Smartsheet review: Pros and cons in 2024 (2024)

It’s not hard to find project management tools in 2024. But finding one that makes sense for small business owners and their specific needs is an art.

Smartsheet is one of the most popular project management tools on the market currently, and it stands out because of its effectiveness in helping business owners track multiple projects across many teams within a large company. In this Smartsheet review, we’ll take a look at this product’s pros and cons and what it can offer to small business owners and project managers.

Smartsheet overview

Smartsheet is one of the most powerful project management tools on the market today. This product is excellent for large companies that need to track multiple projects across different teams. At its heart, Smartsheet is a spreadsheet tool, but it does much more than that, including providing some extra features that can really benefit creative and marketing professionals in particular.

Smartsheet pros and cons

Though it is a solid project management tool, Smartsheet isn’t for everyone. Let’s walk through some of this product’s pros and cons.

Pros

Some of Smartsheet’s best features include:

• Good variety of integrations: The Business plan integrates with Microsoft Office 365, Google Workspace, Slack, Adobe Creative Cloud Extension, Tableau and nearly 100 more integrations.
• Brandfolder add-on: This featured add-on works well with Smartsheet and is an excellent digital asset management tool for marketers and creatives.
• Many customization options: With different views, dashboards, reports and integrations, Smartsheet is easy to customize to suit your needs.

Cons

On the flip side, Smartsheet does have a few issues:

• Can be difficult to learn: If you aren’t already familiar with the ins and outs of spreadsheet software, Smartsheet will do you no favors. It has a steeper learning curve, no doubt, than other tools that may be a little more intuitive.
• Add-ons are pricey: Smartsheet does offer a lot of add-ons, but they can get really expensive on top of what you’re already paying for a subscription.
• No autosave option: One of Smartsheet’s strangest missing features is the ability to autosave in real time. You’ll need to click the “Save” button to save your changes every time.

Smartsheet pricing and value

Before purchasing any of Smartsheet’s plans, we suggest trying out the product with the company’s 30-day free trial.

The Pro plan is excellent for smaller teams and individuals, while the Business plan is better suited to larger teams and companies. The Enterprise plan, as its title implies, is geared toward larger companies that run processes at a much greater scale.

Smartsheet project management features

Smartsheet allows for four different role assignments – admin, owner, editor and viewer – which allows for different levels of involvement and accessibility. The software includes features that allow business owners to more easily create strategic planning initiatives and manage projects, schedules and budgets.

Smartsheet’s visual tools, like its timeline view, will display milestones and tasks in a timeline format, allowing users to track progress more easily. It also offers a Gantt chart tool within the spreadsheet, which is just another way for users to see a visual representation of schedules and tasks within the organization and their relationship to each other.

Smartsheet AI, automation and integration features

Smartsheet also offers AI, automation and integration features that will make life easier for small business owners. For example, it can generate formulas within the spreadsheet, generate text and summaries, analyze data and even offer answers to questions. Within the Brandfolder add-on, Smartsheet also uses AI to suggest captions for images. These are all solid timesavers for busy business owners and project managers.

As we mentioned earlier, Smartsheet has many integration options. It pairs with Microsoft Office 365 (Teams, Outlook, OneDrive), Google Workspace (Gmail, Hangouts, Drive), Slack, Adobe Creative Cloud Extension, Power BI, Tableau and nearly 100 more tools, according to the company’s website.

Smartsheet customer support

Smartsheet’s customer support options are largely impersonal and heavily reliant on contact forms and ticketing through its online support portal. The company website provides a knowledge base and online community for users to search for answers to any issues they might be having.

Though it appears customers will eventually be able to contact an actual human representative for help with an issue, the faceless online portal currently appears to be Smartsheet’s primary outlet for customer support.

Smartsheet vs. top competitors

Some of Smartsheet’s primary competitors include Monday.com, Zoho Projects and Trello. Let’s take a look at how each compares to Smartsheet.

Smartsheet vs Monday.com

While Smartsheet offers a 30-day free trial, Monday.com stands out because it actually provides a free plan. The free plan offers a limited amount of storage at only 500 MB and zero automations with two users.

The free plan is also excellent for small business owners and individuals who want to dive into the product and experience some of its features before purchasing a paid plan. Smartsheet’s low-tier Pro plan costs $12 monthly and comes with 20 GB of storage and 250 automations per month.

Smartsheet vs Zoho Projects

Like Monday.com, Zoho Projects offers a free plan for three users with 5 GB of storage and zero automations. This is a great way for business owners to learn the intricacies of the product before spending their hard-earned cash on a paid plan. The company also lets potential users try out their paid plans with a free 10-day trial.

At just $5 per month, Zoho Projects’ Premium plan is more affordable than Smartsheet’s Pro plan but comes with more limited features – 100 GB of storage, a minimal amount of integrations, and 20 pre-built templates – ideal for business owners who don’t have the time or budget to hire a designer.

Smartsheet vs Trello

Trello also offers a free plan for individuals who want to organize a project. This plan provides up to 10 collaborators and 250 workspace commands per month. Trello’s Standard plan costs $6 monthly, compared to Smartsheet’s Pro plan, which comes in at $12.With this plan, Smartsheet provides unlimited free viewers, sheets, reports and forms.

Trello’s Standard plan offers unlimited boards and 1,000 workspace commands monthly. All of Trello’s boards include built-in no-code automation, which means small business owners can save a great deal of time by creating rules, buttons, and commands that automate almost every action in Trello.

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)