If you're shopping for forensic schedule analysis tooling in 2026, you're going to land on SmartPM at some point. They're the established player. They've been at it longer than most, and they have a polished SaaS product with pricing published openly on their own site.
This page exists because the most common question we get is "how is what you do different from SmartPM?" Here's the honest answer.
What each one is
SmartPM is a SaaS schedule analytics platform. You pay an annual subscription, upload your XER files to their cloud, and get an interactive dashboard showing schedule health metrics, risk indicators, and trend analysis. Their published pricing runs two plans. Essentials is $12,000 annually and covers up to 50 projects with standard support; Time Impact Analysis is not included at that level. Controls is $25,000 annually, adds five controls slots on top of the 50 Essentials projects, includes What-if Scenarios and Time Impact Analysis, and comes with premium support and dedicated onboarding; SmartPM labels it Best Value. Both plans include unlimited users. SmartPM also advertises a 60-day risk-free trial, and managed services are available as add-ons if you want their people running the work rather than your own.
Critical Path Partners is a forensic schedule consultancy with its own AI-native engine. The engine is publicly testable for free at criticalpathpartners.ca/viewer/, open a P6 schedule and get a 14-point DCMA screening in your browser, with XER and XML never leaving your machine. Behind the engine sits a working forensic analyst with twenty-five years of practice (twenty in nuclear and energy programs) who can take the analysis from "interactive dashboard" to "deposable expert opinion in front of an arbitrator." Same brand, same methodology, end-to-end.
Side-by-side
Competitor details last verified: 2 August 2026, from smartpm.com/pricing. The SmartPM column below carries only what that page publishes. Figures are SmartPM's own published list prices, shown by them as $12K and $25K without a stated currency; SmartPM is a US vendor, so treat them as US dollars, not CAD; plans and pricing change, so confirm current terms with SmartPM before relying on them.
| SmartPM (published) | Critical Path Partners | |
|---|---|---|
| Published pricing | Essentials $12,000 annually. Controls $25,000 annually, labelled Best Value. | Engine free to run. Analyst engagement priced per project. |
| Users | Unlimited users on both plans | No per-seat licence. The deliverable goes to whoever needs it. |
| Project capacity | Essentials: up to 50 projects. Controls: 5 controls slots plus up to 50 Essentials projects. | Scoped per engagement, one matter at a time |
| Try before you buy | 60-day risk-free trial | Live engine at /viewer/. No login, no payment, no trial clock, and the XER never leaves your machine. |
| Time Impact Analysis | Included on Controls. Not included on Essentials. | Included in scope on any engagement that needs it. No plan tier gates the method. |
| What-if scenarios | Included on Controls | Included, alongside Monte Carlo P10/P50/P80/P90 with a QRAMM (AACE 122R-22) maturity badge |
| Support | Essentials: standard support. Controls: premium support and dedicated onboarding. | You deal with the analyst directly. No account-manager layer. |
| People doing the work | Managed services available as add-ons | The analyst is the offering, not an add-on. Same person who built the engine. |
What CPP puts in every engagement
The table above stops where SmartPM's published page stops, because that is all we verified. This next list is the other half of the question: what CPP actually ships. Treat it as a checklist and hold any vendor you shortlist against it, including us.
- Windows analysis (AACE MIP 3.3) with conservation-rule attribution, per window and per party, so the buckets sum to project drift
- Collapsed as-built (AACE MIP 3.8) run independently as dual-method validation against the windows result, with the gap reported rather than smoothed
- Time impact analysis (AACE RP 52R-06), with fragnet insertion and a re-run forward pass
- Monte Carlo schedule risk with P10/P50/P80/P90 and a QRAMM maturity badge per AACE 122R-22
- Full extension-of-time package: cover letter, per-event exhibits, forensic workbook, mitigation report, supporting-documents index
- Counter-claim defence package tested against ten defence theories
- A named analyst who signs the opinion, answers for the math, and sits for cross-examination
- Thirteen MCP tools callable from any MCP-aware AI client
- A reproducibility manifest on every deliverable, carrying XER hashes, parser version, engine version and methodology parameters, so the other side's expert can re-run the same inputs and get the same outputs
- AACE Recommended Practices cited by number in every output, so the method is named before anyone has to ask
Where SmartPM wins
Honest assessment, not marketing copy:
Mature dashboard UX. SmartPM has been refining their interface for years. If your team has already standardized on it, the muscle memory matters. Switching tools costs time even when the new tool is better.
Portfolio economics. Both published plans carry up to 50 projects with unlimited users. If you already have that many live schedules and a team that all needs to see them, the cost per project and per person is low. CPP's portfolio rollup exists but it is not the primary product surface.
Support and onboarding. The Controls plan includes premium support and dedicated onboarding, and managed services are available as add-ons. CPP is one analyst with public tools and no customer-success layer behind him.
A real trial. SmartPM publishes a 60-day risk-free trial. Two months is long enough to put live schedules through it and judge the product on your own data rather than on a demo.
Brand familiarity. If your owner's rep or opposing counsel has heard of SmartPM and not CPP, that's worth something in the room. CPP is newer; the brand recognition is still being built.
Where CPP wins
Nothing to sign up for. SmartPM's 60-day trial is a genuine offer, and the difference is what you have to do first. CPP's engine runs in your browser with no account, no trial window, and no upload. XER and XML stay on your machine. Drop the file, see the output. The first impression is the actual product.
Both halves of the deliverable. SmartPM sells software and offers managed services as an add-on. At CPP the analyst is the product, not the upsell. One person reads the XER, runs the engine, writes the narrative, prepares the exhibits, and defends the conclusion. One vendor, one methodology, end to end.
No method sits behind a plan tier. SmartPM's published pricing puts Time Impact Analysis and What-if Scenarios on the $25,000 Controls plan and leaves them off the $12,000 Essentials plan. At CPP the scope of the matter decides which methods run, not which plan you bought last year.
Priced per matter, not per year. SmartPM publishes list pricing, which is more than most vendors in this market do. The difference is shape rather than transparency: theirs is an annual subscription; CPP's engine is free and the analyst is priced to the engagement, so one delay claim does not need a twelve-month commitment attached to it.
AI-native architecture. Construction lawyers and PMs increasingly start their research inside an AI assistant. CPP's 13 MCP tools are callable from any client that supports the protocol. If that matters to how your team works, ask every vendor on your shortlist the same question and compare the answers.
Software output and an expert opinion are not the same artifact. A dashboard reports what the schedule says. An opinion says what it means, names the method it used, and holds up when somebody attacks it. When opposing counsel challenges the delay attribution in Window 7, the answer has to come from a person who can explain the math and sign a name under it. At CPP that person is the deliverable, not an add-on to it.
How to pick
Pick SmartPM if
You have a portfolio to watch rather than one dispute to win, you want a dashboard the whole team can log into (unlimited users on both published plans), and you either have a forensic analyst already or plan to buy SmartPM's managed services when a claim arises. The 60-day risk-free trial makes it cheap to find out.
Pick CPP if
You need both the analysis and the analyst from one source, you want to evaluate the engine before paying anything, your project may end up in a delay claim and you want forensic-grade methodology baked in from day one, or you're already working with AI assistants and want tools that connect natively.
Or just try both
CPP's screening is free and SmartPM publishes a 60-day risk-free trial, so you can put the same XER through both before committing to either. Open your file in criticalpathpartners.ca/viewer/, see what comes back, and compare it to what SmartPM produced for the same schedule. Whichever one tells you something you didn't already know is the one worth keeping.
See the engine. Talk to the analyst.
A 14-point DCMA screening in your browser, no login, and XER/XML never leave your machine. When it surfaces something worth investigating, that's when you book a consultation.
Run a free screening → Talk to CPP →