Is The Free Tier any Good?

The Free Tier Mode allows teams with up to seven developers to use The PlanMinder for free. The caveat is that in Free Tier Mode, Monte-Carlo simulations and thus uncertainty calculations are not available. Is The PlanMinder still useful?

Most project planning software do not have this feature available at all. So compared with other alternatives, you are not missing out at all. You still have a project planning tool centered around automatic scheduling, that makes changing plans and keeping them up to date easy.

For smaller teams that do not need to plan that far into the future, Free Tier may be a perfect option.

What is the difference?

The PlanMinder will schedule all activities using the expected duration. This is what always is shown in the Gantt chart of the Chronos view. The box and whiskers plot that indicates the uncertainty of when a milestone will be reached will however be missing. Both in the Chronos view and in the Priority view. Without Monte Carlo simulations, The PlanMinder can’t calculate the probability of reaching a deadline on time either. Only one date is calculated, based on the expected outcome of each activity.

Milestone Priority List in Free Tier Mode

Milestone Priority List in Licensed Mode

For a single activity, the model predicts a 63 % chance of finishing before the scheduled date. When activities are scheduled in parallel, the probability gets a little bit lower. When using Free Tier, you must keep this in mind, and not be overly confident in the dates in the plan.

Discrete Risks

You can use discrete risks also in Free Tier Mode, but they become less meaningful. Discrete risks are a way to incorporate known project risks in the uncertainty analysis for project plans. Without uncertainty analysis, there is no way to show their effect.

If the risk probability is 50 % or greater, it will be fully part of the scheduled plan. Otherwise it will be ignored.

Answer: Yes!

The PlanMinder in Free Tier Mode is a good tool, that will save you time when planning, help you keep your plans up to date at all time, empower your team with the information it provides and help you get better at estimating.

The PlanMinder fully licensed is a great tool that also let you monitor, plan for, and mitigate risks, optimize your plans and utilize opportunities.

The choice is yours, and you can always change your mind. With the 60 days trial period you always have a chance to evaluate the full experience.