LivePlan Alternatives

LivePlan has long been a leading name in the business planning software space, offering tools to create professional business plans and forecasts. However, it does not meet everyone’s needs. Fortunately, there are Liveplan alternatives that cater to different business requirements and are more suitable for specific use cases.

Business planning software helps you transform ideas into an actionable plan in a matter of hours. These tools simplify the creation of polished, investor-ready plans, automate financial forecasting, and provide valuable insights for tracking performance and making confident decisions. Whether you’re a startup or an established business, business planning software ensures your business plans are aligned with market standards.

LivePlan Alternatives: Why Consider Them?

While LivePlan is a popular choice, but it comes with a few limitations:

1. Basic Financial Plan : LivePlan provides basic financial planning tools that cannot capture the unique operational logic of most businesses. You can define revenues, costs, employees, assets, but you cannot set logical relationship between them, which makes it difficult to create a truly useful financial plan. If you need a financial plan that helps you manage your business, make confident decisions and defend it in front of investors, there are better options.
   
2. Investor Ready Pitch Decks. LivePlan’s pitch deck is mainly textual which is not what investors are looking for. Investors want graphical pitch decks that they can skim through and understand in minutes. Remember, investors look at hundreds of pitch decks per month, so yours needs to stand out. 
   
3. Limited Performance Tracking Features : No custom dashboards, just predefined financial dashboards. Every business needs to follow different KPIs, so if you need tool to track performance and report to investors, find one that allows you to track the specific KPIs for of business.
   
4. No industry specific financial models . If you are not a financial expert, building a financial model for your specific business can be difficult and time consuming. You need to replicate the operational logic and all dependencies of your business into the financial model. This is where driver-based, financial model industry templates are really helpful.

Bottom line : If you need a tool with strong financial planning and reporting features to manage your business with confidence or raise funds, look at Liveplan alternatives.

Liveplan Business Planning Alternatives and Solutions

Here are the top alternatives to LivePlan and why they might be better:

1. Modeliks : Offers stronger financial planning and investor reporting features, industry specific financial models and interactive AI business plan writing that is faster, smarter and actually fun.
   
2. Upmetrics : Well integrated AI across the planning process. From business plan and pitch deck writing to market research and financial planning.
   
3. Bizplan : Features an intuitive step-by-step plan builder and integrates with crowdfunding platforms. Best if you want to raise funds through crowdfunding.
   
4. Cuttles : Designed for startups, and very easy use.
   
5. IdeaBuddy : One-page business model canvas to quickly build a business model and define the key elements of your business, before diving into details.
   
6. Enloop : Real-time Performance Scoring of your business plan to improve your odds with a higher score          

Detailed Assessment of Each Business Planning Alternative

Below is a detailed assessment of each Liveplan alternative. I used the following criteria for evaluating of each alternative: ease of use, quality of business plan output, financial planning capabilities, performance tracking features, integrations, investor reporting capabilities and pricing. Detailed explanation of each criteria is shown in the table below.

1. Modeliks

Positives :

• Ease of Use : Interactive AI powered and guided business planning. AI provides improvement suggestions for your specific business and writes your plan in a perfect language and format within an hour. AI helps with market research, identifying key, competitors, market trends, market size and growth, critical success factors, product and services, marketing and sales channels, employees and assents needed to successfully run the business.  
  
• Financial Planning : Driver-based financial modelling features ensure accurate, logical and investor ready financial plans. Each business is unique, and the financial plan needs to be based on the specific value divers (or KPIs) that have the highest influence on the business success. Driver based financial plans are the only right way to plan if you want to use the plan to make confident business decisions or raise investor funds. Modeliks is the only alternative with such strong financial forecasting features, unlike LivePlan’s generic financial planning tools.
  
• Industry-Specific Financial Model Templates that capture the operational logic of your business into the financial model. Create a professional financial plan even if you have never done one before.
  
• Tracking and Reporting : Predefined and custom dashboards, operational KPIs, and investor reports vs only predefined financial dashboards in Liveplan.

Negatives :

• Powerful driver-based financial planning features have a short learning curve.
  
• Accounting system integrations not yet available in Modeliks at the time of writing this article. (coming soon in Q1 2025).

2. Upmetrics

Positives :

• AI powered business planning: from business plan and pitch deck writing to market research to financial plans. Upmetrics have nicely implemented AI assistance in the planning process which makes planning faster.
  
• Ease of Use : Intuitive interface ensures smooth navigation and is novice friendly.
  
• Templates and Design : Over 600 business and financial plan templates available in Upmetrics. Although after implementing their AI assistance for business plan writing, the business plan templates have become obsolete.

Negatives :

• Financial planning tools are not as comprehensive as LivePlan.
  
• Limited performance tracking and investor reporting capabilities.

3. Bizplan

Positives :

• Crowdfunding Integration : Links directly to fundraising platforms, making it easier to attract investors. This is by far the biggest advantage of Bizplan as no other tool offers such integrations into funding platforms.
  
• Ease of Use : Step-by-step builder guides users seamlessly. You drag and drop objects in you plan  (textboxes, charts, tables) which is quite intuitive and fun.
  
• Quality of Plans : Produces polished, professional documents suitable for investors.

Negatives :

• No AI assistance, so you need to write your whole plan by yourself, which can be time consuming and of lower quality.
  
• Limited financial modeling tools compared to LivePlan.
  
• Lacks industry-specific templates and performance tracking capabilities.

4. Cuttles

Positives :

• Startup-Centric : Interactive tools simplify planning for startups.
  
• User-Friendly : Modern, clean interface with helpful guides.

Negatives :

• Limited financial planning and no reporting features.
  
• No AI assistance, so you need to write your whole plan by yourself, which can be time consuming and of lower quality.
  
• Best suited for startups, less effective for existing larger businesses.

5. IdeaBuddy

Positives :

• Business model canvas functionality to quickly build a business model and define the key elements of your business, before diving into details.
  
• Collaboration Tools : Nice whiteboard feature for team brainstorming.
  
• Simple validation tool to assess the quality of your idea and determine if it is a good opportunity or not.

Negatives :

• Lacks advanced financial planning and performance tracking tools.
  
• Limited to smaller or creative projects.

6. Enloop

Positives :

• Real-time Performance Scoring of your business plan to improve your odds with a higher score.
  
• Automation : Automates much of the planning process for quick results. Especially helpful in explaining the financial plans as part of the business plan.

Negatives :

• Basic templates and financial models lack depth.
  
• No advanced tracking, reporting, or pitch deck tools.

Conclusion

LivePlan remains a reliable option for business planning, but its limitations in financial planning, speed, and advanced tracking tools mean it may not suit all users. Alternatives like Modeliks stand out for their strong financial features and AI-driven business planning , while Upmetrics, Bizplan and Enloop appeal to those seeking affordability and simplicity. For startups, Cuttles and IdeaBuddy offer creative solutions.

The right choice depends on your business’s specific needs, budget, and planning goals. Exploring these LivePlan alternatives ensures you find the best tool to bring your vision to life.