business planner 2023

The 24 best planners of 2024, from stylish daily diaries to annual agendas

Start the year with the perfect tools for productivity and organization. The best planner keeps your schedule, deadlines,  goals, and thoughts organized. Though no planner is one-size-fits-all, these daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly diaries allow you to chart your goals, appointments, ideas, and more all in one place. Some planners work great for strictly scheduling the hours of your day, while others work better for your long-term goal-planning success. The best planner for you comes down to personal preference in how you chart your time.

Planner styles get even more detailed, and we break down the ways to choose what's right for you at the end of this guide. We spoke with two stationery store owners and a productivity expert to get their advice on how to pick a planner.

"There are lots of different, great planners, and it just kind of depends on thinking about how you want to plan your week and how you want to visualize your week," said Jeremy Crown, who co-owns Little Otsu , a paper store in Portland, Oregon. Whatever style of planner you prefer, we've covered the basics of the best of what's out there.

Daily planners

For more detailed planning, daily planners offer hourly breakdowns of your day. Daily planners are one of the most popular formats. They tend to be bulkier than weekly or monthly planners but offer the most flexibility. These are ideal for students, teachers, and parents who need to keep careful track of a busy schedule.

When you buy through our links, Business Insider may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more

Weekly planners

Weekly planners are great for a zoomed-out view of your goals and to-dos if you'd rather look at the big picture instead of the day-to-day. These planners are less detail-oriented than daily ones but will have daily space to keep track of appointments and assignments. They're ideal for scheduling everything needed to complete multiple goals over a period of time.

Monthly planners

Monthly planners are ideal for professionals or students with several projects or classes to juggle over a long period of time. Though they provide less space than daily and weekly planners, they allow for a strong overview of deadlines and key dates. They're also a great option for parents who need to keep track of doctors appointments, extra curricular activities, and events for a big family.

Yearly and quarterly planners

Yearly or quarterly planners provide the most scope for those with specific personal or business goals. For this category, we considered both big-picture goal planners and 3-month planners that really drill down into how much you can accomplish in 90 days. For the latter category, you'll find that 90-day planners often have weekly and daily pages and space to plan out the quarter. That said, they're still distinct from daily and weekly planners because they focus on achieving longer-term goals, rather than plotting out your days. 

How to choose a planner

There are an overwhelming number of planner types. Chandra Greer, who owns Greer , a stationery store in Chicago, Illinois, prioritizes stocking her store with functional, quality options, knowing they might not be the right fit for everyone. "I'm more interested in the function," she said. "Is the layout useful? Is it something that is going to withstand being your daily friend for 365 days?"

To find out what will work for you, you can start by considering what qualities are most important to you. "I think if you sort of start with, 'What is it that I want to use this for?' that gives you a good starting point," said Alexandra Cavoulacos, founder of The Muse and author of " The New Rules of Work. "

Consider daily, weekly, or monthly formats

For some people, a planner is merely a portable calendar, Cavoulacos said. Other people want to track projects and create to-do lists. The amount of detail per day will start to dictate how much space you need.

Dated or undated

There are many reasons you might decide to buy an undated calendar. "People might decide on March 28th they want a planner," said Greer. "But if a planner is dated, they're already three months through the year." 

Plus, with an undated planner, you can always pick up where you left off without wasting days' worth of paper. 

Horizontal or vertical

When someone comes into Little Otsu looking for a planner, co-owner Jeremy Crown first asks, "Are you more of a task-oriented planner?" He thinks people with detailed schedules or long to-do lists may prefer the column format of vertical layouts, while those who like making notes or doodling might prefer the horizontal layout.

Some planners also use a "dashboard" view, with a week or day on one page and the other dedicated to habit trackers, gratitude prompts, and other fill-in-the-blanks. 

Doctors, nurses, and chefs always want pocket-sized notebooks and planners, said Crown. You might want something big enough to hold your sprawling handwriting but small enough to carry around in your purse or messenger bag. 

Minimalist or full of prompts 

Planner aesthetics range from very bare-bones to packed with extras like quotes, charts, and check-ins. 

"You want your planner to inspire you," Cavoulacos said. "I do think the sort of aesthetic piece, the inspiration piece, is also something that shouldn't be forgotten," she said.  

Both Greer and Cavoulacos point out that you can add your own quotes and personalizations to even the most minimalist planner, as long as there's space. "It could become more of a person's little command center," said Greer. 

Paper quality

If paper quality is high on your list of importance, Greer suggests taking a close look at who makes a planner. 

"I definitely gravitate towards manufacturers who have a background in paper," she said, recommending several Japanese notebook or paper companies with planners such as Midori , Paperways , High Tide , and Kokuyo Jibun Techo .

Even if you're not into paper, you'll want to pay attention to the cover's material. Hardcovers will stand up to more wear and tear than softcovers. "Sometimes people will trade that durability for something that doesn't cost very much, but definitely people are expecting [their planner] to get through the whole year and not look like it was run over by a truck," Greer said. 

Binding 

It's important that planners lie flat since you're writing in them. Many are spiral-bound, but others are stitch-bound. Either will let you write on them, but you can flip one side of the book behind the other with a spiral binding. "A lot of people are kind of indifferent between spiral and stitch bound now, as long as it lies flat because that's really what they're looking for," Greer said. 

Another concern with the binding is whether it will keep the planner together for the whole year. Some glued-in pages might not hold out as well. "If you have something that's stitch-bound or spiral, it's very sturdy for the long haul," Greer said.

Why not just use a digital planner?

"I don't necessarily think a planner is for everybody, just like any particular productivity hack or tool," Cavoulacos said. There are plenty of people who prefer to keep their calendars and notes strictly digital, and getting a paper planner might not make sense for them. 

If you're on the fence, she suggests asking yourself what's attractive about a paper planner. "I think for a lot of people, it's slowing down, right?" Cavoulacos said. "It's like the lack of distraction. It's the moments to think, to cross things off — the satisfaction of crossing things off." 

For Crown, it's more personal than a phone calendar. "It's your life in a book," he said. "[By] the end of the year, you have this book that was like, this is what I did. That's something that the phone doesn't do that well." 

You can purchase logo and accolade licensing to this story here . Disclosure: Written and researched by the Insider Reviews team. We highlight products and services you might find interesting. If you buy them, we may get a small share of the revenue from the sale from our partners. We may receive products free of charge from manufacturers to test. This does not drive our decision as to whether or not a product is featured or recommended. We operate independently from our advertising team. We welcome your feedback. Email us at [email protected] .

• Main content

18 Must-Have Best Planners for Entrepreneurs (2024)

This post contains affiliate links and I may receive a small commission (at no extra cost to you) if you sign up or purchase products or services mentioned. Read the full disclosure here.

Last Updated on June 21, 2024

Looking for the best planners for entrepreneurs to make your 2024 business year the most organized yet? This list is packed full of planners to fit any business owner’s busy lifestyle!

As a busy entrepreneur, you know it’s an absolute must to have proper planning tools. Having the right planner can make or break your productivity, so it’s important to choose the BEST planner that’s most tailored to your needs and lifestyle.

But there are SO many planners out there, so how can you know which one is best for you?! 

Don’t fret, I’ve compiled this list of the best planners for entrepreneurs in 2024 so you can sort through them all in one place! It’s a one-stop-shop over here!

I’m including the best daily planners, weekly planners, business planners for professionals, and productivity/goal setting planners for entrepreneurs! Of all the options, you’re sure to find the planner that’s the perfect fit.

Table of Contents

Top 3 Business Planner Picks

• 2024 Business Digital Planner Bundle – Best Work/Business Planner
• Clever Fox PRO Undated Planner – Best Weekly Planner
• 2024 Daily Simplified Planner – Best Daily Planner

This post is all about the best planners for entrepreneurs

Different types of planners for entrepreneurs.

The best planners for entrepreneurs can come in a few different formats. Are you a pen + paper type of person? Love having everything online in one place? Want something you can print yourself on the cheap? There’s a planner for that!

Whether you need help planning how to start a business or you’re a seasoned pro, you’ve gotta have a format that works for you.

Planner Types by Format

Format and convenience are everything when you think about your day-to-day routine with your planner. Do you hate having to grab your physical planner from another room? If so, digital might be your pick. Do you feel motivated by the feeling of pen and paper? Then you may not want to miss out on a beloved physical planner! 

• Physical planners – this is your traditional planner in paper format, typically with the pages bound together. These may come with pre-printed, pre-dated pages, or undated pages so that you fill in the dates and content yourself. 
• Digital planners – If you hate having to carry something around or dislike being unable to access your planner across devices, a digital planner is perfect for you. There are many apps that sync from your phone, to your tablet, to your laptop! This can be as simple as Google Calendar, or you can purchase curated digital planners that are essentially a traditional planner in digital format. 
• Printable planners – one type of planner you may not have thought about is a printable planner. These types of planners allow more room for your own decoration and are frequently found on Etsy. You can print the pages as many times as you like, too! 

Planner Types by Layout

Many planners may be a mix of more than one of these elements, but sometimes they specialize in one layout in particular. Think about your preferences and needs when it comes to the layout and focus of your planner!

• Daily planners – Daily planners can be as general as an overview of your daily plans, goals, and priorities, or they can get as specific as planning by the hour! Think about your preferences on those as you browse the daily planners for entrepreneurs in this post. If you’re a time blocker, you’ll want the hourly. But if that’s too intense, stick with a general daily overview!
• Weekly planners – If you like to take things week by week and plan all your days out in advance, you’ll want to opt for a planner that has a focused weekly format. I find that these are best during years where I anticipate having a lot of appointments. No one likes a dreadful doctor’s appointment creeping up on them day-of!
• Dedicated business planners – yes, standard daily and weekly planners may do the job, but they don’t include the more business-specific things we need to think about to stay on top of our business. As you get more serious about your business, you’ll certainly appreciate having a wide array of business templates in your planner!
• Goal setting planners – Many generic planners have some space for jotting down your goals, but they stop there. They pay no attention to all the systems that need to be in place in order to work toward the goal! That’s why finding a planner with a detailed goal-setting focus, where you can create an action plan and stay accountable, just makes sense!

Format and layout can make or break your schedule, so choose wisely when choosing among these best planners for entrepreneurs.

Want a quick, free, one-page daily planner you can print again and again? Make sure you grab my FREE printable productive day planner below! It’s perfect to use in a pinch before you decide on the perfect planner!

Top 18 best 2024 planners for busy entrepreneurs

Don’t forget about these life changing planners for entrepreneurs! Pin ’em to come back later!

Best Daily Planners for Entrepreneurs

1. the high performance undated planner.

Starting off this list of the best planners for entrepreneurs, we’ve got a half journal, half planner, full performance agenda!

Start this undated daily planner at any time. You get to work out your day schedule alongside morning + evening mindset journal prompts to keep you focused and aware of what each day brings.

And that’s only the tip of the iceberg. You also get daily goal boxes, weekly habit assessments, monthly project planning, and proprietary whole life balance sheets. Before you know it, you’ll be prioritizing your work/life schedule like a pro!

What’s inside:

• 2-in-1 planner with daily schedule + morning and evening journal prompts
• 60 days, undated, so you can start whenever it’s convenient for you
• Daily pages with morning mindset activities and evening review scorecard
• Weekly pages that allow you to assess your high performance habits
• Monthly Pages that help you strategically outline your long-term goals
• BONUS: you get a free online assessment to track your habits!

RELATED: Gifts for Female Business Owners: 20 Insanely Useful Things She’ll Love

2. Happy Planner Undated Wellness Planner

A very creative option, the Happy Planner has so many cute accessories, stickers, and embellishments perfect for the creative entrepreneur!

This planner is here to help you prioritize wellness in your busy entrepreneur life as you organize your year, reflect on your gratitudes, and practice mindfulness. Undated planners like this one are also perfect if you ever fall off track from your planning because you’ll never waste pages. You just fill in the dates as you go.

• Undated pages
• Unlabeled dividers with month stickers for your own labeling
• Space to write down ways you’re moving, nourishing yourself, staying motivated, and setting intentions.
• Wellness journal sections with reflections, impressions of the day, focuses, grateful moments, and the things you’re loving.

3. Simplified Planner 2024 Daily

What better way to simplify your life than to use a planner MADE for such a thing?! It’s designed minimally on purpose so that you can cut to the chase and get started planning your day the easy way. Pretty much feels the same as starting your day with a breath of fresh air!

• Space for schedule, to-do, notes and meals
• One day per page + shared weekend pages
• Full month views
• 4 notes pages in the front
• Hourly schedule from 6am to 9pm
• 4 pages of Simplified Prep-Work
• Monthly Simplicity Tips
• NEW colorful sticker sheet design
• Pocket inside the front cover

RELATED: New Month Journal Prompts for Goal Setting

4. Daily Planning Package (+ Clipboard + Pen!)

If you’re looking for the full package, this has all of your business planning needs covered! Not only do you get a detailed daily planner notepad, BUT you even get a companion weekly planner.

As if that wasn’t awesome enough… it also comes with a durable clipboard and pen! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a planner come with both a pen AND a clipboard, so this is truly a unique deal.

• 1-Year Daily Planner – 350 pages (50 tear-off pages x 7 days)
• 1-Year Weekly Planner – 50 pages (two-week break for rest!)
• Highly durable clipboard and pen, both made with vegan leather
• Undated and ready to be filled with your dreams, goals, and daily activities

RELATED: Journaling for Entrepreneurs: 40 Business Savvy Prompts

Best Weekly Planners for Entrepreneurs

5. erin condren weekly lifeplanner.

Extremely popular, the Erin Condren Weekly Planner is SO well-designed and ultra-customizable. Aims to keep you organized, reduce stress, and achieve your goals. With its many customization options, you can build the perfect planner that fits your style and schedule!

Also, the covers on these are insanely durable and built to last. I used this planner in high school and would 100% recommend it for any stage in your life, even as an adult. This is one of the best basic entrepreneur planners for 2024!

• Mini months
• Monthly quotes
• Monthly notes and productivity pages
• Dated monthly, weekly spreads
• Additional notes in the back
• Contacts page
• 4 planning sticker sheets
• 1 double-sided pocket folder
• 1 perpetual calendar
• Snap-in ruler

6. Clever Fox PRO Weekly Undated Planner

Straightforward, uncluttered, and easy to use is the Clever Fox PRO planner. I’ve had this planner for years and it never fails me! The weekly view includes everything I could ever want with daily priorities, weekly planning, goals, to-do lists, and habit tracking!

• Short and long term goal planning pages
• Productivity sections
• Undated so you don’t waste pages!
• Vision board pages
• Quarterly goals and mind map
• Monthly review sheets
• 50 dot grid pages in the back for notes

7. Ban.do Weekly Undated Planner

Okay, first things first…what business owner DOESN’T need the reminder on the front of this planner?! I am always having to remind myself that progress is more important than perfection. Anyway…

Ban.do’s planner is perfect for anyone who’s more flexible with their planning needs. They feature weekly note pages, to-do lists, and spaces for reflection. I like that you get the opportunity to think over what went well today and what could be better for tomorrow.

• Artsy cover design
• Concealed spiral
• Sticker page
• Pocket on the inside front cover
• 73 perforated weekly pages and 73 list pages
• Primary layout includes a weekly view on one page and a to-do list on the other

8. Leather 2024 Snap Planner

K, I’ll be honest, you’re going to spend a pretty penny on this planner–but that’s because of the durable full grain leather design (and if you’re on the go a lot, trust me, it’s well worth the money! Nothing worse than torn up planner corners when it’s only halfway through the year.)

This covers all your weekly, monthly, and yearly planning needs. And if you’re a list lover, you will loveee the lists and notes pages for extra checklists, projects, and reminders. This is one classy, high-end planner no doubt!

• 12 month dated calendar agenda
• Full grain durable leather
• 1-Year in Review spread and monthly goals pages for important dates, tasks, and other priorities
• Monthly calendar view and weekly agenda pages for your appointments, meetings, and to-dos
• Lists and Notes pages
• Gold foil stamping on front and back cover; covers made of black cardstock
• Can be personalized

What planners do CEOs use?

Best planners for business owners and entrepreneurs at work, 9. 2024 digital planner bundle for business owners.

This digital business planner has IT ALL! If you need an entrepreneur planner that covers your life and business from A-Z, you’ll want this. There are literally 1,000,000 digital planners in different variations to choose from (yup, you read that right, 1 MILLION!).

It’s highly customizable with 11 different weekly layouts, 8 different daily layouts, and business templates galore. It also helps promote work-life balance by including sections for wellness, fitness, and nutrition too!

Seriously, whatever your business needs are, whether you’re a small business owner or you’re growing like crazy, this will fit them!

• Many business templates like target audience, business goals, sales tracker, tax deductions, content analysis, and so much more
• Productivity, Wellness, Fitness, Nutrition & Finances sections
• Goals section linked to 8 goals pages
• Projects section linked to 8 project pages
• 50,000 stickers in Goodnotes + PNG format
• 500 cover designs

10. Ultimate Business Planner

Rather than a daily/weekly/monthly planner, this business planner takes on a slightly different approach. While it does offer daily and weekly planning and to-do lists, it also goes one step further by including sections for business branding, website building, and social media planning. One of the most comprehensive and best planners for entrepreneurs!

• Over 280 business planner printable pages
• Business planning pages
• Order forms and shipment logs
• Inventory logs
• Business finance planner
• Website building
• Blog planner
• Email planner
• Social media planner
• A year in review

11. Small Business Planner

Unlike the other two business planners and organizers from Etsy, this one is a physical planner! This offers weekly and monthly planning as well as business specifics like branding planning, social media goals, online stats, product idea pages, and more!

• Year At-A-Glance
• Quick Contacts for business-related contacts
• Branding and Demographic visioning
• Revenue chart for a quick look at your profits and expenses
• Recurring Payments tracker
• Social Media goals
• Online Stats tracking
• Events listing/stats and Supply List
• Product Price List
• Product idea pages

Best Productivity Planners for Entrepreneur Goal Setting

12. full focus planner.

This planner stands out because not only does it allow you to plan out your week (as any planner does), but it takes things a step further by helping you reflect on your week in terms of what worked and what didn’t. There is a lot of focusing on properly preparing you for the week ahead, instead of just going through the motions!

Another key feature is the “key projects” pages where you can map out all of your projects for the quarter. Very goal-oriented for sure!

• Designed with a structured achievement program
• Sections for weekly and quarterly previews
• Unique daily framework, separating your highest-leverage activities from your list of daily tasks
• Dedicated goal-setting and project planning sheets

RELATED: 65 Affirmations for Female Entrepreneurs

13. Cultivate What Matters PowerSheets Goal Planner 2024

This results-backed goal planner is organized into 90-day segments–the perfect amount of time to make progress!

This planner prides itself on intention-setting opportunities for choosing the right goals for this season in your life. It also gives you opportunities to revisit and refocus those goals throughout the year.

Before each 90-day window, you can hit the reset button by planning your best routines for the season ahead!

• Streamlined monthly and weekly planning, designed specifically to help you live more intentionally
• Dated weekly planning pages – Monday through Sunday
• Space for your to-do list, top priorities, habit tracking, and a small nudge to tend to what matters most!
• Segmented into 90-day windows with seasonal routine planning

14. BestSelf Journal Goal Setting Planner

This 13-week goal planner is backed by science and psychology, so you know you’ll see results in your productivity. Perfectly designed to better optimize your day, help you crush those goals, and overall live a more fulfilling life!

The Self Journal boasts overcoming “decision fatigue” and helps you focus on what matters most. It’s all about prioritizing your workload, building good habits, and making every day count! This is easily one of the best planners for entrepreneurs. It sets you up for true success.

• Enough pages to guide you through 13 weeks of meeting your goals
• Undated design
• Comprehensive goal-setting page
• Space for everyday bullet journaling
• Space for progress and mindfulness prompts
• Helps to develop daily goal setting and reflection practices through routine encouragement
• Gratitude and self-reflection sections
• Complete guidebook and calendar
• 13-week habit tracker for creating new healthy routines
• Provides space to journal and plan next steps to achieve your goals

15. GoGirl Planner PRO Vertical Hourly Planner

If you love time blocking, this is the planner for you! The GoGirl Planner is a weekly planner with time slots (6am – 9pm) to navigate your daily life the productive way. Also features goal planning pages for all your short and long term goals and helps you create a strategy for achieving those goals. The best perk is that it comes with budget planning pages so you can stay on top of your spending with a monthly financial analysis!

• Weekly planner with vertical time slots + monthly calendar
• Goal setting pages
• Habit tracking pages
• Budget planning sheets
• Comes with a pen holder and 280+ stickers
• Dot-grid pages at the back

16. Poketo Quarterly Goal Planner

Feeling stuck on identifying goals to set? Well, you’re in luck, because this planner has helpful prompts to get your goal ideas flowing!

This quarterly planner is undated and follows all the way through when it comes to goal setting, as you also get to plan the actions you’ll take each week that keep you on track to meet your goals! You get the perfect little game plan to hold yourself accountable for the quarter.

• Quarterly 3 month planner
• Goal setting pages that help you identify potential challenges and plans to celebrate your wins along the way
• Weekly plan that allows space to match your actions/habits to your goals
• Hourly daily layout with short journal prompts to reflect on your day

17. The Daily Grace Quarterly Planner

This quarterly devotional planner promotes spiritual guidance as you navigate your busy life. If you find it tough to manage your business and stay connected to God, this planner will serve as a powerful reminder to prioritize both, if this is your goal!

You’ll get to set quarterly, weekly, and daily goals alongside reflection questions to help you brainstorm those goals and be mindful of your spiritual habits. Includes gospel-centered affirmations to comfort and guide you. 

• Undated devotional planner
• Covers one quarter of the year/roughly 13 weeks
• Monthly spread that gears your attention toward what you wish to accomplish each month
• Weekly actions section with 5 smaller sections: meditate, journal, pray, plan, organize
• Start and end-of-quarter evaluations
• Spiritual disciplines explanation

18. The 12 Week Year Field Guide

This isn’t quite a planner so much as it is a study guide for helping you be efficient and productive. But nonetheless, it is a fantastic business tool you’ll want to have at your fingertips just for the expertise and tips alone!

This is applicable to business growth, career goals, and also just life in general!

Inside, you’ll learn how to…

• Create your own personal and business visions with step-by-step help
• Develop a rock solid 12 week plan for yourself
• Use the many exercises and templates to make your business life a little easier
• Determine a 12 week commitment system that can be applied to your business and life!

Choosing the Right Planner: What to Look For

Every business owner has different needs. When choosing that perfect planner for you out of this list of planners for entrepreneurs, there’s some key features you’ll want to consider before making a decision. Think about what is visually pleasing, what is practical, and what ticks all your boxes!

Dated vs. Undated

When looking at all the planners for entrepreneurs, do you want a planner that already has all the dates filled in for you? Or do you want to be able to pick up and leave off whenever?

Sometimes life gets chaotic and we miss a week or two in our planner. If that tends to happen to you, you may be better off with an undated planner so you don’t waste pages! But if the structure of a dated planner keeps you accountable, that may be your best bet!

The Sections Included

Maybe you want your planner to offer you more than just a calendar. You might want to track expenses, keep lists, track business ideas, brainstorm projects….the list goes on!

If you want a super comprehensive planner that has it all, it may be worth it to seek out a more specialized planner than your run-of-the-mill weekly or monthly planner.

Refillable/Insertable

Some planners allow you to pop in different inserts. This is awesome not only for the customizability, but it’s also far more sustainable, long-lasting, and eco-friendly! Rather than toss out planner after planner each year, you can keep a refillable planner alive forever.

Folders and Pockets

Does the planner feature folders and pockets throughout or in the back? You might not always need these, but they can come in handy for storing business cards, notes, and documents!

Size and Portability

As much as I love a big, large-print planner…sometimes it can get bulky and annoying to carry around.

Especially when it doesn’t fit in my bag! So size and the ability to carry the planner from place to place is definitely something to think about.

If a planner is only going to make your bag that much heavier, it might get old real quick. Think about what will fit in your work bag or backpack and buy accordingly!

Layout Preference

I used to NEED a planner with a vertical, hour-by-hour layout. Now that I use Google Calendar for that function, I like to have my paper planner in horizontal format, where I can just bullet point-list my daily tasks like a to-do list.

Think about what you prefer and what other systems you have in place! If you like to use a digital calendar in conjunction with a paper planner, get a paper planner that offers something your digital calendar doesn’t.

Pro tip: If you’re juggling a ton of tasks, struggling to keep your life organized, AND trying to stay on track with your goals …don’t try to manage your schedule by yourself!

You need to make sure you’re optimizing your time in the best way possible. But what even is “the best way possible”?

Well, you don’t need to waste time figuring that out when the Motion app can literally do it for you.

If you’re sick of feeling like there just aren’t enough hours in the day, Motion can fix that by:

• Automated scheduling that plans your day for you – this app knows exactly how to schedule your daily tasks FOR YOU, in a way that’s most productive for you and your lifestyle.
• Handling emergencies – Motion rearranges everything automatically so that urgent pop-up tasks don’t screw up your day…or your sanity!
• Being a game-changer for ADHD – anyone with ADHD knows the agony of identifying what to prioritize. Motion takes the guesswork out of time management, so you know exactly what to do next!

Motion is the game-changer your schedule has been begging for, so why not give it a shot and lighten your load?

Did these planners for entrepreneurs help you identify the best planner for you?

Whether you’re into goal setting, have a crazy chaotic work schedule, or just want a no-frills simple planner…this list has something for every entrepreneur! From artsy to minimalistic and everything in between, these planners for entrepreneurs offer a huge set of tools to organize your year and make it the best one yet.

Hopefully, your preferences have become a little clearer after weighing all the different variations planners can offer! Because we all know how good it feels to open a fresh new planner that has exactly what we want.

Happy planning!

Don’t forget your FREE productive day planner printable!

More Helpful Tools for Entrepreneurs

Gifts for Female Business Owners: 20 Insanely Useful Things She’ll Love

New Month Journal Prompts for Goal Setting

Journaling for Entrepreneurs: 40 Business Savvy Prompts

65 Affirmations for Female Entrepreneurs

LIKE THESE PLANNERS FOR ENTREPRENEURS? PIN THEM FOR LATER!

Founder & Content Strategist

Hey there! I'm Alexa, and I'm a self-care enthusiast and mental health advocate. At Ambitiously Alexa, I'm here to support women like you who are on a mission to achieve allll the things they're passionate about and make time for self care. I make this balance possible through journal prompts, positive affirmations, and self care ideas you'll love! Here's more about me, including my B.A in Psychology...

Similar Posts

40 Motivating Summer Goals You’ll Want to Set in 2024

Last Updated on May 23, 2024 I don’t know about you, but I’ve been itching for summer and all the good things that come with it! Between the warmth, sunshine,…

Printable Goal Setting Worksheets to Help You KILL Your Goals (PDF)

Last Updated on August 14, 2024 Looking for a printable goal setting worksheet that actually works? These templates will help you plan your goals from start to finish! Perfect for…

30 Day Mental Wellness Challenge For Serious Self-Improvement

This post contains affiliate links and I may receive a small commission (at no extra cost to you) if you sign up or purchase products or services mentioned. Read the…

43 May Affirmations for a Month of Abundance and Joy

Last Updated on September 10, 2023 With May coming along, I hope things are getting lively, blooming, warm, and vibrant where you live! We’re really starting to get into those…

90+ Fun and Refreshing Spring Bucket List Ideas

Last Updated on May 16, 2023 Spring! The season of new beginnings, warmer weather (or so we hope!), fresh flowers blossoming, and all things coming to life again! With the…

58 Affirmations for Social Anxiety In Every Situation

Leave a reply cancel reply.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Copy short link

Every product is independently selected by (obsessive) editors. Things you buy through our links may earn us a commission.

Best in Class

• The 12 Very Best Face Exfoliators The 12 Very Best Face Exfoliators
• The Very Best Body Oils The Very Best Body Oils
• The 10 Very Best Body Scrubs The 10 Very Best Body Scrubs
• The 7 Very Best Portable Chargers The 7 Very Best Portable Chargers
• The 8 Very Best Hard-Side Suitcases The 8 Very Best Hard-Side Suitcases
• 15 of the Very Best Water Bottles 15 of the Very Best Water Bottles
• The 12 Very Best Women’s Deodorants and Anti-perspirants The 12 Very Best Women’s Deodorants and…
• The 11 Very Best Men’s Deodorants and Anti-perspirants The 11 Very Best Men’s Deodorants and An…
• The 8 Very Best Blow-dryer Brushes The 8 Very Best Blow-dryer Brushes
• The 12 Very Best Couches The 12 Very Best Couches
• The Very Best Products for Cleaning Sneakers The Very Best Products for Cleaning Snea…
• The 13 Very Best Vitamin-C Serums The 13 Very Best Vitamin-C Serums
• The 11 Very Best White T-shirts for Men The 11 Very Best White T-shirts for Men
• The 9 Very Best Slippers for Men The 9 Very Best Slippers for Men
• The 9 Best Baby Carriers The 9 Best Baby Carriers
• The 6 Very Best KN95 Masks The 6 Very Best KN95 Masks
• The Best Electrolyte Powders The Best Electrolyte Powders
• The Very Best Heating Pads The Very Best Heating Pads
• The 15 Very Best Protein Powders The 15 Very Best Protein Powders
• The 12 Very Best iPad Cases The 12 Very Best iPad Cases
• The Very Best Electric Foot Massagers The Very Best Electric Foot Massagers
• The 11 Very Best Bluetooth Speakers The 11 Very Best Bluetooth Speakers
• The 8 Very Best Kitchen Utensil Sets The 8 Very Best Kitchen Utensil Sets
• The 8 Very Best Shampoos for Fine Hair The 8 Very Best Shampoos for Fine Hair
• The 13 Very Best Treatments for Eczema The 13 Very Best Treatments for Eczema
• The 21 Very Best Sunscreens for Your Face The 21 Very Best Sunscreens for Your Fac…
• The 6 Very Best Food Vacuum Sealers The 6 Very Best Food Vacuum Sealers
• The 7 Very Best Nonstick Skillets The 7 Very Best Nonstick Skillets
• The 11 Very Best Garden Shears, Loppers, and Pruners The 11 Very Best Garden Shears, Loppers,…
• The Very Best Moisturizers for Combination Skin The Very Best Moisturizers for Combinati…
• The 7 Very Best Hair Oils The 7 Very Best Hair Oils
• The 8 Very Best Over-the-Counter Mouth Guards The 8 Very Best Over-the-Counter Mouth G…
• The 13 Very Best Toothpastes The 13 Very Best Toothpastes
• The 10 Very Best Kitchen Trash Cans The 10 Very Best Kitchen Trash Cans
• The 9 Very Best Nail Clippers The 9 Very Best Nail Clippers
• The 12 Very Best Laptop Backpacks The 12 Very Best Laptop Backpacks
• The Very Best Roller Skates for Every Type of Skater The Very Best Roller Skates for Every Ty…
• The 10 Very Best Body Washes The 10 Very Best Body Washes
• The 11 Best Carry-on Backpacks The 11 Best Carry-on Backpacks
• The Very Best Nice-Looking Pill Cases The Very Best Nice-Looking Pill Cases
• The Very Best Body Washes for Dry Skin The Very Best Body Washes for Dry Skin
• The Very Best-Smelling Candles The Very Best-Smelling Candles
• The 11 Very Best Wrinkle Creams The 11 Very Best Wrinkle Creams
• The 17 Very Best Foundations for Mature Skin The 17 Very Best Foundations for Mature…
• The 7 Very Best Clothing Irons The 7 Very Best Clothing Irons
• The 15 Very Best Makeup Removers The 15 Very Best Makeup Removers
• The 11 Very Best Lighted Makeup Mirrors The 11 Very Best Lighted Makeup Mirrors
• The Best Fitness Trackers for All Types of Activities The Best Fitness Trackers for All Types…
• The Very Best Workout Shoes for Men The Very Best Workout Shoes for Men
• The 15 Best Women’s Raincoats The 15 Best Women’s Raincoats

31 of the Very Best Planners

Including daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly options to help you get things done..

In this article

• Best overall
• Best weekly
• Best monthly
• Best quarterly
• Best customizable

Instead of an app or gadget that claims to jump-start your productivity, consider investing in a good paper planner . There is plenty of research that shows how actually writing down your to-do list and schedule for the day — rather than typing it out on a laptop or iPhone — makes you feel more engaged in the task at hand. And once the calendar year is complete, a physical planner becomes an artifact — a time capsule, if you will — of its happenings. Leafing through the well-loved Hobonichi Techo planners I’ve used over the years brings me almost as much pleasure as scribbling in them did.

While I’ve been devoted to Hobonichi Techo for most of my adult life, I’ve covered the Strategist’s stationery beat long enough to know that finding the right planner out of the very vast and very particular world of paper goods can be overwhelming. (I have, after all, updated this list faithfully every January and was tasked with selecting the best 100 notebooks for our massive notebook-testing story .)

So to find the best planners, I talked to 31 productivity experts, life coaches, and people who love stationery (including a few Strategist staffers) about their favorites, then culled our archives for standout styles we’ve written about before. I’ve included my own thoughts on our best overall planner, which I’ve been testing personally for the past five years. Any of the 33 planners recommended below will surely go a long way toward keeping you on track this year.

Update on August 22, 2024: Added restock notifications for the Traveler’s Weekly Vertical Planner , Kokuyo Jibun Techo 2025 Diary , Studio Milligram The Daily Non-Diary Dot Grid A5 , and the Appointed 2025 Wire Daily Planner ; updated prices and checked stock for all products.

What we’re looking for

Arguably, the most essential way to categorize planners is by how they’re broken down: weekly, daily, monthly, or quarterly. According to our experts, daily planners tend to devote an entire page to each day and are best suited for those with lots of daily tasks or for list-makers who need to focus on their day-to-day organization. A weekly planner’s layout allots one to two pages per week and is great for those juggling many weekly meetings, events, and deadlines. A monthly or quarterly planner is great if you have long-term goals and best for big-picture thinkers who have a lot of large-scale projects on their plates. And if none of these layouts sound exactly right for your needs, perhaps you’d prefer a completely customizable planner (which we have a few of below).

Planners come in a range of sizes, which impacts how portable they are and how much space there is to write in. Generally, if you’re looking for something super-portable, a pocket or personal planner is best. If portability is less of a factor or if you prefer roomier layouts, then a half- or full-letter-size planner is probably for you. We’ve noted the exact dimensions of each planner so you can easily measure the size before buying.

Aside from style, the cover impacts how well the planner will hold up against daily wear and tear. It also affects the weight: Is it hardcover, softcover, or leather-bound? If you’re less concerned about adding weight to your bag and want something that’ll definitely hold up all year, consider a leather-bound or hardcover planner. But if you need something lightweight, a well-made softcover planner is a good bet.

Best planner overall

Layout: Daily | Size: 4 by 6 inches | Cover: Softcover

The Hobonichi Techo is a longtime Strategist favorite, used by three of our present and former staffers (all three of whom have used the planner for years to stay organized). This long-term testing and devotion has earned it the top spot here. As New York Magazine deputy editor Alexis Swerdloff wrote in her initial ode to the cult Japanese planner, “The leather-bound book is hefty and feels like I’m actually holding something substantial (unlike a Moleskine ) while still being incredibly compact: It’s little bit taller than an iPhone 6 and about the width of a Kit Kat.” Former Strategist associate editor Louis Cheslaw praises the planner’s “hard-wearing cover, thin (but quality) pages for a slim profile, lie-flat opening, and compact size.” It definitely falls into the “if you know, you know” category of stationery. I find that it’s the perfect size to chuck into any bag and deceptively durable. I’m not precious with my planners and tend to subject them to a lot of wear and tear. The Hobonichi Techo has never torn on me and looks as good on December 31 as it did when I bought it the previous January. I also love that the light gridding on each page grants every day some order but still gives me the space to dash off notes, lists, and doodles.

Best weekly planners

Best weekly planner overall.

Layout: Weekly | Size: 5.75 by 8.25 inches | Cover: Hardcover

I first heard about German stationery company Leuchtturm1917’s weekly planner from self-described “planner power user” Perrin Drumm. As she writes, the planner’s “hardback is perfect for planning on the go or taking notes in your lap.” Cindy Thompson , the blogger behind Instagram’s Plan Another Day , loves this planner because it “features a simple weekly layout that can be utilized in many ways.” While I am devoted to my Hobonichi, I did like the layout of the planner, which has days on one side and spaces for notes on the other. The notebook also features a “project plan” section that I had no use for but could be helpful to those with long-term vision. Plus the feel of the notebooks itself is quite nice with the sturdy hardcover and paper that has some nice heft. If you’re loyal to the Leuchtturm1917 , the brand also makes a two-year version of the planner, which is quite cost-effective.

Best design-y weekly planner

Layout: Weekly | Size: 6 by 8.5 inches | Cover: Hardcover

Papier planners are well known for their bright colors and thoughtful designs. Both Strategist writer Rachel Griffiths and Strategist deals editor Sam Daly swear by them. “I like weekly overviews with a lot of space to take notes and doodle, and I don’t need many extras like an address-book page or a place to make a list of intents. And my biggest must-have: a ribbon to keep your place,” explains Daly. “Papier’s planners have all of the above, and its products come in so many fun patterns and designs the hardest part of picking this planner was just choosing one.” Griffiths agress: “I always look forward to picking out my Papier planner because the designs are really cute and colorful.”

Best weekly planner with tearaway corners

Layout: Weekly |  Size: 4 by 6 inches | Cover: Hardcover

This Rhodia weekly planner is organized with the days of the week on one side and a gridded page for notes and scribbles on the other. Each day’s schedule is broken down into hour-by-hour lines (from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.), and the pages have tearaway corners to help you keep your place.

Best large weekly planner

Layout: Weekly | Size: 7.2 by 10.1 inches | Cover: Softcover

If you want something with a simpler, more bold design, you can’t go wrong with this one. According to Drumm , “If Massimo Vignelli had $15 to buy a planner, he’d surely pick this one.” She loves the “non-nonsense” layout: “There is barely any type on the pages, so the dates, and pretty much everything else, are entirely up to you to plot out.” While the planner comes in four sizes, Drumm prefers the large, “which feels less throwaway than the smaller options.” She adds that her design-y friends go for the black-on-black option, but Drumm prefers the planner in Pepto-Bismol pink.

Best vertical weekly planner

Layout: Weekly | Size: 4.3 by 8.3 inches | Cover: Softcover

This weekly planner from Traveler’s lets you fill in the dates as you please, so you can start using it at any point in the year. On top of that, because it contains just six months’ worth of undated weekly pages, it’s a great option to consider if you’re picking up a planner later in the year. In addition to those weekly pages, the planner contains a few pages laid out as vertical monthly calendars that you can use to keep track of important dates like birthdays or anniversaries. The paper itself is bleed- and feather-resistant, as well as fountain-pen friendly. While the planner as-is only has a simple card-stock cover, you can get a handsome leather cover to keep it in for an additional $50.

Editor’s note: The Traveler’s Weekly Vertical Planner is currently out of stock, but you can sign up for a restock notification on JetPen’s site.

Best weekly planner with hourly columns

Layout: Weekly | Size: 8.5 by 16.5 centimeters | Cover: Hardcover

The Ispira planner’s calendar pages break down each week across two pages; dated columns provide space to jot things down for each day (the columns are broken down into hours for those who plan that obsessively). When it comes to stationery, Drumm calls Fabriano a “gold standard” because of the elevated color combos. Its planners, which she describes as “objects of beauty,” are made in Italy “by paper artisans who are truly deserving of that overused title.” The columns are skinny, though, so folks who like to write a lot in their planners may want something with more space.

Best softcover weekly planner

Layout: Weekly | Size: 3.5 by 5.5 inches | Cover: Softcover

This Moleskine has a simple layout: When opened, the left side’s pages are broken down into days of the week, while the right side’s are lined for taking notes. Personally, I find Moleskin planners to be a bit too minimal for my needs (I prefer each day to get a full page), but I could see it being useful for someone who keeps most of their calendar digitally. But for folks who’ve pared down, it’s a solid option.

Best hardcover weekly planner

Layout: Weekly | Size: 5.1 by 7.4 inches | Cover: Hardcover

This handsome hardcover planner lays flat and comes in five colors: red, green, gray, brown, and navy. It is also the planner of choice of actress Ayo Edebiri , who uses this diary for planning and scrapbooking . The layout has weekly pages on the left-hand side and gridded pages on the right-hand side, which she says is the superior layout for writing. “It makes me feel like a scientist, even if I’m writing things as simple as ‘Do laundry’ and ‘Seriously, please do laundry,’” she says.

Best time-management-focused weekly planner

Layout: Weekly | Size: 7.75 by 9.75 inches | Cover: Hardcover

This planner combines the scheduling elements you’d want in a regular planner with the goal-setting elements you might look for in a journal. In addition to its gridded weekly (and month- and year-at-a-glance) pages, this has space for you to write down both your roles and goals as a partner, employee, and friend. “It goes beyond being a planner and is really a clarifying tool for understanding how you want to invest your time,” explains author and time-management coach Elizabeth Grace Saunders. “It even invites you to track your daily habits” according to different priorities, Saunders adds, allowing users to tackle their goals in a more holistic way.

Best cloth cover weekly planner

In addition to its weekly pages, the Ponderlily planner has monthly ones and spaces for jotting down tasks, notes, and things you’re grateful for (as you might in a journal). Calling out details like “a cloth cover, foiled-copper lettering, lay-flat binding,” and inspiring quotes that begin each new month, Saunders has just one word for this planner: “Beautiful.”

Best weekly planner for heavy notetakers

Layout: Weekly |  Size: 5.75 by 8.25 inches | Cover: Faux leather cover

For those who use digital calendars for scheduling appointments but still want a paper planner to help them make the best use of their time, I recommend the Lemome planner. Instead of writing down appointments and logistics, brand strategist and writer Neha Gandhi outlines each day’s main goal in her planner. That helps her keep focused during the day and track projects over time. “I like this particular planner because it doesn’t waste real estate on huge day-by-day calendars and instead gives only high-level monthly and note-taking weekly views. I can organize meeting notes by the day they were taken (and can then cross-reference the date to the meeting the notes came from in my digital cal) so that I’m not flipping endlessly through a notebook to find one nugget of information that’s somehow always just out of reach,” says Gandhi. She also likes the convenient size: “It neatly fits into any work bag.”

Best weekly planner that doubles as a wallet

Layout: Weekly | Size: 4.7 by 7.5 inches | Cover: Softcover

In addition to being an excellent planner, the Jibun Techo has a card-holder insert that can do double duty as your wallet. “I just need to grab Jibun Techo and my keys and I am ready to head out!” says Wakako Takagi, a co-founder of Los Angeles–based stationery store Baum-kuchen . “I use the weekly pages to keep me oriented with detailed appointments, things to remember, and to document of some of the key ingredients in life (like how many miles I run each day),” she says, adding that it also has monthly pages she uses as a master planner.

Editor’s Note: The Kokuyo 2025 Diary is available for pre-order at the Kokuyo Store.

Best splurge-worthy weekly planner

Layout: Weekly | Size: 5.5 by 7.5 inches | Cover: Leather cover

If you feel like splurging, the Smythson Soho Diary is the way to go. The leather brand has been around for over 100 years and its planners are carried by extremely chic people far and wide. “Larger than a pocket calendar, which affords little writing space, and smaller than a desk diary, which is like lugging around a textbook, the Soho is the ideal size,” says writer Leah Bhabha. She likes the formatting, too. “The weekly agenda devotes a sizable square to each day, and there’s a weekly to-do list on the opposite page.” Plus the paper itself is “half the thickness and weight of normal pages, but suffice to say, they make for easy writing with no ink bleeding through.”

Best (less expensive) splurge-worthy weekly planner

Layout: Weekly |  Size: 4 by 7 inches | Cover: Leather cover

For a less-expensive option from Smythson, I suggest the Memoranda Agenda. The layout divides its dated calendar pages between full weeks (on the left) and a blank lined page for notes opposite each week of the year (on the right). The Smythson agenda linked above has a handy pocket on the back cover to stash bits and bobs, like receipts or a checkbook, though it is available without a pocket (which also saves you a few dollars).

Best thematic weekly planner

Layout: Weekly | Size: 7” x 9.5” | Cover: Softcover

For over than 30 years, editor Julian Rothenstein has curated his Redstone Diaries : a planner filled with ephemera all centered on a certain theme (last year’s was beauty; this year’s is family). “As someone who grows paralyzed when faced with a procession of blank pages, I’m not really a big notebook person (most of my stray thoughts are scattered in bits and pieces across the Notes app). But opening a journal where half the pages are already filled with something lovely, creative, and valuable takes all the pressure off and may even inspire some beautiful musings of my own,” says Strategist writer Kitty Guo.

Best productivity-focused weekly planner

Layout: Weekly | Size: 5.8 by 8.3 inches | Cover: Hardcover

Clever Fox made its first appearance in our story about the best planners for teachers . But with pages dedicated to goal-setting, list-making, and scheduling, I think this would make a great option for non-teachers as well, especially because the layout breaks down daily tasks so they are less overwhelming.

Best daily planners

Best overall daily planner.

Layout: Daily | Size: 8.3 by 5.8 inches | Cover: Softcover

While I have never strayed from my Hobonichi Techo, this planner above does give me a little pause. Strategist writer (and self-proclaimed stationery nerd) Lauren Ro bought the Hobonichi Techo Cousin, which she describes as “the larger, more souped-up version” of my beloved Techo. It includes monthly, weekly, and daily spreads in a relatively compact size. While she has mostly relied on weekly planners in the past, the added space has become super-helpful for keeping track of both herself and her family. “I appreciate the gridded daily pages for their structured, but not too structured, layout that includes a schedule column on the left and a priority checklist at the top; the rest of the page is open, and I use it for jotting down diarylike musings, family-meal planning, and whatever else I want to commit to paper,” she adds. Because the Cousin does not have the leatherlike cover of the Techo, Ro suggests adding a vinyl protector to reinforce the card-stock cover. But, like the Techo, the Cousin goes in and out of stock, so if you want one for 2024, don’t dilly-dally.

@thestrategist It’s almost time to break in the new planner! 🤗📔 #stationerylover #hobonichicousin #plannertok ♬ original sound - the.strategist

Best undated daily planner

Layout: Daily | Size: 21 by 25 centimeters | Cover: Softcover

Two Strategist staffers have used a version of this planner from Australian stationery store Milligram. One is Ro, who first wrote about it back in 2018: “With a variety of abstract covers, colorways, and programs, they are the planners of my dreams. I chose the daily ‘non-diary’ with dot-grid pages for each day of the year.” The following year , she tried the brand’s Family Life weekly diary , “which includes space for action lists, budgeting, meal planning, and more.” Former Strategist editor Maxine Builder used this dotted non-diary to keep track of the Strategist’s editorial calendar, because each page has plenty of space for the day’s to-do lists and notes, and the planner makes it easy to flip months ahead. “It also just looks very nice sitting on a desk, and the linen wears well over the course of a year,” says Builder.

Editor’s note: The Studio Milligram The Daily Non-Diary Dot Grid A5 is currently unavailable for 2024, but we will check back if it releases a 2025 version.

Best softcover daily planner

Layout: Daily |  Size: 105 by 148 millimeters | Cover: Softcover

For those who prefer notebooks or planners with lay-flat binding, this undated daily planner from Stalogy is extremely flexible. Drumm says it’s made of onion-skin-like paper that “feels wonderfully retro” and doesn’t bleed through despite its thinner consistency. “This fact really deserves more exclamation points, because if you like inky pens and thin paper, then you’ve never gotten your way,” Drumm explains. “As far as layout goes, the type is minimal and the light-gray printing is unobtrusive,” she says, adding that the fill-in-the-date format means “you can start things off whenever you damn well please.”

Best spiral-bound daily planner

Layout: Daily | Size: 7.5” × 9.5” | Cover: Hardcover

If you prefer a spiral bound planner, I recommend Appointed’s daily planners, which feature a brass-wire binding and a foil-stamped, water-resistant cloth cover. “I chose Appointed’s Wire Daily Planner because it has a classy dark-gray cover and is spiral bound, so it will blend into my desk when it’s closed and lay flat when it’s open,” says Strategist managing editor Kelsie Schrader . “Each day is a full page that’s broken into a column for my schedule and one for tasks I have to accomplish, plus plenty of room below those two columns for any other notes I want to make.”

Editor’s note: The Appointed 2024 Wire Daily Planner is currently unavailable for 2024, but the brand will be releasing its 2025 planners soon.

Best to-do-list-focused daily planner

Layout: Daily | Size: 7.5” × 9.5” | Cover: Softcover

Ban.do is one of my favorite sources for cheery, colorful stationery that is beloved by celebrities and teens alike. While former Strategist writer Latifah Miles was a self-described “die-hard planner user” for many years, she found that the traditional calendar layout was no longer working for her current lifestyle. “I still really like to write things down and find that a visual to-do list is super-helpful to my general organization, which is why I ordered this undated daily planner from Ban.do that allows me to list out my tasks when I want without being chained to filling it in every single day,” she explains. Miles especially loves the peppy planner’s “Priorities” section, which she uses to highlight a few tasks from her longer to-do list that need to be accomplished each day.

Best motivational daily planner

Layout: Daily | Size: 6 by 8.5 inches | Cover: Hardcover

The 5 Second Journal, written by motivational speaker Mel Robbins, has more structure than your standard planner — it asks you to fill in everything from your most important project of the day to what time you plan to stop working (to prevent burnout). There is also a small hour-by-hour planner to help you map your schedule more comprehensively and a gridded space meant for jotting down ideas. “For the aspiring planner who has no idea where to begin, I recommend the 5 Second Journal,” says life and career coach Phoebe Gavin .

Best refillable daily planner

Layout: Daily | Size: 5.5 by 8.5 inches | Cover: Leather cover

For a tried-and-true option, try the Day-Timer. Christy Whitman , a life coach and the author of The Art of Having It All: A Woman’s Guide to Unlimited Abundance , has been using the Day-Timer for more than 20 years. “I love this brand because the layout of the pages allows me to have a place for the items to be done today, a schedule, and also a page for writing and taking notes. So each day is on two pages and gives me a full look at my day,” she says. “If I have an appointment scheduled, I can write notes next to the appointment and remind myself of call-in information, the name of the person, or any other important information.” Whitman also loves Day-Timer’s customer service, specifically the reminders to get new pages for the New Year. “They send me an email with the order number, refill numbers, and it is just easy for busy career people.”

Best monthly planners

Best monthly planner overall.

Layout: Monthly | Size: 3.5 by 6 inches | Cover: Softcover

This monthly at-a-glance planner has a super-specific prompt: It asks you to write down the single-most-important thing each day. At the end of the two years it spans, you’ll have a record of all the most essential things you did for those 730 days. “If you’re a big-picture thinker, you’ve built a successful life ignoring anything that does not help meet your grand vision,” says career counselor Penelope Trunk . “But there are some things that cannot be ignored, like calling your mom on her birthday.”

Best binder-style monthly planner

Layout: Monthly | Size: 8 by 9 inches | Cover: Hardcover

Binder-style planners, like this one, have loose pages which can be removed and rearranged if necessary, so they grant a lot of flexibility. Darcy Miller — an author, illustrator, and crafter with a meticulously organized office — uses it for her day-to-day notes and planning and even keeps one for each of her kids to keep track of things like doctor’s appointments and parent-teacher conferences. The eight-inch-by-nine-inch binder is small and light enough to fit in her bag, but when it’s not in there, it looks good if it’s out on the table.

Best quarterly planners

Best quarterly planner overall.

Layout: Quarterly | Size: 5.75 by 8.5 inches | Cover: Hardcover

While it may be more common to plan schedules by weeks, days, or months, planning in quarters can help organize big-picture goals. The BestSelf Co. Self Journal is one such planner that helps break down big goals into digestible 90-day chunks. “ A year is an intimidating thing to plan, but a month is too short for those big, exciting goals,” explains founder of content agency Prolifica Annie Mueller. “With quarterly goal planning, you can push for a goal that’s exciting and stay focused and see progress soon enough that you stay motivated.” Penny Zenker, a life coach, also likes the Self Journal: “I use this now because it is a comprehensive goal-setting-and-tracking system with reflection all in one. It helps me align my goals and my daily tasks, which makes me more productive.” Liz Sumner , a progress and life coach, adds that it combines the best parts of a journal and planner, encouraging reflection in addition to goal-setting.

One thing to note about this and all the quarterly planners on our list: Because they only cover three months at a time, you need to buy four to get through an entire calendar year. The upside of this system is that it offers a bit more flexibility because you can start using one at any point in the year.

Best softcover quarterly planner

Layout: Quarterly | Size: 5.75 by 8.5 inches | Cover: Softcover

The cool-looking Poketo is another quarterly planner with a bit more style. With this set of four, you’ll be covered for a full year no matter when you begin using them, though you can also buy them individually. Mueller calls it “the perfect way to schedule and track quarterly goals and sprints — for work, for your own personal goals, for family projects, for travel. It works for everything.” The planner makes it easy, she says, by “leading you through setting your quarterly goals, tracking monthly milestones, and following a weekly and daily action plan.”

Best hardcover quarterly planner

Layout: Quarterly | Size: 6.25 by 9.25 inches | Cover: Hardcover

Another quarterly option is the Full Focus planner by Michael Hyatt, which is also broken down into 90-day increments. While it lacks the journaling aspect of the Self Journal above, it is still great at keeping you focused. The reason it works so well, personal-brand expert Richard Janes explains, “is that the layout provides clear focus on what is important, while still enabling me to empty my head of all the other tasks that are lurking around. But it doesn’t go overboard so that I can easily get to the actual planning of my day, week, and month.”

Best customizable planners

Best customizable planner overall.

Layout: Customizable   

Golden Coil’s ring-bound planner allows you to customize pretty much everything about it from cover to cover (including its cover, which you can get in several colors and one of two materials: linen or leather). In addition to standard calendar pages, the brand offers themed layouts for wedding planning, wellness planning, recipe planning, and more. It’s another favorite of Hart-Unger, who told us the brand has “very elegant layouts and particularly luxurious paper.”

Best (less expensive) customizable planner

Layout: Customizable

Like Golden Coil’s planner, the Agendio is extremely customizable (but for half the price). That’s because the brand lets you choose between a daily, weekly, or monthly structure for the pages inside of the ring-bound planner. You can also customize the pages’ size and layout and add extras like tabs, elastics, and page markers. Folks can personalize it even further by noting dates for their own special events or activities. “If you can think of an option, Agendio probably has it,” Hart-Unger promises.

Some more planners we’ve written about

Our experts

• Karen Iorio Adelson , Strategist senior writer • Leah Bhabha , writer • Maxine Builder , former Strategist editor • Louis Cheslaw , former Strategist associate editor •  Liza Corsillo , Strategist writer • Sam Daly , Strategist deals writer • Perrin Drumm , writer, editor, publisher • Neha Gandhi , brand strategist and writer • Phoebe Gavin , life and career coach • Rachel Griffiths , Strategist writer • Kitty Guo , Strategist writer • Sarah Hart-Unger , host of Best Laid Plans podcast • Richard Janes , personal-brand expert • Latifah Miles , Strategist writer   • Darcy Miller , author, illustrator, and crafter • Annie Mueller , founder of content agency Prolifica • Dominique Pariso , Strategist writer • Jenna Prada , director of executive functioning at tutoring service Private Prep • Lauren Ro , Strategist writer • Anthony Rotunno , former Strategist senior editor • Elizabeth Grace Saunders , author and time-management coach • Kelsie Schrader, Strategist managing editor • Julie Solomon , business coach and host of The Influencer Podcast • Jane Stoller , organizing expert and business consultant • Liz Sumner , progress and life coach • Alexis Swerdloff , New York Magazine deputy editor • Wakako Takagi , co-founder of Los Angeles–based stationery store Baum-kuchen • Cindy Thompson , Instagram’s Plan Another Day blogger • Penelope Trunk , career counselor at Penelope Trunk • Christy Whitman , life coach and author of The Art of Having It All: A Woman’s Guide to Unlimited Abundance • Penny Zenker , life coach

The Strategist is designed to surface the most useful, expert recommendations for things to buy across the vast e-commerce landscape. Some of our latest conquests include the best women’s jeans , rolling luggage , pillows for side sleepers , ultra-flattering pants , and bath towels . We update links when possible, but note that deals can expire and all prices are subject to change.

Every editorial product is independently selected. If you buy something through our links, New York may earn an affiliate commission.

• the strategist
• productivity
• best in class

Every product is independently selected by (obsessive) editors. Things you buy through our links may earn us a commission.

Deal of the Day

Micro sales, greatest hits, most viewed stories.

• What Remi Wolf Can’t Live Without
• What Eva Chen Can’t Live Without
• The 15 Very Best Protein Powders
• It’s Your Last Chance to Shop Nordstrom’s Summer Sale
• The 11 Very Best Shampoos

• Office Products
• Office & School Supplies
• Calendars, Planners & Personal Organizers
• Planners, Refills & Covers

Sorry, there was a problem.

Image Unavailable

• To view this video download Flash Player

Graphique 2023 Business Planner | 18 Month Organizer, July 2022-Dec. 2023 | Weekly & Monthly Spreads | To-Do List & Note Pages | Pocket & Pen Loop | Vegan Leather | Camel | 6 x 8

6x8 Vegan Leather Planner

8x10 Vegan Leather Planner

Brand	Graphique
Color	Camel
Cover Material	Leather
Year	20222023
Format	18-month calendar
Target Audience	Adult
Material	Faux Leather
Binding	Office Product
Manufacturer	Graphique

About this item

• PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATION With this business planner, you can keep track of deadlines, meetings, appointments, and events within each sizable daily grid. Every month is detailed across two pages followed by two additional pages per week providing extended space for notes and reminders.
• SOFT VEGAN LEATHER With a distinct likeness to genuine leather, you can feel confident carrying this planner knowing its vegan leather is cruelty-free.
• 18-MONTH OVERVIEW Beginning with July 2022, the planner extends through December 2023. Monthly pages contain previous and next month calendars for scheduling reference. Public and culturally significant holidays are marked.
• QUALITY CRAFTSMANSHIP The planner features premium quality white paper stock so the ink from your handwritten note doesn’t smudge. The lettering on the front cover is highlighted in impressive gold foil. An interior pocket securely holds business cards, proposals, etc. Bound with an elastic closure, this planner also includes a pen loop for easy access.
• YOUR PLANNING BOUTIQUE Graphique creates fine designer cards, journals, planners, calendars, folder sets, and more for a stylish presentation that expresses who you are. Our goal is to design the fashion accessories that help add confidence and flair to your day and keep you organized at the same time!

Additional Details

Brand in this category on Amazon

Product Description

Magnetic Notepad

Keep a running grocery or todo list on the refrigerator and more. You will find these indispensable!

Peanuts Collection

Your favorite characters come to life as the perfect stationary items!

Handmade Cards

A unique twist to the original greeting card! Can be used for any special occasions.

Wall Calendars

Keep track of deadlines, meetings, appointments and events within each daily grid.

High quality planners that makes planning ahead a luxe experience!

From the brand

Graphique De France

For four decades, Graphique has elevated the art of stationaty, gift-giving, home essentials and beyond!

We are constantly thinking of new products to make each day fun, sophisticated and full of life. We simply love what we do and hope you will too!

How did we get our start?

What makes our products unique.

Our main goal is to incorporate personal taste, fashion and inspiration into the daily routines of individuals everywhere.

Why do we love what we do?

Fashion Your Life!

Visit the Store

Videos for this product

Click to play video

Graphique Planners - Organize Your Life

Looking for specific info, product information, technical details.

Manufacturer	‎Graphique
Brand	‎Graphique
Item Weight	‎13.3 ounces
Product Dimensions	‎6 x 8 x 0.67 inches
Item model number	‎PU601623
Color	‎Camel
Cover Material	‎Leather
Material Type	‎Faux Leather
Size	‎6x8 Vegan Leather Planner
Manufacturer Part Number	‎PU601623

Additional Information

ASIN	1664809635
Customer Reviews	4.5 out of 5 stars
Best Sellers Rank	#281,102 in Office Products ( ) #6,755 in
Date First Available	December 17, 2021

Warranty & Support

Amazon.com Return Policy: You can return many items you have purchased within 30 days following delivery of the item to you. Our Voluntary 30-Day Return Guarantee does not affect your legal right of withdrawal in any way. You can find out more about the exceptions and conditions .

Fields with an asterisk * are required

: : : Enter the store name where you found this product : Please select province : to provide feedback. \n' + ' ' ); } function getThankYouDiv(thankMsg) { return ( ' \n' + '

' ); } function getLoadingGifDiv() { return '

Discover similar items

Target audience, special features, cover material, calendar type.

Customer reviews

• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 5 star 78% 10% 5% 4% 4% 78%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 4 star 78% 10% 5% 4% 4% 10%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 3 star 78% 10% 5% 4% 4% 5%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 2 star 78% 10% 5% 4% 4% 4%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 1 star 78% 10% 5% 4% 4% 4%

Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.

Reviews with images

Beautiful book... Cover needs a little TLC

• Sort reviews by Top reviews Most recent Top reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. please try again later..

Top reviews from other countries

• About Amazon
• Investor Relations
• Amazon Devices
• Amazon Science
• Sell products on Amazon
• Sell on Amazon Business
• Sell apps on Amazon
• Become an Affiliate
• Advertise Your Products
• Self-Publish with Us
• Host an Amazon Hub
• › See More Make Money with Us
• Amazon Business Card
• Shop with Points
• Reload Your Balance
• Amazon Currency Converter
• Amazon and COVID-19
• Your Account
• Your Orders
• Shipping Rates & Policies
• Returns & Replacements
• Manage Your Content and Devices

• Conditions of Use
• Privacy Notice
• Consumer Health Data Privacy Disclosure
• Your Ads Privacy Choices

Home > Business > Business Startup

• 5 Best Business Plan Software and Tools in 2023 for Your Small Business

Data as of 3 /13/23 . Offers and availability may vary by location and are subject to change.

We are committed to sharing unbiased reviews. Some of the links on our site are from our partners who compensate us. Read our editorial guidelines and advertising disclosure .

A business plan can do a lot for your business. It can help you secure investors or other funding. It can give your company direction. It can keep your finances healthy. But, if we’re being honest, it can also be a pain to write.

Luckily, you don’t have to start from scratch or go it alone. Business plan software and services can help you craft a professional business plan, like our top choice LivePlan , which provides templates, guidance, and more.

You’ve got quite a few choices for business plan help, so we’re here to help you narrow things down. Let’s talk about the best business plan tools out there.

• LivePlan : Best overall
• BizPlanBuilder : Most user-friendly
• Wise Business Plans : Best professional service
• Business Sorter : Best for internal plans
• GoSmallBiz.com : Most extra features
• Honorable mentions

Business plan software 101

The takeaway, business plan software faq, compare the best business plan software.

	Cloud-based software	$12.00/mo.	60-day money back guarantee
	Windows app and cloud-based software	$20.75/mo.	60-day money back guarantee
	Professional service	Custom quote	N/A
	Cloud-based software	$10.00/mo.	14 days
	Cloud-based software	$39.00/mo.	N/A

By signing up I agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy .

LivePlan: Best overall business plan software

Data as of 3 /13/23 . Offers and availability may vary by location and are subject to change. *With annual billing

LivePlan has been our favorite business plan software for a while now, despite the stiff competition.

There’s a lot to like about LivePlan. It has pretty much all the features you could want from your business plan software. LivePlan gives you step-by-step instructions for writing your plan, helps you create financial reports, lets you compare your business’s actual financials to your plan’s goals, and much more. And if you ever need inspiration, it includes hundreds of sample business plans that can guide your writing.

LivePlan software pricing

	$12.00/mo.	$15.00/mo.
	$24.00/mo.	$30.00/mo.

But the best part? You get all that (and more) at a very competitive price. (You can choose from annual, six-month, or monthly billing.) While LivePlan isn’t quite the cheapest business plan builder out there, it’s not too far off either. And if comes with a 60-day money back guarantee. So there’s no risk in trying LivePlan out for yourself.

With a great balance of features and cost, LivePlan offers the best business plan solution for most businesses.

BizPlanBuilder: Most user-friendly

Need something easy to use? BizPlanBuilder fits the bill.

BizPlanBuilder doesn’t have a flashy, modern user interface―but it does have a very clear, intuitive one. You’ll be able to see your plan’s overall structure at a glance, so you can quickly navigate from your title page to your market trend section to that paragraph on your core values. And as you write, you’ll use a text editor that looks a whole lot like the word processing programs you’re already familiar with.

BizPlanBuilder software pricing

$20.75/mo.	$29.00/mo.	$349.00

Data effective 3/13/23. At publishing time, amounts, rates, and requirements are current but are subject to change. Offers may not be available in all areas.

BizPlanBuilder also offers lots of helpful guidance for actually writing your plan. It gives you pre-written text, in which you just have to fill in relevant details. It offers explanations for what information you need to include in each section of your plan and way. It even gives you helpful tips from experts, so you’ll have all the information you need to plan like a pro.

So if you want planning software with almost no learning curve, you’ll like BizPlanBuilder.

Wise Business Plans: Best professional service

• Custom quote

Unlike all the other companies on this list, Wise Business Plans doesn’t offer software. Instead, it offers professional business plan writing services―meaning someone does all the hard work for you.

Now, you might think that sounds expensive―and you’re probably right (you have to request a custom quote for your plan). But there’s a lot to be said for expertise, and Wise Business Plans has plenty of that. Your business plan will get written by an experienced writer (with an MBA, no less). They’ll get information from you, do their own research, and then write your plan. You get one free revision, and you can always pay for more.  

Wise Business Plans service pricing

N/A	N/A	Custom quote

Your end result will be a polished, entirely original business plan. (You can even get printed copies.) And best of all, you won’t have to spend your precious time working on the plan yourself. Wise Business Plans takes care of all the hard parts, and makes your business look good while doing it. Sounds like a service worth paying for, right?

Put simply, if you want the most professional business plan possible, we recommend using Wise Business Plans’s writing service.

Business Sorter: Best for internal plans

Many businesses need plans to show to people outside the company (to get financing, for example). But what if you just need a plan for internal use? In that case, we suggest Business Sorter.

Business Sorter uses a unique card-based method to help you craft the perfect business plan. (You can watch a demo video to see how it works.) You’ll plan some of the usual things, like finances and marketing. But Business Sorter also lets you make plans for specific teams and team members. It also emphasizes more internal matters, like operations, that might get overlooked in a business plan for outsiders.

Business Sorter software pricing

	$10.00/mo.	$80.00/yr.
	$30.00/mo.	$240.00/yr.
	$80.00/mo.	$640.00/yr.
	Custom pricing	Custom pricing

After you’ve made your business plan, Business Sorter also helps you stay accountable to it. You can create tasks, give them deadlines, and assign them to team members―giving you basic project management tools to make sure your business plans become business actions. (Oh, and did we mention that Business Sorter has the lowest starting prices of any software on this list?)

It all adds up to a business plan software that works great for internal planning.

GoSmallBiz: Most extra features

Want to get way more than just business planning software? Then you probably want GoSmallBiz.

See, GoSmallBiz offers business plan software as part of its service―but it’s just one part of a much bigger whole. You also get everything from discounts on legal services to a website builder to a CRM (customer relationship manager) to business document templates. And more. In other words, you get just about everything you need to get your startup off the ground.

GoSmallBiz software pricing

	$39.00/mo.
	$49.00/mo.
	$199.00/mo.

Don’t worry though―you still get all the business planning help you need. GoSmallBiz gives you business plan templates, step-by-step instructions, and the ability to create financial projections. And if you get stuck, GoSmallBiz will put you in touch with experts who can offer advice.

If you want business planning and much, much more, give GoSmallBiz a try.

• PlanGuru : Best financial forecasting
• EnLoop : Cheapest tool for startups

We recommend the software above for most business planning needs. Some businesses, though, might be interested in these more specialized planning software.

Honorable mention software pricing

	$899.00/yr.	$99.00/mo.	N/A
	$11.00/mo.	$19.95/mo.	N/A

PlanGuru: Best financial forecasting features

PlanGuru is pretty pricey compared to our other picks, but you might find its forecasting features worth paying for. It has more forecasting methods than other software (over 20) plus it lets you forecast up to 10 years.

EnLoop: Cheapest tool for startups

EnLoop doesn’t have our favorite features or interface, but it does have really, really low pricing plus a seven-day free trial. It's the most affordable software for startup business planning and still provides all the essential features like financial analysis, team collaboration, charting, and more.

Data as of 3 /13/23 . Offers and availability may vary by location and are subject to change. * With annual billing

Several of our previous favorite planning software, including BusinessPlanPro and StratPad, seem to have gone out of business.

A business plan is a written, living document that tells the story of your business and what you plan to do with it. It serves as the source of truth for you—the business owner—as well as potential partners, employees, and investors, but it also serves as a roadmap of what you want your business to be.

Why you need a business plan

While some small-business owners don’t see the point of creating a formal business plan, it can have some concrete benefits for your business. For example, one 2016 study found that business owners with written plans are more successful than those that don’t. 1

Still too vague? Then let’s get specific.

If you ever seek business funding (from, say, banks, angel investors , or venture capitalists ), you’ll have to prove that your business deserves the money you want. A formal business plan―complete with financial data and projections―gives you a professional document you can use to make your case. (In fact, most potential investors will expect you to have a business plan ready.)

Even if you’re not seeking funding right now, a business plan can help your business. A formal plan can guide your business’s direction and decision making. It can keep your business accountable (by, for example, seeing if your business meets the financial projections you included). And a formal plan offers a great way to make sure your team stays on the same page.

What to include in your business plan

Not all business plans are created equal. To make a really useful business plan, you’ll want to include a number of elements:

• Basic information about your business
• Your products/services
• Market and industry analysis
• What makes your business competitive
• Strategies and upcoming plans
• Your team (and your team’s background)
• Current financial status
• Financial and market projections
• Executive summary

Of course, you can include more or fewer elements―whatever makes sense for your business. Just make sure your business plan is comprehensive (but not overwhelming).

How business plan software can help

With so many elements to include, business plan creation can take a while. Business plan software tries to speed things up.

Most business plan software will include prompts for each section. In some cases, you can just fill in your business’s specific information, and the software will write the text for you. In other cases, the software will give you specific guidance and examples, helping you write the text yourself.

Plus, business plan software can help you stay organized. You’ll usually get intuitive menus that let you quickly flip through sections. So rather than endlessly scrolling through a long document in a word processor, you can quickly find your way around your plan. Some software even lets you drag and drop sections to reorganize your plan.

Sounds way easier than just staring at a blank page and trying to start from scratch, right?

Choosing business plan software

To find the right business plan builder for your business, you’ll want to compare features. For example, would you rather write your own text, getting prompts and advice from your software? Or would you rather go with a fill-in-the-blank method?

Likewise, think about the elements you need. If your plan will have a heavy focus on finances, you’ll want to choose business plan software with robust financial projection features. If you care more about market and competitor analysis, look for software that can help with that research.

You may also want to find business plan software that integrates with your business accounting software . Some plan builders will import data from Xero, QuickBooks, etc. to quickly generate your financial data and projections.

And of course, you’ll want to compare prices. After all, you always want to end up with software that fits your business budget.

The right business plan software can make your life easier. With LivePlan ’s wide breadth of features and online learning tools, you can’t go wrong. Plus, BizPlanBuilder 's one-time pricing makes it easy to invest while Business Sorter has a low starting cost. And if you're business is looking to grow, GoSmallBiz and Wise Business Plans will scale with you.

But of course, different companies have different needs. So shop around until you find the software that’s best for you and your business.

Now that you've got a business plan, take a look at our checklist for starting a small business.  It can help you make sure you have everything else you need to get your startup off to a good start!

Related content

• 7 Steps to Build a Successful Project Management Sales Plan
• Best Project Management Software and Tools in 2023
• 4 Cost Management Techniques for Small Businesses

Creating a business plan can take anywhere from a couple hours to several weeks. Your timeline will depend on things like the elements you choose to include, whether you use software or hire a writing service, and how much research goes into your plan.

That said, much of the business plan software out there brags that it can help you create a fairly detailed plan in a few hours. So if you’re going the software route, that can help you set your expectations.

If you want to get the most out of your business plan, you should update it on a regular basis―at least annually. That way, you can continually refer to it to inform your company’s strategies and direction.  

At the very least, you should update your business plan before you start looking for a new round of funding (whether that’s with investors or lenders).

Thanks to business plan software, you can easily write your own business plan rather than pay someone to do it for you. And in most cases, software will cost you less than a professional business plan service.

There are some times you might want to go with a service though. If time is tight, you might find that it’s worth the cost of a service. Or if you’ve got big investor meetings on the horizon, you might want the expertise and polish that a professional service can offer.

Ultimately, you’ll have to decide for yourself whether business plan software or a business plan service will work better for your company.

Methodology

We ranked business plan software and tools based on features, pricing and plans, and connections to project management and other services. The value of each plan and service, along with what it offers, was a big consideration in our rankings, and we looked to see if what was offered was useful to small businesses or just extra. The final thing we looked at was the ease of use of the software to see if it's too complex for small businesses.

At Business.org, our research is meant to offer general product and service recommendations. We don't guarantee that our suggestions will work best for each individual or business, so consider your unique needs when choosing products and services.

Sources 1. Harvard Business Review, “ Research: Writing a Business Plan Makes Your Startup More Likely to Succeed .” Accessed March 13, 2023.

5202 W Douglas Corrigan Way Salt Lake City, UT 84116

Accounting & Payroll

Point of Sale

Payment Processing

Inventory Management

Human Resources

Other Services

Best Small Business Loans

Best Inventory Management Software

Best Small Business Accounting Software

Best Payroll Software

Best Mobile Credit Card Readers

Best POS Systems

Best Tax Software

Stay updated on the latest products and services anytime anywhere.

By signing up, you agree to our Terms of Use  and  Privacy Policy .

Disclaimer: The information featured in this article is based on our best estimates of pricing, package details, contract stipulations, and service available at the time of writing. All information is subject to change. Pricing will vary based on various factors, including, but not limited to, the customer’s location, package chosen, added features and equipment, the purchaser’s credit score, etc. For the most accurate information, please ask your customer service representative. Clarify all fees and contract details before signing a contract or finalizing your purchase.

Our mission is to help consumers make informed purchase decisions. While we strive to keep our reviews as unbiased as possible, we do receive affiliate compensation through some of our links. This can affect which services appear on our site and where we rank them. Our affiliate compensation allows us to maintain an ad-free website and provide a free service to our readers. For more information, please see our  Privacy Policy Page . |

© Business.org 2024 All Rights Reserved.

5 Best Online Business Planner for 2023 (Free and Paid)

Choosing the best online planner can be tedious. We help you by shortlisting the 5 best Online Business Planning Software to fulfill your business needs

Modal Header

Subscribe to our mailing list, modal footer.

Priority planning

Priority Planner for Effective People

Priority Planner for Highly Effective People

February 01, 2023

✎ Edit Post

Laying the foundations of a successful and sustainable business is like shooting an arrow.

To hit the bullseye, have an accurate aim.

Similarly, a well-defined, thoroughly thought-over, and realistic business and financial plan is the way to establish a leading business in its sector.

The most intelligent, error-free way of doing so is to have an online business planner and make the most of it.

Business planning software is a lifesaver in today’s fast-paced world. Their multiple features help business owners sync with their professional activities and goals.

Reminders, updates, and progress reports in these business software solutions are like a coach who keeps athletes on track and motivated for a winning game.

The internet is packed with business planning software, each guaranteeing promising results. This article narrows the options to some of the best business plan software.

1: Week Plan

Everyone is familiar with the iconic “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” that changed countless lives and provided a direction to millions for becoming organized and successful.

However, a more iconic initiative would be to put all mantras of the book into action.

Week Plan leaves everyone in awe by taking this initiative and designing an all-encompassing business planning software that checks all boxes of planning, prioritization, result-driven objectives, and time management.

Week Plan is a renowned productivity planner and task management software that provides complete solutions to those who like to stay organized without complications.

The simple yet effective planning and time-tracking features of this software make it nothing less than a blessing in disguise for all business owners and people who want to manage their workflow.

• Task prioritization
• Time tracker for goals and projects
• Productivity planner
• Time management
• Team management
• Shareable plans and reviews
• Daily summaries
• Desired value or percentage entering
• Weekly, monthly, and yearly planners
• Repeating task automation

Top 3 Features

1: automate recurring tasks.

Creating a business plan includes countless major and minor objectives. However, some tasks to achieve the desired goal are constant and recurring.

The best business planner software would help users automate these recurring tasks so owners can shift their focus to more pressing issues and plan.

Week Plan offers the convenience of automating recurring tasks and activities. Users can set up when these tasks repeat and for how long. In addition, they can turn off repeats whenever they want to.

This feature is handy for business planning as it allows all team members to attend regular planning-and-review meetings, update reports, and exchange information without someone having to remind them personally.

2: Role Assignment

Designating roles for team members and assigning them relevant tasks are part of a basic business plan. Delegated duties and timely completion of tasks ensure maximum business productivity and consequent success.

Week Plan’s role assignment is advanced and sophisticated, with the option of adding roles with set objectives. Employees and team leaders need to understand the goal behind a task and how it brings value to the business.

Team leaders can track the progress of each member, while employees can complete their work and feel the pride of being a part of an organization’s growth.

3: Objectives Key Result

The Objective Key Result, or OKR , is a benchmark feature of the Week Plan’s business planning software.

The Objective Key Result is a unique feature that allows users to create task objectives. Each task can have multiple goals achievable in a week, month, or as per requirement.

In each aim, users have the facility to add key results. These key results are the core of a business plan creation. Each objective can have multiple key results.

The OKRs are the best way business owners and team members can maximize efficiency . Set objectives with precise results help all employees to focus on the task with thorough achievable in mind.

• Weekly and monthly view options
• Easy-to-use layout
• Assign high-impact tasks
• Addition of team members and roles
• Less functionality for complex use
• No free versions

Supported platforms

• Monthly plan at $10.83 per month
• Yearly plan at $104 per year
• 7-day free trial with every planner

Customer support

• Knowledge base
• Documentation
• In-app chat

Week Plan is rated 4.5 on Capterra and 4.3 on G2.

Week Plan is one of the best planning and business continuity planning software. It has valuable features that suit the needs of both individuals and companies.

For example, the weekly plan helps users set their objectives to yield measurable results. This motivates team members to complete tasks and is immensely useful for business planning.

2: LivePlan

LivePlan is a business plan creation software that caters to the needs of small businesses, startups, and freelancers. It provides solutions that help new businesses create their pitch, write rational plans with its guides, and take inspiration from business plan templates.

In addition, this business planning software promises insights into relevant competitors, trends, and forecasts.

LivePlan is preferred by newbies who wish to establish a business but need more knowledge and guidance. It helps provide a step-by-step plan for setting up, promoting, financing, and building a business.

• Single-page plans
• Step-by-step guidance
• Sample plans
• Financial planning
• Business planning templates
• Shareable and printable pitch
• Market insight
• Comparable performance
• Sync with accounting software

1: Business Plan Templates

Liveplan allows users to browse hundreds of templates and use them as samples to create their business plans.

It has sample templates for almost every new enterprise, from office setups to online services. Such features benefit new setups established by those unaware of the basics of business plan creation.

Since this business planning software is created only for amateurs, a valuable part of their business plan templates is that they help in all aspects of starting a business plan.

They include examples of summaries, how to plan marketing activities, and financial planning.

2: Single-Page Business Pitch Creation

New businesses take time to secure their place in the ever-competitive marketplace. Investors, customers, and collaborators are hard to find; even if they are available, they are too busy to pay attention to the business.

An effective business pitch successfully convinces investors, attracts customers, and invites collaborators. LivePlan rescues business owners by helping them out in creating their winning pitches.

LivePlan helps users create a single-page business pitch. This maintains focus for both the presenter and the potential collaborator. It also prevents unnecessary details, drags, and errors.

LivePlan claims to create a plan that can be explained in a minute, which is presentable as a PowerPoint presentation. In a nutshell, this business planning software hits all the right notes for an impressive business pitch.

3: Guided Business Plan Creation

The only thing between an almost-readymade business plan and the business owner is signing up for LivePlan. Once that is done, this online business plan guides you through creating the plan, creating financial forecasts, and making professional-looking shareable plans.

With LivePlan, users can avail of the guides present at each section of creating a business plan.

These guides include instructions for filling the particular area with examples of how other businesses have done it, making it easier to execute.

It also has the option of editing, adding, or removing sections. Next, it creates accurate charts and plans based on forecasts.

These features help business owners remain updated with their forecasts and business updates.8

• Templates to help make business plans
• Suitable for small businesses
• Testing business ideas
• Shareable plans
• Quick and brief business ideas
• No task management feature
• No free trials are available
• Weekly or monthly plans not available
• It does not offer regular tracking and organizing feature
• It helps with business plan creation but not with sustainability planning
• iOs devices
• Monthly and yearly plans
• 35-day money-back guarantee after subscription
• Standard monthly package for $20
• Premium monthly package for $40
• Annual Standard subscription of $15 per month, paid annually
• Premium Standard package for $30 per month, paid annually
• Help Center

LivePlan is rated 4.5 on Capterra and GetApp, and 4.1 on G2

LivePlan checks the boxes of the best business plan software for startups and small businesses. Its guided plan creation and selection from layouts and templates make it an attractive choice for new setups.

However, the absence of business continuity, planning, and management features discourages certain potential users. Existing users may also switch to alternatives offering more productivity, accounting, and integration features. Nevertheless, LivePlan serves its purpose well for its target customers.

With countless online business planners, the software offers something out of the box to make their mark.

nTask takes a step forward to ensure it leaves no stone unturned in providing the most wholesome and interactive financial planning and business continuity planning software to everyone, from students to NGOs, companies to freelancers.

It has provided an interactive and realistic outlook for online software.

Using inspirations from paper-based productivity and task managing techniques, nTask offers a wide range of services and packages according to the client’s needs and the number of employees.

• Task management
• Team communication
• Roles assigning
• Kanban boards
• Gantt charts
• Time tracking
• Online meetings
• Meeting follow-ups and actions
• Risk management

1: Online Meetings

Meetings and discussions are a support system for business planning. Team members review performances and identify and resolve issues through these meetings.

The good idea is to have a business software solution that also offers meetings and data sharing. Thanks to nTask, this concern, too, has been addressed.

The meeting management software by the nTask allows team members to hold meetings.

Since nTask is a holistic business planning software, it includes features of linking a meeting with ongoing tasks within nTask.

The software’s integration with audio and video call platforms makes it even more convenient to organize meetings and calls.

Members attending meetings can send emails or in-app notifications to alert peers or share information. With features of notes, agendas, and follow-up notes, no one misses any details, major or minor.

2: Task Management with Gantt Charts

Gantt charts are historically proven practical project management tools that present all activities with their progress.

They are an instant and accurate representation of tasks under work; the time assigned to tasks versus time consumed, progress, and overlapping jobs.

Overall, Gantt charts are the best tool for business planning and productivity. nTask incorporates Gantt charts in its software to make the most of the revolutionary tool for maximized productivity.

Although most business software solutions provide task management tools such as assignees and checklists, nTask’s Gantt chart provides an easy-to-navigate visual representation of work progress.

It is helpful with time tracking, where team members review the time assigned for each task and the time consumed to complete it.

3: Kanban Boards

What makes nTask stand out is how it creatively “digitalizes” old-school proven tools and tips for effective project management and business planning.

In addition, it puts the old kanban boards to good use by creating their online version incorporated into the software.

Kanban boards are an instant breakdown of pending, in progress, and completed tasks.

Traditional paper-based boards comprise columns with sticky notes mentioning jobs in each column.

Notes change columns according to the status of the study. nTask does the same but in a detailed and more interactive manner.

nTask’s kanban boards are customizable with background colors, image addition, and color options to assign tasks to make task management fun and less “intimidating.”

In addition, users can pick their favorite template, link Gantt charts for detailed progress, and even track time consumed for each task.

• Several business planning features to choose from
• Interactive options
• Mobile access
• Collaboration
• Planning and scheduling
• Absence of a kanban board in the free version
• Difficulty in use
• Confusing features
• Not recommended for businesses with over 50 employees
• Free trial for 7 days without credit card
• Monthly and yearly packages according to the number of employees
• Discounts for NGOs, startups, and educational institutions
• Free plan for 5 team members
• Basic, Premium, Business, and Enterprise packages
• 24/7 support

nTask is rated 4.2 on Capterra and GetApp, and 4.4 on G2.

nTask strives to incorporate all features, tools, and utilities to ensure convenience for users. The means of clear progress insight using Gantt charts and kanban boards is an attraction.

nTask guarantees maximum business productivity and success with its interactive features and integration with all major utility and productivity apps.

However, having too many features causes issues for some users who need help understanding or using specific tools. Customer support answers queries and helps to use the software better.

4: GoSmallBiz

Another online business planner software promising skyrocket success is GoSmallBiz. Established in 1996 by former NFL champion, GoSmallBiz is the brain-child of a sportsperson turned entrepreneur who has keen observation and sound knowledge of small businesses’ needs, expectations, and requirements.

GoSmallBiz provides business establishment and sustenance solutions to small and medium enterprises with its business plan templates, step-by-step guidance on how to create a successful business plan, and support as expert advice and guidance.

• Step-by-step guide
• Business plan templates
• Business creation
• Website development
• Business planning
• Legal assistance
• Legal compliance
• Marketing strategy
• Tracked performance

1: Separate Plans According to Need

GoSmallBiz caters to the needs of small businesses in whatever aspect they prefer. The desirable feature is that the software allows users to choose plans according to their business needs instead of company size or team members.

Users can opt for services of choice and avail of complete guidance in the field they wish.

With separate plans for establishing, understanding, and growing a business, users get complete guidance on a booming business’s dos and don’ts.

They can make the most of the advice from renowned certified legal and account experts without additional consultation fees. Users can avail of federal tax and IRS services by paying a one-time price.

2: Guidance on Business Complexities

Business planning software provides help and tools for setting up and running a business.

However, they miss on the complexities related to a company that leaves owners jammed. Lack of knowledge on tax filings, finances, and business tips and tricks may prove to be a downhill ride for new enterprises.

With the “Guide” services of GoSmallBiz, users can avail of expert consultations and guide sessions to solve problems related to business planning and running.

With tutorials and one-on-one sessions with sales, legal, tax, and account experts, user ‌issues are addressed and mitigated.

3: Business Plan Creation

Many aspiring business people cannot establish their enterprise because of a lack of awareness and cluelessness about a starting point. GoSmallBiz ensures no one has to give up on their dreams of having their own business and extends complete solutions for setting up a business.

With the GoSmallBiz business plan package, users can pick from countless business plan templates and choose the one that is right for them. It provides all steps for a business plan, complete with a summary and narratives. The templates are customizable, and users can seek the help of video tutorials wherever they feel stuck.

Some solutions help create financial projections that include income statements, cash flows, balance sheets, and more.

• Complete business creation guide
• Website and business plan
• Stepwise guidance
• Lack of guidance on the website
• No business planner tools
• No business continuity planning software
• Go at $199 per year
• Guide at $49 per month
• Grow at $39 per month
• Tax ID service for $69 (one-time)
• HR document builder at $15 per month
• Business plan creation at $15 per month
• Minutes manager at $99 per year

There are no ratings for this software to display

GoSmallBiz has emerged as one of the most discussed business planning software on multiple forums, and for a good reason. It extends knowledge and support to its users besides business plan creation and website development.

What sets this software apart is its exclusive consultation services that help new businesses. Direct discussions with marketing and legal experts helps to clear confusion and guide all aspects of business that others may leave out.

However, it offers limited features and support which may not cater to ongoing business needs.

Another software that follows the stepwise business plan creation module is BizPlan. BizPlan offers complete guidance on creating a promising business plan to attract investors and customers.

The software provides tutorials, templates, help, and all steps to create a sustainable strategy.

BizPlan focuses on providing services and educating users on how businesses operate and how to get the most out of business as funds and sales.

The software has the back of several thriving enterprises and aims to attract more.

• Fully guided business plan
• Income statements
• Balance sheet
• Tracked progress of business plan building
• Financial forecasting
• Break Even analysis
• Revenue projection
• Education Center
• Guides and masterclasses

1: Stepwise Business Plan Creation

Like other business software solutions, BizPlan too is focused on providing stepwise guidance to small businesses and startups to create a perfect business plan that impresses potential investors and customers.

BizPlan offers guided business planning software where users create their plans with assistance from the software itself. It lets users choose from several templates and customize them per their preferences and business requirements.

The drag-and-drop style for templates makes it convenient to add or remove sections. Creators can track their progress and check which aspects of their plan are complete.

Attractive visual layouts and the freedom to complete sections as per the user’s individual preference make BizPlan a favored software.

2: Financial Planning Tools

The core of a business plan is to provide adequate financial planning information. Without detailed insight into available finances and expected outcomes, businesses can go into loss before they even take flight.

BizPlan understands the significance of proper financial planning tools and thus offers all features that may be useful to business owners.

With BizPlan, business owners can have a forecast of their employee’s salaries and expected raises. In addition, it helps manage revenues and related expenses so businesses know how much to spend in particular aspects.

With the easily accessible features in BizPlan, users have all financial forecasts right in front of them, such as capital, expenses, and revenues.

3: Education Center

Another aspect that makes BizPlan a preferred business planning software for small businesses is its education center.

For several new entrepreneurs, terms like breakeven analysis, revenue model, and competitive analysis can be intimidating terms that may put them off the idea of starting a business altogether.

With BizPlan’s education, users can head to the education section whenever they have any queries or confusion regarding any step of business plan making.

It also can connect with experts who guide in detail about the overall health of a business, whether it aligns with its type and gets better reach.

BizPlan offers video tutorials and one-on-one consultations too.

• Template-based business plan
• Stepwise business plan creation
• Financial tools
• Lacks features of task management
• No productivity tools
• Not suitable for large enterprises
• No mobile app
• Cannot add team members or roles
• Monthly plan for $29
• Annual plan for $20.75
• Lifetime access for $349
• Masterclass

BizPlan is rated 4.4 on Capterra and GetApp.

BizPlan offers all the necessary guidance to create a good business plan. Its education feature stands out from the rest and provides knowledge on every aspect of business planning.

However, it lacks several features that ensure smooth business operation. For example, BizPlan does not support team members and task management, which may cause users to switch to other alternatives once their business has been set up.

Wrapping Up

With countless business planning software, picking the best business plan software can be tricky. Luckily, these software solutions have various features that cater to individual needs.

This allows freedom to pick the one that best suits the requirements of a business according to its size, industry, and team size.

Ideally, the best online business planner would include everything from creating a business plan to tools and features that help manage tasks, set their priority, and track the performance of all employees.

Though Week Plan is not a Business Planning Software live LivePlan and BizPlan, it ensures you that you stay organized and on top of all business planning and execution.

Whether it setting up high level business objectives or managing day to day tasks, Week Plan has everything you need to keep your business organized.

Nutrition and Productivity: Causes and Prevention

You realize how significant eating admirably is for your body. Yet, did you have a thought of how significant it is for your psyche? A sound food admission will assist you with making...

10 Top Productivity Software for Virtual Employees

With the exponential increase in virtual work, staying productive has become more challenging. The demand for effective software to aid virtual employees is higher than ever. List some of the best productivity software...

10 Best Books on Time Management to Read

 Are you struggling to do more in less time and looking where to start from? You have come to the right...

Top 5 Best Goal Planner Apps

Are you tired of setting personal goals and struggling to accomplish them? Do you find yourself getting distracted and losing focus on your dreams? Well, fret not because help is at hand! In...

Small Business Trends

How to create a business plan: examples & free template.

This is the ultimate guide to creating a comprehensive and effective plan to start a business . In today’s dynamic business landscape, having a well-crafted business plan is an important first step to securing funding, attracting partners, and navigating the challenges of entrepreneurship.

This guide has been designed to help you create a winning plan that stands out in the ever-evolving marketplace. U sing real-world examples and a free downloadable template, it will walk you through each step of the process.

Whether you’re a seasoned entrepreneur or launching your very first startup, the guide will give you the insights, tools, and confidence you need to create a solid foundation for your business.

Table of Contents

How to Write a Business Plan

Embarking on the journey of creating a successful business requires a solid foundation, and a well-crafted business plan is the cornerstone. Here is the process of writing a comprehensive business plan and the main parts of a winning business plan . From setting objectives to conducting market research, this guide will have everything you need.

Executive Summary

The Executive Summary serves as the gateway to your business plan, offering a snapshot of your venture’s core aspects. This section should captivate and inform, succinctly summarizing the essence of your plan.

It’s crucial to include a clear mission statement, a brief description of your primary products or services, an overview of your target market, and key financial projections or achievements.

Think of it as an elevator pitch in written form: it should be compelling enough to engage potential investors or stakeholders and provide them with a clear understanding of what your business is about, its goals, and why it’s a promising investment.

Example: EcoTech is a technology company specializing in eco-friendly and sustainable products designed to reduce energy consumption and minimize waste. Our mission is to create innovative solutions that contribute to a cleaner, greener environment.

Our target market includes environmentally conscious consumers and businesses seeking to reduce their carbon footprint. We project a 200% increase in revenue within the first three years of operation.

Overview and Business Objectives

In the Overview and Business Objectives section, outline your business’s core goals and the strategic approaches you plan to use to achieve them. This section should set forth clear, specific objectives that are attainable and time-bound, providing a roadmap for your business’s growth and success.

It’s important to detail how these objectives align with your company’s overall mission and vision. Discuss the milestones you aim to achieve and the timeframe you’ve set for these accomplishments.

This part of the plan demonstrates to investors and stakeholders your vision for growth and the practical steps you’ll take to get there.

Example: EcoTech’s primary objective is to become a market leader in sustainable technology products within the next five years. Our key objectives include:

• Introducing three new products within the first two years of operation.
• Achieving annual revenue growth of 30%.
• Expanding our customer base to over 10,000 clients by the end of the third year.

Company Description

The Company Description section is your opportunity to delve into the details of your business. Provide a comprehensive overview that includes your company’s history, its mission statement, and its vision for the future.

Highlight your unique selling proposition (USP) – what makes your business stand out in the market. Explain the problems your company solves and how it benefits your customers.

Include information about the company’s founders, their expertise, and why they are suited to lead the business to success. This section should paint a vivid picture of your business, its values, and its place in the industry.

Example: EcoTech is committed to developing cutting-edge sustainable technology products that benefit both the environment and our customers. Our unique combination of innovative solutions and eco-friendly design sets us apart from the competition. We envision a future where technology and sustainability go hand in hand, leading to a greener planet.

Define Your Target Market

Defining Your Target Market is critical for tailoring your business strategy effectively. This section should describe your ideal customer base in detail, including demographic information (such as age, gender, income level, and location) and psychographic data (like interests, values, and lifestyle).

Elucidate on the specific needs or pain points of your target audience and how your product or service addresses these. This information will help you know your target market and develop targeted marketing strategies.

Example: Our target market comprises environmentally conscious consumers and businesses looking for innovative solutions to reduce their carbon footprint. Our ideal customers are those who prioritize sustainability and are willing to invest in eco-friendly products.

Market Analysis

The Market Analysis section requires thorough research and a keen understanding of the industry. It involves examining the current trends within your industry, understanding the needs and preferences of your customers, and analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors.

This analysis will enable you to spot market opportunities and anticipate potential challenges. Include data and statistics to back up your claims, and use graphs or charts to illustrate market trends.

This section should demonstrate that you have a deep understanding of the market in which you operate and that your business is well-positioned to capitalize on its opportunities.

Example: The market for eco-friendly technology products has experienced significant growth in recent years, with an estimated annual growth rate of 10%. As consumers become increasingly aware of environmental issues, the demand for sustainable solutions continues to rise.

Our research indicates a gap in the market for high-quality, innovative eco-friendly technology products that cater to both individual and business clients.

SWOT Analysis

A SWOT analysis in your business plan offers a comprehensive examination of your company’s internal and external factors. By assessing Strengths, you showcase what your business does best and where your capabilities lie.

Weaknesses involve an honest introspection of areas where your business may be lacking or could improve. Opportunities can be external factors that your business could capitalize on, such as market gaps or emerging trends.

Threats include external challenges your business may face, like competition or market changes. This analysis is crucial for strategic planning, as it helps in recognizing and leveraging your strengths, addressing weaknesses, seizing opportunities, and preparing for potential threats.

Including a SWOT analysis demonstrates to stakeholders that you have a balanced and realistic understanding of your business in its operational context.

• Innovative and eco-friendly product offerings.
• Strong commitment to sustainability and environmental responsibility.
• Skilled and experienced team with expertise in technology and sustainability.

Weaknesses:

• Limited brand recognition compared to established competitors.
• Reliance on third-party manufacturers for product development.

Opportunities:

• Growing consumer interest in sustainable products.
• Partnerships with environmentally-focused organizations and influencers.
• Expansion into international markets.
• Intense competition from established technology companies.
• Regulatory changes could impact the sustainable technology market.

Competitive Analysis

In this section, you’ll analyze your competitors in-depth, examining their products, services, market positioning, and pricing strategies. Understanding your competition allows you to identify gaps in the market and tailor your offerings to outperform them.

By conducting a thorough competitive analysis, you can gain insights into your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, enabling you to develop strategies to differentiate your business and gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Example: Key competitors include:

GreenTech: A well-known brand offering eco-friendly technology products, but with a narrower focus on energy-saving devices.

EarthSolutions: A direct competitor specializing in sustainable technology, but with a limited product range and higher prices.

By offering a diverse product portfolio, competitive pricing, and continuous innovation, we believe we can capture a significant share of the growing sustainable technology market.

Organization and Management Team

Provide an overview of your company’s organizational structure, including key roles and responsibilities. Introduce your management team, highlighting their expertise and experience to demonstrate that your team is capable of executing the business plan successfully.

Showcasing your team’s background, skills, and accomplishments instills confidence in investors and other stakeholders, proving that your business has the leadership and talent necessary to achieve its objectives and manage growth effectively.

Example: EcoTech’s organizational structure comprises the following key roles: CEO, CTO, CFO, Sales Director, Marketing Director, and R&D Manager. Our management team has extensive experience in technology, sustainability, and business development, ensuring that we are well-equipped to execute our business plan successfully.

Products and Services Offered

Describe the products or services your business offers, focusing on their unique features and benefits. Explain how your offerings solve customer pain points and why they will choose your products or services over the competition.

This section should emphasize the value you provide to customers, demonstrating that your business has a deep understanding of customer needs and is well-positioned to deliver innovative solutions that address those needs and set your company apart from competitors.

Example: EcoTech offers a range of eco-friendly technology products, including energy-efficient lighting solutions, solar chargers, and smart home devices that optimize energy usage. Our products are designed to help customers reduce energy consumption, minimize waste, and contribute to a cleaner environment.

Marketing and Sales Strategy

In this section, articulate your comprehensive strategy for reaching your target market and driving sales. Detail the specific marketing channels you plan to use, such as social media, email marketing, SEO, or traditional advertising.

Describe the nature of your advertising campaigns and promotional activities, explaining how they will capture the attention of your target audience and convey the value of your products or services. Outline your sales strategy, including your sales process, team structure, and sales targets.

Discuss how these marketing and sales efforts will work together to attract and retain customers, generate leads, and ultimately contribute to achieving your business’s revenue goals.

This section is critical to convey to investors and stakeholders that you have a well-thought-out approach to market your business effectively and drive sales growth.

Example: Our marketing strategy includes digital advertising, content marketing, social media promotion, and influencer partnerships. We will also attend trade shows and conferences to showcase our products and connect with potential clients. Our sales strategy involves both direct sales and partnerships with retail stores, as well as online sales through our website and e-commerce platforms.

Logistics and Operations Plan

The Logistics and Operations Plan is a critical component that outlines the inner workings of your business. It encompasses the management of your supply chain, detailing how you acquire raw materials and manage vendor relationships.

Inventory control is another crucial aspect, where you explain strategies for inventory management to ensure efficiency and reduce wastage. The section should also describe your production processes, emphasizing scalability and adaptability to meet changing market demands.

Quality control measures are essential to maintain product standards and customer satisfaction. This plan assures investors and stakeholders of your operational competency and readiness to meet business demands.

Highlighting your commitment to operational efficiency and customer satisfaction underlines your business’s capability to maintain smooth, effective operations even as it scales.

Example: EcoTech partners with reliable third-party manufacturers to produce our eco-friendly technology products. Our operations involve maintaining strong relationships with suppliers, ensuring quality control, and managing inventory.

We also prioritize efficient distribution through various channels, including online platforms and retail partners, to deliver products to our customers in a timely manner.

Financial Projections Plan

In the Financial Projections Plan, lay out a clear and realistic financial future for your business. This should include detailed projections for revenue, costs, and profitability over the next three to five years.

Ground these projections in solid assumptions based on your market analysis, industry benchmarks, and realistic growth scenarios. Break down revenue streams and include an analysis of the cost of goods sold, operating expenses, and potential investments.

This section should also discuss your break-even analysis, cash flow projections, and any assumptions about external funding requirements.

By presenting a thorough and data-backed financial forecast, you instill confidence in potential investors and lenders, showcasing your business’s potential for profitability and financial stability.

This forward-looking financial plan is crucial for demonstrating that you have a firm grasp of the financial nuances of your business and are prepared to manage its financial health effectively.

Example: Over the next three years, we expect to see significant growth in revenue, driven by new product launches and market expansion. Our financial projections include:

• Year 1: $1.5 million in revenue, with a net profit of $200,000.
• Year 2: $3 million in revenue, with a net profit of $500,000.
• Year 3: $4.5 million in revenue, with a net profit of $1 million.

These projections are based on realistic market analysis, growth rates, and product pricing.

Income Statement

The income statement , also known as the profit and loss statement, provides a summary of your company’s revenues and expenses over a specified period. It helps you track your business’s financial performance and identify trends, ensuring you stay on track to achieve your financial goals.

Regularly reviewing and analyzing your income statement allows you to monitor the health of your business, evaluate the effectiveness of your strategies, and make data-driven decisions to optimize profitability and growth.

Example: The income statement for EcoTech’s first year of operation is as follows:

• Revenue: $1,500,000
• Cost of Goods Sold: $800,000
• Gross Profit: $700,000
• Operating Expenses: $450,000
• Net Income: $250,000

This statement highlights our company’s profitability and overall financial health during the first year of operation.

Cash Flow Statement

A cash flow statement is a crucial part of a financial business plan that shows the inflows and outflows of cash within your business. It helps you monitor your company’s liquidity, ensuring you have enough cash on hand to cover operating expenses, pay debts, and invest in growth opportunities.

By including a cash flow statement in your business plan, you demonstrate your ability to manage your company’s finances effectively.

Example:  The cash flow statement for EcoTech’s first year of operation is as follows:

Operating Activities:

• Depreciation: $10,000
• Changes in Working Capital: -$50,000
• Net Cash from Operating Activities: $210,000

Investing Activities:

•  Capital Expenditures: -$100,000
• Net Cash from Investing Activities: -$100,000

Financing Activities:

• Proceeds from Loans: $150,000
• Loan Repayments: -$50,000
• Net Cash from Financing Activities: $100,000
• Net Increase in Cash: $210,000

This statement demonstrates EcoTech’s ability to generate positive cash flow from operations, maintain sufficient liquidity, and invest in growth opportunities.

Section	Description	Example
Executive Summary	Brief overview of the business plan	Overview of EcoTech and its mission
Overview & Objectives	Outline of company's goals and strategies	Market leadership in sustainable technology
Company Description	Detailed explanation of the company and its unique selling proposition	EcoTech's history, mission, and vision
Target Market	Description of ideal customers and their needs	Environmentally conscious consumers and businesses
Market Analysis	Examination of industry trends, customer needs, and competitors	Trends in eco-friendly technology market
SWOT Analysis	Evaluation of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats	Strengths and weaknesses of EcoTech
Competitive Analysis	In-depth analysis of competitors and their strategies	Analysis of GreenTech and EarthSolutions
Organization & Management	Overview of the company's structure and management team	Key roles and team members at EcoTech
Products & Services	Description of offerings and their unique features	Energy-efficient lighting solutions, solar chargers
Marketing & Sales	Outline of marketing channels and sales strategies	Digital advertising, content marketing, influencer partnerships
Logistics & Operations	Details about daily operations, supply chain, inventory, and quality control	Partnerships with manufacturers, quality control
Financial Projections	Forecast of revenue, expenses, and profit for the next 3-5 years	Projected growth in revenue and net profit
Income Statement	Summary of company's revenues and expenses over a specified period	Revenue, Cost of Goods Sold, Gross Profit, Net Income
Cash Flow Statement	Overview of cash inflows and outflows within the business	Net Cash from Operating Activities, Investing Activities, Financing Activities

Tips on Writing a Business Plan

1. Be clear and concise: Keep your language simple and straightforward. Avoid jargon and overly technical terms. A clear and concise business plan is easier for investors and stakeholders to understand and demonstrates your ability to communicate effectively.

2. Conduct thorough research: Before writing your business plan, gather as much information as possible about your industry, competitors, and target market. Use reliable sources and industry reports to inform your analysis and make data-driven decisions.

3. Set realistic goals: Your business plan should outline achievable objectives that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). Setting realistic goals demonstrates your understanding of the market and increases the likelihood of success.

4. Focus on your unique selling proposition (USP): Clearly articulate what sets your business apart from the competition. Emphasize your USP throughout your business plan to showcase your company’s value and potential for success.

5. Be flexible and adaptable: A business plan is a living document that should evolve as your business grows and changes. Be prepared to update and revise your plan as you gather new information and learn from your experiences.

6. Use visuals to enhance understanding: Include charts, graphs, and other visuals to help convey complex data and ideas. Visuals can make your business plan more engaging and easier to digest, especially for those who prefer visual learning.

7. Seek feedback from trusted sources: Share your business plan with mentors, industry experts, or colleagues and ask for their feedback. Their insights can help you identify areas for improvement and strengthen your plan before presenting it to potential investors or partners.

FREE Business Plan Template

To help you get started on your business plan, we have created a template that includes all the essential components discussed in the “How to Write a Business Plan” section. This easy-to-use template will guide you through each step of the process, ensuring you don’t miss any critical details.

The template is divided into the following sections:

• Mission statement
• Business Overview
• Key products or services
• Target market
• Financial highlights
• Company goals
• Strategies to achieve goals
• Measurable, time-bound objectives
• Company History
• Mission and vision
• Unique selling proposition
• Demographics
• Psychographics
• Pain points
• Industry trends
• Customer needs
• Competitor strengths and weaknesses
• Opportunities
• Competitor products and services
• Market positioning
• Pricing strategies
• Organizational structure
• Key roles and responsibilities
• Management team backgrounds
• Product or service features
• Competitive advantages
• Marketing channels
• Advertising campaigns
• Promotional activities
• Sales strategies
• Supply chain management
• Inventory control
• Production processes
• Quality control measures
• Projected revenue
• Assumptions
• Cash inflows
• Cash outflows
• Net cash flow

What is a Business Plan?

A business plan is a strategic document that outlines an organization’s goals, objectives, and the steps required to achieve them. It serves as a roadmap as you start a business , guiding the company’s direction and growth while identifying potential obstacles and opportunities.

Typically, a business plan covers areas such as market analysis, financial projections, marketing strategies, and organizational structure. It not only helps in securing funding from investors and lenders but also provides clarity and focus to the management team.

A well-crafted business plan is a very important part of your business startup checklist because it fosters informed decision-making and long-term success.

Why You Should Write a Business Plan

Understanding the importance of a business plan in today’s competitive environment is crucial for entrepreneurs and business owners. Here are five compelling reasons to write a business plan:

• Attract Investors and Secure Funding : A well-written business plan demonstrates your venture’s potential and profitability, making it easier to attract investors and secure the necessary funding for growth and development. It provides a detailed overview of your business model, target market, financial projections, and growth strategies, instilling confidence in potential investors and lenders that your company is a worthy investment.
• Clarify Business Objectives and Strategies : Crafting a business plan forces you to think critically about your goals and the strategies you’ll employ to achieve them, providing a clear roadmap for success. This process helps you refine your vision and prioritize the most critical objectives, ensuring that your efforts are focused on achieving the desired results.
• Identify Potential Risks and Opportunities : Analyzing the market, competition, and industry trends within your business plan helps identify potential risks and uncover untapped opportunities for growth and expansion. This insight enables you to develop proactive strategies to mitigate risks and capitalize on opportunities, positioning your business for long-term success.
• Improve Decision-Making : A business plan serves as a reference point so you can make informed decisions that align with your company’s overall objectives and long-term vision. By consistently referring to your plan and adjusting it as needed, you can ensure that your business remains on track and adapts to changes in the market, industry, or internal operations.
• Foster Team Alignment and Communication : A shared business plan helps ensure that all team members are on the same page, promoting clear communication, collaboration, and a unified approach to achieving the company’s goals. By involving your team in the planning process and regularly reviewing the plan together, you can foster a sense of ownership, commitment, and accountability that drives success.

What are the Different Types of Business Plans?

In today’s fast-paced business world, having a well-structured roadmap is more important than ever. A traditional business plan provides a comprehensive overview of your company’s goals and strategies, helping you make informed decisions and achieve long-term success. There are various types of business plans, each designed to suit different needs and purposes. Let’s explore the main types:

• Startup Business Plan: Tailored for new ventures, a startup business plan outlines the company’s mission, objectives, target market, competition, marketing strategies, and financial projections. It helps entrepreneurs clarify their vision, secure funding from investors, and create a roadmap for their business’s future. Additionally, this plan identifies potential challenges and opportunities, which are crucial for making informed decisions and adapting to changing market conditions.
• Internal Business Plan: This type of plan is intended for internal use, focusing on strategies, milestones, deadlines, and resource allocation. It serves as a management tool for guiding the company’s growth, evaluating its progress, and ensuring that all departments are aligned with the overall vision. The internal business plan also helps identify areas of improvement, fosters collaboration among team members, and provides a reference point for measuring performance.
• Strategic Business Plan: A strategic business plan outlines long-term goals and the steps to achieve them, providing a clear roadmap for the company’s direction. It typically includes a SWOT analysis, market research, and competitive analysis. This plan allows businesses to align their resources with their objectives, anticipate changes in the market, and develop contingency plans. By focusing on the big picture, a strategic business plan fosters long-term success and stability.
• Feasibility Business Plan: This plan is designed to assess the viability of a business idea, examining factors such as market demand, competition, and financial projections. It is often used to decide whether or not to pursue a particular venture. By conducting a thorough feasibility analysis, entrepreneurs can avoid investing time and resources into an unviable business concept. This plan also helps refine the business idea, identify potential obstacles, and determine the necessary resources for success.
• Growth Business Plan: Also known as an expansion plan, a growth business plan focuses on strategies for scaling up an existing business. It includes market analysis, new product or service offerings, and financial projections to support expansion plans. This type of plan is essential for businesses looking to enter new markets, increase their customer base, or launch new products or services. By outlining clear growth strategies, the plan helps ensure that expansion efforts are well-coordinated and sustainable.
• Operational Business Plan: This type of plan outlines the company’s day-to-day operations, detailing the processes, procedures, and organizational structure. It is an essential tool for managing resources, streamlining workflows, and ensuring smooth operations. The operational business plan also helps identify inefficiencies, implement best practices, and establish a strong foundation for future growth. By providing a clear understanding of daily operations, this plan enables businesses to optimize their resources and enhance productivity.
• Lean Business Plan: A lean business plan is a simplified, agile version of a traditional plan, focusing on key elements such as value proposition, customer segments, revenue streams, and cost structure. It is perfect for startups looking for a flexible, adaptable planning approach. The lean business plan allows for rapid iteration and continuous improvement, enabling businesses to pivot and adapt to changing market conditions. This streamlined approach is particularly beneficial for businesses in fast-paced or uncertain industries.
• One-Page Business Plan: As the name suggests, a one-page business plan is a concise summary of your company’s key objectives, strategies, and milestones. It serves as a quick reference guide and is ideal for pitching to potential investors or partners. This plan helps keep teams focused on essential goals and priorities, fosters clear communication, and provides a snapshot of the company’s progress. While not as comprehensive as other plans, a one-page business plan is an effective tool for maintaining clarity and direction.
• Nonprofit Business Plan: Specifically designed for nonprofit organizations, this plan outlines the mission, goals, target audience, fundraising strategies, and budget allocation. It helps secure grants and donations while ensuring the organization stays on track with its objectives. The nonprofit business plan also helps attract volunteers, board members, and community support. By demonstrating the organization’s impact and plans for the future, this plan is essential for maintaining transparency, accountability, and long-term sustainability within the nonprofit sector.
• Franchise Business Plan: For entrepreneurs seeking to open a franchise, this type of plan focuses on the franchisor’s requirements, as well as the franchisee’s goals, strategies, and financial projections. It is crucial for securing a franchise agreement and ensuring the business’s success within the franchise system. This plan outlines the franchisee’s commitment to brand standards, marketing efforts, and operational procedures, while also addressing local market conditions and opportunities. By creating a solid franchise business plan, entrepreneurs can demonstrate their ability to effectively manage and grow their franchise, increasing the likelihood of a successful partnership with the franchisor.

Type of Business Plan	Purpose	Key Components	Target Audience
Startup Business Plan	Outlines the company's mission, objectives, target market, competition, marketing strategies, and financial projections.	Mission Statement, Company Description, Market Analysis, Competitive Analysis, Organizational Structure, Marketing and Sales Strategy, Financial Projections.	Entrepreneurs, Investors
Internal Business Plan	Serves as a management tool for guiding the company's growth, evaluating its progress, and ensuring that all departments are aligned with the overall vision.	Strategies, Milestones, Deadlines, Resource Allocation.	Internal Team Members
Strategic Business Plan	Outlines long-term goals and the steps to achieve them.	SWOT Analysis, Market Research, Competitive Analysis, Long-Term Goals.	Executives, Managers, Investors
Feasibility Business Plan	Assesses the viability of a business idea.	Market Demand, Competition, Financial Projections, Potential Obstacles.	Entrepreneurs, Investors
Growth Business Plan	Focuses on strategies for scaling up an existing business.	Market Analysis, New Product/Service Offerings, Financial Projections.	Business Owners, Investors
Operational Business Plan	Outlines the company's day-to-day operations.	Processes, Procedures, Organizational Structure.	Managers, Employees
Lean Business Plan	A simplified, agile version of a traditional plan, focusing on key elements.	Value Proposition, Customer Segments, Revenue Streams, Cost Structure.	Entrepreneurs, Startups
One-Page Business Plan	A concise summary of your company's key objectives, strategies, and milestones.	Key Objectives, Strategies, Milestones.	Entrepreneurs, Investors, Partners
Nonprofit Business Plan	Outlines the mission, goals, target audience, fundraising strategies, and budget allocation for nonprofit organizations.	Mission Statement, Goals, Target Audience, Fundraising Strategies, Budget.	Nonprofit Leaders, Board Members, Donors
Franchise Business Plan	Focuses on the franchisor's requirements, as well as the franchisee's goals, strategies, and financial projections.	Franchise Agreement, Brand Standards, Marketing Efforts, Operational Procedures, Financial Projections.	Franchisors, Franchisees, Investors

Using Business Plan Software

Creating a comprehensive business plan can be intimidating, but business plan software can streamline the process and help you produce a professional document. These tools offer a number of benefits, including guided step-by-step instructions, financial projections, and industry-specific templates. Here are the top 5 business plan software options available to help you craft a great business plan.

1. LivePlan

LivePlan is a popular choice for its user-friendly interface and comprehensive features. It offers over 500 sample plans, financial forecasting tools, and the ability to track your progress against key performance indicators. With LivePlan, you can create visually appealing, professional business plans that will impress investors and stakeholders.

2. Upmetrics

Upmetrics provides a simple and intuitive platform for creating a well-structured business plan. It features customizable templates, financial forecasting tools, and collaboration capabilities, allowing you to work with team members and advisors. Upmetrics also offers a library of resources to guide you through the business planning process.

Bizplan is designed to simplify the business planning process with a drag-and-drop builder and modular sections. It offers financial forecasting tools, progress tracking, and a visually appealing interface. With Bizplan, you can create a business plan that is both easy to understand and visually engaging.

Enloop is a robust business plan software that automatically generates a tailored plan based on your inputs. It provides industry-specific templates, financial forecasting, and a unique performance score that updates as you make changes to your plan. Enloop also offers a free version, making it accessible for businesses on a budget.

5. Tarkenton GoSmallBiz

Developed by NFL Hall of Famer Fran Tarkenton, GoSmallBiz is tailored for small businesses and startups. It features a guided business plan builder, customizable templates, and financial projection tools. GoSmallBiz also offers additional resources, such as CRM tools and legal document templates, to support your business beyond the planning stage.

Software	Key Features	User Interface	Additional Features
LivePlan	Over 500 sample plans, financial forecasting tools, progress tracking against KPIs	User-friendly, visually appealing	Allows creation of professional-looking business plans
Upmetrics	Customizable templates, financial forecasting tools, collaboration capabilities	Simple and intuitive	Provides a resource library for business planning
Bizplan	Drag-and-drop builder, modular sections, financial forecasting tools, progress tracking	Simple, visually engaging	Designed to simplify the business planning process
Enloop	Industry-specific templates, financial forecasting tools, automatic business plan generation, unique performance score	Robust, user-friendly	Offers a free version, making it accessible for businesses on a budget
Tarkenton GoSmallBiz	Guided business plan builder, customizable templates, financial projection tools	User-friendly	Offers CRM tools, legal document templates, and additional resources for small businesses

Business Plan FAQs

What is a good business plan.

A good business plan is a well-researched, clear, and concise document that outlines a company’s goals, strategies, target market, competitive advantages, and financial projections. It should be adaptable to change and provide a roadmap for achieving success.

What are the 3 main purposes of a business plan?

The three main purposes of a business plan are to guide the company’s strategy, attract investment, and evaluate performance against objectives. Here’s a closer look at each of these:

• It outlines the company’s purpose and core values to ensure that all activities align with its mission and vision.
• It provides an in-depth analysis of the market, including trends, customer needs, and competition, helping the company tailor its products and services to meet market demands.
• It defines the company’s marketing and sales strategies, guiding how the company will attract and retain customers.
• It describes the company’s organizational structure and management team, outlining roles and responsibilities to ensure effective operation and leadership.
• It sets measurable, time-bound objectives, allowing the company to plan its activities effectively and make strategic decisions to achieve these goals.
• It provides a comprehensive overview of the company and its business model, demonstrating its uniqueness and potential for success.
• It presents the company’s financial projections, showing its potential for profitability and return on investment.
• It demonstrates the company’s understanding of the market, including its target customers and competition, convincing investors that the company is capable of gaining a significant market share.
• It showcases the management team’s expertise and experience, instilling confidence in investors that the team is capable of executing the business plan successfully.
• It establishes clear, measurable objectives that serve as performance benchmarks.
• It provides a basis for regular performance reviews, allowing the company to monitor its progress and identify areas for improvement.
• It enables the company to assess the effectiveness of its strategies and make adjustments as needed to achieve its objectives.
• It helps the company identify potential risks and challenges, enabling it to develop contingency plans and manage risks effectively.
• It provides a mechanism for evaluating the company’s financial performance, including revenue, expenses, profitability, and cash flow.

Can I write a business plan by myself?

Yes, you can write a business plan by yourself, but it can be helpful to consult with mentors, colleagues, or industry experts to gather feedback and insights. There are also many creative business plan templates and business plan examples available online, including those above.

We also have examples for specific industries, including a using food truck business plan , salon business plan , farm business plan , daycare business plan , and restaurant business plan .

Is it possible to create a one-page business plan?

Yes, a one-page business plan is a condensed version that highlights the most essential elements, including the company’s mission, target market, unique selling proposition, and financial goals.

How long should a business plan be?

A typical business plan ranges from 20 to 50 pages, but the length may vary depending on the complexity and needs of the business.

What is a business plan outline?

A business plan outline is a structured framework that organizes the content of a business plan into sections, such as the executive summary, company description, market analysis, and financial projections.

What are the 5 most common business plan mistakes?

The five most common business plan mistakes include inadequate research, unrealistic financial projections, lack of focus on the unique selling proposition, poor organization and structure, and failure to update the plan as circumstances change.

What questions should be asked in a business plan?

A business plan should address questions such as: What problem does the business solve? Who is the specific target market ? What is the unique selling proposition? What are the company’s objectives? How will it achieve those objectives?

What’s the difference between a business plan and a strategic plan?

A business plan focuses on the overall vision, goals, and tactics of a company, while a strategic plan outlines the specific strategies, action steps, and performance measures necessary to achieve the company’s objectives.

How is business planning for a nonprofit different?

Nonprofit business planning focuses on the organization’s mission, social impact, and resource management, rather than profit generation. The financial section typically includes funding sources, expenses, and projected budgets for programs and operations.

Image: Envato Elements

© Copyright 2003 - 2024, Small Business Trends LLC. All rights reserved. "Small Business Trends" is a registered trademark.

Best business plan software of 2024

For planning your business finance

Best overall

Best budget, best established, best for speed.

• How we test

The best business plan software makes it simple and easy to plan your business finances in order to present them to a bank or investors.

1. Best overall 2. Best budget 3. Best basic 4. Best established 5. Best for speed 6. FAQs 7. How we test

The whole point of a business plan is that it allows you to evaluate your strengths and weaknesses, not least via your Unique Selling Point (USP) ,and make product or service comparisons with competitors.

Of course, even the best business plan relies on estimates and guesstimates, as it's impossible to predict market changes, developments, and future performance under such conditions. 

Ultimately, though, a business plan will demonstratively prove why your business is a solid enough investment to risk putting money into, and shows that you have properly and thoroughly researched your market, and details the real potential of a new business opportunities.

Here then are the best business plan software providers currently available.

You may also be interested in our featured business guides on best business laptops , best business computers and best business smartphones .

The best business plan software of 2024 in fill:

Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

Reasons to buy

Reasons to avoid.

Bizplan is the online business planning tool that claims usage of 30,000 startup founders from the Startups.co platform. They use a guided creator that can break the big project down into the component pieces that get tracked with a Progress Tracker, and expert guidance each step of the way including templates that can be dropped in, and completed, along with simple integration of visuals along the way.

Additional resources are also provided via the Bizplan Academy, with lessons on relevant topics, for example, “Building a Brand: How to Tell a Powerful Brand Story,” and “Critical Path Your Way to Higher Revenues,” among the many offerings. Those that need even more assistance also can take advantage of an expert consultation from a financial expert.

• ^ Back to the top

2. PlanGuru

PlanGuru is a comprehensive, and powerful software package in the business planning space. Education is provided via a series of case studies at their PlanGuru University and a whole slew of video tutorials.

The feature set includes flexible budgeting that can handle a simple small business, or a larger multi-department operating budget, and financial forecasting that uses multiple methods, including intelligent and turn-key methods - twenty methods in total. Historical results can also be imported with the general ledger import utility which can then applied to produce a rolling forecast. They also offer PlanGuru Launch, a service to bring in expertise and is charged per hour of assistance.

A significant downside is Planguru charges a higher cost than other software options. The cheapest option is around $75 per month for one business entity when billed annually. While there is no free trial, PlanGuru does offer a 30 day money back guarantee. 

Our expert review:

Enloop is a great choice for business planning software for the cash strapped business as it is the rare offering that has a free tier. Step up up to the next tier, and this is no barebones product, as it has over 100 currency symbols, can automatically generate bank-ready financial reports, and even has automated text writing that can sync with financial data to turn it into text. There is also a real time performance score assigned, that dynamically changes as the business plan is strengthened.  

The plans start with the Free tier, which is limited to a single business plan with simple text, no images, and does not offer any advanced features. The next plan up is the Detailed plan, that supports three business plans, and offers a significant 55% discount when paid annually, making it even better value. This plan costs around $20 per month. For a more comprehensive package you can buy the Performance plan costing around $40 per month.

Read our full Enloop business plan software review .

4. LivePlan

LivePlan is business planning software that offers a simple pricing scheme as there is only a single plan to choose from. As they have a 15+ year track record, they offer a clean and simple interface, that can create business plans that look like they were done by an expert consultant, and the software includes a live dashboard that can track day-to-day performance. Those with writer’s block will benefit from the over 500 included sample plans that can be turned to for inspiration.  

Rather than complicate things with too many tiers to choose from, LivePlan only has a single plan which can be paid for monthly or annually.

5. Business Sorter

Business Sorter promises to simplify and speed up business planning and claims to be able to flesh out a plan in an hour or two, via a novel 273 card sort system that covers many common situations.

The ability to reword cards is included, or also to add cards to the already expansive deck, so no worries if there is not a pre-made card for your situation. Unlike some sites that have videos, the educational resources here are provided as PDFs and Word files, which can be quicker to access, but harder to follow for some learners. 

The lowest tier plan, Basic is fully featured, and includes up to three team leaders. 

Read our full Business Sorter review .

Other business plan software to consider

We've only covered some of the most popular business plan software platforms out there, but there are a number of other notables worth mentioning, plus a wide variety of providers of business plan templates. Below we'll briefly cover a range of some of the additional options out there that are worth considering to get your business plan right.

Go Business Plans is more of a consultancy than a software solution, but is worth mentioning for the simple fact that it's one of America's biggest business plan companies. While software might be able to do the job for you, if you're looking for significant funding, it's probably useful to get some professional advice, not least in terms of strategic planning, feasibility studies, and financial projections to ensure you have a solid base for your business plan.

Wise Business Plans provides a very wide range of templates to work from in constructing a business plan. These are particularly designed with funding in mind, no matter what kind of business you run. What is especially helpful is that Wise doesn’t simply deal with business plan templates for a diverse range of business types, the company also provides plan templates for franchises and non-profits.

Plan Writers  is another bespoke service that essentially listens to what you want and then puts the plan together for you. Again, this technically falls outside of business plan "software", but the chances are you'll use a software package as a platform to build from, and Plan Writers can then help you build up from that base.

Bplans is another provider of business plan templates, but goes beyond that with additional pitch and SWOT analysis templates. There are also business plan guides, industry reports, and a free course on writing a business plan. Bplans also publishes a lot of free-to-use articles on business planning, financials, and tax reporting, to help ensure you can keep your figures and projections accurate and compliant.

We've also listed the best free software for small business .

A business plan is essentially your roadmap to profitability from an initial investment. Whether it's your own money, or a loan from a bank, it's still a good idea to set up a business plan for yourself.

Main things to look to are a SWOT analysis to provide an idea of your business idea's strengths and weaknesses, as well as identify a unique selling point (USP) that will give your business an edge.

While business plans inevitably demand the use of figures, and while these can be impossible to be accurate with, at least by making intelligent guesses you can set yourself targets to work towards.

That's another common feature of a plan, so that specific periods you can review your business progress and make adjustments to your plan as required. This allows you to use real figures for your projections, allowing you to better plan ahead.

Which business plan software is best for you?

When deciding which business plan software to use, first consider what your actual needs are, as sometimes free platforms may only provide basic options, so if you need to use advanced tools you may find a paid platform is much more worthwhile. Additionally, free and budget software options can sometimes prove limited when it comes to the variety of tools available, while higher-end software can really cater for every need, so do ensure you have a good idea of which features you think you may require.

How we tested the best business plan software

To test for the best business plan software we first set up an account with the relevant software platform, whether as a download or as an online service. We then tested the service to see how the software could be used for different purposes and in different situations. The aim was to push each business plan software platform to see how useful its basic tools were and also how easy it was to get to grips with any more advanced tools.

Read how we test, rate, and review products on TechRadar .

Get in touch

• Want to find out about commercial or marketing opportunities? Click here
• Out of date info, errors, complaints or broken links? Give us a nudge
• Got a suggestion for a product or service provider? Message us directly
• You've reached the end of the page. Jump back up to the top ^

Are you a pro? Subscribe to our newsletter

Sign up to the TechRadar Pro newsletter to get all the top news, opinion, features and guidance your business needs to succeed!

Jonas P. DeMuro is a freelance reviewer covering wireless networking hardware.

Sage is off 75% for six months if you grab it today

Xodo PDF editor review

Doro Hemma Doorbell review: security and safety don't get much simpler than this

Most Popular

• 2 Lenovo Yoga Book 9i review: Gorgeous inside and out
• 3 'It is obscenely fast' — Biggest rival to Nvidia demos million-core super AI inference chip that obliterates the DGX100 with 44GB of super fast memory and you can even try it for free
• 4 Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra leak may have revealed the flagship's dimensions – and it's thinner than ever
• 5 This app is scarily good at giving book recommendations

Features & Options

Our process, product images, the agendio blog, follow your own agenda., most planners have preset layouts, so you must adapt to your planner., that's backwards., at agendio.com, customize your layout and personalize all your content before we print and assemble your individual planner., watch the video, our features & options, agendio offers dozens of custom planner options, including many not offered by any other planner company. which ones will you want to include in your agendio check out ten of our best features here or see all of them at the options and features page ..

Many of our pagelets offer detailing, so you can customize your pagelets with lines, dashed lines, checkboxes and other visual details, as well as a variety of line spacings.

Do you like plain pagelets or do you prefer them to be lined? Do you want to check off tasks as they are done, or simply cross them out? It’s up to you.

Standard to-do lists quickly become very long and disorganized. You can’t see what's more important or what goes together and you have to go through the entire list to find anything.

Agendio’s Divisible pagelets are the solution: They can be subdivided into many smaller pagelets, each with its own label.

Extra pages

Agendio offers dozens of customizable Extra Pages. Our pages include lined, dotted, grid and blank, as well as Habit trackers, Meal planners, Financial pages, Contacts, Year-end carry-over pages and even Tables with flexible column widths. Customize them with your details to make them even more functional and effective.

Planning pages

Add planning pages to your agendio but first customize them to your needs. Your plans are specific to your needs, as are agendio planning pages.

Add activities you don’t want to forget, such as Take Meds, Clean the bathroom, Flea pill, Garbage day or Date night. Enter the repeat frequency and we’ll add your activity as directed, such as every Friday, the second Thursday of every month, etc…

Does the week start on Sunday or Monday? We don’t know, which is why, at Agendio, you can choose any day to start. You can even start your weekly and monthly on different days. For example, you can start your weekly on Monday and your monthly on Sunday.

Customize your schedule start time, as well as the design, line spacing and more. You can even replace one or all of the hours with labels such as Lunch or Recess.

You can shade sections of your agendio, whether to accentuate important sections, such as your schedule, or simply for visual effect. Shade as few or as many sections as you like.

Tabs (Custom)

You can add monthly tabs to your agendio. Select one of three styles and the tab content will be added in the same font and color as your planner pages. You can also add up to two personalized tabs to be placed with your extra pages.

Many of your tasks require more than one day. Wouldn’t you prefer that your planner show these tasks over many days, in a space designed specifically for this purpose?

We do exactly that with our span pagelets.

The process

How do you choose and customize an agendio it’s easy:, choose a product.

Are you looking for a planner or inserts?

Choose the types of pages to include from dailies, weeklies, monthlies and note pages.

Select layouts

Select your specific layouts from our wide selection.

Customize your layouts to suit your preferences.

Personalize

Add your activities, events and holidays.

Add tabs, elastics, page markers and other accessories.

Preview your agendio to make sure it’s what you want.

Our Products

Hundreds of planners in millions of combinations.

For your Filofax, Franklin, Day‑Timer or other binder.

The Agendio fully-customizable notebook.

Customer reviews

"Great quality and layout and fountain-pen-friendly"

“The customization options are almost overwhelming when you first get started, but the designers put so much thought into this, and what I ended up with was a planner that suits my needs perfectly! Great job, Agendio!” – Stephanie Cain, IN (US)

Customer Planners

Created from Model #32116

Blog reviews

"I highly recommend you check out this company's offerings as a fantastic option for 2019!"

"My Agendio arrived today, and I could not be happier with it! The binding is beautiful, the size is absolutely perfect, the printing is terrific quality... I could go on. So I will! The design process was fun and intuitive, and had just enough options to make the design feel truly personalized… I don't think I could go back to using a stock planner after this. WELL worth the price (a fully custom planner under $50?? What planet am I on?)... Agendio has made a customer for life :)"

Katheryne Price, VA

The agendio blog

Year-end 2025 agendios.

By Max on August 31, 2024

It's now late August, fall is coming and planner fans are thinking about planners for 2025.

Planner - Cristian Chiru 2017

Gift Card ($50)

Forgot your password?

We will send you a new one by email, create account.

By clicking “Start customizing” you create an Agendio account and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy .

Have an account already? Sign in

Please enter the 6-digits verification code sent to

Write a review, reply to a review.

	You might be using an unsupported or outdated browser. To get the best possible experience please use the latest version of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Microsoft Edge to view this website.

How To Write A Business Plan (2024 Guide)

Updated: Apr 17, 2024, 11:59am

Table of Contents

Brainstorm an executive summary, create a company description, brainstorm your business goals, describe your services or products, conduct market research, create financial plans, bottom line, frequently asked questions.

Every business starts with a vision, which is distilled and communicated through a business plan. In addition to your high-level hopes and dreams, a strong business plan outlines short-term and long-term goals, budget and whatever else you might need to get started. In this guide, we’ll walk you through how to write a business plan that you can stick to and help guide your operations as you get started.

Featured Partners

ZenBusiness

$0 + State Fees

Varies By State & Package

On ZenBusiness' Website

Northwest Registered Agent

$39 + State Fees

On Northwest Registered Agent's Website

Tailor Brands

$0 + state fee + up to $50 Amazon gift card

Varies by State & Package

On Tailor Brands' Website

$0 + State Fee

On Formations' Website

Drafting the Summary

An executive summary is an extremely important first step in your business. You have to be able to put the basic facts of your business in an elevator pitch-style sentence to grab investors’ attention and keep their interest. This should communicate your business’s name, what the products or services you’re selling are and what marketplace you’re entering.

Ask for Help

When drafting the executive summary, you should have a few different options. Enlist a few thought partners to review your executive summary possibilities to determine which one is best.

After you have the executive summary in place, you can work on the company description, which contains more specific information. In the description, you’ll need to include your business’s registered name , your business address and any key employees involved in the business. 

The business description should also include the structure of your business, such as sole proprietorship , limited liability company (LLC) , partnership or corporation. This is the time to specify how much of an ownership stake everyone has in the company. Finally, include a section that outlines the history of the company and how it has evolved over time.

Wherever you are on the business journey, you return to your goals and assess where you are in meeting your in-progress targets and setting new goals to work toward.

Numbers-based Goals

Goals can cover a variety of sections of your business. Financial and profit goals are a given for when you’re establishing your business, but there are other goals to take into account as well with regard to brand awareness and growth. For example, you might want to hit a certain number of followers across social channels or raise your engagement rates.

Another goal could be to attract new investors or find grants if you’re a nonprofit business. If you’re looking to grow, you’ll want to set revenue targets to make that happen as well.

Intangible Goals

Goals unrelated to traceable numbers are important as well. These can include seeing your business’s advertisement reach the general public or receiving a terrific client review. These goals are important for the direction you take your business and the direction you want it to go in the future.

The business plan should have a section that explains the services or products that you’re offering. This is the part where you can also describe how they fit in the current market or are providing something necessary or entirely new. If you have any patents or trademarks, this is where you can include those too.

If you have any visual aids, they should be included here as well. This would also be a good place to include pricing strategy and explain your materials.

This is the part of the business plan where you can explain your expertise and different approach in greater depth. Show how what you’re offering is vital to the market and fills an important gap.

You can also situate your business in your industry and compare it to other ones and how you have a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Other than financial goals, you want to have a budget and set your planned weekly, monthly and annual spending. There are several different costs to consider, such as operational costs.

Business Operations Costs

Rent for your business is the first big cost to factor into your budget. If your business is remote, the cost that replaces rent will be the software that maintains your virtual operations.

Marketing and sales costs should be next on your list. Devoting money to making sure people know about your business is as important as making sure it functions.

Other Costs

Although you can’t anticipate disasters, there are likely to be unanticipated costs that come up at some point in your business’s existence. It’s important to factor these possible costs into your financial plans so you’re not caught totally unaware.

Business plans are important for businesses of all sizes so that you can define where your business is and where you want it to go. Growing your business requires a vision, and giving yourself a roadmap in the form of a business plan will set you up for success.

How do I write a simple business plan?

When you’re working on a business plan, make sure you have as much information as possible so that you can simplify it to the most relevant information. A simple business plan still needs all of the parts included in this article, but you can be very clear and direct.

What are some common mistakes in a business plan?

The most common mistakes in a business plan are common writing issues like grammar errors or misspellings. It’s important to be clear in your sentence structure and proofread your business plan before sending it to any investors or partners.

What basic items should be included in a business plan?

When writing out a business plan, you want to make sure that you cover everything related to your concept for the business,  an analysis of the industry―including potential customers and an overview of the market for your goods or services―how you plan to execute your vision for the business, how you plan to grow the business if it becomes successful and all financial data around the business, including current cash on hand, potential investors and budget plans for the next few years.

• Best VPN Services
• Best Project Management Software
• Best Web Hosting Services
• Best Antivirus Software
• Best LLC Services
• Best POS Systems
• Best Business VOIP Services
• Best Credit Card Processing Companies
• Best CRM Software for Small Business
• Best Fleet Management Software
• Best Business Credit Cards
• Best Business Loans
• Best Business Software
• Best Business Apps
• Best Free Software For Business
• How to Start a Business
• How To Make A Small Business Website
• How To Trademark A Name
• What Is An LLC?
• How To Set Up An LLC In 7 Steps
• What is Project Management?
• How To Write An Effective Business Proposal

What Is SNMP? Simple Network Management Protocol Explained

What Is A Single-Member LLC? Definition, Pros And Cons

What Is Penetration Testing? Definition & Best Practices

What Is Network Access Control (NAC)?

What Is Network Segmentation?

How To Start A Business In Louisiana (2024 Guide)

Julia is a writer in New York and started covering tech and business during the pandemic. She also covers books and the publishing industry.

How to Write a Business Plan in 2023 [Examples Included]

Table of contents

To see what Databox can do for you, including how it helps you track and visualize your performance data in real-time, check out our home page. Click here .

So you have come up with a business idea that will turn your company into a Forbes 500 enterprise? Sounds great!

However, you are going to need much more than an idea. You will need to do some comprehensive research, create operational standpoints, describe your product, define your goals, and pave out a road map for future growth.

In other words, you are going to need a business plan.

A business plan is a document that precisely explains how you are going to make your startup a success. Without it, your chances of attracting funding and investments significantly decrease.

Do you want to learn how to create a winning business plan that will take your company to the next level? We created a guide that will help you do just that.

Let’s dive in.

What Is a Business Plan?

Why and when do you need a business plan, types of business plans (what to include in each).

• How Do You Write a Business Plan?

Best Practices for Writing a Winning Business Plan

Business plan examples.

• Monitor the Performance of Your Business with Databox

A business plan is a comprehensive document that defines how a business will achieve its goals. It is essentially a road map for growth that includes operational standpoints from all the key departments such as marketing, financial, HR, and others.

Startups use business plans to describe who they are, what they plan to do, and how they plan to achieve it. This is an extremely valuable document for attracting investors.

However, they are valuable for the company members as well. A good business plan keeps executive teams on the same page regarding the strategies they should implement to achieve their set objectives.

Related : Reporting to Investors: 6 Best Practices to Help Increase Funding

While business plans are especially useful for startups, each business should include them. In the best-case scenario, this plan will be updated from time to time and reviewed whether the goals of the company have been met.

The main things that investors want to check out in the business plan are:

• Product-market fit – Have you researched the market demand for your products and services?
• Team efficiency – Does your startup have devoted professionals that will work on achieving your goals?
• Scalability – How probable is growth in sales volumes without proportional growth or fixed costs?

An organized business plan is essentially a blueprint of your goals and it showcases your abilities as an entrepreneur.

Related : Business Report: What is it & How to Write a Great One? (With Examples)

If you want to persuade venture capitalists and banking institutions to invest in your startup, you won’t be able to do it without a solid business plan. Following a clear business plan format is crucial, as it structures your plan in a way that is easily understandable and demonstrates your business’s potential. 

A business plan is helpful in two ways – it allows you to focus on the specific goals you set for the future and it provides external parties with evidence that you have done your research in advance.

But don’t just take our word for it – here are some of the things that researchers from Bplans found out when they were analyzing the benefits of business plans with the University of Oregon.

• Companies that use business plans have recorded a 30% faster growth compared to those that didn’t use them.
• Getting investments and loans is twice as likely to happen with the help of business plans.
• There is a 129% increased chance for entrepreneurs to go past the ‘startup’ phase through business plans.

You should create a business plan before you decide to quit your regular job. It can help you realize whether you are ready or not.

Also, creating a business plan is helpful when:

• You want to attract investments or funding from external parties
• You want to find a new partner or co-founder
• You want to attract talented professionals to join your startup
• You need to change things up due to the slow growth

While creating a business plan is an important step, you first have to know how to differentiate all the different types. This will help you choose the one that is most suitable for your business.

Here are the most common types of business plans and what you should include in each.

One-Pager Business Plan

Startup business plan, internal business plan, strategic business plan, feasibility business plan.

The one-pager is a business plan that only includes the most important aspects of your business. It is essentially a simplified version of a traditional business plan.

When creating the one-pager business plan, your primary focus should be on making it easily understandable.

Since this business plan is rather short, you should avoid using lengthy paragraphs. Each section should be around 1-2 sentences long.

The things you should include in a one-pager business plan are:

• The problem – Describe a certain problem your customers have and support the claim with relevant data.
• The solution – How your products/services can solve the issue.
• Business model – Your plan on how to make money. Include production costs, selling costs, and the price of the product.
• Target market – Describe your ideal customer persona. Start with a broad audience and narrow it down by using TAM, SAM, and SOM models. This lets investors in on your thought process. To understand these models better, check out, for example, the importance of proper TAM evaluation for B2B startups .
• Competitive advantage – How are you different from your competitors?
• Management team – Include your business’s management structure.
• Financial summary – This part should revolve around the most significant financial metrics (profit, loss, cash flow, balance sheet, and sales forecast).
• Required funding – Define how much money you need to make your project a success.

PRO TIP: How Well Are Your Marketing KPIs Performing?

Like most marketers and marketing managers, you want to know how well your efforts are translating into results each month. How much traffic and new contact conversions do you get? How many new contacts do you get from organic sessions? How are your email campaigns performing? How well are your landing pages converting? You might have to scramble to put all of this together in a single report, but now you can have it all at your fingertips in a single Databox dashboard.

Our Marketing Overview Dashboard includes data from Google Analytics 4 and HubSpot Marketing with key performance metrics like:

• Sessions . The number of sessions can tell you how many times people are returning to your website. Obviously, the higher the better.
• New Contacts from Sessions . How well is your campaign driving new contacts and customers?
• Marketing Performance KPIs . Tracking the number of MQLs, SQLs, New Contacts and similar will help you identify how your marketing efforts contribute to sales.
• Email Performance . Measure the success of your email campaigns from HubSpot. Keep an eye on your most important email marketing metrics such as number of sent emails, number of opened emails, open rate, email click-through rate, and more.
• Blog Posts and Landing Pages . How many people have viewed your blog recently? How well are your landing pages performing?

Now you can benefit from the experience of our Google Analytics and HubSpot Marketing experts, who have put together a plug-and-play Databox template that contains all the essential metrics for monitoring your leads. It’s simple to implement and start using as a standalone dashboard or in marketing reports, and best of all, it’s free!

You can easily set it up in just a few clicks – no coding required.

To set up the dashboard, follow these 3 simple steps:

Step 1: Get the template 

Step 2: Connect your HubSpot and Google Analytics 4 accounts with Databox. 

Step 3: Watch your dashboard populate in seconds.

Related : Check out our comprehensive guide on writing a marketing plan report .

New businesses use startup business plans to outline their launching ideas and strategies to attract funding and investment opportunities. When creating startup business plans, you should primarily focus on the financial aspect and provide evidence that supports it (e.g. market research).

These are some of the main things that should be included:

• Vision statement – Explain your vision for the company and include the overall business goals you will try to achieve.
• Executive summary – A quick overview of what your company is about and what will make it successful. Make sure to include your products/services, basic leadership information, employees, and location.
• Company description – A detailed overview of your company. Talk about the problems you will solve and be specific about customers, organizations, and growth plans. This is the place where you should state your business’s main advantages.
• Market Analysis – Show investors that you have a good understanding of your industry and target market by providing a detailed market analysis. Try to point out certain trends, themes, or patterns that support your objective.
• Organization and management – This section explains the structure and the management hierarchy. Also, describe the legal structure of your business.
• Service or product line – Go into detail about the products and services you are going to sell. Explain the benefits they bring and share your intellectual property plans.
• Marketing and sales – Talk about your marketing strategy and describe how you plan to attract new customers.
• Financial projections – This section should be about convincing your readers why the business will be a financial success. Create a prospective financial outlook for the next few years and it includes forecasts.

An internal business plan is a document that specifically focuses on the activities within your company. While external business plans focus on attracting investors, internal business plans keep your team aligned on achieving goals.

Related : Internal vs. External Reporting: What Are the Differences?

This business plan can differentiate based on how specific you want it to be. For example, you can focus on a specific part of the business (e.g. financial department) or on the overall goals of the whole company.

Nonetheless, here are some things that should universally be included in all internal business plans:

• Mission statement – Focus on the practical, day-to-day activities that your employees can undertake to achieve overall objectives.
• Objectives – Provide specific goals that you want your company to achieve. Make the objectives clear and explain in which way they can be reached. Focus more on short-term objectives and set reasonable deadlines.
• Strategies – Talk about the general activities that will help your team reach the set objectives. Provide research that will describe how these strategies will be useful in the long term.
• Action plans – These plans revolve around particular activities from your strategy. For example, you could include a new product that you want to create or a more efficient marketing plan.
• Sustainability – This refers to the general probability of achieving the goals you set in the internal report. Sometimes, plans may seem overly ambitious and you are going to have to make amends with certain things.

A strategic business plan is the best way to gain a comprehensive outlook of your business. In this document, forecasts are examined even further and growth goals tend to be higher.

By creating a strategic business plan, you will have an easier time aligning your key stakeholders around the company’s priorities.

Here is a quick overview of what a strategic business plan should include:

• Executive summary – Since strategic business plans are generally lengthy, not all executives will have time to go through it. This is why you should include a quick overview of the plan through an executive summary, you can also create an executive summary template to make the step easily repeatable.
• Vision statement – Describe what you wish to achieve in the long term.
• Company overview – This refers to past achievements, current products/services, recent sales performances, and important KPIs.
• Core values – This section should provide an explanation of what drives the business to do what it does.
• Strategic analysis of internal and external environments – Talk about the current organizational structure, mission statements, and department challenges.
• Strategic objectives – Go into detail about the short-term objectives your team should reach in a specific period. Make sure the objectives are clear and understandable.
• Overall goals – This section should include operational goals, marketing goals, and financial goals.

A feasibility business plan is also known as a feasibility study. It essentially provides a foundation for what would be a full and comprehensive business plan. The primary focus of a feasibility plan is research.

The things you should include in a feasibility plan are:

• Product demand – Is there a high demand for your product? Would customers be interested in buying it?
• Market conditions – Determine the customer persona that would be interested in buying your products. Include demographic factors.
• Pricing – Compare your desired price with the current pricing of similar products. Which price would make your service profitable?
• Risks – Determine the risks of launching this new business.
• Success profitability – Is there a good way to overcome the risks and make your company profitable?

How Do You Write a Business Plan Report?

As we explained in the previous heading, there are a few different types of business plan. Depending on the audience you are referring to, the language you use in the plan should be adjusted accordingly.

Nonetheless, there are certain key elements that should be included in all business plans, the only thing that will vary is how detailed the sections will be.

Include these elements in your business plan.

Executive summary

Company description, market opportunity and analysis, competitive landscape, target audience, describe your product or service, develop a marketing and sales strategy, develop a logistics and operations plan, financial projections, explain your funding request, compile an appendix for official documents.

An executive summary is a quick overview of the document as a whole that allows investors and key stakeholders to quickly understand all the pain points from the report.

It is the best way to layout all the vital information about your business to bank officials and key stakeholders who don’t have the time to go through the whole business plan.

If you summarize the sections well, the potential investors will jump into the sections they are most interested in to acquire more details.

You should write the executive summary last since you will then have a better idea of what should be included.

A good executive summary answers these questions:

• Who are you?
• What do you sell?
• How profitable is it?
• How much money do you need?

This section of the business plan aims to introduce your company as a whole. The things you include in the company description can vary depending on if you are only starting a business or you already have a developed company.

The elements included in this section are:

• Structure and ownership – Talk about who the key shareholders in your company are and provide a full list of names. Also, mention details such as where the company is registered and what the legal structure looks like. In most countries, this is a legal requirement for AML regulations.
• History – This segment is if you already have an existing company. Use this section to show your credibility. Include company milestones, past difficulties, and a precise date for how long your company has been operating.
• Objectives – Describe the overall objectives of your company and how you plan to reach them.

Market analysis refers to creating your ideal customer persona and explaining why they would be interested in buying your products.

Market opportunities are the gaps that you found in the current industries and creating a way for your product to fill those gaps.

The most important step in this section is to create a target market (persona) through demographic factors such as location, income, gender, education, age, profession, and hobbies.

Make sure that your target market isn’t too broad since it can put off potential investors.

A good idea is to also include a detailed analysis of your competitors – talk about their products, strengths, and weaknesses.

Related : 12 Best Tools Marketers Use for Market Research

Although you may include a competitive analysis in the market analysis section, this segment should provide a more detailed overview.

Identify other companies that sell similar products to yours and create a list of their advantages and disadvantages. Learning about your competitors may seem overwhelming, but it’s an indispensable part of a good business plan.

Include a comparison landscape as well that defines the things that set you apart from the competitors. Describe the strengths of your product and show which problems it could solve.

Related : How to Do an SEO Competitive Analysis: A Step-by-Step Guide

Use the target audience section to fully describe the details of your ideal customer persona. Include both demographic and psychographic factors.

Ask yourself:

• What are the demographic characteristics of the people who will buy my product?
• What are their desires?
• What makes my product valuable to them?

Make sure to answer all of these questions to get in the mindset of your customers.

If you need more details on how to identify your target audience , check our full expert guide.

When talking about your products and services, be as precise as possible. Mention your target audience and the marketing channels you use for targeting this audience.

This section should reveal the benefits, life cycle, and production process of your products/services. Also, it is a good idea to include some pictures of your products if possible.

When describing your products, you should highlight:

• Unique features
• Intellectual property rights
• What makes the product beneficial

Marketing is the blood flow to your business’s body. Without a good marketing and sales strategy, the chances of your product succeeding are very slim.

It’s always best to already have a marketing plan in place before launching your business. By identifying the best marketing channels, you will show your investors that you researched this topic in detail.

Some of the things you should include are:

• Reach – Explain why a specific channel will be able to reach your target market
• Cost – Is the marketing strategy going to be cost-effective? How much money do you plan on spending on the strategy?
• Competition – Are your competitors already using this channel? If so, what will make your product stand out?
• Implementation – Who will be taking care of the implementation process? Is it a marketing expert? Which suppliers did you reach out to?

Related : 14 Reasons Sales And Marketing Alignment Is Crucial for Skyrocketing Company Growth

This section should explain the details of how exactly your company is going to operate.

These are the things you should include:

• Personnel plan – Define how many people you plan to employ and their roles. Also, if you plan on increasing your staff, you should explain what would be the cause of that.
• Key assets – This refers to assets that will be crucial for your company’s operation.
• Suppliers – Mention who your suppliers will be and what kind of relationship you have with them. Your investors will be interested in this part of the section since they want to be reassured that you are cooperating with respectable counterparties.

The financial projections section is one of the most important parts of your business plan. It includes a detailed overview of expected sales, revenue, profit, expenses, and all the other important financial metrics .

You should show your investors that your business will be profitable, stable, and that it has huge potential for cash generation.

Monthly numbers for the first year are crucial since this will be the most critical year of your company.

At the very least, you should provide:

• Funding needs
• Profit-and-loss statement forecast
• Balance sheet forecast
• Cash-flow statement forecast

Related : How to Write a Great Financial Report? Tips and Best Practices

When providing the funding request, be realistic. Explain why you need that exact amount of money and where it will be allocated.

Also, create both a best-case and worst-case scenario. New companies don’t have a history of generating profits which is why you will probably have to sell equity in the early years to raise enough capital.

This will be the final section of your business plan. Include any material or piece of information that investors can use to analyze the data in your report. 

Things that could be helpful are:

• Local permits
• Legal documents
• Certifications that boost credibility
• Intellectual properties or patents
• Purchase orders and customer contracts

After reading the previous heading, you should have a clear idea of how to write a compelling business plan.

But, just to be sure, we prepared some additional information that can be very helpful.

Here are some of the best practices you should implement in your business plan according to the most successful companies.

Keep it brief

Make it understandable, be meticulous about money, design is important.

Generally, business plans will be around 10-20 pages long. Your main focus should be to cover the essentials that we talked about, but you don’t want to overdo it by including unnecessary and overwhelming information.

In business plan, less is more.

Create a good organizational outline of your sections. This will allow investors to easily navigate to the parts they are most interested in reading.

Avoid using jargon – everyone should be able to easily understand your business plan without having to Google certain terms. 

Make a list of all the expenses your business incurs. Financial information should be maximally precise since it will directly impact the investor’s decision to fund your business idea.

After you wrap up your business plan, take a day off and read it again. Fix any typos or grammatical errors that you overlooked the first time.

Make sure to use a professional layout, printing, and branding of your business plan. This is an important first impression for the readers of the document.

Now you know what a business plan is, how you can write it, and some of the best practices you can use to make it even better.

But, if you are still having certain difficulties coming up with a great business plan, here are a few examples that may be helpful.

HubSpot’s One-Page Business Plan

Bplan’s free business plan template, small business administration free business plan template.

This One-Page Business Plan was created by HubSpot and it can be a great way to start off your business plan journey on the right foot.

You already have fields such as Implementation Timeline, Required Funding, and Company Description created so you will just need to provide your specific information.

This free business plan template highlights the financial points of the startup. If your primary focus will be your business’ financial plan and financial statements, you can use this template to save up some time.

It can also be useful for making sure everyone in your company understands the current financial health and what they can do to improve it.

If you need additional inspiration to kick start your own business plan, you can check out this free template by small business administration .

You just have to decide which type of plan you want to create and then review the format of how it should look like.

Monitor and Report on the Performance of Your Business with Databox

Tracking your company’s performance is an indispensable part of quality decision-making. It is crucial that you know how your business strategy is performing and whether it needs to be optimized in certain areas.

However, doing this manually will undoubtedly take a hefty amount of your valuable time. You will have to log into all of the different tools, copy-paste the data into your reports, and then analyze it. And this isn’t a one-time thing – you have to do it at least once a month.

Luckily, Databox can lend a helping hand.

By using customizable dashboards from Databox, you will be able to connect data from all your different tools into one comprehensive report. Not only that, but you can also visualize the most important metrics to make your presentation to shareholders immensely more impactful.

Did you spend a lot of time cutting and pasting? Say ‘no more’ to that. You will be able to use that time to better analyze your business performances and monitor any significant changes that occur.

Leave the grueling business reporting process in the past and sign up for a free trial with Databox.

• Databox Benchmarks
• Future Value Calculator
• ROI Calculator
• Return On Ads Calculator
• Percentage Growth Rate Calculator
• Report Automation
• Client Reporting
• What is a KPI?
• Google Sheets KPIs
• Sales Analysis Report
• Shopify Reports
• Data Analysis Report
• Google Sheets Dashboard
• Best Dashboard Examples
• Analysing Data
• Marketing Agency KPIs
• Automate Agency Google Ads Report
• Marketing Research Report
• Social Media Dashboard Examples
• Ecom Dashboard Examples

Does Your Performance Stack Up?

Are you maximizing your business potential? Stop guessing and start comparing with companies like yours.

A Message From Our CEO

At Databox, we’re obsessed with helping companies more easily monitor, analyze, and report their results. Whether it’s the resources we put into building and maintaining integrations with 100+ popular marketing tools, enabling customizability of charts, dashboards, and reports, or building functionality to make analysis, benchmarking, and forecasting easier, we’re constantly trying to find ways to help our customers save time and deliver better results.

Do you want an All-in-One Analytics Platform?

Hey, we’re Databox. Our mission is to help businesses save time and grow faster. Click here to see our platform in action. 

Filip Stojanovic is a content writer who studies Business and Political Sciences. Also, I am a huge tennis enthusiast. Although my dream is to win a Grand Slam, working as a content writer is also interesting.

Get practical strategies that drive consistent growth

Marketing Reporting: The KPIs, Reports, & Dashboard Templates You Need to Get Started

12 Tips for Developing a Successful Data Analytics Strategy

What Is Data Reporting and How to Create Data Reports for Your Business

Build your first dashboard in 5 minutes or less

Latest from our blog

• How to Select the Most Effective Facebook Ad Objectives for Your Business [Insights from 130+ Experts] September 6, 2024
• Playmaker Spotlight: Kenneth Won, Technical Sales Consultant September 5, 2024
• Metrics & KPIs
• vs. Tableau
• vs. Looker Studio
• vs. Klipfolio
• vs. Power BI
• vs. Whatagraph
• vs. AgencyAnalytics
• Product & Engineering
• Inside Databox
• Terms of Service
• Privacy Policy
• Talent Resources
• We're Hiring!
• Help Center
• API Documentation

[email protected]

Username or Email *

Email address *

A password will be sent to your email address.

Your personal data will be used to support your experience throughout this website, to manage access to your account, and for other purposes described in our privacy policy .

• Upgrade-Hyperlink

2023 OneNote Business Digital Planner

$ 99.99 Original price was: $99.99. $ 59.99 Current price is: $59.99.

Available for Instant Download 

• 2023 – OneNote Business Planner (Includes Monday and Sunday Start Dates)
• Product Development Tools (See Description)
• Installation Instructions Included ( Click Here to View Instructions )

Includes all the new 2023 Planner Templates and daily dated pages. (Click on links for examples) (You must select “bundle” at checkout to get 2022.)Vision Board , Annual Keys , Goals , Projects , Notes , Meetings , Ideal Week , Daily Page , Weekly Review, Quarterly Review,   Month-at-View , Vertical Month-at-View ,

Purchase Delivery and Refund Policy

BIGGEST SAVINGS! Pre-Order your 2024 planner and save. This is an exclusvie only available to Key2Success Subscriptions. For the first time its being made available to you.

SAVE up to 50% off additional Key2Success Tools

If you could please help us understand how you learned about us.

Even though we offer walk-through videos and guided steps for installation support. We understand some achievers don’t want the hassle and would rather have professional support. You can schedule a time for our team to do a remote installation on your device.

Training sessions are conducted virtually over a zoom call. Branden will work with you to integrate the planning system into your planning workflow.

Description

• Reviews (13)

KEY2SUCCESS Releases 2023 Key2Success Digital Planner System

The Key2Success Digital Planner System is designed for those that want a notebook, a planner, a goal setter, and more life tools on their person wherever they go! The 2023 version contains several new and improved features.

The Key2Success Digital Planner designed for OneNote works with all devices, such as Windows Desktops, Laptops, Tablets, and Apple products like the iPad, and computers. And for those mobile users, download OneNote from the app store and connect your planner in the palm of your hand. Write or type on your digital planner.

As digital planning continues to take hold and mobile computing becomes more interwoven into our daily lives, the 2023 Key2Success Planner releasing July 2022 aims to build on your strengths and increase your productivity.

The 2023 KeySuccess Planner comes in 4 Versions: • Key2Success Personal • Key2Success Personal Pro • Key2Success Business • Key2Success Business Executive

The 2023 Key2Success Digital Planner will be available in Monday & Sunday start dates. The planner layout will be redesigned, becoming more modern and expanding your surface.

In 2023 the Key2Success Planning system expands long term planning goals, to help increase personal productivity. Planner start date is January 1, 2023.

“When developing the Key2Success Planning System, the goal was to have an all-in-one planner that took your long term vision for success and delivered daily key action steps that would enable you to reach those big ideas,” said Branden Bodendorfer, creator.

Along with bold layout changes, the 2023 Key2Success Planner will introduce new tools for professional and business development.

New in 2023 : Professional  ○ Bucket list ○ Health Tracker – Even with all the health tracking technology available, the Key2Success Health Tracker will bring you increased awareness

Business ○ Boulder Breakdown – designed to outline the life moment you aim to achieve. ○ Strength Maximizer ○ Process Adaption Monitor

Executive ○ Team Management ○ Employee Development Tools ○ Seat Assignments ○ Access to Monthly Tools

For more information, visit:  2022 Digital Planner | OneNote | iPad Pro | Surface Pro (brandenbodendorfer.com)

Key2Success Planner Editions

2023 Key2Success Planner	Personal	Personal Pro	Business	Business Executive	Executive Teams
Professional Builder			X	X	X
Vision Board	X	X	X	X	X
Daily Pages	X	X	X	X	X
Weekly Review	X	X	X	X	X
Weekly Pages	X	X	X	X	X
Monthly Pages	X	X	X	X	X
Quarterly Review	X	X	X	X	X
Goal Planning	X	X	X	X	X
Notes/Journal Pages	X	X	X	X	X
Ideal Week	X	X	X	X	X
Meeting Pages		X	X	X	X
Project Pages		X	X	X	X
Budget Planner		X	X	X	X
Habit Tracker		X	X	X	X
Bucklist		X	X	X	X
Health Tracker		X	X	X	X
Expense Tracker			X	X	X
Boulder Breakdown			X	X	X
Strength Maximizer			X	X	X
Process Adaption Monitor			X	X	X
Team Management				X	X
Employee Development Tools				X	X
Key2Success Membership				X	X
Communication Planner				X	X
CRM Toolkit				X	X
Installation Support				X	X
30-Minute Jump-Start Session				X	X
Monthly Professional Builder Session Teams up to 6 – Learn More					X

Based on the 22 version, but this is a great planner. Moving from page to page, adding pages, and the overall layout of the planner is fantastic!

Branden worked with me directly to help me get the format that worked best for my workflow. Thank you for taking the time to assist. I’m moving from the Full Focus Planner to Branden’s Keys2Success Business Digital Planner. I often forget my old book planner, which defeats the purpose. Now I have access to my planner digitally on all my devices.

Fantastic planner and am already looking ahead to 2023 in planning for my business.

I love the way this works with One Note. I have been using the product for two years now and am completely satisfied with it.

My planner is not installed, after I paid an extra 8.99. If the planner gets put on my tablet, I’ll be very happy.

This is going to be the best investment I make for 2023

I am still discovering how to use it but like it so far. The best help was when the founder took the time to reach out to provide some assistance. Says a lot for the team and the customer service.

Excellent customer service!! Very helpful!! I’m a repeat buyer because of the courtesy and willingness to make sure everything was set up as needed.

Amazing product.

Feel good about what I got with this price.

Add a review Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a review.

Related Products

2022 Personal Digital Planner for reMarkable

2023 OneNote Business Executive Digital Planner

2022 OneNote Business Executive Digital Planner

2021 PDF Digital Planner For ReMarkable 2

Wisconsin, USA

Chat Support

Mon – Fri : 6 AM – 4 PM CST

Email 24/7 

INFORMATION

• Refund Policy
• Privacy Policy
• Affiliate Program Sign-Up

• Build your business

Business Tools

• Profit Margin Calculator
• Business Name Generator
• Slogan Generator
• Traffic Calculator
• Ecommerce Statistics
• Ecommerce Wiki

Free business tools

Start a business and design the life you want – all in one place.

• © 2015-2024 Oberlo

How to Write a Business Plan in 2023: The Ultimate Guide for Every Entrepreneur

Are you starting a new business or trying to get a loan for your existing venture? If so, you’re going to need to know how to write a business plan. Business plans give entrepreneurs the opportunity to formally analyze and define every aspect of their business idea .

In this post, you’ll learn how to put together a business plan and find the best resources to help you along the way.

What is a Business Plan? 

A business plan is a formal document that outlines your business’s goals and how you will achieve those goals. Entrepreneurs who start out with business plans are 16 percent more likely to build successful companies , according to the Harvard Business Review.  Developing a business plan ensures sustainable success, guiding you as you grow your business, legitimizing your venture, and helping you secure funding (among countless other benefits). 

What Are the Main Purposes of a Business Plan?

Most financial institutions and service providers require you to submit a detailed business plan to obtain funding for your business. Online businesses will likely have a low overhead to start, so they may not need funding and therefore may not feel the need to write a business plan. That said, writing a business plan is still a good idea as it can help you secure a drastic increase limit on your credit card as your business grows or open a business account. This varies per bank.

If you’re growing your business, use it to help you raise expansion capital, create a growth strategy, find opportunities, and mitigate risks.Palo Alto software found that companies who make business plans are twice as likely to secure funding . .

If you’re just starting your business, making a business plan can help you  identify your strengths and weaknesses, communicate your vision to others, and develop accurate forecasts.

How to Make a Business Plan: The Prerequisites 

Here are the prerequisites to creating a solid business plan:

• Establish goals
• Understand your audience
• Determine your business plan format
• Get to writing! 

Establish Goals

There are two key questions to ask here: 

• What are you hoping to accomplish with your business?
• What are you hoping to accomplish with your business plan?

Approaching your business plan through that lens will help you focus on the end goal throughout the writing process. These also provide metrics to measure success against. 

Before writing your business plan, gather the content and data needed to inform what goes in it. This includes researching your market and industry – spanning everything from customer research to legalities you’ll need to consider. It’s a lot easier to start with the information already in front of you instead of researching each section individually as you go. 

Turn to guides, samples, and small business plan templates to help. Many countries have an official administration or service dedicated to providing information, resources, and tools to help entrepreneurs and store owners plan, launch, manage, and grow their businesses. 

The following will take you to online business plan guides and templates for specific countries.

• United States Small Business Administration (SBA) – The “write your business plan page” includes traditional and lean startup business plan formats, three downloadable sample business plans, a template, and a step-by-step build a business plan tool.
• Australian Government – The “business plan template” page includes a downloadable template, guide, and business plan creation app.
• UK Government Business and Self-Employed – The “write a business plan” page includes links to a downloadable business plan template and resources from trusted UK businesses. .
• Canada Business Network – The “writing your business plan” page includes a detailed guide to writing your business plan and links to business plan templates from Canadian business development organizations and banks.

These business resource sites also offer a wealth of valuable information for entrepreneurs including local and regional regulations, structuring, tax obligations, funding programs, market research data, and much more. Visit the sites above or do the following Google searches to find official local business resources in your area:

• your country government business services
• your state/province government business services
• your city government business services

Some Chamber of Commerce websites offer resources for business owners, including business plan guides and templates. Check your local chapter to see if they have any.

Banks that offer business funding also often have a resource section for entrepreneurs. Do a Google search to find banks that offer business funding as well as business plan advice to see the business plans that get funding. If your bank doesn’t offer any advice, search for the largest banks in your area:

• business plan guide bank name
• business plan samples bank name
• business plan template bank name

If you’re looking for more sample business plans, Bplans has over 500 free business plan samples organized by business type as well as a business plan template. Their collection includes 116 business plans for retail and online stores. Shopify also offers business plan templates intended to help small business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs identify functional areas of a business they may not have considered.

Understand Your Audience

Because business plans serve different purposes, you’re not always presenting it to the same audience. It’s important to understand who’s going to be reading your business plan, what you’re trying to convince them to do, and what hesitations they might have. 

That way, you can adapt your business plan accordingly. As such, your audience also determines which type of business plan format you use. Which brings us to our next point…

Which Business Plan Format Should You Use? 

The United States Small Business Administration (SBA) presents two business plan formats: 

• The traditional business plan format is for entrepreneurs who want to create a detailed plan for themselves or for business funding. 
• The lean startup business plan format, on the other hand, is for business owners that want to create a condensed, single-page business plan.

If the business plan is just for you and internal folks, draft a lean startup business plan or a customized version of the traditional business plan with only the sections you need. If you need it for business funding or other official purposes, choose the formal business plan and thoroughly complete the required sections while paying extra attention to financial projections.

If your business operates outside the U.S., clarify the preferred format with your bank.

How to Create a Business Plan: Questions to Ask Yourself

As you write a business plan, take time to not only analyze your business idea, but yourself as well. Ask the following questions to help you analyze your business idea along the way:

• Why do I want to start or expand my business?
• Do my goals (personal and professional) and values align with my business idea?
• What income do I need to generate for myself?
• What education, experience, and skills do I bring to my business?

How to Write a Business Plan Step by Step

According to the business plan template created by SCORE, Deluxe, and the SBA , a traditional business plan encompasses the following sections. 

• Executive summary
• Company description
• Products & services
• Market analysis
• Marketing & sales
• Management & organization
• Funding request
• Financial projections
• SWOT analysis

Since not everyone is aware of the key details to include in each section, we’ve listed information you can copy to fill in your business plan outline. Here’s how to build a business plan step by step.  

Executive Summary

The Executive Summary is the first part of your business plan, so this is where you need to hook readers in. Every business plan starts this way — even a simple business plan template should kick off with the Executive Summary. Summarize your entire business plan in a single page, highlighting details about your business that will excite potential investors and lenders. 

Explain what your business has to offer, your target market , what separates you from the competition, a little bit about yourself and the core people behind your business, and realistic projections about your business’ success.

While this is the first section of your business plan, write it after you’ve completed the rest of your business plan. It’s a lot easier because you can pull from the sections you’ve already written, and it’s easier to identify the best parts of your business plan to include on the first page.

Company Description

In the Company Description, share 411 about your business. Include basic details like: 

• Legal structure (sole proprietor, partnership, corporation, etc.)
• Business and tax ID numbers
• When the business started
• Ownership information
• Number of employees

Your mission statement , philosophy and values, vision, short- and long-term goals, and milestones along with a brief overview of your industry, market, outlook, and competitors should also be in the Company Description.

Pro tip: These are the details you’ll use each time you create a business profile, whether that's on social media, business directories, or other networks. Keep your information consistent to reduce confusion and instill more confidence in potential customers. 

Products & Services

The Products & Services section details what you plan to sell to customers. For a dropshipping business , this section should explain which trending products you’re going to sell, the pain points your products solve for customers, how you’ll price your products compared to your competitors, expected profit margin, and production and delivery details.

Remember to include any unique selling points for specific products or product groupings, such as low overhead, exclusive agreements with vendors, the ability to obtain products that are in short supply / high demand based on your connections, personalized customer service, or other advantages.

For dropshipping businesses selling hundreds or even thousands of products, detail the main categories of products and the number of products you plan to offer within each category. By doing this, it’s easier to visualize your business offerings as a whole to determine if you need more products in one category to fully flesh out your online store.

Market Analysis

The Market Analysis section of your business plan allows you to share the research you have done to learn about your target audience — the potential buyers of your products. People requesting a business plan will want to know that you have a solid understanding of your industry, the competitive landscape, who’s most likely to become your customers. It’s important to demonstrate that  there’s a large enough market for your product to make it profitable and/or to make a strong return on investment .

To complete the Market Analysis component of your business plan, check out the following resources for industry, market, and local economic research:

• U.S. Embassy websites in most countries have a business section with information for people who want to sell abroad. Business sections include a basic “getting started” guide, links to economic and data reports, trade events, and additional useful business links for a particular region.
• IBISWorld is a provider of free and paid industry research and procurement research reports for the United States , United Kingdom , Australia , and New Zealand .  
• Statista offers free and paid statistics and studies from over 18,000 sources including industry reports, country reports, market studies, outlook reports, and consumer market reports.   

Use these websites and others to learn about the projected growth of your industry and your potential profitability. You can also use social media tools like Facebook Audience Insights to estimate the size of your target market on the largest social network

Another way to research your market and products is through Google Trends . This free tool will allow you to see how often people search for the products your business offers over time. Be sure to explain how your business plans to capitalize on increasing and decreasing search trends accordingly.

Marketing & Sales

Knowing your target market is half the battle. In the Marketing & Sales section, share how you plan to reach and sell products to your target market. Outline the marketing and advertising strategies you intend to use to market your product to potential customers – search marketing , social media marketing , email marketing , and influencer marketing methods .

If you’re unsure how to market your business’ products, analyze your competitors for some inspiration. Discovering your competition’s marketing tactics will help you customize your own strategy for building a customer base and ultimately taking your business to the next level. 

Do a Google search for your competitor’s business name to find the websites, social accounts, and content they’ve created to market their products. Look at the ways your competitor uses each online entity to drive new customers to their website and product pages.

Then come up with a plan to convert a similar audience with your marketing and advertising messages. For dropshipping businesses, conversions will typically take place on your website as people purchase your products and/or by phone if you take orders over the phone. 

Management & Organization

In the Management & Organization piece of your business plan, describe the structure of your business. In terms of legal structure and incorporation, most businesses are classified as sole proprietorships (one owner), partnerships (two or more owners), corporations, or S corporations.

Draft a condensed resume for each of the key members of your business. If you’re a solopreneur , include how your past education and work experience will help you run each aspect of your business. If you have one or more partner(s) and employee(s), include their relevant education and experience as well.

Think of this as a great way to evaluate the strengths of each individual running your business. When self-evaluating, you’ll be able to identify the aspects of your business that’ll be easier to manage and which ones to delegate to freelancers, contractors, employees, and third-party services. This also makes it easier to find the best way to utilize their strengths for business growth.

Funding Request

Chances are, you don’t have a funding request for a startup dropshipping business since the appeal to dropshipping is the low upfront investment . If you’re looking for a loan, however, this would be the section where you outline the dollar amount you need, what you plan to invest in, and how you see the return on your investment.

Another way to use this section is to analyze the investment you have or plan to make when starting or growing your business. This should include everything from the computer you use to run your website to the monthly fee for business services.

Financial Projections

In Financial Projections, share your projected revenue and expenses for the first or next five years of your business. The idea here is to demonstrate that the revenue you’re anticipating will easily lead to a return on any investment, whether from your personal finances or a capital lending service.

If you’re looking for funding, you’ll need to go into detail with projected income statements, balance sheets, cash flow statements, and capital expenditure budgets. If you aren’t looking for funding, it won’t hurt to create these types of financial projections so you can realistically plan for the future of your business.

The Appendix of your business plan includes any supplemental documents needed throughout the sections of your business plan. These may include, but are not limited to: 

• Credit histories
• Product brochures
• Legal forms
• Supplier contracts

If you’re submitting your business plan for funding, contact the lender to see what documentation they want included with your funding request.

SWOT Analysis

In addition to the above sections, some business plans also include a SWOT Analysis. This is a one-page summary of your business’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The strengths and weaknesses you include will be internal, whereas opportunities and threats you include will be external. 

Depending on the revelations of this section, you may or may not want to make a SWOT analysis when submitting your business plan formally unless it is requested.

Summary: How to Create a Business Plan

As you can see, creating a business plan for your dropshipping business is a great way to validate your business idea , discover your business’s strengths and weaknesses, and make a blueprint for your business's future.

In summary, here are the sections you will need to write for your business plan, step by step:

• SWOT analysis (Optional)

If you haven’t already, take the time to create a business plan to launch or grow your business in 2023!

Want to Learn More?

• How to Start a Dropshipping Business
• How to Register a Business in the USA
• How to Launch Your Ecommerce Store in Less Than 30 Minutes Flat
• 30+ Amazing Startup Business Ideas That’ll Make You Money

Business Planners

Achieve your career goals.

All You Need to Plan for the Year Ahead

Annual and academic planners are the backbone of our Paperblanks collection – offering new and bestselling designs every year to help you get organized and stay on track. Our Business Planners include unique layouts designed specifically for career planning.

A new year offers a fresh start – the time to leave behind bad habits and stay true to your resolutions. Our 12-Month Business Planners are here to help you achieve all your professional goals in the upcoming business year.

By beginning the coming business year with actions and intentions in mind, you are sure to put your best foot forward.

Stay Motivated to Achieve Your Goals

We know that setting business goals isn’t the same as achieving them, so we’ve designed our Business Planners to help you stay on track all year long. In a 224-page ultra format, each one of these softcover Flexi planners contains:

• Annual, monthly and weekly objectives
• Motivational quotes and rewards
• Weekly breakdowns of goals, actions and results
• Dot-grid planning pages

Elastic Closure

Beginning with our 2025 planners, all softcover Flexi planners will include an elastic closure, which expands to fit your needs as you fill your planner over time.

Address Book Pages

At the back of every Flexi planner you will find an integrated address book section.

Back Cover Pouch

A no-fuss pocket inside the back cover can hold loose papers or important notes while you’re on the go.

Ribbon Markers

Every planner comes standard with two satin ribbon markers, meaning you can make plans for today while setting your sights on a future date as well.

Paper Quality

Inside every Paperblanks Business Planner is 80 gsm paper in an eye-pleasing cream colour.

Paper Sourcing

Considering the environmental impacts of doing business is important to us. That’s why all of our paper is derived from sustainable forest pulp, our binder boards are made with 100% recycled materials and we use paper that is FSC-certified in all of our books.

Paperblanks Newsletter

Paperblanks survey, {{question.question}}, email address, thank you for taking the time to complete our survey.

An official website of the United States government

Here’s how you know

Official websites use .gov A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS A lock ( Lock A locked padlock ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Open Search

  Mobile Menu

BLM Yuma Field Office Long-Term Visitor Areas Draft Business Plan

This draft business plan was prepared by the Bureau of Land Management’s Yuma Field Office pursuant to the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act of 2004 (16 U.S.C. 6801-6814) and BLM recreation fee program policies. It establishes future management goals and priorities for the Long-Term Visitor Area Program within the Yuma Field Office .

Public comment period now open

We announced a public comment period on Sept. 6, 2024.

You can provide comment on this draft business plan by emailing  [email protected]  with the subject line "LTVA Fee Proposal Comment" or by delivering/mailing comments to:

BLM Yuma Field Office

7341 E 30th St, Suite A

Yuma, AZ 85365

Comments must be received by Oct. 21, 2024.

To learn more about draft business plans across the state,  read the announcement  and visit our  interactive StoryMap .

Click the link below to read the draft business plan.

Publication Date

Organization, related content.

• Recreation Site Business Plans
• Recreation Fee Program
• Interactive StoryMap

Skip to content

DfE Business Plan 2024-25

Date published: 09 September 2024

The Department for Economy’s (DfE) 2024/25 Business Plan provides a forward look over the next three years and sets out what DfE needs to do to deliver growth for the economy in Northern Ireland.

It highlights upcoming key projects and actions that we plan to take including the restructuring of Invest NI so that it is more focused on regional economic development; a Renewable Electricity Support Scheme; a new electricity grid connection policy; an Aviation and Route Development Policy; improved support for people with special educational needs (SEN) after they leave school; and a circular economy strategy.

Help viewing documents

BioMarin to lay off 225 employees in restructuring plan

BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc. is laying off a larger portion of its workforce than previously announced as part of its reorganization strategy.

In an Aug. 23 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the biotech firm stated it will cut 225 jobs, or 7% of its global workforce. The layoffs follow an earlier filing in May reporting 170 reductions in its workforce of more than 3,000 people around the world.

The 27-year-old firm, based in San Rafael, specializes in genetic therapies for rare diseases.

It expects the job reductions -- 120 of which are in the North Bay -- to be completed by the end of the year.

The SEC filing indicates one-time pre-tax charges totaling up to $35 million in severance packages and other employee termination benefits. Employees were notified Aug. 28.

“BioMarin is in the process of developing a new corporate strategy, and a critical component of delivering on this strategy is to ensure that BioMarin is structured in a way that will position the company for continued success in the future,” company spokesman Andrew Villani said.

A few weeks before the recent filing, the biomed firm also announced it discontinued development of BMN 293, a therapy designed to treat hardened heart muscles (cardiomyopathy). Instead, it will focus more on market development of Roctavian, a treatment for hemophilia.

BioMarin’s cost-cutting measures come at a time of strong quarterly growth. In its last statement for the 2024 second quarter ending June 30, it reported a nearly 20% year-over-year growth to $712 million.

The performance was largely buoyed, according to company officials, by contributions from Voxzogo, a treatment that promotes bone growth. Revenues added up to almost $184 million for the therapy affecting about 3,500 children across 44 countries, accounting for 900 new patient starts in the first half of 2024. The balance sheet growth for the therapy in this past quarter was figured at over 62% higher for that division.

In addition, the company’s net income for this past quarter amounted to $188.9 million, about 80% higher than 2023’s three-month period ending June 30.

BioMarin also just announced a shift in leadership roles, appointing Dr. Greg Friberg chief research and development officer. Also, James Sabry was selected as chief business officer.

“We see this all as a reset, post-pandemic, when there was a lot of hiring done,” said North Bay Leadership Council President and CEO Joanne Webster, who also formerly ran the San Rafael Chamber of Commerce where BioMarin is based. “They’re probably being very strategic about their focus. That’s what my sense is.”

As for facilities, the company declined to comment on whether it’s moving forward with its plan to expand operations in Petaluma on Fisher Drive. It received approval from the city in 2019 to build a 72,000-square-foot research and development center at that location.

Susan Wood covers agriculture, law, cannabis, production, transportation as well as banking and finance. She can be reached at 530-545-8662 or [email protected]

Instead of closing 21 stores in Pa., national chain will close nine locations in the state

• Updated: Sep. 09, 2024, 7:40 p.m.
• | Published: Sep. 09, 2024, 5:39 p.m.
• Daniel Urie | [email protected]

LL Flooring , formerly Lumber Liquidators, has reversed course. Instead of closing all of its 430 stores, it will now close 211.

The change comes after the flooring retailer says it has now found a buyer — F9 Investments.

So what does that mean for Pennsylvania’s 21 LL Flooring stores?

Well, instead of all 21 stores closing in the Keystone State, now nine of its locations will close in Pennsylvania, according to the retailer’s website.

The nine stores closing in Pennsylvania include:

• 1660 Lincoln Way East, Guilford Township, Franklin County near Chambersburg
• 5630 Peach St., Millcreek Township, Erie County
• 213 W. Lincoln Highway, West Whiteland Township, Chester County, near Exton
• 150 Lincoln Highway, Falls Township, Bucks County, near Fairless Hills
• 170 South Lycoming Mall Road, Muncy Township, Lycoming County
• 10500 Roosevelt Blvd., Philadelphia
• 1530 South Columbus Blvd., Philadelphia
• 1524 North Atherton St., Ferguson Township, Centre County near State College
• 2920 Whiteford Road, Springettsbury Township, York County

The store closure process is expected to be completed in approximately 12 weeks.

The retailer has more than 400 locations across 47 states. The company was founded in 1993.

LL Flooring filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in August.

Stories by Daniel Urie

• Cumberland County organization agrees to purchase former manufacturing plant
• Partnership will allow state employees to receive discount on tuition at Elizabethtown College
• Harrisburg-based organization appoints new leader
• Central Pa. market welcomes 8 new vendors
• First it was closing all of its 430 stores, now this chain says 219 of its locations will stay open

If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

New Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol outlines priorities to end coffee chain's slump

New  Starbucks  CEO Brian Niccol will focus on improving the chain’s U.S. business in his early days on the job before he moves to fix its issues abroad, according to an  open letter published  on Tuesday.

″… In some places — especially in the U.S. — we aren’t always delivering,” Niccol wrote in the open letter addressed to customers, employees and stakeholders. “It can feel transactional, menus can feel overwhelming, product is inconsistent, the wait too long or the handoff too hectic. These moments are opportunities for us to do better.”

Niccol, who calls himself a longtime Starbucks customer, outlined four areas for improvement: the barista experience, morning service, its cafes and the company’s branding.

“This is our plan for the U.S., and where I need to focus my time initially,” Niccol wrote in the letter.

To tackle those challenges, Starbucks will invest in tech to improve baristas’ working conditions and allow them to craft drinks more quickly, make the company’s supply chain more efficient and upgrade its app and mobile ordering.

Later, Niccol plans to address its international business, such as in China, its second-largest market. Starbucks’ business in China has struggled to bounce back from the Covid-19 pandemic, and increased competition has led the coffee chain to lean more on discounts and promotions to win back customers.

“In China, we need to understand the potential path to capture growth and capitalize on our strengths in this dynamic market,” Niccol said.

He also said the company will try to curb what he called “misconceptions” about its brand in the Middle East. Many U.S. brands, including Starbucks and McDonald’s, have faced boycotts tied to backlash against U.S. support for Israel’s offensive in Gaza.

But for Niccol’s first 100 days, he plans to spend time in the chain’s cafes and offices and meet with key suppliers in the U.S.

“Today, I’m making a commitment: We’re getting back to Starbucks,” said Niccol.

The coffee giant  named Niccol as chief executive  in August, in conjunction with the company’s ouster of then-CEO Laxman Narasimhan. The leadership shake-up followed several quarters of slumping sales for Starbucks as demand for its drinks declined, particularly in the U.S. and China.

Niccol’s official first day was Monday. He joined Starbucks from  Chipotle Mexican Grill , where he spent six years as chief executive, turning it from a burrito chain in crisis into a consistent favorite of both diners and Wall Street. Now, he is tasked with  executing a turnaround for Starbucks .

Read the full letter below:

An open letter for all partners, customers and stakeholders As I step into my first week as ceo, I do so not only as a leader, but as a long-time customer. Over the past few weeks, I’ve spent time in our stores, speaking with partners and customers, and talking with teams across operations, store design, marketing and product development. In each conversation, two truths emerged: First, Starbucks is a beloved brand with wonderful people. We are woven into the fabric of people’s lives and the communities we serve. Second, there’s a shared sense that we have drifted from our core. We have an opportunity to make the store experience better for our partners and, in turn, for our customers. Starbucks was founded on a love for high quality coffee — handcrafted by our outstanding green apron partners and enjoyed with intention. Coffee is our heart. We own and operate Hacienda Alsacia, our coffee farm on the slopes of Costa Rica’s Volcano Poás, which serves as the heart of our research and innovation efforts. From our network of Farmer Support Centers, Starbucks agronomists share research, education and best practices with local farmers. We invest in the finest quality beans. Our skilled team of roasters carefully prepare these beans in five Starbucks roasting facilities across the U.S., in Amsterdam to serve EMEA markets, in Kunshan for China, and in Karnataka, India, for that growing market. We also operate Starbucks Reserve Roasteries in Milan, Shanghai, Tokyo, New York City, Chicago and Seattle, where we roast small batch Reserve coffees. We design the best equipment for our stores and invest in training for our baristas to ensure every cup reflects our commitment to excellence. Each cup is more than a drink; it’s a handcrafted moment, made with care. Our stores have always been more than a place to get a drink. They’ve been a gathering space, a community center where conversations are sparked, friendships form, and everyone is greeted by a welcoming barista. A visit to Starbucks is about connection and joy, and of course great coffee. Many of our customers still experience this magic every day, but in some places — especially in the U.S. — we aren’t always delivering. It can feel transactional, menus can feel overwhelming, product is inconsistent, the wait too long or the handoff too hectic. These moments are opportunities for us to do better. Today, I’m making a commitment: We’re getting back to Starbucks. We’re refocusing on what has always set Starbucks apart — a welcoming coffeehouse where people gather, and where we serve the finest coffee, handcrafted by our skilled baristas. This is our enduring identity. We will innovate from here. We’ll focus initially on four key areas that we know will have the biggest impact: Empowering our baristas to take care of our customers: We’ll make sure our baristas have the tools and time to craft great drinks every time, delivered personally to each customer. For our partners, we’ll build on our tradition of leadership in retail by making Starbucks the best place to work, with career opportunities and a clear path to growth. Get the morning right, every morning: People start their day with us, and we need to meet their expectations. This means delivering outstanding drinks and food, on time, every time. Reestablishing Starbucks as the community coffeehouse: We’re committed to elevating the in-store experience — ensuring our spaces reflect the sights, smells and sounds that define Starbucks. Our stores will be inviting places to linger, with comfortable seating, thoughtful design and a clear distinction between “to-go” and “for-here” service. Telling our story: It’s time for us to tell our story again — reminding people of our unmatched coffee expertise, our role in communities and the special experience that only Starbucks can provide. We won’t let others define who we are. To support this vision for our U.S. business, we’re making investments in technology that enhance the partner and customer experience, improve our supply chain and evolve our app and mobile ordering platform. This is our plan for the U.S., and where I need to focus my time initially. But Starbucks is a global company. We operate in 87 markets around the world, where thousands of talented green apron partners share their love of coffee with customers every day. I know I have much to learn from these outstanding teams and I look forward to getting on the road and spending time with them. In China, we need to understand the potential path to capture growth and capitalize on our strengths in this dynamic market. Internationally, we see enormous potential for growth, especially in regions like the Middle East, where we’ll work to dispel misconceptions about our brand, and in Asia Pacific, Europe and Latin America, where the love for Starbucks is strong. My focus for the first 100 days is clear. I’ll spend time in our stores and at our Support Centers, meeting with key partners and suppliers, and working with our team to drive these critical first steps. Together, we will get back to what makes Starbucks, Starbucks. On we go, Brian

More from CNBC:

• Jamie Dimon says ‘the worst outcome is stagflation,’ a scenario he’s not taking off the table
• Southwest Chair Kelly to step down next year as activist Elliott pushes for changes at airline
• Car giants are being forced to confront some hard truths over the EV transition