Anaplan Review: Unlock Connected Planning for 14% Shareholder Return

Disconnected planning is costing you real money.

If you’re searching for a platform that brings your finance, sales, or supply chain teams onto the same page, you’re probably frustrated by messy spreadsheets and information scattered everywhere.

The problem is, you’re missing vital insights every single day—and that’s holding back better decisions, faster responses, and real results for your business.

That’s where Anaplan really stands out. Unlike legacy planning tools, Anaplan pulls your planning into one real-time, data-driven platform, giving you the power to actually model scenarios, collaborate live, and act with confidence—no more second-guessing if you’ve got the latest numbers.

In this review, I’ll show you how Anaplan gives you that connected planning advantage so the chaos doesn’t run your business anymore.

Here in this Anaplan review, you’ll get the inside scoop on key features like Hyperblock, integrations, pricing, and where Anaplan outperforms alternatives—plus the honest drawbacks I found in real-world testing.

You’ll walk away with the clarity and the features you need to move forward with real decision-making confidence.

Let’s dive into the analysis.

Anaplan Overview

Anaplan has been on a mission to connect complex business planning since its 2006 founding. While originally from England, their corporate headquarters are now in Miami, Florida.

They really focus on large, global enterprises, connecting planning across siloed departments like finance, sales, and the supply chain. You’ll find their platform is built to replace the fragile, disconnected spreadsheets that many large businesses still struggle with.

Their 2022 acquisition by private equity firm Thoma Bravo was a significant move. Through this Anaplan review, it’s clear how this sharpened their enterprise strategy and product roadmap.

Unlike competitors that layer controls on top of Excel, Anaplan uses its own patented Hyperblock technology. I find this gives your teams significantly more power for real-time scenario modeling without system crashes.

They work with major global companies in demanding sectors like finance and manufacturing. It’s clear they are built to handle the scale and security that large, complex organizations require.

Their entire corporate strategy centers on enabling ‘Connected Planning’. This directly addresses your need for a single source of truth, helping diverse teams collaborate instantly and adapt to market shifts.

Now let’s examine their core capabilities.

Anaplan Features

Disconnected planning causing chaos?

Anaplan features are built to unify your planning processes across departments, giving you real-time visibility and collaborative power. Here are the five main Anaplan features that address common business planning pain points.

1. Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A)

Tired of endless spreadsheet updates for budgets?

Manual financial planning often leads to outdated data and slow budget cycles. This can hinder your ability to react quickly to market changes.

Anaplan streamlines FP&A, allowing your finance team to create dynamic plans and forecasts in real-time. I found that adjusting forecasts on the fly is incredibly intuitive, meaning you can adapt as business needs evolve without breaking a sweat. This feature ensures your financial models are always accurate.

This means you can accelerate reporting and significantly cut down the time spent on your budgeting cycles.

2. Sales Performance Management (SPM)

Struggling to align sales goals with actual performance?

Inefficient sales planning can lead to missed quotas and inaccurate forecasts. Your sales team might struggle to optimize territories effectively.

Anaplan’s SPM capabilities assist with sales planning, quota management, and incentive compensation. What I love about this approach is how live calculations guide territory adjustments, helping you quickly reassign or optimize. This feature provides the transparency needed for strategic sales growth.

So, you can finally empower your sales teams with precise planning tools that actually boost their performance.

3. Supply Chain Planning

Supply chain disruptions constantly throwing you off?

Poor visibility into your supply chain can lead to costly inventory issues and missed delivery dates. This often results in unhappy customers and lost revenue.

Anaplan helps production and procurement teams make informed decisions with real-time scenario planning. From my testing, its ability to foresee the impact of contingencies and delays truly shines, helping you proactively manage risks. This feature unifies your demand and inventory planning.

This means you get a resilient supply chain, allowing you to adapt rapidly to unforeseen challenges and maintain customer satisfaction.

4. Workforce Planning

Is headcount management a constant guessing game?

Disjointed workforce planning makes it hard to align talent with demand. Your HR and finance teams might struggle to collaborate on staffing.

Anaplan provides transparency into skill sets, competencies, and human capital costs, allowing you to create accurate capacity plans. This is where Anaplan gets it right, as it connects HR, Finance, and Talent for collaborative sprint and project planning. This feature helps you strategically manage your most valuable asset.

So, you can ensure your organization is always adequately staffed and your workforce costs are optimized effectively.

5. Scenario Planning & Predictive Analytics

Can’t confidently model different business outcomes?

Without robust “what-if” capabilities, making data-driven decisions becomes a challenge. You might struggle to foresee the true impact of strategic changes.

Anaplan’s multi-dimensional analysis and PlanIQ integrate machine learning to enhance forecast accuracy. This feature allows you to model various financial outcomes instantly, providing clarity on complex problems. Optimizer uses predictive algorithms to find the best solutions for your planning needs.

This means you gain the foresight to make smarter decisions and adapt swiftly to changing market conditions.

You’ll actually appreciate how these Anaplan features work together to create a unified connected planning platform, eliminating data silos and driving truly collaborative decision-making.

Anaplan Pricing

Budgeting for enterprise software?

Anaplan pricing operates on a custom, license-based model, meaning you’ll need to contact sales for a tailored quote that reflects your specific business needs.

1. Pricing Model & Cost Factors

Understanding what you pay.

Anaplan’s pricing is highly customized, based on factors like user count, specific use cases, and the workspace gigabytes you require. What I found regarding pricing is that your total cost increases significantly with higher tiers and more complex applications, avoiding rigid, pre-set packages.

This means your budget gets a solution built exactly for your organization’s unique planning and modeling requirements.

2. Value Assessment & ROI

Is Anaplan worth the investment?

Anaplan’s value comes from its ability to unify planning across finance, sales, and supply chain, replacing siloed systems. From my cost analysis, this translates to significant ROI through improved accuracy and real-time decision-making that manual processes simply can’t offer.

This helps your finance team save time and reduce errors, making your investment pay off through operational efficiency.

3. Budget Planning & Implementation

Planning for total cost.

Beyond the annual license, remember to factor in implementation costs, which can range from $5,000 for small setups to $100,000 for large enterprises. What stood out about their pricing is you’ll also need to budget for ongoing customization and training to maximize your platform’s utility over time.

So for your business, you can expect a comprehensive upfront investment, but it’s crucial for long-term strategic benefits.

My Take: Anaplan’s custom pricing is built for mid-market to enterprise organizations that need a powerful, scalable connected planning platform willing to invest for tailored capabilities.

The overall Anaplan pricing reflects significant enterprise value aligned with your specific needs.

Anaplan Reviews

What do real customers actually think?

To help you understand real-world experiences, I’ve analyzed numerous Anaplan reviews from platforms like TrustRadius and G2, focusing on common patterns and user sentiment.

1. Overall User Satisfaction

Users seem generally satisfied.

From my review analysis, Anaplan consistently receives high ratings, averaging 8.6/10 on TrustRadius and 4.3/5 on G2. What I found in user feedback is a strong appreciation for its robust capabilities, suggesting customers feel they’re getting a powerful planning tool that delivers on its promises.

This indicates you can expect a generally positive experience with the platform.

2. Common Praise Points

Flexibility wins users over consistently.

Users frequently praise Anaplan’s flexibility and adaptability across diverse industries and complex scenarios like FP&A. Review-wise, its real-time calculation engine is a huge plus, enabling fast, collaborative planning without extensive coding, which truly stands out.

This means you’ll find it highly adaptable for complex, evolving business needs.

3. Frequent Complaints

Implementation complexity is a common theme.

What stands out in customer feedback is that implementation can be a significant, time-consuming project, often requiring dedicated model builders. From the reviews I analyzed, the steep learning curve for complex formula building is also a recurring point of frustration for many end-users.

These challenges suggest you should budget sufficient time and resources for initial setup and training.

Overall, Anaplan reviews highlight strong capabilities despite implementation and cost concerns.

Best Anaplan Alternatives

Seeking Anaplan alternatives for your business needs?

The best Anaplan alternatives include several strong options, each better suited for different business situations, priorities, and budget considerations you might have.

1. Workday Adaptive Planning

Prioritizing user-friendliness and cost-effectiveness?

Workday Adaptive Planning often stands out for its intuitive interface, making it an excellent alternative for mid-sized businesses seeking a more accessible entry point. From my competitive analysis, it often provides a lower total cost than Anaplan for similar core planning functionalities.

You’ll want to consider this alternative if ease of use and budget efficiency are your top priorities.

2. OneStream

Need a unified platform for financial consolidation?

OneStream excels at integrating financial consolidation, reporting, and planning into a single platform, ideal for organizations with complex financial structures. What I found comparing options is that OneStream offers extensive integration capabilities with over 250 systems, potentially reducing the need for multiple licenses.

Choose this option if comprehensive financial management and seamless data integration are critical for your operations.

3. Planful

Focusing on financial consolidation and workforce planning?

Planful is a strong contender if your primary needs extend to robust financial consolidation and strategic workforce planning, alongside general FP&A. From my analysis, Planful leverages AI for enhanced forecasting accuracy, integrating with over 200 systems to streamline various financial processes.

Consider this competitor when financial consolidation and workforce planning are key drivers for your business.

4. Vena Solutions

Heavily reliant on existing Excel proficiency?

Vena Solutions provides a structured planning environment that integrates seamlessly with Excel, allowing your team to leverage familiar spreadsheet skills. Alternative-wise, Vena bridges the gap between Excel and structured CPM for organizations accustomed to that workflow.

This competitor serves your specific needs best if maintaining an Excel-centric approach within a centralized system is essential.

The best Anaplan alternatives decision depends on your specific business size, budget, and use cases for planning and analysis.

Anaplan Setup

Anaplan deployment can be a complex undertaking, requiring significant time and resources to get right. This Anaplan review section will set realistic expectations for your implementation journey.

1. Setup Complexity & Timeline

Expect this to be a significant project.

Anaplan implementation often involves intricate model building and several attempts to optimize configuration, depending on your business complexity. From my implementation analysis, getting the implementation right often takes several attempts, so plan for an iterative process rather than a one-and-done setup.

You’ll need dedicated model builders and a clear project roadmap to navigate the learning curve successfully.

2. Technical Requirements & Integration

Prepare your IT for significant involvement.

Your technical team will handle data uploads to the Anaplan cloud and manage robust security features like SSO and identity management. What I found about deployment is that data integration and security configurations are key, ensuring your existing systems connect seamlessly and securely.

Plan for IT resources to manage data flow and security protocols to ensure a smooth technical implementation.

3. Training & Change Management

User adoption is crucial for success.

While the interface is intuitive, there’s a steep learning curve for complex formula building and model optimization, requiring dedicated training. From my analysis, proper training and ongoing support are vital for users to master the platform and truly leverage its capabilities across your teams.

Invest in Anaplan Academy training and internal champions to ensure your team gains proficiency and adopts the platform effectively.

4. Support & Success Factors

Dedicated support can make or break your rollout.

Anaplan offers professional services and training, but support quality can be mixed, influencing your project’s pace and success. From my analysis, active engagement with Anaplan’s resources can mitigate common challenges, even with varied direct support experiences.

You should proactively leverage Anaplan’s academy and professional services for guidance to ensure a smoother implementation experience.

Overall, successful Anaplan setup requires significant planning and resource allocation but delivers substantial efficiency gains when implemented strategically.

Bottom Line

Your quest for planning excellence ends here.

This Anaplan review thoroughly evaluates its fit for your business, providing a comprehensive final assessment of its strengths, limitations, and overall value proposition.

1. Who This Works Best For

Large enterprises needing adaptable, connected planning.

Anaplan works best for mid-market to enterprise organizations with complex, multi-departmental planning requirements across finance, sales, and supply chain. What I found about target users is that companies moving beyond siloed spreadsheets achieve significant gains by adopting its real-time, collaborative environment.

You’ll succeed if your business needs intricate scenario modeling and unified data for agile decision-making across all functions.

2. Overall Strengths

Unparalleled flexibility for complex, real-time modeling.

The software succeeds by delivering powerful Hyperblock technology, enabling multi-dimensional scenario planning and real-time collaboration across diverse functions. From my comprehensive analysis, its scalability handles billions of data rows and thousands of simultaneous user inputs, providing a single source of truth.

These strengths mean your business can adapt quickly to market changes and make more informed decisions through connected planning.

3. Key Limitations

Significant investment required in time and resources.

While powerful, Anaplan often involves a steep learning curve and substantial implementation time, frequently requiring dedicated model builders for complex configurations. Based on this review, the overall cost can be a recurring concern as data volume and solution complexity increase over time.

These limitations are important considerations, suggesting Anaplan might be overkill for smaller businesses with simpler planning needs or limited resources.

4. Final Recommendation

Anaplan earns a strong recommendation for suitable enterprises.

You should choose Anaplan if your organization requires a highly customizable and powerful platform to handle complex, enterprise-wide planning scenarios. From my analysis, your success with this solution hinges on your capacity for investment and dedicated implementation resources, unlocking its transformative potential.

My confidence is high for large, growing enterprises committed to connected planning, but less so for small businesses.

This Anaplan review shows strong value for the right enterprise profile, offering a transformative solution for complex planning, provided you commit the necessary resources.