‘How much does a business plan cost?’ is a typical question. Every entrepreneur and business owner asks about it sooner or later, which is not surprising because business planning is one of those things you can’t really escape when you run a business.
So, how much does it cost to write a business plan? A lot. Is it worth the investment? Not really.
Long story short, the average cost of a business plan tends to be high if you rely on someone external to do the job for you. Professional business plan writers cost a significant amount of money because the exercise is time-consuming, hence a typical business plan cost estimate reaching five to ten thousand dollars isn’t exceptional. Still, is the expense necessary? No, it’s not.
We dedicated an article to business plan consultants and their efficiency for your business, so we won’t dig into this question right here. However, we’ll look at cost-effectiveness, and we’ll give you tips to try and lower your bill… under a hundred dollars! Oh yeah.
Before we do that, though, let us put this article into its larger context. At Impactified, we are often asked for help when it comes to business plans, so we have compiled a list of free resources on how to write a business plan that people will want to read.
These resources will give you tips as to what’s expected from you by investors and financiers. They will show you what outline you should absolutely follow. And they will provide you with a free business plan template and mini-course you’ll be able to use immediately to get started immediately!
We give about eighty percent of our content for free on this blog. Still, if you wanted to get started fast with two hours of video tutorials and a writing tool with designer-made templates, then we’ve also created The Business Plan Builder module to give you everything you need for under a hundred dollars!
Back to business plan costs – we are now going to look at a few things:
- How much does a business plan cost if you ask someone else to write it for you?
- How much does a business plan cost if you work on it yourself?
- Three good reasons to keep your business plan’s cost as low as possible.
- Three tips to keep your business plan cost down!
Are you ready to get going? Perfect, keep reading!
How much does a business plan cost if I ask someone else to write it for me?
As we’ve said in the introduction, it’s typical to see a business plan cost between five and ten thousand dollars for a small business. Of course, they would cost a lot more for larger companies, especially if large consulting firms got involved in the equation.
Nothing is surprising there if you think about it.
Think about it!
How to charge for a business plan?
Time? Expertise?
Writing this type of document involves a lot of market research ( because market analysis takes time). And it also takes a lot of strategic thinking.
In addition, coming up with a financial business plan (i.e. a financial strategy with reasonable financial projections) also takes work… you see the point.
Overall, the exercise tends to be time-consuming, and time is money, so the average business plan cost is high when a professional writer is involved. Of course, more affordable business plan writing services might offer better terms, but since price is value then chances are that a lower price will mean less research work, or beyond average writing skills – and you don’t want that either.
Beyond time-related matters though, the point is that business plan writers cost a lot of money because the value created by a business plan is usually very high. It’s a strategic key to unlocking funding, after all. Hence some business plan writing services cost money proportionately to the value they provide. It’s as simple as that.
Wait… but why do I need a business plan in the first place?
Good question – thanks for asking! Regardless of its cost, the reality is that a business plan can be a genuine asset for your business – for several reasons.
Again, we explored that discussion in a dedicated article that looks at what a business plan is for and how it can support your business, so we won’t get into the details here.
Still, the big idea is that working on a business plan involves a vital business planning exercise. That planning exercise, in turn, gives you a huge opportunity to take some operational perspective on your business.
Going through the intellectual process gives you an opportunity to think about your market, and it pushes you to consider what demand you are matching. Like, for real, because what investors want to know is whether or not your business proposal is answering a demand.u
The exercise also gives you a way to think about your business like an investor or banker would (for, depending on your needs, a low investment, a small business loan, etc.). And that helps with building an adapted pitch that gets people on board.
Okay, but I can do all that by myself, right?
Yes, of course! That’s why we’re here, aren’t we?
Our perspective on business plan-writing is very clear: you should be writing your business plan yourself. That’s it, period.
Now, of course, when we say “yourself”, you can obviously be a little creative.
If your business is a small business and you don’t have a big team around you, then you’ll have to do the job yourself. But perhaps you’ll have friends around willing to help you brainstorm, so you don’t have to do everything alone?
Or perhaps your business is not that small, and someone on your team has an eye on your finances. In that case, you could let that person manage the thinking phase and brainstorm together to add more perspective on what’s possible or not.
Either way, brainstorming with one of our business coaches is also a possibility. They won’t be doing the business plan for you, but they’ll have the right questions and concepts in mind to challenge you and get you to sharpen your storytelling.
For instance…
For instance, do you have a profitable business idea? Do you make money already? If not, when will you start making money? Do you have low startup costs, or do you need some significant funding to get things going?
Is your business facing significant competition? Is it aligned with current small business trends, or is it different?
You get the point – the idea is not to simply have a cool business name with cool business ideas, sexy business cards, and revolutionary products that have a chance to sell.
You want to take the exercise as a chance to start planning business developments for good.
How much does a business plan cost if I work on it myself?
Having said that, how much would a business plan cost if you were to work on it yourself? Simple: about a hundred dollars.
Of course, you would have to spend some time on the exercise. There’s no doubt about that. But, still, the money investment that should come out of your pocket doesn’t need to be higher than a hundred dollars.
At the end of the day, business plans need to follow a specific template and code accepted (and expected) by the business community. Hence knowing about business plan outlines and formatting is all you need.
Some sell that type of knowledge for a fortune, but why pay that much when you can avoid such a cost?
Let us be clear here – the point is not to write a low cost business plan that will look cheap and dull just to cut the costs! No! The point is to catch the concept and expectations and produce the proper document based on the right thinking. And that’s a lot easier than you think!
Three good reasons to keep your business plan cost as low as possible.
There are also a few reasons not to spend a fortune on business plan costs. Too often, in fact, small business owners and entrepreneurs make the wrong decisions and end up paying their plans way beyond the cheque they have to sign.
You don’t want to waste your time on theoretical fluff.
First, and as we’ve said before, working on a business plan takes time because the exercise involves a lot of strategic thinking.
(Read also: How Long Does it Take to Write a Business Plan?).
Yet, the final document you’ll obtain will be – at best – a snapshot, at a given moment, of what you are planning on doing over the following years. So, NOT spending too much time on the exercise is beyond wise.
You could do tons of things with ‘ifs’ but ultimately, just ‘ifs’ won’t do anything for your business.
The point, said differently, is to consider options and develop a direction you’ll be able to follow. It should not be a matter of spending months on a document to the detriment of your actual business. Can you see the difference?
They want you to have a business with a plan (beyond just a business plan).
Second, you’ll want to keep your business plan cost down because your readers (investors, bankers, partners) are not interested in just a pdf document.
As we often say, they don’t give a damn about a pdf (excuse our French). However, they want to see that you have a business and a plan to get that business to its next step within a reasonable amount of time. Usually two, three, or five years.
So? The more you spend on setting a theory plan, the more expensive it becomes without much of a reason. Too bad!
You want to make the most of the insights you can get.
The third reason why you’ll want to keep your business plan cost down is that, ultimately, you want to make the most of the insights you’ll obtain, without spending ages on that, because trying and testing is a lot more critical than guestimating.
Have you ever heard of the ‘lean’ type of mindset? In short, instead of spending a million on a great idea, spend a little and test, then adapt and test again until you obtain something that matches demand.
That makes sense, right?
It does! And the same goes for your own business plan.
The point of your business plan is not to come up with some B.S guesstimates. Instead, it is to tell a story about your business and use that story to get people on board with you.
Limiting the time you spend drafting your document keeps your business plan cost down and forces you to think sharp and develop insights you can use now. Try!
Three tips to keep your business plan cost down!
All right!
Before we wrap things up – we also wanted to give you three tips to keep your business plan cost down and save money: follow the recommended rules, use some existing tools (especially for the financial tables), and – again – do it yourself!
Follow the recommended rules!
As we’ve said before, a business plan usually follows a series of rules to match some clear expectations. So, if you want to save some work time and keep your business plan cost down, follow the rules!
In particular, follow the typical business plan outline and formatting everyone expects you to follow. Otherwise, you’ll burn yourself.
Also, keep in mind that a business plan should be short. There’s no need to write a novel here. Just build something around a limited amount of pages with a clear executive summary, provide suitable tables and focus on building a story investors will want to read, listen and talk about.
Be careful about one page business plans, however. They imply a lot more work than people think and could have a disastrous effect on your business if not handled properly.
Business plan writers cost a fortune: do it yourself!
As we’ve said before, business plan writers cost a lot of money and business plan consulting professionals are not relevant unless your business is already big. Therefore, the best way to keep your business plan cost down is to work on it yourself.
First, you’ll save a little fortune in writers fees. But, perhaps, more importantly, you’ll save some time because whoever writes things up for you will need time to understand what you do. So you will have to be available a lot.
Second, you probably won’t be able to defend a plan that you have not written yourself because the logic behind it won’t be yours. People will grill you and your consulting company won’t be there to pitch everything marketing and finance for you – don’t take that kind of risk!
Use some existing tools!
Last but not least, the best way to save on your business plan cost is to use some existing tools instead of trying to come up with something clever on your own.
The right tools will show you which outline to follow and help you make a business plan look sexy with little to no effort. So why would you do it differently?
Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. The exercise is time-consuming and inefficient!
Shameless plug here, but The Impactified Business Plan Builder was designed to give you everything you need to make your business plan look sexy: video tutorials to understand the logic, a writing framework to make sure you answer all the questions that need to be answered, automated tables, so you don’t have to figure the numbers by yourself, and a designer-made template, so you don’t have to do that either…
How to keep your business plan cost down?
- Follow the recommended rules!
- Business plan writing services cost a fortune: do it yourself!
- Use some existing tools instead of reinventing the wheel!
Ready to create your business plan under $100? Meet the Business Plan Builder!
To wrap things up: the question “how much does a business plan cost?” calls for a relatively simple answer: a lot!
Business plan writing services cost a fortune because the exercise takes time and creates a lot of value for a business. Hence, the average cost of a business plan done by a professional would reach somewhere between five and ten thousand dollars for a small business.
Having said that, the cost of writing a complete business plan can remain very moderate, and you can get some excellent results with tools under $100 if you are willing to play the smart card!
Time to take action! If you are looking for a push to get started with everything we’ve discussed in this article, the Impactified Business Plan package was built for you! It’s built around over 2 hours of explanatory videos and comes with everything you’ll need to:
- Figure out what you need to figure out – powerful, uh?
- Understand the business plan code!
- Write a low cost business plan – with just the right amount of words and pages!
- Build your financial estimates – with our automated tables software!
- Thanks to our designer-made templates, create a visually appealing documents (a comprehensive business plan and a pitch deck) people will want to read, thanks to our designer-made templates!
If you want to stop wasting your time, this is THE most simple business plan tool, and you can’t afford to miss it! Don’t miss it!
