Smartsheet

This Smartsheet review covers what the platform is used for, its key features, Smartsheet pricing, how it compares with Excel, the learning curve, where it shines and falls short, and the tools worth comparing. Smartsheet looks like a spreadsheet, but each sheet is a project plan with typed columns, due dates, task assignments, dependencies and automations. The same data can be shown as a grid view, Gantt view, card view or calendar view, and rolled up into dashboards and reports across multiple sheets. Smartsheet has been privately owned by Blackstone and Vista Equity Partners since January 2025, after an $8.4 billion take-private deal (Smartsheet newsroom).

What is Smartsheet used for?

Smartsheet is used for project management, portfolio management and operational workflows in business teams. Typical uses are project plans with Gantt charts, marketing campaign calendars, event planning, IT and product roadmaps, request intake with forms, and status reporting for leadership. Project managers use it to manage tasks, track project progress, owners and due dates in one place, while users on the team update their own rows and attach files. Programs and processes that used to live in email threads get one shared plan with clear insights for stakeholders.

Large organizations use Smartsheet as a single source for many projects at once. Control Center creates and rolls up standardized project sheets, and resource management shows team workload across projects. Smartsheet says it is used by more than 85% of Fortune 500 companies (Smartsheet pricing). Smaller teams use it as a better shared spreadsheet: one sheet per project, a form for requests and a simple automation that sends reminders.

Key features

• Sheets and views: grid, Gantt, card, calendar, table, board and timeline views over the same data, with rich formulas, conditional formatting and filters.
• Workflow automation: no-code if/then rules that send alerts, request approvals, move or copy rows and update fields. They take the repetitive tasks out of status tracking.
• Forms: collect requests and data straight into a sheet.
• Dashboards and reports: roll up data from multiple sheets into reports and dashboards that give stakeholders real-time insights into tasks, budgets and resources.
• Resource management: team workload tracking and capacity planning across projects.
• Collaboration: comments, update requests, approvals and shared workspaces so teams collaborate on the same sheet without version conflicts. Collaboration extends to free Contributors, so external users and stakeholders can add updates to tasks without a paid seat.
• Digital asset management: review and approve creative files and digital assets inside Smartsheet.
• Portfolio tools: Control Center for standardized project portfolios, Dynamic View for secure request management, Data Shuttle to move data between Smartsheet and other business systems, and DataMesh to link related data across sheets.
• Integrations: built-in integrations with Microsoft Teams, Slack, Salesforce, Jira and Google Workspace, plus the Smartsheet API (project-management.com).
• AI: conversational AI features are listed on the Pro plan and up, for questions about sheet data and building formulas.

Smartsheet pricing

Smartsheet sells four plans, priced per Member. The prices below come from the Smartsheet pricing page as of September 2026.

• Pro plan: $9 per Member per month billed yearly, $12 billed monthly. 1 to 10 Members, unlimited free Contributors, Gantt, table, board and calendar views, unlimited sheets, forms and reports, 250 automations per month, 20 GB of storage.
• Business plan: $19 per Member per month billed yearly, $24 monthly. 3 or more Members, unlimited Guests and Contributors, timeline view, unlimited automations and 1 TB of storage.
• Enterprise plan: custom pricing for 10 or more Members, unlimited storage, enterprise grade security and a service level agreement.
• Advanced Work Management plan: custom pricing for large organizations that need Control Center, Dynamic View and Data Shuttle in one package.

The usage metric is the Member, a paid user who creates and owns sheets. Contributors can view, comment, upload files, respond to update requests and submit forms for free, so unlimited viewers are included on every plan. There is no free plan: Smartsheet offers a 30-day free trial with no credit card.

The cost surprise to check is the add-ons. Dynamic View starts at $125 a month and Data Shuttle at $100 a month on top of Member seats, and the Pro plan's 250 automations per month run out quickly. Plan on Business once a team relies on automations, and ask for an Enterprise quote before rolling Smartsheet out across departments.

Smartsheet vs Excel for project management

Smartsheet is not basically Excel. Excel is the stronger tool to analyze large datasets, build complex formulas and model numbers, and Excel for the web is free. Smartsheet is built for project management: every row can have an owner, a due date and dependencies, and Gantt view, forms, workflow automation and approvals work without VBA macros (Zapier). Many teams keep Excel for analysis and use Smartsheet to manage the projects, tasks and processes themselves, with a calendar view, card view and grid on the same data. The closest Microsoft equivalent is Microsoft Planner with Project, while Google Sheets fills the same free, simple spreadsheet role as Excel.

Smartsheet also has limits that a spreadsheet user notices. A sheet holds up to 20,000 rows, 400 columns or 500,000 cells, whichever comes first (Smartsheet developer docs), so large data sets belong in a database or BI tool.

Security, support and advanced work management

Smartsheet offers most of its advanced capabilities to business and enterprise buyers, so security, admin and advanced work management capabilities grow with each plan. The Advanced Work Management plan bundles Control Center, Dynamic View and Data Shuttle for organizations that run hundreds of projects and processes across systems. Business adds external Guests who can edit, and the Enterprise plan adds enterprise grade security and a service level agreement; the details are in Smartsheet's Trust Center. Support ranges from the help center and community to paid consulting, training and implementation services, which Enterprise subscriptions often include in a rollout. For organizations, this is often the deciding factor over lighter tools: IT can manage who creates workflows, which systems connect and how data is shared.

Learning curve: is Smartsheet hard to learn?

The basics are easy for anyone who knows spreadsheets. Adding columns, assigning tasks, setting due dates and switching to Gantt view take an afternoon, and templates help teams create workflows without starting from a blank sheet. The steep learning curve comes with the advanced features: cross-sheet formulas, automation logic, dashboards, Control Center templates and building complex solutions for a whole organization. Smartsheet offers free training and certification, and larger customers often use Smartsheet partners for setup.

Where Smartsheet shines — and where it falls short

Strengths:

• A familiar spreadsheet interface with real project management built in.
• Gantt, card, calendar and timeline views on the same data.
• Flexible workflows with no-code automation, forms and approvals that can be customized per team.
• Scales from one team to portfolio management across large organizations, with enterprise security and support.

Trade-offs:

• Per-Member pricing, add-ons and custom plans make the full cost hard to predict.
• A steep learning curve for advanced features and complex formulas.
• Sheet limits of 20,000 rows and 500,000 cells rule out large datasets.
• Interface feels dated next to newer work management tools.

How Smartsheet compares

• Airtable: a relational database with interfaces, stronger for structured data than project plans.
• ClickUp: an all-in-one project management tool with docs and many views at a lower price.
• Notion and Coda: docs first, with databases for lighter project tracking.
• Google Sheets: the free spreadsheet for simple lists, without Gantt or automation.
• Jira Automation: the choice for software teams already on Jira.
• Kissflow and Pipefy: process and workflow automation rather than project plans.

Is Smartsheet worth it?

Smartsheet is worth it for project managers and business teams that live in spreadsheets and need Gantt charts, automation and reporting across many projects. The Business plan covers most teams, and Enterprise adds the security and governance large organizations need. It is less of a fit for small teams on a tight budget, for heavy data analysis, or for teams that prefer a modern board-first tool. If you want help to set up Smartsheet, build portfolio dashboards or connect it to other business systems, the low-code agencies and developers on LowCodeDevs can take it on.

Sources

• Smartsheet pricing: plans, prices, user types, add-ons and the free trial.
• Smartsheet API limitations: sheet row, column and cell limits.
• Blackstone and Vista complete acquisition of Smartsheet: the January 2025 take-private.
• What is Smartsheet?, project-management.com: features, integrations and limits (it still lists a $0 Free plan, which Smartsheet's pricing page no longer offers).
• Smartsheet vs. Excel, Zapier: comparison with Excel (it says AI is Enterprise-only; Smartsheet's pricing page now lists conversational AI features on Pro).