlanGuru is designed for small and mid-sized businesses, as well as non-profits, helping them budget, forecast financially, and plan strategically. In just minutes, you can put together detailed analyses. It supports three main functions: budgeting and financial analytics, rolling forecasts, and long-term strategic planning. These features enable you to set financial goals, analyze your current situation, predict future outcomes based on profitability and cash flow, and explore different scenarios to prepare for risks and opportunities. The software can generate projections up to 10 years using integrated balance sheets, income statements, and cash flow reports. It also allows integrations with Xero, QuickBooks, QuickBooks Online, and Excel Import for unlimited plan creation. Moreover, its built-in report builder helps you export reports to Word, Excel, and PDF.

Key features include scenario analysis, which evaluates the potential impact of various events to aid decision-making; PlanGuru Launch, a service providing personalized assistance for complex projects tailored to your timeline and costs; and over 20 forecasting methods for predicting financial outcomes over a decade. The software also offers financial ratios, business valuation tools, and comprehensive financial statement structures. It supports unlimited budgeting, in-app reporting tools, dashboards for tracking performance, and engagement features for professional accountants.

Pricing:

PlanGuru provides several pricing options for businesses, nonprofits, and advisors, with comparable rates across the plans.

For both business and nonprofit users as well as advisors, the pricing is structured as follows: a monthly plan at $99 with an additional user costing $29 per month, or an annual plan at $899 with extra users for $299 annually. Customers can select either a cloud-based platform or a desktop application for Windows, and all plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Heading: 5. SmallBizGo.

SmallBizGo is tailored for small enterprises and nonprofit organizations, focusing on creating professional financial reports at a cost of $39 per month. It offers tools for easily generating statements such as income, cash flow, and balance sheets, with options for multi-year financial projections. This platform was founded by NFL Hall of Famer and entrepreneur Fran Tarkenton, aiming to assist users in developing a comprehensive business plan aligned with their goals.

It provides customizable templates designed specifically for different business sectors, along with expert guidance to help you craft the exact documents needed. Its step-by-step wizard simplifies the process by allowing you to enter business details across various segments, guiding you through each part of the plan. Additionally, the platform features an online calendar tool to coordinate meetings, events, and appointments, with automatic reminders to keep you organized.

Another notable feature is its capacity to generate detailed financial statements such as income statements, cash flow analyses, and balance sheets, with projections spanning multiple years.

Heading: Features of SmallBizGo

SmallBizGo includes a range of useful features such as the ability to create comprehensive financial statements, customize business plans using around 100 templates with editable sections, and project revenues on an annual, product-based, or category basis. It also helps forecast multiple revenue streams based on several key performance indicators.

Pros of using SmallBizGo include offering specialized reporting templates for industries like insurance and restaurants, tracking expenses related to sales staff, such as telephone costs, postage, and bonuses, as well as detailed accounting for physical stores—including security deposits, start dates, and monthly rental costs. Users can also manage HR expenses separately and even import pre-written text from word processing documents for convenience.

Pricing for the platform is set at $39 per month, giving small businesses accessible tools to develop professional financial and business plans with integrated features designed to support growth and investment attraction.

GoSmallBiz offers an annual subscription priced at $199. In addition to this plan, there are various smaller packages and one-time services that you can include, such as obtaining a Tax ID/EIN, HR Document Builder, Business Plan Software, among others. The main plan features include access to business plan software, customer relationship management with email marketing, HR document tools, legal and business forms, and a strategic business Roadmap.

Ideal for team collaboration and automatic plan generation, starting at $11 per month.

Enloop is a comprehensive business plan software that autonomously writes and assesses business plans for viability. It also facilitates remote teamwork by allowing multiple stakeholders, such as your team members, accountants, and partners, to view and edit the plan from different locations. The platform automatically integrates your financial data with your business details to generate personalized plans. You simply input relevant information in its various sections, and Enloop automatically produces descriptive content for each part of your plan.

It also helps identify the critical issues in your business plan and suggests automatic updates to address them. You can customize content, add tables and images, and include financial forecasts as needed. The platform generates pass/fail reports and certificates to help you analyze and resolve issues before they become problematic.

Key features include a real-time performance score that reflects the quality of your plan, support for over 100 currency formats, and the generation of 16 financial ratios. These ratios can be compared against competitors to gauge your standing. Pros of using Enloop include its ability to produce detailed financial forecasts, its free trial period of seven days without requiring credit card details, and its convenient templates for quick report creation. The software also visualizes data through colorful charts and allows collaboration with up to five users worldwide.

Pricing starts at $11 per month, providing an affordable option for entrepreneurs seeking automated business planning tools.

Enloop offers two subscription plans: the Detailed plan costs $19.95 per month or $11 per month if paid annually, while the Performance plan is $39.95 monthly or $24 per month with an annual payment. New users can try either plan free for 7 days, with no credit card required.

Ideal for developing modern business plans suited for today’s needs. It costs $45 annually. IdeaBuddy allows users to quickly construct business models and collaborate seamlessly with team members. In today’s business environment, cooperation and sharing ideas are essential, and this platform excels at supporting those activities.

Key Features: The software enables creating a concise, one-page idea plan to stimulate brainstorming, provides a step-by-step business guide to turn concepts into fully-formed enterprises, offers financial planning tools to evaluate the viability of ideas, and helps craft comprehensive business plans suitable for presenting to investors, partners, or stakeholders.

Pros: You can learn from examples of successful companies in your industry, build a solid structure for your concept in under an hour, share your ideas and collaborate on improvements, and access numerous financial calculators to check your progress.

Pricing: The platform provides three subscription tiers—monthly or yearly—with a special lifetime plan. The monthly options are: the Dreamer plan at $15, supporting one idea and one collaborator; the Founder plan at $25, supporting three ideas and three collaborators; and the Team plan at $45, supporting up to thirty ideas and thirty collaborators.

Highly recommended for industry-specific business plan templates, priced at $299 annually.

iPlanner.NET provides comprehensive tools for creating business plans and financial models. It features a dynamic business modeling framework that allows real-time collaboration with team members, making the process efficient and interactive. The platform includes ready-to-use templates tailored to various industries, such as restaurant or venture capital plans, and also supports elevator pitches. Its financial engine enables analysis of key metrics like sales forecasts, pricing strategies, and sales volumes. All saved projects have unique, secure URLs, ensuring your work is protected and easy to access.To assist your team in sharing projects efficiently, iPlanner provides a comprehensive platform that also offers mentoring, valuable resources, and support tailored for small businesses and individual entrepreneurs.

Key features include the ability to develop a tailored marketing strategy, covering industry specifics, target audience, and competitive landscape, along with a detailed target market plan. The platform connects users with a network of expert mentors who offer personalized guidance in creating business plans and identifying potential investors. Additionally, iPlanner supplies sample language for each component of your business plan, accompanied by tips on what information to include, simplifying the planning process.

Advantages of using iPlanner include customer support through email and detailed how-to guides, access to pre-made, industry-specific templates for custom business plan creation, and seamless collaboration through document uploads such as reports and presentations. The platform also integrates content from various external sources like websites, MS Word, Excel, and corporate intranets, all backed up regularly on the cloud to ensure data security.

Pricing varies according to the number of plans you wish to develop. The options include:
– Level A: Up to 3 plans for $59 annually
– Level B: Up to 5 plans for $99 annually
– Level C: Up to 10 plans for $159 annually
– Level D: Up to 50 plans for $1,250 annually
– Level E: Up to 100 plans for $2,550 annually
– Level F: Up to 200 plans for $4,950 annually

Business Sorter is an excellent choice for creating visually engaging business plans at $10 per month. This cloud-based software offers comprehensive content covering six core areas: sales, finance, branding, personnel, operations, and products/services. It helps users manage finances, handle operational tasks, plan marketing efforts, and prepare for businesses of varying sizes and durations. Featuring a card system with 273 cards representing different business scenarios, users can add, delete, or customize these cards as needed, keeping all thoughts and strategies centralized. The platform provides helpful advice and tips at every stage to facilitate effective strategy execution.

Key features include progress tracking through task notes and recent activity, resource management by assigning tasks, setting deadlines, and budgeting, as well as the ability to jot down ideas and important notes directly within the plan. Benefits include managing up to 40 business plans from a single dashboard, real-time collaboration with unlimited users, a 14-day free trial, regular free updates, autosaving, and strong data protection.

Pricing for Business Sorter is also flexible, allowing you to choose based on your specific needs and scale.

Business Sorter offers four different pricing options based on the size of your team. For small teams of up to three users, it costs $10 each month. Medium-sized teams of up to ten users pay $30 monthly, while larger teams of twenty users are billed at $80 per month. For unlimited users, prices are provided upon request through a custom quote. Discounted rates are available if you opt for an annual payment plan. All plans allow you to create up to 40 business plans, and they include features like secure data protection, accessibility on any device, team management through delegation, and clear communication tools.

Best suited for designing visual business plans, infographics, reports, and data visualizations (starting at $19/month).

Venngage is a versatile design tool that helps you craft business plans and illustrate your ideas through visuals, infographics, and detailed reports. It simplifies the process of defining market analysis, projections, financial goals, and more in a compelling visual format.

Creating a business plan with Venngage involves just a few easy steps:

Venngage allows you to incorporate your own brand visuals, fonts, and color schemes. It also provides access to over 70 professionally curated fonts for creating attractive and consistent business visuals.

Key features include:

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By opting for quarterly plans, you can save 12%, and selecting annual payments offers a 20% discount.

Xero is a popular accounting software ideal for small to medium-sized businesses, especially when creating a business plan. It provides two types of templates: a quick one-page version and a comprehensive multi-page format. The one-page template is perfect for startups or initial ideas, while the longer version is suitable for including detailed information. However, Xero doesn’t support online editing directly—users must request templates by entering their name and email. Besides templates, Xero offers features like inventory tracking to assist in developing your business plan.

While Xero is a solid choice, it isn’t the only tool for this purpose. For comparison, check out my review of Xero versus QuickBooks to see which platform better suits your needs.

Key features of Xero include:

Advantages of using Xero:

Pricing details show three options, with costs increasing based on features and support, offering flexible plans to fit different business sizes and needs.

Every company requires a strategic plan that guides its journey toward success. In earlier times, these plans were long, complex documents that had to be written manually, making updates and searches difficult and prone to errors. Due to time constraints, teams often couldn’t complete their plans, which slowed down decision-making and impacted overall productivity. This problem paved the way for business plan software solutions.

Nowadays, these digital tools enable users to craft polished, professional plans quickly. They streamline the process of inputting financial data, operational strategies, and business goals. Acting as a centralized hub, they store all relevant business information in one place. These tools also generate insights and help showcase results to attract customers and investors. Notable options include PlanGuru, Bizplan, and LivePlan.

Since every company is unique, so are their plans. However, certain features tend to be universally valuable and sought after in SaaS planning tools.

Here are some of the key features to look for:

Customizing your business plan is crucial for making it truly your own. An intuitive drag-and-drop interface simplifies the editing process, allowing you to organize sections easily and tailor the plan to match your business’s objectives. This feature is especially useful when aligning the plan with specific strategic goals.

Financial projections are vital for understanding potential earnings and planning for the future. This feature helps predict revenue based on current sales data, supporting both short- and long-term planning. It also serves as a persuasive tool when seeking funding or convincing stakeholders. For example, Planguru offers reliable financial forecasting capabilities.

User-friendly tools should be accessible to beginners and experts alike. Many platforms include tutorial materials, videos, and guides to facilitate easy navigation and effective use. For instance, Bizplan provides a library of educational content to help users become comfortable with the software.

Businesses typically involve multiple stakeholders who need access to the plan. Therefore, a good software solution must support collaboration by allowing team members to view, edit, and track changes. LivePlan is an example of a platform that fosters effective teamwork in business planning.

Monitoring key metrics and analyzing performance helps businesses identify strengths and areas for improvement. Tools like LivePlan include analytics features that enable you to track operations, compare with competitors, and implement necessary adjustments for growth.

Managing finances is critical for any business. Integrating with banking systems allows seamless access to account balances, cash flow data, and statements. For instance, Xero connects with banking platforms to handle invoicing, inventory management, payroll, reconciliation, and more, providing comprehensive financial oversight.

Most business planning tools are similar in operation, even if their interfaces differ. Let’s walk through how to use a typical platform like LivePlan, which can be employed at any stage of your planning process.

Following setup, you will focus on defining your business strategy. This includes creating a one-page pitch to summarize your idea, unique selling proposition, target markets, financial forecasts, and key milestones. You can export this pitch as a slide deck for presentations or sharing via email and social media. Most platforms, including LivePlan, guide you through these steps to make your planning process straightforward and effective.

How It Works | LivePlan

Most solutions offer free trials, giving you the chance to familiarize yourself with the interface and assess if the software aligns with your business objectives. Some also include tools for daily business operations, like continuity planning.

Starting a new business can be a complex process, involving brainstorming ideas, developing a business plan, choosing a legal structure, creating a website, and planning marketing strategies. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed initially. However, it’s crucial to realize that a well-crafted business plan is the foundation for your success. Without it, other steps may falter.

Creating a detailed business plan is vital for scaling your operations and attracting investment or financing. Fortunately, many software tools can assist you in building an effective plan tailored to your needs and track your project as your business develops.

The market offers numerous options, and my top recommended picks include 11 popular business plan software platforms. Each platform has unique features designed to simplify the planning process and meet different business requirements.

While no single solution may fit all needs perfectly, the leading software options provide features like comprehensive templates, financial forecasting, and collaboration tools. For example, LivePlan simplifies complex business ideas into clear, concise plans with features like extensive sample plans, step-by-step guidance, automatic financial projections, and easy sharing.

Be sure to explore all options, weighing their advantages and disadvantages, so you select the best fit for your business. If you want to expand your knowledge, check out related posts on accounting software, tax tools, legal services, and business insurance to support your business growth.

I’m eager to hear which business plan software you plan to try. Feel free to share your thoughts or suggest other tools I might have missed in the comments.