Liveplan vs. Growthink: Which is Best for Your Business?
Overview
What is Liveplan Used For?
Liveplan is a business planning and management software created to help entrepreneurs and small business owners succeed through strategic business planning. With tools like Liveplan, creating a business plan takes only a few hours, which used to take several weeks to complete.
This tool simplifies professional business plan creation with its instruction manuals, tutorials, and expert guidance, whereas its automated financials built-in with formulas ensure precise financial forecasting.
With its robust financial and budgeting capabilities, users can easily track financial projections, create and manage budgets, and track the company’s financial health. In contrast, AI assistance helps write or improve content using artificial intelligence.
Overall, Liveplan provides a comprehensive suite of features, including one-page plans, budgeting, financial reporting, collaboration tools, AI assistance, automatic financials, and others to create a seamless business planning experience.
However, you may need to look for other Liveplan alternatives considering its steep learning, limited financial analysis capabilities, and limited integrations.
What is Growthink Used For?
Growthink is a management and business plan consulting firm helping entrepreneurs and executives plan, execute, and achieve transformative success since 1999.
Their extensive service list includes business plan consulting, business plan writing, investment banking, management consulting, capital raising, industry research, competitor analysis, and more.
Among its extensive services, Growthink is best known for its business plan template and business planning-related services.
Growthink’s business plan template is a quick and easy way to create a winning business plan. The best part about this business plan template is its simple fill-in-the-blank process, automatic financials, expert answers, 10 gorgeous designs, and lifetime access.
Overall, Growthink, with its services, can indeed be an incredible companion for executives and entrepreneurs to help them grow their businesses. Still, their fees and pricing structure may not be affordable for all.
Best Suitable for
Liveplan
Start with $15
SMBs, Consultants, Educators.
Enloop
Start with $11
Entrepreneurs, startups, SMBs
Upmetrics
Start with $7
Startups, SMBs, Consultants, Educators.
At a Glance
To highlight the different strengths and capabilities of Liveplan vs. Growthink, let’s compare both tools for their popularity among users.
Looking at the comparison chart, it’s evident that both tools stand very close to each other regarding user ratings.
Liveplan’s strength lies in its advanced functionalities and ease of use, whereas Growthink stands for its strong customer support and value-for-money consulting services.
Although both aren’t direct competitors, they’ve been entrepreneurs and business owners creating business plans for over a decade through their unique offerings.
Here are Liveplan vs. Growthink user ratings along with Upmetrics to understand their popularity and likability among users.
 Liveplan |
Growthink |
Upmetrics |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Ease of use | |||
| Features | |||
| Value for money | |||
| Customer support | |||
| Overall rating | |||
| Visit Website | Visit Website | Try Upmetrics |
Quick Comparison
We just compared both tools for their popularity and user ratings. It’s time to compare their key offerings to make a quick and fair comparison.
As mentioned before, Liveplan and Growthink aren’t direct competitors, so we may not see huge similarities while discussing their key features.
For instance, Liveplan is an advanced business plan software, so it includes structured pricing plans, collaboration features, and other features like AI Assistance and strategic planning, whereas Growthink is a business plan consulting service provider, so they may not have structured pricing plans and such advanced features.
However, they do offer an ultimate business plan template with basic business planning features like automatic financials. It costs $97 per template, which seems significantly expensive considering its offerings.
Regarding customer support, Growthink leads the leaderboard with solid call and email support, whereas Liveplan offers email and chat support.
Here’s a Liveplan vs. Growthink’s quick comparison chart for a better understanding of both tools and their key offerings:
|
Liveplan |
Growthink |
Upmetrics |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Can't Miss to Compare | |||
| Minimum Pricing | $15/month | $97/template | $7/Month |
| Team Member | 5 | 0 | 5 |
| Free Demo | No | No | No |
| Core Capabilities | |||
| Business plan builder | |||
| Budgeting & forecasting | |||
| One-page pitch builder | |||
| AI Assistance | |||
| Business plan templates | |||
| Strategic planning | |||
| Support | Email and chat | Email and chat | Email and chat |
| Visit Website | Visit Website | Try Upmetrics | |
Reviews
Positive
- Writing a business plan is easy with its step-by-step guidance, AI Assistance, and industry-specific business plan examples.
- It provides industry benchmarks and suggests budget items to help you understand your market and make informed decisions.
- Its automated financials, built-in with formulas, help you automatically project your cash flow.
Negative
- It only connects to Xero and QuickBooks, and you have no control over the data or time period it syncs.
- Some users may find Liveplan challenging to try and figure out even after watching video tutorials and guides.
- Liveplan’s formatting options are a bit limiting in certain aspects of formatting. i.e., not providing font selection options.
Positive
- Once you purchase Growthink’s business plan template, you have lifetime access to use it for any business.
- The amount of professional research available to support a business plan gives a solid foundation to build entrepreneurs' businesses.
- Simply type in some number, and the template automatically calculates your 5-year financial projection.
Negative
- Growthink’s business plan template might not ideally represent the unique value proposition of your business due to its restrictive customization options.
- This template may offer a structured business-planning outline but lacks sufficient guidance and educational resources.
- Opting for their business plan writing or consulting services can be way too expensive for startups and small business owners.
Positive
- This web app simplifies the heavy lifting of thinking/planning of writing a business plan, pitch deck, etc.
- Even if you have never done a business plan, the step-by-step guides and template make it super easy to create a fantastic business plan in a couple of hours.
- Upmetrics’ AI Assistance is the best solution for business plan writing. It helps you auto-write, auto-improve, shorten-expand, and change the tone of your text.
Negative
- Upmetrics has a library of 400+ sample business plans best for SMBs, but they should add a few more templates for small niche business types.
- Some users reported that financials are a bit complicated to follow, but this isn’t the case with only Upmetrics. Financial planning, in general, could be complicated for a beginner with any business planning software.
- Upmetrics is an excellent business planning tool. However, it’s not available in French or other regional languages, which can be a drawback for those who do not use English as a business language.
Pricing
It’s essential to compare user reviews and critical features, but a decision can’t be made without considering pricing. So, let’s compare pricing.
As mentioned before, Liveplan and Growthink aren’t direct competitors, so we may find their pricing plans very contradictory to each other.
Liveplan has two subscription plans, standard and premium, which cost $15 and $30 per month on annual billing. Liveplan’s standard and premium plans allow five contributors to work on one business plan.
On the other hand, Growthink doesn’t have a structured plan for its business plan consulting, writing, and other services. However, business plan consultants usually charge $50 to $300 per hour, depending on their experience and the complexity of the plan.
Growthink also provides an editable ultimate business plan template, which costs $97, and users can use it for any business.
In a nutshell, Growthink could be a pricey choice, best suited for well-off entrepreneurs and business owners, whereas Liveplan is an affordable option for startups and small business owners.
Note: If considering pricing and feature offerings, Upmetrics is a better alternative to Liveplan as it offers all the Liveplan features at a fraction of its pricing.
Here’s a head-to-head comparison of all pricing plans, Liveplan vs. Growthink, and Upmetrics to get a clearer view.
|
Liveplan |
Growthink |
 Upmetrics |
|---|---|---|
|
Premium plan
$30/month
|
Business plan consulting
$50 to $300/hour
|
Premium plan
$14/month
|
|
Free Demo
No
|
Free Demo
No
|
Free Demo
No
|
|
Money back guarantee
Yes
|
Money back guarantee
Yes
|
Money back guarantee
Yes
|
| Visit Website | Visit Website | Try Upmetrics |
Note: While comparing Liveplan and Growthink’s features like business plan builder and financial planning, we are actually comparing Liveplan with Growthink’s business plan template for a fair comparison.
In-depth Business Plan Builder Comparison
A business plan builder is crucial when choosing a business planning tool. So, let’s thoroughly discuss the business plan-building capabilities of Liveplan and Growthink.
As mentioned before, Growthink provides a customizable business plan template, which can’t be considered a business planning software, but with step-by-step guidance, a business plan outline, and 10+ visual layouts, it can help you create a winning business plan.
But, compared with Liveplan—it lacks many modern-day business plan-building features like AI Assistance, a progress tracker, drag-and-drop editing features, and a one-page pitch builder.
As you can see in the comparison chart, Liveplan seems like winning the race by over a mile with its advanced features, but it also lacks some features like business plan version control, strategic planning, and pinboard.
Upmetrics, however, does provide all necessary business planning features, making it a very reliable and affordable alternative to Growthink and Liveplan.
Here’s an in-depth comparison of Liveplan vs. Growthink’s business plan builder feature along with Upmetrics for a clear understanding.
|
Liveplan |
Growthink |
Upmetrics |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Step-by-step guidance | |||
| Business plan outline | |||
| AI Assistance | |||
| Task management | |||
| Progress tracker | |||
| Real-time feedback | |||
| Drag-and-drop templates | |||
| Pinboard | |||
| Visual layouts | |||
| One-page pitch builder | |||
| Business plan version control | |||
| Performance dashboard | |||
| Strategic planning | |||
| Visit Website | Visit Website | Try Upmetrics |
In-depth Financial Planning Comparison
Whether you are a startup, small business, or a large-scale enterprise—a financial plan is inarguably the most critical section of the business plan for any business.
So, let’s compare both tools for their financial planning features to see which one comes out on top.
Although Growthink is better known for its automatic financials, it lacks many necessary financial tools like “what if” scenarios, integration with accounting software, and modern revenue projections compared to Liveplan.
Talking about Liveplan, it’s inarguably one of the best tools available in the market for financial planning. However, tools like Upmetrics are also there, providing affordable solutions to startups and small business owners.
Check out this table for the Liveplan vs. Growthink comparison of financial planning features along with Upmetrics.
|
Liveplan |
Growthink |
Upmetrics |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Financial forecast calculator | |||
| Financial dashboard | |||
| Financial reporting | |||
| Automatic financials | |||
| Country currency formatting | |||
| “What if” scenarios | |||
| Modern revenue projections | |||
| Team salary forecasts | |||
| Financials export to Excel | |||
| Add report to your plan | |||
| Real-time profit & cash forecasting | |||
| Integration with Xero & QuickBooks | |||
| Visit Website | Visit Website | Try Upmetrics |
In-depth Step-by-step Guide and Templates Comparison
We compared the business plan builder and financial features of both Liveplan and Growthink. Now, let’s compare their step-by-step guides and business plan templates.
Liveplan includes industry-specific business plan templates, step-by-step instructions, webinars and events, and how-to articles and guides to help you create a business plan, whereas Growthink misses out on online events & webinars compared to Liveplan.
Upmetrics, however, offers all the necessary features, including step-by-step guidance, templates, and a detailed course on business planning, making it the only tool in the market to offer all these features.
Here’s the table for the Liveplan vs. Growthink comparison of step-by-step guides and templates.
|
Liveplan |
Growthink |
Upmetrics |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Business plan templates | |||
| Business plan course | |||
| Step-by-step instructions | |||
| Webinar and events | |||
| How-to articles & guides | |||
| Visit Website | Visit Website | Try Upmetrics |
In-depth Collaboration Capability Comparison
Lastly, it’s time to consider the collaboration capabilities of Liveplan and Growthink’s template to understand which is better than the other to help your team build a business plan together.
Growthink and Liveplan both allow users to invite unlimited guest viewers. However, Liveplan goes the extra mile by offering an online sharing option and allowing 5 collaborators to work on a business plan.
However, not having the option to purchase access for additional team members is a significant drawback for both tools.
Note: Tools like Upmetrics allow you to add extra team members with an add-on that costs $3 per member, making it a cost-effective solution.
Here’s a head-to-head comparison chart of the collaboration capabilities, Liveplan vs. Growthink, along with Upmetrics.
|
Liveplan |
Growthink |
Upmetrics |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Unlimited Guests | |||
| Online sharing | |||
| Team members | 5 | 0 | 5 |
| Visit Website | Visit Website | Get Started Now |
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is better than Liveplan?
Liveplan is a business plan software for entrepreneurs and small businesses to help create winning business plans. While Liveplan is an incredible tool, there are many better and more affordable alternatives in the market. Here are 5 great Liveplan alternatives:
- Upmetrics
- Bizplan
- IdeaBuddy
- Enloop
What integrations does Growthink provide?
Growthink offers an editable template to help you create a business plan, not software. So, it does not provide any integrations with any third-party applications.
How long is Liveplan’s free trial?
Liveplan does not include any free trial as part of their pricing plans. However, they offer a 35-day money-back guarantee, so you can request a refund if you don’t find it the right fit.
Does the Liveplan have a free version?
Liveplan doesn’t have a free plan but offers a 35-day money-back guarantee to try out the platform.
What people don't like about Liveplan?
Liveplan’s high pricing and ordinary business plan builder are some of its major drawbacks. Although it’s one of the market leaders in the space, there aren’t any significant recent developments for the business plan builder.
Compared to Liveplan, Upmetrics stands out as a better option due to its features and pricing.