Org chart software, sorted into three kinds
Almost everyone shopping for org chart software starts in the wrong aisle. An org chart looks like a drawing, so the search lands on a diagramming tool, and the thing that actually hurts six months later is not the drawing — it is that nothing in the file knows who reports to whom, so every change is a redraw. Here is the field sorted properly, the questions that decide it, and what the options cost according to their own pages.
Built from a list, drawn by the engine
The three kinds
They are sold as one category and are not one category.
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Diagramming tools
Visio, Lucidchart, Canva
You draw the chart. The tool gives you boxes, lines and a canvas, and what comes out is a picture of a structure rather than a record of one. They are excellent at this, and an org chart is one of a hundred diagrams they draw. The catch is that nothing in the file knows Priya reports to Marcus — you drew a line, and a line is just a line.
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HR platforms
BambooHR, Gusto, HiBob, Workday and the rest
The chart is a by-product. The company already keeps every person, title and manager in the system to run payroll, so it can draw the tree for free and it is always current. What you usually cannot do is draw the company as it will be in March, or hand a client a chart, or put an open role on it that finance has not approved.
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Dedicated org chart tools
This one, and others
The chart is the product. You give it a list of people and who they report to, and it draws and redraws the chart itself; you never place a box. It handles the things an org chart needs and a flowchart does not — dotted lines, assistants beside their exec, open roles, department colors — because those are the whole job rather than an edge case.
A fourth thing gets sold as org chart software and is not: org design and headcount-planning suites, priced per employee per year, which draw a chart on the way to modeling costs and scenarios. If you are budgeting a reorg they are the right purchase. If you need a chart, they are a lot of software around one.
Five questions that decide it
In the order that saves the most money.
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Where do the names come from?
If they are already in a spreadsheet or an HR system, a tool that cannot read that list is asking you to type the company twice and to keep both copies right. If the names only exist in somebody's head, any tool will do for the first draft — but write the list down anyway, because it is the thing you will still have in a year.
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What happens when somebody moves?
The honest test of any org chart tool. In a drawing, a move is: find the box, drag it, delete the old line, draw a new one, then fix the four boxes that no longer line up. From a list, a move is one cell. Ask how many charts have gone stale in your company because that first sequence was nobody's job.
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Who has to see it, and how many of them are there?
This is where per-seat pricing decides the bill. If forty people need to look at the chart and two people edit it, a tool that charges for all forty costs twenty times a tool that charges for the two. Check whether viewing needs an account, and whether a link works for someone outside the company — a client, a board member, an auditor.
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Does it need the things only an org chart has?
Dotted-line reports, an assistant beside their executive rather than under them, open roles that are not people yet, contractors marked as contractors, department colors that mean something. In a diagramming tool each of these is a shape you fake and a convention you have to remember. In a tool built for org charts they are columns.
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What has to come out at the end?
A slide, a PDF for the board pack, an image in a wiki, a link, a page anyone can find. Check the export before you buy, not after: whether the file is editable, whether it is sharp when printed, and whether the free tier stamps it. Here a PNG is free with a small line across the bottom; PDF, SVG and an editable PowerPoint need a pass or a plan.
Side by side
The tools people actually compare, and what each does with a list of people.
| Tool | Kind | From a list of people | When somebody moves | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Visio | Diagramming | The Organization Chart Wizard builds one from an Excel sheet | Re-run the wizard, or move the shape by hand | Plan 1 $5.00, Plan 2 $15.00, per user per month, paid yearly |
| Lucidchart | Diagramming | Import Data reads a CSV, an Excel file or a Google Sheet | A linked Sheet or workbook refreshes; an uploaded file is static | Free up to 60 objects a document; Individual $9.00 a month plus tax; Team per user |
| Excel | Office suite | Not any more — the add-in that did it was retired | Redraw the SmartArt by hand | No extra cost beyond the Microsoft suite you already have |
| PowerPoint | Office suite | No; SmartArt is typed into | Redraw the SmartArt by hand | No extra cost beyond the Microsoft suite you already have |
| Google Sheets | Office suite | Yes, from two columns, as a built-in chart | Edit the cell and the chart follows | No extra cost beyond the Google account you already have |
| Canva | Diagramming | No; the chart is drawn on a whiteboard | Move the box and redraw the lines | Not on the pages that were read |
| orgchart.live | Org charts only | Yes — a spreadsheet, pasted rows, a PDF or a screenshot | Drag the card, or let the HR system say so on Business | Free to build; $4.99 three-day pass, $49 a year Pro, $199 a year Business |
Vendor facts read from each vendor's own pages on September 5, 2026; where a price was not on those pages it says so rather than being guessed, and comparison-site round-ups are not used as a source because they disagree with each other and with the vendor. Prices are in US dollars as shown. If a vendor changes a plan, this page is wrong until it is updated. The last row is what the code does today; the pricing page is the source for what is paid.
When this is the right tool
- The list of people already exists in a spreadsheet, or in an HR system you would rather not retype.
- The chart will change — a reorg, a hiring plan, a merger, a company that is growing.
- More people need to look at it than to edit it.
- It needs dotted lines, assistants, open roles or contractors drawn as what they are.
- It has to leave as a slide, a PDF, a link or a public page.
When it is not
- The org chart is one diagram among many, and your team already draws in Lucidchart or Visio. Draw it there, with the rest.
- You need a picture once, for one slide, and it will never change. SmartArt in PowerPoint is free and finished in ten minutes.
- You want an org chart nobody maintains but everybody trusts. No tool does that; a person does, and the tool only decides how much of their week it takes.
- You need headcount cost modeling and scenario budgeting. That is a different purchase, and a bigger one.
Questions people ask
- What is org chart software?
- Any tool that produces an organizational chart, which covers three quite different things: diagramming tools where you draw the chart yourself, HR platforms that draw it as a by-product of the payroll record, and dedicated org chart tools that build it from a list of people and redraw it as the list changes. Most disappointment comes from buying one kind while needing another, so the question worth asking first is not which product but which kind.
- What is the best free org chart software?
- Free means different things. Google Sheets will draw a chart from two columns at no cost, with no dotted lines and no control over the drawing. Lucidchart's free plan allows 60 objects a document, and its help center counts lines and text boxes toward that, so a chart of about thirty people and their lines reaches the limit before a title. Here, building is free with no cap on people or charts and no seat to buy for anyone who only looks; a PNG export is free with a small line across the bottom, and a clean file needs a pass or a plan.
- Do I need org chart software, or will a spreadsheet do?
- The spreadsheet is not the alternative — it is the input. Every serious way of making an org chart starts with a list of people, titles and managers in rows, and the difference between tools is what happens after that list exists. If the chart is drawn once, for one slide, a spreadsheet and any drawing tool will do. If it will be redrawn every time somebody joins, moves or leaves, the list should stay the source and the drawing should be disposable.
- How much does org chart software cost?
- From nothing to a few hundred a year, and the number that matters is what it costs per person who edits. On the vendors' own pages, read September 5, 2026: Visio Plan 1 is $5.00 and Plan 2 $15.00 per user per month paid yearly; Lucidchart's Individual plan is $9.00 a month plus tax, with Team priced per user. Here it is $4.99 for a three-day pass, $49 a year for Pro or $199 a year for Business, for the workspace rather than per seat, and viewers never need an account.
- Can org chart software connect to our HR system?
- Some can, usually on the more expensive plans. Lucid's help center puts its BambooHR import on Enterprise plans only. Here, sync from Gusto, BambooHR, HiBob, Oracle HCM, Microsoft Entra ID and Google Workspace is part of Business at $199 a year: the HR system wins on name, title, department and manager, anything you override on the chart stays yours, people you added by hand are left alone, and people who leave come off.
- Which org chart software works from a spreadsheet?
- Visio's Organization Chart Wizard builds one from an Excel sheet, and Lucidchart's Import Data reads a CSV, an Excel file or a Google Sheet. Excel itself no longer does: the Visio Data Visualizer add-in that drew a chart from rows inside Excel was removed from the add-in store on December 8, 2025 and switched off on March 2, 2026. Here the same file is the way in, and so is a PDF, a screenshot of an old chart, or rows pasted straight from the sheet.
Start from the list, not the drawing
Paste the rows you already have — names, titles, who reports to whom — and the chart is drawn from them. Nothing to place, no seat for the people who only look.