Comparison

SheetPlanner vs Focus Stacks

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

SheetPlanner

This app provides a powerful and flexible outliner for organizing information, planning life, and scheduling tasks. It offers advanced features like timeline and calendar views, smart filters, and collaboration, with a free core outliner and an optional trial for premium functionalities.

Highlights
  • Outliner with customizable columns
  • Timeline and calendar views
  • Smart filters for focused task management
  • Syncing via iCloud Drive
  • Collaboration features
  • Linking to files, folders, and webpages
Features
Read full description

SheetPlanner helps you organize information, plan your life and schedule your tasks and activities with unparalleled power and flexibility. FREE OUTLINER; advanced features available via 21 day in-app trial: SheetPlanner's outliner supporting multiple columns, styles, notes, links, and more is available completely free forever. Try advanced features including timeline and calendar views, multiple sheets, smart filters, and more, free for 21 days. At the end of the trial, purchase to unlock those features, or continue with the free outliner. Get organized: Organize all your activities in an outliner, categorize them using the standard columns including progress, start and finish dates. Create your own date, text, number, symbol or drop down list columns. Auto enter cell values. Link to documents and web sites. Make a plan: Plan and visualize your goals, project tasks and schedule in the timeline view. View task duration and sequence. View timeline by days, weeks, months, quarters or years. Create dependencies between rows. View predecessors and successors. Get things done: Use filters or focus to concentrate on whats important, due today, due tomorrow, or whatever criteria you decide. View tasks in a month or year calendar or both. Features: Outliner with columns: Organize and give structure to text. Add your own text, number, date, symbol or list type columns. Sync Syncing via iCloud Drive is now supported. Edit a document on multiple Macs, and the changes will periodically sync. Collaboration Collaborate with other people. Share a document, and see their changes highlighted, and even their selection. Notes: Notes inline below row topic and in own tab with full text editor. Row Styles: Custom fonts, size, color at each row level or specific to individual rows. Focus: Focus on a row or a row and its children. Transverse hierarchy via path bar. Search: Search the outline across columns from the toolbar with an option to save as a Smart Filter. Sorting: Sort the outline by any column, by ascending, descending order or by the order of values in a ‘List’ type column. Smart filters (in-app purchase): Create Smart Filters with simple or complex criteria and save them for future use via the Filter Bar. Link files, folders & webpages. Link to web pages, documents and folders on your Mac or in the cloud, or view them via Quick Look or tabs. Multiple Tabs: View sheets in multiple tabs at once in any combination of views: month view, outline, timeline or year view. Monthly Calendar (in-app purchase): View outline rows with assigned dates in a monthly view. Yearly Calendar (in-app purchase): Heat-mapped year view indicating number of activities commencing and/or finishing on each day. Timeline (in-app purchase): View and adjust key dates for each task on a horizontal timeline. Create dependencies between rows. Dependencies can be of the following types: Finish to start, start to finish, start to start, finish to finish. Board View (in-app purchase): View Outline rows on a board. Organize cards by Topic, column list values, symbol list values, people. Organize by vertical and horizontal lanes. Drag to move cards between lanes. Multiple Sheets: A document can now include multiple sheets, each with their own columns, rows, styles, filters, etc. Organize and access multiple sheets using the sidebar and folders. Printing: See a preview of what will be printed, including printing the outline and timeline together. Properties: Customize cell, column, row, calendar and timeline settings. Import & Export: Import & export in CSV or OPML format. Copy & Paste: Copy and Paste from/to Excel & Numbers. Themes: Personalize Outline view with green-bar, yellow notepad or green notepad themes. Templates: Ready to go templates for business, education and personal use. Save templates for future use via the template chooser.

About

Focus Stacks

Organize your tasks and ideas with a visually appealing, card-based system. Capture everything, customize with colors, add detailed notes, and sync across devices. Never let a task or idea slip away again.

Highlights
  • Capture every task easily
  • Customize lists with colors
  • Attach detailed notes to tasks
  • Automatic iCloud syncing
  • Card-based design
Features
Read full description

Unleash the power of your productivity and never let another brilliant idea or must-do task slip through the cracks again! Imagine a world where every movie you've been dying to watch, every spark of inspiration for your next groundbreaking project, and every little to-do is neatly organized, not just in your mind, but right at your fingertips. Our app is crafted for the list-makers, the planners, the doers — those who thrive on keeping life seamlessly organized both at work and at home. Dive into a digital oasis of calm with our card-based design, where clutter is banished and your tasks come to life in a visually stunning, easy-to-navigate space. Say goodbye to mental overload and hello to clear, focused stacks that are as satisfying to use as they are effective. Here's what makes Focus Stacks a must-have: • Capture every task with ease, ensuring nothing important gets forgotten. • Customize your lists with a rainbow of colors to make your productivity system not only efficient but also uniquely yours. • Attach detailed notes to your tasks, from vital phone numbers to extended thoughts, making sure every piece of information is just a tap away. • With automatic, secure syncing with iCloud, your Stacks are always up-to-date across all your devices, safeguarding your progress and ideas wherever you go.

Screenshots

SheetPlanner4 screens
Focus Stacks3 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: SheetPlanner at Free against Focus Stacks's $4.99. SheetPlanner also leads on ratings volume (4 vs 1). Focus Stacks's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 4) and ads (none vs shown). On rating, update cadence, device support and iOS requirement there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

SheetPlanner is free to download; Focus Stacks costs $4.99 up front. SheetPlanner sells 3 one-off in-app purchases. Focus Stacks asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for SheetPlanner against 5.0 for Focus Stacks. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 4 and 1 respectively.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

SheetPlanner ships an update every 2 weeks, Focus Stacks weekly. The most recent releases landed on November 2, 2026 and November 4, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
SheetPlanner versus Focus Stacks: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterSheetPlannerFocus Stacks
PriceFree — better$4.99
Rating5.0 (4 ratings)5.0 (1 ratings)
Positive reviews85.7% of reviews—
Number of ratings4 — better1
Update frequencyEvery 2 weeksWeekly — better
AdsYesNo — better
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchases — betterPaid
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Mac — betteriPhone, Vision Pro
Requires iOS17.017.0
Further details — not scored
Size55 MB1 MB
Age rating17+4+
DeveloperSheetPlanner Software LLCAndrew Despres

Customer experience

SheetPlanner

All ratings3 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews21 reviews
Positive85.7%
Neutral14.3%
Negative0.0%

Focus Stacks

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

3 purchases

SheetPlanner

One-time3
  • Free Trial2 variantsFree
  • Upgrade SheetPlanner$39.99
  • Unlock SheetPlanner$49.99
None

Focus Stacks

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is SheetPlanner free?
SheetPlanner is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Focus Stacks free?
Focus Stacks costs $4.99, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, SheetPlanner or Focus Stacks?
SheetPlanner and Focus Stacks are both rated 5.0 out of 5 on the App Store, from 4 and 1 ratings respectively.
Do SheetPlanner or Focus Stacks have ads?
SheetPlanner shows ads; Focus Stacks does not.
Which is updated more often, SheetPlanner or Focus Stacks?
SheetPlanner ships an update every 2 weeks, and Focus Stacks weekly. Most recently, SheetPlanner was updated on November 2, 2026 and Focus Stacks on November 4, 2026.

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