Lucen Timeline vs Visme

Lucen Timeline

• Project managers who report schedules to executives in PowerPoint
• Teams that keep plans in Microsoft Project, Smartsheet or Jira and need slides from them
• Consultants building client roadmaps that must stay editable

Visme

• Marketing and sales teams making branded decks, reports and infographics in one tool
• Presentations that need charts, animation or clickable interactive elements
• Students and teachers, who get separate discounted annual plans

Lucen Timeline

• The add-in needs Windows and PowerPoint. Timeline Online, for Mac and browser users, is a separate license at less than $13 a month billed annually.
• The free version stops at 10 milestones and tasks per slide, and its license has to be renewed each year.
• Microsoft Project, Jira, Smartsheet and Wrike import and planned vs. actual tracking need the Expert plan.
• Licenses are per user and sold only as yearly subscriptions, with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Visme

• The free Basic plan caps each project at 50 slides or pages, has 500 MB of storage and keeps the Visme logo on projects.
• Brand Kit, analytics, privacy controls, password protection and editable PowerPoint export start at Pro; the Starter PPTX download is not editable.
• Single sign-on, project approvals, custom roles and SCORM/xAPI export are Enterprise only, and Enterprise starts at 10 users.
• The mobile and tablet apps are for iOS; the download page lists Android as coming soon.

Lucen Timeline

Timelines built inside PowerPoint

The add-in sits on the PowerPoint ribbon and creates timelines and Gantt charts as native, editable slides, so there is nothing to export.

Swimlanes and timescales

Group tasks into swimlanes and nested sub-swimlanes and show up to 3 timescales on one chart. Lite allows 2 swimlanes; Plus and Expert are unlimited.

Dependencies and critical path

Link tasks and highlight the critical path from Plus. Importing dependencies from a source plan needs Expert.

Import and refresh

Plus imports from Excel. Expert imports and refreshes from Microsoft Project, Smartsheet and Jira, including several Jira projects or boards, and imports from Wrike.

Planned vs. actual

Expert shows progress bars, baselines and variance against the original plan, so a slide can show where a project has slipped.

Templates and themes

Pre-designed themes on every plan, timeline, Gantt and swimlane templates from Lite, and custom themes that can be shared and imported on Expert.

Visme

Templates for many content types

The template library covers more than 50 content types, including presentations, infographics, reports, proposals and social graphics. Premium templates need a paid plan.

AI Designer and AI tools

AI Designer turns a text prompt into a draft design, alongside an AI writer, image generator and image filters. Each use spends credits: 10 a month on Basic, 200 on Starter and 500 on Pro.

Brand Kit and Brand Wizard

Brand fonts, colors and logos are stored in a Brand Kit and applied to projects. The Brand Wizard builds one from a website URL. The full Brand Kit starts at the Pro plan.

Animation and interactivity

Slides can include animated elements, hover effects, clickable menus and hotspots. Custom animation, the full animation timeline and video and audio hotspots are Pro features.

Charts and data widgets

Statistics and figures can be shown as charts, graphs, maps and data widgets inside any project. The free plan has a limited set.

Collaboration and recording

Comments, annotation and live editing are on every plan. The Recording Studio captures a narrated presentation: up to 3 minutes on Basic and 45 minutes on paid plans.

Lucen Timeline

• Free$0

  Up to 10 milestones and tasks per slide, limited swimlanes and dependencies, 1 timescale and pre-designed themes.

• Lite$9

  per user / month, billed annually as a 1-year license

  More than 10 items per timeline, 2 swimlanes, timeline, Gantt and swimlane templates. Shown as less than $9 a month; the yearly total is not shown.

• Plus$17

  per user / month, billed annually as a 1-year license

  Unlimited swimlanes and sub-swimlanes, dependencies and critical path, 3 timescales and import from Excel. Shown as less than $17 a month.

• Expert$21

  per user / month, billed annually as a 1-year license

  Import and refresh from Microsoft Project, Smartsheet, Jira and Wrike, Excel refresh, planned vs. actual, baselines and custom themes. Less than $21 a month.

Visme

• Basic$0

  Unlimited projects, 500 MB of storage, up to 50 slides or pages per project, most templates and 10 AI credits a month.

• Starter$12.25

  per person / month, billed yearly ($147); $29 billed monthly

  All premium templates and assets, 1 GB of storage, unlimited slides, no Visme logo, JPG, PNG and PDF downloads, and 200 AI credits a month.

• Pro$24.75

  per person / month, billed yearly ($297); $59 billed monthly

  10 GB of storage, Brand Kit, analytics, privacy controls, PPTX, HTML5, video and GIF downloads, and 500 AI credits. Teams of 3 or 5 pay $24 per person, billed yearly.

• EnterpriseCustom

  From 10 users: custom subdomain, single sign-on and 2FA, project approvals, SCORM/xAPI export, 25 GB of storage per user and a dedicated success manager.

Lucen Timeline

No public discounts listed.

Visme

• Annual discount

  Yearly billing advertised as 50% off

  The pricing page toggle reads "Yearly Save 50%". Starter is $147 a year against $29 a month, and Pro is $297 a year against $59 a month.

• Education

  Student and Educator plans

  A Student plan at $48 a year and an Educator plan at $96 a year, billed annually. Sign-up needs a .edu email address or contact with Visme support.

• Nonprofit

  25% nonprofit discount

  Visme's pricing page offers nonprofits the features of its business plan at a 25% discount, on application.