The 10 best strategy software tools

To be effective in planning, executing, and monitoring strategies, organisations need a systematic approach that aligns their goals, initiatives, and resources towards a common vision. Traditional methods of strategic planning, like spreadsheets and manual tracking, take up too much time, are prone to errors, and are inefficient. That's where strategy software comes into play.

What is strategy software?

Strategy software is like a one-stop-shop for businesses to plan and execute their strategic objectives. It's like having a personal assistant who helps you optimise your planning and decision-making processes, ensuring everyone is on the same page and working towards common goals.

With strategic planning and execution software, businesses can create a clear roadmap with actionable steps and milestones for achieving their long-term goals. This makes it easier for teams to stay focused and motivated, knowing how their individual contributions fit into the big picture.

Strategy software also provides real-time insights and analytics into the progress of strategic initiatives. By tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) and other metrics, businesses can quickly identify areas of strength and weakness and make data-driven decisions to course-correct as needed. This level of visibility and transparency is essential for keeping strategic plans on track and aligned with the organisation's long-term goals.

What should I look for when choosing my strategy software?

Every business is unique, and their needs differ. There's no one-size-fits-all solution. Don't get too hung up on product features when picking a strategy software tool. The end goal should be specific outcomes for your business. While features may look attractive, they should only be a means to an end. Prioritise potential outcomes like increased productivity, better decision-making, or enhanced collaboration. By doing so, you can ensure that the tool you choose aligns with your strategic goals and delivers tangible value to your operations and bottom line.

Here's what we think is important when selecting a tool:

1. Being able to connect strategies with tactics 

When you connect strategy with tactics, it helps you sync your day-to-day tasks with your strategic goals. This way, you can hold teams accountable, making sure they prioritise their efforts and resources in support of your broader business objectives. Connecting the tactical with the strategic also helps people understand how their day-to-day work contributes to the big picture.  

2. Understanding the relationships and dependencies between goals across the organisation 

Knowing how things are connected and what they depend on can help organisations make smarter decisions, focus on the most important projects, and manage resources more efficiently. If you can see how goals are related, you can find ways to work together and avoid doing the same thing twice. This also makes it easier to deal with potential problems before they happen and change direction if you need to. So, understanding these relationships helps teams work better together and achieve more in the long run.

3. Having the data you need to make decisions 

Making informed decisions in an organisation is crucial, and it all starts with having access to the right data. When decision-makers have access to relevant data, they can quickly get a good idea of the current state of the organisation, spot trends and patterns, and evaluate the potential impact of different courses of action. 

4. Ease of use

Having strategy software that is easy to use is important because it can affect how many people adopt and regularly use the tool. People can get the hang of the platform quickly when it is easy to understand and navigate.

5. Positive reviews and ratings 

When you see a product with high ratings and good reviews on sites like G2, it means that people like it. This shows that the solution is high-quality, dependable, and effective in solving the problems it was designed to solve.

6. Cost and ROI

When you pick a strategy software tool for your business, you need to keep the cost in mind. It has a direct impact on how much money you'll get back, and how much you can spend overall. You should think about what the tool can do, but you also need to ensure it's affordable and scalable. 

The 10 best strategy software tools

We’ve compiled a list of different tools and solutions for strategic planning and execution below. It is, however, important to do your own research to find the best fit for your business. 

1. Tability

Tability empowers organisations to set, track and achieve ambitious goals using the Objectives and Key Results (OKR) framework. It is an AI-powered platform that helps teams and individuals align their efforts to the big strategic picture. 

Benefits of using Tability:

• Streamlined goal management: Easily create, track, and measure progress towards your objectives. 
• Improved alignment and transparency: Foster alignment across teams and departments by ensuring everyone understands their role in achieving company objectives. 
• Data-driven decision-making: Gain valuable insights into your team's performance and make data-driven decisions to improve results.

Tability features and capabilities:

• AI-powered goal generation: Tability’s AI can help you set SMART goals in seconds. 
• Initiative and task management: Connect outputs to outcomes to ensure your efforts directly contribute to achieving your objectives.
• Visual progress tracking: See how you progress towards your goals with visual dashboards.
• Reporting: Generate reports and presentations easily to keep stakeholders informed about progress.
• Integrations: Connect Tability with your existing project management and communication tools for a more streamlined workflow. 

See all features

Tability is best for:

• Growth-oriented companies: Tability is ideal for companies focused on driving growth and achieving ambitious goals. These organisations need a platform to help them set clear objectives, track progress, and make data-driven decisions to improve performance.
• Startups and small businesses: Startups and small businesses often have limited resources and must make the most of their efforts. Tability's AI-powered goal generation and initiative management features can help these organisations set and achieve their goals more efficiently.
• Remote and distributed teams: Tability can help remote teams collaborate and stay aligned across different locations and time zones. 
• Data-driven organisations: Tability's data-driven approach to goal-setting and performance tracking is perfect for organisations that value making decisions based on evidence and insights. 

Tability ratings and reviews:

• G2: 4.7/5 
• Capterra: 4.7/5

Tability pricing: 

• Free trial
• Basic: $4 per user/month
• Plus: $5 per user/month
• Premium: $8 per user/month

2. Asana

Asana is a project management tool that helps teams orchestrate their cross-functional work, from daily tasks to strategic initiatives.

Benefits of using Asana:

• Improved organisation: Asana helps teams organise tasks, projects, and workflows in a centralised location, making it easier to track progress and ensure everyone is on the same page.
• Increased productivity: By breaking down projects into manageable tasks and setting clear deadlines, Asana helps teams stay focused and prioritise their work, improving productivity.
• Better communication: Asana reduces the need for email communication by keeping discussions and updates within the context of specific tasks or projects, ensuring information is easily accessible.

Asana features and capabilities:

• Task management: Teams can create, assign, and track tasks, set deadlines, and monitor progress. 
• Project management: Asana allows users to manage projects from start to finish, providing visibility on who is working on what, deadlines, and remaining tasks. 
• Workload management: Asana offers tools for workload management, enabling users to view team member workloads and balance tasks across the team. 
• Goal setting: Users can set company-wide goals, manage strategic plans, and align work with organisational objectives. 

Asana is best for:

• Cross-functional teams and departments: Asana is often used by cross-functional teams and departments within larger organisations, such as HR, finance, and operations. 
• Remote and distributed teams: The platform's collaboration features, such as task assignments, comments, and file sharing, enable seamless communication and coordination among team members, regardless of location.
• Technology and software development teams: Asana's agile project management features, such as Kanban boards, sprints, and bug tracking, make it a good fit for software development and engineering teams. 

Asana ratings and reviews:

• G2: 4.3/5 
• Capterra: 4.5/5

Asana pricing: 

• Personal: Free
• Starter: $13 per user/month
• Advanced: $30 per user/month

3. ClickUp

ClickUp combines docs, reminders, goals, calendars, and an inbox into one app. It is designed to help teams plan, organise and collaborate. 

Benefits of using ClickUp:

• Increased productivity: Have all your tasks, projects, and collaboration in one centralised workspace to stay organised and focused.
• Improved task management: Prioritise, assign, and track tasks effectively, ensuring that nothing falls through the cracks and deadlines are met.
• Enhanced collaboration: Communicate, share ideas, and work together seamlessly, regardless of location.
• Streamlined workflows: Streamline your workflows, reducing manual effort and saving time on repetitive tasks, allowing you to focus on high-value work.

ClickUp features and capabilities:

• Task management: ClickUp provides functionalities like recurring checklists, reminders, and customisation with custom fields and statuses.
• Team collaboration: It offers team collaboration tools such as 2-way collaboration, a visual canvas for real-time idea sharing, commenting on tasks, sharing documents, and more.
• Goals tracking: ClickUp enables users to set goals, track progress, and manage resources effectively.
• Time tracking: ClickUp offers global time tracking from any device, time estimates per assignee feature for collaborations, workload views to visualise team capacity day-by-day, and more time management tools.

ClickUp is best for:

• Small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs): An ideal solution for SMBs looking for an affordable, all-in-one platform to manage their projects, tasks, and team collaboration. 
• Remote teams and distributed workforces: ClickUp is well-suited for teams working remotely or across different locations. 
• Agile teams and project managers: ClickUp offers a range of agile project management features, such as Sprint planning, Kanban boards, and Gantt charts.
• Startups and entrepreneurs: Startups and entrepreneurs often wear multiple hats and need a versatile tool to manage various aspects of their business. ClickUp's wide range of features, from task management to goal tracking and document collaboration.

ClickUp ratings and reviews:

• G2: 4.7/5 
• Capterra: 4.6/5

ClickUp pricing: 

• Free: $0/month
• Unlimited: $10 per user/month
• Business: $19 per user/month
• Enterprise: Custom quote

Note - You can connect your ClickUp tasks to Tability to bring your outputs closer to your outcomes.

4. Quantive

Quantive is a strategy execution platform designed to infuse strategic context, priorities, and real-time progress into daily operations.

Benefits of using Quantive:

• Alignment: Helps companies focus on what matters and ensures everyone works towards the same goals.
• Improved performance: Helps companies improve communication and visibility, which can lead to better results.
• Visibility: Provides a clear view of progress and performance, which can help businesses make better decisions.
• Focus: Helps companies stay focused on their most important goals.

Quantive features and capabilities:

• Collaborative whiteboards: Allows key stakeholders to come together virtually to plan goals. 
• AI-assisted alignment: Uses AI to suggest the best people for the job and relationships between OKRs (Objectives and Key Results). 
• Integrations with communication tools: Integrates with communication tools like Slack and MS Teams. 
• Dashboards and reports: Reporting and insights features include executive dashboards and progress reports. 

Quantive is best for:

• Mid-sized to large enterprises: Quantive is well-suited for mid-sized to large enterprises that want to align their teams and departments towards common objectives. 
• Remote teams: Quantive provides a centralised platform for setting and monitoring objectives, enabling remote teams to stay aligned.

Quantive ratings and reviews:

• G2: 4.6/5 
• Capterra: 4.7/5

Quantive pricing: 

• Essentials: Free
• Scale: $9 per user/month
• Enterprise: Custom quote

5. Lattice

Lattice is primarily a people management platform that offers tools for employee engagement, development, performance, OKRs and goal tracking. 

Benefits of using Lattice:

• Streamlined performance management: Drive high achievement for your employees — and your business.
• Improved employee engagement: Collect feedback, discover insights, and implement programs that improve productivity and retention.
• Improved alignment: Connect individual achievement to organisational success.

Lattice features and capabilities:

• Performance management: Lattice integrates performance management with OKRs. This allows managers to track progress towards goals and provide feedback throughout the performance cycle.
• Employee engagement: Nurture employee engagement by showing how their contributions impact the business.
• Goal setting: Set goals using the OKR methodology. OKRs allow teams to define objectives and key results to ensure alignment with strategic initiatives.

Lattice is best for:

• HR and people operations teams: The platform's tools for performance management, employee engagement, and people development help these teams to create a more positive and productive workplace culture. 
• Mid-sized to large enterprises: Streamline performance management processes, facilitate employee engagement, and provide data-driven insights into workforce trends.
• Remote and distributed teams: The platform's employee engagement features, such as pulse surveys and feedback tools, help companies stay connected with their remote employees.

Lattice ratings and reviews:

• G2: 4.7/5 
• Capterra: 4.5/5

Lattice pricing: 

Lattice offers its core product - Performance Management + OKRs & Goals - for $11 per user/month, with add-on options from $4-$6 per user/month.

6. Wrike

Wrike is a project management and collaboration tool designed to help teams organise, track, and manage their work. It provides a centralised platform for teams to collaborate on projects, share files, and communicate with each other in real time.

Benefits of using Wrike:

• Increased productivity and efficiency: Streamline workflows and reduce manual tasks with automation.
• Enhanced team collaboration: Real-time collaboration with shared tasks, files, and feedback.
• Comprehensive project visibility and control: Gain a holistic view of projects with Gantt charts, Kanban boards, and calendars.

Wrike features and capabilities:

• Project and task management: Create and manage projects, tasks, subtasks, and dependencies with tools like Gantt charts, Kanban boards, and task lists.
• Collaboration and communication: Facilitate team collaboration with features like file sharing, real-time editing, comments, and mentions.
• Customisable workflows and automations: Tailor workflows to fit your team's specific needs and automate repetitive tasks to save time and reduce errors.
• Resource management and workload balancing: Allocate resources effectively, track team members' workload, and optimise capacity to ensure projects are completed on time.

Wrike is best for:

• Technology and software development teams: Use Wrike to plan and track sprints, manage product backlogs, and collaborate on code reviews and bug tracking.
• Enterprise departments and cross-functional teams: Break down silos, foster cross-functional collaboration, and provide executives with visibility into project progress and performance.
• Remote and distributed teams: Popular among teams that need to collaborate and manage projects across different locations and time zones. 

Wrike ratings and reviews:

• G2: 4.2/5 
• Capterra: 4.3/5

Wrike pricing: 

• Free: $0/month
• Team: $9.80 per user/month
• Business: $24.80 per user/month
• Enterprise: Custom quote

7. Weekdone

Weekdone is a tool for business leaders and teams to set structured goals, keep track of activities, and get everyone working towards the company vision – as one.

Benefits of using Weekdone:

• Aligned goal-setting and execution: Set and align goals across the organisation using the OKR framework.
• Increased productivity and focus: Prioritise tasks and activities directly contributing to key objectives.
• Enhanced visibility and transparency: Get a clear overview of what everyone is working on and how it aligns with company goals.

Weekdone features and capabilities:

• Project tracking and team planning: Plan, track and align team or individual projects and tasks.
• Continuous performance management: Unite employee goals, achievements and feedback with 1:1 feedback.
• OKR alignment and customisation: Organise your goals and improve team coordination with OKRs.

Weekdone is best for:

• Small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs): For SMBs looking to implement a structured goal-setting and performance management process without the complexity and cost of enterprise-level tools. 
• Project-based teams and agencies: Manage initiatives more effectively by aligning project goals with company objectives. 
• Startups and fast-growing companies: For startups and fast-growing companies that need a flexible and scalable OKR framework to support their rapid growth. 

Weekdone ratings and reviews:

• G2: 4.1/5 
• Capterra: 4.5/5

Weekdone pricing: 

Weekdone’s pricing model is based on the number of users. The more users you have, the cheaper it gets. 

• 1-3 users: Free
• 4-15 users: $10.80 per user/month
• 16-30 users: $9.60 per user/month
• 500+ users: Custom pricing

8. Betterworks

Betterworks bills itself as an intelligent performance management system. It brings together goals, conversations, feedback and calibration. 

Benefits of using Betterworks:

• Improved employee engagement and retention: Create a positive employee experience by fostering a culture of transparency, recognition, and growth.
• Goal alignment and transparency: Get clarity and transparency around goals, expectations, and progress.
• Enhanced communication and collaboration: Break down silos and promote cross-functional teamwork.

Betterworks features and capabilities:

• Continuous performance management: Facilitate ongoing conversations, feedback, and coaching between managers and employees.
• Employee development and growth: Identify skills gaps and create targeted employee development plans.

Betterworks is best for:

• Mid-market and enterprise companies: Well-suited for organisations that have complex hierarchies, diverse teams, and a need for robust goal alignment and tracking capabilities. 
• Human resources and people operations teams: The platform's features, such as goal setting, continuous feedback, and performance analytics, enable them to streamline performance management processes, improve employee engagement, and make data-driven decisions about talent management and development.
• Fast-growing and agile organisations: Companies that require a flexible and adaptable performance management system that can keep pace with their rapid growth and changing priorities. 

Betterworks ratings and reviews:

• G2: 4.3/5 
• Capterra: 4/5

Betterworks pricing: 

Betterworks does not provide pricing information on its website. Custom quotes are available for both mid-market and enterprise companies.

9. Profit.co

Profit.co is a results management platform that offers employee engagement, performance and OKR management tools. 

Benefits of using Profit.co:

• Enhanced employee engagement: Fosters a transparency, collaboration, and accountability culture.
• Aligned and focused execution: Ensures that everyone in the organisation works towards the same goals.
• Increased agility and adaptability: Enables organisations to quickly adjust goals and priorities in response to changing circumstances

Profit.co features and capabilities:

• Continuous performance management: Facilitate regular check-ins and conversations between managers and employees.
• OKR management: Cascade goals throughout the organisation to ensure alignment and focus.
• Task and project management: Create and assign tasks and projects related to OKRs.

Profit.co is best for:

• Mid-sized to large enterprises: Organisations with complex structures and a need for cross-functional alignment.
• Human resources and people operations teams: Organisations looking to drive a high-performance culture and align their people strategy with business objectives and outcomes.
• Progressive organisations: Teams that value transparency, collaboration, and employee empowerment.

Profit.co ratings and reviews:

• G2: 4.7/5 
• Capterra: 4.8/5

Profit.co pricing: 

Profit.co does not list pricing on its website. The company offers two separate software modules - OKRs and task management, and performance management and goals - with four different add-ons. 

10. Hive

Hive is a project management and collaboration tool designed to help teams work more efficiently and effectively.

Benefits of using Hive

• Manage projects in one place: Track, manage, and execute on key initiatives with full visibility for all members of your organisation.
• Track team and project progress: Plan projects, track time, and allocate resources to ensure that projects stay on track and deadlines are not missed.
• Put your work on autopilot: Save time by automating everyday tasks and syncing your most-used apps.
• Gain visibility and gather insights: Bring information from your Hive projects and other systems into dashboards, goals and reports.

Hive features and capabilities:

• Project and task management: Create and manage projects, tasks, and subtasks.
• Time tracking: Record time spent on specific tasks or projects. This data can be used for identifying bottlenecks and optimising resource allocation.
• Goal-setting: Define and track your objectives using methodologies like OKRs or KPIs.
• Collaboration: Keep all project-related discussions in one place.

Hive is best for:

• Cross-functional teams: Hive's ability to accommodate various project types and workflows makes it a good fit for cross-functional teams that need to collaborate across departments.
• Technology and software development teams: Hive's agile project management capabilities, such as Kanban boards and Gantt charts, make it attractive to software development teams.
• Remote and distributed teams: Hive's collaboration features make it an excellent choice for teams working remotely or across different locations. 
• Small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs): Hive’s user-friendly interface, customisable templates, and scalability make it adaptable to the needs of growing businesses. 

Hive ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.6/5 
• Capterra: 4.5/5

Hive pricing

• Free: $0/month 
• Starter: $7 per user/month
• Teams: $18 per user/month
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

10 best strategy software tools by rating

10 best strategy software tools by cost

Conclusion

Picking the right strategy software is a big deal for businesses that want to make their planning and execution processes easier. The 10 best strategy tools we mentioned in this article - Tability, Asana, ClickUp, Quantive, Lattice, Wrike, Weekdone, Betterworks, Profit.co, and Hive - offer a range of features to help teams reach their strategic goals. When deciding which strategy solution is best for you, think about how easy it is to use, whether it helps you make decisions based on data, whether it helps you align your goals, and how much it costs. 

By matching everyday tasks with long-term objectives, teams can stay focused on what's important and adapt quickly to changes. Getting the right strategy software is a big step towards building a more agile organisation that uses data to make decisions, and is all about achieving its goals.