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Anaplan pros and cons

Vendor: Anaplan

4.1 out of 5

35 reviews
97% willing to recommend

Pros & Cons summary

Anaplan offers advanced cloud-based real-time connected planning, ideal for large organizations like Fortune 100 companies. It features flexible integration with core systems and machine learning for effective financial and HR planning. Users report enhanced organization and resource allocation. Despite its high price and complexity, requiring model builders, improvements are needed in dashboard experience, API simplicity, and automation. Enhancements would improve user satisfaction and integration with platforms like SAP.

Buyer's Guide

Get pricing advice, tips, use cases and valuable features from real users of this product.

Prominent pros & cons

PROS

Anaplan is a cloud platform that provides real-time connected planning, making calculations seamless when the model is connected.

It is highly flexible, capable of handling complex environments and calculations, and scales well to meet the needs of large organizations like Fortune 100 companies.

Anaplan integrates well with core systems and provides a robust dashboarding capability for aggregating, slicing, and dynamically adjusting data.

Anaplan's machine learning feature and connected planning capability allow for seamless financial and HR planning with constant evolution based on user feedback.

Organizations have experienced positive impacts from using Anaplan, with improved organization, reduced time spent on reporting, increased work flexibility, and better resource allocation among teams.

CONS

Anaplan requires an improved dashboard experience to avoid excessive scrolling and enhance user satisfaction with data visibility.

Automation for seamless integration, such as loading master data from SAP and providing clear error logs, would be beneficial.

Integration with various platforms and tools, including a simpler API for data exchange, needs enhancement.

The complexity of Anaplan necessitates model builders or coders, posing a challenge for business users.

Anaplan's pricing is considered relatively high, with calls for a review to improve affordability.

Anaplan Pros review quotes

HB

Manager Cloud EPM at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Feb 21, 2017

It’s very agile and we can do changes in minutes, rather than waiting for consultants and change requests, so it’s as dynamic as the business.

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Lead Solution Engineer at a tech company with 10,001+ employees

Mar 27, 2017

It has supported a global process change to sales forecasting and created a single method for this.

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Consultant at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Apr 25, 2017

Anaplan is a worthwhile investment for a top performing planning solution in any sector, Finance, Capacity, or Budgeting, etc.

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Manager Analytics at a tech company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Apr 26, 2017

The forecasting and planning cycles that used to take months to collaborate now only take a week to finish and be worked upon.

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reviewer1645170

Anaplan model builder at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Aug 6, 2021

Anaplan is a three-dimensional cloud platform that is good for analyzing data, visualization, integration, terrific for visibility.

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Senior Anaplan Consultant at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Aug 10, 2021

You don't need to have a programming language to use Anaplan.

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MS

Melquisedec Salenga

Data Engineering Sr Analyst

Aug 16, 2021

I believe Anaplan is a new cloud tool, and from time to time, there's a lot of improvement that the Anaplan company deploys with the system. So, with that improvement, we need to really adapt and know the new system trends.

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Solution Architect and Model Builder at Changement pvt ltd

Aug 17, 2021

The solution scales well.

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Consultant

Aug 20, 2021

It's highly flexible. If you've got a complex environment with complex calculations, you can build that out. So that's a really good positive.

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JM

Founder and CEO at FP&A Strategy Consulting

Aug 24, 2021

Where we're seeing the opportunity in the market is at the Fortune 100 companies that have far more complex modeling type scenarios where you need to be able to have a lot of people collaborating together, and you need a lot of information all at everyone's fingertips. This is where you see the big advantage of a solution like Anaplan.

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Anaplan Cons review quotes

HB

Manager Cloud EPM at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Feb 21, 2017

Sizing is the biggest challenge in providing solutions.

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Lead Solution Engineer at a tech company with 10,001+ employees

Mar 27, 2017

Small changes could create massive amounts of data without the Anaplan Builder knowing that they did that. This could push us over space/storage limits quickly.

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Consultant at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Apr 25, 2017

I would like to see more flexible graphs; more varieties of graphs, more customization (like choosing colors, gradients, etc.) and more conditional formatting options.

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Free Report: Anaplan Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about Anaplan. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2026.

884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Manager Analytics at a tech company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Apr 26, 2017

A better presentation layer would certainly take it a notch higher.

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reviewer1645170

Anaplan model builder at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Aug 6, 2021

The solution could improve by better dashboards and while entering the form loss and project implementation the ability to use graphical shapes more effectively.

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Senior Anaplan Consultant at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Aug 10, 2021

It would be nice if the solution offered better extensions.

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MS

Melquisedec Salenga

Data Engineering Sr Analyst

Aug 16, 2021

The dashboard could be better. Because within a dashboard or report, you have to do a lot of scrolling. You need to scroll down because the table doesn't fit in a single view. That's why even the users aren't happy with that kind of user experience. They need to scroll to see all the data, and it could be better if it fits in just one page. That way, you can see everything. In the next release, I want automation that's connected to Anaplan. For example, to load master data from SAP to Anaplan. I don't know if this already exists, but a log where you can see the progress and see if there's an error will also help. It would be better to give you the error message, for example, if there is an error within the automated process importing to Anaplan.

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Solution Architect and Model Builder at Changement pvt ltd

Aug 17, 2021

There are so many business rules to set up in the system that as a business user it's hard to gauge what they're doing and it's possible to get lost.

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Consultant

Aug 20, 2021

The negative is that the higher the flexibility, the higher is the complexity. That can act against you as a negative because it does require a model builder or a coder/developer.

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JM

Founder and CEO at FP&A Strategy Consulting

Aug 24, 2021

Anaplan is a relatively expensive piece of software.

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Show 10 more reviews (out of 33)

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Product Categories

Product Categories

Business Performance Management

Production Planning

Predictive Analytics

Popular Comparisons

Popular Comparisons

Domo vs Anaplan

Alteryx vs Anaplan

SAP Analytics Cloud vs Anaplan

Altair RapidMiner vs Anaplan

IBM Planning Analytics vs Anaplan

Board vs Anaplan

Workiva Wdesk vs Anaplan

Adaptive Insights vs Anaplan

JD Edwards EnterpriseOne vs Anaplan

Oracle Hyperion vs Anaplan

DataRobot vs Anaplan

CCH Tagetik vs Anaplan

Jedox vs Anaplan

Oracle HFM vs Anaplan

Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud vs Anaplan

See all alternatives

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