Blog ComparisonsProductplan vs Productboard: 2024 Comparison

Productplan vs Productboard: 2024 Comparison

Deciding between ProductPlan and Productboard is like choosing between Coke and Pepsi... Both tools have their perks, but which one is the best fit for your team? In this post, we've highlighted the key differences to help you make the right choice!

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Productplan vs Productboard 2024 comparison.
Looking for a powerful & affordable alternative to Productplan and -board? Check out Featurebase β†’

If you've ever been confused by job titles in product management, you're in for a treat when researching product management tools... Some of them are for creating roadmaps, others are for collecting feedback, and others do it all with various degrees of success.

Today, we talk about ProductPlan and ProductBoard.

While both obviously have the word product in their name, one of them is highly specialized in its feature set, and the other one does a bit of everything at once. So, which one is for you? Let's find out. πŸ‘‡


TL;DR - key takeaways

  • ProductPlan and Productboard seem similar at first, but they differ in features:
    • ProductPlan is primarily a roadmap tool
    • Productboard is a comprehensive product management platform
  • Both tools are fairly easy to use
  • Productboard is cheaper and offers more value for the money, while ProductPlan costs more and the pricing is not transparent
  • However, both of them are pretty expensive compared to alternatives, have poor feedback collection features, and lack other competitive features such as changelogs.

If you're after a more affordable solution, check out Featurebase (πŸ‘‹ that's us). We’re an alternative to ProductPlan and Productboard, but we promise to stay neutral in this comparison and back everything with real reviews!


ProductPlan and Productboard: basics

Essentially, it's the battle of Coke vs. Pepsi in the world of product management tools. πŸ₯€

ProductPlan was launched in 2013, while Productboard came to life in 2014.

The two tools cater to SaaS companies, more specifically, product managers, development teams, and anyone in those companies who wants to collect customer data for actionable insights.

While they are similar in some aspects, they are quite different in their feature sets. Let's explain how. πŸ€”


ProductPlan vs Productboard: features

The biggest difference between the two tools is the feature set. While ProductPlan specializes in roadmaps, ProductPlan has a broader feature set that goes beyond roadmap planning.

ProductPlan

Productplan website screenshot.

ProductPlan is best known for its roadmaps. Even if you've never built a product roadmap before, you'll whip one up with just a click with this tool.

It offers roadmap templates with a simple user experience right out of the box. All roadmaps are flexible and easy to adjust. Once you've fleshed out a roadmap, you can view it as a Gantt chart, Kanban board, or a list.

Product teams collect customer feedback with this tool, which has a functionality called Product Discovery. It's basically an idea management platform where customers and internal stakeholders can submit feedback and then ship it off to a dedicated space called Opportunities for future development.

The downside? You can only get Product Discovery in the Enterprise plan.

If you want to prioritize features or user feedback items, this is not ProductPlan's strong suite. It does not have built-in prioritization features. Instead, you can create custom fields for prioritization methods such as RICE or MoScoW.

Unfortunately, ProductPlan does not have multiple crucial features for closing the loop, including Changelogs and automated notification emails. This means that you'll have to manually reach out to everyone who left a certain piece of user feedback and let them know what's happening.

Productboard

Productboard marketing page screenshot.

Productboard offers features that can empower your product strategy, align stakeholders, collect product feedback, and much more.

There are some product roadmap planning features, but most users say that compared to ProductPlan, the roadmaps are fairly basic.

But that's just the beginning of this product management software.

There is a customer-facing feedback portal where customers can leave feature requests, bug reports, ideas, or just about any feedback item they can think of. There is a centralized inbox to align teams on who submitted what.

You can get user impact scores based on how users rate the importance of a feature request or a bug fix, which lets you quickly prioritize feedback using prioritization frameworks. You can then further segment feedback based on geography, industry, company size, revenue, and more.

As the penultimate step, feedback can be connected with roadmaps to give you a single source of truth for product and development teams.

As the last step, you can notify everyone who submitted a feature request about its progress. However, this is quite basic and misses a lot of functionality such as changelogs, automated notifications, notifications via integrations, etc.


Productboard vs ProductPlan: pricing

Productboard has more transparent pricing plans, starting at a lower price point. ProductPlan is intended for enterprise audiences, and the starting price point is higher - if you know where to find the pricing details.

Productboard pricing

Productboard has four pricing plans:

  • Starter (free)
  • Essentials plan ($19 per maker per month)
  • Pro plan ($59 per maker per month)
  • Enterprise (pricing available upon request)
Productboard pricing page chart.
Productboard's pricing

To understand Productboard pricing, you have to differentiate between three different types of roles:

  • Maker (have full access, can create, update, and edit feature ideas, insights, and roadmaps)
  • Contributor (can share ideas, feature requests, access feature data and roadmaps)
  • Viewer (can only see roadmaps, but nothing more than that)

The Starter plan is free and lets you collect up to 50 feedback items with one team space, product portal, and objective.

As a side note, you can collect unlimited feedback with Featurebase's free plan β†’

The Essentials plan is $19/maker/month, which gives you access to 250 feedback notes, two Insights automation, portal moderation, closing the feedback loop, release planning, usage reporting, and email support.

In the Pro plan, for $59/maker/month, you unlock unlimited feedback notes, three team spaces, 10 objectives, 10 Insights automation, manual customer segments, customizable feature statuses, trended reporting, and prioritized email support.

Last but not least, in the Enterprise plan, you get unlimited everything and SSO, along with a Salesforce integration.

You can purchase Productboard AI as a $20/maker/month add-on to be able to aggregate relevant feedback (e.g. to guide software development initiatives), create summaries of feedback, identify patterns, categorize feedback according to sentiment, and write product specs easily.

Btw, here's our full in-depth analysis of Productboard's pricing β†’

ProductPlan pricing

ProductPlan pricing is a bit more of a puzzle. They're clearly going after the enterprise market, which means you can't find the pricing on the actual pricing page on their website. Instead, they urge you to book a consultation to find out which plan best suits your needs.

Productplan's pricing page.
ProductPlan's pricing

However, with just a bit of research, you can find the pricing info right on their website.

The first thing you should know is that you can only purchase ProductPlan with an annual subscription, and there are no monthly plans.

ProductPlan's help center article on pricing.
ProductPlan's help center article on pricing

The cheapest you can get ProductPlan is $49 per month for one Editor license. An editor is someone who can create and edit roadmaps, while you can have as many viewers as you wish for free.

There are no publicly available details for higher pricing plans, so you'll have to get more info on this product management software in a sales call.


ProductPlan and Productboard: ease of use

ProductPlan's ease of use is one of its standout points, and most customers state that the user interface is very simple and intuitive. We could argue that because of its simplicity and a low number of features, the existing features are done really well.

ProductPlan review from G2.
ProductPlan review from G2 (Source)

Productboard is the more complex product management software with a range of tools for feature prioritization, project management, and product strategy. Despite that, most customers agree that Productboard is straightforward and easy to navigate.

Productboard review from G2.
Productboard review from G2 (Source)

So, which tool is better for you?

If you need roadmaps for product decisions and to communicate updates to customers, ProductPlan is the better choice. It has a limited use case, but what it does well.

On the other hand, Productboard is the more advanced product management software. It not only comes with roadmaps but with a host of key features for collecting, analyzing, and prioritizing feedback.

Add to the fact that Productboard is cheaper and has more transparent pricing plans, and it's clearly the better choice of the two. Simply put, ProductPlan means paying a premium price for great-looking roadmaps.

But when it comes to product management software, there's a way to have your cake and eat it too: just consider a third option with all the features for agile teams, which is easy to use and does not cost a fortune. πŸ‘‡


Wait... there's a better way!

What if you don't want Coke or Pepsi and you'd prefer some Red Bull to power up your product management strategy?

With Featurebase, you can collect and prioritize product feedback, build roadmaps, close the feedback loop with users, and much more. We make building products your users love easy with in-app widgets, feature voting, surveys, help centers, and changelogs. ✨

Featurebase is the best Productboard and ProductPlan alternative.

Here are the key features of Featurebase:

  • Feedback forum with feature voting
  • Feedback collection, AI-powered analysis, prioritization, user segmentation
  • Private and public roadmaps
  • Customer surveys (like CSAT, NPS, etc.)
  • Changelogs for closing the feedback loop
  • Help Center for self-serve help
  • Custom domain & branding
  • In-app feedback widgets
  • Integrations with Jira, Linear, Intercom, etc.
  • And many other features to delight your product and development team

In the battle of Productplan vs Productboard, here's why you should consider Featurebase:

  1. We have transparent, affordable pricing plans and a generous free plan
  2. Featurebase is modern and intuitive to use while offering many more advanced features for feedback collection, changelogs, etc.
  3. Instead of just roadmaps, it combines feedback management, surveys, help centers, and changelogs into one seamlessly integrated ecosystem. For example, if customers start submitting a feature request, we show them help articles on similar topics, as it's likely their question is already answered.

All in all, as we already compared Productboard and ProductPlan with Pepsi vs Coke... πŸ₯€

...pick the RedBull and power up your product management with Featurebase. The onboarding is incredibly quick, and you can start with a free plan, so there's no downside to trying it! πŸ‘‡

Start collecting & managing product feedback with Featurebase for free β†’


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