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Most buyers should pick Smartsheet.
Smartsheet is easier to price: its Pro plan starts at $9 per member/month with annual billing, or $12 monthly. It has no free plan. Workfront also has no free plan, but Adobe does not publish prices for Select, Prime or Ultimate. Choose Workfront for governed marketing planning, reviews and approvals; choose Smartsheet for project and portfolio visibility, resource planning and a priced per-member path. Neither is the right fit for every team.
01Side by side
| Workfront | Smartsheet | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Not published | $9/member/month annually; $12 monthly |
| Free plan | No | No |
| Best for | Complex, governed marketing workflows | Structured project and portfolio management |
| Core strength | Marketing reviews, approvals and planning | Portfolio visibility and resource planning |
| Learning curve | Ease-of-use score: 5/10 | Ease-of-use score: 6/10 |
| Integrations/data | Exports data to data lakes or BI tools | Brings work from other apps into shared plans |
| Team/seat costs | Plan prices not published | $9–$19/member/month annually; Enterprise custom |
| Support | Review score: 5/10 | Review score: 5/10 |
Workfront Choose Workfront if
- Choose Workfront if you need governed marketing workflows.
- Choose Workfront if reviews and approvals are central to delivery.
- Choose Workfront if you need dashboards and data exports.
Smartsheet Choose Smartsheet if
- Choose Smartsheet if published per-member pricing matters.
- Choose Smartsheet if you manage project or portfolio visibility.
- Choose Smartsheet if you need cross-team resource planning.
02Pricing compared
Smartsheet is easier to price before a sales conversation. Its Pro plan costs $9 per member/month with annual billing, or $12 per member/month with monthly billing. Business is $19 annually or $24 monthly per member. Neither product has a free plan, and Smartsheet’s Enterprise and Advanced Work Management pricing is custom.
Adobe does not publish prices for Workfront Select, Prime or Ultimate, so we can’t compare total costs from the available pricing details. Workfront Fusion is included with Ultimate; its standalone price is not published. Smartsheet lists Dynamic View as an add-on starting at $125/month and Data Shuttle starting at $100/month for Business and Enterprise. Those add-ons can change the bill, so compare them with the features your team actually needs.
03Features and depth
Workfront is the more marketing-workflow-specific option in this comparison. Its feature set covers work requests and intake, custom forms, resource allocation, workflow automation, digital proofing, reviews and approvals, and AI-assisted brand checks. It also connects planning and execution records and supports dashboards, with data exports to data lakes or BI tools. The trade-off is that its prices are not published and implementation demands may be a consideration.
Smartsheet’s described strengths are project and portfolio visibility, connected workflows, resource and capacity planning, milestone and dependency tracking, and intake approvals. It also offers client collaboration portals, resource forecasting and AI-powered customer reporting. Its listed plans provide a clearer starting point, while larger-portfolio capabilities such as Advanced Portfolios sit under custom-priced Advanced Work Management. Choose by workflow: Workfront emphasizes governed marketing work and approvals; Smartsheet emphasizes plans, portfolios and resources.
04Ease of use and learning curve
Neither product’s published information establishes that it will be easy for every team to adopt. The review summaries score ease of use at 5 for Workfront and 6 for Smartsheet, so Smartsheet has a slight edge in those ratings, not proof of a universally simpler rollout.
The Workfront review flags implementation demands as a trade-off, which matters if your team needs to get started without much setup. Smartsheet’s published materials describe broad project, portfolio and resource workflows, but do not spell out implementation effort or training needs. Ask vendors what onboarding involves and which capabilities require higher-tier plans before treating either as a quick switch.
Questions people ask
What is Smartsheet best for?
Based on the features provided, Smartsheet is best suited to teams that need project and portfolio visibility, resource planning, milestone tracking, and centralized intake approvals. Its pricing also gives teams a published per-member starting point, though Enterprise and Advanced Work Management use custom pricing.
What are the pros and cons of Adobe Workfront?
Workfront’s strengths include governed marketing planning, intake, reviews, approvals, automation and reporting. The main drawbacks in the published information are that Select, Prime and Ultimate prices are not published, and the review flags implementation demands. That makes costs and rollout effort harder to assess upfront.
What is the difference between Smartsheet and Jira?
The published information covers Smartsheet and Workfront, not Jira, so it does not support a reliable feature or price comparison with Jira. For Smartsheet, the listed strengths are project and portfolio visibility, resource planning and intake workflows. Check Jira’s current pricing and features separately before deciding.
What is a good replacement for Smartsheet?
Workfront could be an alternative if your priority is governed marketing planning, proofing, reviews and approvals. It is not a like-for-like price comparison: Adobe does not publish Workfront plan prices, while Smartsheet lists per-member prices for Pro and Business. Match the replacement to your workflows and budget first.