Deferred Billing, guarantees, migration and published pricing.
Microsoft says Planner Premium starts at $10. Why compare against $30?
Because $10 buys views, not portfolio capability. Microsoft’s own documentation places Gantt and Timeline dependencies, sprints, custom fields, team workload and report creation on Planner and Project Plan 3 at $30 per user per month. If your PMO needs those — and a PMO that doesn’t isn’t shopping for portfolio software — Plan 3 is the honest comparison point. Plan 1 at $10 is a viewer upgrade.
What data moves over, and how?
For Planner, nothing has to move. PPM Express has a native Microsoft Planner connector, so plans, buckets, tasks, assignments and dates sync into the portfolio while your teams carry on working in Planner. Where you also run Project for the web or Project Online schedules, those come across too. Migration engineering has been this team’s core work for over a decade.
What exactly is “Deferred Billing”?
You sign a 24-month agreement now at today’s locked price, and billing starts when your Microsoft licence term ends — up to 12 months out. Between signing and that date you have full PPM Express access at no charge, so you can run it alongside your existing premium seats and move at your own pace. In return, you commit to retiring those Planner Premium licences within those 12 months — that commitment is what unlocks the Switch terms.
What happens if you miss the 15-day guarantee?
You pay nothing — the implementation fee and your first invoice are waived, and we return your data. The checklist is agreed in writing at kickoff, and the clock starts when we receive system access, so both sides know exactly what “day 15” means.
Do we lose Planner if we switch?
No — and that is the point. Microsoft Planner is one of our native connectors, so it stays as your teams’ delivery tool permanently, with PPM Express reading from it. What you retire is the premium licence bill: the Plan 3 seats bought to get dependencies, custom fields, workload and reporting. Those capabilities live in the portfolio layer instead, where an unlimited number of people can use them.
What exactly happens if we leave in year one?
You tell us. We refund the unused months pro-rata and our engineers export your complete data set in open formats, at no cost, with assistance until it’s usable in whatever comes next. It’s in the agreement, not a blog post.
Is the $25,000 really flat? What about per-user charges?
Flat means flat: unlimited users, with portfolio, resource, financial, reporting, and AI capability included. There is no per-seat meter, no per-module meter and no quote. Larger enterprises with advanced scope needs are $25–36K — also published, also flat.
We just renewed our Microsoft agreement. Should we wait?
The opposite — mid-term is exactly when Deferred Billing matters. Evaluate now with your real Planner data, sign at locked pricing, and let billing wait until your Microsoft renewal date, which is also the moment you can drop the premium seats. Waiting until the renewal quarter is how organizations end up re-upping Plan 3 for another term under deadline pressure.
Can we run PPM Express and Planner Premium together permanently?
You can run PPM Express and Planner together permanently — that’s the design. What rarely makes sense is keeping the Plan 3 premium seats alongside it, because the portfolio, capacity and reporting capability you were paying per user for is included flat in PPM Express and available to everyone. Some teams keep a handful of premium licences for specific scheduling work; most drop them at renewal. If your incumbent is a quote-only enterprise suite instead, the same terms apply — see the switch terms for monday.com or the full Switch page.
.svg){kind=small}
