Best Goal Setting Apps and Goal Tracking Software

What are goal setting software and goal tracking apps?

Goal setting and tracking tools are software platforms that businesses can use to establish objectives, record progress and measure key performance indicators (KPIs). Goal setting and tracking tools offer a variety of functions, but all of these programs hinge on setting SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely) goals and establishing objectives and key results (OKRs). A projected end point enables the tool to mark and measure key points of progress. 

“Goal setting software is a place to create clarity, accountability and momentum by connecting daily tasks to long-term outcomes,” explained Jensen Savage, founder of Savage Growth Partners. Your employees can set individual, team and project goals, then link them to broader organizational targets. Dashboards and alerts keep everyone on track, while additional features encourage employee engagement and collaboration. These tools are especially important for building a successful remote company as teams don’t have the opportunity to coordinate in person.

“Goal setting and tracking software and apps are perfect for virtual businesses as they create the feeling of a central office where work documents and status reports can be accessed at any time,” said Teresa Saputo-Crerend, co-founder of LaunchBreak. 

What are the best goal setting software and goal tracking apps?

As project management software has evolved over the past decade, so have tools for goal setting and tracking. The best apps encourage productivity, foster collaboration and offer multiple price levels. 

Before choosing a platform, it’s important to understand what you hope to get out of it. “Define your needs first as many of the apps are best positioned for specific things, such as task management, multiple projects, large teams, small teams and more,” said Saputo-Crerend.

Here are 13 of the best tools for setting and tracking goals.

1. Bitrix24

With Bitrix24’s clean, color-coded interface, keeping track of tasks is easy. Source: Bitrix24

Bitrix24 is a platform that includes project management tools suitable for setting team and individual goals and tracking progress against them. With Bitrix24, you’ll have access to an intuitive suite of software that makes it easy to create new tasks and sub-tasks that relate to employee goals and house them in the same system you use for employee performance management. Bitrix24 is a flexible platform that allows you to customize its tools to best suit your team’s workflow and connect to your performance management planning in a seamless way. Whether you’re using it for day-to-day planning or long-term goal setting, Bitrix24 is a huge help that keeps teams connected and on the same page. 

Bitrix24 provides a free version with 5 GB of storage and unlimited users that also grants you access to a CRM, a contact center and a website builder. If you need more advanced features, like marketing tools, automation or HR functions, you can upgrade at any time. The Basic plan costs $61 per organization per month and includes five users. As your business expands further you can select the Standard plan for $124 per organization per month and receive up to 50 users. The Professional plan costs $249 per organization per month and allows up to 100 users. The Enterprise plan, which starts at $499 per organization per month for up to 250 users, can be expanded to include up to 10,000 users for $9,999 per month. Discounts are available when plans are paid annually.

2. 15Five

With 15Five, you can track progress on individual and company-wide goals. Source: 15Five

15Five combines software with education and a supportive community for an integrated ecosystem of performance management, development and training. It’s used mostly by leaders who are interested in human resources management and enables businesses to build high-performing teams through continuous performance management. 15Five’s insights keep teams aligned with their goals, communicate OKRs clearly and guide individual employees’ progress based on their skill sets. [See the human resources terms all HR managers should know.]

Depending on your company’s finances, a potential downside is that the software does not offer a free plan. The Engage plan costs $4 per user per month when billed annually. It includes engagement surveys, AI-powered predictions and basic analytics. To access most of 15Five’s goal management tools, you’ll need a higher plan. Perform costs $10 per user per month and includes performance reviews, OKRs, goal management and access to the core platform features and integrations. Total Platform combines Engage and Perform and adds more AI features, advanced analytics and learning for $16 per user per month. 15Five also offers manager and compensation products. 

3. Asana

Asana alerts you when your goals are at risk and provides AI-assistance to help you succeed. Source: Asana

Asana offers handy tracking tools that are applicable to nearly every vertical of an organization. It marries collaboration with goal tracking to keep your team progressing. Among the platform’s many tools, the Goals feature enables teams to set specific objectives, track their progress, input subgoals and monitor team members’ contributions. 

Asana offers three plans for individuals and small teams: Personal (free), Starter ($13.49 per user per month) and Advanced ($30.49 per user per month). Discounts are available for annual billing. While the free version includes many features to manage tasks, the Goals feature is available only with Advanced or Enterprise tiers. Larger businesses can choose from Enterprise or Enterprise+ plans, but will need to contact Asana for a custom quote.

4. ClickUp

ClickUp allows you to group goals and visually track progress. Source: ClickUp

ClickUp is a top-down, nesting and hierarchy-based organizational tool. It is designed to help you organize files, links and project-related documents, both in order of importance and in terms of their relationship to one another. ClickUp includes internally nested programs called ClickApps to help streamline and customize task management. It also comes with customization tools to help you personalize your interface and workflow, along with internal collaboration tools that allow you and your team to centralize your digital workspace.

ClickUp has four plans priced based on the size of your business. The Free plan is recommended for personal use, while Unlimited costs $7 per month per user and includes goals features, unlimited custom fields for organizing tasks and AI features. Business is best for midsize teams and is priced at $12 per month per user. Enterprise, with custom pricing, is best for large businesses.

5. Databox

Monitoring your team’s progress is easy from the Databox dashboard. Source: Databox

Databox offers a central dashboard with multiple tools and functions to track performance. If your team relies on several software platforms to track objectives, Databox stands out from other apps by enabling you to mix and match metrics for a more complete picture of how your team performs against its sales, marketing and operations goals.

Databox’s Free Forever plan allows three users, three data source connections, the use of standard features and more than 120 integrations. The Starter plan is $47 per month, and it includes five users and three data sources, but you can add additional sources for a fee. The Professional plan is $159 per month and contains everything in the Starter tier plus unlimited users and dashboards, the ability to create custom metrics, among other things. The Growth plan costs $319 per month and contains everything in the Professional tier, and includes additional AI and metric features. Larger companies can opt for Premium at $799 per month, which includes 100 connections and advanced features.

6. Engagedly

With Marissa AI, Engagedly helps your team set better goals. Source: Engagedly 

Engagedly is flexible performance management software that claims to increase employee engagement by using gamification to set and track goals, provide performance feedback, drive engagement and enable professional development. In fact, Engagedly boasts that its tools lead to 63 percent increased employee retention. The platform allows teams to take control of goal accomplishment strategies and align objectives with business and department goals. With OKRs and progress bars, Engagedly helps you examine milestones, encourage mentorship and keep historical data for goal-tracking success. [Related article: How Professional Development Helps Your Small Business]

Engagedly lets you build a custom solution, with modules for managing performance, employee training and development, rewards, engagement, mentoring, compensation and employee communication. Prices for each module range from $2 to $10 per employee per month, depending on the size of your business, but the minimum annual price is $7500, which could be prohibitive for some smaller businesses.

7. Goalscape

Goalscape’s simple interface allows you to easily visualize goals. Source: Goalscape

Goalscape is a powerful visual tool for goal setting and tracking. Based on neuroscience, Goalscape lets you create a central goal and build a dynamic graph of priorities that shade in as the goal approaches completion. The easy-to-use software, which works for both personal and professional endeavors, allows you to share your work with team members and integrates with Microsoft Teams. There are pre-built templates and video tutorials for creating your own graphs. It comes with a free 14-day trial and then starts at $8.25 per month. 

8. Jira

Jira’s Kanban boards make tracking goals a breeze. Source: Atlassian

Designed for agile teams, Jira remains a top-rated software development tool for issue tracking and management. Linked to Trello through parent company Atlassian, Jira uses the Kanban approach and flexible planning to enable the value-driven prioritization of tasks and extensive reporting with actionable results.

Jira offers a Free plan for up to 10 users that includes unlimited goals, projects and tasks, plus reports and dashboards. Pricing for the three paid plans is based on the number of users. Discounted price available with annual billing. Standard starts at $8.60 per user per month and adds more automations and user roles and permissions. Premium pricing begins at $17 per user per month and includes AI tools and cross-team planning. The Enterprise plan is custom-priced and offers advanced analytics and controls.

9. Lattice

Lattice allows you to set goals and track them across several external platforms. Source: Lattice

Lattice is an easy-to-use platform that offers continuous performance management capabilities for businesses. Specifically, Lattice Goals & OKRs connect individual achievements with company objectives for organizational success. In addition to providing goal setting, tracking and reporting functionality, Lattice integrates with popular platforms such as Slack, Salesforce and Microsoft Teams to meet users where they already work.

Businesses can also bundle Lattice software with tools for managing team performance, engaging employees, providing career development and running compensation reviews. Lattice Goals & OKRs can be purchased individually for $8 per seat per month or as a package with Performance for $11 per seat per month. However, there is a minimum annual spend of $4,000.

10. monday.com

monday.com’s premium Work Management plans provide multiple ways to view your team’s progress. Source: monday.com

monday.com offers a work operating system with pre-built organizational templates, goal-tracking widgets and internal delegatory lists to help you assign and track tasks effectively. Other software tools, like QuickBooks and Todoist, can be integrated into monday.com’s Work Management platform for a seamless task management experience. 

monday’s Free plan gives two users limited access to the Work Management platform with up to three boards, Kanban view and a one-week activity log. Basic, at $9 monthly per seat, allows for unlimited viewers and items, 5GB storage and custom fields. Standard costs $12 monthly per seat and includes timeline, calendar or Gantt view, AI, automations and integrations. Pro starts at $19 monthly per user and includes expanded functionality including time tracking. monday also offers an Enterprise plan with custom pricing.

11. Trello

With customizable Kanban cards, Trello lets you track tasks. Source: Atlassian

Trello, another product from Atlassian, is a Kanban-style web application with an emphasis on increasing productivity. Kanban — which is characterized by lean lists and efficient, continuous improvement — emerged in the 1950s from Toyota’s manufacturing arm. Now, Trello has brought list making into the 21st century. With the Kanban approach, your team can use the platform to break larger goals into minigoals that follow a progression from start to finish. 

Thanks to Trello’s high customizability and useful templates, teams in various industries can benefit from the software’s productivity tracking. It offers remote teams seamless collaboration and integrations with hundreds of other helpful apps. Trello has four plans: Free, Standard ($6 per user per month), Premium ($12.50 per user per month) and Enterprise ($17.50 per user per month). Discount available when billed annually.

12. Weekdone

With overview, Weekdone lets you see progress reports at a glance. Source: Weekdone

Created with small businesses in mind, Weekdone’s OKR software helps small and midsize businesses establish objectives, goal initiatives and hierarchies, OKR reports, and goal-based coaching and onboarding. Team and company leaders set the goals and general direction for employees, who then develop specific objectives and key results to track and measure their progress throughout a projected time frame. 

Weekdone is completely free for up to three users and includes all features and functions. The free plan includes OKR coaches to help you develop good habits and build a successful, goal-oriented company culture. Pricing for teams of four or more starts at $10.80 per user per month, but decreases for larger teams. 

13. Todoist

Todoist helps you manage tasks, review goals and more. Source. Todoist

Todoist’s strength lies in its simplicity, as the platform lets users seamlessly manage personal and team tasks. The easy-to-use tools can be leveraged to create, track and review goals. Similar to other platforms, it includes AI-powered features, integrations with top business software and collaboration features. What makes Todoist stand out is its drag-and-drop interface and ability to capture natural language input. 

Todoist has three plans. Beginner is free and includes five personal projects, three custom filters, integrations, templates, and list or board view. Pro starts at $4 per user per month and allows for 300 projects, 150 custom filters, calendar view, reminders and AI assistance. Business costs $6 per user per month and allows you to easily manage teams with a shared workspace, up to 500 projects, and includes team roles and permissions. 

What are the benefits of using goal setting apps and goal tracking software?

Goal setting and tracking tools can have a profound impact on your business. When you use the right tool and follow our tips for setting better business goals, you’ll reap the following benefits.

Enhanced productivity

With clear goals in mind, teams have a path to follow, which boosts productivity through meaningful work activities. Decreasing or eliminating processes that don’t contribute to a specific goal enables each team member to spend their time on tasks that serve the company’s larger vision. The best software even includes features to help employees stay on track and perform better. “What’s really exciting is how this technology is making high-performance habits easier, not harder,” explained Louis Carter, founder and CEO of Best Practice Institute. “It’s less about the discipline to update goals manually, and more about building systems that adapt to you.”

Carter said that one of the most exciting aspects of goal setting software is that it also considers the emotional side of productivity. With automations and AI-features, these tools can help you see where to start or even shift priorities, so you work more effectively. “When the software starts coaching, not just tracking, it becomes part of the team,” said Carter. [See our small business productivity guide for more insights on increasing employee performance.]

Increased team unity and engagement

Establishing common goals can foster a spirit of unity and improve employee engagement. A highly motivated and unified team doesn’t just ensure that your business meets its objectives and performs well; it also creates happy employees that are more likely to stay loyal to your company, reducing turnover. 

Brittany L. Truszkowski, chief operating officer at Grand Canyon Law Group, explained that one of the biggest benefits of goal tracking apps is that they make employee progress clearly visible, which allows managers to see improvement and reward effort. “What really matters is what that kind of visibility creates,” she said. “Accountability, yes, but also recognition. And here’s the broader takeaway for any business: goal-tracking software isn’t just about holding people to metrics — it’s about helping people see their progress and own it. When used well, it’s a culture builder and a retention tool.”

Reduced confusion

Goal setting software allows businesses to set SMART goals with clear KPIs to decrease confusion among their staff about their job’s purpose, mission and daily responsibilities. With specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely goals, each team member can conceptualize their role from the perspective of helping the company progress toward the end objective. 

“The biggest benefit is being able to grow and act on plans without chaos and constant back and forth,” explained Savage. “With task comments, file attachments and status updates all in one place, we rarely have to ask, ‘Where are we on this?’ It dramatically reduced confusion and sped up delivery across the board.” 

Informed decision-making

Companies that set strategic goals — and refer back to them to track and maintain progress — often have better decision-making skills, leading to greater success. When companies are unable to anchor their daily work to a tangible long-term strategic goal, it can lead to poor decision-making, thereby putting the company at a competitive disadvantage in both the short and long term.

Saputo-Crerend told Business.com that goal setting software was crucial to helping her and her co-founder prioritize decisions and keep on top of tasks to get their new business up and running. “[It] helped to streamline our workload when we were gearing up to launch our business,” she explained. “Everything including documents, notes from calls, progress updates and to-do lists were all organized by project and by department. It saved us time and allowed us to think more clearly during the frenetic early days.”

Better team performance

Tracking strategic goals using productivity and organizational tools can help your company stay on top of progress toward business goals and foster improved performance. By continuously monitoring productivity and advancement, you can find areas where improvement is needed, encourage accountability, and acknowledge and reward exceptional performance.

“We’re able to tie goals directly to each team member’s role, track progress in real time and integrate that right into their performance reviews,” said Truszkowski. “It’s not a guessing game anymore. If someone committed to improving client communication or increasing efficiency, we’re not scrambling to remember — it’s all there, visible and measurable.”

What are the key features of goal setting software and goal tracking apps?

The right goal tracking software for your company depends on your industry and the size of your business. However, there are certain key features that are essential to effectively set goals and monitor progress. 

AI assistance 

AI is revolutionizing business solutions, and goal setting software is no different. AI-powered assistance is now a common feature among products, although in many cases this functionality is restricted to premium paid plans. 

“AI is able to give feedback and coach people on how to set goals that are achievable, easily measurable and aligned to their organization’s goals,” said Yhana Lanwin, founder and CEO of Sans Prejudice Solutions. “It can show trends of where goals aren’t being met or show where goals aren’t correlating with overall performance so that action can be taken.”

Custom fields 

Flexibility in goal setting and tracking is essential for businesses, especially those with multiple projects and departments. Custom fields allow you to tailor every goal in the way that makes sense for each use case. Some platforms only include this feature in paid plans, but the added customization is worth the investment.

“I rely heavily on custom fields to track priority, stage and revenue impact, so I’m not just seeing tasks in a silo, I’m seeing the whole strategy and how everything is tied together,” said Savage.

Templates

You don’t want to spend more time setting up your goals than actually going out and achieving them, which is why templates are so handy. Many platforms include a variety of pre-built templates for common business goals. Some apps even have categories for different industries or project types.

“We use custom project templates for recurring campaigns,” Savage said, “so the setup for a new project is really quick.”

Goal views

The best platforms make it easy to visualize goals across team members, projects, departments and the entire organization. This allows everyone to stay on the same page as they work together to meet objectives. Kanban boards are the standard for many software and apps. Many also offer timeline view, calendar view or Gantt charts, but these might be restricted to premium plans.

Saputo-Crerend noted that visualizing goal progress allowed her and her co-founder to understand where each project stood, what had to be done and who needed to do it. “We were assigned to various tasks and we could tag each task with the progress made,” she said. “At any given moment, we could be up to speed on what was going on each day.”

Analytics 

To make the most of your goals, you want a platform that provides robust analytics so you can measure progress as it happens and get performance insights after a project is complete. Goal reporting allows you to set better goals in the future and more effectively break down steps and assign tasks. It also gives you a bird’s eye view of employee performance, so you can encourage anyone falling behind and reward those doing well. 

However, some solutions, especially free plans, either don’t include analytics or offer a basic reporting function that might not be enough for your business. Lanwin recommended finding a platform that includes potent and flexible progress measurement. “The best ones have flexibility, i.e. have a target to stay between a range, have phased targets over time, include numbers, percentages, dollars and can automatically update status based on other sources,” she said. 

Integrations

“Like any productivity software, particularly in large organizations, goal setting software works best when it is fully integrated with the main enterprise systems of the company so that reporting, information, planning, resources, learning, task management and notifications all sit in the same place,” explained Lanwin.

Most of the apps and software in this guide include integrations with the most popular business software solutions, like the best CRM software and well-known apps for internal communication. Before deciding on goal setting software or a goal tracking app, make sure the solution works with the business software your company already uses.

Sean Peek contributed to the reporting and writing in this article.