LivePlan Review 2026

LivePlan sells a guided business plan, and the forecast is the part a finance lead should judge it on. The plan writer gets an owner to a funder-ready document; the Premium forecast is what keeps that document honest once actual results start arriving from QuickBooks or Xero.

Our view: annual Premium costs less than any tool here with a published price that ties a forecast to live accounting data, which makes it the default for a one-company business that has outgrown a spreadsheet plan. The trade is depth. One active company, a ten-scenario cap and no departmental planning mean a growing finance team will outgrow it.

Toolradar data: Toolradar, the software directory we run, tracks 20 financial planning tools as of November 4, 2026, and 16 of them (80%) are strictly paid with no free tier, per the Toolradar financial planning statistics. LivePlan fits that pattern: it has no free plan and offers a refund window instead of a trial.

How we compared: we read LivePlan's pricing page and FAQ, PlanGuru's plans page, Fathom's pricing page, Jirav's business and accounting firm pricing pages, ProjectionHub's pricing page and LiveFlow's pricing page on November 4, 2026. Every price on this page comes from those vendor pages; yearly totals are our arithmetic.

LivePlan is a cloud business planning app from Palo Alto Software that combines a step-by-step plan writer, a three-statement financial forecast and, on Premium, a dashboard that compares the forecast with actual results from your accounting system.

The audience is wide on purpose. LivePlan sells to founders writing a plan for an SBA loan, to established small businesses building a yearly budget, and to the advisors, SBDCs, lenders and educators who work with them. Its pricing page claims more than 1.5 million businesses served.

For a CFO reader, the right frame is a lightweight planning tool for one entity, not an FP&A platform. It produces a projected profit and loss, balance sheet and cash flow, the lender-ready statements a bank asks for, and a pitch deck generated from the plan. It does not do departmental budgets, multi-entity consolidation or headcount models by role.

That puts it below Jirav and well below the mid-market tools in our AI budgeting and forecasting comparison, and closer to PlanGuru and to spreadsheet templates. The Cube review covers what the next step up looks like once spreadsheets and a single-entity app both run out.

Setup starts with a short questionnaire about the business, then a guide walks you through the plan section by section, with examples and a Help me Write feature that drafts text for each section. You can import an existing plan, notes or a spreadsheet forecast instead of starting blank.

The forecast is built inside LivePlan rather than in a free-form grid. You enter revenue streams, costs, staffing and financing, and LivePlan produces the three statements. An AI forecast builder takes changes in plain language, which helps an owner who does not model in Excel, while a finance hire may find the fixed structure limiting.

Premium is where the forecast meets the books. It connects to QuickBooks Online or Xero, builds a starting forecast from your accounting data, and then updates the profit and cash forecast as actual results post. Budget vs. actual dashboards with 20+ trend reports, automated monthly financial analysis and automated board reports run on top.

Collaboration is capped the same way on both plans: one active company, up to five contributors who can edit, and unlimited guests who can view and comment. You can create as many plans as you like, but only one is active at a time, so a consultant juggling several clients edits them one by one. Exports go to Word and PDF for the plan, PowerPoint for the pitch, and CSV for the Premium forecast.

Before you rely on the dashboards, close the month properly; the close management comparison covers the tools that get the books ready first.

USD prices below were read on November 4, 2026 on LivePlan's pricing page, PlanGuru's plans page, Fathom's pricing page, Jirav's business pricing, Jirav's accounting firm pricing, ProjectionHub's pricing page and LiveFlow's pricing page.

LivePlan has two plans and one add-on. On annual billing, Standard comes to $180 a year and Premium to $360 a year; paying month to month raises them to $240 and $480 (our arithmetic). The annual commitment saves $120 a year on Premium, which matches the 25% saving the page advertises.

The LivePlan Expert add-on, billed monthly, buys 30-minute video sessions and priority help. Added to annual Premium it doubles the yearly bill to $720 (our arithmetic). A professional plan review is sold separately for a fee the pricing page does not state, so ask for it in writing before you book one.

Cost scenario for one company that wants its forecast tied to QuickBooks for a year, our arithmetic on printed prices: LivePlan Premium $360 billed annually; Fathom Starter $708 at $59 a month for one company; PlanGuru Single Entity $996 at $83 a month billed annually, for one user; Jirav Starter $10,000 a year. ProjectionHub's template bundle is a one-time $499 but does not connect to your books, and LiveFlow quotes each customer.

Two limits shape the bill more than the sticker. Both LivePlan plans include one active company, so an advisor with several clients either archives and reactivates plans or pays to add active companies. And there is no free trial: LivePlan offers a 35-day money-back guarantee, so build the forecast in that window and cancel if the QuickBooks link does not map your accounts cleanly.

LivePlan fits a single US small business, from a startup preparing an SBA application to an established company of a few dozen people, where the owner or one finance person writes the plan and wants a forecast that updates from QuickBooks Online or Xero without building a model in Excel.

It also fits SBDC counselors, accelerators and small advisory firms that coach owners through a plan, because the guided writer and unlimited guests suit a client who needs hand-holding more than modeling depth.

Skip it if you plan by department or entity. One active company and no departmental budgets rule out a multi-location business; PlanGuru's Multi-Unit Consolidations plan or Jirav's departmental Pro plan are the better fit there.

Skip it too if the plan already exists and the job is monthly reporting to a board or investors. Fathom or a reporting tool from our board reporting software comparison does that job with more control over the pack. If the immediate need is short-term liquidity, a 13-week cash flow forecast in a spreadsheet may serve you better than any annual plan.