Pros & Cons
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- Extraordinarily flexible
- Robust spreadsheet-based project management
- Supports proofing documents and images
- Impressive variety of automations and integrations
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- No free version
- Confusing and expensive pricing
- Shares user data with third parties for advertising
Smartsheet Specs
| Customizable Roles/Permissions | |
| Dependencies | |
| Gantt Charts | |
| Guest/Client Access | |
| Markup Tools | |
| Number of Projects in Free Account | N/A |
| Price Per Person Per Month | From $9 per person |
| Resource Management | |
| Storage Included at Price Listed | 20GB |
| Storage Space for Free Accounts | N/A |
Smartsheet is a project management app that with a spreadsheet-first approach. Its extensive list of add-ons, automations, and integrations, along with its serious customization potential, make it a powerful solution. We also like that it includes competent document and media proofing tools. That said, the app has restrictive and costly subscription tiers and shares your data for advertising purposes by default. Smartsheet is still worth considering if you are willing to invest the time to learn its intricacies, but it falls short of our Editors’ Choice winners: GanttPro for beginners, Teamwork for client-based work, and Zoho Projects for growing teams.
Pricing: On the High Side and Could Be Clearer
Smartsheet offers two primary premium plans, Pro and Business. However, the Pro tier is available only to new customers. Although you can take advantage of a 30-day trial for either plan, Smartsheet no longer offers a perpetually free version. The company now describes it as “a legacy capability with limited functionality.”
The Pro plan ($9 per user per month, billed annually) supports a maximum of 10 members. Smartsheet has too many features to list here, but among the key capabilities of this plan are unlimited forms, reports, sheets, and viewers, as well as board, calendar, Gantt, and table views. You also get access to rich formulas and 250 automations per month. However, this level doesn't support AI tools or guests (free users who can edit and comment).
The Business plan ($19 per user per month, billed annually) requires a minimum of three members. Compared with the Pro plan, Business users receive 1TB of storage for attachments, admin tracking, team workload tracking, a timeline view, and unlimited automations and guests, among other benefits.
Larger organizations that want to customize their Smartsheet experience can opt for the Enterprise and Advanced Work Management plans. Each includes additional features, such as AI functionality or unlimited attachment storage. You must contact Smartsheet directly to get a custom pricing quote for either of these plans. For this review, I focused my testing on the Business and Enterprise plans.
Smartsheet features differ by region, and you can purchase a variety of add-ons. Add-ons range from enhanced support and professional services to technical account managers and more. However, it’s not easy to figure out exactly what an add-on does or what it costs. Take the Resource Management add-on, for example. Its dedicated page only briefly describes what it does. Furthermore, the cost of the add-on varies based on the number of users on your account, so you need to contact Smartsheet directly to get a quote.
The above is just one example, too. Smartsheet University, which offers courses on how to use Smartsheet, is an add-on, according to Smartsheet’s pricing page. However, it doesn't appear on Smartsheet’s add-ons page, and I was able to access it for free without subscribing to anything.
Smartsheet’s pricing is, frankly, a nightmare. It’s hard to understand which plan is right for you, thanks to the seemingly endless list of differences between plans. Add-ons and regional feature differences further complicate this. Smartsheet isn't cheap, either. Zoho Projects has a free plan, for example, and its premium edition starts at just $4 per person, billed annually. Teamwork’s cheapest paid plan is a match for Smartsheet, but it has a free version. GanttPro has more flexible pricing, thanks to a wider selection of plans.
Interface and Ease of Use: It Takes Time to Learn
To get going with Smartsheet, you need to sign up for an account and, if you don’t plan on subscribing to a paid plan from the outset, start your trial. You can use Smartsheet on the web, which is generally my preferred option for project management services; however, desktop (macOS and Windows) and mobile apps (Android and iOS) are also available.
(Credit: Smartsheet/PCMag)Smartsheet's layout is generally intuitive, with different tabs on the left that open various tools at the top. However, navigation can be cumbersome sometimes. For example, signing in brings you to the Home tab, which suggests various pages to open. If what you’re after isn’t there, you must click into All Workspaces or navigate to the Browse or Favorites tabs, then open the relevant workspace or page, such as a task sheet. That awkwardness aside, Smartsheet's interface has a thoughtful design.
You won't encounter too many icons or interactive elements on a page, which can be a problem with project management software. I also appreciate Smartsheet’s blue-and-white color scheme, which keeps things readable without feeling bland. If you prefer a darker aesthetic, consider using a third-party browser extension.
Considering just how many features Smartsheet offers, it’s understandable that you will get more familiar with how it works as you use it. Smartsheet’s YouTube channel has a variety of helpful videos on how to use its various elements. You can also enroll in the aforementioned Smartsheet University.
Managing Projects: Spreadsheet-First Organization
To begin managing projects in Smartsheet, you first need to create a Workspace, which collects the boards, dashboards, forms, Gantt charts, reports, tables, and timelines that enable you to monitor progress and track tasks. You can create a custom Workspace or start with one of many customizable premade templates. You can add, customize, and remove any of the aforementioned elements from a Workspace.
(Credit: Smartsheet/PCMag)Like most other project management apps, Smartsheet's core organizational structure is based on spreadsheets. You can customize spreadsheets with a wide variety of different columns and sort them with filters and groups. Of course, if you don't like spreadsheets, you can switch to board (Kanban), calendar, card, Gantt, table, and timeline views from the top toolbar.
In testing, I created a new Workspace and then added a table to it. Doing so gave me a blank spreadsheet to play with. Then, I added columns for assigned to, current status, due date, notes, priority, and task name. Already, this lets me keep track of a team’s tasks. However, I then switched to the board view, which seamlessly moved the information from the columns into cards. I appreciate how easy it is to switch to different views.
You can manipulate spreadsheets in advanced ways, too. For instance, it's possible to comment on cells, insert images and hyperlinks, link cells to those in other spreadsheets, set up formulas within cells, and more. In general, pretty much anything possible in a spreadsheet app is possible within Smartsheet.
Smartsheet offers time-tracking tools, but you need to pay for the Resource Management add-on to access them. I wasn't able to test this functionality, but it should allow your team members to input the time they spend working on a dedicated page. Smartsheet allows for precise tracking (down to the minute) and notes. Real-time tracking isn’t available, however, which is disappointing.
You can create forms with Smartsheet, too. From the Create button in the sidebar, it takes only a few clicks to get going. Forms can include conditional logic and custom branding. Like all project management apps, though, Smartsheet’s form creation abilities can't compete with those from dedicated services, such as Jotform. Still, it’s sufficient for simpler forms, such as surveys.
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Dashboards and Reports: Track Overall Progress Easily
Dashboards and reports are Smartsheet’s primary way of tracking overall progress. Dashboards work like they do in other project management apps, such as Monday.com, meaning you can add a variety of widgets, such as charts, metrics, reports, and timelines, for an effective bird’s eye view of a particular project. You can customize each widget by selecting its data source, filters, groups, and other settings.
(Credit: Smartsheet/PCMag)Reports don’t only exist in the context of dashboards, though. You can add reports to a Workspace as separate items, in addition to a dashboard, and they come in two flavors: row reports and sheet summary reports. Row reports let you aggregate row information from multiple pages in a Workspace. For example, I created a row report, set the source to my task list page, and chose to display the assigned-to, status, and task description rows. Then, I filtered my report to display entries only with the "In Progress" status.
Alternatively, sheet summary reports work based on the summary field you can add to items in a Workspace. For example, with the task spreadsheet I created above, I added a summary field. Summary fields can be checkboxes, dates, symbols, text, and more. In my case, I wanted a date field, which a manager could fill out with the expected completion date of their team’s allotted tasks. Then, I created a summary report that included the summary field from that particular spreadsheet to view the status of that team’s task alongside other teams' tasks.
Automated Workflows: Make Smartsheet Work for You
For repetitive tasks, Smartsheet has automations. You can set one up from any page by navigating to the automation tab at the top. It's possible to create automations from scratch or use a template. At their most basic, automations are ‘if this, then that’ statements. For Smartsheet, that means triggers and actions. You can also introduce conditions to filter your triggers, applying them only in specific situations.
On the task spreadsheet I created, I added an automation with the trigger (when a comment is added or changed) and the action (alert someone). In this case, I'm that someone. Now, whenever a team member adds or edits a comment on a task in that spreadsheet, I receive a notification. Managers can use this type of automation to stay on top of work progress.
Templates help cut through the overwhelming feeling you might get from trying to create an automation from scratch. They include a wide range of popular automations, such as reminding someone on a specific date or sending an alert when a specific criterion is met. When you select a template, Smartsheet provides the action and trigger, and you simply need to fill in the particulars.
Communication and Collaboration: Proofing Stands Out
Smartsheet includes basic communication features. For example, you and others can comment on tasks in the conversation window. However, Smartsheet doesn’t have an out-of-the-box communication platform like other project management apps. Zoho Projects, for comparison, comes with chat functionality that enables you to message your teammates directly.
Integrations with communication platforms, such as Slack or Google Chat, enable you to receive notifications when events occur in Smartsheet on other platforms. Installing the Smartsheet app in Slack takes only a few clicks, after which you can receive all your Smartsheet notifications as direct messages, among other things. I would prefer to be able to message someone directly within Smartsheet itself, but the commenting capability suffices in some situations. Additionally, you likely already use Slack or a similar platform, which is still far superior to the messaging features provided in Zoho Projects.
(Credit: Smartsheet/PCMag)Smartsheet also supports proofing. This means you can upload a variety of different files as proofs, which you can then annotate in collaboration with your team. In the conversation panel on proofs, you can discuss annotations and plan out revisions. Smartsheet’s proofing isn’t the deepest proofing tool around, especially compared with ProofHub, but project management apps often don’t include this functionality at all.
Apps and Integrations: Robust Functionality
Smartsheet supports a wide range of integrations, enabling you to connect your favorite apps and services directly. As mentioned, it’s easy to connect Smartsheet with a messaging platform, such as Slack. But integrations go far beyond that. For example, you can connect Smartsheet to Microsoft Single Sign On, which allows you to use your Microsoft account to sign into Smartsheet. Alternatively, you can connect Smartsheet to SmartBackup, which allows you to back up (and restore if necessary) all your Smartsheet data. Sometimes, integrations for project management apps merely add conveniences, but Smartsheet's significantly expand its functionality.
For Enterprise and Advanced Work Management subscribers, Smartsheet offers WorkApps. Smartsheet describes these as applications you create yourself and can share with others, but they aren’t quite applications like you might think. A WorkApp is, essentially, a focused version of Smartsheet that contains only the content you put into it, such as a specific dashboard or spreadsheet. This is useful if you need to use Smartsheet but either don’t need nor want access to everything it offers.
AI Features: OK, But More Coming Soon
Smartsheet limits its AI features to its top Enterprise and Advanced Work Management plans, which require you to contact Smartsheet directly to set up. Accordingly, most Smartsheet users are unlikely to be able to use those capabilities. Other project management apps make AI features more accessible.
In any case, the AI tools are not as advanced as those in competing services. Smartsheet leverages AI to generate charts, formulas, summaries, and text, and these tools largely work as you might expect. For example, I selected the rows on my task list page and then chose to generate content based on them, prompting the AI for a summary, which it generated without issue. I also tried the Generate Formula function. I described the formula I wanted (total days allocated to a task), and then it generated it for me based on the columns (start date and end date) that were open on the page.
These features can be useful, but they’re not especially imaginative. For comparison, Zoho Projects offers the Zia AI assistant, which can answer questions about your data, and Zia Search, which enables you to find items across Zoho Projects using natural language. More AI features are on the way to Smartsheet in the future, though. Its vision encompasses AI agents, an AI assistant, AI automations, AI team management, and smart AI-powered columns, among other areas. These features aren't currently live, but you can try some of them through Smartsheet's Early Adopter program.
Privacy: Is Smartsheet Safe to Use?
Upon reviewing Smartsheet’s privacy policy, it becomes clear that the company collects a substantial amount of data. This includes all your account information and log data from devices, as well as data on your organization and more. Smartsheet also collects data about you from third parties, such as from business contact pages and social media profiles, among others. However, Smartsheet doesn’t collect customer content, which is the actual data you add to the platform during project management.
For the data Smartsheet does collect, though, it uses it in a variety of ways, some of which are seriously disappointing. For example, Smartsheet relies on user data to display personalized advertisements and shares user data with third-party platforms for advertising purposes as well. It does allow you to opt out via a form, at least.
In terms of security, Smartsheet doesn’t have a history of data breaches or leaks, as far as I can find. If you’re especially privacy-conscious, you can configure Smartsheet to require multi-factor authentication, too.