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10 Best Goal Setting Software for Keeping Teams On Track in 2023

Goal setting software has a lot to offer. It helps you organize your objectives, prioritize your key tasks, and boost your productivity. It also improves team transparency and brings co-workers together to achieve shared goals. As well, goal setting software can improve your organization's strategic alignment at all levels.

To save you hours of internet sleuthing, here's my list of the 10 best goal setting software on the market today. As someone who loves to stay organized, this was an extra rewarding assignment to dig into!

Best Goal Setting Software Shortlist

Here’s the list of the best goal setting software that I’ll cover in this article:

  1. PerformYard

    Well-rounded performance management software with integrated goal management and continuous feedback features

  2. Profit.co

    All-in-one software for managing goals, OKRs, KPIs, and tasks, with links to employee performance management

  3. Leapsome

    Holistic people enablement platform that links goals & OKRs with performance management and employee development

  4. ClearCompany

    Comprehensive talent management platform with integrated goal-management features

  5. Asana

    Well-known productivity tool suitable for tracking team or company goals, including multiple visual views

  6. Engagedly

    Employee development platform well-suited for team member goal alignment and employee engagement.

  7. Knovos Cascade

    Strategic project management software with tracking for goals, KPIs and OKRs.

  8. GoalsOnTrack

    Flexible and easy-to-use goal setting software with tools to support multi-level goals, habit tracking, and progress visualization

  9. Ally.io

    Modern OKR software with a useful Objective Explorer and a two-way Slack integration

  10. Goalscape

    Dynamic goal visualization tool, well-suited for large team goals and industries with tight security restrictions

Comparison Criteria

Wondering what I look for when selecting the best goal setting software for this list? Here’s a summary of my evaluation criteria: 

  1. User Interface (UI): I selected systems with clean, colourful and organized interfaces that make updating goal progress enjoyable and engaging. 
  1. Usability: I prefer software that organizes goal and task-based data intuitively, with clear guidelines on how you can link main goals with sub-tasks, or create other task-based relationships.
  1. Integrations: To improve productivity, real-time data tracking, and team visibility, integrations with other systems are important, including sales data systems, or team communication platforms like Slack.
  1. Value for $: The goal setting systems I selected for this list all include transparent pricing so you can forecast your monthly or annual fees before requesting a demo or free trial.

Goal Setting Software: Key Features

Here’s a shortlist of the main features you can expect to find within the best goal setting software:

  1. Multi-level goals: Large goals should be broken down into smaller sub-components to help teams focus on the individual steps required to achieve their big picture objectives.
  1. Progress bars and aggregated scores: With big goals consisting of many smaller steps, progress bars and overall goal completion scores should draw from multiple sources to show how smaller tasks are feeding into the top-level objective. 
  1. S.M.A.R.T. goal creation and tracking: Goals should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-Bound. This helps to make goals more concrete, with clear targets to aim for that also function as goal posts to review progress against in the future. 
  1. Team goals with multiple collaborators: Team goals help business units improve transparency, accountability and productivity, with multiple employees responsible for achieving shared team goals. 
  1. Visualization formats: There are many different ways to visualize goals and tasks, including progress bars, goal trees, cascading OKRs, kanban boards, goal maps, gantt charts, and calendar or timeline views, depending on your personal preference. 
  1. Links to performance reviews: Many goal setting systems are part of larger performance management systems, since goals add more focus to long-term employee development plans. For goal setting systems that are standalone, integrations with other software, such as human resources information systems (HRIS), are an important back-up option.

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Overviews of the 10 Best Goal Setting Software

Here’s a brief description of each goal setting software to showcase each system's noteworthy features, plus screenshots to give you a snapshot of their user interface.

1

PerformYard

Well-rounded performance management software with integrated goal management and continuous feedback features

PerformYard’s performance management software integrates goal tracking with performance reviews, check-ins, and continuous feedback to create a holistic employee development experience. Their cascadable goal feature makes it possible to link goals from top-level company objectives and OKRs down to individual employee or shared team goals, broken down into more manageable parts. To ensure all elements of employee progression are transparent, their goal analytics dashboard produces clean charts and stats that are available to management and executives, as well as the individual employees themselves.

Their system is fully customizable, giving you the flexibility to provide feedback to your employees or check in on their goals whenever it works for you, including daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or annually. You can also customize the timing of your performance review cycle too, as well as the forms and question templates that work best for your organization. PerformYard also helps managers celebrate goal achievements either privately or publicly so all team members can witness employee progression first hand. On top of all that, co-workers can also provide feedback to other colleagues directly too through their 360-degree feedback feature.

PerformYard integrates with many commonly used software systems, including, ADP, BambooHR, Gusto, Microsoft Teams, Paycom, Paylocity, Rippling, Slack, UKG Pro and Workday.

Pricing for PerformYard ranges between $5-$10/employee/month. They also offer a free demo through their website.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.7 601

Free demo available

From $5-$10/user/month

2

Profit.co

All-in-one software for managing goals, OKRs, KPIs, and tasks, with links to employee performance management

Profit.co offers dedicated OKR software with additional features for task management, performance management and employee engagement. Their software can track any type of goal using 7 different types of key results, and comes with 400+ pre-built KPIs (key performance indicators) that you can customize to start tracking your corporate goals easily and quickly. Their OKR template (shown above) is also easy-to-use and walks you through the process of setting an OKR in less than 5 minutes.

Other key features included in Profit.co’s platform are flexible task tracking tools that let you prioritize and set deadlines, with the ability to break major tasks up into minor sub-tasks, plus a kanban style view for tracking progress. You can also set up links between tasks and key results, so your progress dashboards update automatically as items are completed.

As well, with Profit.co, OKRs are also linked to employee performance, giving a full picture of an individual’s achievements during their performance review. This helps to provide an unbiased picture of an individual’s performance, while aligning their employee development goals with corporate objectives.

Profit.co integrates with 40+ popular software applications including Chrome, Gmail, Google Calendar, HubSpot, Jira, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Outlook, Salesforce, Slack, Snowflake, Wrike, Zapier, Zendesk and many others.

Pricing for Profit.co starts at $7/user/month. They also offer a free demo or a 30-day free trial through their website. In addition, they have a freemium plan with limited features for up to 5 users.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.8 200

30-day free trial + freemium plan available

From $7/user/month

3

Leapsome

Holistic people enablement platform that links goals & OKRs with performance management and employee development

Leapsome is a people enablement platform with a focus on performance management, goals & OKRs, employee development, and employee engagement. Their system helps companies create a culture of alignment, accountability and transparency across all levels of the organization through a continuous cycle of goal setting, tracking and reporting at the company, team and individual levels.

To ensure goals are always top-of-mind for users, Leapsome integrates their goal management features across their other modules, including their 1:1 check-in tools and continuous feedback loops. You can use Leapsome to create 1:1 meeting agendas with your goal status embedded at the top—a helpful way to ensure progress is touched upon during each meeting.

To reduce your administrative set up time, Leapsome also supports recurring goal cycles with fixed timelines that can be easily tweaked on a quarterly or annual basis. Their goal tree feature also adds an interesting visual element to the goal-tracking process, creating a visible link between individual or team goals that shows how they’ll contribute to the company’s overall success.

Leapsome integrates with many popular productivity tools, including Active Directory, GSuite, Jira, Microsoft Teams, Okta, OneLogin, and Slack, as well as with popular human resource information systems (HRIS) like ADP, BambooHR, HiBob, PayFit, Personio, Rippling, and Workday.

Pricing details for Leapsome are available upon request but you can expect to pay around $8/user/month for their Goals & OKRs software package. You can also request a free demo or a 14-day free trial through their website.

14-day free trial

From $8/user/month

4

ClearCompany

Comprehensive talent management platform with integrated goal-management features

ClearCompany is a talent management platform that organizations can use to set individual and team-wide goals and measure progress. It combines features such as reporting, analytics, and real-time feedback to create a comprehensive suite of tools for teams to use.

ClearCompany makes it easy for users to stay organized by allowing them to set deadlines for tasks and assign those tasks to specific individuals or groups. This helps ensure everyone is aware of what needs to be done and when, which can drastically reduce time wasted due to confusion or miscommunication. ClearCompany also offers additional support such as templates and best practices that help make goal creation easier.

The software includes powerful analytic tools that allow you to gain valuable insights into your team's performance as a whole, as well as that of individual team members. ClearCompany offers a range of pre-built reports that are generated from real-time data covering all aspects of a team’s operations, including employee engagement surveys and performance reviews. Admin users can also create custom reports based on specific metrics or KPIs that are relevant to their business.

Their feedback-gathering feature allows users to solicit feedback from team members to gain insight into how well things are going internally and externally. This helps organizations understand what's working well or needs improvement, and provides clarity on how to move forward with projects or initiatives to achieve desired results. Feedback gathered can include quantitative metrics and qualitative opinions from stakeholders across all levels of an organization.

Their team alignment feature helps teams stay connected and motivated through frequent communication. This includes integrated applications such as Slack, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and other popular communication tools. Team members can share documents, access reports remotely, and send messages directly from within the app.

ClearCompany integrates with 100+ popular HR software solutions, including Absorb LMS, eSkill, Google Calendar, GrowthPlay, HR Avatar, Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Teams, Predictive Index, Skill Check, Slack, and many others.

Pricing details for ClearCompany are available upon request. You can also request a free demo through their website.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.6 247

Free demo available

Pricing upon request

5

Asana

Well-known productivity tool suitable for tracking team or company goals, including multiple visual views

Asana is a popular productivity tool that’s often used for project management and team alignment in terms of task tracking and company-wide goals. Their software includes several different views to organize task and goal-based information, including kanban boards, gantt charts, a shared calendar view and a list view.


Asana’s goal tracking system allows teams to create top-level company goals, with contributing sub-tasks that feed into the larger objective. You can assign individual team members to specific sub-tasks, and visualize their progress using their dynamic task-tracking progress bars. This helps to keep team members on track, and provides a visual representation of each individual component of a company-wide goal, helping to flag any issues early if one sub-task is falling short. Asana can also be used to set objectives and key results (OKRs) to align teams around measurable goals with easy-to-digest visualization components.


Asana integrates with over 280 apps and counting, including Azure Active Directory, Chrome, DropBox, GitLab, Google Workspace, Loom, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft Outlook, Okta, Slack, Trello, Zapier, Zoho Desk, and many others.


Pricing for Asana starts at $10.99/user/month. You can also request a 30-day free trial through their website. They also have a free forever plan for individuals or small teams too.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.3 8322

Free plan available

From $10.99/user/month

6

Engagedly

Employee development platform well-suited for team member goal alignment and employee engagement.

Engagedly is a people development platform focused on three main pillars: performance management, people engagement and employee development. Their software includes advanced features to support internal talent mobility, goals and OKR alignment across departments, 360-degree and multi-rater peer feedback, mentoring programs, engagement surveys, and employee recognition and rewards.

Their goals and OKRs module helps improve organizational goal alignment by linking employee goals to top-level business goals, which are reviewed on a regular basis. Their advanced analytics also allow you to judge the effectiveness of your goal alignment through statistics for individuals, teams or the entire organization.

Engagedly integrates with ADP Marketplace, BambooHR, BizLibrary, Google SSO, Gusto, Namely, Okta, Paylocity, Personio, Slack, and Traliant.

Pricing for Engagedly starts at $6/employee/month. They also offer a free demo through their website.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
5 1

Free demo available

From $6/employee/month

7

Knovos Cascade

Strategic project management software with tracking for goals, KPIs and OKRs.

Cascade’s goal tracking software was developed to help increase team collaboration and alignment across team initiatives. Their visual tracking dashboard organizes your individual KPIs, objectives and project-specific goals for you in one place, where you can drill down into more details, including task lists, risk management and team alignment features.

You can also use their software for strategic planning for key initiatives, broken down into three key phases—planning, execution and measuring—that roll easily from one phase to the next, keeping all team members in the loop. Cascade also includes useful visualization tools linked to their data dashboards that update in real-time, and cascade trees that give team leaders a birds-eye-view of all your strategic plans.

Cascade integrates with many popular software applications, including Dynamics, GSuite, Microsoft Office 365, SAP, Slack, Trello, Workday, Xero, and more through a Zapier connection.

Pricing for Cascade starts at $29/user/month. They also offer a free demo, a 14-day free trial, or a freemium plan with limited features through their website.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
2.9 16

14-day free trial + freemium plan available

From $29/user/month

8

GoalsOnTrack

Flexible and easy-to-use goal setting software with tools to support multi-level goals, habit tracking, and progress visualization

GoalsOnTrack brings a lot to the table with their goal management and goal setting software designed for high achievers. Their software comes with loads of templates to help you get started, including interfaces for creating S.M.A.R.T. goals, tracking multi-level goals, progress tracking, task management, habit tracking, time tracking and many others. To help you really immerse yourself in your own progress, they also have a customizable vision board where you can upload your own photos to keep yourself inspired, as well as a goal journal where you can easily log mini updates or celebrate milestone achievements, as they occur.

Their software is easy-to-use and navigate, with all your goal-related tasks, habits and other metrics collated for you on your central goal dashboard. You can split your goals into different segments (think home, work, or personal goals), and also organize them into sub-folders (e.g., time-specific items or topical categories). From there you can create clickable tasks lists, break your big goals down into smaller, more manageable chunks, and track your progress at all levels. You can also use their software to build good habits that can also feed directly into larger goals, and track your habit formation in a visual format using their habit tracking tool.

Other helpful features in GoalsOnTrack include the ability to schedule recurring tasks into your calendar view or easily make changes via drag-and-drop adjustments, and their detailed charts and reports that automatically update as you update related elements. It’s a really great tool for breaking your big goals up into smaller, more actionable daily tasks to ensure you meet your target goal by your deadline.

GoalsOnTrack works on all devices including iOS or Android smartphones, tablets and desktop computers.

Pricing for GoalsOnTrack starts at $68 per year and comes with a 30-day unconditional money back guarantee.

30-day unconditional money back guarantee

From $68/year

9

Ally.io

Modern OKR software with a useful Objective Explorer and a two-way Slack integration

Ally.io’s OKR software allows organizations to set and track goals at the individual, team and company level. Their software helps teams connect the dots between their everyday activities and the company’s strategic objectives, so everyone understands how they’re making an impact. It’s used successfully by companies like Coinbase, Glassdoor, Intuit, Rakuten and Square to develop and monitor both short and long-term individual, team and organization-wide goals and objectives.

Key features in Ally.io’s software include their two-way Slack integration, a customizable workflow approval process for making changes to OKRs, and the ability to filter OKRs by time period, type, owner, or status, and save them as a custom view that only you can see. They also have a useful Objective Explorer view where you can re-discover any OKRs that are overdue, behind or at risk, unaligned, recently completed, or not updated in the last 7 days. This helps team leaders and managers keep a pulse on what’s going on, so they can update or reassign tasks accordingly to ensure all goals are met.

Ally.io integrates with 30 popular technology apps, including Asana, BambooHR, BigQuery, Domo, Favro, Google Sheets, HubSpot, Jira, Okta, Salesforce, Smartsheet, Snowflake, Tableau, Trello, Zendesk, and others.

Pricing for Ally.io starts at $7/user/month. They also offer a 14-day free trial through their website.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.6 142

14-day free trial

From $7/user/month

10

Goalscape

Dynamic goal visualization tool, well-suited for large team goals and industries with tight security restrictions

If you’re a visual learner, you’ll appreciate Goalscape’s unique goal management software that synthesizes all your goals and subgoals into a visual goal map. As shown above, your main goal—whether it’s a business goal or personal goal—sits in the center of the circle, with subgoals that feed into it occupying the next ring in the circle. You can add subsequent rings for additional supporting subtasks until you’ve achieved the level of detail you need.

Using their side pane menus, you can set a timeline for each individual component, and adjust the size of them visually, with more important goals taking up a larger piece of the pie. You can also assign individual team members to be responsible for certain portions, and organize the goal segments thematically using different colours to add more clarity to task categories. Goal progress is then tracked using shading (as shown above), making it easy to identify blank spots in the overall goal map that need more attention. You can also export your goal map into a handy list format as well.

For corporate uses, their Enterprise version includes additional corporate branding features and a custom workspace URL. Enterprise users will also benefit from their advanced goal filtering and the ability to restrict access to goal segments or tasks that need to remain confidential to other team members, making it a good option for teams operating in industries with tight security.

Pricing for Goalscape starts at $8.25/month and includes unlimited goal maps. You can also request a 14-day free trial through their website.

14-day free trial

From $8.25/month

The 10 Best Goal Setting Summary

Tool Free Option Price
1
PerformYard

Well-rounded performance management software with integrated goal management and continuous feedback features

Free demo available

From $5-$10/user/month Visit Website
2
Profit.co

All-in-one software for managing goals, OKRs, KPIs, and tasks, with links to employee performance management

30-day free trial + freemium plan available

From $7/user/month Visit Website
3
Leapsome

Holistic people enablement platform that links goals & OKRs with performance management and employee development

14-day free trial

From $8/user/month Visit Website
4
ClearCompany

Comprehensive talent management platform with integrated goal-management features

Free demo available

Pricing upon request Visit Website
5
Asana

Well-known productivity tool suitable for tracking team or company goals, including multiple visual views

Free plan available

From $10.99/user/month Visit Website
6
Engagedly

Employee development platform well-suited for team member goal alignment and employee engagement.

Free demo available

From $6/employee/month Visit Website
7
Knovos Cascade

Strategic project management software with tracking for goals, KPIs and OKRs.

14-day free trial + freemium plan available

From $29/user/month Visit Website
8
GoalsOnTrack

Flexible and easy-to-use goal setting software with tools to support multi-level goals, habit tracking, and progress visualization

30-day unconditional money back guarantee

From $68/year Visit Website
9
Ally.io

Modern OKR software with a useful Objective Explorer and a two-way Slack integration

14-day free trial

From $7/user/month Visit Website
10
Goalscape

Dynamic goal visualization tool, well-suited for large team goals and industries with tight security restrictions

14-day free trial

From $8.25/month Visit Website

Need expert help selecting the right Goal Management Software?

People Managing People has joined forces with the software comparison platform Crozdesk.com to assist you in finding the best tool for your needs. Crozdesk’s Goal Management Software advisors can create a personalized shortlist of software solutions with unbiased recommendations to help you identify the solutions that best suit your business's needs. Through our partnership you get free access to their bespoke software selection advice, removing both time and hassle from the research process.

It only takes a minute to submit your requirements and they will give you a quick call at no cost or commitment. Based on your needs you’ll receive customized software shortlists listing the best-fitting solutions from their team of software advisors (via phone or email). They can even connect you with your selected vendor choices along with community negotiated discounts. To get started, please complete the form below:

Other Options

Here are a few more options that didn’t make the best goal tracking app list: 

  1. monday.com

    Customizable workflow visualization tool with pre-built templates and an embedded goal widget

  2. Lattice

    Combined performance management and goal tracking software designed to improve strategic alignment across all levels

  3. ClickUp

    Popular productivity platform for goal setting, with linked tasks and targets and a weekly scorecard feature

  4. Kallidus Perform

    Best goal setting software for centralizing employee performance management

  5. Peoplebox

    Best goal setting OKR software for enterprises

  6. Synergita

    Best for its goal blending for collective commitment

  7. Inspire

    Best goal setting software for mastering the OKR learning curve through advanced training resources

  8. Weekdone

    Goal tracking software with tools for weekly updates and weekly team meetings, plus quarterly objectives tracking and feedback & recognition tools.

  9. KeepSolid Goals

    User-friendly goal setting software with visualization tools for objectives, tasks, and roadmaps, plus gantt chart and timeline views.

  10. Unlock:OKR

    Goal setting software with rich visuals, including a people map, a goal map and an ‘align + assign’ feature that shows assignments from the bottom to the top or vice-versa - available as a 14-day free trial.

What’s the Difference Between Goals, OKRs, and KPIs? 

Like many people, you may be wondering, just what is the difference between goals, OKRs and KPIs? 

Goals are an expression of a person’s ambition or a desired result they hope to achieve. For example: My goal for today is to respond to all my unread emails from last week. It’s clear what the goal is and what the end result will be, but there is no numerical method to track it. It will simply be “in process” until it’s “complete.”

OKRs (objectives and key results) can be viewed in two ways: 

The OKR framework is a goal management system that large companies like Google and Intel use to drive productivity in their teams. It’s broken down into two main components:

  • Objectives are the description of what you, your team, or your company want to accomplish. They are not inherently numeric, but are more like strategic goals. For example: Our objective for Q1 is to source more diverse candidates. 
  • The objective is then paired up with a key result, which is a numerical measure of progress for your objective. Your key result (or results, since you can have more than one) will tell you how close you are to achieving your objective. For example: Key Result 1: Implement candidate sourcing from 5 new job portals by the end of Q1. Key Result 2: Aim to schedule 20% of interviews with self-identified diverse candidates by the end of Q1. 

Most often, when workplace colleagues refer to “an OKR” they are not referring to the OKR framework itself—rather they’re referring to the combined objective + key result as an individual entity. 

For more in depth information on this small but important distinction, take a look at Perdoo’s Goals vs. OKRs: The Small but Vital Difference

Still wondering how KPIs fit in? Project management software giant Wrike asserts that the difference rests in the intention behind the goal. 

KPIs (key performance indicators) are usually numerical metrics that represent the expected output of a process that’s already in place. In contrast, OKRs are often more ambitious and aggressive and sometimes referred to as “stretch” or “moonshot” goals. 

For example, your KPI for the above scenario might be: A 10% increase in the number of diverse candidates screened during Q1. This is a more simplified number than the OKR scenario presented above, with no sub-results feeding into it. 

No matter which type of metrics your organization decides to track, tracking something will still improve productivity and increase your team’s focus on the bigger picture more than tracking nothing at all. 

Other Resources

With visions of productivity tools dancing in your head, now’s the time to plan your next steps!

Since goal setting and OKR tracking are so closely related, I recommend taking a peek at our list of the best OKR software too. 

Beyond just software recommendations, we have some other great articles that explain HOW you can bring your goal management practices to the next level: 

  • Our very own Tim Reitsma also offers a crash course in How to Write SMART Goals (including examples), since we are all about practicing what we preach! 
  • To gain deeper insights into the OKR landscape, listen to our podcast with Nolan Hout, VP of Marketing at Unlock: OKR, where he discusses The Real Intent of OKRs. (Spoiler alert - it’s all about purpose!) 
  • Lastly, it only takes a moment to subscribe to our People Managing People newsletter. By joining us for our weekly update, you’ll gain access to our latest articles covering a whole range of useful HR-related topics, podcasts and tools. 
By Kim Behnke

Kim Behnke is an HR Tool Expert & Writer for People Managing People. She draws on her 9 years of human resources experience and her keen eye for systematic processes to support her analyses of the top HR tools on the market. She is passionate about maximizing efficiencies and streamlining workflows to ensure internal systems run smoothly. Kim's HR experience includes recruitment, onboarding, performance management, training and development, policy development and enforcement, and HR analytics. She also has degrees in psychology, writing, publishing, and technical communication. When away from her desk, she can usually be found outside tending to her ever-expanding garden.