Wrike vs Microsoft Planner: Which Should You Choose in 2026?

Quick verdict

Microsoft Planner is the sensible starting point for organisations already paying for Microsoft 365. Basic Planner costs nothing extra, it runs inside Teams and Outlook, and anyone can use it within minutes. Since Microsoft folded Project for the web into it in 2025, the premium plans also offer real scheduling: timelines, dependencies, sprints and goals on Plan 1, plus baselines and critical path on Plan 3. If your projects are mostly internal, moderately sized and run by teams that already work in Microsoft 365, Planner may be all you need.

Wrike is the better choice once work spans many projects, teams or clients. It gives you structured request intake, custom workflows, proofing and approvals, workload and capacity views, cross-project dashboards and a more capable automation and AI layer, all in one platform. It takes longer to set up and learn, and it is another vendor to manage, but for PMOs, marketing and creative teams, agencies and professional services firms the extra depth usually pays for itself. That is why Wrike ranks first in our top 10 project management tools.

Wrike vs Microsoft Planner at a glance

The table below summarises our scores, the best fit for each tool and how they are priced. Scores are our editorial ratings out of 10.

What is Wrike?

Wrike is a cloud-based work and project management platform used by teams from a handful of people up to large enterprises. Work is organised into spaces, folders, projects and tasks, and every item can carry custom statuses and custom fields. The same work can be viewed as a list, board, table, Gantt chart, calendar or dashboard.

Beyond tasks, Wrike covers the operational side of project delivery: request forms that create and route work, custom workflows per team, proofing and approvals for creative assets, workload and capacity planning, cross-project portfolio views and reporting. It is owned by Symphony Technology Group and says it is used by more than 20,000 organisations.

What is Microsoft Planner?

Microsoft Planner is the task and project management app inside Microsoft 365. It runs in the browser, as an app in Microsoft Teams and on iOS and Android. Today it has two kinds of plan:

• Basic plans are the original Planner: Kanban boards of tasks grouped into buckets, with assignees, dates, labels and checklists. They are included with Microsoft 365 business, enterprise and education subscriptions.
• Premium plans are what used to be Microsoft Project for the web: scheduled projects with a timeline (Gantt) view, dependencies, milestones, sprints, goals and custom fields. They need a Planner Plan 1 or Planner and Project Plan 3 licence.

Microsoft began retiring Project for the web in August 2025 and moving its users to Planner, and its pricing pages state that Project Online was being retired on 30 September 2026. Planner is therefore now Microsoft's main cloud project tool, with the Project desktop app included in Plan 3 for heavy scheduling. Our Microsoft Planner review explains the basic and premium plans in detail.

Key differences between Wrike and Microsoft Planner

In short, Planner wins on convenience and price for Microsoft 365 customers, while Wrike wins on depth, flexibility and visibility across many projects.

Ease of use and setup

Planner is the easier tool to adopt. For a team already on Microsoft 365, there is nothing to buy or install: open Planner in Teams, create a plan, add buckets and assign tasks. Identities, groups and permissions come from Microsoft 365. Capterra reviewers rate Planner's ease of use 4.5/5, and on G2's comparison page Planner scores higher than Wrike for ease of use, ease of setup and ease of administration. The main source of confusion is licensing: basic and premium plans look similar but support different features, and recurring tasks and the Schedule view exist only in basic plans.

Wrike asks for more up front. Simple task management is quick to pick up, but getting full value means designing spaces, workflows, custom fields, request forms, dashboards and permissions. A small team can be running in a day; a department-wide rollout is a project in itself. The learning curve is the most consistent complaint in Wrike reviews, and its interface is denser because it puts more information within reach.

Our scores reflect this: Planner gets 8/10 for ease of use and Wrike 7/10. If your team has little time for configuration or training, that gap matters. If you have an owner who can set Wrike up properly, the extra effort buys a system that fits your process instead of the other way round.

Views, planning and scheduling

Both tools offer board, list and calendar-style views, and both now offer Gantt scheduling on paid plans. The difference is in depth and in how the features are packaged.

Gantt charts and dependencies

Wrike's interactive Gantt charts start on the Team plan. They support all four dependency types with lead and lag, automatic rescheduling, milestones, the critical path, float and baselines for planned-versus-actual tracking. A table view works like a live spreadsheet for editing hundreds of items at once.

Planner Plan 1 adds a Timeline (Gantt) view, all four task dependency types, milestones, summary tasks and custom calendars. Project baselines, critical path and advanced dependencies with lead and lag need Planner and Project Plan 3 at $30 per user/month, which also includes the Project desktop app. Premium plans allow up to ten custom fields and 3,000 tasks per plan (basic plans allow 9,000 tasks), so large programmes should be split across several plans.

For a moderately complex internal project, Planner Plan 1 is a capable and affordable scheduler. For portfolios of date-driven projects, or when you need critical path and baselines without buying a separate higher licence for each scheduler, Wrike is the stronger and more consistent option.

Agile, sprints and Kanban

Both tools cover Kanban boards on every plan. Planner premium plans add a backlog and time-boxed sprints, which suits teams running light Agile alongside other work; Microsoft does not describe story points, velocity or burndown reports. Wrike supports Agile boards, sprints and custom workflows, and its AI agents can handle routine sprint operations such as rolling over unfinished work. Neither is a specialist software development tool, but Wrike scores higher in our Agile category (8/10 vs 6/10). Our guide to sprint planning covers what any tool needs to support.

Resource and portfolio management

This is where the gap is widest. Wrike shows team workload and capacity across projects: who is assigned to what, how much effort is allocated and who is overloaded, with working hours, holidays and time tracking taken into account. Pinnacle adds advanced resource and capacity planning, role-based planning, budgeting and financial tracking. Portfolio views and dashboards let a PMO see status, risk and workload across every project with consistent fields.

Planner's premium plans include a People view that shows how work is spread across the team, and Plan 3 adds an Assignments view for effort per person by day, week or month. Plan 1 users can view portfolios and Plan 3 users can create them. These support basic resource allocation, but they are not a substitute for dedicated resource management.

We score Wrike 10/10 and Planner 7/10 for planning and resource management. If capacity planning across many projects is a real need, this category alone often decides the comparison.

Collaboration, request intake and approvals

Planner's collaboration happens through Microsoft 365. Plans sit as tabs in Teams channels, tasks can be created from Teams messages and meetings, notifications arrive in Teams and Outlook, and plans can be embedded in Loop. Premium plans add threaded task chat with @mentions and task history. For internal teams this is very convenient: there are no extra accounts, and work stays next to the conversations that created it.

Wrike's collaboration is built around the work item. Comments, @mentions, files, approvals with named approvers and proofing of images, videos and documents all live on the task. Request forms with conditional logic collect complete briefs from stakeholders and route them to the right team automatically; external forms let clients and non-users submit requests through a link. If your team is buried in requests arriving by email or chat, our free work request template shows the information a good intake form should capture.

Working with people outside your organisation is noticeably easier in Wrike, which has collaborator and read-only user types. In Planner, external people need to be added as guests in your Microsoft 365 tenant, and there is no built-in proofing or approval of creative assets. Notification volume is a common complaint in Wrike reviews, so agree notification settings early.

Automation and AI

Automation

Wrike has a built-in rules engine: when a status changes, a form is submitted or a date passes, Wrike can assign people, change statuses, create subtasks or notify the team. Planner has no rules engine of its own; automation is built in Power Automate, which can connect Planner with hundreds of services but adds complexity, and some connectors need separate licensing.

AI

Wrike includes AI Essentials from the Team plan: content creation and editing, comment summaries, natural-language creation of forms and automation rules, AI highlights and mobile inbox prioritisation. From Business, accounts get a pooled monthly allowance of AI Elite actions for Wrike Copilot, AI dashboard widgets, AI agents and the Whiteboard assistant, with larger allowances on Pinnacle and Apex. Agents can validate requests, triage and route tasks, run risk checks and produce portfolio reports.

In Planner, Microsoft states that access to AI capabilities requires a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence, which costs $30 per user/month paid yearly. With it, Copilot can create buckets and tasks from your goals, draft status reports and highlight risks, and the Planner agent (renamed from the Project Manager agent in 2026) can work on tasks assigned to it and produce an editable outline. Organisations already buying Copilot for Word, Excel and Outlook get this as part of that licence; for everyone else it can triple the cost of a Plan 1 seat.

Reporting and dashboards

Planner's built-in reporting is the Charts view, which shows tasks by status, bucket, priority and person. Premium plans add the timeline, People view, goals and, on Plan 3, baselines. Plans can be exported to Excel, and Microsoft points customers to Power BI for cross-plan reporting; premium plans are stored in Dataverse, so the data is available to the Power Platform. That works well if you have Power BI skills, but it means building reports rather than using them out of the box, and basic reporting is one of the most common complaints in Planner reviews.

Wrike includes shareable dashboards from the Team plan, with widgets for tasks by status, overdue work, workload and project progress, and reports across projects. Pinnacle and Apex add advanced reporting and BI for portfolio, financial and resource analysis. For managers who need a weekly project status report across many projects, Wrike gets you there with far less building.

Integrations and the Microsoft 365 question

Planner's strength is its native place in Microsoft 365: Teams, Outlook, To Do, Loop, SharePoint (basic plans), Power Automate, Power Apps, Power BI, the Microsoft Graph API and, with Plan 3, Project desktop. If Microsoft 365 is where your organisation works all day, nothing else is quite as seamless. Organisations that rely on Slack, Google Workspace, Jira or Salesforce will find Planner much less connected.

Wrike is not a Microsoft product, but it is designed to sit alongside one. Its directory lists around 60 integrations, including Microsoft Teams, Power BI and a connector for Microsoft Copilot, as well as Slack, Salesforce, Google Sheets, Tableau and Miro. Wrike Sync (powered by Unito) offers two-way sync with 22 systems, including Excel, Jira and GitHub, and Wrike Integrate automates workflows across cloud and on-premises systems. Both are included in Apex and are add-ons on other plans.

Many organisations keep Microsoft 365 for email, documents, chat and identity and add Wrike for project delivery. That is a common, workable pattern, which we cover below.

Security and administration

Planner uses the same Microsoft Entra ID identities, sign-in policies and admin controls as the rest of Microsoft 365, which is a significant advantage for IT teams. It is available in commercial, education and US government clouds (GCC, GCC High and DoD), although some features are not available in every government cloud.

Wrike offers granular permissions, customisable user types, locked spaces, admin controls and single sign-on on higher tiers, so you can still sign in with your Microsoft identity. Wrike Lock, an add-on, lets you control the encryption keys that protect your data in Wrike. Wrike's website displays AICPA, BSI and CSA STAR compliance badges. For both vendors, confirm the current certifications and their scope during procurement.

Pricing compared

Both vendors publish per-user prices billed annually. The widget below shows the plans side by side; the prose underneath reflects the vendors' pricing pages as we checked them on 7 October 2026.

Checked on vendors' pricing pages on 5 October 2026. Read the full Wrike pricing and Microsoft Planner pricing breakdowns.

Wrike: Free ($0), Team ($10/user/month, 2 to 15 users), Business ($25/user/month, 5 to 200 users), and Pinnacle and Apex on quote. Business and higher plans are annual only. Add-ons include Wrike Whiteboard ($15/user/month) and, on request, Wrike Integrate, Wrike Sync, Wrike Lock and extra AI Elite actions. Wrike offers a 14-day free trial with no credit card required.

Microsoft Planner: basic Planner is included in Microsoft 365 business, enterprise and education subscriptions; there is no stand-alone free plan for people without Microsoft 365. Planner Plan 1 costs $10/user/month and Planner and Project Plan 3 $30/user/month, both paid yearly, and Microsoft 365 Copilot is a $30/user/month add-on. Microsoft offers a one-month trial of Plan 1 and Plan 3, and its terms say a credit card is required. Microsoft's licensing notes that Microsoft 365 users get basic editing on premium plans, so usually only the people who build and manage schedules need a premium licence.

Here is what list prices look like for a team of 10, billed annually:

Planner is almost always cheaper for Microsoft 365 organisations, which is why it wins our value category (8/10 vs 7/10). Wrike costs more as you move up its tiers, but it also replaces tools that Planner users often add separately, such as a request intake tool, a proofing tool or a reporting layer. Compare total cost, not just the seat price. Prices vary by region and agreement, so confirm on Wrike's pricing page and Microsoft's Planner pricing page before buying.

Features compared

A tick means the feature is available on at least one plan; "Partial" means it is limited, plan-dependent or relies on another product, such as Power Automate for Planner automation.

Category winners

We score every tool from 1 to 10 in seven categories. Wrike wins feature depth, planning and resource management, collaboration, Agile and scalability; Planner wins ease of use and value for money.

The pattern is consistent with what users report: Planner is simple and well integrated, and Wrike is deeper and more configurable. Planner's 8/10 for scalability reflects Microsoft 365's enterprise administration and government cloud availability rather than project depth.

What users say

Both have the same G2 rating. Wrike has the higher Capterra rating. See reviews on G2 for Wrike, G2 for Microsoft Planner, Capterra for Wrike and Capterra for Microsoft Planner.

Wrike reviewers most often praise centralising projects in one place, visibility across departments, flexible workflows, dashboards and cross-team collaboration. The most common complaints are the learning curve, a dense interface, pricing for small teams and notification volume. On Capterra, Wrike is rated 4.4/5 with sub-scores of 4.3 for features and 4.2 for value (checked 7 October 2026).

Planner reviewers most often praise its simplicity, its integration with Microsoft 365 and Teams, and easy task tracking. The most common complaints are basic reporting, difficulty managing very large or complex projects, and missing advanced features such as time tracking. Planner has far fewer reviews than Wrike, partly because many organisations simply use it as part of Microsoft 365, so treat its headline score as a guide rather than a precise measure.

Which should you choose?

Some common situations:

• A Microsoft 365 business with a few internal projects: start with basic Planner and add Plan 1 for the people who need timelines.
• An IT or operations team running rollouts and checklists in Teams: Planner fits naturally; see IT project management.
• A team moving off Project for the web or Project Online: Planner premium plans and Plan 3 give the most familiar path; consider Wrike if you also need intake, workload and dashboards.
• A marketing, creative or agency team handling many requests and approvals: Wrike, for its request forms, proofing, approvals and custom workflows.
• A PMO or professional services firm managing resources across many projects: Wrike, for workload, capacity planning, portfolio dashboards and reporting.
• A growing company that works with clients and freelancers: Wrike, because external collaboration is simpler.

If you are still unsure, our guide on how to choose project management software walks through the decision step by step.

Can you use Wrike and Planner together?

Yes, and many organisations effectively do. A common pattern is to keep Microsoft 365 for email, files, chat and identity, and personal or small-team task lists in Planner and To Do, while running cross-functional projects, request intake and portfolio reporting in Wrike. Wrike's Microsoft Teams integration keeps project updates visible where people chat, and single sign-on on higher Wrike tiers lets people use their Microsoft identity.

The risk is duplication. Decide clearly which work lives where, for example "anything with a deadline, a requester or more than one team goes in Wrike", so nobody has to check two systems for the same project.

How to switch from Microsoft Planner to Wrike

1. List what you need that Planner does not do, such as request forms, workload views, approvals or dashboards. This becomes your success criteria.
2. Export your plans. Planner can export plans to Excel, which gives you tasks, buckets, assignees and dates to bring across.
3. Design the Wrike structure first. Create spaces, a project template, statuses and the custom fields you actually need; resist recreating every Planner bucket.
4. Import or rebuild one live project and run it in Wrike for two to four weeks using the 14-day trial and, if needed, a paid Team plan. Our project tracker template is a useful checklist of fields.
5. Connect Teams and set notification rules so people are not overwhelmed in the first week.
6. Train by role. Requesters need forms, team members need their work view, and managers need dashboards.
7. Move remaining projects in waves, then archive the old plans so there is one source of truth.

Going the other way, from Wrike to Planner, follows the same steps in reverse: export Wrike data to a spreadsheet, decide which projects need premium plans, and rebuild them in Planner.

Alternatives to consider

If neither tool feels right, a few other options are worth comparing. Asana offers rules, forms and goals with simpler adoption, monday.com is very visual and customisable, and Smartsheet suits spreadsheet-minded enterprise teams.

For broader shortlists, see Wrike alternatives and Microsoft Planner alternatives.

Frequently asked questions