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10 Free Business Plan Templates in Word, Excel, & ClickUp
ClickUp Contributor
February 13, 2024
Turning your vision into a clear and coherent business plan can be confusing and tough.
Hours of brainstorming and facing an intimidating blank page can raise more questions than answers. Are you covering everything? What should go where? How do you keep each section thorough but brief?
If these questions have kept you up at night and slowed your progress, know you’re not alone. That’s why we’ve put together the top 10 business plan templates in Word, Excel, and ClickUp—to provide answers, clarity, and a structured framework to work with. This way, you’re sure to capture all the relevant information without wasting time.
And the best part? Business planning becomes a little less “ugh!” and a lot more “aha!” 🤩
What is a Business Plan Template?
What makes a good business plan template, 1. clickup business plan template, 2. clickup sales plan template, 3. clickup business development action plan template, 4. clickup business roadmap template, 5. clickup business continuity plan template, 6. clickup lean business plan template, 7. clickup small business action plan template, 8. clickup strategic business roadmap template , 9. microsoft word business plan template by microsoft, 10. excel business plan template by vertex42.
A business plan template is a structured framework for entrepreneurs and business executives who want to create business plans. It comes with pre-arranged sections and headings that cover key elements like the executive summary , business overview, target customers, unique value proposition, marketing plans, and financial statements.
A good business plan template helps with thorough planning, clear documentation, and practical implementation. Here’s what to look for:
- Comprehensive structure: A good template comes with all the relevant sections to outline a business strategy, such as executive summary, market research and analysis, and financial projections
- Clarity and guidance: A good template is easy to follow. It has brief instructions or prompts for each section, guiding you to think deeply about your business and ensuring you don’t skip important details
- Clean design: Aesthetics matter. Choose a template that’s not just functional but also professionally designed. This ensures your plan is presentable to stakeholders, partners, and potential investors
- Flexibility : Your template should easily accommodate changes without hassle, like adding or removing sections, changing content and style, and rearranging parts 🛠️
While a template provides the structure, it’s the information you feed it that brings it to life. These pointers will help you pick a template that aligns with your business needs and clearly showcases your vision.
10 Business Plan Templates to Use in 2024
Preparing for business success in 2024 (and beyond) requires a comprehensive and organized business plan. We’ve handpicked the best templates to help you guide your team, attract investors, and secure funding. Let’s check them out.
If you’re looking to replace a traditional business plan document, then ClickUp’s Business Plan Template is for you!
This one-page business plan template, designed in ClickUp Docs , is neatly broken down into the following sections:
- Company description : Overview, mission, vision, and team
- Market analysis : Problem, solution, target market, competition, and competitive advantage
- Sales and marketing strategy : Products/services and marketing channels
- Operational plan : Location and facilities, equipment and tools, manpower, and financial forecasts
- Milestones and metrics: Targets and KPIs
Customize the template with your company logo and contact details, and easily navigate to different sections using the collapsible table of contents. The mini prompts under each section guide you on what to include—with suggestions on how to present the data (e.g., bullet lists, pictures, charts, and tables).
You can share the document with anyone via URL and collaborate in real time. And when the business plan is ready, you have the option to print it or export it to PDF, HTML, or Markdown.
But that’s not all. This template is equipped with basic and enterprise project management features to streamline the business plan creation process . The Topics List view has a list of all the different sections and subsections of the template and allows you to assign it to a team member, set a due date, and attach relevant documents and references.
Switch from List to Board view to track and update task statuses according to the following: To Do, In Progress, Needs Revision, and Complete.
This template is a comprehensive toolkit for documenting the different sections of your business plan and streamlining the creation process to ensure it’s completed on time. 🗓️
If you’re looking for a tool to kickstart or update your sales plan, ClickUp’s Sales Plan Template has got you covered. This sales plan template features a project summary list with tasks to help you craft a comprehensive and effective sales strategy. Some of these tasks include:
- Determine sales objectives and goals
- Draft positioning statement
- Perform competitive analysis
- Draft ideal customer persona
- Create a lead generation strategy
Assign each task to a specific individual or team, set priority levels , and add due dates. Specify what section of the sales plan each task belongs to (e.g., executive summary, revenue goals, team structure, etc.), deliverable type (such as document, task, or meeting), and approval state (like pending, needs revisions, and approved).
And in ClickUp style, you can switch to multiple views: List for a list of all tasks, Board for visual task management, Timeline for an overview of task durations, and Gantt to get a view of task dependencies.
This simple business plan template is perfect for any type of business looking to create a winning sales strategy while clarifying team roles and keeping tasks organized. ✨
Thinking about scaling your business’s reach and operations but unsure where or how to start? It can be overwhelming, no doubt—you need a clear vision, measurable goals, and an actionable plan that every member of your team can rally behind.
Thankfully, ClickUp’s Business Development Action Plan Template is designed to use automations to simplify this process so every step toward your business growth is clear, trackable, and actionable.
Start by assessing your current situation and deciding on your main growth goal. Are you aiming to increase revenue, tap into new markets, or introduce new products or services? With ClickUp Whiteboards or Docs, brainstorm and collaborate with your team on this decision.
Set and track your short- and long-term growth goals with ClickUp’s Goals , break them down into smaller targets, and assign these targets to team members, complete with due dates. Add these targets to a new ClickUp Dashboard to track real-time progress and celebrate small wins. 🎉
Whether you’re a startup or small business owner looking to hit your next major milestone or an established business exploring new avenues, this template keeps your team aligned, engaged, and informed every step of the way.
ClickUp’s Business Roadmap Template is your go-to for mapping out major strategies and initiatives in areas like revenue growth, brand awareness, community engagement, and customer satisfaction.
Use the List view to populate tasks under each initiative. With Custom Fields, you can capture which business category (e.g., Product, Operations, Sales & Marketing, etc.) tasks fall under and which quarter they’re slated for. You can also link to relevant documents and resources and evaluate tasks by effort and impact to ensure the most critical tasks get the attention they deserve. 👀
Depending on your focus, this template provides different views to show just what you need. For example, the All Initiatives per Quarter view lets you focus on what’s ahead by seeing tasks that need completion within a specific quarter. This ensures timely execution and helps in aligning resources effectively for the short term.
This template is ideal for business executives and management teams who need to coordinate multiple short- and long-term initiatives and business strategies.
In business, unexpected threats to operations can arise at any moment. Whether it’s economic turbulence, a global health crisis, or supply chain interruptions, every company needs to be ready. ClickUp’s Business Continuity Plan Template lets you prepare proactively for these unforeseen challenges.
The template organizes tasks into three main categories:
- Priorities: Tasks that need immediate attention
- Continuity coverage: Tasks that must continue despite challenges
- Guiding principles: Resources and protocols to ensure smooth operations
The Board view makes it easy to visualize all the tasks under each of these categories. And the Priorities List sorts tasks by those that are overdue, the upcoming ones, and then the ones due later.
In times of uncertainty, being prepared is your best strategy. This template helps your business not just survive but thrive in challenging situations, keeping your customers, employees, and investors satisfied. 🤝
Looking to execute your business plan the “lean” way? Use ClickUp’s Lean Business Plan Template . It’s designed to help you optimize resource usage and cut unnecessary steps—giving you better results with less effort.
In the Plan Summary List view, list all the tasks that need to get done. Add specific details like who’s doing each task, when it’s due, and which part of the Business Model Canvas (BMC) it falls under. The By Priority view sorts this list based on priorities like Urgent, High, Normal, and Low. This makes it easy to spot the most important tasks and tackle them first.
Additionally, the Board view gives you an overview of task progression from start to finish. And the BMC view rearranges these tasks based on the various BMC components.
Each task can further be broken down into subtasks and multiple checklists to ensure all related action items are executed. ✔️
This template is an invaluable resource for startups and large enterprises looking to maximize process efficiencies and results in a streamlined and cost-effective way.
The Small Business Action Plan Template by ClickUp is tailor-made for small businesses looking to transform their business ideas and goals into actionable steps and, eventually, into reality.
It provides a simple and organized framework for creating, assigning, prioritizing, and tracking tasks. And in effect, it ensures that goals are not just set but achieved. Through the native dashboard and goal-setting features, you can monitor task progress and how they move you closer to achieving your goals.
Thanks to ClickUp’s robust communication features like chat, comments, and @mentions, it’s easy to get every team member on the same page and quickly address questions or concerns.
Use this action plan template to hit your business goals by streamlining your internal processes and aligning team efforts.
For larger businesses and scaling enterprises, getting different departments to work together toward a big goal can be challenging. The ClickUp Strategic Business Roadmap Template makes it easier by giving you a clear plan to follow.
This template is packaged in a folder and split into different lists for each department in your business, like Sales, Product, Marketing, and Enablement. This way, every team can focus on their tasks while collectively contributing to the bigger goal.
There are multiple viewing options available for team members. These include:
- Progress Board: Visualize tasks that are on track, those at risk, and those behind
- Gantt view: Get an overview of project timelines and dependencies
- Team view: See what each team member is working on so you can balance workloads for maximum productivity
While this template may feel overwhelming at first, the getting started guide offers a step-by-step breakdown to help you navigate it with ease. And like all ClickUp templates, you can easily customize it to suit your business needs and preferences.
Microsoft’s 20-page traditional business plan template simplifies the process of drafting comprehensive business plans. It’s made up of different sections, including:
- Executive summary : Highlights, objectives, mission statement, and keys to success
- Description of business: Company ownership and legal structure, hours of operation, products and services, suppliers, financial plans, etc.
- Marketing: Market analysis, market segmentation, competition, and pricing
- Appendix: Start-up expenses, cash flow statements, income statements, sales forecast, milestones, break-even analysis, etc.
The table of contents makes it easy to move to different sections of the document. And the text placeholders under each section provide clarity on the specific details required—making the process easier for users who may not be familiar with certain business terminology.
No business template roundup is complete without an Excel template. This business plan template lets you work on your business financials in Excel. It comes with customizable tables, formulas, and charts to help you look at the following areas:
- Highlight charts
- Market analysis
- Start-up assets and expenses
- Sales forecasts
- Profit and loss
- Balance sheet
- Cash flow projections
- Break-even analysis
This Excel template is especially useful when you want to create a clear and visual financial section for your business plan document—an essential element for attracting investors and lenders. However, there might be a steep learning curve to using this template if you’re not familiar with business financial planning and using Excel.
Try a Free Business Plan Template in ClickUp
Launching and running a successful business requires a well-thought-out and carefully crafted business plan. However, the business planning process doesn’t have to be complicated, boring, or take up too much time. Use any of the above 10 free business plan formats to simplify and speed up the process.
ClickUp templates go beyond offering a solid foundation to build your business plans. They come with extensive project management features to turn your vision into reality. And that’s not all— ClickUp’s template library offers over 1,000 additional templates to help manage various aspects of your business, from decision-making to product development to resource management .
Sign up for ClickUp’s Free Forever Plan today to fast-track your business’s growth! 🏆
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8-page fill-in-the-blank business plan template.
Need to write a business plan, but do not know where to start? Just fill in the blanks on this business plan template, and you will be good to go.
8-Page Fill-In-The-Blank Business Plan Template PDF 8-Page Fill-In-The-Blank Business Plan Template Word
The fill-in-the-blank business plan template is just eight pages and covers all the basics. There are brief sections for organization of your business, your industry, your mission statement, and your day-to-date operations. There’s also a comprehensive marketing section that includes information about your pricing, your marketing positioning (in terms of price and quality), your competition, and the types of marketing you’ll use to promote your small business. The financial section includes information about your average sale, breakeven points, money needed for startup, and more.
Download the PDF version of the business plan template, and you can fill in the blanks by hand. Download the Word version of the business plan template, and you can type in your answers and have a polished business plan, ready to present to lenders or investors.
Related Small Business Classes Online How To Write A Fill-In-The-Blank Business Plan Why Write A Business Plan
Jennifer Croft Comments Years ago, I was hired by Mi Casa Resource Center For Women in Denver to teach women on welfare how to start and run their own small businesses. Mi Casa didn’t have any curriculum, so I had to build 108 hours of curriculum from scratch, which I then taught at a rate of nine hours per week, over a 12-week period. Most of the curriculum centered around elements that eventually became part of a business plan. I kept retooling the business plan, over and over, until I had it as simple as possible. The result became this 8-page, fill-in-the-blank business plan, which has stood the test of time, with only minor revisions in the marketing section.
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Note that these worksheets where designed by Jennifer Croft, who also wrote the copy for a motorcycle resources site and for dry eye doctors in Denver .
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Skip to start of list. 686 templates. Create a blank Business Plan. Beige Aesthetic Modern Business Plan A4 Document. Document by Rise & Roar Design. Navy and Gray Modern Business Plan Cover Document. Document by Banuaa. Blue Modern Minimalist Startup Business Plan. Document by Maea Studio.
This fill-in-the-blank business plan template is designed for the startup business that needs funding and resources to get up and running. Use this template to provide your potential investors and stakeholders with information on your product and service offerings, timeline of milestones, financial requirements, marketing efforts, market analysis, and other key details.
Download Simple Fill-in-the-Blank Business Plan Template. Word | PDF. Use this fill-in-the-blank business plan template to guide you as you build your business plan. Each section comes pre-filled with sample content, with space to add customized verbiage relevant to your product or service.
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Growthink's fill-in-the-blank business plan template is the result of 20+ years of research into the business plans that help entrepreneurs and small businesses attract investors, raise investment capital, and build successful companies. It also includes all 10 key components of a business plan for any startup business or existing business.
The fill-in-the-blank template contains all the vital parts of a business plan, with sample content that you can customize to fit your needs. There is room to include an executive summary, business description, market analysis, marketing plan, operations plan, financial statements, and more.
Try a Free Business Plan Template in ClickUp. Launching and running a successful business requires a well-thought-out and carefully crafted business plan. However, the business planning process doesn't have to be complicated, boring, or take up too much time. Use any of the above 10 free business plan formats to simplify and speed up the process.
30 templates. Create a blank Small Business Plan. Restaurant Business Plan in Terracotta Coral Peach Friendly Dynamic Style. Document by Canva Creative Studio. Green Professional Strategic Business Plan Cover Page. Document by Antler.
Discover a hassle-free way to document a roadmap for your cleaning business with this free business plan template. Real Estate Business Plan Template Start off your new real estate business on the right foot by using a real estate business plan template to ensure your goals, visions, and finances are sorted.
Start with the free business plan templates available on this site and you'll see how much there is to be gained. ... Our fill-in-the-blank business plan template follows all the guidelines on the SmallBusinessPlans.com site and will help you finish your business plan in 1 day. Thousands of current and future business owners have used our ...
Printable simple business plans by Canva. The first step to achieving success for your startup is to have a clear and organized plan. If you can set goals, identify your unique value proposition, and analyze your market and revenue streams from the get-go, then everything else will become easier to handle. Create your roadmap to startup success ...
Download Fill-in-the-Blank Small Business Plan Template Microsoft Word | Adobe PDF. This small business plan template simplifies the process to help you create a comprehensive, organized business plan. Simply enter original content for the executive summary, company overview, and other sections to customize the plan.
Download our free business plan template that's been updated for 2024. This simple, modern, investor-approved business plan template is designed to make planning easy. It's a proven format that has helped over 1 million businesses write business plans for bank loans, funding pitches, business expansion, and even business sales.
Free business plan template. A fill-in-the-blank template designed for business owners. Download Now. Sample Plans. ... our simple business plan template, business proposal template, and many other educational resources—all free to download. These learning resources will help you create a simple business idea, write a plan, get funded, make ...
The fill-in-the-blank business plan template is just eight pages and covers all the basics. There are brief sections for organization of your business, your industry, your mission statement, and your day-to-date operations. There's also a comprehensive marketing section that includes information about your pricing, your marketing positioning ...
This template is ideal for developing a 90-day action plan to create and implement your business plan in manageable, 30-day chunks. Use the document to outline your main goals and deliverables, and then assign key business activities and deadlines to ensure your plan stays on track. Download Simple 30-60-90-Day Business Plan Template.
Step 2: Fill in the cost of goods sold for each month. Step 3: Calculate the Gross Margin for each month (Sales minus Cost of Goods Sold). Step 4: Fill in the total of labor-related operating expenses (salaries, mandatory benefits, optional benefits). Step 5: Fill in the total of non-labor-related operating expenses.
This comprehensive fill-in-the-blank business plan template is designed to guide entrepreneurs through the process of building a startup business plan. This template comes with a customizable cover page and table of contents, and each section includes sample content that you can modify to fit the needs of your business.
Free business plan template. A fill-in-the-blank template designed for business owners. Download Now. Sample Plans. Popular Plans. Coffee Shop Agricultural Farm Hair & Beauty Salon Bakery Cleaning Service See All. Top Categories. Food & Beverage Fitness & Beauty Cleaning, Repairs & Maintenance Clothing & Fashion Brand Retail & eCommerce See All.
For your more convenience, we have included a fill-in-the-blank nonprofit business plan template, a simple fill-in-the-blank business plan template, and a fill-in-the-blank lean business plan template as well. Also, you can find steps on how to fill out a business plan. Related Article: Best Free Project Management Template Excel (XLS) (2020)
FILL-IN-THE-BLANK SMALL BUSINESS PLAN TEMPLATE DISCLAIMER Any articles, templates, or information provided by Smartsheet on the website are for reference only. While we strive to keep the information up to date and correct, we make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accura cy, reliability,