Best Resource Planning Software for Consulting Firms (2026)

Short answer: The best resource planning software for consulting firms in 2026 depends on one question: do you only need a schedule, or do you need the plan tied to sales and billing? Runn, Float and Resource Guru are the cheapest pure planners, from $5 to $12 per person a month billed yearly. None of them sends invoices or syncs natively with HubSpot or Salesforce. Operating (operating.app), Ruddr and Projectworks connect the plan to timesheets, invoicing and your CRM. Kantata suits large firms that want a full enterprise PSA and can wait for a longer rollout.

We checked every price and plan below on the vendor's own site on October 29, 2026. Forecast.app is no longer on the list: Accelo bought it in 2025, and the site now redirects to Accelo.

Disclosure: Operating makes one of the tools below. It is listed first because it fits the firm this page is written for: 30 to 500 people, selling through a CRM and billing for time. Every price, ours included, comes from the vendor's own public page, and third-party figures are labeled.

How we picked: what consulting firms need from resource planning software

Consulting firms sell people's time, so the planning tool has to answer three questions every week. Who is free? What is coming from sales? And did last month's plan match the hours people logged? General work tools answer the first. We scored every tool on six things that cover all three:

• Placeholders. Plan an open role, such as a senior data engineer three days a week, before you know who fills it.
• Tentative work. Book unsigned deals so they show in the forecast, and filter them out when you need the firm view.
• Skills. Find people by skill and level, not by memory.
• Utilization and capacity forecast. Supply by role against demand for the next few months, with tentative work included or not.
• Plan vs actual. Scheduled hours next to logged hours, which needs timesheets in the same tool or a sync.
• Links to sales and finance. CRM deals in, invoices out to QuickBooks, Xero or your ERP.

One definition trips buyers up. Float's glossary defines utilization as scheduled hours as a share of capacity, so 20 of 40 hours is 50%. Most consulting targets use billable utilization, which counts only the hours a client pays for. Check which one a tool's report shows before you compare numbers.

The table shows where each feature sits. A plan name means the lowest plan that has it.

The 9 best resource planning tools for consulting firms

The list is ordered by fit for a consulting or IT services firm of 30 to 500 people that sells through a CRM and bills for time. If you only need a schedule, Runn, Float and Resource Guru are the ones to compare.

1. Operating: best for firms that staff from their CRM pipeline

Best for: consulting and IT services firms that sell through HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive, from about 30 people up to about 2,000.

Operating links the sales pipeline to the staffing plan. Deals from your CRM become tentative projects, where you add open roles and staff them before the deal closes. The capacity view shows supply against demand by role and skill for the coming months, with committed and tentative work side by side. You can test what winning a deal does to capacity before it closes. People's skills carry levels and interest, so you can search for a senior who wants more of a skill, not only for a name.

Plan & Track adds timesheets with approvals and planned vs actual. Full Suite adds invoicing that syncs both ways with QuickBooks Online, Xero and NetSuite. A read and write MCP server lets Claude or ChatGPT check capacity and change allocations.

Alisha David, COO at Supreme Optimization, used to spend about 3 hours a week moving CRM data into resourcing sheets. Now, she says, "it only takes me 15-20 minutes with Operating."

Price and who pays: Planning $13, Plan & Track $17 and Full Suite $21 per person a month billed yearly ($15, $19 and $23 monthly). All users count, plus anyone scheduled or allocated who never logs in. There's no published seat minimum, and pricing is custom from 100 people.

What it lacks: task management with statuses and due dates, so delivery teams keep Jira, Linear or Asana for tasks. It plans by day or week, not in hour slots inside a day.

G2: 4.7 stars.

2. Runn: best for planning-first firms of 20 people or more

Best for: firms of 20 or more that want strong forecasting and scenarios, and already invoice in another tool.

Runn is a dedicated resource planner, founded in New Zealand in 2018. Every plan includes unlimited placeholders, tentative projects and skills, and one toggle includes or excludes tentative work across the planner, charts and reports. That makes it easy to see the forecast with and without the pipeline. Standard adds timesheets, which feed Runn's planned vs actual view. Capacity and utilization charts are on every plan. Deeper capacity and workforce insights, resource requests and SmartMatch AI need Advanced, which is quote only.

Price and who pays: Standard is $11 per person a month billed yearly, or $13 monthly. Every person on the planner needs a seat, login or not, and plans start at 20 seats. Lite ($7) and Advanced are sold through Runn's sales team.

What it lacks: invoicing, and native HubSpot or Salesforce sync. A partner, Ralabs, builds custom Salesforce links. Harvest sync is on Advanced only, and we found no MCP server on Runn's public pages.

G2: 4.5 stars, from very few reviews.

3. Float: best for a simple visual schedule

Best for: teams that want a clear drag-and-drop schedule and keep time and billing elsewhere.

Float is a scheduling tool first. You drag allocations onto a timeline, and each project is draft, tentative or confirmed. Draft work stays off the live schedule and out of team-wide reports, tentative work shows on it, and confirmed work also lets people log time. Skills, tags and utilization trends are on every plan. Pro adds prefilled timesheets and planned vs actual hours. Placeholders come free up to 1 on Starter and 5 on Pro, and extras are billed as seats; unassigned roles also let you plan open roles on a project. One G2 reviewer finds it "difficult to make quick scheduling edits."

Price and who pays: Pro is $12 per scheduled person a month billed yearly, or $14 monthly. Starter is $7. You pay for everyone on the schedule; people who only view it can join free as guests. No seat minimum is stated.

What it lacks: invoicing and native CRM sync. HubSpot and Salesforce work only through Zapier. The Float MCP server is in beta and read-only.

G2: 4.3 stars.

4. Resource Guru: best for small teams on a tight budget

Best for: small and mid-size teams that book people, rooms and equipment and want the lowest list price.

Resource Guru is a booking tool. Tentative bookings, search by skill, team and role, an API and an MCP server for ChatGPT or Claude are on every plan. Blackbelt adds weekly timesheets with review and approval, forecast vs actual comparisons, heatmaps and budget tracking. Prices rose 20% on July 1, 2026, so older reviews quote lower numbers.

Price and who pays: Grasshopper $5, Blackbelt $8 and Master $12 per person a month billed yearly ($6, $9.60 and $14.40 monthly). You pay for every person you add, whether they log in or not. Rooms and equipment cost $2.50 to $6 each a month on yearly plans.

What it lacks: invoicing and native CRM sync. Free placeholders stop at 1, 5 or 10 by plan, and extras cost the per-person rate. QuickBooks and Salesforce work through Zapier, and HubSpot isn't listed. Limited features, mostly in reporting and analytics, is the top complaint theme in its G2 reviews.

G2: 4.6 stars.

5. Kantata: best for large firms that want a full enterprise PSA

Best for: firms of several hundred people with complex staffing and the budget for a long rollout.

Kantata, formerly Mavenlink and Kimble, is a full PSA that covers resourcing, time, billing and project financials. Its resource tools include a skills inventory for skill-based staffing and capacity forecasting. Its "unnamed resources" are placeholders by another name, and they can only be soft allocated, which keeps them tentative. Kantata integrates with QuickBooks, Xero, NetSuite and Sage Intacct, its SX edition runs natively on Salesforce, and its pricing page mentions built-in MCP support.

Price and who pays: quote only. VendorBenchmark estimates $60 to $90 per full user a month at list, with cheaper light and collaboration users.

What it lacks: a public price and a quick start. G2 users report about 4 months to implement and 15 months to ROI, and complex usability and the learning curve are the top complaint themes. HubSpot is on Kantata's list of standard integrations; some packages include one standard integration, and more may cost extra.

G2: 4.2 stars.

6. Productive: best for agencies that want one tool for everything

Best for: agencies and smaller consultancies that want tasks, docs, budgets, time and invoicing in one place.

Productive includes time tracking, invoicing, tentative bookings and utilization planning on every plan, and clients join free. For resource planning, the catch is placeholders: Essential has none, Professional allows up to 5 and Ultimate up to 10. HubSpot and Salesforce sync, timesheet submission and the MCP server are on Ultimate only, while time approvals start on Professional.

Price and who pays: Essential $10 and Professional $25 per user a month billed yearly ($12 and $29 monthly), with a 3-seat minimum. Ultimate is quote only; it listed at $33 yearly until July 2026, according to PricingSaaS.

What it lacks: HubSpot or Salesforce sync at a published price. Its own deals pipeline is on every plan, and from Professional you can book placeholders against deals. If CRM sync is your gap, our list of Productive.io alternatives compares costs for your team size.

G2: 4.6 stars.

7. Ruddr: best for firms with many non-billable staff

Best for: firms that want planning, time and invoicing in one tool and have a sizable non-billable team.

Ruddr is a PSA with pricing that favors firms with support staff: you pay only for billable people, as long as at least half the team is billable. Resource allocations with placeholders, HubSpot and Salesforce, plan and forecast reporting and variance reporting are on Pro. As you allocate people, Ruddr shows a live forecast of the project's hours, revenue, cost, gross profit and margin. Projects can be marked tentative, allocations can be confirmed or soft, and plan reports filter by booking type. Timesheets, invoicing, skills tracking, the API and an MCP server start on Team.

Price and who pays: Pro is $24 per billable person a month billed yearly, or $30 monthly. No seat minimum is stated.

What it lacks: resource planning on its $14 Team plan, so $24 is the real entry price for planning.

G2: 4.6 stars.

8. Projectworks: best for finance-led firms

Best for: firms where finance owns the plan and wants forecasting, invoicing and Xero or QuickBooks from day one.

Projectworks puts resourcing, time and expenses, invoicing and forecasting on its entry Build plan, with Xero and QuickBooks included. Placeholder resources hold demand on a project, and work booked to them counts as a pencil, or unconfirmed, booking. HubSpot needs Scale, and Salesforce and the API need Unleash. Its MCP server is listed as coming soon.

Price and who pays: Build $19, Scale $27 and Unleash $45 per user a month billed monthly, or about $17, $24 and $41 billed yearly (10% off). Every active person counts. The minimum is 10 users in bands of 5, monthly billing still needs a one-year commitment, and onboarding starts at $1,000.

What it lacks: a firm-wide bench of open roles, since placeholders live on each project. We found no skills-based staffing on its public pages.

G2: 4.4 stars.

9. Teamwork.com: best for teams that run tasks and resourcing together

Best for: delivery teams that manage tasks, time and client work in one project tool.

Teamwork.com is a project management tool for client work with resource planning built in. Accelerate has workload planning by role, timesheets, utilization reports, basic invoices, HubSpot, QuickBooks and Xero. Placeholders, turning CRM pipeline into tentative projects, planning by skills and Salesforce need Optimize. An MCP server is on every plan, including Free.

Price and who pays: Accelerate is $24.99 per user a month billed yearly, or $29.99 monthly, with at least 5 users. Optimize is quote only. The Free plan covers up to 5 users.

What it lacks: a public price for the features that make it a resource planning tool for consultants.

G2: 4.4 stars.

What happened to Forecast.app? Accelo acquired Forecast in July 2025, and the brand merged into Accelo on May 28, 2026. forecast.app now redirects to accelo.com, pricing is a custom quote, and Accelo's demo form says it requires a minimum of 15 users.

Resource planning vs resource scheduling vs capacity planning

The three terms overlap, and vendors use them loosely. Resource scheduling software is the calendar: who works on which project on which days. Resource planning adds the business side: rates and budgets, placeholders for roles nobody fills yet, and tentative work from sales. Capacity planning steps back to the totals. It compares supply by role with demand over the next quarter, so you can decide when to hire, when to sell harder and when to say no. You'll also see the category called resource allocation software or consultant scheduling software; the features to compare are the same.

Most tools on this list cover all three, with different depth. Float and Resource Guru are strongest at scheduling. Runn and Operating put tentative work and capacity forecasts on every plan, and the PSAs tie the plan to time and invoices. Our guide to resource management software explains the category, and capacity planning vs resource planning goes deeper on the difference.

How to pick by firm size

Under 20 people. A shared spreadsheet usually works while one person staffs everyone. When you outgrow it, Resource Guru and Float are the cheapest. Runn bills a minimum of 20 seats, and Operating isn't built for firms this small.

20 to 100 people. This is where the spreadsheet breaks, usually when more than one person edits it and you start booking work that isn't signed yet. Pick Runn or Float if invoicing stays in your accounting tool. Pick Operating, Ruddr or Projectworks if you want plan, time and invoices linked. If deals come from HubSpot or Salesforce, Operating and Ruddr sync them on their planning plans.

100 to 500 people. Skills, CRM sync and a forecast by role matter more than the schedule view. Operating, Ruddr and Projectworks fit, and Kantata starts to make sense if you want one enterprise PSA. Operating's pricing becomes custom from 100 people.

500 people and up. Enterprise PSAs such as Kantata and Certinia come into play at this size, alongside Operating. If your firm runs on Salesforce, read Certinia vs Operating. For full PSA suites beyond resource planning, see our best PSA software for consulting firms.

3 rollout tips that matter for consulting firms

1. Bring the pipeline in on day one. Connect your CRM, or at least enter big deals as tentative projects, and agree on one rule for when a deal becomes a booking. Productive's capacity planning guide says many teams use a 70% win-probability threshold. Pick your own number and stick to it, or the forecast means something different every week.

2. Plan in days or weeks, not hours. Hour-by-hour plans rarely survive a client week, and keeping them current is what sends teams back to spreadsheets. Give the plan one owner and one weekly staffing meeting where it gets updated. There's more in our guide to consulting workload management.

3. Close the loop with logged time. A plan you never compare with actual hours drifts. Keep timesheets in the same tool or sync them, and review planned vs actual hours by person and project every month.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best resource planning software for consulting firms?

It depends on what the plan must connect to. For a schedule only, Runn, Float and Resource Guru are the cheapest at $8 to $12 per person a month with timesheets. For planning tied to CRM deals, timesheets and invoicing, Operating, Ruddr and Projectworks fit firms of 30 to 500 people. Kantata suits large firms that want an enterprise PSA.

How much does resource planning software cost?

Published prices run from $5 per person a month (Resource Guru Grasshopper) to about $41 (Projectworks Unleash) billed yearly, as of October 2026, and most planning plans sit between $8 and $25. For 50 people with placeholders and timesheets, that's $4,800 a year on Resource Guru, $6,600 on Runn, $7,200 on Float, $10,200 on Operating, $10,260 on Projectworks, $11,520 on Ruddr and $15,000 on Productive. Kantata and Teamwork.com's Optimize plan are quote only.

Is there free resource scheduling software?

None of the nine tools here has a free plan with resource scheduling. Teamwork.com's Free plan (up to 5 users and 5 projects) covers tasks and time logging, but its workload planning starts on Accelerate at $24.99. Most tools offer free trials instead. Runn's Standard trial lasts 30 days, and Operating has a free trial too.

What is resource scheduling?

Resource scheduling is assigning people to projects on specific days or weeks. It shows who is busy and who is free. Resource planning adds rates, budgets, placeholders and tentative work, and capacity planning compares supply and demand by role over the coming months.

What is a capacity planning tool?

A capacity planning tool compares the hours your people have with the hours your projects and pipeline need, by role or skill, over the next weeks and months. It tells you when to hire, when to sell more and when to move people. Runn, Operating and Kantata have dedicated capacity views.

Can I use Jira for capacity planning?

For software teams, partly. Jira's individual capacity planning is available on its Premium and Enterprise plans. It plans work items, not billable client work, so it has no rates, tentative client projects or billable utilization. Many IT consultancies keep Jira for delivery and use a resource planning tool for staffing. Runn, Resource Guru, Projectworks (on Scale) and Kantata list Jira integrations, Productive has a Jira time tracking add-on, and Operating connects through its REST API.

Can I use Excel for resource planning?

Yes, while one person staffs a small team. It breaks when several people edit the file, when you plan unsigned work, or when you need planned vs actual hours. That's usually the point to move to a tool.

What is a placeholder in resource planning?

A placeholder is an open role, such as a senior designer, that you book on a project before you know who will fill it. It shows demand you can't yet staff, which tells you when to hire or move people. Plans differ a lot here: Float includes 5 free placeholders on Pro and bills extras as seats, while Runn includes unlimited placeholders on every plan.

Is Forecast.app still available?

Not as its own product. Accelo acquired Forecast in July 2025, and since May 28, 2026 forecast.app redirects to Accelo. Accelo sells on custom quotes, and its demo form says it requires a minimum of 15 users.

How we compared these tools

On October 29, 2026 we checked each vendor's pricing page, plan comparison and help center. Prices are USD list prices per person per month, and totals use each vendor's seat rules with no unpublished discounts. G2 ratings are star ratings only. The Float quote comes from a G2 review, and the Supreme Optimization quote from Operating's case study. Kantata's price is a VendorBenchmark estimate and Productive's last Ultimate price comes from PricingSaaS; both are labeled where used.

Sources: Operating pricing, Operating integrations, Operating resource management, Operating capacity planning, Supreme Optimization case study, Runn pricing, Runn integrations, Runn tentative projects, Runn about, Float pricing, Float glossary, Float draft projects, Float HubSpot via Zapier, Float MCP, Float placeholders, Float unassigned roles, Float integrations, Resource Guru pricing, Resource Guru integrations, Resource Guru 2026 pricing FAQ, Kantata pricing, Kantata PSA, Kantata resource management, Kantata integrations, Kantata standard integrations, Kantata unnamed resources, VendorBenchmark on Kantata, Productive pricing, Productive placeholders, Productive Salesforce integration, PricingSaaS on Productive, Productive capacity planning guide, Ruddr pricing, Ruddr resource management, Ruddr soft bookings, Ruddr project status, Projectworks pricing, Projectworks placeholder resources, Teamwork.com pricing, Accelo on Forecast, Jira individual capacity, Operating on G2, Runn on G2, Float on G2, Resource Guru on G2, Kantata on G2, Productive on G2, Ruddr on G2, Projectworks on G2, Teamwork.com on G2. All accessed October 29, 2026.