The 7 best content calendar software

Managing your company’s meticulously planned content requires a meticulously planned system. Without strong systems in place, teams may lack the ability to share content strategy in a way that makes sense to stakeholders. Disorganization can also lead to burnout and ultimately failure to deliver important results. 

Fortunately, content calendar apps exist to dissolve disarray. These platforms provide structure and organization that makes it easy for teams to align content, campaigns, and other assets. 

The 7 best content calendar tools

1. Airtable

2. Asana

3. Smartsheet

4. Monday.com

5. Opal

6. Kapost

7. Sprinklr

We believe Airtable is a great platform to use for your content calendar, but we wanted to provide a clear-eyed evaluation of what else was out there. So we researched and tested the best options—here’s a look at the most highly rated solutions for creating content calendars at scale.

Content calendar software serves as a central interface where marketing teams organize, schedule, and manage their content across various channels. Many options even provide content calendar templates that make it easy to get started.

These templates often include the important fields teams need—like task, deadline, assigned writer, and category of content. However, content calendar software should also be flexible, so you can track your own important categories, like topics, headlines, creative briefs, or even comments. 

Benefits of using content calendar software

Using a content calendar platform doesn’t just untangle complexity for content marketing teams. It also has practical business benefits, like the below.

How to choose the best content calendar software

The best content calendars have these things in common:

• Ease of use: An intuitive user interface and drag-and-drop functionality can streamline the process of scheduling and organizing content. 

• Customizable views: Different views provide different ways to look at your content.  You’ll want a platform that makes it easy to zoom in on individual tasks or see an entire year at a time. Something like a gantt view can let your team see dependencies on a timeline, while a Kanban makes it clear when your writers have deadlines. Changing something in one view should always update the others. 

• Automation: Creating content comes with its fair share of repetitive work—like notifying a team member when a project is ready for their approval Automation can cut down the time you spend on these types of tasks and eliminate human errors in the process.

• Collaboration: Content teams are highly collaborative, so features like real-time commenting, task assignment, and notifications help ensure context is never lost between writers, designers, and editors.

• Customizable fields: Every team will have distinct expectations of their content calendars. That’s why it’s important your software provides the flexibility to adjust fields around things that matter to your entire team and lets them categorize tasks in a way that makes sense to them.

• Range of attachments supported: Content teams work with many assets. If you need to navigate to a thousand different tabs to see your content and assets, your content calendar isn’t a great source of truth. The ability to attach multimedia files like video, audio, or GIF files, saves you time, eliminates the need for separate storage systems, and ensures everyone is on the same page. 

• Performance tracking: The ability to record content performance helps teams make data-driven decisions when deciding what to create next. You also may want to invest in a platform that lets you track workload balance so activities can be planned based on individual capacity.

• Connected data: A content calendar app should connect multiple datasets—like a published content library and a repository of brainstormed content ideas. That way you can connect items like keywords to blog categories without having to dig through multiple tables of data.

1. Airtable

Airtable is a connected apps platform that empowers teams to build custom apps and workflows that work best for them. Airtable can be used to create custom content calendars in addition to many other use cases like campaign management, content auditing, OKR tracking, and asset management.

Content calendars aren’t project management tools, and they shouldn’t force your team into a specific workflow. With Airtable’s custom fields, multiple views, and integration abilities, you can elevate your workflows instead of constricting them. 

And because Airtable is an interactive relational database, the data in your calendar connects to other marketing use cases like budgeting, vendor management, event management, launch plans, and more, fostering efficient workflows and preventing data silos. It’s also a scalable solution meaning you’ll never run out of storage and you can add on new use cases as your company grows.

Here are some other features that make Airtable a great solution for content teams:

• Interactive relational database: If you update an item in Airtable, it will update everywhere else it’s present in the platform. That means when a deadline shifts on your content calendar, it can update your campaigns planning—or product roadmap—or anything else it ladders up to. 

• Flexible data model for diverse use cases: Your social team can rely on a visual calendar to plan their posts while your email team can use a roadmap to plan emails. As long as the two tables share data, both can function as one single, always-updated source of truth.

• Advanced automations: To help save time and prevent bottlenecks, you can create automations within your calendar. Set reminders and notifications for things like content creation, approval, updates on progress status, and more with custom rules and workflows. 

• Drag-and-drop interface designer: Users can quickly build visual and interactive interfaces that only display information that’s relevant to them. For example, maybe members of your SEO team don’t need to see your scheduled social posts. Filter them out of the team’s view to cut down on unnecessary noise. 

• Dynamic views: In addition to filtered views, you can visualize data in different ways with calendars, grids, galleries, Kanban, Gantt, forms, and more. Create and save as many views as you need so that every team can see important data in a format that works for them.

Reviews:

• G2: 4.6 stars; 2,126 reviews

• Capterra: 4.7 stars; 1,781 reviews

2. Asana

Asana is a project-management tool that can be used to create and manage content calendars. It has a number of features that make it well suited for this purpose, like a calendar view, custom fields, task assignment, comments, and reporting. 

This software may be a good fit for smaller teams that don’t need to connect multiple projects and use cases since data doesn’t sync between different projects within Asana. If your needs are pretty straightforward, Asana offers an easy way to create collaborative calendars. 

Other standout features from Asana include:

• Multiple views: Asana offers views like Kanban, list, calendar, and timeline, which are helpful for approaching different stages of planning and execution. For instance, writers may want to view their tasks in a list format while a manager may prefer a calendar view to schedule blog posts. 

• Collaborative workflows: Work seamlessly with stakeholders using features like comments, tags, chat, notifications, and file sharing. Comments can be especially useful for sharing feedback and ideas under a specific content creation task. 

• Workflow builder: This feature lets teams create automated processes to boost efficiency and ensure deadlines are met. You can automate task assignments or notifications for certain team members when a project’s status is updated.

Reviews:

• G2: 4.3 stars; 9,347 reviews

• Capterra: 4.5 stars; 11,998 reviews

3. Smartsheet

Smartsheet is a spreadsheet-based work-management platform. One of its common use cases is building content calendars that have boht scheduling features and in-app time tracking. While Smartsheet doesn’t update in real time, it’s a solid solution for assigning content creation work. 

Other noteworthy features include:

• Advanced organization: Multiple views, folders, sheets, columns, and color-coding options all make it easy to organize projects. For example, you can color code calendar items with primary and secondary categories to display the prioritization of tasks. 

• Project reminders: Automate task reminders with customized messages for dependencies on projects. Does your workflow require manager approval between tasks? Set reminders to approve content on time.

• Proofing collaboration: Smartsheet lets you upload documents, request and collect annotated feedback, and get approval on items. This speeds up the editing workflow and keeps it all in one platform.

Reviews:

• G2: 4.4 stars; 11,281 reviews

• Capterra: 4.5 stars; 2,888 reviews

4. Monday.com

Monday.com is a cloud-based, project-management platform that can be used to design content calendars. Create custom boards to break large projects into smaller tasks and assign due dates, priorities, and dependencies. It also has a drag-and-drop interface that makes it easy to rearrange tasks and visualize your calendar. 

With a record limit of 20,000 items, it’s better suited for small teams that aren’t running enterprise-scale content creation operations.

Here are some features that support calendar creation in Monday.com:

• Marketing activity connectivity: The Connect Boards column lets you link a column to items on other boards. So if your social team and content team need separate calendars, you can still connect their information, like to see when social is posting a promotion for a blog. 

• File versioning: Monday.com lets you save multiple versions of content in one place so you can compare and organize your assets. This is helpful if your team goes through multiple rounds of edits and you need to be able to review version history.

• Advanced feedback features: Within the platform you can annotate files, images, and videos to leave quick feedback or approve assets. This eliminates the need for an additional editing platform.

Reviews:

• G2: 4.7 stars; 8,049 reviews

• Capterra: 4.6 stars; 3,845 reviews

5. Opal

Opal is a marketing planning and visualization platform that can help teams create and maintain content calendars. Robust collaboration capabilities like real-time comments, feedback, and asset collaboration help streamline the process. Additionally, Opal offers customizable templates to help teams maintain consistency and adhere to brand guidelines across multiple channels and campaigns. 

Here are some other great features Opal offers: 

• Content previews: You can populate social media assets in a mock-up to see what it will look like published on different platforms. This can be helpful when visualizing the final product on your social calendar.

• Brief building: Opal also has templates and playbooks designed to build creative briefs. This feature can help cut down time writing briefs for the projects in your calendar.

• Presentation export: Export content calendars into auto-built presentations for easy reporting. This saves you time from manually uploading every asset from your calendar into a deck.

Reviews:

• G2: 4.1 stars; 110 reviews

• Capterra: 4.3 stars; 35 reviews

6. Kapost

Kapost is a content operations software with a comprehensive set of features designed for content management. With customizable workflows, a centralized library, and collaboration tools, Kapost caters to complex operations—including content calendar creation and management. 

Some of Kapost’s most notable features include:

• Content strategy connection: Kapost’s content strategy module, Canvas, can build a content journey, plan initiatives, and publish and distribute content directly from the platform. These features will streamline your process by keeping your entire workflow within the software.

• Gallery feature for connectivity: Your sales team can connect content to a persona, buying stage, and product line within Kapost. The sales team can also recommend topics so when it comes time for brainstorming, you'll already have ideas ready to go.

• Advanced fields: Add fields like buyer persona, buying stage, CTA, and theme. You can also filter by basic fields like dates, owner, and type.

Reviews:

• G2: 4 stars; 42 reviews

• Capterra: 4.5 stars; 15 reviews

7. Sprinklr

Sprinklr is a customer experience management software that can help marketing teams build content calendars. It includes analytics and reporting features.

Sprinklr integrates with social media platforms making it easy to schedule and publish social content directly from the platform. While Sprinklr can also be used for content and social media calendars, it can’t be used for every marketing or cross-functional use case, so it’s better suited for smaller creative teams who simply need to plan and schedule content to different channels.

Here are some other Sprinklr features that are useful:

• Multi-channel management: Sprinklr makes it easy to manage all your digital channels like your website, social platforms, and editorial channels in one place. This eliminates the need for a separate tool for each platform.

• Ticketing system: You can set up the platform to automatically send content requests and track assignments throughout the lifecycle, which cuts down time from manually checking the status of projects.  

• AI review: You can also use briefs and pre-set standards to automate the review of submitted content. To further streamline the review process, you can automate approvals and moderation.

Reviews:

• G2: 4 stars; 753 reviews

• Capterra: 4.2 stars; 76 reviews

Content calendar software FAQ

Still have a few questions about content calendar apps? Check out the answers to these frequently asked questions. 

What is the best content calendar software?

The best content calendar will depend on your team’s needs. If you’re not sure exactly what your team needs, look for a platform offering flexible templates which can help you get started.

While some solutions may require teams to operate in one, rigid way, platforms like Airtable lets users take control of their unique workflows. With multiple views like calendar, gantt chart, Kanban, or roadmap, Airtable is a fantastic option for content teams. It also connects your content to things like campaign management or launch plans. 

Why do I need content calendar software?

Content calendar software helps streamline the content-marketing process, facilitates collaboration among team members, and aligns users on key dates, events, and schedules. It empowers teams to strategically plan ahead and optimize their content marketing efforts with communication, scheduling, and automation features.

What’s the difference between an editorial calendar and a content calendar?

Sometimes nothing! The terms are often used interchangeably. But many times, editorial calendars outline themes, topics, and key milestones to ensure a consistent approach to content, while a content calendar takes a more detailed approach to scheduling and managing individual pieces within the broader framework of an editorial calendar. 

Editorial and content calendars are far from the only calendars your marketing department will rely on. Here are a few other types of calendars your team might benefit from:

• Marketing calendar: Plan marketing activities throughout the year like key campaigns, product launches, and promotions.

• Social media calendar: This provides a structured view of upcoming social media posts, including content, visuals, captions, and publication dates.

• Email marketing calendar: Schedule and track email communications like newsletters, promotional offers, event invitations, and follow-ups. 

While each content calendar platform has its own strengths and weaknesses, Airtable is uniquely positioned to provide the flexibility, scalability, and cross-functional collaboration that enterprise content teams need to succeed, no matter the initiative at hand.