LivePlan is one of the most established names in business planning software, trusted by banks and used by hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs since 2011. SimpleFeasibility is a newer entrant that does something fundamentally different. Understanding that difference is essential to choosing the right tool for where you are in your business journey.
LivePlan helps you plan a business. SimpleFeasibility helps you decide whether to start one.
What Each Tool Actually Does
LivePlan is a subscription-based business planning platform. You work through a guided process to build a business plan — entering your business concept, target market, revenue assumptions, and expense estimates. LivePlan structures this into a professional document with P&L projections, cash flow statements, and growth dashboards. It integrates with QuickBooks and Xero to track actual performance against projections. SimpleFeasibility is an AI-powered feasibility analysis tool. You describe your business concept, and the AI conducts market research using Google Search-grounded data, builds a financial model with NPV/IRR/payback calculations, and delivers a go/no-go recommendation — all in minutes. The output includes an interactive What-If analyser for testing scenarios and an editable Excel financial model.The fundamental difference: LivePlan requires you to supply most of the data (market estimates, revenue assumptions, expense figures). SimpleFeasibility generates the data from real-time market research and builds the financial model for you.
Feature Comparison
| Feature | SimpleFeasibility | LivePlan |
|---|---|---|
| Primary Purpose | Feasibility validation | Business plan creation |
| Market Research | AI-generated from real web data | User-supplied |
| Financial Data Entry | Automatic (AI-generated) | Manual (you enter assumptions) |
| NPV Calculation | Yes | No |
| IRR Calculation | Yes | No |
| Payback Period | Yes | No |
| What-If Analysis | Interactive sliders, real-time | Limited scenario comparison |
| Goal Seek | Yes | No |
| Industry Benchmarking | Via market research | Yes (comparative data) |
| QuickBooks/Xero Integration | No | Yes |
| Performance Tracking | No | Yes (actual vs plan dashboard) |
| Collaboration | No | Yes (team sharing) |
| Bank-Ready Format | Feasibility report format | Business plan format |
| Sample Plans/Templates | N/A | 500+ |
| Pricing | $200–$2,000 per study | $15–$40/month |
| Time to Complete | 2–8 minutes | 8–40 hours |
The Time Investment Gap
This is perhaps the most significant practical difference. LivePlan's guided approach is thorough, but it requires substantial time investment from the user. You need to research your market, estimate your revenue, project your expenses, and input all of this data into the platform. Realistically, creating a solid LivePlan business plan takes 8–40 hours of work spread over days or weeks.
SimpleFeasibility generates a complete feasibility analysis in 2–8 minutes. The AI handles the market research, builds the revenue model, estimates costs based on industry benchmarks, and calculates financial returns automatically.
This speed difference becomes particularly important when you're evaluating multiple ideas. Testing 5 different business concepts in LivePlan could take 40–200 hours. In SimpleFeasibility, it takes 10–40 minutes.
The Financial Depth Gap
LivePlan produces excellent P&L projections and cash flow statements — the standard financial documents that banks expect to see in a business plan. But it doesn't calculate the investment-grade metrics that feasibility analysis requires.
SimpleFeasibility calculates NPV, IRR, and payback period automatically — the metrics that answer the investment question: "Does this project generate adequate returns for the risk involved?"
A LivePlan business plan might show that your restaurant generates $150,000 annual profit by year three. That sounds great. But SimpleFeasibility would tell you whether that $150,000 profit justifies the $400,000 investment when you account for the time value of money, the opportunity cost of capital, and the ramp-up period of negative cash flow. The answer isn't always yes.
The Data Quality Question
LivePlan's data quality depends entirely on your input. If your market estimates are optimistic, your plan will be optimistically wrong. If your expense projections miss a major cost category, your financial model will overstate profitability. LivePlan structures your assumptions beautifully, but it can't tell you whether those assumptions are correct.
SimpleFeasibility's data comes from Google Search-grounded AI research. Every data point is sourced from real, verifiable web sources — industry reports, government statistics, market analyses, and competitive intelligence. The sources are cited so you can verify them independently.
Neither approach is perfect. LivePlan benefits from your personal knowledge and industry experience. SimpleFeasibility benefits from breadth and speed of research. The most rigorous approach uses SimpleFeasibility's research as a foundation and supplements it with your own knowledge and experience.
Who Uses Each Tool?
LivePlan's typical user is a founder who has decided to start a business and needs a structured plan to guide execution, apply for a bank loan, or present to investors. They're willing to invest days of work in the planning process and value the ongoing tracking capabilities. SimpleFeasibility's typical user is someone evaluating whether to start a business — or an investor evaluating whether to fund one. They need a fast, data-driven answer to the viability question before committing significant time or money to detailed planning.There's also a professional user segment: business consultants who use SimpleFeasibility to rapidly validate client concepts before recommending (and potentially charging for) full business planning with tools like LivePlan.
Pricing Reality
| Usage Pattern | SimpleFeasibility | LivePlan |
|---|---|---|
| Quick validation of 1 idea | $200 (one-time) | $180/year minimum |
| Full analysis of 1 idea | $500–$2,000 | $180–$480/year |
| Testing 5 concepts | $1,000–$2,500 | $180–$480/year (same) |
| Ongoing planning + tracking | Not designed for this | $180–$480/year |
| Year-round business management | Not designed for this | $180–$480/year |
For one-time validation, SimpleFeasibility is more cost-effective. For ongoing business planning and performance tracking, LivePlan's subscription model makes sense because the tool is designed for continuous use.
The Verdict: Sequential, Not Competitive
The most honest answer is that these tools aren't competitors — they're sequential steps in the same process.
Step 1 — SimpleFeasibility: Validate the concept. Get real market data, investment-grade financial analysis, and a go/no-go recommendation. Cost: $200–$500. Time: 2–8 minutes. Step 2 — LivePlan (if Step 1 says go): Build the detailed business plan. Use SimpleFeasibility's market data and financial benchmarks as your starting inputs. Cost: $15–$40/month. Time: 8–40 hours.Skipping Step 1 and going straight to Step 2 means spending days planning a business that might not be viable. Starting with Step 1 ensures every hour you invest in Step 2 is well-spent.
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