Each tool, and who should skip it
Upmetrics
OUR PICKMost people: a full draft, the forecast, and tracking in one place
The AI drafts each section and builds a three-year forecast from the same inputs, so the written plan and the numbers cannot drift apart. It also tracks plan against actuals with read-only QuickBooks and Xero sync, so the plan stays useful after it is written rather than becoming a document you filed. Cheapest verified entry price on this page at $7/mo.
Not for you if
Anyone who wants to try before paying — we have no free tier, and IdeaBuddy does. Anyone who wants one lifetime payment rather than a subscription should look at Bizplan, and anyone modelling ten years out should look at Brixx, because our forecast horizon is three. Our money-back window is 15 days against LivePlan's 35.
Pricing: Starter $7/mo, Premium $14/mo, Professional $37/mo billed annually; $9, $19 and $49 billed monthly.
Bizplanr
ALSO OURSA free AI first draft, with nothing to pay and nothing to cancel
Answer a handful of questions and it generates a complete business plan draft for nothing. If the only thing standing between you and a plan is not wanting to pay before you have one, this removes that.
Not for you if
Anyone who needs to edit and shape the plan heavily, or who needs linked financial statements. Bizplanr generates the draft; it does not give you the forecasting model or the customisation depth, and its own site points you to Upmetrics for that.
Pricing: Free. There is no paid tier — it exists to produce a first draft at no cost.
LivePlan
Buying the longest track record in the category
They state over 1.5 million businesses served and a 4.8/5 Google rating — far more track record than anyone else here, including us — and back it with a 35-day money-back window against the 15 most of this category offers. If buying the safest-looking option matters more than price, that is a real argument.
Not for you if
Anyone who wants the plan written for them quickly and cheaply. It is built around guided authoring rather than AI drafting, and at $15/mo it is more than twice our entry tier. Its performance tracking is often cited as a reason to choose it, but that is not a reason to rule us out: Upmetrics tracks plan against actuals with the same QuickBooks and Xero sync.
Pricing: Standard $15/mo and Premium $30/mo billed annually; $20 and $40 billed monthly. 35-day money-back guarantee.
Bizplan
Paying once instead of subscribing, and for unlimited plans
The only tool here with a genuine lifetime option. If you write plans repeatedly — consultants, accelerators, serial founders — $349 once beats any subscription over a long enough horizon, and unlimited collaborators is unusual at this price.
Not for you if
Anyone writing one plan. $349 is a lot for a single use, and on a three-year view our Starter tier costs $252, so the lifetime deal only wins against our higher tiers.
Pricing: Monthly $29/mo, annual $20.75/mo billed at $249/yr, or $349 one-off for lifetime access. Unlimited plans and collaborators on every tier.
Brixx
Financial modelling depth, well beyond a three-year forecast
Enterprise models up to ten years, against the three most planning tools stop at, and it pulls live actuals from Xero. If the forecast is the deliverable and the written plan is secondary, this is the specialist.
Not for you if
Anyone who needs the plan written. Brixx is a forecasting tool, not a business plan writer, and the entry tier covers a single plan with a one-year horizon.
Pricing: Foundations $25/mo, Professional $50/mo, Enterprise $75/mo; 20% off annual billing. Tiers differ by number of plans and forecast length.
IdeaBuddy
Validating an idea before paying anyone anything
A real free tier for one plan, aimed at the stage before you are sure the idea is worth money. Most tools here offer a trial instead.
Not for you if
Anyone who needs lender-grade financial statements, or who wants to compare costs before signing up.
Pricing: A free tier covering one business plan. Paid tiers exist but their prices are rendered in the browser rather than in the page source, so we could not read them at source on the date above.
Enloop
Trying automated plan-writing without committing
Auto-writes plan text and scores the plan as you go, with a trial that needs no long commitment.
Not for you if
Anyone who wants to know the price before starting, or who needs the depth of a dedicated forecasting tool.
Pricing: A 7-day free trial is advertised on the pricing page. The tier prices are rendered in the browser rather than in the page source, so we could not read them at source on the date above.
Growthink
Buying a template, or hiring consultants, rather than using software
If what you actually want is a document to fill in, or professional help writing the plan for you, that is a different purchase from software — and Growthink does it openly.
Not for you if
Anyone comparing software. It belongs on this page because it ranks for these searches, and it is worth knowing it is a different kind of product before you click.
Pricing: Growthink sells a business plan template as a PDF and Word download, alongside strategic advisory, investment banking and investment management services. It is not a subscription planning app.
How we compared these
Which tools are here, and why
Eight tools that actually compete for the phrase “business plan software” in the US, taken from the search results themselves rather than from a list we liked the look of. That is why Growthink appears despite not being subscription software, and why two of the eight are ours. A roundup that quietly drops the awkward entries is not a comparison.
How the prices were checked
Every figure was read off the vendor’s own pricing page on 28 October 2026— not from a review site, an aggregator, or another roundup. The rule is the one we use for grant data: a number is publishable only if the organisation charging it states it, on a page we can reach, in the form we are about to print. Each card links to the exact page the figure came from.
What we could not verify
Three of the eight — IdeaBuddy, Enloop and Growthink — render their prices in the browser rather than in the page source, so there was no figure to read at source. Those entries say so instead of showing a number. It is an awkward admission on three of eight rows, and it is the reason the other five can be trusted.
What “best for” means here
Each tool wins exactly one category, and no category is shared. The point is to send you to the right tool quickly rather than to produce a ranking where everything we sell happens to come first. Every entry also carries a “not for you if” line, because knowing who a tool is wrong for is faster than reading a feature list.
Our own products, and what we did about the bias
We build Upmetrics and Bizplanr. Both carry a label saying so, on the card and in the table. We do give a recommendation — refusing to have an opinion would be its own kind of dishonesty — but our own entry names four places competitors beat us: we have no free tier and IdeaBuddy does, Bizplan sells a lifetime licence we do not, Brixx models ten years against our three, and LivePlan’s money-back window is 35 days against our 15.
What this page does NOT do
It does not score or rate the tools, and there is no hands-on bake-off behind it: we have not built the same plan in all eight and timed the result. The comparison is built on published pricing, published capability claims, and what each vendor says about itself on its own site. Where we assert something about a competitor — LivePlan’s track record, Bizplan’s lifetime tier, Brixx’s ten-year horizon — it is because they state it, not because we measured it.
When it gets checked again
Pricing in this category moves, and a stale figure about a named company is a false statement rather than a rounding error. This page is re-verified on a schedule and the date at the top of the page changes only when every vendor page has actually been re-read. If you spot a price that has moved before we do, tell us and we will fix it.
