Free project plan template for Excel
10 ready-made plans, each with phases, tasks, durations, priorities and milestones. Pick one, see exactly what is in it, and download it as a spreadsheet for Excel or Google Sheets.
Ship your next product on a plan that already exists. This launch template lays out the full arc, customer discovery, MVP build, closed beta, and GA day, as 12 scheduled tasks with priorities, effort estimates, and two launch milestones. Open it in Onplana and you start from a working plan instead of a blank board.
| Phase | Task | Duration (days) | Priority | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Discovery | Run customer discovery interviews | 7 | High | Talk to 8-10 target customers to validate the problem space. |
| Discovery | Define success metrics & KPIs | 4 | High | North-star metric, activation + retention targets. |
| Discovery | Technical spike: feasibility assessment | 7 | Medium | De-risk the two biggest unknowns before committing to build. |
| Discovery | Write product requirements doc | 5 | High | Scope, non-goals, user stories, open questions. |
| Build | Design core user flows | 8 | High | Wireframes for onboarding + primary value-moment screens. |
| Build | Build MVP backend + data model | 18 | Critical | API endpoints, schema, auth, minimal deploy pipeline. |
| Build | Build MVP frontend | 18 | Critical | Core screens wired to the API. Unit tests on critical paths. |
| Build | QA pass + bug bash | 5 | High | Cross-browser + mobile, accessibility audit, perf baseline. |
Showing the first 8 of 14 rows. The download has all of them, including the 2 milestones.
What the spreadsheet does well
It is fast, it is yours, it works offline, and everyone already knows how to use it. For a plan of a few dozen tasks that one person is tracking, a grid is genuinely the right tool and you do not need anything else.
Where it starts to hurt
The moment tasks depend on each other. Move one date and nothing downstream moves with it, there is no critical path to tell you which slip actually matters, and progress does not roll up to the phase. That is arithmetic a scheduler does for you.
The generator takes the file you just downloaded: paste it in and it builds the schedule, still in your browser, still without uploading anything.
Frequently asked questions
Is it really free, and is there a signup?
Free, and no. The download is a static file on this page: no email, no account, no trial. Opening the same plan as a live project in Onplana does need a free account, but that is a separate choice you make afterwards.
Does it open in Excel?
Yes. Each plan downloads as a CSV, which Excel, Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers all open directly. We use CSV rather than .xlsx so the file stays small, opens everywhere, and can be pasted straight into our Gantt chart generator.
Why are there no dates in the file?
Because a template has no dates until you pick a start. Each task carries a duration in days instead, so you set your own start date and let the spreadsheet do the arithmetic. If you would rather not do that by hand, paste the file into the Gantt chart generator and it schedules the whole plan for you.
What is actually in the spreadsheet?
Five columns: Phase, Task, Duration (days), Priority and Notes. Every task carries a real description rather than a placeholder, and the milestones are included as zero-day rows at the end so you can see the checkpoints the plan is built around.
Can I manage the whole project in the spreadsheet?
For a short plan, yes, and plenty of people do. A grid starts to hurt once tasks depend on each other: move one date and nothing downstream moves with it, there is no critical path, and progress does not roll up. That is the point at which the same plan is worth opening in a real scheduler.
Each of these plans also has its own page with the full task list and the reasoning behind it, in the template gallery. Working from a Microsoft Project file instead? The Schedule Health Check reads .mpp and .xml directly.