Board vs Planful comparison

Board International and Planful are both solutions in the Business Performance Management category. Board International is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.5, while Planful is ranked #15. Board International holds a 4.8% mindshare in BPM, compared to Planful’s 3.5% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of Board International users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Planful users who would recommend it.

Board

Read 37 Board reviews

3,647 Views
1,678 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

Planful

Read 2 Planful reviews

1,103 Views
938 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Board

Planful

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

Board and Planful are competing solutions in the financial planning and analytics space. Board seems to have the upper hand due to its robust data analytics and forecasting capabilities.

Features: Board provides integrated business intelligence, advanced forecasting abilities, and comprehensive data analytics features. Planful focuses on streamlined budgeting cycles, efficient financial consolidations, and user-friendly budgeting management.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Board presents a flexible deployment model supported by a robust system, requiring technical expertise. Planful offers a simpler user setup but could benefit from improvements in customer service responsiveness.

Pricing and ROI: Board's higher initial setup cost matches its advanced analysis capabilities, while Planful's pricing aligns with a quicker return on investment, appealing to budget-focused users. No specific pricing details available.

To learn more, read our detailed Board vs. Planful Report (Updated: April 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Board vs. Planful

April 2026

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Helped 886,174 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Board

Ranking in Business Performance Management

6th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (21st), Reporting (18th)

Planful

Ranking in Business Performance Management

15th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Financial Close Software (19th)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Business Performance Management category, the mindshare of Board is 4.8%, down from 6.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Planful is 3.5%, up from 2.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Business Performance Management Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Board	4.8%
Planful	3.5%
Other	91.7%

Business Performance Management

Featured Reviews

reviewer2645016

Manager, Software Delivery at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Offers flexibility in design and saves time in budgeting and forecasting processes

I find Board to be simple and easy to use. It offers significant flexibility in designing solutions. The system overall is very useful, with many capabilities that provide flexibility. Our budgeting and forecasting processes support around three hundred twenty users who would otherwise rely on Excel, making Board invaluable for saving time.

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reviewer1110591

Financial Planning & Analysis - Finance Manager at a engineering company with 501-1,000 employees

It has helped us speed up the turnaround time on our consolidation, and we haven't had anything come up that the program has not been able to solve

The part that we liked about Excel is that it had a better interface in terms of just graphical illustration of our results. So, if we wanted to look at our financial trends and put it into some type of graphical interface for people to look at, we still have to leverage Excel for that. The dashboards aren't as usable as maybe some of the other solutions, such as Tableau or other BI tools. The application that we use today for our BI tools is Tableau. That's how people absorb information. We don't really use the functionality or dashboards within Planful because of the robustness of Tableau. That's our single source of data. If Planful was better or more comparable in terms of features and functionality, we could probably leverage that in Planful.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"A lot of flexibility from the data modeling standpoint. It can add specific line items into our budget, for example, or if we want to make changes to the data model itself, we have that flexibility."

"The dynamic selections on the screen and details by function are also valuable for inside the data view."

"Between our data warehouse and BOARD, which are both brand new, we now have a more structured data view with more accurate, timely data."

"Instead of taking two people a week each month to perform our internal KPI reporting, the same two people can have it done in a day."

"Primary valuable features are its flexibility and versatility and, obviously, functionality goes along with that. Plus, it does that at a small footprint in the file servers, and does it very efficiently."

"I think it's flexible, I chose this solution because, even though it wasn't out-of-the-box, you can customize it, and the long-term growth potential of the software is where I see the value."

"If you want to streamline your business and reduce hourly time using the creation of spreadsheets or other financial reports that they should go for BOARD because it drastically reduces time."

"BOARD was the only company that came onsite to do a demo, and their demonstration blew us away."

More Board pros

"It has helped us speed up the turnaround time on our consolidation. We don't have to do reporting in Excel anymore, which has cut down on the errors and the efficiency of our close time."

"I believe the ROI is very high."

"Planful has probably cut our time in half, given that we can now leverage the cloud-based services to interact with our subs for getting their forecast inputs."

Cons

"It can have more functionality for narrative reporting. They should also improve their training courses, which are currently very lightweight. When you get into more complex things, it is quite difficult to figure out what you're supposed to do, and you have to look at a lot of videos before you actually understand, which is a bit frustrating. Their training can be more comprehensive."

"We have had some challenges with newer version of the rollout in terms of stability."

"Again, it's very powerful, but there is also a big learning curve. It should be a little more intuitive."

"My analysts have used the technical support. Sometimes they have felt like they did not receive the answer that they needed, or you have to go and upgrade in order to address a problem. "

"We have had some challenges with newer version of the rollout in terms of stability."

"Board's integration could be a bit more robust, but what we have works. If the design isn't right, the flexibility of Board can negatively impact performance."

"At first, the product was not very intuitive, but now if you get it, it is customizable."

"I would like to see better relationships with the partners."

More Board cons

"Some of the behind the scenes processing for the simulation engines has a learning curve to use in that there are certain changes that need to happen for the reporting to be "Live"."

"The part that we liked about Excel is that it had a better interface in terms of just graphical illustration of our results. So, if we wanted to look at our financial trends and put it into some type of graphical interface for people to look at, we still have to leverage Excel for that. The dashboards aren't as usable as maybe some of the other solutions, such as Tableau or other BI tools."

"The part that we liked about Excel is that it had a better interface in terms of just graphical illustration of our results."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is not the cheapest product on earth, but you get so much. It provides good value for money."

"The solution is quite expensive, if it is made cheaper then we can have more clients. I rate it four out of ten."

"In terms of the pricing, it was reasonable. BOARD is not the lowest in the market, but it was reasonable for us."

"Find a partner who will take responsibility for the implementation, and be available for support."

"The tool's price is a bit high compared to other solutions."

"Right now, everything is on a three-year term contract, and that is our main cost."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Construction Company

Insurance Company

Computer Software Company

15%

Construction Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	13
Midsize Enterprise	12
Large Enterprise	8

No data available

Questions from the Community

Is Board better than Anaplan as a Business Intelligence (BI) solution?

We've had several FP&A departments include Anaplan in their analytics discussions, and while BI information IS generated, the focus is generally on compiling input from various sources and simu...

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What needs improvement with Board?

Board's integration could be a bit more robust, but what we have works. If the design isn't right, the flexibility of Board can negatively impact performance.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Board?

Our organization primarily uses Board ( /products/board-reviews ) for budgeting and forecasting.

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Comparisons

Anaplan vs Board

Compared 16% of the time

Microsoft Power BI vs Board

Compared 5% of the time

Tableau Enterprise vs Board

Compared 4% of the time

Pigment vs Board

Compared 4% of the time

Jedox vs Board

Compared 4% of the time

More Board Competitors

Adaptive Insights vs Planful

Compared 12% of the time

Anaplan vs Planful

Compared 7% of the time

IBM Planning Analytics vs Planful

Compared 7% of the time

Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud vs Planful

Compared 6% of the time

Pigment vs Planful

Compared 6% of the time

More Planful Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Board

April 2026

Download Board product report

Buyer's Guide

Business Performance Management

March 2026

Download Planful product report

Also Known As

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Overview

BOARD International - headquartered in Switzerland - is a leading global provider of software for improving business results through better decision making. By unifying Business Intelligence and Corporate Performance Management into a single product, BOARD enables companies to achieve a shared vision of their performance across the entire organization, and thus a single version of the truth.

BOARD provides seamless solutions for • Reporting & Analysis • Budgeting, Planning & Forecasting • Profitability Modelling & Optimization • Simulation & What-if-Analysis • Scorecarding & Strategy Management • Financial Consolidation. Based on visual modelling, BOARD has enabled global companies to deploy BI and CPM applications without a single line of code in a fraction of the time and cost associated with traditional solutions.

Board International

You need a financial planning solution that meets the structured demands of standardized financial planning and reporting requirements and regulations. Structured Planning with Planful automates labor-intensive planning activities in a complete cloud-based platform – giving your finance team control, consistency, and confidence in corporate financial plans.

Planful

Sample Customers

Coca-Cola, Puma, Desigual, Ricoh, KPMG, H&M, Groupe SEB

Tandem Diabetes Care, Reed Exhibitions, SkyGolf, Zep Inc., Thule, Stylesight, Schumacher Group, Parsons Electric, Nextag, Groupon

Buyer's Guide

Board vs. Planful

April 2026

Free Report: Board vs. Planful

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