SprintBee vs Planning Poker Online

Where this comparison comes from

First, the disclosure: SprintBee is our product, and this page lives on sprintbee.net. We have tried to make the comparison genuinely fair anyway. Everything we say about Planning Poker Online comes from its public website — mainly its pricing page and its Jira and remote-teams pages, as read in July 2026 — plus independent tool reviews. Where its site leaves something unclear, we say so rather than guessing.

Planning Poker Online is built by We Agile You, and there are real situations where we would point you to it instead of SprintBee. This page covers those honestly. If you want the wider field, our roundup of planning poker tools compares more options.

What both tools have in common

Both are web-based planning poker tools built around the same core loop: a facilitator opens a room, shares a link, teammates join without creating accounts, everyone votes privately, and the votes are revealed at the same time. Both are free to start, and neither asks for a credit card.

If your only requirement is a clean pointing session with hidden votes, either tool does the job well. The differences show up in free-tier limits, pricing models, async depth, and integrations — which is what the rest of this page covers.

• Join by link — participants never need an account or an install
• Hidden voting with simultaneous reveal
• Custom estimation decks
• Jira issue import and automatic story-point write-back to a mapped field
• Both synchronous (live) and asynchronous estimation
• Responsive web apps that work in desktop and mobile browsers

Where Planning Poker Online is the better fit

The clearest advantage is import surface. Planning Poker Online pulls in work items from Jira, Linear, GitHub Issues, Azure DevOps, and CSV files. SprintBee integrates with Jira and Linear only. If your backlog lives in Azure DevOps or GitHub Issues, Planning Poker Online can bring it into a session today and SprintBee cannot.

Its pricing model also favors the lone facilitator. Premium is priced per facilitator, players are always free and unlimited, and a paid facilitator's games have no voting or issue caps. A single scrum master or agile coach who runs estimation for many separate teams can cover all of them under one $30 seat, as of July 2026. SprintBee meters rooms instead, so the same pattern would push you toward a larger SprintBee plan.

It is also a polished product. The visual poker-table interface — players seated around a table, a built-in discussion timer, an issue sidebar for the facilitator — drew praise in an independent codecentric review, which chose it over a rival tool partly for how well it performed with larger groups. We Agile You advertises ISO 27001 certification and GDPR compliance on its site, which is unusual in this category and genuinely useful when a security questionnaire lands on your desk. SprintBee, by contrast, launched in 2026 and has a shorter public track record.

Choose Planning Poker Online if you need GitHub or Azure DevOps import, if one facilitator serves many teams and you want to pay for exactly one seat, or if an ISO 27001 certificate on file matters to your procurement process.

Where SprintBee is the better fit

The biggest difference is the free tier. Planning Poker Online's free Basic plan allows unlimited players but caps each game at 9 votings and 5 issues voted, as of July 2026 — fine for trying the tool, tight for a real refinement session. SprintBee's free plan is one active room with unlimited teammates and no caps on votes or items, and it includes async estimation, custom decks, current-session insights, and completed-item history with CSV export.

Planning Poker Online's site confirms async support but publishes little about how it works. SprintBee's async workflow is fully specified: you queue items into a voting window, teammates vote privately on their own schedule over a day or two, items whose votes agree settle automatically, and the team only meets to discuss the items that split. Paid plans add Slack and Microsoft Teams notifications for voting windows — we found no native Slack or Teams integration for Planning Poker Online, whose site mentions sharing the game link through those channels instead.

Setup friction differs too. Planning Poker Online's Jira sync requires installing a separate plugin from the Atlassian Marketplace, which needs one-time Jira admin approval, and it supports Jira Cloud only — Jira Server and Data Center users fall back to CSV. SprintBee's Jira integration is built into the app, and the free Browser Companion extension pairs a Jira browser tab with a room using no Jira API access at all, which helps when admin approval is slow to arrive.

SprintBee also includes things Planning Poker Online does not advertise: in-room story splitting that creates new items inheriting context (with Jira and Linear write-back), end-of-session scorecards covering vote alignment and how estimates were resolved, and room security controls — password, required sign-in, email-domain restriction — on paid plans.

To be even-handed about our own limitations: SprintBee is the newer product, its integrations stop at Jira and Linear, and it is responsive web only, with no native mobile apps.

Pricing compared, as of July 2026

The headline numbers look almost identical — $30 versus $29 a month — but the models are different. Planning Poker Online charges per facilitator; SprintBee charges a flat rate per organization and meters the number of rooms.

The practical math: with two facilitators, Planning Poker Online Premium costs $60 a month while SprintBee Pro stays at $29 flat. Flip it around, and one facilitator running games for five separate teams pays Planning Poker Online $30, while on SprintBee that many rooms means the $59 Growth plan. Count your facilitators and your rooms before deciding — the cheaper tool depends entirely on your shape.

• Planning Poker Online Basic: free; unlimited players; capped at 9 votings and 5 issues voted per game; CSV import; the pricing page also lists 'Unlimited games for 6 weeks' on the free tier
• Planning Poker Online Premium: $30 per facilitator per month, or $300 per facilitator per year; unlimited votings and issues per game, saved game history and resume, add or remove facilitators anytime; a free trial is offered
• Planning Poker Online Enterprise: custom quote on request
• SprintBee Free: $0, no credit card; one active room, unlimited teammates, no vote or item caps; async estimation, custom decks, session insights, history with CSV export
• SprintBee Pro: $29/month or $290/year for 3 rooms; Growth: $59/month or $590/year for 10 rooms; Business: $119/month or $1,190/year for 25 rooms; free trial available; above 25 rooms, contact sales
• Every SprintBee paid plan includes the same features — Jira and Linear integrations, Slack and Teams notifications, historical insights, room security — the plans differ only in room count

How async estimation differs

Planning Poker Online supports asynchronous estimation — its remote-teams page says participants can vote when it fits their schedule, with results compiled once everyone has voted. Beyond that, the public documentation is thin: we could not find details on deadlines, reminders, or what happens when votes disagree, so we cannot compare the mechanics point by point and will not pretend to.

SprintBee's async flow is documented and specific. A moderator opens a voting window over a queue of items, teammates vote privately over a day or two, and anything the team already agrees on settles automatically. Only the items with split votes go to a live discussion, which tends to shrink the meeting to the part that actually needs one. On paid plans, Slack or Teams notifications tell the team when a window opens and closes. If async estimation is the main reason you are shopping, run one real backlog through each tool and judge the mechanics yourself.

Trying both costs you nothing

Switching costs in this category are close to zero. Estimation tools hold session results, not your backlog — the work items stay in Jira, Linear, or wherever they live — so the honest advice is to run one real refinement session in each tool. Both start free without a credit card, and Planning Poker Online needs no registration to open a game.

For SprintBee, the fastest look is the live demo room, which needs no sign-in at all. When you are ready to try it with your own team, the free plan covers a full room with no vote caps, and completed-item history exports to CSV at any time, so nothing locks you in. Plan details are on the pricing page.