8 Best Alternatives to Spreadsheet For Capacity Planning

Capacity planning is important for balancing workloads, meeting deadlines, and allocating resources effectively. Many teams initially turn to spreadsheets because they’re familiar and readily available. But over time, they quickly overgrow the spreadsheets and run into some constraints. For example, the spreadsheets can’t provide real‑time visibility into resource attributes, lack forecasting capabilities, and are prone to human error.

As your team grows and projects become more complex, you’d realize that these spreadsheets are creating more problems than they solve, and you’d need alternatives to spreadsheets for capacity planning. In this article, we share the best alternatives you can choose from if you’re at the point of switching from spreadsheets to a proper capacity planning tool.

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What to Consider When Choosing A Capacity Planning Tool

When looking for alternatives to Excel for capacity planning, focus on the following factors:

Integration with your work management tools: If you use Jira as your project management tool, choose a tool that connects to Jira. This ensures that story points and hour estimates are pulled directly from your project boards. For instance, with Quely, once you create a Sprint in Jira, you can export the entire sprint into a Quely session and from there, plan capacity and much more.

Forecasting and scenario modelling: Your new capacity planning tool should make it incredibly easy to model different team size, velocity and "what-if" scenarios. Long story short, it should make it easy to  explore different situations and see how changes in team composition, development priorities, or velocity estimates affect your capacity, which is difficult to do in a spreadsheet.

Built-in Collaboration Context: Capacity planning is a collaborative exercise. A great tool should support conversations so your team members can discuss resources,  availability changes, and more.

Reliable Performance as You Grow: Ensure the tool you choose is responsive when handling your expected team size and project volume. Consider whether it can maintain historical sprint data for trend analysis without becoming sluggish. This is valuable for improving future estimates.

Visualizations: The most useful tools offer visualizations that make it easy to see who's at capacity. You should be able to see total hours available, hours overdue and capacity for each team member.

Transparent Cost Structure: Compare different pricing approaches (per-user, workspace, or project-based) to find what aligns with your budget. There may be additional costs for advanced capabilities like AI-powered estimation or API access that might become important as your process matures.

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Top Tools That Can Replace Spreadsheets for Capacity Planning

In this section, you’ll see real-world scenarios matched with the right tools. For each team size and need—whether you’re a small sprint squad or a multi-project enterprise, you’ll discover the capacity-planning solution that fits. Dive in to find the tool that swaps out your spreadsheet struggles for clear forecasts, live Jira sync, and built-in collaboration.

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What capacity planning tools are best for small Agile teams (5–10 people)?

Even as a small 5-person team, you'd quickly run into some problems with spreadsheets. If you're looking to switch, you should look out for a tool that shows everyone’s workload in one place and lets you make quick adjustments based on individual and team availability.

What small teams need

• A plug‑in or simple tool that works with your existing software (such as Jira) so you don’t have to re‑enter data.
• Easy ways to track who’s available and by how much, and data that show if someone is overloaded.
• Built‑in comments or chat next to each task, so conversations about capacity stay linked to the work, not in separate chats or emails.

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Here are some of the capacity planning tools you can use if you're a small team between 5-10 people:

ActivityTimeline for Jira

Strengths
ActivityTimeline is a Jira plug‑in. It uses drag‑and‑drop scheduling, shows each team member’s workload, and offers custom reports. Reviews from sites like G2 say it integrates smoothly with Jira and “makes it easy to track time, create reports, and improve productivity”.

Weak points
Some users mention that the view is “confusing at first”. Others wish it had extra features like “Time in status” metrics. If you value simplicity and don’t need deep analytics, these issues may not matter.

Quely (Jira plug‑in)

Strengths
Quely installs directly into your Jira board. It helps you estimate tasks with Fibonacci sequence and also brings in AI into the estimation process. You can chat about each task right in the tool and pull in your sprint in Jira into the platform easily.

Weak points
While any team can use Quely, it only directly integrates into Jira. It also doesn't support other functionalities like time tracking

Toggl Plan (standalone)

Strengths
Toggl Plan is a web‑based planner that doesn’t require Jira. People like its “user friendly, simple interface” and say it’s “easy to collaborate with team members. A review in software advice read says will definitely recommend to others.

Weak points
Some users found it hard to change the timeline’s granularity and note there’s “no app that can sync with the calendar. Others think the hourly assignment feature is inconvenient. If you need mobile access or granular time‑tracking, these limitations are important.

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What capacity planning tools is best for growing teams (10–30 engineers) that want to scale their planning?

When your team grows beyond a handful of developers, a spreadsheet won't be suitable for capacity planning. Manually updating formulas to forecast capacity becomes too much chore and unreliable

Typical issues with growing teams

• Spreadsheets create conflicting versions, so there’s no single source of truth.
• Forecasting headcount or support needs requires manual calculations.
• Conversations about capacity happen in a different platform.

What to look for in a tool

• Supports integration with Jira so story points, hour estimates and availability update automatically.
• Supports estimation methods, such as Fibonacci‑based or AI‑powered suggestions, to standardise complexity scoring.
• Real‑time dashboards showing who is overloaded or under‑utilised.
• Built‑in comment threads attached to each task, so discussions stay with the work instead of getting lost elsewhere.

Tools to consider

• Runn: A standalone platform combining scheduling, forecasting and basic financial insights. Reviewers praise its “easy, clear, and simple UI” that makes managing workloads straightforward. They also like how easy it is to implement and the responsiveness of customer support. On the downside, some users wish for more custom reporting and permission options or additional HR features for tracking skills and availability.
• ActivityTimeline (Jira plug‑in): Integrates directly with Jira, offering drag‑and‑drop scheduling and custom reports. Users say it “makes it easy to track time, create reports, and improve productivity". They appreciate its flexible reports and responsive support. Some, however, find the interface confusing at first or wish it included extra metrics like “time in status”.
• Advanced Roadmaps (Atlassian): Part of Jira Premium, this tool provides portfolio‑level views, scenario modelling and dependency mapping. It’s well‑suited for teams already using Jira Software who need to experiment with multiple scenarios. However, some users mention a steep learning curve and limited financial reporting.
• Quely (Jira plug‑in): In addition to capacity planning, Quely offers AI‑assisted estimation as well as built‑in chat so you can have conversations about your team capacity in the same place where you're doing your planning. If you want to integrate AI into sprint planning, you'd love Quely.

What capacity‑planning tools should enterprises choose? (50+ engineers and multiple projects)

Managing capacity across dozens of teams isn’t just about filling a spreadsheet. It's about having a view that rolls up all projects and dependencies, lets you save and revisit planning scenarios, and doesn’t slow down when hundreds of people use it. So if you need a capacity planning tool that move beyond single, one‑off scenarios to templates you can reuse and update for forecast cycles, here are some tools to consider:

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What to look for

• Robust portfolio management, ideally integrated with Jira, or a high‑powered external platform with its own API.
• Multi‑scenario planning and historical snapshots so you can model different hiring or prioritisation decisions and track how plans change over time.
• Executive dashboards and exports—clear reports you can share with stakeholders.

Tools to consider

• Advanced Roadmaps (Atlassian): Part of Jira Premium, Advanced Roadmaps lets you roll up multiple boards into a single portfolio, map cross‑team dependencies and experiment with different scenarios. Organisations already using Jira appreciate its seamless integration and native support for cross‑team planning. On the downside, some users find it takes time to learn and note that financial tracking is limited, so it may not suffice if you need revenue forecasting.
• Runn: A cloud‑based platform combining real‑time resource scheduling, multi‑scenario forecasting and basic financial insights. Reviewers say its interface is “easy, clear, and simple,” making workload management straightforward. They also like how simple it is to implement and the responsive customer support. However, some users wish for more custom reporting and stronger permission controls, and others want deeper HR management features like tracking individual skills.
• Forecast: A professional services tool that uses AI and machine learning to predict resource demand and project timelines. Users appreciate how easy it is to set up and its integration with Harvest, noting that “Forecast is easy to use” and the visual appearance makes it simple to see who’s available. Another reviewer mentions that “the interface is clean and modern” and it’s easy to get started. On the flip side, some users say the integration with Harvest can be “lumpy,” requiring manual updates. Others report that the forecasting logic doesn’t fit every project style and customization feels limited. Some also mention performance issues like slow load times.

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Best capacity planning tool to choose if you run a service-based org or consultancy

For consultancies and agencies, capacity planning is directly tied to revenue. Every hour not billed is lost income. You’re juggling multiple clients, each with their own rate cards and must plan your team’s time to maximise billable utilisation. At the same time, finance expects every capacity plan to forecast ROI and justify where resources are allocated. This means you need a system that goes beyond simple scheduling to match the right skills to each project and show how each engagement contributes to the bottom line.

What to look for

• A standalone platform that combines scheduling with cost forecasting—this should let you assign people based on skills and rates, then forecast revenue and utilization in one place.
• Support for skills‑based scheduling and rate cards so you can match the right consultant to each project.
• Integrations or APIs to connect with Jira and your finance tools, avoiding manual data entry.

Tools to consider

• Resource Guru: This cloud‑based tool focuses on simple, visual scheduling. Users frequently praise its usability, interface and flexibility. They like being able to colour‑code jobs by client and customise customer fields On the downside, some reviewers say Resource Guru lacks advanced features such as task‑copying and detailed checklists. Others criticise it as “a glorified spreadsheet,” noting it caused more problems than it solved, with mobile usability issues and cumbersome drop‑down menus.
• Saviom: Designed for enterprise‑grade resource management, it offers detailed analytics, intuitive scheduling and customizable workflows. Reviewers appreciate its real‑time forecasting and multi‑dimensional scheduler, noting that it helps them align consultant time with billable work and track capacity vs. demand. However, many mention a steep learning curve due to the breadth of features‍. Pricing isn’t transparent as it usually requires a consultation.
• Kantata (formerly Mavenlink): Kantata unifies resource management, project management and financial tracking. Users like that they can access detailed financial data and time tracking in one system, which helps with budgeting. They also say it improves process control and makes it easy to track employee hours. On the flip side, some complain that customer service response times can be slow, the software is expensive and the mobile app is hard to use. Other reviewers mention a relatively steep learning curve for new users

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‍Conclusion

At first, Spreadsheets might feel like the simplest way to manage capacity, but they quickly become a bottleneck as your team grows. If you ever run into problems that make it make it hard to see who’s available or when you need to hire, then you need to replace the spreadsheets with a capacity planning tool. Whether you choose a Jira plug‑in or a standalone platform, the right solution will give you a clear view of team availability, make task assignments intuitive and help you adapt as priorities shift.

If you’re looking for a tool that integrates into Jira, supports estimation, offers AI‑assisted estimation and has built‑in chat, consider Quely. See how it supports capacity planning.