Best for marketing and creative teams
- Wide range of integrations.
- Brandfolder add-on useful for creative assets.
- Highly customizable.
- Can be difficult for beginners.
- Add-ons get expensive.
- No autosave option.
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It’s not hard to find project management tools in 2024. But finding one that makes sense for small business owners and their specific needs is an art.
Smartsheet is one of the most popular project management tools on the market currently, and it stands out because of its effectiveness in helping business owners track multiple projects across many teams within a large company. In this Smartsheet review, we’ll take a look at this product’s pros and cons and what it can offer to small business owners and project managers.
Featured project management software offers
Monthly fee
$10 per user, with a minimum of three users
Free version
Yes, for two users
24/7 customer support
Yes, with paid plans
Free version available
Yes
24/7 customer support
Yes
Free version
Yes, for unlimited members
24/7 customer support
Yes
Smartsheet overview
Smartsheet is one of the most powerful project management tools on the market today. This product is excellent for large companies that need to track multiple projects across different teams. At its heart, Smartsheet is a spreadsheet tool, but it does much more than that, including providing some extra features that can really benefit creative and marketing professionals in particular.
Smartsheet pros and cons
Though it is a solid project management tool, Smartsheet isn’t for everyone. Let’s walk through some of this product’s pros and cons.
Pros
Some of Smartsheet’s best features include:
- Good variety of integrations: The Business plan integrates with Microsoft Office 365, Google Workspace, Slack, Adobe Creative Cloud Extension, Tableau and nearly 100 more integrations.
- Brandfolder add-on: This featured add-on works well with Smartsheet and is an excellent digital asset management tool for marketers and creatives.
- Many customization options: With different views, dashboards, reports and integrations, Smartsheet is easy to customize to suit your needs.
Cons
On the flip side, Smartsheet does have a few issues:
- Can be difficult to learn: If you aren’t already familiar with the ins and outs of spreadsheet software, Smartsheet will do you no favors. It has a steeper learning curve, no doubt, than other tools that may be a little more intuitive.
- Add-ons are pricey: Smartsheet does offer a lot of add-ons, but they can get really expensive on top of what you’re already paying for a subscription.
- No autosave option: One of Smartsheet’s strangest missing features is the ability to autosave in real time. You’ll need to click the “Save” button to save your changes every time.
Smartsheet pricing and value
Before purchasing any of Smartsheet’s plans, we suggest trying out the product with the company’s 30-day free trial.
The Pro plan is excellent for smaller teams and individuals, while the Business plan is better suited to larger teams and companies. The Enterprise plan, as its title implies, is geared toward larger companies that run processes at a much greater scale.
Smartsheet project management features
Smartsheet allows for four different role assignments – admin, owner, editor and viewer – which allows for different levels of involvement and accessibility. The software includes features that allow business owners to more easily create strategic planning initiatives and manage projects, schedules and budgets.
Smartsheet’s visual tools, like its timeline view, will display milestones and tasks in a timeline format, allowing users to track progress more easily. It also offers a Gantt chart tool within the spreadsheet, which is just another way for users to see a visual representation of schedules and tasks within the organization and their relationship to each other.
Smartsheet AI, automation and integration features
Smartsheet also offers AI, automation and integration features that will make life easier for small business owners. For example, it can generate formulas within the spreadsheet, generate text and summaries, analyze data and even offer answers to questions. Within the Brandfolder add-on, Smartsheet also uses AI to suggest captions for images. These are all solid timesavers for busy business owners and project managers.
As we mentioned earlier, Smartsheet has many integration options. It pairs with Microsoft Office 365 (Teams, Outlook, OneDrive), Google Workspace (Gmail, Hangouts, Drive), Slack, Adobe Creative Cloud Extension, Power BI, Tableau and nearly 100 more tools, according to the company’s website.
Smartsheet customer support
Smartsheet’s customer support options are largely impersonal and heavily reliant on contact forms and ticketing through its online support portal. The company website provides a knowledge base and online community for users to search for answers to any issues they might be having.
Though it appears customers will eventually be able to contact an actual human representative for help with an issue, the faceless online portal currently appears to be Smartsheet’s primary outlet for customer support.
Smartsheet vs. top competitors
Some of Smartsheet’s primary competitors include Monday.com, Zoho Projects and Trello. Let’s take a look at how each compares to Smartsheet.
Smartsheet vs Monday.com
While Smartsheet offers a 30-day free trial, Monday.com stands out because it actually provides a free plan. The free plan offers a limited amount of storage at only 500 MB and zero automations with two users.
The free plan is also excellent for small business owners and individuals who want to dive into the product and experience some of its features before purchasing a paid plan. Smartsheet’s low-tier Pro plan costs $12 monthly and comes with 20 GB of storage and 250 automations per month.
Smartsheet vs Zoho Projects
Like Monday.com, Zoho Projects offers a free plan for three users with 5 GB of storage and zero automations. This is a great way for business owners to learn the intricacies of the product before spending their hard-earned cash on a paid plan. The company also lets potential users try out their paid plans with a free 10-day trial.
At just $5 per month, Zoho Projects’ Premium plan is more affordable than Smartsheet’s Pro plan but comes with more limited features – 100 GB of storage, a minimal amount of integrations, and 20 pre-built templates – ideal for business owners who don’t have the time or budget to hire a designer.
Smartsheet vs Trello
Trello also offers a free plan for individuals who want to organize a project. This plan provides up to 10 collaborators and 250 workspace commands per month. Trello’s Standard plan costs $6 monthly, compared to Smartsheet’s Pro plan, which comes in at $12. With this plan, Smartsheet provides unlimited free viewers, sheets, reports and forms.
Trello’s Standard plan offers unlimited boards and 1,000 workspace commands monthly. All of Trello’s boards include built-in no-code automation, which means small business owners can save a great deal of time by creating rules, buttons, and commands that automate almost every action in Trello.
We extensively research the key competitors within an industry to determine the best products and services for your business. Our experts identify the factors that matter most to business owners, including pricing, features and customer support, to ensure that our recommendations offer well-rounded products that will meet the needs of various small businesses.
We collect extensive data to narrow our best list to reputable, easy-to-use products with stand-out features at a reasonable price point. And we look at user reviews to ensure that business owners like you are satisfied with our top picks’ services. We use the same rubric to assess companies within a particular space so you can confidently follow our blueprint to the best project management software of 2024.
Expert score (10%): This score was calculated based on five categories: pricing, features, service and support, customer reviews and mobile app. Each category was broken down into additional factors for consideration, with each factor rated on a numerical scale.
Pricing (25%): Small business owners in particular are often worried about cutting costs, making the price of a project management software a critical point. Our researchers checked the availability of transparent pricing information for each tool and checked if there was a free trial available. The pricing score was also based on the actual prices (as available), considering both the starting price tier and the highest price tier. The lower the price, the better the score.
Features (32%): Our researchers assessed part of the features score based on general features, including role assignment, timelines, Gantt charts, software integrations, dependencies and budgeting. These are the essential characteristics that business owners will likely need in a project management tool. The remainder of the features score was based on characteristics that are a “nice to have” but not a must, including customizable templates, milestone tracking, expense tracking, Kanban boards, billing, invoicing and guest/client access.
Service and support (8%): If technical difficulties arise with a project tool, business owners need accessible customer support. Our researchers assessed each project management tool according to the availability of two things: an online knowledge base and live chat. If the live chat was with a human operator, the score awarded was higher than if it was with a bot.
Customer reviews (15%): While online reviews can provide insights into an app’s features, pricing, and support availability, they can’t provide impressions of a real-world user’s experience. Online rating sites compile feedback from hundreds, sometimes thousands, of users, giving tangible insights into the pros and cons of actually using these tools. Our researchers looked at customer reviews and overall ratings on Trustpilot, G2 and Capterra.
Mobile app (10%): Business owners may want to check in on projects on the go, making a mobile app a useful add-on. Our researchers considered the availability of an app for iOS and/or Android for each project management tool. Availability of an app made up half the mobile app score. The other half was based on average reviews in the Apple and Google Play stores.
Featured project management software offers
Monthly fee
$10 per user, with a minimum of three users
Free version
Yes, for two users
24/7 customer support
Yes, with paid plans
Free version available
Yes
24/7 customer support
Yes
Free version
Yes, for unlimited members
24/7 customer support
Yes
Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
What is Smartsheet used for?
Smartsheet helps project managers and business owners track multiple projects across many teams within a single company. This product can be used for small, individual projects or in complex, multi-faceted projects within large businesses.
What are the limitations of Smartsheet?
Smartsheet can be complex and difficult to learn for users who aren’t familiar with spreadsheet-based software. Because of its many features, Smartsheet can also be intimidating, so new users will need patience to learn everything this product can offer.
Is Smartsheet better than Excel?
Whether or not Smartsheet is better than Excel is based on your small business needs. Excel offers a basic grid view, while Smartsheet provides a variety of ways to view information, including a basic grid view, Kanban cards, Gantt tables and calendar views.
Is Smartsheet better than Google Sheets?
Similar to Excel, Google Sheets offers some basic features like a grid view. It also stands out for its affordability since it is free. Smartsheet offers many more complex features, like Gantt tables and Kanban cards, to help users organize and track projects more thoroughly.
Does Smartsheet have a free trial?
Smartsheet does offer a free 30-day trial to try out its project management tool. This trial offers access to the company’s Business plan, which typically costs $24 per month and provides unlimited free guests, timeline views, team workload tracking, unlimited automations and 1 TB of attachment storage.
Is Smartsheet HIPAA compliant?
Yes, Smartsheet’s data security features include the tools to support compliance and collection of private information. With a Smartsheet Business Associate Agreement, organizations can securely share, store and access data while meeting HIPAA’s regulatory requirements.
Can Smartsheet pull data from Excel?
Yes, Smartsheet can import data from Excel, as well as Microsoft Project, Google Sheets and Atlassian Trello board. Users can import up to 20,000 rows, 400 columns or 500,000 cells at a time – and each file cannot exceed 50 MB.
