Business Sorter review

Business Sorter is a business planning software suite targeted mainly at small and mid-sized businesses. The company was founded in New Zealand in 2015 and maintains its headquarters in the city of Auckland. 

What sets Business Sorter apart from its competitors is its ease of use and help provided when creating business plans. There are ready-made, professional templates that you can use to create your A-grade business plans, and tips are provided at every point of working with the software.

Plans and pricing

Business Sorter is available via several recurring subscription tiers, starting at $10 per user each month for a small team, and going up to $80 per user each month for a large team. Custom pricing can also be discussed for larger companies. There’s a free trial period of 14 days, giving users plenty of time to check out all of the application’s features and figure out whether they want to keep using it or not.

Business Sorter also offers discounted pricing if you go with a yearly subscription rather than monthly. For example, a small team license would cost $80 per user for a year, whereas a monthly subscription would mean paying $120/user over 12 months.

The payment process for Business Sorter is very straightforward; you can pay with a debit or credit card. The only exception is if you require a custom plan for a very large enterprise which requires contacting the company directly. If so, they will send you an invoice which you pay directly.

Once you pay for Business Sorter, you can upgrade or downgrade your plan at any time, depending on the tier you picked. For example, you can easily upgrade from the ‘small team’ tier to the ‘large team’ tier if your team expands. 

Features

Business Sorter comes with a number of well-developed features, some of which set is aside from its competition with their unique implementation.

Business Plan Templates - There are professional templates already provided that you can use to create your business plan to a high standard.

Collaboration - Business Sorter supports collaboration, so that different people can work together to create a single business plan if needed.

Social Sharing - Sharing business ideas and plans on social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook is enabled on Business Sorter, making it easy to show your business plans to people of interest or the public at large.

Goal-setting - Business Sorter allows you to set goals when creating your business plans and check them off one by one as they’re completed. This makes it easy to track your progress.

Step-by-Step Wizard - You’re guided at every step when creating business plans on Business Sorter. This makes it easy to use, especially for first-time users.

Interface and in use

Business Sorter has a simple-to-use interface, one of its strengths as a business planning tool. To create a new business plan, you simply need to log in to your dashboard and select “Create New Plan.”

In the dashboard, you can also see previous business plans you have created and track their progress. If you select “Create New Plan”, you’re directed to a business plan template from which you can create yours. Notably, before you start creating a plan, Business Sorter asks you if you want to input a “SWOT” analysis. SWOT refers to “Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats”, a strategic planning technique that quantifies business competition. A SWOT checklist that you input can be referenced at any point that you’re working on your professional business plan.

Business plans on Business Sorter covers six key areas: Finance, Sales, People, Operations, Goods & Services, and Brand & Marketing. You can pick any area and sort through the objectives provided as a template. The objectives are organized via drag-and-drop “cards”.

At this point, you can also get business tips by clicking on the “i (info)” icons provided on the objectives area.

Once you’re done picking your objectives, it’s time to prioritize. You can do this by selecting up to 7 objectives according to the order of importance. 

After prioritizing, next up is to sort key steps, that is deciding the key steps that’ll help you achieve your objectives. Once you’re done with this, you can finalize your business plan.

Once you’ve reached this point, you’re done with your business plan and redirected to a menu from which you can share your business plans on social media, add other members of your organization to work on the business plan, add new tasks if need be, and more.

Business Sorter is definitely easy to use. All you need is an internet connection and a suitable device, whether a PC or mobile device, to access it. It’s a web app and doesn’t require any installs on your computer.

Customer support

Customer support is one of the most important factors of enterprise software. Business Sorter offers customer support through a contact form that you can use to get in touch with the company. The contact form isn’t just limited to customer support but also allows reporting software bugs and making comments or suggestions.

In addition to its direct customer support, Business Sorter has a FAQ page where solutions are available for common problems encountered by customers. Also, the company has an official guide to help users navigate through the technicalities of its software.

The competition

Business Sorter’s main competitors include Hirebook, Perdoo, and entomo. Compared to these peers, Business Sorter is cheaper and easier to use because it’s primarily made for business planning, while Hirebook, entomo, and other similar applications cover a broader range of enterprise functions and thus are more complex and costlier. 

Business Sorter delivers well on its promise of being an easy-to-use, straightforward tool for creating professional business plans. However, its downsides include limited compatibility with other business software and the lack of customization options if you’re a user looking to build a business plan from scratch.

Final verdict

Business Sorter scores well on our criteria that includes pricing, features, simplicity, compatibility, user-friendliness, and customer support.

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