We analyzed 20,582 strategic plans. Get a copy of the full report.
Cascade plans for everyone. We built ClearPoint around 20,582 real strategic plans from the orgs whose strategy answers to a public — councils, regulators, citizens, boards. 81% of owners ghost their KPIs. Only 39% of goals hit on-track. We measured it. We built around it.
Every number sourced. Cascade claims from their own /vs/ page. ClearPoint claims from our published research.
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We published the analysis of 20,582 real strategic plans. No competing platform has published research at that scale.
Cascade builds for the for-profit enterprise. We build for strategy that answers to a council, a regulator or a citizen.
Our customers publish live dashboards to the public. You can open them right now and check.
Both products earn their seat. Here's where each is strongest. Based on what each company says about itself.
In their own words: "#1 Strategy-Led Performance Platform. One system. Better decisions. Faster results."
Specialist platform. Built for organizations whose strategy is accountable to a public — government councils, healthcare boards, regulators, citizen bases.
of assigned metric owners never update their data. The "phantom owner" pattern. Your platform should detect it. Most don't.
ClearPoint Gap Analysis · n = 20,582 plans
of strategic objectives are on-track. But 77.6% of initiatives succeed. "Projects almost always finish. Goals almost never do."
months — the median strategic project length. Quarterly reviews are too slow to catch drift. Continuous tracking is the difference.
of strategic measures are never started at all. Tracking measures that never launch is invisible waste.
ClearPoint KPI Paradox research
KPI off-target rate in state governments vs 30% in K-12 districts. Sector matters. Generic enterprise tools treat all verticals the same. They aren't.
Two published studies. One dataset. Open to anyone who wants to check the math.
See where the numbers come from →If your strategy doesn't answer to a public, Cascade is a strong choice. Six things they do well — from our own competitive notes and their own pricing page.
Plans, portfolios, OKRs, projects, KPIs, risks and custom object types in a single system.
Their product and pricing motion is built for commercial teams, not public accountability.
Tapestry Connect, AI Reports, AI Briefings and AI Strategy Intelligence cover a lot of ground.
Two users, no credit card, no sales call. A team can be inside Cascade this afternoon. We ask for a conversation first — a real difference, and not always in our favour.
Their template library lowers the barrier for a team writing its first strategic plan. If you don't have a plan yet, that genuinely helps.
A clean, modern interface that people who have never used strategy software pick up fast. Our own competitive notes say so.
Three objections come back in almost every competitive deal. They are in our own battle card, so you may as well hear them from us — with the question to ask both vendors.
Fair, if you compare an empty Cascade template to a finished ClearPoint build. We don't hand you an empty system — we build your first scorecard from the plan you already have. Ask both vendors who configures it, and what your staff has to do before go-live.
At list, often yes — Cascade starts free for two users. So compare the whole number, not the sticker: what is included at renewal, whether a dedicated CSM and the migration are in the price, and what year five looks like. Ask both of us in writing.
The real risk, and it isn't about software. If owners don't update a spreadsheet, they won't update either platform — that's the 81% we measured. Ask both vendors one thing: how does the system tell you a measure has gone quiet, and who gets that alert?
Source: ClearPoint competitive battle card, internal.
Off-target KPI rates by sector. A generic platform treats these the same. They are not the same — and the sector data is only where it starts.
ClearPoint Gap Analysis · n = 20,582 plans
Sector data is only half of it. In our own competitive notes, teams outgrow a simpler platform at three predictable moments — none of them about features.
Finance is running OKRs, the council wants a balanced scorecard, accreditation wants its own evidence map. One tool now has to speak three languages at once.
The moment a board packet or a citizen dashboard is the output, reporting stops being an internal convenience and becomes the product.
Five departments, one roll-up, three different reporting calendars. Alignment stops being a diagram and starts being an operational problem.
Source: ClearPoint competitive analysis, internal.
Three surfaces our customers use every week. Real screens, not concept art.
Residents see progress without asking. The city publishes once and it stays current.
Dashboards, charts and summaries bundled into one PDF. Branded, watermarked, password-protected, updated automatically. Ready when leadership asks. Not three days after.
The median strategic project runs 10.94 months. Watch it the whole way, not once a quarter.
Three customers, in their own words.
A city that publishes its strategy to residents.
Department plans rolled into one council view.
Strategy reporting the public can read.
No form, no call. Click through the product as it ships today.
How to read this: "Per their site" indicates a claim Cascade makes about itself in their public materials. Cells without "Per their site" are independently verifiable from primary sources linked below.
| Capability | ClearPoint | Cascade |
|---|---|---|
| Published dataset of real strategic plans | 20,582 plans analyzed publicly | No equivalent public dataset |
| Original research on strategy execution | KPI Paradox, Gap Analysis, sector benchmarks | Marketing & product content |
| Strategic framework support | BSC, OKR, KPI, custom | "All frameworks including OKRs, BSC & custom" — per their site |
| Public-facing dashboards | Yes — verifiable at Fort Collins, Coral Springs, Buncombe County | Not mentioned in Cascade's public marketing |
| Dashboard embedding on your own site | Yes | Not advertised in Cascade's public materials |
| Native data integrations | Native metric integrations | "Native metric integrations for all common data sources" — per their site |
| AI capabilities | AI chatbot for strategy insights | Tapestry Connect, AI Reports, AI Briefings, AI Strategy Intelligence — per their site |
| AI at every tier | Included | Tapestry AI listed on the Enterprise tier — per their pricing page |
| Accreditation and award-framework tracking | PHAB, Baldrige, ARPA reporting | Not advertised in Cascade's public materials |
| Primary vertical fit | Government, healthcare, banking, education, utilities | For-profit enterprise |
| SOC 2 Type II | Yes | Not advertised in Cascade's public materials |
| Founder credentials | Ted Jackson (Duke + HBS MBA), Dylan Miyake (Bowdoin + MIT Sloan MBA) | Not publicly disclosed on their site |
| Pricing transparency | Not published — talk to sales | Not published — talk to sales |
| Free tier to start | No — we start with a conversation | Yes — two users, no credit card — per their site |
Executive summary on every report. Wins highlighted. Red flags surfaced. Next move suggested. Trained on 20,582 real plans, so the patterns are real. Not generic.
Cascade's own comparison page positions ClearPoint as best for local government organizations. We agree with them.
Live public dashboards at Fort Collins, Coral Springs and Buncombe County. Open them and check.
Neither vendor publishes pricing. Ask both for the same three things in writing before you compare.
Cascade does not disclose founder credentials publicly. We list ours because buyers ask.
"Reporting that used to eat a week now takes an afternoon."
"Our council sees the same numbers we do, on the same day."
"The team knows who owns each measure. That alone changed the meetings."
150+ customer reviews referenced across public review platforms.
Spreadsheet, PDF or export. We map objectives, measures and owners for you.
You see your own scorecard, not a demo account. Adjust before anyone else logs in.
Owners get their measures, leadership gets its report, residents get the dashboard.
If your strategy is a private plan, Cascade will serve you well. If it is a public promise, you need a platform built by people who have read 20,582 of them.
Book a Free DemoYes. Cascade is a credible broad-enterprise platform for the for-profit mid-market. If your strategy doesn't answer to a public board, a regulator, or a citizen base — and you want one tool for plans, portfolios, OKRs, projects, KPIs, risks — Cascade fits. Cascade's own /vs/ page positions ClearPoint as best for "local government organizations." That matches our specialization. Honestly told.
ClearPoint analyzed 20,582 real strategic plans across government, healthcare, education, utilities. Two published studies: KPI Paradox — only 33% of measures are green, 22% never start. Gap Analysis — 81% phantom owners, 39% goal completion. To our knowledge, no competing platform has published comparable research at this scale. Cascade included.
No. Cascade does not advertise public-facing citizen dashboards on their product page, /vs/ page, or feature breakdowns at the time of our review. ClearPoint customers — Fort Collins, Coral Springs, Buncombe County — publish live strategic dashboards to the public today. Links in the section above.
Cascade markets Tapestry Connect, AI Reports, AI Briefings, AI Strategy Intelligence. ClearPoint offers an AI chatbot for strategy insights. The deeper difference: ClearPoint AI is informed by the 20,582-plan dataset. It flags phantom-owner patterns because we measured the 81% non-update rate. Cascade invests in surface area. We invest in depth.
Neither does. Both require a sales conversation. Ask both vendors for the same three things in writing: per-user pricing at each tier, what's included (especially dedicated CSM and migration support), and timeline commitments. Then compare. Honestly.
Most teams are live in two to three weeks. We build your first scorecard from the plan you already have, then hand it over once you have reviewed it. No parallel-run period, no data-entry sprint for your staff.
Yes. Send the spreadsheet, the PDF or an export from your current tool. We map objectives, measures, owners and history into ClearPoint. Historical data comes with you so your trend lines don't restart at zero.
The strategy team. Publishing is a permission setting, not a development project. IT is involved for the domain and any single sign-on, and then the people who own the measures own the page.
Your data stays yours and stays exportable at any point in the term, not only at renewal. Ask any vendor — including us — to put the export format and the notice period in the contract before you sign.
ClearPoint — software-clearpoint-vs-cascade. Source for "we analyzed 20,582 strategic plans" and "150+ customer reviews."
ClearPoint Gap Analysis. Source for 81% phantom owners and 39.3% of objectives on-track.
ClearPoint KPI Paradox. Source for 33% of measures green and 22% never started.
cascade.app/compare/cascade-vs-clearpoint. Source for every claim marked "per their site."
Live public dashboards. Fort Collins, Coral Springs, Buncombe County and Durham publish theirs today. Open them and check the claims yourself.
See your own plan in ClearPoint — 20,582 plans of benchmark included.
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