The best Smartsheet alternative depends on what you use Smartsheet for: Airtable if you treat it as a database, monday.com or ClickUp if you want a friendlier work-management tool with a free plan, Wrike if you run structured projects with Gantt charts, Asana if work is task-led across teams, Microsoft Planner if you're on Microsoft 365, and Notion if your plans live next to docs. If your sheet has quietly become an application (statuses, approvals, roles), consider building a small tracker app instead. Prices below are as of October 2026.
Smartsheet looks like a spreadsheet and behaves like a project tool. That's its strength, and it's also why people leave: some want more spreadsheet, some want more project tool, and a few want neither.
How we compared
We looked at the entry price and its billing basis, whether there's a free plan, how each tool counts paid users, where Gantt or timeline views start, and what the plan caps (automations, records, users). Prices and limits come from each vendor's own pricing page, checked on October 12, 2026, in US dollars. Vendors run promotions often, so we note them where we saw them.
At a glance
| Tool | Best for | Free plan | Entry paid plan (as of October 2026) | Gantt or timeline view from |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Airtable | Sheets that are really databases | Yes, up to 5 editors | Team $20/seat/month, billed annually | Team |
| monday.com | Visual work management | Yes, up to 2 seats | Basic $9/seat/month, billed annually | Standard |
| Wrike | Structured projects and portfolios | Yes | Team $10/user/month, billed annually | Team |
| Asana | Task-led work across teams | Personal, for one or two people | Starter $10.99/user/month, billed annually | See Asana's plan comparison |
| ClickUp | Lots of features for the price | Free Forever | Unlimited $7/user/month, billed yearly | See ClickUp's plan comparison |
| Microsoft Planner | Microsoft 365 organizations | Planner is included in Microsoft 365 | Planner Plan 1 $10/user/month, paid yearly | Planner Plan 1 |
| Notion | Projects that live next to docs | Yes | Plus $10/member/month, paid yearly | See Notion's plan comparison |
Why look for a Smartsheet alternative
Smartsheet's pricing page lists Pro at $9 per member per month billed yearly ($12 billed monthly) and Business at $19 per member per month billed yearly ($24 monthly). Enterprise and Advanced Work Management are custom-priced. There's a free trial but no free plan.
The plan details explain most departures:
- Pro is capped. It allows 1 to 10 members and 250 automations a month. Business needs at least 3 members and lifts automations to unlimited.
- Key features sit on Business. Pro includes Gantt, table, board and calendar views, but timeline view, workload tracking and admin controls start on Business.
- Add-ons add up. Smartsheet lists Dynamic View from $125 a month and Data Shuttle from $100 a month, both for Business and Enterprise.
In fairness, Smartsheet's pricing has a real perk: unlimited free Contributors on Pro and Business, so people who only update rows don't need a paid seat. Check how many true "members" you have before assuming another tool is cheaper.
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The 7 best Smartsheet alternatives
1. Airtable – best when your sheet is really a database
Airtable is the closest swap if you use Smartsheet as structured data with views. The Free plan allows up to 5 editors, 1,000 records per base and 100 automation runs. Team is $20 per seat per month billed annually, with 50,000 records per base, 25,000 automation runs and Gantt and timeline views. Business is $45 per seat per month billed annually. Airtable charges for users with edit permissions; read-only collaborators aren't billed.
Who it's for: ops teams tracking inventory, content, vendors or requests as records. Limits: record caps per base, and it's less of a project tool than Smartsheet. Our Airtable alternatives guide covers when people leave Airtable too.
2. monday.com – best for visual work management
monday.com is a board-based work platform. Free covers up to 2 seats and 3 boards. Basic is $9 per seat per month billed annually and adds unlimited free viewers and unlimited items. Standard adds timeline and Gantt views, calendar view, guest access and 250 automation actions a month, and was $12 per seat per month billed annually on a special offer when we checked. monday sells seats in buckets (the pricing page defaults to 10), and it notes that the price depends on your billing country.
Who it's for: teams that want something non-technical people will enjoy using. Limits: Gantt starts on Standard, and automation actions are capped per plan.
3. Wrike – best for structured projects
Wrike has a Free plan, then Team at $10 per user per month for 2 to 15 users, with interactive Gantt charts and shareable dashboards, and Business at $25 per user per month for 5 to 200 users. Wrike says prices are per month and billed on an annual per-user basis. Pinnacle and Apex are quote-based and add resource planning, budgeting and advanced reporting.
Who it's for: PMOs and agencies running projects with dependencies, the closest like-for-like to Smartsheet's project side. Limits: Team stops at 15 users, and resource planning sits on the quote-only tiers.
4. Asana – best for task-led work across teams
Asana has a free Personal plan for one or two people. Starter is $10.99 per user per month billed annually and includes custom fields and unlimited free guests; Advanced is $24.99 per user per month billed annually and adds goals and capacity planning.
Who it's for: cross-functional teams where the unit of work is a task with an owner and a due date. Limits: it's task-first, so grid-heavy Smartsheet users may miss formula-driven sheets.
5. ClickUp – best feature count for the price
ClickUp offers Free Forever with 60MB of storage. Unlimited is $7 per user per month billed yearly ($10 monthly) with unlimited storage, and Business is $12 per user per month billed yearly ($19 monthly).
Who it's for: teams that want docs, tasks, views and dashboards in one tool at a low per-user price. Limits: the breadth takes setup; teams coming from a simple grid can find it busy.
6. Microsoft Planner – best for Microsoft 365 organizations
On the Planner plans page, basic Planner is included in Microsoft 365 with grid, board, schedule and chart views. Planner Plan 1 is $10.00 per user per month paid yearly and adds timeline (Gantt) views, task dependencies you can create, sprints and milestones. Planner and Project Plan 3 is $30.00 per user per month paid yearly and adds baselines, critical path and the Project desktop app.
Who it's for: organizations already paying for Microsoft 365 and Teams. Limits: the Gantt and dependency features need a paid Planner licence on top of Microsoft 365.
7. Notion – best when projects live next to docs
Notion has a Free plan, Plus at $10 per member per month paid yearly and Business at $20 per member per month paid yearly. Its databases include subtasks, dependencies and custom properties, so a project tracker can sit beside the specs and meeting notes it depends on. On a Free workspace with multiple members, blocks are limited before you need to upgrade.
Who it's for: small teams who'd rather keep plans and docs in one place. Limits: it's a flexible workspace, not a dedicated project scheduler.
When to build your own tracker instead
Some Smartsheets aren't project plans. They're applications in disguise: a request intake sheet with a status column, an approval column three people fight over, conditional formatting doing the job of permissions, and a "do not edit below row 200" note. Swapping that into Airtable or monday.com moves the same problem to a new grid.
When the sheet needs roles (who can see what, who can approve what) and a real record history, a small custom app is often the cleaner fix. Greta.sh is an AI app builder: you describe the tracker in plain English and it builds a full-stack web app with a database, login and the screens each role needs. Our playbook on how ops teams replace spreadsheets with internal apps covers which sheets are worth converting and which to leave alone, and the approval workflow software guide helps if sign-offs are the main pain.
The trade-offs are real. You maintain the app, and you lose the instant flexibility of adding a column in five seconds. Deploying needs a paid plan: Greta.sh pricing starts with a Free plan of 5 credits a day (no deployment), and Starter is $5 a month on the welcome offer (normally $20 a month) with deployment and a custom domain. For a head-to-head on the grid-versus-app question, see Greta.sh vs Airtable Interfaces.
How to choose
- Name what Smartsheet is doing for you. Database: Airtable. Project schedule with dependencies: Wrike or Planner. Team task flow: Asana, monday.com or ClickUp. Docs plus tasks: Notion.
- Count members, not people. Smartsheet doesn't charge for Contributors and Airtable doesn't charge read-only collaborators; per-user tools may charge everyone who edits.
- Check where Gantt starts. Smartsheet includes it on Pro; it starts on Standard at monday.com, Team at Wrike and Airtable, and Plan 1 at Microsoft Planner.
- Trial with one real project. Rebuild a live sheet, not a demo, and watch which caps you hit.
The same logic applies across the back office: see our DocuSign alternatives and QuickBooks alternatives guides.
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Frequently asked questions
What is the best free alternative to Smartsheet?
Smartsheet has no free plan, but several alternatives do. Airtable Free allows up to 5 editors and 1,000 records per base, monday.com Free covers 2 seats, ClickUp Free Forever includes 60MB of storage, Wrike and Notion have free plans, and Asana Personal is free for one or two people.
Is Airtable better than Smartsheet?
For data-heavy work, often yes: Airtable is built around records, views and automations. For project schedules with dependencies, Smartsheet or Wrike is the closer fit. Price per editor is $20 a month at Airtable Team versus $9 a month at Smartsheet Pro, both billed annually.
What is Microsoft's alternative to Smartsheet?
Microsoft Planner. Basic Planner is included in Microsoft 365; Planner Plan 1 ($10.00 per user per month, paid yearly) adds timeline views and creating task dependencies, and Planner and Project Plan 3 ($30.00, paid yearly) adds baselines and critical path.
How much does Smartsheet cost?
As of October 2026, Smartsheet lists Pro at $9 per member per month billed yearly ($12 monthly) and Business at $19 per member per month billed yearly ($24 monthly). Enterprise and Advanced Work Management are custom-priced, and Contributors are free on Pro and Business.
Should I replace Smartsheet with a custom app?
Only when the sheet is acting like an application, with statuses, approvals and permissions. For plain project plans, a project tool is faster and cheaper to run.
Pick by the job, not the grid
Most Smartsheet replacements fail because the team picked the tool that looked most like Smartsheet. Pick the one that matches the job your sheet is actually doing.
