Two completely different philosophies for planning software. One embraces Excel, the other replaces it. Here's what actually matters when choosing between them.
The short version
Vena Solutions is the Excel-native planning platform. It keeps your familiar spreadsheet interface and bolts on a proper OLAP cube backend, version control, audit trails, and workflow automation. If your finance team lives in Excel and refuses to leave, Vena meets them where they are. Founded in 2011, backed by a $300M Series C from Vista Equity, with over 1,000 customers worldwide.
Anaplan is the purpose-built enterprise planning engine. The Hyperblock architecture was designed from scratch for connected planning across finance, sales, supply chain, and workforce. It deliberately moves you away from spreadsheets into something more powerful - and more complex. Over 20 years in market, trusted by the Fortune 500.
These are fundamentally different tools solving the same problem in different ways. The right choice depends on your team's appetite for change, the complexity of your planning needs, and how deeply embedded Microsoft is in your organisation.
Feature comparison
| Vena | Anaplan | |
|---|---|---|
| User interface | Native Excel front end | Purpose-built web UI |
| Implementation time | 4-12 weeks typical | 3-9 months typical |
| Annual license cost | Mid-market pricing | Enterprise pricing |
| Excel dependency | Core to the experience | Deliberately replaces it |
| Connected planning | Finance-centric | Cross-functional at scale |
| User adoption | High - it's just Excel | Requires training investment |
| Market maturity | 13 years, strong mid-market | 20+ years, enterprise standard |
| Microsoft integration | Deep native (Teams, Power BI, Azure AD) | Available via connectors |
AI capabilities
Both platforms are adding AI features, though from very different starting points. Anaplan is further ahead, but Vena's Microsoft ecosystem gives it a different kind of advantage.
Vena benefits from the broader Microsoft AI ecosystem. Copilot integration brings natural language queries to Excel-based planning. Power BI's AI visuals work natively with Vena data. The approach is less about building proprietary AI and more about leveraging Microsoft's investment.
Purpose-built AI agents for Finance, Sales, Supply Chain, and Workforce functions. CoModeler turns business requirements into models. Predictive forecasting and anomaly detection built directly into the planning engine. More mature and more deeply integrated than most competitors.
Our take: Anaplan's native AI is stronger today. But Vena's bet on the Microsoft ecosystem could pay off as Copilot matures. Neither platform's AI should be the deciding factor - get the core planning right first.
When to choose
This isn't a criticism - it's a reality. If your finance team has spent years building Excel skills and your budgeting process lives in spreadsheets, Vena adds governance without forcing anyone to learn a new interface. Adoption problems disappear.
Teams for collaboration, SharePoint for documents, Power BI for reporting, Azure AD for identity. If that's your stack, Vena slots in naturally. The integrations aren't bolted on - they're native. Single sign-on, embedded dashboards, the lot.
Vena implementations typically run 4-12 weeks because you're not rebuilding your planning logic from scratch. You're taking existing Excel templates, connecting them to a proper database, and adding workflow. The learning curve is weeks, not months.
Mid-market pricing, faster implementation, lower training costs. For organisations spending under 100k on planning software, Vena's total cost of ownership is typically significantly lower than Anaplan's. That matters when you're justifying the investment.
When to choose
Finance, sales, supply chain, workforce - all linked in real time. If your demand forecast needs to flow automatically into production planning, headcount, and P&L impact, Anaplan's Hyperblock engine was built for exactly this.
At enterprise scale, you need sophisticated permissions, governance, and audit capabilities. Anaplan handles thousands of concurrent users with the security and control that enterprise IT teams require. Vena works at this scale too, but it's not the sweet spot.
Multi-entity consolidation across 50 countries. Driver-based models with dozens of dimensions. Scenario planning that needs to cascade across every function. Anaplan handles complexity that would break Excel-based approaches, no matter how well governed.
Sometimes the problem is Excel itself. Row-and-column thinking limits how you model the business. Anaplan's multi-dimensional approach forces better planning discipline. That's painful at first but transformative long term.
The honest truth
The same thing that makes Vena easy to adopt also limits it. Excel's row-column structure doesn't naturally handle multi-dimensional planning. As your models grow more complex, you'll hit constraints that a purpose-built engine wouldn't face.
License fees, implementation costs, specialist model builders, ongoing admin. The total cost of ownership for Anaplan is typically 3-5x Vena's for comparable scope. Make sure you actually need that power before committing to pay for it.
Finding certified Anaplan model builders is hard enough. Finding experienced Vena administrators is harder still. The platform is growing fast, but the ecosystem of implementation partners and independent consultants lags behind Anaplan's.
We've seen it repeatedly: organisations buy Anaplan, build sophisticated models, and then watch as finance teams quietly go back to Excel because the interface feels foreign. If you're not prepared to invest seriously in change management, this will happen to you too.
On pricing
This is where the comparison gets stark. Vena's licensing typically lands in the mid-market range - think tens of thousands per year for most deployments. Anaplan is enterprise-priced, and for similar user counts you're often looking at multiples of Vena's cost.
But licensing is only part of the picture. Anaplan implementations run longer and require specialist builders, so professional services costs are higher. Ongoing admin typically requires dedicated (and expensive) Anaplan talent. Vena's Excel-native approach means your existing finance team can often manage templates themselves.
The honest answer: if Vena can do what you need, it will cost significantly less. The question is whether it can. For straightforward FP&A - budgeting, forecasting, reporting - it usually can. For complex connected planning across multiple functions, it usually can't.
Alternative paths
Sometimes the answer isn't Vena or Anaplan. It's something else entirely.
You need modern UX without Excel. If you want to leave spreadsheets behind but find Anaplan too heavy, look at Pigment or Planful. They sit in between - modern interfaces, faster implementations, strong FP&A capabilities.
Your problem is consolidation, not planning. If statutory close and consolidation is the primary pain, purpose-built tools like CCH Tagetik or Oracle EPM may serve you better. Different tools for different problems.
Your Excel actually works fine. If you have under 30 planning users and your spreadsheets are well-structured with good version control, you might not need platform software yet. Fix processes first, automate later.
We've talked clients out of both Vena and Anaplan when simpler solutions made more sense. That's what vendor-neutral advice looks like.
How to decide
Before choosing a platform, understand what you actually have. How many planning spreadsheets? How many users? What's the logic? If your Excel models are simple, Vena is a natural evolution. If they're already breaking, you might need Anaplan's horsepower.
Not with demo data - with your actual messy spreadsheets. See how each platform handles your specific budgeting process. This tells you more than any vendor presentation or comparison guide.
IT will lean towards the more "enterprise" option. Finance will lean towards what feels familiar. Both perspectives matter, but the people who'll use the tool daily should have the loudest voice in the decision.
License fees, implementation, training, ongoing admin, specialist hires. Anaplan's TCO over three years can be 3-5x Vena's. Make sure the additional capability justifies the additional spend for your specific use case.
Questions
The Bolt Blueprint includes a vendor-neutral platform recommendation based on your actual requirements, data complexity, and team capacity. From £5,000, credited if you proceed.
Start with the Bolt BlueprintWe can walk you through the decision based on your specific requirements. No sales agenda - just honest advice from people who know both platforms well.