BARC's Planning Survey 26: What Finance Leaders Can Learn from Real User Feedback

Between November 2025 and February 2026, BARC's Planning Survey 26 surveyed 804 users of 20 planning software products. Each product was scored across 26 criteria drawn from customer experience rather than vendor claims. OneStream's results in the survey give Finance leaders data points no vendor pitch can replicate: how OneStream performs for the people who use it every day.

BARC scores planning products on criteria that map directly to what Finance organizations need from a platform: forecasting accuracy, reporting and analysis depth, and price-to-value. Rather than being based on vendor-supplied specifications, these scores come from customer ratings. The scores thus measure what a platform delivers after implementation, not what’s promised beforehand.

OneStream earned 7 top ranks and 41 leading positions across the four evaluated peer groups:

• Products for Planning, Budgeting & Forecasting
• Integrated Products for Planning and Financial Consolidation
• Large/Enterprise-Wide Implementations
• Worldwide Implementations

Within these groups, OneStream was top-ranked for Forecasting, Reporting/Analysis, and Price to Value.

The survey responses behind these rankings are specific. Among OneStream users, 90% rated its forecasting functionality as good or very good, and 91% rated its coverage of planning-specific requirements the same way. Ninety-one percent of respondents reported overall satisfaction with OneStream. Plus, every surveyed user — 100% — reported achieving better quality of planning results and better integration between planning and business intelligence(BI)/analytics with OneStream.

BARC evaluated OneStream against Anaplan, Oracle Cloud EPM, SAP Analytics Cloud, and CCH Tagetik in each of the four peer groups. Notably, these comparisons are head-to-head key performance indicator (KPI) scores among vendors competing for the same customers. OneStream's results held up across the criteria that Finance organizations weigh most heavily when selecting or renewing a planning platform.

For many Finance organizations, the important comparison is not between one corporate performance management (CPM) vendor and another. The more consequential comparison instead sits between a modern planning platform and the spreadsheet-based processes still running critical planning cycles. BARC's survey quantifies the gap. On a 0 –10 scale, OneStream users scored 7.0 on BARC's Business Benefits Index, nearly double the 4.0 recorded for Excel-based planning.

That three-point difference reflects outcomes reported by actual users of both approaches, not a hypothetical case for change. Spreadsheet-based planning results have the following impacts:

• Concentrates risk in manual processes
• Limits visibility across the organization
• Slows the path from a completed planning cycle to the decisions it is meant to inform

Conversely, a unified platform that combines financial consolidation, planning, forecasting, reporting, and analytics addresses these problems directly. A unified platform reduces the reconciliation work required to keep multiple systems and versions aligned. Ultimately, Finance gains a single, governed source of data from which to plan and report.

While the rankings summarize the survey, the underlying responses support the rankings. OneStream users report higher-rated forecasting, stronger reporting and analysis, and a price-to-value relationship they rate above the market average. That combination gives Finance leaders evidence for a platform evaluation that stands apart from any vendor's account of its own roadmap or market position.

When evaluating planning platforms, Finance leaders must assess whether to replace spreadsheet-driven processes, consolidate a fragmented CPM architecture, or validate a platform decision already underway. BARC’s survey data is one of the more reliable signals available for such assessments.

For this post, the figures cited are drawn from the full BARC Planning Survey 26 highlights report for OneStream. Here’s what that report includes:

• Complete KPI scores across all four peer groups
• Side-by-side comparisons against Anaplan, Oracle Cloud EPM, SAP Analytics Cloud, and CCH Tagetik
• The customer feedback behind each ranking

Finance leaders building the case for a new planning platform — or defending a decision already made — will find these details useful.

Download the BARC Planning Survey 26 highlights report for OneStream, and see the complete results for yourself.

For more information about The Planning Survey 26, visit the BARC website.