10 Best Financial Modeling Software Options in 2023
John Ladaga
Are you a startup founder or an FP&A professional looking for the best financial modeling software options to power your organization’s growth in 2023? With so many offerings on the market, it can be hard to choose. But never fear! We’re here to share with you our list of the 10 of the best financial modeling software options in 2023.
From time-saving automation tools and detailed analytics reporting, these financial modeling software options are sure to fit your needs and speak fluently of your business performance even if finance isn't exactly your first language!
Whether you’re a seasoned FP&A veteran or just starting out, read on to find the ideal solution for tracking and managing the total impact of all those numbers. So buckle up and get ready: below is our guide of the top 10 financial modeling software options in 2023, regardless of your stage and budget.
What is financial modeling and why do you need software for it
Financial modeling is an incredibly important tool for businesses of all sizes. Financial models enable us to analyze and project potential outcomes, providing information on which decisions can be made. Financial modeling software is essential in order to efficiently power these calculations and make data-driven decisions.
Until recently, financial modeling software has only been widely accessible to enterprise level companies, leaving smaller businesses with Excel spreadsheets as their primary tool for modeling. Companies like Sturppy are democratizing access for earlier stage companies, providing early stage founders with an easy to use platform that performs just as well as enterprise level solutions without the need for complicated Excel formulas.
Choosing the right financial modeling software option based on stage of company
Financial modeling software can be a great tool for any company, but how do you make sure you choose the right one? It all depends on the stage or maturity of your business.
For early stage companies, look for a cloud based solution with an easy setup process, helpful customer support and scalability for when your business starts to grow.
If you’re in the growth phase of your business or consider yourself more mid-market, consider a more comprehensive platform with robust forecasting and dashboarding.
And finally, larger and more established organizations should invest in a top-notch system that includes advanced features like multi-currency capabilities and ERP integrations.
At the end of the day, there are a wealth of options when it comes to financial modeling software - we’ve broken down the top options to consider depending on what stage your business is.
The 3 best financial modeling software options for EARLY STAGE Companies in 2023
If you’re just starting out and your business or startup is within it’s first year of operations, consider these 3 options if you’re looking to upgrade from Excel:
1. Sturppy
Sturppy is the #1 financial modeling tool for early stage startups and small businesses. With over 4,000 customers in 96 countries, it’s hard to rival the platform’s simplicity, beautiful graphs, and sharing features for pitching VCs and Angels.
Sturppy
Key Features:
Guided model builder - Sturppy is made for any business model type, not just SaaS or tech based companies. Sturppy’s guided model building experience walks you through the process of building a custom investor-ready model fast and easy.
Share an external live link - With Sturppy you can share a read-only link of your model with investors, capture feedback, and view engagement analytics
Dynamic team hiring - Support for dynamic hiring rules and forecasting
Cap table scenario analysis - See how different terms and funding amounts affect your model
Custom dashboard & KPIs - Create one of a kind dashboards and custom KPIs
Collaborative - invite teammates to work on your model with you
Export to CSV - Export everything within Sturppy to a beautiful CSV spreadsheet format
Pros:
Easy to use UI/UX - build a model quickly
Support for any business type, not just “tech startups”
Beautiful customizable graphs and branding
Strong spreadsheet export capabilities
Strong sharing capabilities - great for fundraising
Great customer support via in-app live chat
Cons:
No live integrations with accounting software (QuickBooks & Xero are on the roadmap, but currently only support spreadsheet integrations i.e. you can export from QuickBooks and import it into Sturppy)
No “excel like formulas” - Sturppy does have the ability to build extremely customized functions using their drag and drop flow builder
No free trial - although there is a 30-day no questions asked refund
DIY options or Premium white glove options where you work with their team of experts to build a custom model. Premium engagements start at $899 and include a lifetime license
Unlock add-ons such as tracking actuals, custom branding and more
Sturppy also offers a fully white labeled version of their platform for business coaches, advisors, and consultants
Sturppy pricing
2. Finmark
Finmark is a great option for startups and small businesses that already have accounting systems setup (currently supports integrations with Xero, Quickbooks, Gusto, Stripe, and ADP). Finmark was recently acquired by Bill.com - November 2022 so if you already use Bill.com, you can expect some pretty great synergies to come in the upcoming year.
Finmark
Key features
Real time data analysis - Finmark provides 100+ out-of-the-box metrics
Collaborate and share - With Finmark, like Sturppy, you can create scenarios, invite collaborators, and share read-only links with outsiders
Centralized budgeting - Analyze variances across your budgeting
Forecasting of Revenues - automatically forecast revenues based on actuals
Create and manage multiple scenarios - build different “what if” scenarios within the same model
Pros:
Great for startups that already have accounting software in place (Xero & Quickbooks)
Beautiful dashboards and comparisons of scenarios
Strong collaboration features (leave feedback and add comments)
Great scenario sharing and comparison functionality
Cons:
Not a great tool for non-SaaS businesses
If you don’t have accounting software already established, the functionality can be somewhat limited
If you’re an Excel junky, you’re going to want to pass on Finmark
Pricing:
Finmark has a 30-day free trial
Pricing scales based on your Annual Revenue
Les than $500K in annual revenue it’s $50/mo per user
$500K - $999K in revenue it’s $100/mo per user
$1M - $2.5M in revenue it’s $250/mo per user
$3M+ in annual revenue —> contact Finmark for pricing
Finmark pricing
3. Pry
Pry.co is similar to Finmark in that it’s an alternative to Excel for pro forma financials. It’s more “excel like” than a Finmark or a Sturppy and it’s a one stop shop for forecasting, headcount planning, and KPI dashboards. Pry.co was recently acquired by Brex (Q3 2022 - here’s a writeup by TechCrunch).
Pry
Key Features
Out-of-the-box functionality for burn and runway calculations - view real-time updates on how much you’re spending and where that money’s going
Granular month over month expense breakdowns - customizable categories, department tags, and “zoom into transaction level data”
Excel-like formulas - create custom formulas and variables using Excel-like formulas and spreadsheets
Accounting integrations - Pry automatically keeps reports up to date based on the systems you connect with it
Mix and match dashboards & KPIs - Create and share custom dashboards and KPIs with key employees
Pros:
Syncs with bank accounts and payroll for accurate burn and runway
Syncs with Quickbooks and Xero
Syncs with Stripe (currently in Beta)
Strong collaboration features - easy to share
Cons:
Not a great tool for non-SaaS businesses
Solo plans have limitations on access controls
Solo plans have limitations on hiring plan (only covers up to 30 employees)
Solo plans limit the number of dashboards and scenarios you can create
Pricing:
Pry has a 7-day free trial and then has a couple of different options based mostly on team size
Solo plans (1 user) starts at $50/mo whereas their team account packages start at $200/mo
Pry pricing
The 4 best financial modeling software options for MID MARKET Companies in 2023
Consider yourself more of a “mid-market” business? Maybe you have an established Finance team and you’re looking for something a little bit more robust. Here’s our list of top 4 mid-market vendors for 2023:
1. Mosaic
Mosaic takes the number one spot here for their innovation, simplicity and beautiful UI/UX. Mosaic considers themself to be more of a Strategic Financial platform designed to help growing companies understand from the past, analyze the present and plan for the future. They’re relatively new to the market (started in 2019 by ex-Palantir founders) and have grown quite fast.
Mosaic
Key features:
Streamlined data aggregation and automation - automatically sync accounting and ERP data to mosaic
Real-time analysis - since data is sync’d in near-real-time, analysis can also be done in real-time
Out of the box metrics catalog - pre-configured out of the box metrics like magic number, ARR/MRR changes, etc.
Agile forecasting and planning - model scenarios, customize topline planing, track budget vs. actuals, and roll forward planning
On-demand reporting w/ Notion-like functionality - ability to pull in charts, graphs, KPIs, add text and share dashboards quickly
Multi-subsidiary consolidation - ability to consolidate multiple entities
Pros:
Beautiful UI/UX
Real-time analytics
Ease of use to create and share custom dashboards and insights
Support for subsidiary roll-ups
Great for keeping teams on track, focused, and accountable with KPI tracking
Cons:
If you love Excel, Mosaic isn’t for you
Depending on the amount of systems you have connected to Mosaic it can take a few hours to pull and updated actuals
Some users report that it can become a bit slow when loading large projects
Pricing:
Mosaic breaks their pricing into two modules, Analytics and Planning.
Unfortunately, there’s little info on their website and on the broader internet about their pricing in 2022/23, you’ll have to request a demo to get a proper quote
To our knowledge there is no free trial for Mosaic
Mosaic pricing
2. Abacum
If you love Notion and consider yourself to be a mid-market company, you’ll likely love Abacum. Coming in at #2 on our list for mid-market companies, Abacum is an automated strategic finance planning tool that enables teams to create reports and share them with 1-click.
Abacum
Key Features:
Catalog of 100+ integrations - pull data directly from the tools you use (ERP, CRM, BI, and HRIS systems)
Simple builder for creating detailed graphs and KPIs - extremely easy to build custom graphics from scratch
Collaboration workflows - Invite teammates and stakeholders to pre-made ready to share spaces, manage changes, tasks, and permissions with ease
Notion-like look and feel - If you’ve ever used Notion, Abacum looks and feels extremely similar
Pros:
Ability to build, share, and collaborate with ease
Pre-made integration catalog
Overall simplicity for sharing with teammates who aren’t “pros”
Abacum “academy” for training
Cons:
Time to setup
Onboarding is virtual/digital
Some users have reported issues with connecting data sources and mapping fields to and from Abacum and other sources
Pricing:
Abacum does not publicly list their pricing tiers without booking a demo
The offer 3 tiers based on stage of business
Abacum pricing
3. Datarails
Alright Excel junkies…this one’s for you. If you love Excel and don’t want to give it up, Datarails might be the solution for you. With Datarails you get to keep using Excel financial models and spreadsheets while automating a lot of the tedious repetitive processes.
Datarails
Key Features:
Integrations & mapping - create one single source of truth within datarails by “mapping” data to Datarails
Share reports easily - create workflows similar to Abacum and export reports to Excel, PDFs, dashboards or real-time PowerPoint presentations
Datarails plugins for Excel & PowerPoint - Access datarails functionality directly from within Excel or PowerPoint
Granular drill-downs - ability to drill down into details from within Excel
Pros:
Keep your Excel models and build beautiful dashboards on top of them
Low learning curve (assuming your an Excel wiz)
Easy to implement in comparison to other mid-market tools
Granular drill downs into data
Cons:
Datarails works hand in hand with Microsoft Excel, it has been reported by some users that Microsoft patches to Excel have caused some temporary issues with datarails
Not a great solution for the desktop version of Quickbooks
Some of the reporting requires more manual intervention than more mature applications
Pricing:
Like other mid-market & enterprise options, datarails does not offer public information about their pricing without requesting a demo.
datarails claims to “custom-fit” pricing packages to your companies needs and usecases
datarails pricing
4. OnPlan
Coming in at #4 on our list for mid-market FP&A solutions is OnPlan. OnPlan, like datarails combines the power and flexibility of Microsoft Excel with FP&A software built for mid-market to large businesses.
OnPlan
Key Features:
Built in Excel-like spreadsheets - If you like working in spreadsheets, OnPlan is worth considering, much of the “data work” done within the platform is based on spreadsheets that look and feel similar to Excel
Maintain Excel logic - you can keep the same formulas and structure you’re used to and even interact with models directly in Google Sheets
App Store - OnPlan offers a robust “app store where you can add functionality like CAPEX, debt modules, and revenue forecasting to OnPlan
Large integration catalog - pre-built integrations with Accounting, CRM, HR, etc.
Pros:
Quick time to implement
Works well with Excel
Cons:
The UI/UX feels a bit dated for 2023
Limited visualization capabilities
The platform can slow down when ingesting or updating data from connected sources
Pricing:
OnPlan starts at $12,500/year for their “Essentials” plan which includes up to 2 users and unlimited “viewers”
For their growth and growth+ plans you have to book a demo for pricing
OnPlan pricing
The 3 best financial modeling software options for ENTERPRISE Companies in 2023
Alright Enterprise FP&A Teams, it’s your time to shine here. If you’re an Enterprise FP&A team leader, consider our list of top 4 enterprise FP&A vendors for 2023:
1. Anaplan
Coming in at #1 on our list is Anaplan. Anaplan was founded in 2006 and has been a market-leading, cloud-native, enterprise FP&A solution helping to transform the way large enterprise businesses do Finance for nearly 2 decades.
Anaplan
Key Features:
Strong strategic planning capabilities - Anaplan goes above and beyond with it’s ability to do strategic planning for use cases above and beyond what other platforms offer
Rolling basis forecasts - Build multiple scenarios on a rolling basis
Integrations - Anaplan has a number of service providers they certify and partner with to roll-out and integrate just about any system with Anaplan
Mobile app view - unlike a lot of FP&A solutions Anaplan can be viewed and supported via mobile devices
Anaplan App Hub - Anaplan has a library of over 200 pre-built models that help finance teams streamline processes
Pros:
Mobile device support
Huge list of integration partners
Market-leader
Cons:
Limited features for companies with unstructured data and business processes
Considerable investment to implement
Some users have reported slow speeds during concurrent users
Pricing:
Like all of our enterprise options, Analplan hides pricing behind a demo
The do however have 3 different tiers built out
Anaplan pricing
2. Workday Adaptive Planning
Adaptive Insights was acquired by Workday in 2018 and is now called Workday Adaptive Planning. If your company is already a Workday customer, the synergies between Workday’s other ERP features and benefits with Adaptive Planning are worth considering.
Workday Adaptive Planning
Key Features:
Cloud, on-prem, and hybrid options - Workday Adaptive Planning can be deployed in a variety of ways depending on your IT departments preferences
Ease of use for strategic planning - Teams that use Workday love it’s UI/UX, allowing finance and non-finance professionals to collaborate using one unified platform
Designed for agility - Adaptive planning was designed to adapt as a business evolves over time.
Drag-and-drop modeling - Workday Adaptive planning supports for drag-and-drop reporting
System agnostic - Workday Adaptive planning can pull in data via ETF sync’s or via API
Pros:
Massive synergies for existing Workday customers
Strong versioning and reporting capabilities
Integrates with just about anything
Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud ERP & FP&A
Cons:
Formatting of built-in reports is limited
Slows down with large data sets
Slow to implement
Pricing:
Workday adaptive planning has no available information regarding pricing online as of 2023
Workday Adaptive Planning Pricing
3. Planful
Coming in at #3 on our list is Planful. Founded in 2000, Planful has been helping to shape the FP&A enterprise space for over two decades. The Planful platform covers structured and dynamic planning, consolidation, and reporting all under one platform.
Planful
Key Features:
Financial Consolidation - one key benefit of Planful is in it’s financial consolidation and automation. Planful integrates with other systems to become a single source of truth.
Structured Planning - Automate intensive financial planning activities with integrations from an ERP, CRM or HCM system. Planful includes 200+ pre-built data connectors.
Collaboration - Planful makes it easy for every organization within the enterprise to do planning form HR to marketing to sales
Excel like syntax - if you’re familiar and comfortable using Excel, Planful leverages similar syntax
Pros:
Easy to administer from an IT perspective
Dynamic reports and data drill downs
Can include links to images of transactions for sources
Cons:
Some users report that support is lacking
You have to use an implementation partner to implement and roll out Planful (not too dissimilar from most enterprise options)
Some users report problems with loading employee compensation data
Pricing:
Planful offers no public information regarding pricing. To get a quote, fill out a lead form on their site
Planful pricing
A Summary of the Top 3 Financial Modeling Software choices
All businesses need financial modeling software, but not all software is created equal. Sturppy is the best solution for early stage businesses and startups. If you're a mid-market business, Mosaic is the way to go. And if you're an enterprise business, Anaplan is your best bet. No matter what stage your company is in, investing in financial modeling software will transform the way you do business.
Of course, there are other options out there and it’s important to consider all of your options before making a decision. But we think these three are the best in their respective categories and would serve any company well.
