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The Stack / Business
LivePlan
02 DecisionsYes for small operators making money decisions on instinct. LivePlan is the cheapest honest way to pressure-test a decision — hire, price change, new offer — as a scenario against your actual numbers before you commit. As of August 2026 the two features that make it a decisions tool, what-if scenarios and QuickBooks/Xero sync, both sit in Standard: $20/mo, or $15 annual. Premium is now the reporting tier — automated analysis, board reports, trend spotting — so start on Standard and only move up when someone else needs the numbers.
The job in the stack
The business-scenario seat: 'can we afford this move?' answered with a forecast model instead of a gut feeling — plans, projections, and up to 10 what-if scenarios against your real books.
Pricing
| Plan | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | $20/mo | $15/mo annual; AI-assisted plan writing, financial forecasts, lender-ready statements, what-if scenarios, QuickBooks Online/Xero sync |
| Premium | $40/mo | $30/mo annual; adds automatic forecast builder, automated monthly financial analysis, board reports, real-time profit and cash forecasting, trend spotting, milestone planner |
| LivePlan Expert | +$30/mo | Add-on (renamed from LivePlan Coach): priority one-on-one 30-minute video sessions |
Pricing verified 2026-08-04. Plans change — the source of truth is LivePlan's own pricing page.
Models & versions
- LivePlan AssistantAI writing and forecasting help built into plan sections and projections
The honest read
What works
- +What-if scenarios turn 'should we?' into a number you can look at
- +Syncs actuals from QuickBooks/Xero — plan vs. reality stays honest
- +Both of those now land in the $20 tier, not the $40 one
- +No spreadsheet modeling skills required
What breaks
- −No free tier or trial — a 35-day money-back guarantee instead
- −Forecast depth stops at small-business scale; FP&A teams need heavier tools
- −Unlimited plans, but you can only edit one at a time
Use it for
- →Owners deciding on a hire, a price change, or a second offer
- →Anyone a lender or investor has asked for real projections
- →Operators who want plan-vs-actuals reviewed monthly without a CFO
Skip it if
- ×You have no revenue yet and no books to model — a plain document is enough
- ×You already live in a spreadsheet model you trust
Questions operators ask
?Can't ChatGPT write my business plan for free?
It can write the words. It can't hold a live forecast model, sync your actual numbers from QuickBooks, or show you three futures side by side when you change one assumption. The document is the cheap part; the model is what you're paying for.
What changed
- Real change: what-if scenarios and QuickBooks Online/Xero sync now appear in Standard, not Premium — the decision features dropped from $40/mo to $20/mo. Premium keeps the automation and reporting rows (automatic forecast builder, automated monthly analysis, board reports, real-time profit and cash forecasting, trend spotting, milestone planner). The coaching add-on is renamed LivePlan Expert, still $30/mo, now sold as priority one-on-one 30-minute sessions rather than four calls a month. Verdict, pros, and cons rewritten to match. Dropped the industry-benchmarks claim: the row is present on the comparison table but checked for neither plan.
- Released from staging to the live stack. Re-verified: pricing unchanged (Standard $20/mo, Premium $40/mo, Coach add-on $30/mo).
- Added to the stack (business-scenario seat, Decisions layer). Verified across four independent sources (official pricing page blocks bots): Standard $20/mo ($15 annual), Premium $40/mo ($30 annual) with QuickBooks/Xero sync and 10 what-if scenarios, Coach add-on $30/mo, 35-day money-back guarantee.
Give LivePlan a job
The business-scenario seat: 'can we afford this move?' answered with a forecast model instead of a gut feeling — plans, projections, and up to 10 what-if scenarios against your real books.
Try LivePlan →Alternatives with different jobs
ChatGPT
02 DecisionsThe generalist seat: quick answers, brainstorming, voice mode, and the widest plugin/app ecosystem when you need breadth over depth.
Notion
01 IntelligenceThe operating-system seat: where plans, docs, and databases live, with AI that can actually see all of it.