A messaging matrix is like a cheat sheet for what should be said to the market, keeping everyone singing from the same hymn sheet – without any off-key solos.

What is a messaging matrix?

A messaging matrix is a strategic tool that defines how your product is communicated to different audiences, across every channel and touchpoint. It aligns your vision, positioning, core benefits, and product features in a consistent, repeatable way so that no matter who’s speaking – Product, Marketing, Sales, or Support – the story is always on-brand and on-message.

Think of it as your go-to source for what to say, how to say it, and who to say it to. It turns your product strategy into a shared language. It’s how you prevent your product promise being lost in translation. 

Whether it’s the tagline on your homepage, the slides in your sales deck, or the demo script your CSM uses, the messaging matrix ensures you’re always telling the same powerful, persuasive product story.

Why is a messaging matrix important in Product Management?

If you’ve ever had Sales pitch a benefit linked to a feature you deprecated two quarters ago, or seen Marketing shout about an outcome that’s barely relevant to your actual users, you know the pain. Misalignment kills momentum.

And here’s the kicker: messaging misalignment isn’t just a marketing problem. It’s a product problem too. When Product Teams aren’t involved in defining what’s in the messaging matrix, the end result is often a disconnect between what’s promised and what’s delivered. 

If the messaging overpromises – or simply promises the wrong thing – your users will feel it, your churn will reflect it, and your roadmap will get hijacked trying to close the gap. That’s why helping to craft a messaging matrix should be considered a core responsibility of Product Management. It’s not fluff; it’s strategy in action.

How does your messaging matrix relate to product positioning?

Your positioning is the strategic stance you take in the market: who you’re for, what problem you solve, and why you’re better than the rest. Your messaging matrix is the tactical extension of that.

Positioning says: “We help remote teams stay connected through async collaboration tools.”
Messaging matrix says: “Here’s the proof. Here’s the mission behind it, the benefits we deliver, the features that back it up, and the exact language everyone should use to communicate it.”

Positioning is the spine. Messaging matrix is the muscle and movement. 

And the positioning statement does feature within a messaging matrix – it’s one part of the matrix. Afterall, the positioning statement sets the core strategic direction. Then the rest of the matrix drills down further, cascading that positioning into different layers of messaging: from the elevator pitch, to audience-specific benefits, to feature-level proof points. This ensures the high-level strategy is reinforced and reflected at every level of communication.

Who should own the messaging matrix for a product?

So, traditionally you’re going to see this living with the Marketing Leader in a company. And that’s fine. But, ideally, a Product Leader is also heavily involved. 

There’s no doubt that the messaging matrix is an important part of the marketing toolkit – and it’s understandable that your Marketing Lead might feel a sense of ownership over it. After all, they’re on the front lines translating positioning into campaigns and collateral. But in product-led companies, the messaging needs to be deeply rooted in the product strategy, and that’s where you come in as the Product Lead. 

As a Product Leader, your fingerprints should be all over the messaging matrix. If a messaging matrix already exists in your organization, embed yourself into the process when it comes to reviewing or refreshing it. 

If it doesn’t? Step up and create one. Because ultimately, the messaging matrix starts with the top-level product promise and value proposition, the vision and the mission – and those are born from your strategy.

So while it might feel like you’re stepping into marketing’s territory, what you’re really doing is building a bridge between product and message. And that alignment is what turns good products into great stories – and great stories into real traction.

Who should be involved in crafting the messaging matrix for your product?

We’ve just said this should be a joint venture between Marketing and Product, but who else should be involved in crafting your messaging matrix? Because, while Product might drive the direction and strategy, the execution only works when everyone involved in shaping the customer experience has a seat at the table. 

Think about it – your product is experienced through multiple lenses: the marketing content that first catches someone’s eye, the sales pitch that closes the deal, the onboarding that sets the tone, and the support touchpoints that build loyalty. Each team holds a piece of the truth.

Your messaging matrix should be a cross-functional collaboration between:

• Product Leadership – owning the story, translating strategy into benefits
• Marketing – refining language, aligning with brand voice, deploying it in campaigns
• Sales – ensuring resonance with customer objections, talking points, and deal cycles
• Customer Success/Support – reflecting real-world usage and outcomes
• UX/Design – helping visualize and frame the messaging across the product experience

Think workshop, not Word doc. Get people in a room (or a virtual whiteboard) and hash it out. At least to get the initial thoughts down on paper – then let Marketing take it away and finesse the language. 

What are the core components of a messaging matrix?

Here’s the structure of a strong messaging matrix, especially for product-led organizations:

1. Brand Promise

The overarching commitment your product makes to customers. It should answer: Why should anyone care? This isn’t a slogan or tagline, but a clear, outcome-driven statement. 

A strong brand promise should be concise, specific, and customer-focused – structured around the value you deliver, the problem you solve, and the positive change your users can expect. 

Ideally, it fits into a simple formula: For [audience], we promise [value/outcome] by [how you deliver it].

Example: “We give Customer Support teams the tools to resolve issues faster and delight users with every interaction.”

2. Positioning Statement

This is your high-level differentiator in the market. The positioning statement is a succinct statement that explains what makes your product stand out compared to alternatives. 

A good positioning statement should answer: Who is this for? What problem are we solving? How are we different or better? 

Keep it clear, jargon‑free, and customer‑oriented. A useful structure is: For [target audience], [product] is the [category] that [unique differentiation/benefit].

Example: “SupportWise is the only Customer Support platform that combines real-time collaboration, smart routing, and automated resolution suggestions in one simple interface.”

3. Target Audience

It’s worth including this as part of your messaging matrix so there is no confusion over who exactly you are messaging. Including your target market ensures every message is anchored in a clear understanding of who you’re talking to, what they care about, and how your product fits their 

But make sure you are specific. Go beyond vague labels like “support professionals” – go deeper. 

Example: “Support Managers and Team Leads in growth-stage tech companies who are scaling support operations while looking to improve CSAT scores.”

4. Mission

Your mission statement declares why your company exists. This should inspire your team and make sense to your market. It’s an important component of the messaging matrix because it sets the foundation for all other elements – your promise, positioning, and benefits should all ladder up to the mission. Without it, the matrix lacks a clear anchor point.

Example: “To make support interactions faster, friendlier, and more efficient – for both agents and customers.”

5. Elevator Pitch

The next component of a good messaging matrix is your elevator pitch – 15-second summary anyone in your company can (and should) deliver, verbally. 

A strong elevator pitch should include who the product is for, the core problem it solves, and the key outcome or benefit it delivers – ideally in plain, memorable language. Keep it short enough to say in one breath, but specific enough to show your unique value.

Example: “SupportWise helps growing teams manage support tickets more efficiently by combining automation with a human touch – so customers always feel heard.”

6. Brand Pillars

The 3–5 core themes that underpin your brand and messaging. These pillars articulate the fundamental promises, benefits, or outcomes your product exists to deliver. They should be boiled down to one, two, or maybe three words each – short, sharp, and memorable. 

In some cases, they may align directly with obvious product areas (like communication, reporting, or collaboration). In others, they might be broader and represent benefits that stretch across your whole offering (like simplicity, empowerment, or speed). If you had to hand someone a short list of the essential benefits of your product – this would be it.

Example:

• Speed and efficiency
• Empowered Support Agents
• Delightful customer experience

7. Core Benefits 

Next in the messaging matrix, you should list out the specific benefits that sit under each of your pillar groupings. Here you’re going from broader benefits or promises, to the actual ways your product helps your users realize those broader outcomes. 

If we continue our example from above….

Speed and efficiency:

• Resolve tickets faster with AI-powered suggestions
• Reduce manual triage with smart routing

Empowered Support Agents:

• Centralize knowledge and context in one view
• Provide coaching insights through analytics

Delightful customer experience:

• Consistent support across channels
• Reduce wait times with proactive updates

8. Features/examples

Finally, to complete your messaging matrix, under each of those core benefits, you should drill down even further and add the actual features that deliver those core benefits. Here you are tying benefits directly to product functionality.

Think of these as the proof points that backup the claims you’re making about the difference you’ll make for users. 

Feature example: “AI-generated reply drafts based on ticket history.”

This layered structure ensures every part of your messaging ties back to actual value and real product capabilities.

How does audience segmentation or personas impact the messaging matrix?

Different people care about different things. That CFO? Wants to see the financial impact of improved efficiency. That Engineering Manager? Wants fewer context switches and clearer priorities. That Customer Success Leader? Needs better tools to anticipate customer issues before they escalate.

Your messaging matrix should adapt your story for each segment without diluting it. Create versions of your elevator pitch, benefits, and feature examples tailored to each persona’s goals and pains.

Don’t rewrite the whole thing – just reframe it.

How to create your product’s messaging matrix

So now you know what should be in your messaging matrix. But how do you get off the blank page and start to add words to your matrix? 

It’s best to kick the process off with a cross-functional workshop, but you’ll want to do a bit of prep beforehand. 

Step 1: Gather what already exists

Chances are, if you’re at the stage where you want to nail down a messaging matrix, you’ve already spent some time up at the higher level, thinking about your product promise and positioning statement. 

If you have done that work already, go grab it now and add it into the matrix to kick things off. At this stage you might not have polished copy, but if you’ve had any thoughts about any elements of your product vision or company mission, add those in and bring them as you move into the next step…

Step 2: Assemble a cross-functional crew

Once you’ve gathered anything that already exists and could be useful for your messaging matrix, it’s time to pull together a group of relevant people from different areas of the business. 

You want people that are close to the product, the users, customers, prospects or the broader community of your target audience. These are the people who will know what your product can do, but also what the target audience cares about. 

Run a workshop with your chosen crack team where you debate and decide on the core elements of your messaging matrix like the positioning statement, the product promise, the target audience, the mission and the brand pillars. 

Step 3: Capture the consensus on each core element

It’s important to remember that you’re not looking to come away with final copy from this messaging matrix workshop. Copywriting as a group is a horrible idea – nothing good will come of that. 

Just focus on capturing the important messages – the general feelings you all have – for each element of the messaging matrix – or at least the top two thirds. Think of this as note-taking that will inform the next step.

Step 4: Let Marketing go away and craft the language 

Whoever is best at copywriting and messaging on the Marketing Team should then take the notes from the workshop away and craft them into compelling messages, in clear language that evokes the right emotions. 

Step 5: Reconvene, review and revise

Then you all come back together as a group and review what has been written. It’s probably best to send the messaging matrix draft around beforehand so everyone has had a chance to read, digest and reflect. That way everyone will come to the session with constructive feedback.  

Obviously, the next stage involves refinement based on feedback until your reach final copy that everyone is on board with. 

Example of a product messaging matrix

We’ll use a fictional support tool called “SupportWise.” Here’s an example of what their messaging matrix might look like:

Benefits and Features by Pillar

What are the common challenges in creating a messaging matrix for your product?

Even with the best intentions, building a messaging matrix isn’t always straightforward. Teams can stumble over ownership, get stuck in the weeds, or struggle to keep it current as the product evolves. Here are some of the most common pitfalls you’ll want to watch out for:

Too much input, no clear owner

When too many people are involved without a single accountable owner, the messaging matrix quickly turns into a muddle. Design by committee leads to watered‑down statements that try to please everyone and inspire no one. To avoid this, nominate a clear lead to drive decisions, gather feedback constructively, and make the final call. And leave it to Marketing to craft the final words – that’s what they’re good at. 

Abstract benefits with no features

One of the most common traps is leaning too heavily on lofty, abstract statements that sound good but don’t hold up under scrutiny. “Delivers unmatched efficiency” doesn’t mean much unless you connect it to specific outcomes and features. 

A strong messaging matrix balances aspiration with evidence: list the benefit, then back it up with product functionality or customer proof points. This gives credibility and makes your claims tangible.

Siloed team contributions

If each department crafts their own version of the message without alignment, the end result is chaos. Sales ends up saying one thing, Marketing another, and Product something else entirely. 

A good messaging matrix avoids this by being created collaboratively across functions, so that everyone sees their perspective represented. This alignment ensures consistency and strengthens the story across every customer touchpoint.

Never updating

A messaging matrix isn’t something you write once and then file away forever. Products evolve, markets shift, and customer expectations change – so your messaging should too. 

Review the matrix regularly, at least quarterly or after major launches, to make sure it still reflects your strategy and reality. Treat it as a living document that adapts as your product and business grow.

A messaging matrix template

Here’s a simple structure you can steal and tweak:

How to use a messaging matrix once you’ve created it

Don’t let it gather dust. A messaging matrix only has value if it’s actively used, referenced, and embedded into the way your company communicates. Think of it as the style guide for your product story – every piece of copy, every slide, every demo should draw from it.

Here’s how to bake it into daily ops:

• Onboard every team with it – Sales, Marketing, Product, and Support should all be trained on what the messaging matrix is and how to use it.
• Use it in roadmap reviews – Check if features and initiatives still map to the brand promise, benefits, and pillars defined in the matrix.
• Review quarterly – Update as your product and market evolve, so it remains a living, breathing document.
• Embed in tools – Link it or copy it into your ProdPad (other Product Management tools are available ) and CRM playbooks where teams write and share copy.
• Make it the foundation for copywriting – Marketing should use it to write consistent website pages and campaign messages. Sales can lean on it when building pitch decks or writing demo scripts. Customer Success can apply it when writing onboarding guides or customer education resources. This way, no matter who’s writing or speaking, the story stays aligned.
• Pressure test in conversations – Ask: Does it resonate with customers? Does it win deals? Is it consistent with what people experience in the product?

The messaging matrix should feel like a constant reference point, not a static PDF. The more you use it to inform the words and stories that go out to the world, the more cohesive and effective your product communication will be.

Messaging matrix: more than just words

Your product messaging isn’t just words. It’s how your product shows up in the world. A good messaging matrix brings clarity, consistency, and cohesion across your org.

Want to see how ProdPad can help you align messaging with strategy, customer feedback and product delivery? Book a demo today.

The post The Messaging Matrix: How to Align Your Product Messaging appeared first on ProdPad.

1. Barebones, copy-paste templates that tell you what to write but not how to do it well.
   
2. Monster-length requirement lists that feel like someone dumped Jira tickets into a Word doc and called it a day.
   

Well, good news – this is neither.

Instead, we’re going to walk through a fully fleshed-out Product Requirements Document for a fictional B2B SaaS product. This PRD example is based on our ready-to-use template, which you can download and use once you’re ready to create your own. 

We’ve written this PRD example from the point of view of the Product Manager for this B2B SaaS tool. So let us introduce you to the product and the PM…

The fictional product is LearnSphere, an enterprise-grade Learning Management System (LMS). This PRD relates to a new feature the team are planning called Adaptive Learning Paths.

The author of this PRD is Maya Chen, Product Manager at LearnSphere. Throughout the PRD example, she’ll throw in some commentary, rationale, and tips on how to avoid the common pitfalls that sink PRDs in real life .

But before we get into the PRD example – what is it and why do you need it? 

What is a PRD Example?

A PRD example is a detailed, filled-out version of a Product Requirements Document that shows how to properly document the purpose, goals, requirements, and scope of a product or feature in a way that’s actually useful to your team. 

Our particular PRD example uses a fictional LMS feature (as we’ve mentioned) to help you see what best practices looks like. But we’ve also focused on brevity – because, let’s face it, no one has time to read an exhaustive PRD example, or PRD itself! 

There’s an art to getting all the most important information across in your PRD, in the shortest, sharpest way possible. We’re going to use this PRD example to show you how to do that. 

Why do you need a PRD Example?

Simply put – so you know what good looks like! We don’t want you to be sitting there, writing up your PRDs, totally unsure if this is how you should do it, or if everyone else does it differently.

So whether you’re writing your first ever Product Requirements doc, or you’ve joined a new company and feel like it’s a good opportunity to change up your approach, or you want to onboard a new teammate and show them what you expect from their PRDs – use this PRD example to understand what best practice looks like. 

Right, here goes…. Onto the actual PRD example. We’ve split the PRD into different sections, and we’ve even included some guidance notes for when you come to write your own PRD. Happy reading.

The PRD Example

Title:

Adaptive Learning Paths

Author:

Maya Chen, Senior Product Manager

Last updated:

August 5, 2025

Owned by:

Product Management Team

PRD Example – Section 1: Product Strategy

This feature idea aligns with LearnSphere’s strategy to become the most effective LMS for workforce upskilling in regulated industries. We differentiate by not just delivering content, but by optimizing learning effectiveness through AI-driven personalization.

Objective

The overarching Product Objective that this new feature relates to is “Improve learner engagement and retention”. This feature supports this by removing the “one-size-fits-all” course progression and tailoring the learning journey to each user’s needs, skills, and pace, in the hope of increasing engagement with the course so learners, quite literally, stay the course. 

Maya’s note:
We’ve had corporate training clients tell us completion rates tank after the first few modules. Learners either get bored because it’s too easy, or overwhelmed because it’s too hard. Personalization is the lever.

Product Goal / Key Results

This feature idea aims to help us achieve the following Key Results, related to the above Objective:

• +20% increase in average course completion rate across all clients.
  
• +15% improvement in post-course assessment scores.
  
• +25% increase in learner satisfaction scores on end-of-course surveys.
  

Roadmap Initiative

This Idea is part of the Personalization at Scale roadmap Initiative, currently in the Now column. 

Personas

Primary Persona:

• Corporate Learner (Employee) — Time-poor, goal-oriented, juggling training with day-to-day work. Wants relevant, appropriately challenging content without fluff.
  

Secondary Persona:

• L&D Manager (Client Admin) — Accountable for ensuring their teams complete compliance and skills training. Wants data they can act on and features that make admin life easier.
  

Maya’s tip:
Even if the feature is “for the learner,” the admin persona usually has the budget and decision power. Always factor them in.

Customer Feedback

• 38% of NPS detractors mention “courses too slow / irrelevant to my role.”
  
• Multiple clients (Healthcare, Finance, Manufacturing) have requested adaptive learning in quarterly review meetings.
  
• Sales Team notes RFPs increasingly include “adaptive/personalized learning” as a required capability.

Idea Description

We’ll introduce an Adaptive Learning Paths engine that uses performance data, quiz results, and engagement patterns to dynamically adjust the sequence and difficulty of course modules for each learner.

Problem Statement

Right now, every learner follows the same fixed course path. This leads to disengagement, low completion rates, and poor knowledge retention. It’s also a competitive gap — several rivals now offer adaptive features.

Value Statement

By personalizing learning paths, we’ll improve learner outcomes, strengthen retention for clients, and position LearnSphere as the LMS leader in adaptive learning — directly supporting our growth and retention OKRs.

Target Outcomes

• Higher completion rates.
  
• Better learner performance metrics.
  
• Improved client retention and upsell opportunities.
  

Success Metrics

• +20% completion rate uplift (aggregate).
  
• +15% average score improvement on post-course assessments.
  
• +10% increase in enterprise renewal rates for accounts with Adaptive Learning enabled.
  

Actual Outcomes

(To be filled post-release.)

PRD Example – Section 2: Functional Requirements

Behaviors

• System evaluates learner performance after each module and adjusts next module accordingly.
  
• Learners can opt to “challenge” a module to skip it if they pass a quick quiz.
  
• Admins can override paths for compliance reasons.
  

Rules / Examples

• Compliance training modules cannot be skipped (regulatory requirement).
  
• AI engine recalculates path after each assessment.
  

User Stories

1. As a learner, I want the system to adapt the content difficulty so I don’t waste time on things I already know.
   
2. As an L&D manager, I want visibility into the AI’s decisions so I can ensure compliance and quality.
   
3. As a learner, I want to retake a failed module without having to restart the entire course.
   

Designs

• Wireframes showing learner dashboard with “Your Path” visual.
  
• Mockups of admin “Path Settings” interface.
  
• Figma link: [internal only]
  

Acceptance Criteria

• Learner path updates automatically after each quiz.
  
• Admin can view and export adaptive decisions log.
  
• System respects “non-skippable” flag for compliance modules.
  

PRD Example – Section 3: Release Technical Considerations

System / Environmental

• AI module hosted within AWS environment; requires new microservice.
  
• Compatible with latest Chrome, Edge, Safari; mobile responsive.
  

Constraints

• GDPR-compliant data handling required.
  
• Feature must support multilingual courses.
  

Open Issues & Decision Log

• Decision: Using existing analytics engine vs building new — chose to build new for flexibility.
  
• Open: Threshold for “challenge” quizzes — to be finalized after beta.
  

PRD Example – Section 4: Release Planning

Release Date 

Targeting Q4 2025 “Now” bucket; soft launch to 3 pilot customers first.

Dependencies

Requires completion of Assessment Engine upgrade (currently in QA).

Milestones

• Beta designs signed off: Aug 30, 2025.
  
• Dev complete: Oct 15, 2025.
  
• Pilot launch: Nov 1, 2025.
  

Additional Information

• Competitive analysis doc available [link].
  
• Customer beta sign-up list in CRM [link].
  

Notes from Maya

“This PRD isn’t the end of the story – it’s the conversation starter. Every section here is live in our ProdPad account so the Dev Team, Designers, and even Sales can see updates in real-time. Because if you’re still passing around static PRDs, you’re basically faxing your requirements.”

Why this PRD Example works

So there you have it. A best practice PRD example to show you what good looks like. Here’s why we think Maya’s PRD example nails it. This PRD:

• Connects to strategy (not just a wishlist).
  
• Quantifies success with clear metrics.
  
• Captures real feedback as the foundation.
  
• Makes room for decisions and unknowns – because no PRD is “done” before dev starts.
  

That’s what makes it a best-practice PRD, not just a filled-out form.

Now it’s your turn

A PRD should do more than tick boxes – it should tell the story of the feature in a way that guides the whole team to deliver value. Maya’s Adaptive Learning Paths PRD example does that by combining vision, evidence, and detail without drowning anyone in jargon.

If you want to build PRDs that are alive, collaborative, and always up-to-date – instead of static docs that die in email threads – you need to build them in a dynamic Product Management hub like ProdPad. Take a look at our live Sandbox and see what good looks like.

The post PRD Example: Best Practice Requirements in Action 👀 appeared first on ProdPad.

Voice of the Customer (VoC) software tools help you turn scattered customer input into organized, actionable insights. Whether you’re a Product Team trying to prioritize features or a CX leader trying to close the loop on user frustration, the right VoC tool can help you hear your customers loud and clear – and actually do something about it.

What is Voice of Customer (VoC)?

We’ve actually covered this in more detail over in our glossary article, so head there if you need to swot about on the whole concept of VoC. 

If you think you know what Voice of Customer (VoC) is all about, then let us just fire a quick definition out to make sure we’re both on the same page here. 

VoC is the active practice of collecting, analyzing, and acting on customer feedback – via surveys, reviews, support tickets, interviews, and social media – to understand user needs, frustrations, and preferences, and to shape product decisions accordingly.

Got that? Ok, so what do you need to do this whole VoC thing?

What are VoC Tools?

VoC tools are software platforms that help you capture customer feedback through various channels, analyze both structured and unstructured input using metrics like NPS, sentiment analysis, and thematic grouping, and turn those insights into meaningful action.

What are the benefits of using VoC tools?

Voice of Customer tools can be seriously valuable components of your tech stack. VoC tools provide the bridge between what your customers say and what your product actually delivers. 

These VoC software tools empower teams to hear the signals through the noise, respond to real user needs, and avoid the trap of building in a vacuum. Here’s what they help you achieve:

• Enable structured, data-driven decision making
• Provide continuous real-time customer listening at scale
• Surface emerging pain points and trends faster
• Support smarter backlog prioritization
• Improve customer retention and satisfaction through proactive response and loop-closing

Who should use VoC tools?

VoC tools are relevant for a broad spectrum of teams, but most commonly, they’re driven by either the Product Team or the CX/Customer Success (CS) Team. And while they’re aligned in wanting to improve the customer experience, their reasons for investing in VoC can be quite different.

Product Teams use VoC tools to gather insights that directly inform roadmap decisions. For them, feedback is fuel for ideation, prioritization, and validation. They care about what customers need and whether the team is building the right thing at the right time. 

A VoC tool for Product needs to integrate with wherever you do your backlog management, ideally provide analysis so you can easily spot the themes, and help tie feedback to real outcomes.

On the flip side, CX/CS Teams lean on VoC tools to monitor satisfaction, identify friction in the customer journey, and ensure that issues are addressed before they escalate. These teams are more focused on metrics like NPS, CSAT, and CES, and typically need tools that can listen across channels (emails, chats, calls) and surface trends for operational improvement.

In both cases, VoC tools act as the voice amplifier – just with slightly different dialects depending on the listener.

Types of VoC tools

VoC tools come in a number of shapes and sizes. Depending on your team’s objectives – whether you’re gathering direct user input to inform product strategy or listening across customer support interactions to identify service trends – the type of VoC tool you need will vary. 

Here’s a breakdown of the main categories and what they’re best suited for:

Survey & Feedback Management tools

These tools focus on capturing feedback through forms, surveys, and widgets. That can be structured feedback with established customer satisfaction frameworks – think metrics like NPS, CSAT, CES that give a quantifiable pulse on how your customers feel. Or it can be custom questions you ask depending on the insights you want to discover. 

These VoC tools are designed to help you proactively ask your customers questions and seek answers to help you understand how they’re feeling about your product or service. 

Text, Conversation & Sentiment Analytics Tools

These tools are designed to analyze unstructured customer input  –  the stuff buried in support tickets, chat transcripts, call recordings, online reviews, and even social media. 

Using AI and natural language processing, they uncover sentiment, patterns, and recurring themes that would otherwise be missed. Ideal for CX and CS Teams who need to understand what’s going wrong (or right) without relying on customers to fill out surveys.

Unified Customer Intelligence Platforms

These platforms aim to do it all. They combine survey capabilities with sentiment analysis and multi-channel listening, pulling everything into one cohesive place. They provide a holistic view of customer experience across touchpoints  –  from support tickets and surveys to emails and call transcripts. 

These unified VoC platforms aren’t just capturing feedback, nor are they just analyzing feedback – they’re doing both. These VoC tools often include built-in mechanisms for surveying or collecting in-product feedback, so they don’t rely entirely on third-party integrations to hear the customer’s voice in the first place. That end-to-end control – from capture to insight – makes them incredibly powerful for organizations that need a centralized, unified source of truth.

How do Voice of Customer tools work?

VoC tools function by creating a closed-loop system for capturing customer input, analyzing it for insights, and routing those insights into the right workflows. The core flow looks like this: 

1. Capture feedback (via surveys, widgets, portals, reviews, or listening tools)
2. Process feedback using AI or manual categorization to extract trends, themes and sentiment
3. Feed actionable insights to you through some sort of visualization so you can use that to inform your product strategy and decision making

Some organizations opt for a unified VoC platform – a single system that handles everything from collecting customer feedback to analyzing and visualizing insights. Others string together a few best-in-class point solutions to cover each part of the journey: maybe a feedback portal for capture, a sentiment analysis tool for insight, and a product roadmap tool for action.

Whichever approach you take, what matters is that you have a coherent system that allows you to capture the customer’s voice at scale, understand what’s being said, and act on it meaningfully.

Key features of the best VoC tools

Not every VoC tool is created equal – and not every team needs the same set of features. But there are some common, foundational capabilities that the best Voice of Customer tools tend to offer. 

These aren’t just “nice to haves” – they’re must-haves if you want to run a truly effective, scalable VoC program. Here’s a breakdown of the essential features to look for, and why they matter:

Surveying

Surveying is the backbone of many VoC programs, and there are two main approaches: standardized frameworks like Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Satisfaction (CSAT), and Customer Effort Score (CES); or custom surveys with structured questions tailored to your specific goals. 

Whether you’re looking to benchmark satisfaction over time or dig deeper into user experience with targeted prompts, the best VoC tools give you the flexibility to do both – automate, segment, and act on your chosen data.

Feedback Portals or In-App Widgets

Make it easy for customers to leave feedback – right where they’re already engaged. Portals and widgets streamline input collection, giving you a high volume of relevant feedback without interrupting the user journey.

Sentiment and Text Analytics

Structured feedback (like NPS scoring) is useful, but most of the gold lies in open-text comments. Sentiment and thematic analysis powered by natural language processing helps you sift through the noise and spot recurring themes or issues hiding in long-form feedback.

Themes, Trend Dashboards & Real-Time Alerts

Good VoC tools don’t just collect data – they visualize it in a way that makes the insights actually usable. Dashboards that surface common themes and trends over time help teams spot what’s bubbling up and where to focus. Real-time alerts mean you’re not waiting until the next retro to act on a problem. 

This is about finishing the job – taking all that customer input and analysis, and packaging it into something easily digestible so teams can find the right insights and act on them fast.

Integrations with CRM, Support, or Product Tools

Feedback is only useful if it reaches the people who can act on it. The best VoC tools plug into your CRM, help desk, Product Management stack, and communication tools so insights flow straight into action.

Take Product, for example – you need your chosen VoC tool to link the feedback and insights directly to the work in your backlog. That way, you’re not just collecting feedback, you’re actively using it to drive prioritization decisions. It also means your Dev and Design teams have the context they need as they work on features. 

This is exactly what ProdPad does: it takes customer feedback, automatically analyzes it and surfaces the themes, and connects it to Ideas in your backlog and Initiatives on your Roadmap, so every decision is evidenced by real user input.

Feedback Tagging, Routing, and Action Workflows

Tagging lets you organize feedback by user type, persona, product area, or priority. Routing ensures it lands on the right desk. Workflows help you close the loop – so you don’t just listen, you respond.

How to choose the right VoC tool for your business

Choosing the right Voice of Customer tool isn’t just a question of budget – it’s about fit. You need a solution that works for your team’s structure, goals, channels, and maturity level. Are you focused on product feedback and roadmap prioritization? Or are you looking to measure customer sentiment and improve operational performance? Are you managing feedback across channels or just starting with email surveys? Your answers to these questions will steer you toward the right kind of platform.

Here are the core factors to consider:

1. Your goals

Are you looking to gather product feedback? Improve customer service? Monitor sentiment? Different tools are optimized for different use cases. Make sure the tool you choose aligns with your outcomes.

2. Your scale

Are you a mid-market team that needs a lean, flexible setup? Or are you managing customer experience across multiple business units and geographies? Some tools are built for scrappy product teams, others are enterprise-grade behemoths.

3. Your channel sources

Think about where your feedback is coming from – surveys, support tickets, social media, review sites? Choose tools that can pull from the channels that matter most to your customers.

4. Ease-of-use and adoption

A powerful platform that’s too hard to use won’t get adopted. Look for clean UX, clear workflows, and strong documentation so your team can actually use the tool – and benefit from it.

5. Integration requirements

VoC tools are most effective when integrated into your existing stack. Consider which systems the tool needs to plug into – whether that’s your CRM, helpdesk, product management platform, or data warehouse.

6. Pricing and total cost of ownership

It’s not just about the monthly fee. Think about how many seats you’ll need, what features are gated, and what the cost of onboarding and switching might be. Choose a tool that fits your budget now and scales with you later.

The 9 Best VoC Tools

There are a lot of Voice of Customer tools out there – some excellent, some… not so much. To help you cut through the noise, we’ve pulled together a list of the best VoC tools on the market today. 

We’ve categorized the best VoC tools by type so you can find the one that best fits your team’s goals – whether you’re looking to capture structured survey data, analyze sentiment in support tickets, or do it all in one platform.

Unified Customer Intelligence Platforms

ProdPad

A complete Product Management system with customer feedback at its heart. ProdPad comes with an unlimited number of feedback portals and widgets you can use in your app. It also allows you to integrate with other tools (such as your support system, CRM and even Slack and Teams) so you can easily pull in customer feedback from multiple sources. 

But most crucially, ProdPad offers a unique way of tying all your customer feedback directly into your product strategy and planning – literally making each piece of feedback part of your idea and roadmap workflow. Whether Feedback is added directly into ProdPad, or automatically routed in via an integration or through a portal, the powerful AI capabilities of the Signals tool within ProdPad mean you won’t have to manually work through all that feedback to understand what your customers are saying. Signals automatically does the analysis for you and visualizes the themes so you can easily see the issues you need to tackle.

ProdPad’s AI also means feedback is automatically linked to any relevant Ideas in your backlog, and stays linked as that Idea progresses through your development workflow. Meaning every time a solution ships, you get a neat list of customers to close the loop with. 

This close connection between feedback and ideas in your backlog and on your roadmap also means that anyone working on those features or initiatives can see why you’re building what you’re building. 

Yes, this is us – so we might be a little biased. But there’s a reason thousands of Product Teams rely on ProdPad to capture, analyze, and connect feedback to product strategy. It’s built from the ground up to make product-led feedback loops seamless and scalable.

With this tool you can:

• Launch multiple customizable feedback portals or in-product widgets
• Let customers comment on your roadmap items
• Route in feedback through integrations with CRMs, communication tools, support systems and more
• Have Customer Teams easily send feedback via email, Slack or Teams, browser extension or their own tools and systems 
• Tag feedback by user, company, customer value and more for better context
• Connect feedback to related ideas in your backlog or on your roadmap
• Enjoy automatic analysis with Signals surfacing the themes across all your feedback 
• Close the loop with a list of customers to contact when a feature ships

Pros:

• Strongly product‑focused – funnels feedback seamlessly to the Product Team to fuel their thinking and decision making
• A central place to route all feedback and then run automatic feedback analysis across the lot 
• The ultimate and practical way to run a customer-focused product strategy

Cons:

• Less suited to enterprise CX programs that need omnichannel voice analytics
• Limited AI sentiment analysis on support tickets or social media
• Not a full NPS or CSAT surveying suite

Pricing: Take a look for yourselves! Although you can pay for just the VoC tool from ProdPad, we would recommend you also use our Roadmapping and Idea Management tools to get that complete Product Management workflow flowing. And don’t forget, you can try ProdPad for free. 

Qualtrics XM (Voice of the Customer)

Qualtrics XM is an enterprise VoC tool that offers broad capabilities including survey distribution, customer journey mapping, text and voice analytics, and social media feedback collection. It’s designed to handle high-volume data and deliver insights through customizable dashboards.

Best suited for large organizations with mature customer experience programs, Qualtrics allows teams to design complex survey logic and integrate feedback workflows across departments. While it’s powerful, the platform may be more than most mid-sized teams need, and it comes with a corresponding cost and learning curve.

With this tool you can:

• Distribute surveys across email, web, and mobile
• Analyze open-text feedback with AI and sentiment tagging
• Build custom dashboards for different roles or departments

Pros:

• Highly customizable and scalable
• Suitable for global, multi-department CX programs

Cons:

• Complex to implement and configure
• Higher cost than point solutions

Pricing: Custom enterprise pricing; varies based on use case and volume.

Clarabridge (Now part of Qualtrics)

Clarabridge, now integrated into Qualtrics, focuses on analyzing unstructured feedback from call centers, emails, chats, and social platforms. It specializes in advanced emotion detection and root cause analysis, making it useful for identifying nuanced patterns in customer sentiment.

Often used by enterprises with heavy call volumes and omnichannel support operations, Clarabridge provides detailed conversation analytics. However, it’s typically implemented as part of a broader VoC or CX solution and can be resource-intensive to set up.

With this tool you can:

• Analyze voice and text-based feedback for sentiment and emotion
• Discover themes and issues across interaction channels
• Generate structured reports from unstructured data

Pros:

• Deep NLP and emotion analytics
• Strong capabilities for contact center feedback

Cons:

• High complexity and long implementation timelines
• Best suited for large enterprise environments

Pricing: Enterprise-only with custom quotes.

Medallia

Medallia is a full-suite VoC and experience management platform designed for enterprise use. It captures feedback across multiple channels including surveys, contact center recordings, mobile apps, and social media.

Its strength lies in real-time alerting, AI-driven predictive insights, and deep integrations with enterprise systems. Medallia is often used to operationalize CX improvements at scale, though it may be too complex or costly for smaller teams or product-focused workflows.

With this tool you can:

• Collect feedback across digital and in-person touchpoints
• Use predictive analytics to identify experience gaps
• Trigger alerts based on customer sentiment shifts

Pros:

• Strong in multi-channel experience monitoring
• Predictive analytics and real-time feedback routing

Cons:

• Less flexible for product-focused use cases
• Requires significant resources to implement and manage

Pricing: Enterprise-only, priced by scope and scale.

InMoment

InMoment offers a multi-channel VoC platform aimed at customer experience teams. It combines survey tools with social listening, online review monitoring, and contact center analytics. Its strength lies in its ability to gather data across touchpoints and consolidate them into a single view.

Often chosen by retail, hospitality, and service-oriented industries, InMoment emphasizes experience improvement workflows more than product feedback loops. It’s useful for organizations aiming to improve service delivery or operational processes, though less focused on product development needs.

With this tool you can:

• Distribute surveys and monitor online reviews
• Analyze support transcripts and call center logs
• Build dashboards and alerts for customer experience trends

Pros:

• Broad data capture capabilities across customer channels
• Real-time alerting and follow-up workflows

Cons:

• Not optimized for product team workflows
• Requires internal alignment to act on insights

Pricing: Custom enterprise pricing depending on volume and features.

Survey & Feedback Management Tools

UserVoice

UserVoice is a feedback management tool focused on helping Product Teams collect and prioritize feature requests, rather than answers to open-ended questions that ask about problems they’re facing. So that end, it’s often better suited to more output-focused teams, rather than outcome-focused. 

It offers a public or private-facing portal where users can submit feature ideas and vote on others’ suggestions. 

The VoC platform includes segmentation features for filtering feedback by customer or account type and integrates with tools like Jira and Salesforce to bring feedback into planning workflows. However, it lacks advanced sentiment analysis or multi-channel support, making it more suited for structured feedback than unstructured voice or text data.

With this tool you can:

• Collect feature requests through a customer-facing portal
• Allow users to vote on ideas to gauge popularity
• Integrate feedback into your product development workflow

Pros:

• Transparent feedback system that encourages engagement
• Helps surface the most requested features quickly

Cons:

• Limited in analytics and sentiment processing
• Not ideal for broader CX or CS use cases

Pricing: Starts at around $499/month; enterprise pricing available.

Zonka Feedback

Zonka Feedback is a customer experience and survey platform that enables teams to collect structured feedback through channels like web, email, SMS, kiosks, and mobile apps. It supports standard survey formats such as NPS, CSAT, and CES, and offers dashboards for monitoring and reporting.

It is commonly used by CX teams looking to measure satisfaction across multiple customer touchpoints. While it doesn’t provide advanced analytics or product integration workflows, it serves well for organizations that need a straightforward tool for running feedback campaigns and tracking key metrics. 

Its dashboard lets you monitor key satisfaction metrics like NPS, CSAT, and CES, with built-in analytics to track trends, spot issues, and trigger follow-ups.

It’s useful for organizations that want a simple but powerful way to run feedback campaigns across touchpoints without needing complex integrations or enterprise-level onboarding.

With this tool you can:

• Distribute surveys across multiple channels (web, SMS, email, kiosk)
• Analyze NPS, CSAT, CES responses with dashboards
• Monitor feedback trends with customizable alerts

Pros:

• Easy to deploy across varied touchpoints
• Real-time insights and custom survey logic

Cons:

• Limited to survey-based data collection
• Sentiment analysis isn’t as robust as specialized analytics platforms

Pricing: Starts at $49/month with enterprise plans available.

Text, Conversation & Sentiment Analytics Tools

SentiSum

SentiSum is a text analytics tool that processes customer feedback from unstructured sources like support tickets, chat logs, emails, and reviews. It uses AI to categorize issues and assess sentiment, making it useful for surfacing patterns in high-volume support environments.

It’s generally used by CX and Support Teams looking to reduce manual tagging and get visibility into common pain points. While it doesn’t offer survey capabilities or roadmap integration, it’s a strong fit for teams needing post-hoc analysis of existing customer conversations.

With this tool you can:

• Automatically tag feedback themes across channels
• Track sentiment changes over time
• Integrate with help desk platforms like Zendesk and Intercom

Pros:

• High-volume processing with solid accuracy
• Good for support-driven insight generation

Cons:

• Doesn’t offer native survey collection
• Better suited for CX and CS Teams than product prioritization

Pricing: Custom enterprise pricing; varies by volume and integrations.

Thematic

Thematic is a feedback analytics tool focused on identifying recurring themes and sentiment in unstructured customer feedback. It ingests data from surveys, support conversations, or review platforms and uses machine learning to categorize comments into topics that help organizations understand what customers are saying at scale.

It is often used by Research and CX teams who want to understand the “why” behind NPS or CSAT trends. Thematic does not include survey functionality itself, so it’s best suited for teams that already have feedback data and need help analyzing it.

With this tool you can:

• Import open-ended feedback from surveys or support systems
• Identify common themes and track how they trend over time
• Visualize sentiment shifts linked to customer feedback

Pros:

• Provides actionable summaries of large feedback datasets
• Reduces manual effort for theme identification and reporting

Cons:

• No built-in feedback collection tools
• Requires existing data sources to be effective

Pricing: Custom enterprise pricing based on usage and integrations. 

Ready to turn feedback into action with VoC tools?

VoC tools can be game-changing when you choose the right one for your needs. Whether you’re an ambitious Product Team trying to prioritize your roadmap or a global CX org looking to optimize touchpoints across channels, there’s a VoC platform out there for you.

The key is to stay focused on your goals. Don’t get distracted by shiny dashboards or feature bloat – look for the tools that fit into your existing workflows and make it easier to connect feedback to outcomes.

And if you’re on the product side of the house, you owe it to your team to try a tool that’s built specifically for product strategy. Check out ProdPad (yes, that’s us). Try it for free or book a demo and see how product feedback can flow straight to you in Product and make your prioritization decisions so much easier. 

The post 9 Best VoC Tools in 2025 appeared first on ProdPad.

And let’s be honest, no one becomes a Product Manager because they love product documentation. It’s the unsung hero of product development: rarely glamorous, often thankless, but utterly essential. 

The good news? When you do it right, you spend less time in chaotic Slack threads and more time building things that matter.

Here’s the definitive list of every type of product documentation you should be creating (and updating) across the product management lifecycle.

What is product documentation?

Product documentation is the structured content created to support the ideation, development, launch, and ongoing support of a product. It includes everything from strategic documents like your Product Vision to tactical tools like your PRDs and release notes. Done right, product documentation acts as your single source of truth – aligning teams, guiding decisions, and enabling great user experiences.

It’s not just for keeping the auditors happy. It’s for future you, who doesn’t want to re-explain the same rationale for the 15th time. It’s for your teammates who jump in mid-project. It’s for your customers who want to self-serve instead of waiting on a support ticket.

Who is product documentation for?

The short answer: everyone. The long answer:

• Stakeholders & Leadership: Need to understand the why behind product decisions. They want to know you’re not building things on a whim.
• Product Teams: Use it to validate, prioritize, and plan work. Shared product documentation reduces duplicated effort and misaligned goals.
• Developers: Rely on it to build features correctly the first time. Remember, a vague Jira ticket is not a specification.
• GTM & Customer Teams: Need clear, timely explanations of what’s launching, what it does, and how to support it.
• End Users: Ultimately, they benefit from good support content, release notes, and user manuals that help them unlock your product’s value.

Product documentation is the connective tissue that binds all these people together. And the clearer and more consistent it is, the better everything works.

Why is product documentation important?

If you’ve ever shipped a feature that missed the mark because someone “didn’t realize that was in scope,” you already know why documentation matters. But to spell it out:

• Clarity: Everyone knows what’s happening and why.
• Accountability: Decisions are documented, so you’re not relying on memory or gut feels.
• Alignment: Strategy, dev, design, and support are all pulling in the same direction.
• Efficiency: No more repeating yourself in endless meetings.
• Scale: New team members get up to speed faster. Customers solve their own problems.

It really comes down to effectiveness. Product documentation is a core way in which you, as Product Manager, can make everything you do as a team more effective. Product documentation ensures your product work solves the right problems, is built in the right and most efficient way, is promoted and communicated accurately, and is successfully used by your customers.

Documentation is the oil in your product machine. Without it, everything starts to grind.

Where should I keep my product documentation?

Even the best product documentation in the world is useless if no one can find it. As Product Managers, we often live in a sea of Google Docs, Notion pages, Miro boards, PDFs, Slack threads, and mystery folders named “old roadmap_final_final_reallyfinal.” Sound familiar?

That’s why having a centralized, clearly communicated home for your product documentation is just as important as creating it in the first place. Everyone – from Developers to execs to Support Agents – needs to know where to go for the latest thinking, decisions, and plans.

This is exactly why we created ProdPad. It’s not just a Product Management tool, it’s your Product Team’s single source of truth. ProdPad makes it easy to capture, store, and update all your product documentation in one place, whether it’s high-level strategy that sits at the portfolio level, a product-specific Roadmap, or feature-level specs and decisions. All the conversations, feedback, designs, and documentation live together, so when someone picks up a piece of work, they see the full context.

Because great product documentation isn’t static – it evolves. And ProdPad ensures it evolves in one place, where everyone’s on the same page.

What product documentation do I need to create?

The product management lifecycle represents the typical stages you work through as you take a product – or even just a single feature – from initial concept to reality. It spans from those fuzzy, early-stage ideas to fully launched, supported functionality in the hands of real users. At each stage, you’ll need different types of product documentation.

Some product documentation, like your Product Vision or Value Proposition, you’ll create once and revisit periodically. Others, like PRDs, user stories, or release notes, will be created fresh for every new initiative. That’s why we’ve broken this list down by stage, to help you figure out what to document, when, and why.

Here’s the full list:

Product documentation for the discovery & strategy phase

These documents form the foundation of everything you do. Think of them as your core strategic inputs – the essential scaffolding on which every product decision should be built. They’re not just academic exercises or dusty reference docs; they’re the source of truth that should influence how you prioritize work, design solutions, and measure success.

You may not revisit them every week, but without them in place, you’re flying blind. If you’re serious about building products and features that truly drive value and deliver on business outcomes, then these foundational documents are non-negotiable.

Business Case / Product Proposal

This is your chance to frame the opportunity, present the business rationale, and get buy-in. It outlines the potential impact, high-level costs, and aligns the team on the direction. A solid proposal helps you avoid scope creep and gives stakeholders confidence.

Read more: How to write a compelling Product Proposal 

Get the template: Product Proposal Template 

Problem Statement

This is your grounding doc. The problem statement helps ensure everyone agrees on the actual issue you’re solving, before jumping to solutions. It stops you from wasting time building features no one needs.

Read more: How to write a Problem Statement

Product Vision

The high-level destination your product is working toward. It motivates teams, aligns decision-making, and helps you say no to distractions that don’t serve the long game.

Read more: What is a Product Vision? 

See examples: 8 Great Product Vision Examples

Get the template: Free Product Vision Template

Value Proposition & Statement

Why your product exists and why customers should care. It defines your unique value, sharpens positioning, and sets the stage for messaging, pricing, and prioritization.

Read more: What is a value proposition? and How to Run a Value Proposition Workshop

Get the template: The Official Value Proposition Design Canvas Template

User Personas

They turn abstract user segments into relatable profiles. Good personas give teams a shared language and focus your decisions on real user needs – not internal assumptions.

Read more: Creating better User Personas 

Get the template: User persona template in Figma

Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD) Profiles

These can be part of your user persona documentation or a separate piece of product documentation. These go beyond demographics and into the “why” of user behavior. 

JTBD profiles help you prioritize based on outcomes rather than features, ensuring your product is genuinely useful.

Read more: What is Jobs-to-be-Done?

Product Strategy

This piece of product documentation should be a culmination of a lot of what we’ve already covered. This is about bringing it all together into a coherent document. 

The important thing here is that it all lives together in one, clear piece of product documentation and brings together your goals, your vision, your audience, and more. And it needs to live at the heart of everything you do – in your day-to-day home, where you do your work. For the very best Product Teams, that place is ProdPad . 

Within ProdPad there is a dedicated space to house your strategy product documentation – the Strategy Canvas. It sits right next to both your Product Roadmap and your OKRs. 

Your product strategy document acts as your strategic guardrails. You need to refer back to it often to keep focused.

Read more: What makes a great product strategy and How to create a Product Strategy Document 

Market Requirements Document (MRD)

This piece of product documentation outlines what your market needs – based on customer feedback, competitor research, and market analysis. It ensures you’re solving problems that have real demand, and helps explain that to the rest of the team – from senior management to the Developers building your features. 

Read more: What is an MRD?  

Get the template: Free Market Requirements Document (MRD) Template

Competitive Analysis / Product Comparison Chart

Everyone needs to understand the field they’re playing on. This piece of product documentation helps you define what that playing field looks like and exactly what your edge is. Where do you stand out? Where do you lag? It informs both your product development and your positioning.

Read more: How to build a Product Comparison Chart 

Get the template: A spreadsheet template for a Product Comparison Chart

Product documentation for the ideation & validation phase

Right, onto the next stage. Here rough ideas evolve into validated opportunities. But what product documentation do you need to help get that done? 

User Journey Maps

Map the end-to-end experience from a user’s perspective. Where are the friction points? Where can you add value? Journey maps help you uncover opportunities for delight – and for disappointment. They’re crucial when designing or redesigning key flows, and they give Designers and Developers a shared understanding of user context.

Read more: User Journey Mapping: What it is and How to Do it

Experiment Plans / Validation Docs / Idea Records

Every new idea should be captured, and then evolved within your Product Management tool. That way, the full context is always known and communicated to everyone involved. In ProdPad each Idea has a dedicated entry which comes complete with all the pre-set fields, areas, prompts and spaces for you to capture your plans for each experiment. 

Whether you call this your validation documentation, your experiment plan, or simply your idea record, it should track what hypotheses you’re testing, how you’ll test them, and what success looks like. 

Include links to prototypes, interview notes, analytics – all the breadcrumbs that justify whether you kill or greenlight the idea. Think of it as a scientific record of your product thinking.

Read more: See how Idea Management works in ProdPad 

Decision Log

As ideas evolve, so do the decisions. Documenting decisions – like why you cut scope, changed priorities, or chose a specific user flow – is important. It reduces the pain of context-switching and prevents Groundhog Day debates when the same question resurfaces months later.

Again, in ProdPad this is all captured within the entry for each Idea, meaning you never have to hunt around to understand previous decision making. 

Product Roadmap

The ultimate piece of product management documentation! 

Having said that, we hesitate to call it documentation because that conjures up thoughts of static files and outdated slide decks.  Whereas your product roadmap should be a living, breathing, dynamic visualisation of your ongoing prioritization decisions, hypotheses, progress and results.

A great roadmap tells the story of what’s happening in Product, should be both flexible, and easily shareable. Use it to communicate vision to execs, priorities to Devs, and plans to your entire organization.

Read more: The Ultimate Guide to Product Roadmaps

Get the template: A fully interactive Now-Next-Later roadmap template 

Product documentation for the planning & definition phase

This is where you are turning ideas into actionable build plans. At this stage, you can collate everything into a single, but very comprehensive piece of product documentation. Namely the…

Product Requirements Document (PRD)

The PRD is your master blueprint for turning ideas into shippable, valuable functionality. It’s the bridge between your strategic intent and the technical execution. Done right, it eliminates ambiguity, aligns cross-functional teams, and makes development smoother.

Here’s what a strong PRD should include:

• Context & Background: Begin with the origin story – why this feature exists, which problem it’s solving, and how it ties to your product vision or strategic goals. This grounds the team and ensures alignment with the big picture.
• Objectives & Success Metrics: What outcomes are you aiming for? Are you targeting increased activation, reduced churn, or better NPS scores? Defining measurable KPIs here gives your team clarity and focus.
• Functional Requirements: Describe what the product should do – specific user interactions, workflows, inputs, outputs. Be clear, but avoid specifying the solution (that’s the Designer’s and Developer’s job). Use bullets, diagrams, or mockups where helpful.
• Non-Functional Requirements: These cover performance, reliability, scalability, and security. What are the minimum response times? How many users should the system handle concurrently? These details matter, especially as your product scales.
• User Stories & Use Cases: Write out user stories that illustrate who the user is, what they want to do, and why. Include edge cases to cover atypical but important scenarios. Pair with acceptance criteria to clarify when a story is considered done.
• Acceptance Criteria: These spell out exactly what must be true for a feature or user story to be considered complete. They align expectations between Product, Design, and Development, and form the basis for QA tests. Each user story should have its own acceptance criteria, written in clear, testable language.
• Accessibility Considerations: Make sure everyone can use your product. List out WCAG requirements, assistive technology support, and inclusive design principles relevant to this feature.
• Dependencies & Technical Considerations: Are there integration points? Shared components? Backend constraints? Listing dependencies upfront helps the team de-risk delivery.
• Milestones & Release Plan: Break the work into phases or sprints. Identify what can ship independently and what needs to launch together. Add a high-level timeline or key milestones to give stakeholders visibility.

The PRD should live in a place where it can evolve as things change – because they will. And it should be easy to reference during design, development, QA, and even post-launch.

It’s not about documentation for documentation’s sake, it’s about making sure everyone is solving the same problem, in the same way, toward the same goal.

A clear PRD prevents scope creep, aligns teams, and increases build confidence.

Read more: What is a PRD?, How to Write User Stories  

See examples: 19 Acceptance Criteria Examples for Different Products, Formats and Scenarios

Get the template: Download a fully editable PRD template

Product documentation for the development & delivery phase

Now it’s time for the handover to Development and for those features to get built, tested, and shipped.

A lot of the documentation at this stage is less the responsibility of the Product Manager, but it’s still good to be aware of the product documentation that will be knocking around during this phase. 

And certainly, you’ll need to get back in the game once the feature is getting closer to release as you start to think about how you’re going to get the word out and help your users understand what’s new.  

Product Architecture Diagram

We’ve put this here, in the section focused on development and delivery, because it relates to the way your product is technically structured. However, this piece of product documentation isn’t something you create (or recreate) for each and every new feature that goes through development. It’s a fundamental piece of product documentation that sets out how your product is structured and how all the components work together.

It’s documentation the Engineering Team reaches for, and possibly updates, as they start to build out new features – it helps the team understand where this new thing will sit in the overall product architecture.

It’s a technical map that outlines how your product fits together – APIs, services, databases, integrations. It helps Devs make scalable decisions, supports onboarding, and becomes essential when you’re scaling or refactoring.

Read more: Understanding Product Architecture

Change Log

This internal document tracks every change: new features, updates, fixes. It’s invaluable for QA, support, and compliance – and for remembering what happened when.

Read more: Learn about automatic changelog tools 

Test Plans / QA Documentation

Test plans are often written by a Lead Engineer or QA Engineer (if you’re lucky enough to have that dedicated role), but you might well be asked to review it as a Product Manager. This piece of product documentation outlines what needs testing, who’s testing it, and how you’ll validate it works.

It should include edge cases, negative tests, and performance criteria. Remember, well-documented QA processes catch bugs before your customers do!

Read more: Learn about QA testing 

Release Notes

These are your external changelogs. They tell customers what’s new, improved, or fixed. Good release notes drive adoption, reduce support tickets, and show your product is alive and evolving.

Read more: How to write great Release Notes 

See examples: Best Release Notes Examples to Inspire You (And Your Users)

Get the template: Your free release notes template 

Product documentation for the launch & go-to-market phase

This is the make-or-break moment. Your team has done the hard work to design, validate, and build something new, but now it’s time to actually get it into the hands of your users. And that takes more than just flipping a switch.

Your launch and go-to-market product documentation helps orchestrate the cross-functional coordination needed to make your product not just live, but successful. From sales enablement and internal training to customer-facing messaging and rollout plans, this is where you bring the whole business on board.

The more intentional and detailed your GTM documentation is, the smoother the launch. And the higher the chances that your customers will actually discover, understand, and adopt what you’ve built.

Launch Plan / GTM Checklist

This piece of product documentation aligns Product, Marketing, Sales, and Success around launch. Include messaging, timing, assets, comms channels, and internal owner for each step. A solid GTM plan ensures that what gets built doesn’t just launch – it lands.

Read more: Step-by-step Product Launch guide

Get the template: Your ready-made launch plan task list

Internal Enablement Docs / Internal PR Docs

Your Marketing, Sales, Support, and CS Teams need to understand what’s launching. These docs explain the value, provide talk tracks, answer common objections, and offer demo scripts. Great internal docs reduce internal churn and improve customer conversations.

Product documentation for the post-launch & support phase

Even after launch, good product documentation can make or break adoption.

These documents support users and maintain your product in the wild. DIfferent organizations will place the responsibility for this product documentation in different places – it might be a task for Product Marketing, for Customer Success, for the Support Team, or it might be a job that’s firmly on your list as Product Manager. 

But wherever responsibility officially sits, we highly recommend you at least contribute as the PM, so you can be confident that the feature you’ve put all this thought and work into stands the best chance of being adopted by users.  

Help Center / Knowledge Base Articles

This is where customers go first. Good help center articles are clear, searchable, and up to date. They reduce support load and increase customer confidence.

Within these knowledge hub articles try to include:

FAQs

Cover the common questions you suspect your users will ask. Preempt confusion and get ahead of those edge case questions. Keep these short, sharp, and user-friendly. A well-crafted FAQ saves time across the board.

User Manuals

Think of this as the deep dive. For complex tools, a user manual gives customers everything they need in one place. It’s your product’s definitive guidebook.

Quick Start Guides

These are the opposite of manuals – bite-sized guides that help users get value fast. Ideal for onboarding flows, these build confidence and drive early engagement.

Troubleshooting Guides

We don’t like to think things will go wrong. But they will. And when that happens, your users want answers fast. These guides should include common errors, resolutions, and escalation steps. They’re a lifeline for customers and Support Teams alike.

Wow, that’s a long list of product documentation!

No matter what stage your product is in, product documentation is the glue that holds your product, team, and users together. It’s the difference between chaos and clarity. Between churn and adoption. Between just shipping something, and actually solving problems.

Want to make it easier to manage all this documentation and keep it aligned with your roadmap and strategy?

Try ProdPad – the Product Management software that helps you capture everything from big ideas to specific specs, all in one place.

The post Product Documentation: The Definitive List of Everything You Need appeared first on ProdPad.

Done right, a product comparison chart should take you beyond surface-level analysis – it’s not just about features, but about understanding your competitors’ strengths, weaknesses, market presence, and customer appeal. 

But where do you start? Let us show you how to build a truly insightful product comparison chart that you can use to inform your product decision making. 

You can either download our template now or after you’ve read through the article – just be sure to get your copy so you don’t have to start from scratch.

What is product comparison?

Product comparison is the practice of evaluating multiple products side-by-side to understand how they stack up against each other. As a Product Manager, it helps you and your team make informed strategic decisions about positioning, feature development, pricing, and go-to-market plans.

Product comparison usually forms part of your wider competitive product analysis, helping you to boil down all your research into a side-by-side view so you can easily spot the differences, similarities and opportunities between your own product and others. 

What is a product comparison chart?

A product comparison chart is a structured document that helps you capture and visualize how your product compares to competitors across a wide range of dimensions – not just features, but company size, pricing, customer sentiment, and more. It’s deeper than a feature comparison grid and is intended to help you make smarter product decisions. 

Of course, your own product doesn’t necessarily have to feature in the product comparison chart. You can use a product comparison chart to evaluate a new product or market you’re considering. Before making any product development decisions, can you spot any gaps or opportunities when you compare the existing products in the space? 

Usually product comparison charts are internal documents that offer a brutally honest assessment of your product and competitor products that may well highlight some holes in your offering and some clear ways in which competitors win. But that’s OK. 

A product comparison chart is not typically what you’d publish on your website or put front and center in your sales collateral. No. There you would massage the truth a little – try and put your best foot forward, downplay the weaknesses and champion the strengths. 

A product comparison chart needs to be the no-holes-barred, full and honest truth – it’s your space to get real. You want the cold hard truth captured for the whole team to see, so you can start to plug any gaps, boost your differentiation and drive your product forward. 

Why should I use a product comparison chart?

To put it simply – because as a Product Manager, you can’t afford to build in a vacuum. No matter how great your product is, your customers are evaluating it alongside other options. You’re not the only solution on the table – and pretending you are is a dangerous blind spot.

A product comparison chart forces you to look outward. It equips you to understand the landscape your product lives in: who else is solving the same problems, how they’re positioned, how they price, what customers love (or hate) about them, and how they’re evolving. This level of competitive intelligence isn’t a nice-to-have – it’s the bedrock of good decision-making.

Without a product comparison chart, you risk making strategy calls based on assumptions. That can lead to mismatched messaging, mispriced features, or roadmap investments in the wrong areas. It’s like building a go-to-market strategy with your eyes closed.

A well-maintained product comparison chart gives you the lay of the land. It’s your tool for:

• Understanding where you sit in the competitive landscape
• Identifying feature gaps and opportunities
• Uncovering pricing strategies that win (or lose) customers
• Tuning your messaging to better resonate
• Supporting product strategy conversations with evidence

If you’re making product decisions based on assumptions, you’re already behind. A well-maintained product comparison chart keeps you aligned and armed with real insight.

When should I use a product comparison chart?

There’s no bad time to get clear on the competition, but there are definitely moments when a product comparison chart becomes mission critical. If you’re launching into a new market, scoping a fresh product, or even just reassessing your roadmap, having a detailed view of the competitive landscape will give you the strategic advantage.

You should reach for your comparison chart:

• When entering a new market or launching a new product
• During strategic planning sessions
• Before roadmap reviews
• When refreshing your pricing model
• When prepping for investor meetings or board reviews

But here’s the thing – this isn’t just a one-and-done exercise. The market moves fast. Competitors evolve. New players enter. Your own product changes. So, your product comparison chart needs to keep up.

Think of it like this: your product comparison chart is a living, breathing source of truth. Keep it updated regularly – quarterly is a good rule of thumb – and make sure it reflects the latest intel from your team. That way, when it comes time to make big calls, you’ve got the full context, not a snapshot from six months ago. 

A stale chart won’t just be useless – it might lead you in the wrong direction.

Who should complete a product comparison chart?

Product comparison charts are usually led by a Product Manager, but ideally it’s a cross-functional effort. Marketing can feed in positioning and messaging analysis. Sales can provide competitive battlecards and objections. Customer Success might surface insights about what prospects are saying.

The best charts bring together insight from across your GTM and Product Teams.

Another advantage of pulling in multiple teams when compiling your product comparison chart is that they will feel a degree of ownership – or at least investment – in the document. This increases the chances of them a) reading the whole thing, absorbing the information and using that to inform how they speak to prospects, talk to customers etc, and b) it will make them more likely to feed in new intel they glean, whenever they glean it. That way, it’s not all on you to keep the product comparison chart up to date. 

Which brings us onto…

How often should I update my product comparison chart?

Your product comparison chart is not a one-and-done exercise (we’ve already said that) – it’s a living, evolving source of competitive intelligence that should adapt and grow alongside your product and your market. 

Just like your roadmap, your product comparison chart needs regular attention if it’s going to stay relevant and useful.

Think about how often your competitors launch new features, adjust their pricing, update their positioning, or make headlines with funding or acquisitions. If your chart doesn’t reflect those changes, you’re operating with stale data. That’s not just unhelpful – it can be actively misleading.

As a general rule, aim to update your product comparison chart at least once a quarter. But don’t be afraid to revisit it more frequently, especially if:

• A major competitor makes a big product announcement
• You’re entering a strategic planning cycle
• You hear something new from your Sales or Customer Success Teams about how competitors are being perceived

Treat it as a dynamic asset that your team can rely on. The more consistently you update it, the more value you’ll get – not just as a historical document, but as a real-time strategic tool you can use to make better, faster product decisions.

What should be in a product comparison chart?

There’s no rigid industry standard for what has to go into a product comparison chart – and that’s a good thing. The point isn’t to tick every possible box, but to gather the insight that’s most useful to your team. Include whatever will help you make better product decisions: what you need to know about your competitors, how they’re positioned, how they’re perceived, and how they’re evolving.

To get the most out of your chart, put yourself in the shoes of your customer. Imagine you’re evaluating a shortlist of tools to solve a problem. What do you care about? What would influence your decision? It might be pricing transparency, ease of integration, customer support, feature completeness, or even just how polished the website and onboarding feel. 

A good product comparison chart helps you reflect that buying journey – it lays out the things your customers are considering, so you can see how your product stacks up in a like-for-like comparison. That perspective is invaluable.

We’ve gone ahead and created a downloadable product comparison chart template to act as your starter for 10. Here are some of the sections we included:  

Company Details

It’s a good idea to set the scene for each product you’re comparing with a quick company overview – those firmographic stats that help you understand the scale and maturity of each competitor. They could include founding year, number of employees, revenue, and market share. 

Mission Statement

Understanding each company’s mission helps you see how they position themselves and who they’re targeting. You can usually find mission statements on a company’s About page, in press releases, investor decks, or even in executive interviews and company blogs. If it’s not explicit, look for repeated themes in how they talk about their purpose or long-term goals.

Market Perception

This isn’t just one row in your product comparison chart, this is a whole section which, read together, should give you a clear sense of how each product is perceived in the market. How well known is the product and what is the general consensus about how useful/desirable it is? 

Capturing things like:

• Awareness (high/medium/low): Do you think most people in the relevant market would have heard of this product? 
• Review ratings: Pick a review site or take an average from a few. How many stars are being giving this product? 
• Customer likes and dislikes (qualitative feedback): Now read those reviews and pull out the common themes. Capture some quick notes on the perceived pros and cons of the product

Product Commercials

Remember, you’re not just comparing the functionality of these competitor products, you also need to examine their business models and the ways they are commercializing their offering to see if there are things you could learn or mistakes to avoid. 

In this section capture:

• Pricing model – are they using a subscription model? Are they charging per user or based on usage? 
• Pricing plans – Do they offer different tiers? Do you buy modules with add-ons?
• Price – Are they expensive? Relatively cheap? 
• Trial model – Do they offer a free trial? Is it a freemium model? Is there no way to self-serve and have a free go?
• Primary acquisition motion – How do people go about buying the product? Do they self-serve and add card details? Do they have to speak to a Salesperson? 

Positioning and Messaging

For each product on your product comparison chart, capture the primary promises they make about their product. What are the core benefit statements they are making to the market? 

You can glean this from their H1 and tagline, the H2s down their website pages, and generally how they talk about their product across various channels.

This is gold for your marketing team and helps refine your own messaging.

Features and Capabilities 

OK, here’s where you get down and dirty – diving into the weeds and comparing all the capabilities each product has. 

This is usually the section that needs the most updating, so remember to keep an eye on each competitor’s public roadmap so you don’t miss any major gap closing moves. 

Support and Service

Remember, when someone buys a product, they also buy the wraparound services that go hand-in-hand. Sometimes this is where a competitor can really stand out – it’s not unheard of for inferior products to leave their competitors in their dust because they offer top-notch support and customer care. 

So don’t forget to evaluate each competitor’s customer service offerings. Compare whether they offer live chat (AI or otherwise), email support, phone lines, dedicated Customer Success Managers, extensive implementation services, extra consultation – the list goes on. Be sure to include whatever is most common in your industry. 

Example of a product comparison chart

If you need to see examples of everything we just covered above, then you’re in luck.  

We’ve actually included a completed product comparison chart within our downloadable template so you can see what we mean for each section. Download the template and check out the first tab. We’ve mapped out every element of the product comparison chart for four fictitious marketing automation tools. 

Product comparison chart vs feature comparison grid

You might sometimes see people talking about product comparison chart but what they actually have is a feature comparison grid. There is a difference. 

A feature comparison grid gives you a limited view – usually just a list of functionalities and whether or not a product has them. It’s binary. Tick or cross. It doesn’t tell you the full story.

A product comparison chart gives you the context. It helps you understand what the product is, how it’s sold, who it serves best, how it’s perceived in the market, and what customers are actually saying about it. It’s a 360-degree view.

A feature comparison grid is a useful tool no doubt – but it’s often built for external consumption. You’ll find them on marketing pages, in sales decks, or as battlecards that highlight your strengths (and quietly downplay your weaknesses). That’s totally fine – every product needs a polished public face.

But a product comparison chart? That’s internal. That’s where the hard truths live – as we mentioned. It’s where you get to be honest about where you fall short, where competitors might be stronger, and where there are genuine gaps or opportunities to exploit. This is the tool that gives your Product team clarity and insight to make better decisions.

How to make a product comparison chart

Right, it’s time to get started on your own product comparison chart now you know the theory. So where to start? 

Tip one – use a template

Don’t try and reinvent the wheel. Move faster by grabbing a template and spend your time gathering the intelligence, not formatting tables. Luckily we have one for you so go ahead and download that now . 

Once you have your product comparison chart template, follow these steps:

1. Identify your competitors – Who’s in your market or adjacent to it?
2. Gather intelligence – Use review sites (like G2, Capterra), LinkedIn, customer feedback, and competitor websites.
3. Organize your data – Use the template to input company details, features, pricing, and customer insights.
4. Collaborate – Loop in Sales, Marketing, and CS for frontline insights.
5. Review and refine – Ensure the data is current and accurate. Sense-check it with your team.

Why should I use a product comparison chart template?

As we’ve already said, using a template will mean you don’t have to spend time thinking about how best to present your product comparison insight – you can instead spend the time gathering that insight and making decisions based on it.

A good template (like ours!) also ensures you’re not missing key areas like customer perception or pricing models – areas too often left out of traditional feature grids.

Best practices for product comparison charts

A product comparison chart is only as useful as the care and attention you put into it. It’s not just about gathering data – it’s about how you interpret, share, and act on that data. 

Treat it like a strategic artifact, not just a spreadsheet. When created and maintained well, it can become a trusted source of truth for your team and a springboard for high-impact decisions.

• Keep it honest – Don’t distort data to make yourself look good. You’ll only mislead yourself.
• Focus on insights – This isn’t just a fact sheet. Look for patterns and opportunities.
• Make it collaborative – Involve stakeholders across the org.
• Use it regularly – It’s not a one-and-done document. Keep it alive.
• Connect it to strategy – Don’t just file it away. Use it in roadmap reviews, planning sessions, and pitch decks.

What should I do with my product comparison chart once it’s complete?

This is where the chart stops being a research exercise and starts becoming a decision-making tool. Once your chart is populated with honest, detailed insights, it’s time to put it to work.

First, take time to really absorb what it’s telling you. Where does your product clearly lead the pack? Where are you falling short? Are there recurring patterns in customer sentiment that suggest an underserved niche? These insights are the raw ingredients of your next great product move.

Use this chart to shape your roadmap – not just in terms of building what your competitors have, but in terms of understanding what the market truly values. Maybe you’ve discovered your pricing is totally misaligned with others in your category. Maybe you’re solving a different problem than the rest, and your messaging should lean into that more. The chart gives you a mirror, and it’s one that reflects how the market sees you, not just how you see yourself.

Make sure this product comparison chart is accessible to everyone who needs it  –  Product, Marketing, Sales, Customer Success. Store it somewhere central (ProdPad’s a great spot!) and make it a living document. Because if it just sits in someone’s desktop folder, it’s not doing its job. Keep it up to date, revisit it regularly, and treat it as a strategic resource that informs how you grow and compete.

Remember: A stale product comparison chart isn’t just unhelpful – it can send you down the wrong path. The magic only happens if you keep it alive and keep learning from it.

You ready to create your own product comparison chart?

Get your copy of our free template and get populating! Good luck. We’ll just pop the download banner here one more time

The post Product Comparison Chart [with Template]: Tips & Examples appeared first on ProdPad.

This humble sentence (or two) is more powerful than it looks—it lays the foundation for everything from product strategy to prioritization. If you want to build something people will actually use and love, you need to know what problem you’re solving, for whom, and why it matters.

What is a Product Management Problem Statement?

A Product Management problem statement is a clear, concise articulation of a core problem that real people—your target users—are facing. It’s not a product pitch. It’s not a feature wishlist. It’s a thoughtful distillation of the pain or friction your product aims to alleviate. Sometimes called a customer problem statement, this tool ensures your entire Product Team stays laser-focused on why your product exists in the first place.

You’ll see problem statements pop up across the product lifecycle. They might be used in early discovery to assess whether a new market opportunity is worth pursuing. Or they might resurface during a product strategy reset—helping the team regain clarity on what really matters. Problem statements should live wherever you plan your product strategy (hint: ProdPad), form the foundation of business cases, and appear on roadmap initiatives to make it clear why the work exists.

When well-crafted, they become an internal north star. Everyone—from Engineering to Marketing to Sales—can refer back to the problem statement to sense-check decisions, evaluate priorities, and ensure every piece of work ladders up to solving something meaningful for real people.

What are the Benefits of Having a Problem Statement?

Let’s be blunt: when you skip the problem statement, you risk building nonsense. Teams without a Product Management problem statement often end up solving the wrong problems, chasing shiny ideas, or over-engineering for edge cases.

Problem statements are also absolutely essential if you want to build truly customer-centric products. And let’s face it, that should be the goal. Without a clear articulation of the customer’s core problem, you’re working blind—you’ll waste time, effort, and money building things people don’t need, don’t understand, or simply don’t want.

A good Product management problem statement puts the customer front and center, grounding your team’s work in real-world needs and ensuring that every decision you make directly supports solving something meaningful.

Here’s what a solid problem statement brings to the table:

• Clarity of purpose: It defines what you’re trying to fix and for whom.
• Strategic alignment: It helps the whole business rally around a shared understanding of the core customer need.
• Product focus: It filters out noise and keeps roadmap decisions grounded in user value.
• Cross-functional communication: Sales, Marketing, Support, and leadership can all reference the same foundational statement to inform their work.

What Makes a Good Product Problem Statement?

A good Product Management problem statement is a bit like a compass—it doesn’t tell you where you’ll end up, but it ensures you’re starting in the right direction. You’re not writing a pitch deck or a feature spec; you’re trying to capture a very human struggle in a way that resonates with your team and your stakeholders. It should give you goosebumps—or at least a nod of recognition.

At its core, a great problem statement is:

• Focused: It zeroes in on one problem, not a laundry list.
• User-centric: It’s about the person experiencing the problem—not your product.
• Evidence-based: It’s rooted in real insights, not assumptions.
• Impact-aware: It conveys why this problem matters (and how much).

The best Product Management problem statements are simple but powerful. They’re usually just one or two sentences, but they carry weight. They frame conversations, challenge assumptions, and clarify priorities. You’ll know you’ve nailed it when team members start quoting it in meetings or referencing it in decisions—it becomes a shared truth.

Red flags? Watch out for vague language like “users find it difficult…” (which users? how difficult?) or tech-centric framing like “our app lacks X feature” (which centers the product, not the problem).

And definitely steer clear of assumptions dressed as facts. If you’re unsure, go back to the people you’re solving for and ask: does this feel like your reality??

When Should I Create a Problem Statement?

Problem statements aren’t just for the start of a project or the launch of a new product. They play a critical role throughout the product lifecycle, acting as a check-in point whenever you need to reevaluate your direction. Whether you’re starting fresh or trying to make sense of where things went off-track, a well-timed Product Management problem statement can realign your team and reignite your strategy.

When Exploring a New Market Opportunity

If you’re eyeing a fresh market segment or brainstorming a brand new product, a problem statement should be your starting point. It helps you validate whether a genuine customer need exists. Before building a thing, ask: is this a real pain point? Can we articulate it clearly and confidently? If not, stop. You may not have a product worth pursuing yet.

When a Team Loses Focus

Even well-established products can go off-course. Feature creep, shifting priorities, or internal pressure can bloat a roadmap. Reasserting the original Product Management problem statement can act like a product detox—it brings everything back to the core user need. It’s a great way to align teams and reintroduce clarity and discipline into product thinking.

When Customer Needs Shift

Markets move. People change. What felt like a pressing issue a year ago might now be solved elsewhere or deprioritized. If your product feels a bit stale—or your roadmap feels out of sync with what users are saying—it might be time to revisit the problem statement. Rewriting or updating it helps ensure you’re still solving the right thing for the right people.

In short, treat your Product Management problem statement as a living document. Use it as a sense-check during discovery, a compass when your team feels lost, and a refresh button when the market evolves. It’s a small piece of work with massive ripple effects.

Key Components of a Product Management Problem Statement

A killer problem statement typically includes:

• The persona or group experiencing the problem
• The context or situation in which the problem arises
• The pain point or challenge they face
• The impact of the problem (why it matters)

Example format:

“[Persona] struggles with [problem] when [situation], which leads to [impact].”

Put another way:

This isn’t rigid—but it’s a solid backbone.

Frameworks to Use When Creating a Product Management Problem Statement

Frameworks can help structure your thinking. They provide a repeatable method for breaking down ambiguity and making sense of complex user challenges. When you’re staring at a wall of user research or grappling with vague feedback, a good framework gives you the scaffolding to turn raw insights into a coherent, compelling problem statement. It helps ensure consistency across teams and saves you from reinventing the wheel each time.

A few faves:

The 5 Ws and H

This classic journalistic approach is surprisingly effective for Product Management problem statements. It helps break down a user’s experience and environment, forcing you to dig into the specifics of the problem instead of glossing over the details. By answering each of these simple but powerful questions, you can uncover dimensions of the problem that might otherwise go unnoticed.

• Who is affected?
• What is the problem?
• Where does it occur?
• When does it happen?
• Why does it matter?
• How is it currently being addressed (or not)?

SCQA: Situation, Complication, Question, Answer

This storytelling framework is particularly powerful when you’re trying to communicate complex problems to stakeholders or cross-functional teams. It helps structure your narrative in a way that builds context and urgency, then opens the door for thoughtful discussion about possible solutions.

• Situation: Describe the current state or background. What’s the normal environment your users are operating in?
• Complication: Introduce the problem or challenge. What’s disrupted the status quo or made things difficult?
• Question: Frame the key issue. What’s the core thing you need to figure out or resolve?
• Answer: Although your problem statement might not provide the final solution, this is where you identify what kind of answer you’re seeking or what kind of solution would be meaningful.

Using SCQA can make your Product Management problem statements more engaging and persuasive, especially in product proposals, pitch decks, or cross-team alignment sessions.

Perfect for stakeholder storytelling: it frames the world, the disruption, the question you’re trying to answer—and eventually, your solution.

Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD)

Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD) is a framework that shifts your focus from user personas or demographics to the actual tasks or outcomes people are trying to achieve. It’s about understanding what someone is trying to get done in their life or work—and how your product can help them do that more effectively.

This mindset is incredibly useful when crafting a Product Management problem statement because it forces you to frame the problem in the user’s terms—not your product’s. Instead of saying, “our users don’t use feature X,” a JTBD lens pushes you to ask, “what job were they hiring us to do, and why did we fail to help them do it?”

In practice, JTBD can lead to much more actionable and human-centered problem statements. It’s particularly powerful when paired with user interviews that explore motivations, contexts, and desired outcomes rather than just feature requests or pain points.

Step-by-Step Guide to Crafting Your Product Management Problem Statement

1. Be Clear on the Purpose

Remind yourself: this is about the user’s problem—not your solution. Don’t even think about your product yet. It’s not a pitch. It’s a problem.

The goal here is to understand the need that exists in the market. A good problem statement hones in on the fundamental gap or pain that your product aims to address, ensuring you’re solving something people are actually willing to pay for. It’s about identifying an unmet need that’s significant enough to drive demand and justify the existence of your solution.

2. Kick Off Your Hypothesis

Start with a gut check. Based on research, conversations, or data—what do you think the problem is? Capture that early version.

3. Consider the Impact

Next you need to think about why this problem matters. How often does it happen? How painful is it? The more severe the pain, the more valuable the solution. This helps you understand the commercial potential of your product. 

It’s also important to understand the severity of the problem you’re describing in your Product Management problem statement, so you  convey the right level of urgency, impact or frustration in the actual statement you write. This will help you bring it to life for your teammates. 

4. Draft the Problem Statement

Now it’s time to start crafting. Write it out, following the structure discussed earlier. Be specific. Avoid buzzwords. Keep it short and sharp. 

5. Validate with Real People

Now take that to some of the actual humans who might be facing this problem. Ask them: Does this statement resonate with their lived experience? Do they nod along—or look confused?

6. Refine

Use that feedback to tighten your language, clarify the pain, and better represent the reality of your potential users.

Product Management Problem Statement Template

Here’s a simple template to help you structure your Product Management problem statement.  and template to help you Use this as a starting point:

“[User type] experiences [problem] when [context], which results in [negative outcome or frustration].”

Example:

“Remote team managers struggle to track project progress when using multiple tools, which leads to miscommunication and missed deadlines.”

Examples of Product Management Problem Statements: By Industry

Right, let’s bring this to life for you. Here are some real-world inspired problem statements, broken down by industry, to show how these ideas translate from theory into practice.

SaaS

“Freelance Designers struggle to track revisions and approvals from clients via email, which leads to confusion, duplicated work, and delays.”

Fintech

“First-time investors find it difficult to compare savings accounts due to inconsistent and jargon-heavy information, leading to poor financial decisions.”

Ecommerce

“Online shoppers abandon carts when they can’t calculate shipping costs upfront, resulting in lost revenue and frustrated users.”

A Not-So-Good Example

“Our product doesn’t have a real-time chat feature, which annoys users.” This focuses on the solution and lacks context, persona, and impact.

Tips for Creating a Successful Product Management Problem Statement

Here’s some quick-fire top tips to getting this right and making sure you have a crystal clear problem statement at the heart of your product strategy.

Focus on the People

Not customers. Not users. People. Get as close as possible to their real lives and motivations.

Don’t Jump to the Solution

Let go of your product for a minute. Your statement should work even if your product didn’t exist.

Make it Visible and Shared

Your problem statement should be on the wall, in your strategy canvas in your ProdPad – right there next yo your roadmap—everywhere. If it’s buried in Confluence, it’s not doing its job.

Iterate Often

Just like your product, your understanding of the problem evolves. Revisit and revise your statement regularly.

Use ProdPad to Make it Real

Our product strategy tools make it easy to connect problem statements to your roadmap, backlog, and customer feedback.

The Power of Problem-First Thinking

This is worth saying again: People don’t buy products. They hire them to solve problems. Your job as a Product Manager is to articulate those problems clearly, validate them deeply, and use them to guide everything you build.

The post The Product Management Problem Statement: How to Get it Right appeared first on ProdPad.

We we cover:

• What is product management software?
• Where do these tools sit in a product management tool stack?
• What are the benefits of having the best product management software?
• What features do the best product management software tools have?
• Cost and pricing for product management software
• What are the best product management software tools in 2024?
• Frequently Asked Questions about product management software

Let’s get into it…

What is product management software?

It’s software that helps you do product management. Sorry, that sounds facetious… but in all seriousness, that’s what these software tools are designed to do – help Product Teams communicate their plans, run their processes and track their results. The very best product management software tools will help Product Managers make informed, smart decisions about the direction they should take their products and provide the tools to turn those decisions into actions and outcomes. 

But there are lots of different types of product management software tools. And that’s because the discipline of Product Management is so far reaching. Afterall, Product Management encapsulates almost everything involved in getting a product to market and then working it through its entire lifecycle. 

That includes initial ideation (market research, competitor analysis, discovery, prototyping, user testing and more) right through the development process (prioritization, speccing, delivery planning and more) and onto launch (release planning, beta launching, customer feedback gathering and analysis and more), and beyond!

And once that process has been worked through for a brand new product, the cycle continues for each new iteration and each new feature as you manage the product through its lifecycle. 

That’s a lot of very different jobs to be done there, and an awful lot of variation. Because of that, there is a plethora of Product Management software solutions available on the market today. Some will cover multiple stages of the Product Management lifecycle, some will focus on one particular task.  

The particular flavor of product management software we’re going to focus on in this list is the complete platform – the all-in-one tools that promise to provide you with one central home for all your Product Management work. While they may not help you with ALL the jobs you have to do as a Product Manager, they should allow you to connect all the pieces into a centralized hub, providing an easily accessible place to go for anyone interested in your product decision-making and process. 

Typically these complete product management software platforms focus on the core PM triad of product roadmapping, idea backlog management and customer feedback management. 

Where do these tools sit in a product management tool stack?

The product management software platforms we’re going to concentrate on here today form a solid base from which to undertake everything you have to do to manage a product, or indeed a portfolio of products. But they won’t directly solve every single Product Management problem or need that you have. You’ll want to combine them with a few point solution tools to ensure you have everything covered.


Let us illustrate this with a graphic. Using a complete product management software tool means you can reduce vendor management significantly without flattening your stack too far and leaving yourself with capability holes. Instead of 11 different product management tools, you’re using one of our best product management software tools to reduce that stack down to a far more manageable 7. 

You’ll want a central product management software tool to act as a single source of truth, covering:

• OKR management and goal setting
• Roadmapping and portfolio management
• Idea management
• Feedback gathering and analysis
• Knowledge management and documentation

Then individual point solutions to help you with:

• Prototyping and wireframing
• Delivery planning and your development backlog
• Testing and experimentation 
• Product engagement and adoption
• Product analytics
• Customer comms 

You’re better to have one of the best product management software tools surrounded by a few point solutions instead of struggling with a huge mix of endless individual products. 

What are the benefits of having the best product management software?

Alignment

When everyone has access to the bigger picture and the plan, teams can truly work in sync. With easy access to the strategy, teammates stay aligned with the broader vision and objectives, minimizing the risk of anyone missing out on what’s most important. 

The best product management software provides a straightforward way to be explicit about the objectives you’re focused on, keeping everyone on the same page.

Transparency

Visibility is key to building trust. When everyone can see both the strategy and progress in real-time, they gain insight into your decision-making process. Stakeholders will appreciate seeing your prioritization logic firsthand, and with updates available to them directly, you’ll spend less time fielding questions. 

With one of the best product management software platforms handling goal setting, roadmapping, and customer feedback all in one, you’ll be providing everyone in your organization with full transparency into your workflow and decision-making.

The Golden Thread

This is a term our Co-Founder and CEO Janna Bastow likes to use. The best product management software give you the power to connect the dots—linking every decision, objective, and customer need with your product roadmap. 

This “golden thread” shows the relationships between each element of your work, allowing you to track how each piece supports the overall strategy and helps you create a cohesive and meaningful product journey.

Simplicity and Ease

Centralizing all your product work in one platform makes life so much simpler. Gone are the days of tracking down different versions of documents, sifting through files, or hunting for updates. With everything in one place, you can save time, avoid miscommunication, and focus on what matters most.

A Bird’s Eye View

Bringing together your roadmap, idea backlog, and customer feedback into one of the best product management software tools allows for a comprehensive overview. Advanced tools, like prioritization frameworks and feedback analysis, enable you to quickly identify the most common customer pain points and spot the highest-potential ideas in your backlog. This kind of high-level analysis is a game-changer, letting you make informed decisions with ease.

Tools Tailored Specifically for Product People

Rather than wrestling with a generic tool and trying to bend it to a Product Management process, the best product management software is designed specifically for your needs. With purpose-built features and an intuitive setup, you can hit the ground running. Plus, you’ll find an array of unique tools and features crafted for the challenges product managers face every day.

You’ll find a whole bunch of tools and features that you won’t find anywhere else. Built for you and your challenges as a Product Manager. Which brings us nicely onto….

What features do the best product management software tools have?

So, you now know why product management software is important, what it can do for you and broadly what it includes, but now’s the time to get more specific. Exactly what features should you expect from one of the best product management software tools. 

Typically, these complete PM platforms will include:

• Customizable product roadmaps
• Idea submission
• Backlog management 
• Prioritization tools
• Discussion boards per idea to capture collaboration and decisions 
• Documentation repository
• Workflow management 
• Integrations with your development tool, your organization’s communication tools and more
• Customer feedback capabilities: portals, integrations with internal tools, email, browser extensions and more
• Ability to link related feedback to ideas in your backlog

And the very best of the best product management software tools will also have:

• Strategy space to declare your vision, value, personas and more
• OKR management and goal setting tools
• Ability to publish versions of your roadmap publicly  
• Feedback analysis tools
• Reporting 
• Plus the most robust and extensive integrations to allow you to capture ideas and feedback from more places, and collaborate with the rest of your organization through connection with the tools they are use

Nearly all the best product management software examples included on our list come with features from that first list above, and the truly great ones will also let you enjoy the additional capabilities from the second list. 

Cost and pricing for product management software

Sounds good right? Fancy some of that action? So how much will one of the best product management software tools set you back? 

Looking across all the best product management software tools on our list here, you’re looking at between $100 and $200 dollars per admin/editor user per month for a passable level of capabilities. However, most of the companies on our list put a whole bunch of restrictions and limitations on their self-serve, explicitly priced packages, and instead insist that you ‘get in touch’ with their Sales Team to get a price for everything you’ll need to do things right. 

The most common features that are hidden behind the enterprise pricing and sales consultation are OKR management, strategy tools, unlimited feedback portals, integrations, AI assistance, portfolio management, user access controls, SSO and SAML, and even access to your own Customer Success Manager. 

However, with ProdPad you can enjoy much more transparency and get all of that and more as part of either our Essentials or Advanced plans. To get the full capabilities of all three modules of ProdPad (Roadmaps, Ideas and Feedback) you’ll pay $116 per admin/editor with unlimited free Reviewers who can both submit and collaborate with both ideas and feedback. You’ll also enjoy the help and support of our Customer Success Team. Because we’re people people and love nothing better than talking to our customers!

What are the best product management software tools in 2024?

It’s time to actually put some products to the features we’ve been discussing.

As mentioned, the best product management software, in our opinion, always compromises roadmapping, idea and backlog management and customer feedback management as a minimum. What we’ve compiled here is a list of the best all-in-one, complete product management software platforms to act as your centralized Product Management hub.

They are all tools that will let you:

• Capture and evaluate product ideas
• Prioritize them onto product roadmaps
• Communicate and share those roadmaps
• Manage the execution through workflow processes
• Gather and analyze customer feedback to help evidence your existing ideas, guide your prioritization decisions, or spark new thinking. 

So without further ado, let’s get to the shortlist. 

1. ProdPad

Are you surprised? Of course we’re going to put ourselves at the top of the list, but we promise this isn’t unfounded trumpet blowing.

ProdPad was actually the first complete product management software on the market and has continued to lead the way in terms of innovative problem-solving, providing solutions to more and more PM challenges and pain points over the years.

From inventing the industry best-practice roadmap format, Now-Next-Later, many years ago, to being the first PM tool to use AI technology to automate backlog management, right through to our current day innovations that make our AI assistance the most mature and the most exciting of any other tool. 

Who is it for? 

ProdPad is best suited to outcome-focused Product Teams that work within an agile environment and want to move quickly to build-measure-learn, support continuous discovery and ensure everything they do is targeting strategically important objectives and aiming to deliver proven outcomes.

Whether you’re a small team managing a single product, or a large organization with a complete portfolio of products, ProdPad has the tools you need to set strategic Objectives and Key Results and capture your overall product strategy and vision. This bigger picture information sits right next to your Now-Next-Later roadmap making sure no one loses sight of the overall goals.

ProdPad is the best product management software built to keep teams strategically aligned and focused on delivering outcomes, rather than merely shipping features and counting outputs.

ProdPad is also particularly well suited when you want to ensure consistency of process across your entire Product organization. ProdPad comes with best practice built in, with tried and tested formats, templates and process workflows already set up by default. This also makes ProdPad a great tool for any teams looking to greatly improve their processes and significantly impact their core business goals. 

Assessment of core capabilities

Roadmapping

ProdPad is unique in that it is a tool that grew up from a truly innovative new approach to Product Management that has now become the definitive industry standard – namely the Now-Next-Later roadmap format. ProdPad’s Co-Founders invented this approach to roadmapping as a solution to all the problems they were facing as a result of using a timeline roadmap. As such, you can trust ProdPad to provide you with the right tools and the proper processes to work within this agile, lean approach and truly stay focused on delivering outcomes.

ProdPad also has the most mature publishing capabilities when it comes to roadmaps, meaning you can not only save multiple filtered views, but also publish those views externally. In this way you can work from a single roadmap and dynamically update the multiple stakeholder views that you’ve shared both internally and externally.

But most importantly of all, ProdPad is the only tool that is structured, by default, around a two tier hierarchy, allowing you to prioritize at the problem level with Initiatives, and then nest different Ideas under each. This structure leaves you open to experiment, test and iterate on the feature you plan to build, without needing to fundamentally rework your entire roadmap should your intended solution change. 

Idea Management

ProdPad excels at being a centralized repository for contributions from across your organization. So, with ProdPad it is super easy for anyone (whether they have a ProdPad user account or not) to submit Ideas for your consideration.

You can then enjoy automatic backlog refinement, with powerful AI de-duping ideas and linking related feedback. Once you’ve triaged your unsorted list of ideas, you move them into your backlog and track them through your workflow using the built-in workflow tool. This means you have the ability to manage your ideas through pre-development stages like defining, discovery and design, before pushing them into your preferred development tool and syncing the status updates (and content) to track the delivery progress from within ProdPad.  

ProdPad also provides customizable prioritization tools meaning you can set your prioritization scales and then visualize your entire backlog in a unique chart to quickly and easily see the idea worth developing further. 

Feedback Management

Alongside having the strongest set of feedback-gathering integrations of any of the best product management software tools on this list, ProdPad provides you with the powerful Signals tool to automatically analyze all that feedback and surface the themes to feed your product decisions.

ProdPad AI will also suggest which feedback should be linked with which ideas, so you never miss relevant insight to help inform your thinking or support your ideas.

Closing the loop is also made super simple with ProdPad. Every time a feature ships, you’ll find a list of everyone who gave feedback around that problem, and all you need do is click to let them know their feedback was listening to and a solution has been released. 

Strengths

• AI capabilities: ProdPad truly was the first of the best product management software tools to offer unique ways of boosting efficiency and improving results with AI-powered features. From generating your written work, to suggesting roadmap initiatives, product goals and even ideas based on your feedback, right the way through to coaching you on Product Management best practice and offering suggested improvements to things like your product vision and more. ProdPad AI has been proven to dramatically increase the velocity of Product Teams the world over. 
• Collaboration: Of the many advanced integrations ProdPad offers, the connections to both Slack and Microsoft Teams are often the most loved by customers. As well as pushing notifications from ProdPad to these important organization-wide communication tools, the ProdPad apps goes further and sync discussion threads between these tools and ProdPad – meaning you can capture entire conversations with the Product Manager in ProdPad and everyone else over in Slack.
  
  You can also select any comment or line of text in Slack or MS Teams and add it to ProdPad as either an Idea or a piece of Feedback – all without needing to log into ProdPad. 
• Workflow management: As mentioned above, ProdPad, unlike other tools, as a workflow tool as part of its product management software which enables a Product Manager to progress Ideas through their pre-development process and then sync with the delivery tool to track progress to launch, all from a single place. 
• Strategy & alignment: With ProdPad’s unique strategy canvas and a full OKR management tool, you can ensure that everyone you and the team are working on is explicitly linked to the strategic imperatives of the company and aligned to your product vision. With this bigger picture information sitting right next to your day-to-day workflow and roadmap, no one will lose sight of why you’re working on what you’re working on. 

Limitations

• No gantt charts: If you are absolutely determined to use a timeline as your product roadmap you might be better suited to another of the best product management software tools on this list. Although you absolutely can add specific dates to each Initiative on ProdPad’s Now-Next-Later roadmap, you won’t be able to lay out all your initiatives on a linear timeline ahead of them hitting delivery.

Pricing

ProdPad has a modular pricing structure meaning you only need pay for what you actually need. This means, depending on your needs, you pick and chose the levels and combinations of modules to suit your particular team.

One key difference with ProdPad’s cost over some of the other best product management software tools is the inclusion of unlimited reviewer users. While some other software options appear to offer the same, reviewers in ProdPad can do a lot more than in other tools. ProdPad reviewers can add and edit their own Ideas and Feedback, and view and comment on those added by others.

2. Aha!

Who is it for? 

Aha! would be a solid choice for a large organization that still maintains a traditional, operations-focused approach to Product Management. If, as a business, you’re focused on delivering against specific feature requests from customers, then Aha’s feature-request style ideas portal, alongside their single-level roadmapping tool will help you do just that. 

Aha! also offers a fairly advanced reporting suite that can help Product Managers deliver quite complex reporting on their operational processes if required to do so. So if you’re in an organization that puts emphasis on detailed operational reporting, then Aha! is definitively worth evaluating further.  

Assessment of core capabilities

Roadmapping

Aha! supports traditional timeline-based roadmaps, ideal for a feature-based approach to roadmapping. They also provide a portfolio roadmap view to give a coordinated view across multiple individual product roadmaps. Although they do offer a Now-Next-Later roadmap view, it only allows for single-level roadmap items so, in reality, is just a board view of a features list. 

Idea Management

Aha!’s approach to idea management is less discovery-focused than other tools on this list. The idea management tool within Aha!’s suite is structured around an Ideas Portal that is used to collect feature requests from customers which then become items on your roadmap. 

In this way, their approach to idea management is very operational, offering a process by which customer requests are taken at face value and worked through to delivery. Aha’s Ideas tool therefore lacks the flexibility to tie ideas to larger strategic Initiatives and then evaluate them as one possible solution to the problem you have prioritized on your roadmap..

Feedback Management

Aha! do not differentiate Feedback from Ideas, so rather than providing portals that encourage customers to share their feedback on your product, with Aha’s Ideas Portal you are asking customers for specific feature requests and asking them to vote on existing feature requests. In this way, Aha do not offer a distinct feedback solution.

Strengths

• Documentation: as a complete product management software Aha! do a good job of providing you with a centralized repository for all your product documentation. They have their own whiteboard tool that allows you to closely link any maps or collaborative session outputs to each feature entry on your roadmap, or into your central repository.
• Strategy: Aha! has a central area in the tool to allow you to capture your overall strategy. This comes with a number of useful tool templates so you can include things like SWOT analysis.

Limitations

• Single-level hierarchy: Aha!’s roadmap structure doesn’t support nesting ideas under initiatives, so teams are forced into a cycle of managing features rather than solving broader product challenges.
• Limited AI: Aha!’s AI assistance is limited, only providing generative AI in a few places to help you write up requirements or capture meeting notes. This means you’ll likely be left with a lot more manual work to do, compared to if you were using one of the other best product management software tools.
• Feedback gathering: As we’ve already said, Aha’s approach to feedback is actually more focused on feature requests, meaning you will struggle to effectively discover the root problem or challenges your users are facing. This restricts the ability you have to run discovery and find the best possible solution. This can lead to building features without validating their potential success and leading to feature bloat or, worst still, you becoming a feature factory. 

Pricing

In a similar way to ProdPad, Aha! have a modular approach to their pricing, with separate products for Roadmaps and Ideas. However, when you buy Roadmaps you’ll get the basic version of Ideas too.

To get both you’ll need to pay at least $59 per user, but to get features like OKRs, automation rules, user access controls, AI, feedback integrations and customizable portals you’ll need to pay over $200 per user.

3. Productboard

Who is it for? 

Productboard allows for a lot of customization and requires a significant amount of configuration, so if you think your Product Management process is particularly complicated or unique, you might want to put Productboard on your shortlist. As such, Productboard is most suited to mature Product Teams that already have an established process in place, looking for the best product management software to slot into that, rather than a tool to help drive significant improvements in process. 

Assessment of core capabilities

Roadmapping

Productboard offers a range of different roadmap formats to choose from. These include kanban and timelines which you can structure around releases, sprints or features. Productboard also purports to offer a Now-Next-Later roadmap, however it does not allow for the dual-level, initiatives + ideas structure that is inherent in the Now-Next-Later approach. Therefore, if you’re looking for the best product management software to support an agile way of working, Productboard would not be the best choice.  

Idea Management

Productboard will allow you to build a customized prioritization framework through which you can assess the ideas in your backlog. You can customize the view of that prioritization and see your backlog, sorted by your chosen factors, in either a grid or a matrix. 

However, Productboard doesn’t have a distinct workflow tool, separate from roadmaps. This means, after you’ve prioritized your idea backlog, the only way of tracking the progress of each idea through your process is to add it to a timeline or kanban roadmap. Productboard will not, therefore, give you the ability to track ideas through your validation process BEFORE they are deemed worthy (or not worthy) of appearing on the roadmap.

Feedback Management

Productboard has a robust set of integration options meaning you can gather feedback from multiple sources. Like ProdPad, they also offer an AI-powered analysis tool that surfaces the themes in your feedback.

Strengths

• Integrations: Productboard have a robust offering of integrations from whiteboarding tools like Miro through to AI analysis tools like Cobbaï.
• User access controls: Productboard, like ProdPad, is a tool that allows you to control the permissions and visibility each user has. This can be essential in larger organizations with multiple products and sensitive projects.

Limitations

• No strategy capture: Productboard does not have an area for you to document your product vision, values or add narrative to your overall, bigger picture, product strategy. This puts you at risk of misalignment and working on things that don’t help you achieve your strategic goals. 
• No OKR or goal management tool: Productboard allows you to capture board objectives only and does not have goal setting tools that allow you to set measurable and specific targets under those broader objectives. 
• Single item roadmap hierarchy: Like Aha!, Productboard only provides a ‘feature board’ by way of a time-horizon based roadmap, preventing you from communicating larger initiatives with multiple features ideas within them. 
• Complexity: This is a highly configurable tool which sees many users complain about the level of decision-making that has to happen before you can get started.
• AI only available for an additional cost: The AI assistance that comes with Productboard is only available with the top tier plans, or at additional cost, making these AI features less integrated or integral to the overall experience. 

Pricing

Productboard’s most popular package starts at  $59 per user with a minimum of two users. But you’ll need to pay extra for the AI capabilities at $20 per user.

On the $59 Pro package you’re also subject to quite a few limitations with numbers restricted for Objectives, feedback portals and roadmaps. You’ll also only be getting email support.

To get dedicated Customer Success and unlock things like SSO, Salesforce integrations and unlimited roadmaps, you’re going to need to pay enterprise prices and engage with their Sales Team. 

4. ProductPlan

Who is it for? 

ProductPlan began life as just a product roadmap tool but has gradually developed additional features in an attempt to become one of the best product management software solutions on the market. A lot of their capabilities outside of straight roadmap management and communication are more basic than other contenders on this list, making ProductPlan a possible choice for smaller teams that are just getting started with formal Product Management processes. 

Assessment of core capabilities

Roadmapping

As mentioned, this was ProductPlan’s original focus, and, as such, the area where their capabilities are the most robust. Once you’ve added all your roadmap data you can easily switch between a timeline, list or table layout.  You will however, be restricted to a single-level hierarchy and won’t be able to present broader initiatives on your product roadmap.

Idea Management

ProductPlan only lets you manually input ideas and lacks any tools or integrations to help you capture and gather ideas from different sources. While there is also on workflow capabilities aside from timeline roadmap, ProductPlan does allow you to tag ideas as being ‘in discovery’ and add a flag once they have been successfully validated. 

Feedback Management

ProductPlan has the most basic feedback tools of any product management software on this list. You can only manually add feedback into a ProductPlan account rather than being able to route feedback in through integrations. You then have the ability to tag that feedback and sort based on those tags. There are no tools to help you easily analyze the sum of what you have.  

Strengths

• Launch planning: ProductPlan has an adjacent tool included as part of the complete product management software offering that helps you run launch planning. This task management tool allows you to build to-do lists as you prepare for GTM launches and link those to the roadmap items as they approach the final stages. 

Limitations

• Integrations only for pushing info out: All of the available integrations for ProductPlan are for communicating outwards. There are no integrations available that will enable you to capture feedback, comments or contributions from across the organization via the tools different teams use. There are no CRM integrations, no Support system integrations and the integrations with both Slack and Microsoft Teams only facilitate notifications when changes are made to your roadmap – they don’t allow people to easily send feedback or sync comments from those tools. 
• Very basic feedback capabilities: If you have a large user base and gathering insight to inform and evidence your decision-making is of the utmost importance then ProductPlan probably isn’t the tool for you. ProductPlan’s basic and manual feedback logging system is only really usable for teams with a small and very manageable volume of feedback at any one time.
• No AI assistance: You’re on your own with ProductPlan, unlike a few of the other options on this list of best product management software. There are no AI enrichments at all, meaning everything is extremely manual and basic. 

Pricing

With ProductPlan you need to book a consultation to strike a deal. Unfortunately they offer no transparency into their pricing. 

5. Roadmunk

Who is it for? 

Roadmunk is a product management software tool designed to help both small and larger organizations, but is particularly relevant if you’re in an organization where a lot of importance is placed on stakeholder communication and presenting to leadership. It becomes particularly useful as your product management software platform if you’re juggling different stakeholder preferences in terms of roadmap communication and you’re unlikely to get buy-in for a consistent approach. With Roadmunk you have the ability to flip between different presentations of the same roadmap data. 

Assessment of core capabilities

Roadmapping

Roadmunk is another tool that started life as a roadmap-only solution but has recently branched out in an attempt to be seen as one of the best product management software tools around. As you’d expect from a tool that previously specialized in just roadmapping, the roadmap capabilities are robust. Roadmunk allows you to easily export roadmaps and present them to your stakeholders. However, Roadmunk do not offer a Now-Next-Later roadmap format so are less suited for outcome-focused Product Teams who want to retain some flexibility to do discovery, experiment, measure and iterate.  

Idea Management

Interestingly, with Roadmunk, only Product Managers are able to submit ideas to the backlog. This might work well if, for whatever reason, you feel strongly about retaining that level of control and not encouraging contribution from the rest of the team or the wider organization. However, if you want to be able to capture ideas from multiple sources, then Roadmunk might not be the solution for you. 

Feedback Management

Roadmunk recently introduced a feedback portal, so now you can spin up a page into which your customers can add their product feedback, however that is currently the only way that people externally or internally can get feedback into your list, without having to log into the tool and manually add it themselves. 

Strengths

• Ease of use: Roadmunk prides itself on a super user-friendly interface and a setup that means you can get started quickly. 
• Portfolio roadmaps: Roadmunk have a pretty robust tool for managing higher level portfolio roadmaps that roll-up multiple individual product roadmaps to give an overall view. 

Limitations

• Limited integrations: Roadmunk only allow you to integrate with Jira or Azure DevOps to push items from your roadmap into your development planning. They do not have any integrations with communication tools or tools from which you could route feedback (like CRMs or Support tools). Nor do they integrate with Zapier, meaning you can’t easily create your own connections without getting down and dirty in their API. 
• No AI: Roadmunk doesn’t have any AI capabilities at all. So you’d be missing the opportunity to accelerate some of your tasks and create more time to focus elsewhere.  

Pricing

Roadmunk don’t offer the option of subscribing on a monthly basis, so you’ll have to commit to an annual package. You can get a roadmaps-only basic, single user account for $19 (paid annually only), but to get a comparable package to the rest of the best product management software on the list, and access the complete all-in-one capabilities, you’re going to need to pay at least $99 per user per month.

But again, if you want a Customer Success Manager and unlimited reviewers you’ll need to speak to them about enterprise pricing. 

6. Airfocus

Who is it for? 

Airfocus is a product management software tool that claims to be able to facilitate a myriad of different team processes and approaches within one tool. So if you’re part of an organization with disparate teams working in completely different ways, Airfocus’ customization might make this your best bet. They offer a modulized product, letting you pick out the different features and functions your specific organization needs.

Assessment of core capabilities

Roadmapping

Airfocus allows you to present both a Now-Next-Later roadmap and a timeline, so you have the flexibility to use the best suited to the shareholders you’re working with and presenting it to. You can tailor your roadmaps to specific audiences and share them to improve visibility.

The customization options of their roadmaps means that you’re going to have to spend some time getting everything set up in a way that works for you and that complements your strategy. 

Idea Management

Airfocus allows you and your team a way to collaborate, evaluate and priortize the ideas in your backlog. With features like prioritization poker, and customizable scoring frameworks, it can help you better manage your ideas and find the right ones that will have an impact.

While comprehensive, it could benefit from enhanced categorization options or automation to better sift through large volumes of ideas.

Feedback Management

Airfocus allows you to centralize all your feedback into one space, collating it from multiple touchpoints like email, chat, and other channels. You’re able to link this feedback to ideas in your backlog to help inform product discovery.

Their feedback management features also allow you to include customer insights when prioritizing problems, letting you surface frequently requested ideas to better understand what your customers need.

Strengths

• Modular flexibility: Airfocus allows extensive customization with adaptable workspaces and views, letting teams tailor workflows and roadmaps as needed to suit them. 
• User-centric feedback management: Airfocus’s feedback capabilities centralize input from various channels, linking feedback to ideas and features for end-to-end visibility. Integrations with tools like Intercom and Slack make it easy to gather insights.

Limitations

• Learning curve: Due to the flexibility and customizability, new users may find initial setup and navigation challenging.
• Dependence on integrations: While Airfocus has strong integrations, it relies on them heavily for detailed workflow tracking, and reporting, potentially making it cumbersome for users without these tools.

Pricing

You’re looking at a minimum of $59 per user for the base package with Airfocus. But to get features like prioritization tools, user access controls, more than 1 feedback portal, customer success, and AI assistance you’re going to need to ‘get in touch’ about their Scale package. 

OKRs, Reporting, a lot of the integrations (Salesforce), SAML and SSO are further restricted to the Enterprise package only – which again, requires contacting their Sales Team.  

Wow, that was a long list with lots of detail! We hope you learnt a few new things about the best product management software and have started to formulate an idea of which would be worth evaluating further. We sincerely hope that ProdPad is on your shortlist and recommend you hop into a free trial and take it for a spin. But to go even deeper and get all your questions answered, why not book a demo with one of our product experts.

The post 6 Best Product Management Software in 2024 appeared first on ProdPad.

• What are product roadmap tools? 
• Why use product roadmap tools?
• Key features of the best product roadmap tools
• What are the alternatives to product roadmap tools? 
• What are the benefits of purpose-built product roadmap tools?
• Key considerations for choosing from the best product roadmap tools
• The best product roadmap tools 

So, let’s dive into the seven best product roadmap tools you should be considering in 2024 and how they can help you stay outcome-focused.

What are product roadmap tools? 

I’m going to assume you all know what a product roadmap is. Of course you do. You know you need a roadmap, you’re looking for the right tool to help you manage it. For anyone looking for clarity on what a product roadmap is just check out our Ultimate Guide to Product Roadmaps. 

But we’re here to talk about tools.

Product roadmap tools are designed to help Product Teams plan, communicate, and track their product strategy. They give you a clear visual of where your product is heading and how you’ll get there. But the best product roadmap tools go beyond just listing out features or release dates – they help connect your product strategy to your business goals and provide clear evidence to your stakeholders of why you have made the roadmapping decisions you have.

The best product roadmap tools help you communicate a roadmap that effectively answers questions like:

• How does this initiative align with our objectives?
• What customer problems are we solving with this update?
• What outcomes have we driven with each completed initiative?
• What stage of the development process is each initiative at? 
• Why has this initiative been prioritized over others?
• What different ideas have we explored for each problem area?
• How do we know the chosen idea is likely to be the best solution?

In short, the best product roadmap tools help you shift from feature factory mode into a more strategic approach, ensuring your team is working on the right things for the right reasons.

The best product roadmap tools don’t just help you communicate your strategic priorities in such a way that adds transparency to your decision-making process – although they certainly should do that. The best product roadmap tools also provide you with all the features and functionality to help you actually make those decisions, and then act on them. 

The best product roadmap tools will also help you:

• Prioritize your idea backlog to help you find candidates for your roadmap
• Link to your customer feedback so you can be sure you’re solving the right problems
• Speed up your ideation with AI assistance
• Generate supporting documentation 
• Collaborate with your teammates and stakeholders across your organization
• Capture all your product work and decision logs in one centralized place

Why use product roadmap tools?

Do you have to use a specific tool for your product roadmap? Can you not just draw it up on a piece of paper and be done with it? No. No you can’t. 

Because in Product Management, alignment is everything. The best product roadmap tools make sure everyone – from the developers to the executives to your customers – has a live and dynamic view of not just what you’re building, but why you’re building it. These tools give you a clear, shareable view of what’s in the pipeline and how it ties back to your broader business goals. 

A piece of paper on your desk doesn’t give anyone else visibility into your product strategy and progress. If your roadmap is not in an easily accessible and dynamic format, you’re going to spend every waking moment having to answer questions from stakeholders and teammates who have zero visibility of what is happening and why. 

Also, if your product roadmap is sitting there on that bit of paper, isolated and lonely on your desk, how often do you think you’ll be looking at it? 

Without your roadmap in a product roadmap tool – a central product tool in which you do most of your work –  it’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day grind and lose sight of that bigger picture plan. Before you know it, you’re a Project Manager pushing through features and not a strategically focused Product Manager delivering impact. 

Key features of the best product roadmap tools

What should you expect from the best product roadmap tools? If you’re going out shopping for a roadmap tool, what’s on your must-have list? Let’s start with the minimum requirements and then list out the features you can expect from the very best product roadmap tools. 

The best product roadmap tools should have:

• Dynamic, interactive roadmaps
• Customizable roadmap views that let you create different versions with different levels of detail
• The ability to publish versions of your roadmap externally
• Integrations with the tools your wider organization use
• Connection to your customer feedback
• Collaboration tools 
• Integration with your product management workflow
• Connection to your idea backlog

The VERY best product roadmap tools will also have:

• Outcome-based roadmaps
• A hierarchy that enables you to stay flexible, work in an agile way and declare the problem to solve, not specific features
• AI assistance to help you work faster and smarter
• OKR management to keep you laser focused on driving outcomes
• Portfolio management and the ability to scale if your needs increase
• Collaboration tools that do not require stakeholders to log into the product roadmap tool, but add their contribution from the tools they already use

Want to explore a product roadmap tool that has ALL these features?

Jump inside our product roadmap template found in our free-to-use Sandbox. Here you can see a quality roadmap in action, and learn how to build one for yourself in ProdPad. Our product roadmap template is dynamic, not static, helping you to really understand our product roadmap tool.

What are the alternatives to product roadmap tools? 

Spreadsheets and slide decks

We’ve already discussed the piece of paper. But surely no one would actually do that with their roadmap?! Some Product Managers, however, do use spreadsheets, slide decks and document files for their roadmaps. 

I know. Why would you ever do that? 

Spreadsheets, slide decks and documents are often static files, saved on a drive somewhere. They’re not dynamic and always up to date. The problems with this are extensive. You’ll be faced with endless versioning headaches and you can’t ever be confident everyone is looking at the most up-to-date version. You’ll have huge admin overheads, having to manually update your roadmap document all the time. You’ll end up having to repeatedly remind people where they can see the roadmap because no one ever remembers different filing systems or where something is saved. 

Even if you keep your spreadsheet or slide deck in the cloud and manage to remove the versioning headaches, how inspiring is a spreadsheet or presentation file ever going to be? There are better ways to visualize your product roadmap so people actually understand what they are looking at.

A product roadmap confined to a spreadsheet or similar document is also completely detached from everything else! Where’s the link to your customer feedback, your backlog, your release planning, your design files? This makes it extremely hard to keep your roadmap at the heart of everything you do. Increasing the risk of ‘everything you do’ becoming detached from the strategic plan. Which is when you start slipping into an output mindset instead of delivering outcomes. 

So, in sum, don’t use general tools like spreadsheets, slide decks or document files. 

Project management tools 

But what about those generalist productivity tools that are designed to help you manage tasks and track projects? Are they an option? 

I mean, sure, maybe if you’re just getting started and have no budget for a proper product tool. If you want to have an initial stab at creating a roadmap in a dynamic tool and you already have a license for something like ClickUp, Asana, Trello, or monday.com  then sure, give it a go. But, be aware of the limitations. 

Remember, a product roadmap isn’t a project plan, it’s a strategic communication tool. Don’t forget the distinction between a product roadmap and a delivery or release plan – don’t get them confused or try to solve both problems with one tool. If you use a tool designed for task management for your product roadmap, you can very easily fall into the trap of presenting your stakeholders with a timeline project plan Gantt chart instead of a high level strategic plan. 

The other option some Product Managers will try is using whiteboard tools or wiki software. Although they can offer better visualization capabilities than project management tools or the dreaded spreadsheet, they lack the connection to your execution workflow. 

You need the best of both worlds – an easy-to-understand visualization of a bigger picture strategic plan, alongside the ability to drill down if needed and follow a thread all the way through to the detailed release plans. 

This is why purpose-built product roadmap tools exist. 

What are the benefits of purpose-built product roadmap tools?

The biggest advantage of using one of the best product roadmap tools, specifically designed for product teams and roadmapping requirements? The help it gives you to work in line with modern Product Management best practice.

Work within best practices

If you use a purpose-built product roadmap tool you should (assuming you’ve picked one of the best ones) find a structure and a bunch of built-in features that guide your process, behaviors and even the wider organization towards proven best ways of working. 

Not least of all will be the connection to objectives and key business goals. Because, as we’ve already said, the very best product roadmap tools will help you stay laser-focused on outcomes. You’ll have far better:

• Strategic alignment: Your roadmap will be clearly tied to your product strategy and business objectives.
• Clarity of communication: Everyone can see what’s coming up and how it fits into the bigger picture.
• Adaptability: As priorities shift, your roadmap will be able to keep up. The right tool will allow you to make updates without losing sight of your overall goals.
• Stakeholder visibility: Get buy-in from execs and other departments by showing how your roadmap connects to business growth.

Move faster

You’ll also be able to move a lot faster. Everything is set up specifically for the requirements of a Product Team, so you won’t need to get your head around how to bend and adapt a generalist tool to fit your use case. 

You’ll have ready-made product roadmap templates right off the bat, you’ll have suggested workflow stages already created, you’ll have default filters and suggested roadmap views ready to share.

Key Considerations for choosing from the best product roadmap tools

So, now you understand what product roadmap tools are and what makes purpose-built tools like this the best option. But you’ll still need to narrow down a fairly long list to find the best product roadmap tool for you. How do you decide? 

There are a number of questions you need to ask yourself. 

Are you outcome-focused?

This has to be question number one. What does your business value most? Is it more important that you can demonstrate volume of features or improved metrics and results? Hopefully you’ll be answering in favor of outcomes and results. If you’re not, you may need to have a word with your senior stakeholders and help them see the light about the importance of outcome-based roadmapping. We’ve got a ready-made presentation deck you can use for the job! See below

If you can confidently say that outcomes are your key focus, then you need a product roadmap tool that allows you to run an agile-friendly Now-Next-Later product roadmap. If you need to know more about the time-horizon-based roadmap format (the antithesis of the timeline roadmap), we have you covered. 

Do you want to foster a product culture across your organization?

Is part of your objective for revamping your roadmap and how you communicate it, to help promote a ‘product mindset’ across the company? Do you want to get more stakeholders engaged with the product process in the hope that you’ll convince them of the alignment, strategic importance and success of the Product?  Are you hoping to encourage collaboration from other teams and stakeholders so there is more transparency on how you work, how you reach decisions and why you have to balance priorities and sometimes say no?

If so, look for a tool that has the most robust publishing and sharing options, the right collaboration integrations and the clearest visualization of why things are where they are on your roadmap. 

Also look for a tool that will allow you to add everyone in your organization as a collaborator for free. And make sure you understand what they can do as a ‘collaborator’ or ‘reviewer’ or ‘contributor’ or whatever the user type is called. Can they only view? Or have they got the ability to submit feedback, add comments, join in discussions or even submit ideas to your roadmap initiatives? Spoiler alert – free reviewer accounts can do all that and more in ProdPad. 

Do you need your tool to play nicely with other tools in your organization? 

If you answered yes to the previous question then you’ll definitely need to consider this. The whole point of using one of the best product roadmap tools is so you don’t have a roadmap that sits in isolation from everything else. So think about how you need your chosen tool to integrate with your existing systems. 

Think about…

• Where your developers manage their sprint planning
• Which CRM your Sales Team uses
• The Customer Support tools your customer-facing teams use
• The messaging app your wider organization favors

What does the future of your team look like?

You don’t want to be back here in a year’s time looking for a new tool because your chosen one isn’t able to scale with you. So consider if you’ll be likely to add new products or new product lines and will need to manage a portfolio or even multiple portfolios. 

Also consider all the security implications of a growing team. Look out for the right type of Single Sign On capabilities and security compliance. 

The best product roadmap tools

OK, full disclosure, you’re on the ProdPad blog so you can guess which tool is top of the list. Yes we obviously have a degree of bias , but we seriously do stand by all the reasons why ProdPad is the best product roadmap tool for forward-thinking Product Managers. 

Having said that, we’re not about to start bad mouthing our competitors all over town. That’s not our style. We’re all product people building tools for product people, after all. And some of these folks have built some really great software tools, with some solid features that have given us food for thought over the years. 

We’ve included the tools we believe are the absolute best suited for product roadmapping – they are all purpose-built and all have a proven track record as an established player in the market. 

So let’s delve in….

1. ProdPad

Who is it for?

ProdPad is the best product roadmap tool for outcome-focused Product Teams of any size. ProdPad is structured around the industry-prefered Now-Next-Later roadmap format which was actually invented by our very own Co-Founders and allows Product Managers to present a roadmap that follows an Initiative > Idea structure.  

This two level structure to roadmap items is the key to staying flexible and working in an agile way. Instead of pinning exact features to your roadmap from the start, with ProdPad you create roadmap Initiatives that are focused on a problem to solve. You then attach various different Ideas to each Initiative as your thinking develops, working each through discovery until you find the best solution to the problem you have prioritized. 

This also makes ProdPad the best product roadmap tool for PMs looking to communicate their roadmap in a way that does not create stakeholder expectations tied to arbitrary dates. ProdPad’s roadmap flexibility provides stakeholders with a clear picture of the product priorities, with broad time horizons for the stuff that is further out, moving to more exact time periods as Initiatives move further down the line. 

In this way, Product Teams spend less time reworking their roadmap when discovery work invalidates one Idea and means changing to a different feature Idea. They can stay true to a roadmap that is agile, flexible and focused on the outcomes they want to drive, not exact feature outputs. 

Whether you’re in a startup or an enterprise, ProdPad’s flexibility and emphasis on strategic alignment make it the go-to tool for teams that refuse to compromise on quality or clarity.

Best features – ‘The Pros’

• Outcome-driven roadmapping: Unlike most tools that focus on features and timelines, ProdPad helps you build roadmaps based on business outcomes and customer needs. All Initiatives are linked to Objectives and the whole roadmap can be viewed by Objectives. Each roadmap item includes a space for you to capture target outcomes and record release outcomes. You even get a unique Completed view of your roadmap so you can easily demonstrate your outcomes to stakeholders.  
• OKR management: ProdPad’s product roadmapping tool comes complete with a full OKR management system that allows you to set, manage and track general objectives and specific goals. Importantly you can then link each Initiative on your roadmap with the particular Objective and Key Result it seeks to achieve. 
• Strategy canvas: Another unique feature of ProdPad. For each portfolio, product line and individual product there is a CAnvas to record and develop the product vision, value, positioning and more. This gives PMs a flexible space in which to document the broad strategy, stored next to the roadmap so no one loses sight of the bigger picture. 
• Integrated customer feedback: Part of a complete product management platform, ProdPad also collects, organizes, and prioritizes your customer feedback, meaning you can link your evidence directly to your roadmap to support your decision-making.
• AI Assistance: ProdPad also has the best and most mature AI capabilities of any other tool on this list. ProdPad has been able to automatically de-dupe your backlog for many years, but with new AI features being released every week the tool is even further ahead of competitors. Honestly, the AI is game-changing.
• Collaboration-ready: ProdPad’s product roadmap tool is specifically designed to foster communication and alignment across teams. It comes complete with, for example, the most robust Slack and Teams integrations of all the tools on this list. This means anyone in your organization can contribute and comment on your roadmap and its Initiatives from the safety of the tools they already use day-in, day-out. 
• Prioritization tools: ProdPad has built-in prioritization tools like our Prioritization chart which makes it quick and easy to spot the Ideas and Initiatives that will deliver the most impact relative to the effort and feasibility.
• Portfolio management: As standard with ProdPad, you can create an unlimited number of roadmaps so you can easily use the tool across your whole organization. Full portfolio management is also available meaning you can have specific roadmaps, OKRs and strategy canvases at each level. 

Restrictions

• No timelines here: If you are fighting against stakeholders who don’t understand how agile roadmapping works, we feel for you. We would be more than happy to help you convince your stakeholders that timelines are bad for business – so please reach out if that’s of interest. Because ProdPad doesn’t have Gantt chart style timeline options. We do enable target dates to be added to all Initiatives – so your stakeholders can understand when something is coming, but that doesn’t dictate the whole layout of your roadmap. We also have two-way syncs with development tools like Jira or Azure DevOps so you can happily link to your release planning for that complete view. But if you want a product roadmap in a timeline format this ain’t the tool for you. 

Pricing

Starts at $24 per month, with custom plans available for enterprise organizations. You can also purchase just the product Roadmap tool from ProdPad’s full suite and later add the Customer Feedback and Idea Management modules as you need. 

G2 Rating

4.5/5

2. Aha!

Who is it for?

Aha! is a well-known option for Product Managers working in large organizations. Aha! Is underpinned by a more traditional approach to Product Management so may be better suited to those that approach Product from more of an operational perspective. 

Best features – Pros

• Strategy tools: In a similar way to ProdPad, Aha! provides an area for PMs to capture their Personas, Strategy and Vision (although it’s at the overall account level and not sitting next to individual roadmaps). There are also a number of strategic framework tools available as templates to help you do, for example, SWOT analysis. 
• Customizable reports: Aha! provides a very customizable suite of reports that enable you to drill down into the data and create analysis into your product process. The customization takes a bit of time to get your head around, but this capability is interesting if you find yourself spending a lot of time crunching numbers in spreadsheets.

Limitations – Cons

• Single item roadmap hierarchy: Even with Aha!’s Now-Next-Later roadmap, there is only a single level hierarchy. This prevents you from capturing the problem area as the Initiative and nesting different ideas within that. That, unfortunately, means you will end up just pushing features around a board view rather than managing a truly agile, lean roadmap. 
• No goal management: With Aha! you cannot set and manage specific goals, relevant to each Objective. This means you will be without the SMART goals that will help you understand if you have achieved your Objective. 
• Next to no AI: Aha! is yet to release any AI capabilities in their roadmap tool

Pricing

Starts at $74 per user, per month on their monthly plan, however, they do have annual plans available too. 

G2 Rating

4.3/5

3. Productboard

Who is it for?

Productboard is worth considering if you’re looking for a complete platform that will help you manage your roadmap, ideas and customer feedback. The setup is rather complicated but if you think you might need deep customization and configuration Productboard should be on your list. In fact, Productboard can be so complex that the team there offer a professional services level of support that you can purchase to help you grapple with the setup.

Best features – Pros

• Integrations: Productboard have a robust offering of integrations from whiteboarding tools like Miro right through to AI analysis tools like Cobbaï
• User access levels: Productboard, like ProdPad, is another tool that provides you with a lot of control over the access levels and permissions that each of your users has. This can be very important in larger organizations or where sensitive projects may be in play.

Limitations – Cons

• No strategy capture: Productboard does not have an area for you to document product vision, values or add narrative to your product strategy. 
• No OKR or goal management tool: Productboard does not offer an in-bulit tool to help you set and track your product objectives making it harder to align your roadmap with priority outcomes. 
• Single item roadmap hierarchy: Like Aha!, Productboard only provides a ‘feature board’ by way of a time-horizon based roadmap, preventing you from communicating larger initiatives with multiple features ideas within them. 
• Basic reporting: Productboard’s reporting features are minimal, which can limit how well you track progress or demonstrate strategic alignment.
• Complexity: The user interface can feel cluttered and difficult to navigate, and many users complain about the level of decision that have to be made before you can get started.
• AI only available on the highest price plan: The AI assistance that comes with Productboard is only available with the top tier plans, making the tools less integrated or integral to the overall experience. 

Pricing

Starts at $19 per user, per month for their Essentials Plan.

G2 Rating

4.4/5

4. ProductPlan

Who is it for?

ProductPlan is a good option for teams that want a super simple, visual tool to present their roadmap. 

Best features – Pros

• User-friendly: ProductPlan’s drag-and-drop interface is simple to use and great for teams looking for a quick visual solution.
• Launch project management: ProductPlan also has an adjacent tool for managing launch plans and collaborating with GTM teams. It helps you create and track tasks and assign due dates for the launch phase of a feature release. 
• Sharing: Decent for sharing roadmaps with non-technical stakeholders, they allow for easy external link sharing. 
• Great resources: ProductPlan has a great resource center to help you navigate your way around the app and tackle general product management problems. 

Limitations – Cons

• No customer feedback management: ProductPlan doesn’t have tools to help you collect or prioritize customer feedback.
• No idea management: ProductPlan is a roadmap only tool, so you won’t be able to manage your backlog and easily link ideas and their related documentation to your roadmap items. 
• No AI assistance: ProductPlan doesn’t have any AI-powered tools to lighten the load.

Pricing

ProductPlan no longer advert their pricing on their website and seem to be offering custom enterprise packages only that necessitate a call with the Sales Team. 

G2 Ratings

4.5/5

5. Roadmunk

Who is it for?

Roadmunk is a decent option for teams that need flexible roadmap views. If you are forced to balance unwavering stakeholder demands for timelines with a desire to work more flexibly then Roadmunk may be the solution that gives you both avenues. 

Best features – Pros

• Multiple views: Offers flexibility in how you display roadmaps, which can be useful if you’re battling with different stakeholder preferences.
• Portfolio level roadmaps: Allowing you to have different levels and roadmap effectively across your organization.
• Prioritization: Provides some fairly robust prioritization features, so you’re able to assess your product ideas against a range of different criteria.

Limitations – Cons

• Limited integrations: There are only two integration options with Roadmunk – one for Jira and the other ADO, meaning you’re going to hit roadblocks when trying to sync data from other platforms like CRMs or Support tools.  
• Weaker strategic focus: Roadmunk focuses more on visuals than on providing the tools needed to build a strategy that drives outcomes.
• No Now-Next-Later roadmap: Although you can do a swimlane roadmap, Roadmunk don’t offer a proper Now-Next-Later roadmap format. 
• Limited customer feedback management: Roadmunk is primarily a roadmap-only solution but in recent years they have added some basic ways to add feedback into the tool, however they aren’t as robust as other product roadmap tools.  

Pricing

Starts at $19 per user, per month. However, this is only for the single user, you’ll need to upgrade to the Business Plan at $49 per month for your team to get access.

G2 Rating

4.3/5

6. Jira Product Discovery

Who is it for?

Jira Product Discovery is best for teams that are already deeply integrated into the Jira ecosystem and are struggling to find budget for a more robust roadmapping solution. Like ProdPad, Jira Product Discovery only facilitates the Now-Next-Later roadmap format so it’s a solid choice if one of your priorities is keeping your team working consistently and in line with best practice. 

Best features – Pros

• Easy Jira integration setup: If your team is already using Jira Software for development, the integration here is obviously set as standard. You won’t need to set it up and confirm authorization between the two tools. 
• Now-Next-Later customization: Offers flexibility to play with the Now-Next-Later structure and adapt it (although…beware you don’t end up with something that doesn’t fulfill the outcome-focus of a true Now-Next-Later)

Limitations – Cons

• Single level roadmap hierarchy: Like a couple of other contenders on this list, Jira Product Discovery does not allow you to nest Ideas within Initiatives on your roadmap, therefore limiting the flexibility you have to remain agile and adapt to your discovery findings.
• Fewer ways to gather feedback: Although Jira Product Discovery does allow you to capture feedback to inform your roadmap, the tool is missing the integrations that would make this feedback flow consistent and effortless.
• No feedback analysis tools: There are no tools to help you uncover insights from your feedback to inform your product thinking.
• No AI assistance: Jira Product Discovery is yet to offer an AI assistance. 
• No roadmap publishing: You cannot publish your roadmap externally meaning all viewers will need to have their own login. 
• Lack of collaboration tools: You won’t be able to integrate other communication tools and have your stakeholders contribute to your roadmap planning without actively logging into Jira Product Discovery and using the tool directly. 
• Limited standalone value: It’s a good add-on for Jira users but doesn’t stand alone well as a comprehensive product roadmap tool.

Pricing

Starts at $10 per user for teams of  1 – 25

G2 Rating

Oh sorry, Jira Product Discovery isn’t actually represented on G2.

7. Dragonboat

Who is it for?

Dragonboat is a solid choice for large teams managing multiple products or portfolios. It positions itself as a Product Operations platform and has a focus on portfolio decision making and business leadership considerations. 

Best features – Pros

• Portfolio management: Great for multi product organizations and portfolio managers looking to make strategic decisions across multiple product lines. 
• Outcome-focused planning: It offers good tools for linking initiatives to business objectives.

Limitations – Cons

• Complex interface: Dragonboat’s UI can be difficult to navigate, especially for new users. Users have been known to crumble about the outdated UI.
• Overly robust: The feature set may be too much for teams that aren’t managing portfolios or large-scale product organizations.

Pricing

Dragonboat no longer advertises their pricing publically, you can contact their Sales team directly to discuss options. They have a Standard Plan and a Business Plan available. 

G2 Rating

4.5/5

What now?

Think there’s a couple there that could work well for you? The next steps are to book yourself a demo and let the expert teams behind these tools show you how they work in detail. Then you’ll have all the info you need to make the right decision.

Why not start with ProdPad?

The post 7 Best Product Roadmap Tools in 2024 appeared first on ProdPad.

Why use user onboarding software?

We don’t need to tell you the importance of nailing your product onboarding, right? If you don’t help your first-time users quickly and easily understand your product – what it does, how to use it and why it will be valuable to them – they won’t continue to use it, adopt it or pay for it. Your product will fail. 

So we’re agreed that it’s crucial to guide your users through their first use of your product and give them a specific onboarding experience to ensure they come back for more. But why do you need to use a user onboarding software tool for this job? Why is it better to add a tool to your stack for this, rather than just building your own product tours and onboarding flows directly into your own product? 

There are a couple of pretty compelling reasons.

You have full control

Using user boarding software for your product tours and onboarding flows will give you, as a Product Manager, far greater control. These no-code solutions mean you can just jump into the tool and create your flows, add your copy and make all the tweaks you want to, when you want to, without having to beg, borrow or steal time from your developers.

You can move faster

You can also move a lot faster because you won’t have to rely on any help from developers. 

If you choose to build your own onboarding flows and product tours directly into your product, you’ll need to factor that into your development planning. That will likely mean you need to add that to your product roadmap and prioritize the work amongst everything else. 

Whereas if you use a ready-made tool for this job, then you can just get on with it yourself and you won’t need to disturb the product roadmap. You can get this initiative up and running concurrently to the other initiatives on your roadmap. 

So, you can move faster AND avoid impacting the rest of the product development you want to do.

What is user boarding software?

Regardless of whether you use these tools in your own product yet or not, you will have experienced the work of these tools yourself when you’ve first signed up for a new app. Those tool tips, modals, pop-ups and notifications that guide through and show you how to use the product – that’s user onboarding software in action.  

User onboarding software is the behind-the-scenes toolkit that creates and powers these smooth, helpful experiences for new users.

These tools are typically SaaS products that provide you with a low to no-code way of creating these onboarding flows and integrating them into your product.

What should you look for in user onboarding software?

There are a lot of user onboarding software tools on the market right now and it can be hard to work out which ones are worth evaluating. That’s why we’ve compiled this list – to give you a shortlist to pick. But what are the fundamental features and functionality you should expect from a user onboarding software tool? Let us walk you through the key things you should be looking for in a decent product tour tool.

No-code necessary

The beauty of using user onboarding software rather than building your product tours directly into your product is the ability it affords you as the Product Manager to crack on with it yourself. As we’ve already said, it means you can get in-app tours up and running without having to plan it into your development sprints and patiently wait until it gets prioritized. 

All the tools we’re recommending on this list allow you to build and publish your flows from their own UIs. All you’ll need to do is add a one-time script to your product and then you can create, tweak and publish to your heart’s content.

Analytics to measure performance

The whole point of creating these product tours is to guide as many new users as possible through certain activation tasks and valuable actions. So you need your user onboarding software to tell you how successfully that is being achieved. 

You need to use a product tour tool with a robust analytics suite that will allow you to see things like views and completion rates for complete flows, as well as individual steps. Ideally you would also be able to filter the analytics by different user segments so you can drill down further. 

Analytics for individual sessions can also be useful, providing details of the events and the timings so you can form a picture of how your users are moving through the flow step by step. 

Customizable branding & design

You need to be able to customize the appearance of the pop-ups, tool tips and guidance notes that appear for your users so your tours are blended into the overall app experience and don’t feel jarring. It’s important that these tours feel part of a consistent experience and not a bolted-on addition. 

All of the tools on our list have robust out-of-the-box design customization that should allow you to pick your font, colors and more. Some of these user onboarding software tools also offer custom CSS so you can tweak the appearance of any of the tour elements even further, should you need to. 

Integrations

You should consider the integrations you might need when it comes to your user onboarding software. You’ll want to push data into your chosen tool to help improve the targeting of your product tours, and you’ll likely want to push data out to communicate and measure results and to help inform other experiences across other channels. 

So, think about the rest of your tech stack – what integrations would you ideally need? And would you be happy with using something like Zapier to connect the apps, or would a native integration be better? 

Consider the following integrations when selecting your user boarding software:

• Your product analytics tool
• Your CRM
• Calendar tool to book demos or onboarding calls
• Your Live chat tool

Triggers and targeting options

At a basic level you’ll need to be able to set the triggers for when your product tours pop up. That could be a particular page in your app, or it could be based on a particular action a user has taken. You’ll need some level of control on when the product tour first fires so you can be sure it comes in at the right time. 

Some of the user onboarding software tools on our list will allow you to get more sophisticated with your triggers and enable you to segment your users and show different flows to different cohorts. 

Templates to get you started

It’s always helpful to see examples to help kick-start your thinking, so consider whether you’d ideally like your chosen user onboarding software to come with some ready-made template onboarding flows that you can pick up and adapt. They’re a great way to get started and can help you move that bit faster.

A/B testing and experimentation

You’re a Product Manager, so experimentation is in your blood! You’ll want a tool that will allow you to test different flows and measure the results so you can learn and iterate. If this sounds like something you’d want, be sure to double check your chosen tool has the ability to A/B test flows at least.

Common features of user boarding software

Here’s a quick checklist of features you’d typically expect to have in a good user onboarding software tool. 

• Product tours
• Checklists
• Announcements – banners, modals
• Surveys
• Hotspots
• Tooltips
• Analytics
• Segmentation and targeting 

Now you understand the lay of the land when it comes to user onboarding software, let’s dive into our list of the best 9 solutions on the market right now.

The Best User Onboarding Software

In no particular order…

1. Chameleon

Chameleon is a fairly extensive user onboarding tool offering all of the features listed above. They have product tours, tooltips, surveys, widgets, modals, banners and checklists. 

Chameleon also recently launched a universal search bar facility, which is pretty interesting.  It’s called Helpbar.ai. You can connect it to your help center and use it to offer your users the ability to search within your content and to get AI answers to their questions. 

There’s a cool way to try this out. Just add your help center URL into their website and you can instantly use the search functionality to get an AI generated answer to any question. Check it out for yourself. 

They also have a great Inspiration Gallery on their website that showcases a whole bunch of in-product guidance examples including tooltips, onboarding flows, upsell modals and more.

Pricing

Chamelon offers three pricing tiers, from Startup to Enterprise. The cost ranges depending on your product’s userbase. For 2000 monthly users, the Startup tier is priced at $279 a month. A nice bonus is that The HelpBar functionality of Chamelon is free is to use. Find more details on their pricing here. 

2. Appcues

Appcues are one of the major players in the user onboarding software game, with some big SaaS customers using them like AdRoll, ProfitWell and Vidyard. 

Appcues have one of the largest selection of integrations – 28 of which are native. Also, kudos to them on the integrations page on their website – thats some really nice web and UX design right there!

If you’re looking for a product tour tool that will work across both desktop and mobile and/or on mobile native applications, then Appcues should be one of your front runners. They have a particular focus on mobile with the Appcues Mobile tool. 

They also offer AI-powered localization that will deliver your onboarding flows in each user’s local language. So no matter what language you use in your product, you can deliver that all-important guidance and tutorial content in the user’s own language.

Pricing

The cost of Appcues scales depending on your average monthly user base. For 2500 monthly active users, Appcues Essentials plan will cost $249 a month, while their Growth tier costs $879 a month for the same monthly users. There’s also an Enterprise plan with custom pricing. Find out more on their pricing here.

3. Userpilot

Userpilot comes with an analytics tool that goes beyond the engagement with your product tours, so you can use this tool as your overall product analytics tool. Userpilot also has event auto-capture, allowing you to create all your tracking events without needing developers’ involvement.

The analytics for the user onboarding flows in Userpilot also offers the ability to set what they call ‘growth goals’ which you can use to measure your ongoing success rate. For example, you could set a goal of achieving 300 demo bookings with a particular product tour and the grow goals feature will track progress against that goal and surface an easy-to-understand goal report. 

Pricing

Userpilot offers three plans, a Starter, Growth, and Enterpirse tier. Their cheapest plan starts at $249 a month, with their Growth tier costing $749 a month when paid annually. If you’re looking for a pay monthly option, their Starter plan increases to $299 a month. Get the full breakdown of Userpilot pricing here.

4. Product Fruits

From a team based in the Czech Republic, Product Fruits specializes in AI generated product tour content. So if you’re not sure where to start or want to get off the ground particularly quickly, this could be a good way to spin up something as an initial test. 

These guys also allow you to deploy their snippet via Google Tag Manager, so you can get setup and have user tours published to your product without needing to bother your dev team at all.

Pricing

Product Fruits offer three tiers from ‘Core’ to Enterprise. Their lowest package starts at $79 a month for up to 1500 users. They define users as unique, active monthly users. Find more details on their pricing here.

5. UserGuiding

The folks at UserGuiding claim you can get completely set up and running in just 15 minutes. UserGuiding positions itself as the easiest of the user onboarding software tools, with the simplest implementation. 

Interestingly, you actually build your tours through their Chrome extension. This allows you to create and test the tours on top of your product right away, in real time. 

Pricing

UserGuiding offers three different options, a Basic, Professional, and Corporate Plan. The basic plan starts at $89 a month, with the Pro plan costing $249 a month based on a product with 2500 monthly active users. For their Corporate Plan, get in touch directly to get a quote. All the details of UserGuiding’s pricing can be found here.

6. Userflow

Userflow claim that their script has a 5 – 10x smaller footprint than their competitors. This could be a deciding factor for you if you’re concerned about the impact of these user onboarding software scripts on the speed of your app.  

Userflow also allow you to run multiple environments, meaning you can build and test your onboarding flows on your staging environment first before replicating on production. This means you can have one Userflow account and publish to more than one place.

Pricing

Userflow pricing starts at $240 a month for their Startup plan, designed for products with less than 10,000 monthly active users. To access their Pro plan, pricing starts at $680 a month, but scales up based on your overall active users. Find more details on their pricing here.

7. Whatfix

Whatfix, as a user onboarding software, goes a little further than some of the other tools on this list. Whatfix has three core areas to its product. Alongside their ‘digital adoption platform’, they also have a product analytics tool and something called Whatfix Mirror. 

Their Mirror tool is a simulated web application package that lets you create replicas of your web app to use like a sandbox environment for hands-on user training. Pretty cool right? This means, you can spin up a replica of your app without needing to borrow development time to do it. 

Within their user onboarding software tool they have a nice feature which allows you to export any of the content or tours you’ve created as videos, slide decks, how-to articles and PDFs. This is a great feature for helping you to scale your training materials quickly and easily. So every time you create a new product tour, you can spin it out into a whole range of different materials which your CS teams, Sales people and even Marketing can use as content.

Pricing

Whatfix offers three different plans, their Standard, Premium, and Enterprise tiers. In terms of pricing, you’re going to have to ask them directly. You can find out more about what each tier offers and request pricing information here.

8. Intercom

Intercom is first and foremost a Customer Service tool. You might even use it in your company to run your Help Center, live chat and Support tickets. But did you know they also offer a user onboarding tool? 

Needless to say, their product tours integrate seamlessly with the other elements of Intercom including their live chat interface. This means that you can surface relevant product tours to customers when they ask specific questions in the chat window. So, if a user hops into the chat to ask how to use a particular feature, rather than surfacing a help article on it, the chatbot can surface a link directly to the product tour for that feature. Neat hey? 

So if you’re already using Intercom as your Support tool, it could be well worth taking a look at their product tour functionality before you start evaluating brand new tools.

Pricing

Intercom starts at $39 per seat per month for their Essential plan, and rises to $139 per seat per month for the Expert plan. You can also choose to add on Proactive Support Plus for $99 a month to get advanced in-app and outbound support. Learn more about Intercom pricing here.

9. Hopscotch

Hopscotch doesn’t restrict the number of product tours you can create, no matter what pricing tier you are on, which is a nice touch. They also offer discounts for early-stage startups.

With Hopscotch, you can create your own tour templates, making it easier to create more and more tours and have other people on your team build experiences for your users. 

However, if you need to run your tours across both desktop and mobile, Hopscotch won’t be the tool for you as they don’t currently support mobile applications. 

Pricing

Hopscotch keeps things simple, offering a single plan that you can choose to pay monthly or annually. When paid annually, it’ll cost you $6.67 a month, or $79.99 for the year. Their pay monthly plan costs $9.99. Learn more about their pricing here. 

That concludes our list of the best user onboarding software tools. You should find a tool that works for you in terms of both functionality and budget from that lot. For the record, here at ProdPad we use Userflow. If you want to see that tool in action, why not start a free trial of ProdPad and take a look at our onboarding flows. We’d love to know what you think!

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