Top 11 Canny.io Alternatives for SaaS Products [2023]

Canny is a tool that helps B2B SaaS companies collect and analyze product feedback, build a product roadmap, and announce product updates. 

In this rapidly developing tech world, you need software like this to develop a successful SaaS product and grow your business to the next level.

Now, these features sound really nice to have. But what if you had to pay $400/month for it? Yup, that’s the issue. 

Last year, Canny jacked up their pricing without notice, leaving Product Managers frustrated and looking for cost-effective alternatives. 

With that said, there are various reasons why you should find a Canny alternative. Let’s talk about some of them. ⬇️  

3 Reasons Why You Need a Canny Alternative

1. Price Hike

Canny jumped their prices from $50/month to $400/month overnight. Add that to the crippling state of the global economy, and the tool starts to look a whole lot less attractive – especially if you’re a bootstrapped SaaS company!

Now I’m not telling you to go for the cheapest option, but something more cost-effective is going to be a far more sustainable business choice. Remember, it’s all about playing the long game, my friend!

2. Below-par Changelog

If you’re actioning your customer’s feature requests, you need a way to inform them about the product updates you make. Unfortunately, with Canny, you can’t easily do that.

Many other tools offer automated notifications that make it easy to boast about your updates, but with Canny, you need to do it manually.

Yikes.

3. Intrusive Branding

A major complaint for Canny is that they don’t remove their branding from their tools. There isn’t even an option to pay extra for that privilege.. Here’s a complaint to put things in better perspective:

“In our comms with their people – they flat out refused to remove their branding – despite the number of votes for people wanting that, and despite the fact that we said we would pay much more”.

I won’t go deep into this review, but it’s safe to say that Canny’s branding comes first – your SaaS product’s branding comes second. 🤕

Okay, now you know why you need a Canny alternative. Next, you’ll learn:

• what features you need to look out for
• which tools offer those features. 

Product Features To Look Out For In a Canny Alternative

Canny may have a lot of features, but they may not fulfill all your needs. And besides, you might not need every single feature that Canny has to offer. So what features do you really need to maximize your users’ experience and keep them coming back for more?

Here are some features you should consider when searching for a good Canny alternative. ⬇️

Changelog:

A good changelog acts as a communication bridge between you and your customer. It highlights all the changes you make within your application to keep your users in the loop and let them know you’re working to meet their needs.

A good changelog tool:

1. Has automatic notifications to update users on your product.
2. Helps you write release notes quickly.
3. Has an editable UI widget that matches your brand’s guidelines.

The more you keep your customers in the loop, the better! 💪

Feature Request Management:

You can’t improve your SaaS product if you don’t listen to customer feedback, right? So make sure whatever tool you replace Canny with has a slick feature request tracking system.

A good feature request management tool should:

1. Have an automatically-enabled user feature request voting board.
2. Use existing customer profiles to record feature requests easily.
3. Have 3rd party integrations to extract feedback requests into the software seamlessly.

Product Roadmap:

You need an easy-to-use product roadmap feature to smoothly communicate your future product strategy with all customers and stakeholders.

Canny’s product roadmap feature is quite handy, so try to find an alternative that can do the following:

1. Easily sync between project management tools to maintain a neat backlog.
2. Prioritize product features that align with your customers’ requests.
3. Integrate customer feedback into your feature-scoring system.
   

Now that you know what to look for, here’s the part you’ve been waiting for. 🔽

11 Best Canny Alternatives 

Best for Changelog

1. ReleaseLog

ReleaseLog is the go-to software for all your changelog needs. If you want a tool that you can install and integrate within 5 minutes, ReleaseLog is the way to go.

It has all those cool features we talked about above:

✅ Automatic in-app and site notifications to inform your customers about SaaS product improvements as they’re using your product.

✅ Embeddable product widget to announce product features seamlessly.

✅ Customizable changelog to match your UI needs.

✅ Easy-to-use CMS that can help you write release notes within minutes.

✅ Standalone page feature offers your product its own domain, custom appearance, and SEO optimization.

✅ Quick set-up – installable in 5 minutes.

The best part? You can try it for 30 days for FREE – no credit card required. No price commitment. No strings attached. 

Pricing starts from $25/month after the trial period finishes, which means, ReleaseLog will save you:

▶️ $375 per month. 

▶️ $4500 saved per year. 

… compared to Canny

2. FeedBear

FeedBear is a quick, user-friendly tool that can help companies collect user feedback and pass it on to all important stakeholders. 

Pros:

• Easy set-up & simple to use.
• Flexible customization based on user feedback.

Cons:

• No email notifications through the custom domain.
• Non-embeddable feature widget.
• Few integrations available.

Feedbear’s pricing starts at $29/month, which comes with a 14-day free trial.

3. Headway

Headway is a pure changelog tool that helps you keep your customers engaged and updated about all your product improvements.

Pros:

• Slack & Twitter app integrations.
• Team collaboration features.

Cons:

• Limited text formatting and style options.
• Still in its early stages – no solid success story yet.
• No application updates since 2021.

Headway’s starter package is free with limited features. Their professional package is $29/month with more advanced features and integrations. 

Best for Product Roadmap

4. Aha! Roadmap

Aha! Roadmap is a part of a larger product management suite from Aha! With this software, you can build a roadmap suitable for any product and audience.

Pros:

• Neat & clean UI.
• You can crowdsource ideas from customers, colleagues, & partners.

Cons:

• More expensive compared to other alternatives.
• The process to integrate with 3rd party applications is complicated.

Their baseline pricing starts at $59/month, up to $149/month, depending on the services you need.

5. Productboard

Productboard is a good mix of product and project management under one tool. It’s the go-to solution if you’re looking for an app that helps you make future product plans and communicate your roadmap to your users.

Pros:

• Customizable roadmap templates.
• Transparent progress-tracking system – you can build visualized progress trackers that keep all stakeholders on the same page about your SaaS business.
• Self-serve onboarding – no need to deal with a middleman or sales rep to use the product.
• A user feedback feature for all stakeholders.

Cons:

• Limited spreadsheet import feature – doesn’t allow you to import more than 2 fields.
• UI/UX features are difficult to navigate and understand.

Productboard’s monthly pricing starts at $25/month after a 15-day free trial.

6. ProductPlan

Like the previous 2 tools, ProductPlan focuses solely on creating a strategic product roadmap experience through streamlined workflows, visualized trackers, and various integrations to better communicate their product strategy to their users.

Pros:

• Customizable styles & features.
• Easy to sync with project management apps such as Jira.
• Built-in roadmap templates.

Cons:

• Too many features which can get overwhelming at times.
• Collaboration with other team members becomes difficult if your team members have different billing packages.

ProductPlan’s basic monthly package starts at $49/month after a free 14-day trial.

7. Craft.io

Craft.io is a premium product management tool that comes with various product roadmap features & templates to keep your stakeholders on track with your goals.

Pros:

• Has various roadmap features to help communicate your product plans to all your customers efficiently.
• Quick & easy setup.

Cons:

• Difficult integration with Github – making it less ideal for developers.
• Can be time-consuming if you’re migrating from other tools.

Craft’s monthly basic package is $49/month, including a 14-day free trial.

Best for Feature Request Management

8. Savio

Savio helps businesses to track customer feedback, segment feature requests by customer type, and organize all data in a centralized CRM.

Pros:

• Useful 3rd party integrations to sync data with other apps.
• Removes the need for manual data entry for your customer requests.

Cons:

• No voting boards to simplify & organize feature requests.
• Little-to-no collaboration features.

Savio’s starting package is $49/month with 3 users, which comes with a 14-day free trial.

9. Upvoty

Upvoty is a user feedback tool that helps you with feature voting, tracking customer requests, and making better product decisions using that data.

Pros:

• Simple and straightforward UI.
• Centralized voting board, making it easy to use.

Cons:

• Difficult to merge or link social media accounts with the software.
• Questionable customer service.

Their standard monthly package is $39/month and comes with a 14-day free trial.

10. Hellonext

Hellonext is a product management tool with a great feature request & user feedback tool.

Pros:

• Quick set-up – can be kickstarted within 5 minutes.
• No-code software. 

Cons:

• No 3rd party app integrations.
• Can’t categorize feature requests based on customer’s needs.

You can start Hellonext for free, but standard pricing (for access to all their features) starts at $49/month.

11. Sleekplan

Sleekplan is another versatile SaaS product with several convenient features, especially its user feedback & feature request tracking tool.

Pros:

• Simplicity – features can be easily recorded & tracked.
• Incoming feature requests can be tracked internally through the app or via external channels.

Cons:

• Navigating their settings is a bit challenging.
• Overwhelming options at the start – the setup is not quick & easy.

Sleekplan’s business package costs $45/month after a free 30-day trial.

Learn more about ReleaseLog

ReleaseLog is specifically designed and developed for B2B SaaS businesses. Tools like Canny are great in some aspects, but its changelog feature doesn’t meet users’ expectations.

Your SaaS product could have the best features, and offer everything your customers need. But if your customers never hear about the amazing features you build, then all your efforts will go to waste. 

That’s why we developed ReleaseLog – the easiest way to keep your users up to date about new product features. 

We also offer a 30-day FREE trial, so you can be sure that ReleaseLog works for you before you pay a dime.