Anaplan vs Workiva Wdesk comparison

Anaplan and Workiva are both solutions in the Business Performance Management category. Anaplan is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.4, while Workiva is ranked #11 with an average rating of 7.0. Anaplan holds a 6.7% mindshare in BPM, compared to Workiva’s 3.4% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of Anaplan users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 71% of Workiva users who would recommend it.

Anaplan

Read 35 Anaplan reviews

5,329 Views
2,558 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Workiva Wdesk

Read 7 Workiva Wdesk reviews

3,138 Views
910 Comparison Views

71% willing to recommend

Anaplan

Workiva Wdesk

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

Anaplan and Workiva Wdesk compete in the enterprise software market focusing on planning and reporting. Anaplan appears to have the upper hand in scalability, while Workiva Wdesk excels in collaboration for real-time teamwork.

Features: Anaplan offers comprehensive planning and forecasting with robust modeling capabilities, making it appealing for organizations needing scalable solutions for complex scenarios. It provides extensive options for "what-if" analysis and seamless data integration. Workiva Wdesk is distinguished by its integrated reporting, compliance, and accurate data linkage across documents, which are crucial for regulatory requirements. Its standardized data flow allows easy document management and dynamic updates.

Room for Improvement: Anaplan could enhance its user-experience design to reduce the learning curve and streamline initial training processes. It's important to advance its collaboration tools to better support real-time teamwork across dispersed teams. Further improvements in its reporting capabilities could help bridge gaps in regulatory compliance. Workiva Wdesk might refine its integration with non-ERP systems to expand usability across diverse IT environments. Enhancing mobile accessibility could improve workflow efficiency for users on the go. Continued focus on improving scalability would better accommodate growing enterprises.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Anaplan provides a flexible SaaS model that supports easy integration and customization, although some users find the learning curve steep without proper training. Workiva Wdesk ensures seamless implementation and outstanding customer support, facilitating rapid onboarding and minimizing downtime, which benefits smaller teams needing quick adjustments.

Pricing and ROI: Anaplan's pricing reflects its rich feature set and powerful capabilities, often leading to a higher initial setup cost but delivering significant returns through improved process efficiencies over time. Workiva Wdesk, while perceived sometimes with higher subscription costs, offers value through accelerated compliance processes and reduced manual workloads, providing solid ROI, especially for clients in regulated industries.

To learn more, read our detailed Anaplan vs. Workiva Wdesk Report (Updated: April 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Anaplan vs. Workiva Wdesk

April 2026

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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

1st

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Production Planning (3rd), Predictive Analytics (3rd)

Workiva Wdesk

Ranking in Business Performance Management

11th

Average Rating

7.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

GRC (9th), Financial Close Software (7th)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Business Performance Management category, the mindshare of Anaplan is 6.7%, down from 13.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Workiva Wdesk is 3.4%, up from 3.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Business Performance Management Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Anaplan	6.7%
Workiva Wdesk	3.4%
Other	89.9%

Business Performance Management

Featured Reviews

Segun Oladele

Associate Manager, Accounting at BIC

Reporting and forecasting have become more automated through intuitive data organization and flexible number calendarization

I do not have any improvements from my own end at this time.There are some specific features or functionality that I would like to see included in Anaplan in the future. From what we have been using, I do not think there is any specific one because we import and export numbers. Importing and exporting with CSV files is already available in Anaplan. I do not have any special requests from Anaplan. I still decided to give Anaplan an eight because I have not seen a specific dashboard on Anaplan. Anaplan could have a dashboard where you can see the flow of your numbers displayed on pictorials rather than just saying this is the number. Simple dashboards should be implemented.

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reviewer2510292

Corporate ESG Analyst at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees

Has cross-functional connectivity but improvement is needed in script encoding

The tool's deployment is quick. Once the program is set up, you're ready to collect data and connect it to your report. The deployment team's size depends on the size of the company and how many different data providers you're utilizing. Some companies have one person doing everything, while others have a huge team. We're on the latter end of it, with many people involved. One great thing about the platform is that everything is consolidated in one place, providing a single resource for everyone. This is a benefit. The maintenance of the solution depends on the experience of the person managing the company's program. The company might have a contractor handling the back end and software management if they're low-level and only analyzing the data. However, if you have someone experienced with software and script encoding, that person might be the analyst and managing the program. Generally, most people are just analysts and not managing the software. There's an opportunity for improvement in user management of their software, and I hope they address this gap before the year ends.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's real-time connected planning, so the calculations are pretty much seamless as far as your model is connected."

"The solution works very well for budgeting."

"The forecasting and planning cycles that used to take months to collaborate now only take a week to finish and be worked upon."

"Anaplan's connected planning feature is its most valuable aspect, allowing for seamless financial planning, HR planning, and updates."

"Because of that flexibility and ability to build models in the way you want to build it, it means you can tailor it to the company's requirements."

"Anaplan has helped to adapt to market changes, and its scenario planning feature is used for forecasting, with integration capabilities that streamline data consolidation across JD Edwards, Power BI, and HFM through a wonderful and simple interface."

"Anaplan has positively impacted my organization by reducing the time my team previously spent hours on reporting, and now this time has been minimized, and they are easily maintaining things in Anaplan."

"Anaplan offers flexibility in building different options within the platform."

More Anaplan pros

"It makes the compliance process more efficient and more effective."

"The cross-functionality between connectivity, whether through API connections between different software platforms or the connection of data collection to the actual written ESG report, is highly valuable. The connectivity of all these aspects significantly aids in data assurance, which I consider a bonus."

"Workiva Wdesk has a flow diagram that is standardized, making it easy for people to file documents on ECDAs, which are in HTML format."

"The collaboration within the platform is valuable."

"The most valuable feature is its ability to easily upload and update financial results, creating a dynamic data sheet."

"It helps you to maintain a backup of your data, including the connectivity with the tables, which provides a user-friendly way to handle and access your files."

"Workiva Wdesk is pretty good in terms of getting the data from the system, automating the reporting schedules...It has a very good integration with ERP tools."

Cons

"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 negative is that the higher the flexibility, the higher is the complexity. That can act against you as a negative because it does require a model builder or a coder/developer."

"Anaplan is a relatively expensive piece of software."

"Anaplan could be improved with a stronger consolidation module."

"Anaplan can be improved, particularly regarding latency issues when running deployments that may cause the system to hang."

"A better presentation layer would certainly take it a notch higher."

"The visualization tools in the product are limited in comparison to other reporting tools."

"Anaplan is a relatively expensive piece of software."

More Anaplan cons

"One area where Workiva Wdesk could improve is by ensuring that its cloud-based system is fully compatible with the most current versions of PowerPoint and Excel."

"The speed must be improved."

"The tool's script encoding needs to be updated to make it more user-friendly and less of a manual process when changes are made to a company's program. Those changes happen frequently due to mandatory or voluntary reporting requirements, leading to lost linkage connections that must be manually reset each time a change is made. This aspect is not functional now, and I see it as an opportunity for improvement."

"Regarding the solution, reporting has certain areas that can be considered for improvement."

"With this product, it's more about the integrated data model where you can have a one-to-many/many-to-one relationship between your policies and processes, risks, and controls. They need to showcase how you can put those pieces together."

"At this point, I don't see a compelling reason to invest in Workiva. It may be necessary for compliance and controlling the version of SCC, but not everyone needs its high-end capabilities."

"The most critical issue is the need to shift between uppercase and lowercase."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost of Anaplan is a challenge for clients, especially if they don't have an ongoing long-term use case for it. It's a $50,000 licensing fee just to get started. Clients need a strong business case to switch from Excel to Anaplan. But if clients have used something similar in the past, such as Hyperion or other solutions, that's not a factor because they know what to expect."

"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."

"The price of the solution is expensive."

"The license is a yearly subscription. There are three licensing tiers: the model builder, planner, and the reporting."

"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."

"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."

"The tool’s pricing is reasonable and competitive with other solutions."

More Anaplan pricing and cost advice

"Our clients in Asia think that the solution is too expensive."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

15%

Manufacturing Company

Construction Company

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	10
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	17

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	1
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	5

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Workiva Wdesk?

The tool's script encoding needs to be updated to make it more user-friendly and less of a manual process when changes are made to a company's program. Those changes happen frequently due to mandat...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Workiva Wdesk?

I've been working with the tool's script encoding departments and top management to address gaps in their script encoding. They are working towards closing these gaps to ensure we can continue usin...

See all answers

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Compared 8% of the time

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Compared 5% of the time

Longview Analytics vs Anaplan

Compared 5% of the time

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Compared 8% of the time

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Compared 4% of the time

OneStream XF vs Workiva Wdesk

Compared 4% of the time

Scytale vs Workiva Wdesk

Compared 4% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Anaplan

April 2026

Download Anaplan product report

Buyer's Guide

Workiva Wdesk

March 2026

Download Workiva Wdesk product report

Also Known As

No data available

Wdesk

Overview

Anaplan is a cloud-based planning and performance management platform with documented use cases in finance, sales, supply chain, marketing, IT and HR. At the core of Anaplan's technology is a single hub where business users can build, deploy, maintain, and share models without coding or reliance on IT personnel.

With Anaplan You Can:

Accelerate revenue growth
Convert data into market opportunity
Drive higher sales performance
Gain market share
Improve customer satisfaction
See edge-to-edge across your company
Achieve business and technology goals
Become agile and resilient with continuous models and forecasts

The Anaplan Platform Is:

Flexible
Scalable
Collaborative
Secure
Multi-dimensional
Built to help businesses think ahead and rapidly adapt to change

Anaplan Benefits:

Illuminate blind spots and hidden opportunities.
Easily create a shareable, living representation of how your business actually works.
Dynamic planning allows you to continuously adapt to market changes and other changing circumstances effectively.
Information is always readily available and can be easily shared with all teams across your enterprise.
Anaplan provides intelligent decision-making. The platform gives you all the information you need to make business decisions and also gives you the ability to run several “what if” scenarios to determine which decision is best based on a large range of variables - at record speed, instead of it taking days or weeks to complete.
By using Anaplan, you can adapt to changes very quickly. You can consider all of the possible options before responding in real time.
Anaplan can be used remotely from wherever you are.
Anaplan will help your organization stay focused and on target. You can stay in control with the ability to run scenario calculations quickly and use the information to make adjustments as needed.
Anaplan provides accurate, real-time data so you don’t have to worry about the risk of bad data. In turn, this boosts shareholder confidence because Anaplan’s platform mitigates the risks associated with incorrect data.
Anaplan’s Connected Planning helps you meet regulatory requirements. All the relevant business data is held in one place, therefore making adjustments easier to implement quickly. With Connected Planning, results also have a full audit trail.

Anaplan Features:

Hyperscale computing: Anaplan eliminates the “messy middle” caused by out-of-date, siloed signals.
Integrated and dynamic signal set: This feature incorporates internal and external factors, relationships, and market context across functions which can all be seamlessly integrated.
Responsive unified system: Anaplan’s high-fidelity, responsive, and unified system for execution and accountability is reliable, accurate, and traceable.
Real-time insights: Detect signals hidden in your systems and gain insight into every asset, resource, risk, and change to help provide decision clarity.
Unlimited multi-dimensional scenarios: Anaplan helps your organization run unlimited multi-dimensional scenarios to identify ideal plans of action.
Synchronization: Using Anaplan, you can synchronize execution and readiness. Anaplan enables autonomous and coordinated in-market action by connecting headquarters to your most remote outposts.

Reviews from Real Users:

"Anaplan's in-memory calculation engine is super-fast compared to the old tools we previously used. You enter the data and everything shows up in one go.” - Sandeep A., Lead Analyst at a retailer

"This product has a very good modeling feature, and its graphical representation of visualizations has also been valuable.” - Raghavendra K., Lead Consultant at a tech services company

"Anaplan is a three-dimensional cloud platform that is good for analyzing data, visualization, integration, terrific for visibility.” - Anaplan model builder at a tech services company

Anaplan

Wdesk is used across the enterprise to support hundreds of data collaboration, reporting, and compliance processes. Use Wdesk to:

Optimize your structured and composite reports
Improve trust in your data, reports, and presentations
Transform processes to enable insight

Workiva

Sample Customers

HP, ForeScout, DocuSign, EAT, Pandora, Aviva, Intel Security, Zalora

Noodles Company, eBay, Winnebago, American Assets Trust, AmericanEnterprise, Calpian, Capstone Infrastructure, Cascades, Circor International, Coeur Mining, Davey, Dr Pepper Snapple

Buyer's Guide

Anaplan vs. Workiva Wdesk

April 2026

Free Report: Anaplan vs. Workiva Wdesk

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