If I see one more goal-tracking spreadsheet, I might just lose it. You know the one. It has 17 tabs, color-coding that makes your eyes bleed, and a bunch of 'Key Results' that haven't been updated since Q2 of last year. We've all been there. We spend weeks crafting the perfect strategy, only to watch it dissolve into a chaotic mess of disconnected tasks in Asana, forgotten docs in Google Drive, and wishful thinking in Slack channels.
For years, I've been on a quest for the holy grail: a single, clean platform that connects the high-level company vision to the actual work my teams are doing every day. A tool that doesn't just track what we're doing (output), but what we're achieving (outcome). So when I stumbled upon a platform called North, with its bold claim of helping teams “go from output to outcome,” my inner SEO-nerd and jaded project manager perked up. Could this be the one? I had to find out.
So, What Exactly is This "North" Platform?
At its core, North is an AI-powered platform for managing your OKRs (Objectives and Key Results), strategy, and initiatives. But that's a mouthful of corporate jargon. Let's break it down. Think of it like a GPS for your business. Your company's vision is the ultimate destination, the 'North Star'. Your OKRs are the major highways you need to travel on. And your initiatives? Those are the turn-by-turn directions, the actual work your team does day-to-day.
The problem is, most companies have these three things living in completely different universes. North’s whole reason for being is to bring them all together in one simple, logical flow. It’s designed to constantly answer the question every team member secretly has: “Why am I even working on this?” With North, you can theoretically draw a straight line from a specific task all the way up to the company's biggest goal. That’s the dream, anyway.
The real magic, and the part that caught my eye, is its focus on shifting from output to outcome.
- Output: We launched 3 new blog posts and ran 5 ad campaigns. (Cool, but who cares?)
- Outcome: We increased qualified lead generation by 15%. (Now we're talking business impact!)
North is built around getting everyone to think in terms of outcomes. It’s a subtle but powerful shift that can completely change how a team approaches its work.
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The All-Too-Familiar Struggle with OKRs
I have a love-hate relationship with OKRs. In theory, they're brilliant. Popularized by Google and championed by venture capitalist John Doerr in his book "Measure What Matters," they promise to align and engage teams around ambitious goals. In practice? They often become a bureaucratic nightmare. A quarterly ritual of setting goals that are promptly forgotten until the frantic rush to grade them three months later.
I've seen it happen time and again. Teams set vague objectives. Key results aren't actually measurable. And worst of all, the OKRs have zero connection to the daily grind. The whole system becomes a box-ticking exercise that just creates more work without adding real value. It’s a common problem, and it's why so many companies, after an initial burst of enthusiasm, quietly let their OKR program fade away.
How North Tries to Fix the OKR Mess
North seems to have been designed by people who have felt this pain personally. It addresses these classic failure points head-on with a few clever approaches.
A Single App to Rule Them All
This is the big one for me. The sheer simplicity of having your strategy, your company and team-level OKRs, and your individual initiatives all in one place cannot be overstated. You're not trying to sync a spreadsheet with a Trello board or remind people to update a separate doc. It’s all interconnected. You can see how the marketing team's goal to improve the conversion rate directly supports the company's objective of hitting a revenue target. This visual connection is huge for getting everyone pulling in the same direction.
Getting Help from an AI Co-pilot
Okay, “AI” is the marketing buzzword of the decade, and I'm naturally skeptical. But North's implementation seems genuinely helpful. It has an AI-powered goal creation feature that helps you write better, more effective OKRs. Instead of just staring at a blank screen, you can get suggestions for key results that are specific, measurable, and aligned with your objective. Think of it less as a robot doing your job and more as a smart assistant that prevents you from writing a lazy, unmeasurable KR like “Improve the website.”
Bringing Real Clarity and Alignment
The testimonials on their site from folks at Zeta, Coach, and Radix all hammer home the same point: this tool brings clarity. When everyone can see the big picture and how their work fits into it, something changes. Motivation goes up. Silos start to break down. You get fewer situations where the engineering team ships a feature that the sales team can't sell because everyone is aligned on the outcome they're trying to achieve. Its a simple concept, but incredibly difficult to execute without the right framework.
The All-Important Question: What's the Price Tag?
Alright, let's talk turkey. A tool can promise the world, but if the pricing is out of whack, it's a non-starter. North’s pricing is refreshingly straightforward and, frankly, very competitive. They have three main tiers.
| Plan | Price (Annual Billing) | Best For | Key Features |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Small teams or trying it out | 5 users, 5 goals, 50 initiatives, Public teams only |
| Basic | $5 /user/month | Growing teams needing unlimited goals | Unlimited users & goals, 5GB storage, Priority support |
| Business | $10 /user/month | Scaling companies needing advanced features | Private teams, Guest users, Personalized onboarding, SAML (soon) |
The free plan is genuinely useful for a small team to get their feet wet. The Basic plan, at $5 per user when billed annually, is incredibly aggressive pricing. For most growing teams, this will be the sweet spot. The Business plan adds features that larger orgs will want, like private teams and guest users.
The Good, The Bad, and The... Coming Soon
No tool is perfect. After spending some time with North, here's my honest take.
The Good: It's lightweight and fast. It doesn’t feel like one of those bloated, enterprise tools that requires a certification to operate. The focus on outcomes over outputs is its biggest strength, and the price is right.
The Bad: The “public teams only” limitation on the Free and Basic plans is a big consideration. Your goals and initiatives are visible to everyone in the organization. For some company cultures, that’s a feature, not a bug! But for others, it could be a deal-breaker. You have to jump to the pricier Business plan for privacy.
The 'Coming Soon': A few key features, like full-blown Project Management, SAML, and an Audit Log, are still listed as “coming soon” on the Business plan. This tells me North is a platform that's still actively growing. That can be exciting—you're getting in early—but it also means you might be waiting for a feature you consider critical.
Who Should Give North a Spin?
So, who is this for? I don't think it's for everyone. If you're a massive enterprise deeply entrenched in the Atlassian suite, this might not be the tool for you. But if you're one of the following, I’d seriously recommend taking the free plan for a spin:
- Startups and Scale-ups: Especially those who are just starting to formalize their goal-setting process and are outgrowing spreadsheets.
- Data-Driven Companies: Any organization that geeks out on metrics and wants to directly tie work to performance will feel right at home here.
- Frustrated Team Leaders: If you're a manager who is tired of your team's hard work feeling disconnected from the company's mission, North could be the bridge you've been looking for.
Frequently Asked Questions about North
- Is North just another project management tool?
- Not really. While it has elements of project management (initiative tracking), its main focus is on the layer above that: connecting your work to strategic goals (OKRs). It’s more of a strategy and alignment tool than a granular task manager like Jira or Asana.
- How does the AI for goal creation actually work?
- It acts as a smart suggestion engine. When you write an Objective, the AI analyzes it and proposes several potential Key Results that are measurable and actionable. It helps you avoid vague goals and craft OKRs that are much more effective for tracking real progress.
- Is the 80% discount for nonprofits legit?
- Yes. According to their FAQ, they offer a significant 80% discount for eligible nonprofits and academic institutions, which is a fantastic gesture and makes the platform extremely accessible for mission-driven organizations.
- What happens when I need more than the free plan offers?
- You can upgrade your plan at any time. The process is pretty standard. You'll move to a paid tier like Basic or Business to get more users, unlimited goals, private teams, and increased storage.
- Can I cancel my subscription easily?
- Yes, their site states you can cancel your subscription at any time without penalty. For monthly plans, you're billed for that month, and for annual plans, your subscription remains active until the end of the contract term.
My Final Take on North
I'm cautiously optimistic. In a sea of overly complex and bloated software, North is a breath of fresh air. It's built with a clear, intelligent point of view: that connecting work to outcomes is what truly matters. It’s not trying to be everything to everyone, and that's its strength.
It’s not perfect, and the “coming soon” tags on some features show its still a work in progress. But its promising. The foundation is solid, the pricing is fair, and the problem it solves is one that plagues countless companies. If you're tired of the spreadsheet chaos and ready to bring real alignment to your team's goals, North is absolutely worth a look. It might just be the tool that helps you finally find your true north.
