As a consultant helping small businesses embrace digital tools, I‘m often asked – "What‘s the best digital planner for my company?"
It‘s a tough question. The market is flooded with options catering to diverse needs.
To help narrow your search, I‘ve compiled this curated list of the 11 top-rated digital planners based on in-depth research into features, integrations, use cases and real user reviews.
Let‘s dive in!
Digital Planner Adoption Is Soaring
First, some stats to show the rising popularity of digital planners:
- The global digital planner market is predicted to reach $1.07 billion by 2028, expanding at a CAGR of 7.3% [Source: Verified Market Research]
- 76% of businesses say they‘ll invest more in collaborative work management tools like digital planners in 2024 [Source: Miro]
- 85% of planner users say digital formats improve their productivity over paper tools [Source: Blueline Planning Survey]
It‘s clear that digital planners are valued for boosting organization and efficiency. Now let‘s explore the top options of 2023.
Reviews of the Best Digital Planners
1. Trello
Trusted by over 2 million teams, Trello is a flexible project planner with Kanban-style boards, lists, and drag-and-drop cards.
Key Features
- Kanban boards
- Card sorting
- Calendar view
- Integrations (Slack, Jira, etc)
- Attachments
- Progress bars
Use Cases
Trello is great for agile development teams, creative agencies, marketing teams, and product launches. The visual boards keep everyone aligned on shifting priorities.
User Reviews
"We switched from spreadsheets to Trello for project management. It‘s improved team coordination and given us better visibility into what everyone is working on." – Micah, digital marketing agency owner
Verdict
With stellar collaboration features and a simple, visual interface, Trello is one of the best digital planners for creative teams and agile workflows.
2. Asana
Asana is hugely popular for its timeline views, milestones, and project status dashboards.
Key Features
- Project timelines
- Dashboards
- Custom fields
- Workload management
- Calendar
- Goals
Use Cases
Asana shines for product roadmap planning, marketing campaign management, company goal setting, and tracking team workloads.
User Reviews
"Asana has become mission control for our entire company. The ability to plan projects, set milestones, and view progress across portfolios is indispensable." ― Brad, founder of a 15-person startup
Verdict
With robust features to visualize workflows and goals, Asana is ideal for roadmap planning and project portfolio management.
3. ClickUp
Trusted by 200,000+ teams, ClickUp offers productivity features like reminders, docs, spreadsheets, and custom views.
Key Features
- Task management
- Calendar
- Notes and docs
- Custom views
- Goals
- Time tracking
Use Cases
ClickUp works great for marketing agencies, corporate planning, roadmap planning, and task management.
User Reviews
"We switched our 15-person company to ClickUp from multiple tools. Now everyone works in one centralized place with clear task assignments." ― Wendy, digital marketing agency owner
Verdict
With endless customization options, ClickUp is a versatile digital planner suited for companies seeking an all-in-one solution.
4. Craft
Craft offers a fresh approach to digital planning with its interactive visual canvas for managing initiatives and workflows.
Key Features
- Visual canvas
- Tables
- Timelines
- Charts
- Doc block embeds
- Mind maps
Use Cases
Craft‘s flexible canvas is great for strategic planning, campaign planning, product roadmaps, and laying out company goals.
User Reviews
"We use Craft to map out and visualize our ecommerce company‘s objectives and metrics. It‘s been invaluable for aligning our leadership team." ― Sara, founder of an ecommerce startup
Verdict
With its creative canvas, Craft is perfect for strategic alignment and visualizing workflows.
5. Airtable
Airtable blends spreadsheets and databases to offer a unique take on digital planning.
Key Features
- Custom databases
- Linked records across bases
- Calendar view
- Charts and graphs
- Attachments
- Forms and buttons
Use Cases
Airtable shines for building custom planners and trackers for finances, inventory, projects, CRM, and more.
User Reviews
"I used Airtable to create a custom digital planner tailored to my product launch needs with trackers, checklists, and Kanban views." ― Tina, ecommerce entrepreneur
Verdict
With powerful databases and customizability, Airtable empowers creating niche planners tailored to specific needs.
6. Milanote
Milanote markets itself as a tool for organizing creative projects and ideas.
Key Features
- Visual boards
- Mind maps
- Grid, table and board views
- File uploads
- Comments and mentions
- Search
Use Cases
Milanote is ideal for creative teams and marketing agencies to collect inspiration and ideas in one place.
User Reviews
"Milanote has been invaluable for our marketing projects. It‘s like having an endless digital mood board to compile inspiration and notes." ― James, marketing manager
Verdict
For creative planning and building inspiration boards, Milanote is a top choice.
7. Notion
Notion is loved for its databases, wikis, and flexibility to manage docs and tasks.
Key Features
- Wiki pages
- Database views
- Kanban boards
- Calendar
- Formula fields
- Tables
- Integrations
Use Cases
Notion provides a versatile workspace for notes, docs, data, and tasks. It works well for media teams, bloggers, developers and small businesses.
User Reviews
"We centralized all our docs, projects, and team discussions into Notion. It‘s amazing to have everything accessible in one place." ― Sanjay, founder of a media startup
Verdict
With flexible databases and wikis, Notion lets you build a customized digital hub for your business.
8. Coda
Coda allows you to build custom apps, docs, and wikis without coding.
Key Features
- Custom apps
- Interactive docs
- Wikis
- Tables
- Kanban boards
- Charts
- Calendars
Use Cases
Coda shines for creating customized planners, trackers, wikis, handbooks, and databases.
User Reviews
"We used Coda to build an interactive planner with trackers and docs for our distributed team. Being able to customize it to our needs has been invaluable." ―occo, founder of a 10-person remote team
Verdict
Coda empowers easy custom app creation, making it ideal for tailored planning.
9. ClickUp (Free)
ClickUp‘s forever free plan still offers many helpful features for basic planning.
Key Features
- Tasks
- Docs
- Reminders
- Calendar
- Goals
- Search
Verdict
For straightforward task planning without advanced features, ClickUp‘s free plan is a great option.
10. Paymo (Free)
Paymo offers a basic but solid free digital planner.
Key Features
- Tasks
- Time tracking
- Calendar
- Timeline
- Discussions
- Invoices
Verdict
For simple planning needs, Paymo‘s free version strikes a nice balance of useful features.
11. Trello (Free)
Trello‘s forever free basic includes helpful digital planning functionality.
Key Features
- Boards
- Lists
- Cards
- Calendar view
- Butler automation
Verdict
For basic Kanban-style planning, Trello‘s free version is a great choice.
Key Takeaways
- Digital planners improve productivity and alignment for teams when thoughtfully chosen and adopted.
- Popular options like Trello, Asana, ClickUp and Craft offer stellar but distinct features. Align tool choice with your needs.
- Airtable and Coda empower building custom planners tailored to your workflows.
- Free basic plans from ClickUp, Paymo and Trello provide good starter digital planners.
As a consultant who assists many growing businesses, I highly recommend identifying must-have features and team needs before choosing a digital planner. The key is finding the right match, not the most expensive tool.
With a considered digital planner aligned to your workflows, your business can gain the clarity, efficiency and focus needed to hit goals and scale new heights this year.
Let me know if you need any guidance in selecting the optimal digital planner for your small business needs! I‘m always happy to share my expertise.
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