Smartsheet Pricing – How Much Does Smartsheet Cost?

Smartsheet pricing starts at $9 per user, per month for the Pro plan, although there is a slightly limited free plan, while the Business plan costs $19 per user, per month. There’s also an Enterprise plan and an Advanced Work Management plan with no public pricing. As far as project management tools go, it’s a pretty reasonable price – not as good as the likes of Trello or Jira, but superior to Wrike and Asana.

If you don’t have much room for steep project management costs, Smartsheet’s free plan is a good option — it includes an automation builder and reporting tools. However, there’s a 1-user, 2-editor limit. There’s also a free trial for Smartsheet that lets you test out a paid tier to its full capacity and get to grips with whether it’s worth paying for.

In this guide, we’ll cover all the Smartsheet pricing plans, as well as hidden costs, add-on pricing, and what alternatives might be a better fit for your business.

• What Is Smartsheet?
• Smartsheet Pricing Pros & Cons
• Smartsheet Pricing Plans and Cost Per User
• Smartsheet Hidden Costs
• Additional Smartsheet Products and Pricing
• What’s New in Smartsheet (September 2024)
• Is Smartsheet Free?
• Is It Worth Switching to Smartsheet?
• Who Is Smartsheet Best for?
• Smartsheet Alternatives (with costs)
• About our Research
• Verdict: Should You Pay for Smartsheet?

What Is Smartsheet?

For those of you who are unfamiliar, Smartsheet is a project management tool that allows businesses to stay on top of their various teams and projects, part of a growing project management software market that will be worth 9.81 billion by 2026.

Through Smartsheet, you can assign tasks to employees, track project progress with various views, manage calendars, and share documents. While project management software is useful in an office context, it is borderline essential for any business adapting to working from home.

Smartsheet Pricing Plans: Pros & Cons

In total, Smartsheet has five plans, all geared towards teams of different sizes:

Smartsheet Free ($0) – The best plan for individuals and duos
Smartsheet Pro ($9) – Will suit very small teams of under 10
Smartsheet Business ($19) – Best for mid-sized teams, no user limit
Smartsheet Enterprise (Custom) – The best option for larger firms

Smartsheet Advanced Work Management (Custom) – The best solution for organizations looking to manage large-scale portfolios

Here are some of the provider’s strengths and weaknesses so you can work out if it’s right for your business:

Smartsheet Pricing Plans and Cost Per User

As we’ve already discussed, Smartsheet offers five different pricing plans, but only three of them have public pricing.

First up there’s the Smartsheet Free plan, which costs nothing. The Pro plan is priced from $9 per user, per month, which works out as $108 per user, per year when billed annually.

The Business plan is priced from $19 per user, per month or $228 per user, per year when billed annually. There’s also an Enterprise plan and an Advanced Work Management plan for large businesses, but you’ll have to contact sales for a quote.

The Pro plan is well-rated and is comparable to ClickUp (from $7 per user, per month) and monday’s first paid plan (from $9 per user, per month) in our latest project management testing.

The Business plan is ideal for companies or teams between 3 and 50 users who might not quite need enterprise-grade features, such as single sign-on or deeper administrative control, but still want to maximize their growth and reduce the percentage of resources wasted on projects (which some studies say can be as high as 11.4% of total resources) through better project management.

The Enterprise plan and Advanced Work Management plan are built for large companies looking to streamline complex projects with centralized task tracking, and governance controls to manage numerous individuals, pipelines, and information access.

While we can’t tell you the pricing for Smartsheet’s Enterprise and Advanced Work Management tiers, it’s worth keeping in mind that there may be some discounts to be had after negotiations with the company.

Smartsheet Free plan

The great thing about Smartsheet’s free plan is that there aren’t any costs involved. However, there’s a single-user limit and you’re only allowed two “editors” (colleagues that can contribute to your project and task tracking). If you opt for Smartsheet’s free offering, you’ll get:

• 2 sheets
• Gantt, Grid, Card, Calendar views
• Dashboards
• Reporting tools
• 500 MB storage for attachments

• 100 automation actions per month
• Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, and Apple ID sign in
• Help Center, knowledge base, and Community support

Of course, there are several disadvantages to the comparatively limited free plan – among them, it’s just not updated as much as Smartsheet’s other offerings. In July last year, for example, Smartsheet brought out automatic color switching for chart labels based on their backgrounds for all plans apart from the Free plan.

Smartsheet Pro plan costs – $9 per user, per month

For those who find Smartsheet’s free plan too limiting, they’ll need to pay $9 per user, per month for the Pro plan, billed annually as $108. For that money, you get:

• Unlimited sheets
• Unlimited reports (1 sheet per report)
• Unlimited dashboards (10 widgets per dashboard)
• 10 viewers allowed per object
• Private sheets and reports
• Forms
• Email support

• Grid, Gantt, Card, Calendar views
• Pre-built automation rules (250 per month)
• 20 GB attachment storage
• Cell and column formulas
• Dependencies
• Support for Microsoft 365
• Google Workspace and Apple ID logins

With sheets, you can carry out the basics of project management, such as task creation and setting milestones. Support is available via email.

The Pro plan also supports Gantt charts, forms, mobile access, and automated workflows, features that are vital for any project management platform. It limits collaborators to 10 per item, which is better than just a flat 10 if you need to incorporate multiple people across multiple projects. However, it omits several useful features such as the activity log and proofing.

Overall, Smartsheet is a pretty good deal for small teams but does miss out on features that would come in handy.

Creating a relationship between tasks in Smartsheet. Image: Tech.co’s testing process.

Here’s how Smartsheet’s Pro plan compares to other similarly priced plans from competitors like monday.com and ClickUp:

Smartsheet Business plan costs – $19 per user, per month

If you’ve more than ten users, or are looking for more advanced Project Management capabilities, choose Smartsheet Business. This tier costs $19 per user per month when paid annually. For this price, you get everything in the Pro plan, plus:

• Unlimited collaborators who can view/edit
• Unlimited sheets per report
• Unlimited widgets per dashboard
• Unlimited automations
• Forms with conditional logic
• Document builder
• Proofing
• Brandfolder Integration

• Adobe Creative Cloud extension
• Report grouping and summary
• Baselines
• Activity Log
• Custom Branding
• 1TB Attachment Storage
• User, group, and license management
• Publish sheets, reports, and dashboard

You’ll also get the option to buy add-on customer support packages for the Business plan, which aren’t available to Pro plan users. See Hidden Costs for more on this.

Just like Pro, the Business tier supports card view, Gantt charts, Kanban-style “card” view (see below), mobile access, reminders and notifications, and automated workflows.

Access to Resource Management by Smartsheet is also available as an add-on on this plan. It’s a useful tool for solving staffing conflicts and managing remote teams spread out across the globe.

Smartsheet’s calendar view. Image: Tech.co’s testing process.

The Business plan features components for teams looking for a bit more functionality than what is offered by the Pro plan. For instance, you can create forms with fields that follow conditional logic (see below), and Automations are unlimited in the Business plan, so your team can create as many actions as they want.

On the Pro plan, on the other hand, you’re restricted to 250 pre-built automation per month, but there are teams that will need many more than that if they want to use it to really improve efficiency.

Another good feature of the Business plan is activity logs. The bigger your team, the more useful this function gets; it makes clear who has edited what on any given sheet. There’s also way more storage available in the Business plan (1TB vs Pro’s 20 GB) and a “planned vs actual” function (called Baseline) that easily lets you view how your actual work schedule differs from what you planned. It also adds the ability to manage groups and resources, control sheet ownership, and work with custom branding – the latter of which means you can insert your company logo.

This tier is ideal for any business – large or small – that doesn’t quite need enterprise-grade software for project management, but will benefit from the features geared towards projects involving 25+ people.

A project budget template provided by Smartsheet. Image: Tech.co’s testing process.

Smartsheet Enterprise plan costs – Custom

The tiers for enterprises lack any public pricing, since Smartsheet negotiates these costs on a case-by-case basis. Popular project management software solutions like monday.com and Asana also apply this policy to their highest tier. Enterprise offers everything in the Business plan plus:

• Custom welcome and help screens
• Workapps: No-code business apps; curated experiences based on user role
• Unlimited attachment storage
• DocuSign integration
• Directory integration: Replicate your user groups and attributes from LDAP or Active Directory to Smartsheet
• Single sign-on/SAML
• Custom email domains
• A service availability guarantee

• Approved Domain Sharing
• Account discovery
• User merge
• Domain validation – user auto-provisioning
• Chargeback reports
• Backup / recurring backup
• eLearning
• 24/7 phone support

Smartsheet Advanced Work Management plan costs – Custom

This is the last tier offered by Smartsheet. As with its predecessor, there’s no public pricing available. It’s aimed at organizations that manage large portfolios and wish to connect across their systems. Alongside everything offered in the Enterprise plan, users can access:

• Control Center
• Dynamic View
• Data Shuttle
• Salesforce and Jira connectors

• DataMesh
• Calendar App
• Pivot App
• Premium Support

Editing in Smartsheet’s spreadsheet view. Image: Tech.co’s testing process.

Smartsheet discounts

If you’re part of a nonprofit and looking for project management software for your organization, Smartsheet might be able to provide you with a discount on one of its annual plans.

In the United States, to be eligible for a reduced fee from Smartsheet, your nonprofit will have to have valid 501c(3) status. Nonprofits and charities headquartered in other countries will have to have equivalent status to qualify.

Some organizations are not eligible, such as schools and other educational institutions, government organizations, or any entity that engages in lobbying, legislative or political activities. Financial institutions are also not eligible.

Smartsheet Pricing: Hidden Costs

When it comes to hidden costs, the first aspect to consider is contract length. Smartsheet’s best prices are offered on an annual basis, so if you’re not ready to commit to this, then monthly prices do increase, slightly.

• Annually, the Pro plan is $9/user/month or $108/user/year
• Monthly, the Pro plan costs $12/user/month or $144/user/year

The same goes for Smartsheet’s Business plans:

• Annually, the Business plan is $19/user/month or $228/user/year
• Monthly, the Pro plan costs $24/user/month or $288/user/year

Smartsheet support add-on costs

Smartsheet also charges extra for Phone support, which isn’t included as standard. Unfortunately, this isn’t available to purchase on the Pro plan, but if you’d like to add on Phone support to your Business package, this comes at a cost of $4/user/month for Standard support or $8/user/month for Professional support.

These packages also come with University eLearning access and, in the case of the Professional Support add-on, 10 lots of 30-minute desk support sessions.

Smartsheet pricing for training

If you’re looking for extra training beyond the standard onboarding, Smartsheet University is available to take you through the basics. This will enable you to access e-learning (for $199) and instructor-led online courses on topics such as ‘Solution Proficiency’ and ‘Marketing Professional’ tips.

Instructor-led online courses can start from $149 for an individual. For some courses, you can optionally choose to become “Smartsheet Certified” and demonstrate your mastery by passing an exam, which is around $149 per attempt and lasts for one year of Smartsheet certification.

Finally, there are in-person Regional training sessions that can be booked, the fee for which is undisclosed publicly.

Other hidden costs

There are no hidden installation costs or add-on costs for project management integrations or features. The only other so-called “hidden cost” with Smartsheet is its Enterprise pricing, which it doesn’t make publicly available – however, you can bet safely that the more users you’re looking to service, the better deal can be negotiated.

The $19/user/month rate for Smartsheet’s annual Business plan sets the anchor point for custom pricing and we’d wager that Enterprise users might be able to secure the ultimate range of features Smartsheet has to offer for a not-dissimilar price, or perhaps an even lower amount per user, depending on the user number and contract length you’re looking for.

Additional Smartsheet Products and Pricing

Smartsheet offers more than just its basic project management software. Users can opt for Brandfolder by Smartsheet, an added service with its own pricing. We’ve broken down what it entails below.

Brandfolder by Smartsheet pricing

Brandfolder is a digital asset management platform (DAM) created by Smartsheet and geared toward enterprises that manage a myriad of brand assets. It allows creatives and marketers to manage digital brand assets in one, central location, track who’s using them, and make them more easily distributable to clients.

Brandfolder utilizes some of the same time-saving features as Smartsheet – such as automated workflows. To find out more about Brandfolder’s pricing, you have to book a demo on the provider’s website.

What’s New in Smartsheet (September 2024)

Smartsheet has rolled out a number of new features and updates recently. In September of this year, for instance, the company made adjustments to its DataTable functionality, so now users can see the creator when viewing a list of DataTables that they’ve created. All in all, this gives System Administrators greater control over DataTables across their organization.

Also in September, Smartsheet unveiled a new feature that defaults resource allocation values to 100% when users are creating new rows for sheets with start and end dates, as well as contact list columns. This tweak is designed to make workload tracking easier for Business and Enterprise users.

Towards the end of August, Smartsheet made it possible for System Administrators to add users within their plans as workflow managers to Data Shuttle workflows. As workflow managers, users can archive, delete, restore, run, and edit workflows, and add/remove other workflow managers. Overall, this will make it easier for multiple stakeholders to collaborate on a project.

Task management on Smartsheet. Source: Smartsheet

Is Smartsheet Free?

Smartsheet has a free plan, with a user limit of one (plus 2 additional project editors). It has automation capabilities – something that isn’t available on every free plan – and you’ll be able to access the provider’s extensive knowledge and help center if you get stuck, just like you can if you opt for a Smartsheet paid plan.

Smartsheet also offers a free 30-day trial, and all you have to do is enter your email address to try out either the Pro or Business plan. This means you’ll be able to find out if the software caters to your business’s needs without spending a cent.

What’s more, students from accredited higher institutions may be eligible for free licenses. For more information, visit the Smartsheet website.

The Pro plan is the cheapest paid Smartsheet plan on offer, coming in at $9 per user, per month which is good value considering it is an elite-tier project management tool. It’s the same price as monday.com’s Basic plan ($9 per user, per month) and has a better set of features.

If you’re on the hunt for a good free plan, however, check out Teamwork’s free plan, which is one of the top-rated free project management tool we tested.

Who Is Smartsheet Best for?

Smartsheet’s costs and features suit absolutely every business. If you’ve never tried Smartsheet before, or you’re thinking of making the switch from another project management provider, here’s the lowdown on the different types of teams that will benefit from Smartsheet in particular:

Teams managing complex projects. Thanks to a myriad of task management and workflow creation tools, including an automation builder and an easy-to-use Gantt chart, Smartsheet can handle multi-faceted, complex projects with ease.

Teams transitioning away from spreadsheets. Smartsheet’s spreadsheet-style default view makes it a particularly easy software program to transition to using if you’re used to managing projects on spreadsheets. The only difference is, Smartsheet’s spreadsheets are infinitely more useful thanks to the provider’s collection of powerful, integrated features.

Teams that want to become more efficient. Smartsheet includes a number of tools for editing workflows, such as custom and pre-built automations, so that all of the most mundane tasks in your day can be completed without you even having to think about it.

If you’re concerned about switching from another project management software program to Smartsheet, don’t worry – the provider has extensive onboarding materials available for customers that address everything from building your first Sheet upwards, and offers significantly more customer support than some other providers we’ve tested. There are also detailed instructions on how to import your data in a variety of different formats into Smartsheet, which minimizes downtime.

Is It Worth Switching to Smartsheet?

Yes, for a variety of reasons. If you’re not using project management software yet, and instead keeping track of tasks and duties in a spreadsheet or a similar document, you’ll find Smartsheet significantly more functional – even if you opt for the cheapest plan.

If the projects you manage include tasks with quite a few different stages or aspects, you’ll find them a lot easier to keep track of in Smartsheet than in a spreadsheet.

As there are multiple ways to view your project’s progress for your team to choose from, it’s also easier to get top-level clarity on the status of all the different facets of your project. Programming a spreadsheet to do what Smartsheet can with its native task and workflow management features takes days, and often isn’t even possible.

If you already use project management software, it might be worth the switch. Trello, for example, is a widely used but comparatively basic project management tool – if you find you’ve reached a ceiling with it, Smartsheet would be one of the better upgrade options. What’s more, you can import data directly from Trello boards into Smartsheet. Zoho Projects is another provider we’ve tested that we wouldn’t consider as useful for managing larger projects.

If you want to migrate your data across, however, you may have to export it to an Excel or Sheets document, and then re-import it again. However, there are dedicated project management software data migration platforms like Relokia, which offer their services for as little as $1 – although pricing will be dictated by how much data you have to move.

It’s very easy to cancel your Smartsheet subscription if you’re not happy with the service. All you have to do is head over to the “Account” area, then “Account Admin” and Plan & Billing Info. Then you just have to click “cancel account” and fill in the cancellation form. You’ll also have the option to switch to a free account when your subscription ends or move to a free account immediately.

Smartsheet Alternatives

As we’ve covered, Smartsheet is the project management software to go for if you’re familiar with using spreadsheets, or like the approach of Microsoft Project, but want something that’s built for the web. Don’t let the spreadsheets-style view tempt you into thinking this is a database management tool like Airtable, however – Airtable and Smartsheet are quite different, and Smartsheet is very much a “classic” project management tool (plus, Smartsheet costs less than Airtable).

Smartsheet vs ClickUp

We found that Smartsheet isn’t the easiest project management tool to get to grips with, receiving low scores on our ease-of-use testing. Compared to ClickUp, for example, it simply took longer to perform basic tasks like creating reports and finding data.

Managing a task in ClickUp. Image: Tech.co’s testing process.

ClickUp had the best range of features for managing tasks out of all the providers we tested. ClickUp also has an impressive range of workflow creation tools and some of the best free project templates, as well as automations, available on all plans. ClickUp’s pricing plans are also better value – its Business plan $7 cheaper than Smartsheet’s.

However, Smartsheet offers 24/7 live support, which ClickUp is noticeably missing, although you do have to pay extra for it. When it comes to security, it’s a toss up, with both offering good protocols to protect data. Smartsheet has a wider variety of data compliance certifications, whereas ClickUp has 2-factor authentication on all plans, and Smartsheet only offers this on its Enterprise plan.

Smartsheet vs monday.com

If you need another alternative to Smartsheet, monday.com is also a great pick for its simple, modern interface and great support options, as well as a wealth of customizable features.

monday.com’s Kanban board. Image: Tech.co’s testing process.

Beyond functionality, monday and Smartsheet offer quite similar pricing. The starting price is $9 per month for both, and both offer a $19 per month plan for larger businesses. Where monday.com is different, though, is that it offers an in-between plan, the $12 per month Standard plan, which might be a better fit if you need something more robust that won’t break the bank.

Read our Smartsheet vs monday.com review to see how the providers compare head-to-head and how Smartsheet’s costs match up to monday.com’s, or see our guide to the best project management software. Alternatively, for a quick overview of Smartsheet’s key rivals such as Wrike and Trello’s pricing, you can check out the table below:

About Our Research

Here at Tech.co, we spend a lot of our time researching and rigorously assessing every product, service, and software tool we write about. Our product reviews are based on in-depth market research and complex testing frameworks that are used to put providers through their paces.

For project management, our latest round of testing investigated 10 top providers by analyzing five key areas: ease of use, pricing, functionality, customer support, security, and integrations.

Importantly, all of our opinions, rankings, and verdicts are based on the data-driven research conducted by our team, which allows us to write about software and services with confidence and clarity.

Check out our in-depth research guide to learn more about our process