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  Fabric Planning vs Anaplan

Fabric Planning vs Anaplan: 
why teams plan in Microsoft Fabric

Fabric Planning vs Anaplan comes down to where planning happens. Fabric Planning runs on the data and semantic models you already have in Microsoft Fabric, and business users build the plans themselves. Anaplan needs its own copy of the data, with models generally built by specialists.
  SUMMARY

Why choose Fabric Planning over Anaplan?

01

Plan where your data lives

Fabric Planning runs inside Microsoft Fabric, on the same platform as the data being planned against. Anaplan keeps a copy of that data in a layer of its own, separate from your data and reporting platforms.
02

Your business users build the plans

Finance, operations, sales and HR users build and change their own plans in a no-code surface. A first plan takes minutes once the semantic model is in place, and implementations typically go live in days. Anaplan deployments generally involve certified model builders or consultants and typically take 4 to 12 months to go live.
03

Reuse your business logic

Fabric Planning builds on the measures your semantic model already defines: what each metric means and how the numbers roll up. Anaplan rebuilds that logic in its own formula language.
04

Reports keep pace with the plan

Report on plan data as it is entered (through Integrated Intelligence), and add plan measures to the semantic model for Power BI reports to pick up. Anaplan's own Power BI connector loads exports that a model builder sets up in Anaplan, so reports show plan data only as of the last export. Anaplan's guidance recommends keeping detailed transactions in a separate reporting model.
05

Your existing security applies

Your Entra ID groups and the security on your semantic models apply to every plan, and Fabric Planning adds roles for who can change which sheets, measures and scenarios, with an audit trail. Anaplan can federate sign-in to Entra ID, but its data-access rules are defined again inside Anaplan.
06

Lower total cost of ownership

Fabric Planning runs on Fabric capacity sized by the sessions people use, and a session starts only when someone engages with a plan, so seasonal contributors draw no capacity in the months they do not plan. Anaplan licenses named users and workspace gigabytes for the full contract term.
  Architecture

Planning on your data platform

Fabric Planning keeps planning data inside Microsoft Fabric, alongside the data being planned against. Anaplan holds a copy of that data in a layer of its own, separate from the platforms your data and reporting already run on: source data is imported, typically on a schedule, to plan against, then budgets and forecasts are exported to report on in your BI tools. The same numbers end up in three places, and keeping them in step is work you pay for on top of licenses.
Results in duplicated data, reconciliation work and latency
Transactions
ERPFinancials & Ops
CRMSales & Pipeline
HRMPeople & Payroll
Master Data
MDMReference Data
(ETL)
1
Replicate transaction data to planning platform
Anaplan
Siloed planning platform
Budget Data
Forecast Data
Scenarios
Data held in a separate store
(ETL)
2
Replicate budgets and forecasts for variance reporting
Enterprise BI
Power BIPlan vs. Actual Reporting
CopilotAI-powered insights
93%
of Fortune 500
companies use
Power BI
MICROSOFT FABRIC PLANNING

Planning on your data foundation

Fabric Planning is the planning capability in Microsoft Fabric, built on the same foundation that already powers your reporting and AI, so there is no parallel planning platform to buy, integrate and govern.
Unified data foundation
Planning and BI on one platform, built on the semantic models you already run, so both share the same business logic.
Available to the rest of Fabric
Plans written back to Fabric SQL land in OneLake, where Power BI, semantic models, data agents and pipelines can read them.
Source systems reach Fabric directly
Data from Snowflake, Databricks, BigQuery, SAP and Oracle reaches OneLake through mirroring or shortcuts, with no ETL pipelines to build and maintain.
Lower TCO through consolidation
One fewer system to license, integrate, govern and audit. Planning runs on Fabric capacity, which can be reserved at about 41% below pay-as-you-go and counts toward MACC commitments where applicable.
Activity-based licensing
Reviewers, approvers and seasonal contributors don't carry a committed, per-named-user cost for the full year.
Fabric foundation by inheritance
OneLake storage, Entra ID sign-in and the row-level and object-level security on your semantic model apply to the plan, so data access is defined once.
Anaplan

A planning silo, beside your data

With Anaplan, data moves out of your source systems into a separate platform for planning, and plan data moves back out to your BI tools for reporting.
A second platform to license and run
A second planning platform to license, run and maintain alongside your data estate.
Ongoing ETL and reconciliation
Source data is loaded into a separate Data Hub model, typically in a workspace of its own, then imported into each planning model. Plan data moves back out to report on, with numbers to keep in step.
Build before you plan
Implementations typically take 4 to 12 months to go live and involve certified model builders or partners.
Plans sit outside your AI-ready data layer
An AI agent in Anaplan has only the data copied into Anaplan, usually summarized to the planning level, so granular performance data and its context are often missing. Agents on a platform that receives Anaplan exports may still miss the granular context and comments behind the plan.
Separate governance perimeter
Sign-in can federate to Entra ID, but cell-level access is configured again inside each model, through Dynamic Cell Access driven by modules built for the purpose.
  Roles & skills

Who builds and maintains the model

In Fabric Planning the work is shared by two groups, each doing work it already knows. The finance, operations, sales and HR users who own the plan build it themselves in a no-code surface, and the data team maintains the semantic model underneath, the same model it already runs for reporting.

An Anaplan deployment generally involves a third group: the certified model builders or consultants who build and enhance the model inside Anaplan. Anaplan modeling is a platform-specific discipline. For many use cases, Fabric Planning removes that third group.

A first plan takes minutes once the semantic model is in place, and plan owners keep changing their plans as the business changes, using the implementation method that suits each plan. Enhancing an Anaplan model generally goes back to the model builders or partners.

Budget holders, sales managers and regional leads contribute in Stakeholder sessions: they enter their numbers, run scenarios, approve and comment, and draw capacity only in the months they plan. A new use case can run on the Fabric capacity already in place, while Anaplan licenses named users and workspace for the full contract term.

Planning remains a business function

Finance, operations, sales and HR users define input templates, drivers, scenarios and approvals themselves. Building a plan does not require writing DAX or SQL.

The data team's work is unchanged

The warehouse and semantic model are the same artifacts maintained for reporting today. Fabric Planning consumes them and does not require a parallel copy.

Delivered by Power BI partners

Delivery partners with Power BI experience can implement Fabric Planning on the semantic models and Fabric skills they already work with.

Reduced key-person risk

The plan is built on artifacts the data team already understands, so knowledge is not concentrated in a small number of platform specialists.

Versioned with the rest of the estate

Plan artifacts move through Fabric deployment pipelines and Git-based workflows, with export and import of plan definitions and service principal authentication.

Programmatic management

Public APIs provide create, read, update, delete and list operations over planning artifacts, so Fabric Planning can be connected to wider business processes.
  Modeling

Reuse the business logic in your semantic models

Most planning in Fabric Planning needs no model at all: a planning sheet connects to the semantic model, input columns capture the plan and each team works in its own filtered view. Where the plan needs logic of its own, Fabric Planning offers two model types that business users build without writing DAX, and the difference between them is where that logic lives.
Logic in the semantic model
Measure Model
The Measure Model suits plans with many similar items, such as products, customers or employees, that all follow the same calculations. The measures your data team already maintains in the semantic model become the plan: drivers such as sales volume and price, and the results calculated from them, such as gross and net revenue, grouped into a business hierarchy such as a P&L. Microsoft's framing is "extend, don't rebuild," so plan and actuals share one set of definitions, maintained in one place. Planners work across hundreds to many thousands of rows, one for each SKU or employee, all following the same logic. A change flows into every measure that depends on it and rolls up through the regions: a change to Brazil's sales volume updates its gross and net revenue, and Latin America's totals with them.
Logic in the plan
Row Model
The Row Model suits strategic, long-range and P&L-style plans, where each line has its own formula. It is built on a single business hierarchy, such as a chart of accounts, and any row can be a driver: revenue can be volume times price, and headcount can drive salary cost. Planners work with tens to a few hundred account lines and drivers, each carrying its own logic, and plans can run up to 25 years ahead. Because the logic sits in the plan, it works even on a simple semantic model with few measures.
Most planning in Fabric Planning needs no model at all: a planning sheet connects to the semantic model, input columns capture the plan and each team works in its own filtered view. Where the plan needs logic of its own, Fabric Planning offers two model types that business users build without writing DAX, and the difference between them is where that logic lives.

Planning in Tree View

Tree View turns a Measure Model or Row Model into a live hierarchy a planner works in, from a top-line outcome such as operating profit down to the drivers feeding it. Select a node to simulate a change as a percentage or with a slider. Scenarios are created and compared here, and several drivers can move together across entities and across quarters or months. The Optimize solver moves several drivers at once toward a target, such as maximum profit, inside minimum and maximum bounds set for each one.

What happens as the model grows

Each active session draws capacity at a fixed rate by session type, so you are not charged by model size. Capacity still has to be sized: it follows the number of active sessions, plus an allowance for Fabric SQL, OneLake and semantic model activity, which depends on the data involved. In Anaplan the workspace is sold in gigabytes, so model size is part of what you buy. As the model and the data loaded alongside it grow, the workspace needs upgrading, and a Data Hub and a separate reporting model draw on workspace as well.

A plan's size is also chosen rather than inherited. A semantic model is large because it records everything that happened; a plan records what a team commits to, at the grain, or level of detail, that team plans at. Most plans need no more than 1 million cells, and when one does grow large, the usual answer is a different implementation method.

The method follows the objective, the shape of the data and the grain the team plans at. Most plans start with context filtering, and methods can be combined, such as a Measure Model with country-level planning.
Default starting point
Context Filtering and pivoting
Connect to the semantic model, select the dimensions to plan on, filter and plan, with saved pivots giving each team its own view of the same detail. It is the fastest and most common method, and sufficient for most planning use cases.
KPI and measure trees
Measure Model
Build the plan from the governed measures and KPIs the semantic model already exposes.
Multi-entity, multi-currency
Dimension Partitioning
Each country or profit center plans in its own currency and grain, then rolls up into a single view. It extends context filtering across multiple sheets. InfoBridge, which lets one sheet look up data from another, and PowerTable handle currency conversion.
Many dimensions
Cube (multi-dimensional)
Each team plans on the dimensions it needs to see while values allocate to the rest in the background by driver weights, so plans at different levels stay in sync.
Strategic plannIng
Row Model
It connects operational and financial drivers on a single business hierarchy for strategic and long-range planning. Drivers and outcomes are identified first, which makes it the more involved of the two model types to build.
LINE-ITEM GRAIN
PowerTable Integration
Plan at employee, material, customer or line-item grain. PowerTable holds the detailed grain and rolls it up into the planning sheet.
As a rule of thumb, where the planning grain sits on a large, granular dimension such as employee, material, customer or line item, starting in PowerTable usually works better, and planning at financial or aggregate grain usually starts in the planning sheet.
  Reporting

Reporting on plan data

In Fabric Planning, Intelligence sheets report on plan data as soon as it is entered, and the plan measures can be added to the semantic model for Power BI reports to pick up, alongside the actuals. Variance reports against actuals are built in, in IBCS-certified notation, and a manager can correct the forecast in the same table where the variance appears. Anaplan's own Power BI connector reaches plan data by running export actions saved in the model, and the actuals inside Anaplan are a copy refreshed by imports, typically on a schedule. Anaplan's modeling guidance also keeps detailed transactional data in a separate reporting model, because large amounts of historic transactional data can inflate the planning model and reduce performance.
MICROSOFT FABRIC PLANNING
1
Enter the plan in the planning sheet.
2
Intelligence sheets read the plan as it is entered and report on it in real time.
3
Writeback lands plan data in Fabric SQL. You can also publish plan measures to the existing semantic model and its dimensions.
4
An event trigger can refresh the model, and Power BI and Copilot report on it directly.
One model, with no manual step between planning and reporting.
Anaplan
1
Plan in the planning model, against actuals that are typically imported on a schedule.
2
Keep detailed transactional data in a separate reporting model, to hold the planning model's size down.
3
Build and maintain export actions for the plan data Power BI needs.
4
Run the exports and load them into Power BI.
5
Report, as current as the last import and export.
Several models to maintain, with data copied in and out, on a schedule or when someone runs the sync.

Writeback is optional

The Intelligence layer reads plan data directly from OneLake, so a plan can be reviewed, reported on and compared with actuals without configuring writeback. Writeback publishes plan data to Fabric SQL and is the right choice where Power BI reporting, downstream workflows or archival and SOX retention depend on the written data.

Uses the existing semantic model

The writeback table connects to dimension tables already maintained for reporting and joins the Power BI estate as it stands.

No model copy each cycle

Writeback produces a fact table scoped to the dimensions and measures needed downstream, so nothing is copied into a second model each cycle.

No manual synchronization step

Writeback to Fabric SQL can run automatically as values change, and an event trigger can refresh the semantic model when it succeeds, so reports keep pace with the plan.
  Security & governance

Identity, security and audit

Fabric Planning inherits identity and data security from the Microsoft estate and adds planning permissions on top: Fabric governs the data people can use, and Fabric Planning governs how they contribute. A separate planning platform such as Anaplan needs to set up user accounts, data-access rules and audit a second time and keep them in step with the first.
Fabric Planning security in layers Six layers, each answering a different access question. Home: Home Layout opens each role on its own page. Fabric Planning: plan security roles set sheets, input measures, scenarios, writeback and comments, and PowerTable sets column and row edit rights. Workspace and item: workspace roles, Build to reuse a semantic model and Write to author the Plan item. Semantic model: row-level and object-level security apply to each signed-in user. Source data: SQL and OneLake security protect what the connection can read. Identity: Microsoft Entra ID groups and conditional access policies govern plan access. Also built in: audit trail, sensitivity labels, tenant-level Private Link and governed connections. HOME Role-based landing page Home Layout opens each role on its own page, with the sheets that role can see FABRIC PLANNING Sheets and planning actions Plan security roles set sheets, input measures, scenarios, writeback and comments; PowerTable sets column and row edit rights WORKSPACE + ITEM Access, reuse and authoring Workspace roles; Build to reuse a semantic model; Write to author the Plan item SEMANTIC MODEL Business rows and objects RLS and OLS apply to each signed-in user, defined once on the model SOURCE DATA Database or OneLake SQL and OneLake security protect what the connection can read IDENTITY Microsoft Entra ID Existing groups and conditional access policies govern plan access ALSO BUILT IN Audit trail Data, security, comments and exports Sensitivity labels Supported, alongside expanded access management Private Link Tenant level Governed connections Connection changes are validated and logged for audit Best practice: manage access with Entra security groups Three role systems: workspace role, session type and Plan security role; an action must pass all three Fabric Planning security in layers Six layers, each answering a different access question. Home: Home Layout opens each role on its own page. Fabric Planning: plan security roles set sheets, input measures, scenarios, writeback and comments, and PowerTable sets column and row edit rights. Workspace and item: workspace roles, Build to reuse a semantic model and Write to author the Plan item. Semantic model: row-level and object-level security apply to each signed-in user. Source data: SQL and OneLake security protect what the connection can read. Identity: Microsoft Entra ID groups and conditional access policies govern plan access. Also built in: audit trail, sensitivity labels, tenant-level Private Link and governed connections. HOME Role-based landing page Home Layout opens each role on its own page, with the sheets that role can see FABRIC PLANNING Sheets and planning actions Plan security roles set sheets, input measures, scenarios, writeback and comments; PowerTable sets column and row edit rights WORKSPACE + ITEM Access, reuse and authoring Workspace roles; Build to reuse a semantic model; Write to author the Plan item SEMANTIC MODEL Business rows and objects RLS and OLS apply to each signed-in user, defined once on the model SOURCE DATA Database or OneLake SQL and OneLake security protect what the connection can read IDENTITY Microsoft Entra ID Existing groups and conditional access policies govern plan access ALSO BUILT IN Audit trail Data, security, comments and exports Sensitivity labels Supported, alongside expanded access management Private Link Tenant level Governed connections Connection changes are validated and logged for audit Best practice: manage access with Entra security groups Three role systems: workspace role, session type and Plan security role; an action must pass all three

One directory: Microsoft Entra ID

Plans reside within your Fabric tenant and use Microsoft Entra ID directly, with no plan-specific user store. Disabling a user's Entra ID account removes their access to plans, with no offboarding step of its own.

Model security applies to every plan

Row-level and object-level security defined on the semantic model apply to each signed-in user of the plan, with no re-setup. Plan authors need only Read and Build access to the model, plus write access to the plan, so the model's rules apply to them as well.

Permissions for how people contribute

Plan security roles, assigned to people or Entra ID groups, give each sheet and each input or forecast measure read and write, read-only or hidden access, and decide who sees which scenarios and who can write back or comment. Administrators can also limit who may take Stakeholder or Planner sessions.

Audit and compliance

Audit trails record changes to data, security settings, comments and exports, with revert in PowerTable. Plan artifacts move through Fabric deployment pipelines and Git-based workflows alongside the rest of the Fabric estate, and sensitivity labels and tenant-level Private Link are supported.
  Results

What customers and partners have reported

Microsoft has published these accounts from organizations planning in Microsoft Fabric on its Fabric Updates Blog.
“For us, the biggest benefit of Fabric Planning is speed: it lets us turn the semantic models and trusted business logic we have already invested in into planning applications, rather than rebuilding that foundation in a separate planning platform.”
Patrick Sura, Director Business Intelligence EMEA, Dentsu.
Published by Microsoft in its Fabric Updates Blog.
“What used to take three to four weeks... can now be completed in about a week.”
Rich Zielinski, Director of Finance & Treasury, Canlak, on the organization's forecasting process.
Published by Microsoft in its general availability announcement.
“Fabric Planning lets us tailor forecasting to each area of the business... without forcing everyone into the same methodology.”
Andrew Gundrum, Executive Director, Finance Data and Analytics, Merck.
Published by Microsoft in its Fabric Updates Blog.
“Planning in Microsoft Fabric closes that gap”
Khaled Ahmed, Managing Director, Fabric & EPM Solutions, KINETIQ.
The gap is the space between spreadsheets on one side and planning tools disconnected from the underlying data on the other. Published by Microsoft in its general availability announcement.
Microsoft's general availability announcement states that customers across financial services, retail, manufacturing and healthcare have adopted Fabric Planning.
  Cost & TCO
The cost difference comes from the architecture: one fewer platform to license, integrate and operate. Enter your own user counts and negotiated Anaplan rates to see the comparison for your organization.

Fabric Planning vs Anaplan cost calculator

Compare the annual cost of Microsoft Fabric Planning and Anaplan.
User group # Users Fabric Planning 1-year reserved price per 30-day session † Anaplan Net rate you pay · $/user/yr
Planners / Admins Build & maintain models Planner
$90.67/session
Workspace Admin / Model Builder
$
Stakeholders / Contributors Enter values, approve, comment Stakeholder
$17.98/session
Contributor / Planner license
$
Read-only / Viewers Consume plans & reports Viewer
$3.91/session
Read-only
$
Licenses or capacity, annual 210 $60,032
F64 capacity, 1-year reserved
$370,000

† Fabric Planning runs on Fabric capacity. A session runs for 30 days from the first time a user engages with a plan, and each session type draws capacity at a fixed rate; a user who does not engage in a month starts no session and draws no capacity. The calculator prices the smallest Fabric capacity that holds a session for every user entered plus the allowance below, at the 1-year reserved East US price. The session prices are shown for reference. CU consumption by session type is set by Microsoft and is the same in every region, while the price per CU varies by region.

Anaplan rates are estimates. Enter the net rate you pay per seat, after discounts.

The Anaplan figures are USD list prices and have not been converted to USD.

Additional cost lines (enter the costs you actually incur)
Line item Fabric Planning Anaplan
Platform / workspace fee optional Annual base fee. An Anaplan workspace is sold in gigabytes, so a growing model needs more of it.
$
$
Other resources / infra overhead Fabric: an allowance for Fabric SQL, OneLake and Power BI XMLA consumption, entered as a % of session load; the capacity is sized to hold it. The competitor: integration and hosting resources, entered as an annual amount.
%
$
Premium support optional Vendor premium / enterprise support tier, if quoted separately.
$
$
Add-ons optional Anaplan prices or entitles add-ons such as the Polaris engine (in some tiers), Data Orchestrator, Workflow, Consolidation and Anaplan Intelligence separately, along with export and BI tooling where your contract includes it. In Fabric Planning, PowerTable and Intelligence come with the session at no additional cost, and plan data already lands in OneLake.
$
$
Annual cost, Year 1 $60,032 $420,000
Fabric Planning / yr
$60,032
on F64 1-year reserved capacity
Anaplan / yr
$420,000
licenses and fees
7.0×
lower annual cost · $359,968/yr saved

Microsoft Fabric reserved capacity

Fabric Planning runs on a Microsoft Fabric capacity (an F SKU). Reserved for a year, capacity costs about 41% less than pay-as-you-go, and part of a capacity can be reserved with the rest on pay-as-you-go. Fabric capacity is MACC-eligible where applicable, so it can draw down Azure spend your organization has already committed. The calculator prices the capacity the sessions and the allowance need, for a like-for-like comparison. Whatever the sessions do not consume stays available to other Fabric workloads. Anaplan seats, by contrast, are dedicated to Anaplan.

The Anaplan figures are USD list prices and have not been converted to USD.

  Implementation & Training

One-time cost & time to value

Fabric Planning builds on your existing semantic models, so there is no parallel data model or ETL to stand up: on a well-governed semantic model, a planner can build a first plan in minutes and implementations typically go live in days. Anaplan deployments are typically consultant-led, and independent benchmarks from Vendr and CFO Shortlist put first-year services at half to three times the annual license.
One-time / annual increase Fabric Planning Anaplan
Training One-time enablement for your team.
$
$
Implementation time Weeks to go live, which drives time to value.
wk
wk
Implementation cost One-time services / build cost.
$
$
Annual price increase (CPI / renewal) Applied to Years 2 to 3 of the TCO. Enter the escalator in your contract.
%
%

Cumulative 3-year TCO

How each platform's 3-year total cost is built up
One-time setup Year 1 Year 2 Year 3

3-year breakdown

Total cost of ownership over 36 months
Component Fabric Planning Anaplan
Annual cost (3 yrs, incl. uplift) $180,096 $1,350,258
Training (one-time) $12,000 $36,000
Implementation (one-time) $40,000 $400,000
3-year TCO $232,096 $1,786,258
$1.55M saved
3-year TCO savings · 7.7× lower
One-time Fabric cost covered by 2 months of run-rate savings · 24 weeks faster to value

Years 2 to 3 apply the renewal uplift: Year n = Year 1 × (1 + uplift)^(n−1). Fabric reserved defaults to 0% (flat annual commitment); Anaplan defaults to 7%.

The Anaplan figures are USD list prices and have not been converted to USD.

Assumptions & methodology

This page offers a directional comparison, not a quote. Figures are illustrative under the stated assumptions; actual costs depend on contract terms, region, session-type mix and utilization.

  • User mapping. Counts are entered once and applied to both platforms: Planner session ↔ Anaplan Workspace Admin / Model Builder; Stakeholder session ↔ Anaplan Contributor / Planner license; Viewer session ↔ Anaplan read-only.
  • Fabric Planning uses 1-year reserved capacity pricing, the right basis for an annual TCO, at about 41% below pay-as-you-go. A session runs for 30 days. Each session type draws capacity at a fixed rate set by Microsoft and the same in every region: Planner 1.16, Stakeholder 0.23 and Viewer 0.05 sustained CU (CU per second), which is 847, 168 and 37 CU-hours over a 730-hour month. The calculator assumes a session for every user every month, adds the allowance for Fabric SQL, OneLake and Power BI XMLA (30% by default, adjustable) and prices the smallest Fabric capacity that holds the total, at the 1-year reserved East US price: an F64, for example, is $60,032 a year. Capacity comes in fixed sizes that double in price at each step, so the Fabric figure moves in steps, and F4 is the smallest size used, as the realistic floor for production. The community's sizing guidance adds headroom for growth and other workloads by keeping sessions under 75% of the capacity; the capacity calculator applies it. The per-session prices shown (Planner $90.67, Stakeholder $17.98 and Viewer $3.91, reserved) are the East US figures it publishes. The price per CU varies by region.
  • Anaplan figures are estimates, not contracted rates. Anaplan does not publish per-seat list prices (CFO Shortlist). Per-tier defaults (premium model-builder seats, mid-tier contributors, low-cost read-only) are entered as the net rate you would actually pay, after your negotiated volume and term discount, so there is no separate discount line to double-count. Excluding read-only seats, the defaults come to about $3,100 per seat a year, or about $3,500 with the workspace fee, against our estimate of roughly $3,500 to $4,000 per seat for Anaplan. The implementation default is about one year of the default Anaplan cost; first-year services range from half (Vendr) to three times (CFO Shortlist) the license. A workspace fee is applied by default. Replace every default with your actual quote.
  • Multi-year. The CPI or renewal uplift is applied to Years 2 and 3 of the TCO. Fabric reserved capacity defaults to flat (0%); adjust as needed.
  • Not modeled: the in-house team needed to build and maintain Anaplan models. In months when users do not engage with a plan, they start no session and draw no capacity, which leaves room for other users and workloads on the same capacity.
  FAQ

Fabric Planning vs Anaplan: frequently asked questions

Overview
It goes to intent and architecture. Fabric Planning is built for the business users who own the plan: they build and change their own plans without code, while Anaplan models are generally built and changed by specialists. Fabric Planning also runs inside Microsoft Fabric, on the data and semantic models you already have, and plan data stays in your data platform for reports and apps to use. Anaplan needs its own copy of the data, loaded in for planning and exported again for reporting in other tools.

There is nothing to install and no new vendor contract. Fabric Planning is Microsoft's own planning capability in Microsoft Fabric, and a Fabric administrator turns it on in tenant settings. Plans run on Fabric capacity, and any extra capacity you need comes through your existing Azure subscription. Anaplan is a separate platform with its own contract.

Yes. Fabric Planning runs on your Fabric data and semantic models, separately from Anaplan, so you can start your next planning use case in Fabric Planning while your Anaplan models keep running. There is no new contract to negotiate, and a first plan takes minutes once the semantic model is in place.
Building and running plans
The planning model is built by the finance, operations, sales and HR users who own the plan, in a no-code surface. Defining input templates, drivers, scenarios and approvals does not require writing DAX or SQL. The underlying warehouse and semantic model continue to be maintained by the data team as part of its existing reporting work, so for many use cases no third group of platform-specific model builders is required. Delivery partners with Power BI experience can implement Fabric Planning on the semantic models and Fabric skills they already work with.

A first plan takes minutes once the semantic model is in place, and implementations typically go live in days. Plan owners make later changes themselves, so they do not wait for a modeling team. Anaplan implementations typically take 4 to 12 months, and the pace is set by model builders. As CFO Shortlist's 2026 review of Anaplan pricing puts it, "The schedule's real constraint is model-builder availability, not the software."

They work in the plan itself, in Stakeholder sessions: they enter their numbers, run scenarios, approve and comment. Plan security roles decide which sheets and measures each person can see and change.

Yes. Fabric Planning covers sales planning (quotas by territory, with top-down targets and bottom-up input), S&OP and demand planning (statistical forecasts with inventory and supply drivers) and workforce planning (headcount at employee level), alongside FP&A. Teams use it for standard processes such as the annual budget and rolling forecasts, and for ad-hoc what-if questions between cycles, all on the same governed data. Anaplan offers several of these as separate applications, which model builders set up and maintain.

No. A Measure Model builds the plan directly from the measures and KPIs your semantic model already exposes, so the DAX logic your data team maintains is reused as it stands. Logic that belongs to the plan itself, such as a balance carried from one period to the next, is written as Planning Formulas inside the plan, with no change to the semantic model.

Yes. With the Native Planning Engine, a planning sheet handles about 12 million cells for a single user, and Cube extends a plan to as many as 100 million. PowerTable plans at row level, up to 1 billion rows, with the ceiling set by the capacity behind the database. Most plans need no more than 1 million cells. When many people plan at once, performance follows the size of your Fabric capacity and the design of the semantic model underneath, and capacity can be scaled up as usage grows. Our article on planning at scale covers the range of each method.

Business users maintain it in PowerTable, an Excel-like grid that needs no code, covering new products, cost centers, mappings, exchange rates and other forward-looking master and reference data, with approvals, change history and an audit log. The data sits in a Fabric SQL table that plans, Power BI reports and other applications inside and outside Fabric all read. In Anaplan, lists live inside its models, and applications outside Anaplan reach them through exports, APIs or Data Orchestrator.
Data, AI and security
No. The plan measures can be added to the existing semantic model for Power BI reports to pick up, alongside the dimensions already maintained for reporting, so plan data becomes part of the reporting estate without recreating dimensions or standing up a second model. Within Fabric Planning itself, Intelligence sheets report on plan data as it is entered, including variances against actuals, and this experience is seamlessly integrated with PowerTable too. Anaplan's own Power BI connector loads exports that a model builder sets up in Anaplan, so Power BI reports show plan data only as of the last export. Anaplan's guidance recommends keeping detailed transactions in a separate reporting model.

Plan data is already in your data platform. Writeback saves it to Fabric SQL, which lands in OneLake, where pipelines, notebooks, other plans and applications inside and outside Fabric use it directly. Event triggers can start a pipeline, a notebook, a semantic model refresh or a Teams or Outlook notification when writeback runs. Anaplan data reaches downstream systems through exports and integrations that model builders or developers maintain, or through Data Orchestrator.

Fabric Planning offers better AI readiness, integration and outcomes. Budgets, forecasts and scenarios are written to the same platform where the detailed performance data resides, with the same definitions and security. This means (a) plan data is ready for AI without moving it anywhere else, and (b) Fabric data agents work with the plan and the actuals together at full detail and context, including comments and approvals. An AI agent working with Anaplan, whether inside Anaplan or connected through its AI Gateway, sees only the data copied into Anaplan, aggregated to the planning level, so access to granular context is missing. Anaplan plan data exported to another platform would still lack the granular context and comments behind the plan.

Fabric Planning uses the security you already have. Identity comes from Microsoft Entra ID, row-level and object-level security on the semantic model apply to each signed-in user, and Plan security roles set who can see and change each sheet, measure and scenario. Audit trails record changes to data, security settings, comments and exports. Anaplan can use Entra ID for sign-in, but its data-access rules are defined again inside Anaplan.
Pricing and cost
Activity-based licensing on Microsoft Fabric capacity, reserved or pay-as-you-go. Each user who engages with a plan starts a 30-day session, and each session type (Planner, Stakeholder or Viewer) draws capacity at a fixed rate, so the capacity is sized by the sessions people use. One session covers Planning, PowerTable and Intelligence, which carry no additional cost. A user who does not engage in a month starts no session and draws no capacity, and Fabric capacity is MACC-eligible where applicable. See the Fabric Planning capacity calculator for sizing.

In Fabric Planning, Planning, PowerTable and Intelligence are all included in one session, with no separate add-ons to buy. Other Fabric resources, such as Fabric SQL, OneLake and semantic model activity, are not part of the session: they use your Fabric capacity like any other workload, so allow about 30% of session load for them, a conservative figure and the default in the calculator on this page. Automation jobs also draw capacity per successful run. Anaplan prices or entitles several capabilities separately, including the Polaris engine in some tiers, Data Orchestrator, Workflow, Consolidation and Anaplan Intelligence, its AI suite. Access to its AI Gateway for outside AI tools depends on license edition.

By use. A session starts only when someone engages with a plan and runs for 30 days, so a budget holder who contributes during the planning cycle, or an approver who signs off once a quarter, draws capacity only in the months they take part. Contributors and approvers use Stakeholder sessions, which draw about a fifth of the capacity of a Planner session. Anaplan licenses named users for the full contract term, so a contributor or approver who works one month a year holds the same annual license as one who works every month.

For almost all user mixes, yes, by a wide margin. The savings come from removing a parallel planning platform, its integration and the named seats to run it. Actual figures depend on your user counts, rates and contract terms; the calculator gives a directional estimate.

Size your Fabric capacity

The Fabric Planning capacity calculator recommends the Fabric SKU for your mix of Planner, Stakeholder and Viewer sessions.
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