Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Anaplan vs Planful comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Anaplan
Ranking in Business Performance Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Production Planning (4th), Predictive Analytics (4th)
Planful
Ranking in Business Performance Management
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Financial Close Software (20th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Business Performance Management category, the mindshare of Anaplan is 10.3%, down from 14.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Planful is 2.7%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Performance Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Anaplan10.3%
Planful2.7%
Other87.0%
Business Performance Management
 

Featured Reviews

Antonio Flor - PeerSpot reviewer
Real-time data integration enhances operational efficiency and flexibility
As a client developer and solutions architect, I use Anaplan for building modules and deploying logic end-to-end. I work closely with the business in an agile manner to ensure the model aligns with business needs Anaplan offers flexibility in building different options within the platform. The…
reviewer1110591 - PeerSpot reviewer
It has helped us speed up the turnaround time on our consolidation, and we haven't had anything come up that the program has not been able to solve
The part that we liked about Excel is that it had a better interface in terms of just graphical illustration of our results. So, if we wanted to look at our financial trends and put it into some type of graphical interface for people to look at, we still have to leverage Excel for that. The dashboards aren't as usable as maybe some of the other solutions, such as Tableau or other BI tools. The application that we use today for our BI tools is Tableau. That's how people absorb information. We don't really use the functionality or dashboards within Planful because of the robustness of Tableau. That's our single source of data. If Planful was better or more comparable in terms of features and functionality, we could probably leverage that in Planful.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The features that I have found most valuable are that it is web-based and easy to use."
"The solution works very well for budgeting."
"The solution scales well."
"Anaplan is a three-dimensional cloud platform that is good for analyzing data, visualization, integration, terrific for visibility."
"Anaplan integrates well into my clients' core systems. The ability to aggregate the forms within the dashboarding is also useful. Only one of my clients has implemented workflow. Their usage has been very light. Dashboarding capability is probably the biggest one. My clients like having the ability to aggregate, slice and dice, and dynamically adjust things in the dashboards."
"The most valuable feature of Anaplan is machine learning. The solution is constantly evolving from feedback. Additionally, there is a wide range of training material online."
"I believe Anaplan is a new cloud tool, and from time to time, there's a lot of improvement that the Anaplan company deploys with the system. So, with that improvement, we need to really adapt and know the new system trends."
"Anaplan's connected planning feature is its most valuable aspect, allowing for seamless financial planning, HR planning, and updates."
"It has helped us speed up the turnaround time on our consolidation. We don't have to do reporting in Excel anymore, which has cut down on the errors and the efficiency of our close time."
 

Cons

"The integration technique should be a little bit easier."
"One key area of improvement is pricing."
"I would rate scalability between six and seven. Anaplan had issues before, but the new Polaris engine solves them, although its implementation is more challenging compared to the Classic engine."
"The tool needs to work on its integration with MS Excel and MS Word. The tool does not allow data analysis in spreadsheets which is possible on other platforms. I want the solution to be more collaborative to facilitate decision-making in organizations."
"Automation needs to be built into this solution."
"The dashboard could be better. Because within a dashboard or report, you have to do a lot of scrolling. You need to scroll down because the table doesn't fit in a single view. That's why even the users aren't happy with that kind of user experience. They need to scroll to see all the data, and it could be better if it fits in just one page. That way, you can see everything. In the next release, I want automation that's connected to Anaplan. For example, to load master data from SAP to Anaplan. I don't know if this already exists, but a log where you can see the progress and see if there's an error will also help. It would be better to give you the error message, for example, if there is an error within the automated process importing to Anaplan."
"There are so many business rules to set up in the system that as a business user it's hard to gauge what they're doing and it's possible to get lost."
"The cloud engine slows down when working with a large dataset. It still lacks a powerful engine."
"The part that we liked about Excel is that it had a better interface in terms of just graphical illustration of our results. So, if we wanted to look at our financial trends and put it into some type of graphical interface for people to look at, we still have to leverage Excel for that. The dashboards aren't as usable as maybe some of the other solutions, such as Tableau or other BI tools."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The license is a yearly subscription. There are three licensing tiers: the model builder, planner, and the reporting."
"This is a yearly subscription. So a customer initially buys a workspace and specifies how much GB they want. The minimum starts at around 30 GB. You can buy multiple workspaces."
"A value-for-money product and a very reasonable price compared to competitors like SAP or IBM."
"This is an expensive product and if the price were reduced then it would attract more customers."
"The price of the solution is expensive."
"The tool’s pricing is reasonable and competitive with other solutions."
"The entry-level is anywhere from about $30,000 to $50,000 a year, however, it does go up significantly after that depending on the complexity and how much space you're using."
"We are currently using a free workspace license for 90 days. We are satisfied with the price of the solution. There are additional costs if you want more storage, the default limit is 250 GB."
"Right now, everything is on a three-year term contract, and that is our main cost."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Business Performance Management solutions are best for your needs.
867,497 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Retailer
7%
Computer Software Company
21%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise12
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What are your main use cases for Anaplan?
Anaplan is an industry-leading cloud-based corporate performance management (CPM) platform that combines business planning and analytics in a single solution. It is designed to assist organizations...
Is Board better than Anaplan as a Business Intelligence (BI) solution?
We've had several FP&A departments include Anaplan in their analytics discussions, and while BI information IS generated, the focus is generally on compiling input from various sources and simu...
Is Anaplan better than SAP ERP?
There are different aspects of both Anaplan and SAP ERP that I like and dislike. Anaplan improves forecast accuracy and drives up the quality of analytics. Rather than spending all of their time co...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Host Analytics
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

HP, ForeScout, DocuSign, EAT, Pandora, Aviva, Intel Security, Zalora
Tandem Diabetes Care, Reed Exhibitions, SkyGolf, Zep Inc., Thule, Stylesight, Schumacher Group, Parsons Electric, Nextag, Groupon
Find out what your peers are saying about Anaplan vs. Planful and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,497 professionals have used our research since 2012.