Martus vs. Limelight

Bring teams together with collaborative budgeting, precise personnel planning, and mission-focused reporting.

Martus and Limelight both offer cloud-based budgeting and planning to help teams move beyond spreadsheets. Three key differences to consider are annual cost, ease of implementation, and nonprofit fit.

A lower starting price. Martus Essentials starts at $6,650 per year for five users, with additional discounts available for churches and nonprofits. Limelight’s starting price on G2 is listed at $16,800 per year for five users.

A faster start. Martus is ready to use after the initial one-hour kickoff, so your team can begin building budgets and exploring reports while onboarding continues.

Built around nonprofit needs. Martus was originally built for nonprofits and mission-driven organizations, with capabilities that support personnel allocations across grants and programs, department collaboration, and finance-managed permissions. Limelight serves multiple industries, including nonprofits.

If your organization needs to allocate staff costs across programs, engage department leaders, and maintain finance oversight, Martus deserves a closer look. G2 reviewers also rate Martus higher for ease of setup and administration: 9.0 and 9.3, compared with 7.4 and 7.2 for Limelight.

With Martus you can:

Allocate personnel costs across grants and projects by hours, amounts or percentages
Give budget owners guided worksheets with approvals and lock controls
Reforecast in every package without rebuilding the budget
Drill into transaction detail where your integration supports it
Create and refine reports in plain language with Martus Intelligence

Discover how Martus allows finance to lead a budgeting process the whole organization can easily participate in.

Give Budget Owners a Clear Place to Contribute

Martus gives department leaders guided worksheets to build and review their budgets. Worksheet ownership, approvals and lock controls help finance coordinate contributions and keep the process moving. Completed worksheets roll into the overall budget without manual file consolidation.

Plan Around Your Mission's Real Cost Structures

Martus connects personnel planning with the programs, departments and projects your employees support. Allocate costs by hours, amounts or percentages, across a full year or individual months. Model seasonal hiring, benefit options and mid-year raises with the detail your organization needs.

Flexible Planning that Meets Your Needs, Goals, and Budget

With three Martus packages - Essentials, Plus, and Premium - you can choose the level of budgeting, forecasting, and reporting that makes sense for your organization, without paying for capabilities you don't need.

And getting started doesn't mean slowing down. Our streamlined implementation process allows your team to get up and running quickly, with minimal disruption to daily operations.

The right solution. The right price. On your timeline.

Martus publishes its starting price, so there are no surprises going into the sales process. Martus Essentials starts at $6,650 per year for five users and covers unlimited departments, and you add users in packs of five. Limelight lists a Starter plan for five users and an Unlimited plan for everyone else, with both priced by quote. Limelight also lists nonprofit discounts, so compare written quotes.

Martus

Empowers budget owners with self-service access to their own financials
Lightens Finance’s load because owners update budgets and review variances themselves
Keeps Finance in control through permissions and approval workflows

Limelight

Collaborative budgeting, but it needs more setup and training
Department-level participation, but workflows depend on how it’s configured
Permissions and workflows to manage contributions and oversight

Start using Martus right after kickoff, with most organizations completing onboarding and training within three weeks. A train-the-trainer approach helps your finance team learn the platform and bring more budget owners into the process. After launch, G2 reviewers rate Martus 9.8 out of 10 for quality of support (68 reviews), against 8.9 for Limelight (9 reviews), and 9.0 for ease of setup against 7.4.

Martus

Up and running in as little as two weeks
Out-of-the-box financial reports available shortly after setup
Streamlined onboarding allows your team to continue daily operations
Straightforward setup with dedicated implementation support

Limelight

Timelines vary depending on complexity and configuration
Reporting and financial models may require additional configuration
Implementation may involve additional data modeling and training
IT and finance involvement varies based on integration and planning requirements

Martus goes beyond headcount totals to plan how each employee is funded. Allocate personnel costs across grants and projects by hours, amounts or percentages, with allocations that change month to month. Account for seasonal employees, insurance tiers and mid-year raises so staffing plans reflect your real costs. Limelight offers nonprofit grant, program templates, and workforce planning. Martus builds the allocation into the budget itself.

Martus

Easily distribute salaries, benefits, and personnel costs across grants, programs, and departments
Manage positions, compensation, vacancies, and staffing changes without complex spreadsheets
Designed to align personnel budgets with grant funding, program expenses, and organizational reporting

Limelight

Supports workforce cost allocations through customized planning models
Supports detailed staffing and compensation planning through configurable models
Serves multiple industries, with nonprofit-specific needs addressed through configuration

Martus includes reforecasting in every package. Create a revised plan from existing budgets and actuals, adjust assumptions, and compare outcomes against the approved budget as conditions change. Plus adds multi-year what-if analysis, and Premium adds cash-flow forecasting and projected balance sheets. Limelight states that every plan includes unlimited forecasts and scenarios, so the question is which tool fits how your team reforecasts.

Martus

Update forecasts without rebuilding or changing the original budget
Quickly model changes in funding, staffing, and expenses to understand the impact
Instantly compare budgets, forecasts, and actuals to make informed decisions

Limelight

Supports rolling forecasts and revisions through configurable planning models
Supports multiple planning scenarios with configurable assumptions
Provides budget-to-actual and forecast reporting capabilities

Martus

Go beyond basic insights with AI-assisted report building. Create customized financial reports quickly, without complex setup or technical expertise
With Martus Intelligence, users can ask questions in natural language, investigate variances, identify trends, and uncover the story behind your number, all using your organization's financial data
Combine ready-to-use reports, flexible Report Builder capabilities, and AI assistance to turn financial data into meaningful insights and faster decisions

Limelight

Offers AI capabilities to support financial analysis, reporting, and insights
Helps users analyze financial performance and interpret results
Provides dashboards and financial reporting tools with configurable analysis capabilities

"Martus Solutions has been a real asset in evolving our budgeting process. By moving us away from manual Excel spreadsheets, the focus has shifted from just creating to actual management of our budgetary cycle."

Laila Bueckers Controller

"Martus allows my entire team to keep tabs on our budget seamlessly and plan out our finances with ease. The added efficiency and speed with which we got things up and running are massive pluses."

Bill Schankel COO

"Ditching the endless Excel sheets and cutting costs on software licenses we didn't need anymore was a breath of fresh air. Martus is secure, easy to use, and the accuracy is spot-on. Plus, with a quick implementation, we were up and running in no time."

Chris Ockerman Director of Administration

"Martus has helped our business streamline the entire budgeting process tremendously. We used to do everything on individual spreadsheets, and now it's all in one place, which helps all our managers monitor everything more efficiently as well."

Allison Hickman VP of Administration

"The Martus software is a key tool in my day to day financial analysis, including comparing actuals versus budgeted costs. It's very user friendly and provides an easy bridge from our data in Sage Intacct."

Matthew Bredes CFO

What You Need	Martus	Limelight
G2 rating (10/2026)	4.7/5, 103 reviews	4.7/5, 15 reviews
Built for	Nonprofits and mission-driven organizations: programs, grants and departments	Broad FP&A platform across many industries, with nonprofit templates for grants, funds, projects and programs
Pricing structure	Essentials, Plus and Premium packages; discounts for nonprofits and churches	Offers Starter (5 users) and Unlimited users plans; nonprofit discounts listed
Starting price	Essentials from $6,650 per year for 5 users, unlimited departments	Starter price is listed on G2 as $16.8K per year for 5 users
Budget participation	Guided worksheets, owners, approvals and lock controls	Collaborative planning across finance and department teams
Personnel planning	Allocations across grants and projects by hours, amounts or percentages; monthly or full year; seasonal staff, insurance tiers, mid-year raises	Driver-based headcount and compensation models, benefits and taxes, hiring scenarios
Reforecasting	Included in every package	Unlimited forecasts and scenarios, as Limelight states
Advanced planning	Multi-year what-if in Plus; cash-flow forecasting and projected balance sheets in Premium	Cash flow and balance sheet planning listed in both plans
Reporting	Financial reports, dashboards, KPIs and transaction drill-down where your integration supports it	Financial reports, transaction drill-through and narrative report books
AI	Martus Intelligence: plain-language report creation, in-app guidance and questions about your data; availability varies by package	AI Insights for trend, variance and anomaly detection; conversational analysis and narrative generation, as Limelight states
Implementation	Most organizations complete onboarding and training within three weeks	States customers see value within weeks
G2 ease of setup / ease of admin	9.0 / 9.3	7.4 / 7.2
G2 quality of support	9.8	8.9
Integrations	Leading cloud ERPs, plus file-based options for on-premise systems	Sage Intacct, NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics, Blackbaud and QuickBooks Online, with 800+ connectors stated
Security	Role-based permissions, SSO, MFA, SOC 2 Type 2	SOC 2 compliance shown on its site; level not stated

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When you choose Martus, you choose:

Collaboration with clear ownership: Guided worksheets, approvals and automatic budget roll-up keep everyone working toward one plan.
Access controlled by finance: Give budget owners the visibility they need while protecting sensitive financial and personnel information.
Personnel planning that fits your mission: Allocate staffing costs across grants, programs and departments by hours, amounts or percentages.
Connected numbers you can explain: Bring accounting actuals into your reports and drill into transaction detail where your integration supports it.
Reforecasting across every package: Adjust projections as conditions change while keeping the approved budget available for comparison.
AI that helps you get work done: Create reports in plain language, get in-app guidance, and explore financial insights with available Martus Intelligence capabilities.
A fast start and support that stays: Most organizations finish onboarding within three weeks, and G2 reviewers rate Martus 9.8 out of 10 for support.

G2 Category (out of 10)	Martus	Limelight
Ease of Admin	9.3	7.2
Ease of Setup	9.0	7.4
Ease of Use	9.0	9.3
Quality of Support	9.8	8.9

Martus vs. Limelight

Give Budget Owners a Clear Place to Contribute

Plan Around Your Mission's Real Cost Structures

Flexible Planning that Meets Your Needs, Goals, and Budget