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With so many different Smartsheet alternatives available, figuring out which is right for you is tough. You know you want to find the best alternative so you can manage your projects and collaborate with your team more effectively but need to figure out which tool is best. I've got you! In this post I'll help make your choice easy, sharing my personal experiences using dozens of different Smartsheet alternatives with a variety of teams and projects, with my picks of the best Smartsheet alternatives.

What Are Smartsheet Alternatives?

Smartsheet alternatives are project management and collaboration software solutions. They offer functionality similar to Smartsheet but differ in features, user interface, and pricing. These tools help in task management, project tracking, and team communication.

The benefits and uses of Smartsheet alternatives include a range of customization options to fit specific team needs, provision of unique features for different project types, and often more cost-effective solutions. They enhance team collaboration, are scalable with business growth, and typically offer diverse integration capabilities with other business tools.

Best Smartsheet Competitor Overviews

Next, we’re jumping over to the advantages and disadvantages, free trial information, cost, and expert opinion for 10 Smartsheet alternatives. We’re comparing each one of these primarily based on look and feel, pricing, and extra functionalities.

Best Smartsheet alternative for teams for a free plan

  • Freemium version available
  • From $10/user/month (min of 2 seats)
Visit Website
Rating: 4.2/5

Why Wrike is a great Smartsheet alternative

Smartsheet doesn’t come with a free subscription option. Wrike not only has a free plan available, but also provides more-than-decent features within it, such as unlimited user numbers, task and subtask management, desktop and mobile app availability, and even a spreadsheet view so you won’t miss what you get from Smartsheet.

Best Smartsheet alternative for a cheaper cost

  • 14-day free trial + free plan available
  • From $8/user/month (billed annually)
Visit Website
Rating: 4.6/5

Why monday.com is a great Smartsheet alternative

monday.com is the task management solution you need to make your agile team’s work a bit less burdensome. The interface is nothing like Smartsheet; it’s easy to use for anyone and requires minimal training. This makes it ideal if you’re considering switching and don’t have too much time to get used to a new platform. And it all comes at a considerably lower cost than Smartsheet, complete with a free plan if you want to give the tool an extended test run.

Best for efficient project management through visual task tracking

  • Free demo
  • Pricing upon request
Visit Website
Rating: 4.8/5

Why Parallax is a great Smartsheet alternative

Parallax is a project management tool that's been making waves as a solid alternative to Smartsheet. It's a SaaS product that's designed to help teams manage their tasks, projects, and workflows more efficiently. It's got a clean, intuitive interface that's easy to navigate, and it's packed with features that make project management a whole lot easier. With its task management system, it's easy to create, assign, and track tasks, and you can even set up automated workflows to streamline your processes. This is a game-changer for teams that are juggling multiple projects at once, as it helps to keep everything organized and on track.

Best Smartsheet Alternative for business plan management with strategy experts

  • Free demo available
  • From $70/user/month
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Rating: 4.4/5

Why AchieveIt is a great Smartsheet alternative

AchieveIt is a good Smartsheet alternative for several reasons. AchieveIt is specifically designed to help businesses manage strategic initiatives and goals, while Smartsheet is a more general project management tool. This means that AchieveIt offers a more focused set of features and functionalities for managing strategic planning and execution. They collect and visualize multiple business plans across your organization and then deliver the data visualizations that matter most to your inbox every morning. AchieveIt also offers strategy consultations with certified experts on planning and reporting goals, which makes it stand out from virtually every other item on this list. 

Best Smartsheet alternative for billing and retainer management

  • Free demo available
  • Available upon request
Visit Website
Rating: 4.4/5

Why Accelo is a great Smartsheet alternative

Accelo is a strong Smartsheet alternative if you're looking for a more client-centric approach to project management. Unlike Smartsheet, Accelo combines project tracking with a fully integrated client relationship management system (CRM). Its advanced automation helps handle client-specific tasks and communications, reducing manual effort. It also offers the ability to manage billing and retainers. Accelo's client portals further enhance collaboration, enabling clients to directly engage with project updates and timelines.

Best Smartsheet alternative for agencies

  • Free trial available
  • From $9/user/month (billed annually)
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Rating: 4.4/5

Why Bonsai is a great Smartsheet alternative

Bonsai is a strong alternative to Smartsheet for agencies looking for similar project management features while also taking advantage of a more holistic approach to business management. While both platforms offer task management and facilitate team collaboration, Bonsai goes a step further by integrating invoicing and billing directly within the platform. This feature allows users to enhance their financial workflows, from time tracking to sending invoices and receiving payments, without the need for additional software. 

Best for detailed and integrated budget and expanse tracking

  • Pricing upon request
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Rating: 4.1/5

Why Kantata is a great Smartsheet alternative

While both Smartsheet and Kantata target fairly large companies, the latter also bring the financial management features to the mix: sending invoices, tracking expenses, and creating dedicated reports for accounts receivable. Plus, Kantata has the integrated time tracking options you’ll miss with Smartsheet to seamlessly handle work, budgets, and time allocation.

Best Smartsheet alternative for resource management

  • 14-day free trial + free demo available
  • From $7/user/month (billed annually)
Visit Website
Rating: 4.2/5

Why Hub Planner is a great Smartsheet alternative

I picked Hub Planner as one of the best alternatives to Smartsheet because of its user-friendly interface, comprehensive features, and focus on resource management. Unlike Smartsheet, which offers a more general-purpose tool for project management, Hub Planner specializes in resource management and scheduling, making it a better fit for businesses and teams that require accurate resource allocation and scheduling.

Best client & stakeholder portals with shared project views

  • 14-day free trial
  • From $19/user/month
Visit Website
Rating: 4.8/5

Why Rocketlane is a great Smartsheet alternative

Running customer-projects on Smartsheet? Work can get overwhelming navigating through sheets just to stay in the know and deliver projects with the right visibility for leaders and your customers. Rocketlane is purpose-built to run customer-facing projects. It uniquely combines project management, document collaboration, and communication to help teams hit their project goals, accelerate time-to-value, and deliver a 5-star customer experience. Rocketlane additionally offers private and shared views for project plans and documents as well as a customer portal for stakeholder and client views. You can also codify your best practices with project and document templates to create them once and reuse them forever across projects.

Organize your communication by topic, project, or even specific data point

  • 30-day free trial
  • From $24/user/month
Visit Website
Rating: 4.6/5

Why Kintone is a great Smartsheet alternative

Kintone is an all-in-one project management platform that allows managers to track, prioritize, and review their team’s tasks for any given project workflow—no matter how complex. What sets Kintone apart from Smartsheet? You can organize your communication by topic, project, or even specific data point. It's got a simple and intuitive user interface. It offers a flexible structure for all your data. Customer support is included in all plans with a dedicated support rep. You can also secure your data with SSO, SAML, IP address restriction with no additional cost.

10 Best Smartsheet Alternatives Comparison Chart

Here is a table where you can compare all of these Smartsheet alternatives.

Tool Best For Trial Info Price
1
Wrike

Wrike can display tasks and projects in many ways, including Gantt charts and Kanban boards.

Best Smartsheet alternative for teams for a free plan

Freemium version available

From $10/user/month (min of 2 seats) Website
2
monday.com

monday.com boasts a colorful, easy-to-use interface for your tasks and data.

Best Smartsheet alternative for a cheaper cost

14-day free trial + free plan available

From $8/user/month (billed annually) Website
3
Parallax

Parallax allows users to accurately predict the usage of their resources and make plans accordingly by utilizing historical data to project usage patterns and analyze peak operational periods.

Best for efficient project management through visual task tracking

Free demo

Pricing upon request Website
4
AchieveIt

AchieveIt offers a range of unique features, including strategic planning templates, automated reporting, and real-time progress tracking.

Best Smartsheet Alternative for business plan management with strategy experts

Free demo available

From $70/user/month Website
5
Accelo

Accelo provides visibility into project-related information, like tasks, timelines, client communication history, and quotes.

Best Smartsheet alternative for billing and retainer management

Free demo available

Available upon request Website
6
Bonsai Agency Software

Bonsai provides a centralized place for project, client, resource, and budget management.

Best Smartsheet alternative for agencies

Free trial available

From $9/user/month (billed annually) Website
7
Kantata

Kantata lets you attach status, budget, % done, due dates, and notes to every project and task.

Best for detailed and integrated budget and expanse tracking

Not available

Pricing upon request Website
8
Hub Planner

Hub Planner color codes your resources so you can quickly identify what needs attention.

Best Smartsheet alternative for resource management

14-day free trial + free demo available

From $7/user/month (billed annually) Website
9
Rocketlane

Manage and deliver multiple customer-facing projects with Rocketlane

Best client & stakeholder portals with shared project views

14-day free trial

From $19/user/month Website
10
Kintone

Chat with your team directly in Kintone’s customizable database, so you never have to hunt for a conversation in your inbox ever again.

Organize your communication by topic, project, or even specific data point

30-day free trial

From $24/user/month Website

About Smartsheet

This is a project management solution—with a twist.

Smartsheet

Smartsheet is a spreadsheet-like project management tool. It has won a few awards for quickly becoming a favorite business app. It’s a nice project management software if you’re comfortable working in Excel but want a break from complicated formulas. Smartsheet performs all the calculations for you across multiple sheets. You can also add customized brand logos and set color themes for individual projects.

Screenshot Of Smartsheet Alternatives

Additionally, it has useful project management features such as workflow automation and visualization of tasks in Gantt, calendar and card views. Team members get notified of critical changes in real-time, and the tool provides shared views, detail history, activity logs, automated alerts, reminders, and status reports to improve collaboration, keep everyone aligned and informed. The Critical Path feature highlights all the tasks which directly impact your project completion date to keep an eye on important milestones. Reporting is a strong feature of this tool, with editable summary reports that you can easily export to Excel.

Smartsheet integrations include Microsoft (Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Excel) and Google apps, as well as development essentials like Jira, and useful business apps like Salesforce, ServiceNow, Slack, Box, and Tableau. The platform is extensible through a REST API and webhooks.

This tool costs from $7/user/month, with a minimum of 3 users and a maximum of 25 users. They also offer a 30-day free trial.

Why Might You Need A Smartsheet Alternative?

Your team’s not enjoying the interface of your current project management tool

Members who are used to team collaboration using spreadsheets and database-like tools won’t have an issue with Smartsheet’s design but others will find the UI clunky. For a more enjoyable daily experience, you’ll want to look for customizable and colorful project management tools that meet today’s standards for what modern software should look and feel like.

You need to invoice clients

Smartsheet has a budgeting option so you can track time, budgets, and expenses using their 10,000ft panel but there’s still no way to send invoices directly from the app. 10,000ft is also sold separately from Smartsheet as a premium add-on product.

You’re finding it too expensive

Smartsheet is indeed one of the most expensive project management solutions on the market. This is in part due to its extensive project management features and enterprise-level target market. However, you can find similar functionalities at a much lower cost.

Key Features For A Viable Smartsheet Alternative

Time tracking

Basic time tracking options are available through their 10,000ft integration, which costs extra, so you might want a tool with native time tracking capabilities that include timesheets and time reporting.

Task and workflow management

In spite of Smartsheet looking like just another database, the tool does come with advanced task management and view options like a Gantt chart and Kanban board. When picking an alternative, you’ll want to consider solutions that let you add subtasks, task priorities, and dependencies to handle complex projects without overcrowding a spreadsheet.

A friendlier interface

Talk to your team to see what kind of UI they would prefer to replace the traditional spreadsheet-style appearance. Specifically, you’ll want advanced features like custom fields, a design any user can personalize, and a variety of add-ons to make use of on top of your team’s workspace.

Custom reporting

Smartsheet boasts a strong real-time report builder feature. For teams working with lots of data or needing to provide proof of their work to clients, you’ll want an alternative that nails reporting too.

smartsheet alternatives logos list

What's Next?

Here are more alternatives and competitors lists for other software you might be interested in.

Ben Aston
By Ben Aston

I’m Ben Aston, a digital project manager and founder of thedpm.com. I've been in the industry for more than 20 years working in the UK at London’s top digital agencies including Dare, Wunderman, Lowe and DDB. I’ve delivered everything from film to CMS', games to advertising and eCRM to eCommerce sites. I’ve been fortunate enough to work across a wide range of great clients; automotive brands including Land Rover, Volkswagen and Honda; Utility brands including BT, British Gas and Exxon, FMCG brands such as Unilever, and consumer electronics brands including Sony. I'm a Certified Scrum Master, PRINCE2 Practitioner and productivity nut!