Feature Request Software: Our Top 13 Picks for 2023

Gathering feature requests from customers is an essential part of the product development process. This is because product feature requests help your team understand what your customers want and need — allowing them to prioritize building the most important features based on insights and data. 

However, since customer feature requests are often scattered across different teams using different channels like Zendesk or HubSpot, it’s a challenge for SaaS brands to consolidate them all into one centralized place. Feature request software is the answer to this problem — and many more.

In this post, we’ll discuss the benefits of feature request software and go through the best platforms available in 2023.

Let’s get started.

What is feature request software?

Feature request software is a powerful tool that streamlines the entire feature request process from start to finish. Essentially, it provides a central place that allows you to easily track, prioritize, and implement feedback. 

The software typically comes with  integration features allowing it to  seamlessly sync  with your current tech stack. This process gathers better insights into your feature requests, like customer attributes that add more context to your requests. 

Feature request software also lets you create public or private feedback boards so you can choose the one that’s right for your company. On top of that, it allows you to close the feedback loop by contacting users about their feature requests.

Ultimately, feature request software is a smart investment for companies looking to improve their product and better serve their clients — resulting in happier customers and a more efficient product development process. 

What are the benefits of using a feature request tracker?

If your brand collects feature requests from its users, it helps guide your product decisions toward the needs of your customers. This enables your product team to prioritize what features they should build first — or the features to iterate and improve upon to better serve your customers in the long term.

Since feature request software makes it possible to streamline this process, let’s take a look at what benefits the software can bring to your company.

​​Organizing scattered feedback in one place

One of the most difficult parts of the feature request process is organizing the feedback you receive across many channels. If feedback isn’t organized — it becomes hard to manage and act upon. But manually going through emails, messages, and comments to gather feature requests is frustrating and time-consuming. With feature request software, you can collect the feedback in one place, make it easily accessible to team members, and it’s easy to keep track of who said what, and when.

This is because the software integrates with all your channels — allowing it to pull your customer feedback into it. On top of that, the software offers a customer-branded portal that customers use to provide, discuss, and track their requests — helping prevent feedback from being scattered in the first place. 

Feature request software can also organize feature requests into different categories, like the type of request such as feature improvements, new features, or urgency, ranging from high priority to nice-to-have. 

Ultimately, these organizational features prevent your feature requests from getting lost and disappointing customers.

Closing the loop by showing customers which feature requests are getting more upvotes 

The feedback loop is when you collect feedback from customers, act on it, and then communicate the process with them. It's important to close the feedback loop because it drives loyalty and grows your company — encouraging customers to keep using your product when they see their requests being implemented.

Feature request software helps close the feedback loop by providing an array of features, like voting. This allows your users to vote on requests — letting them see first-hand what your product team will prioritize building next. 

With feature request software you can also make users feel heard by providing automated personalized updates on the status of their feature requests. These updates will explain how the product has been improved, if you’ve passed on their request, or any other notable changes. 

Once the feedback loop is closed, it encourages customers to come back and provide more feature requests to improve your product.

Providing all teams with visibility into customers’ requests

It’s safe to say that for the product development process to be a success, all teams need visibility into feature requests so they can communicate back and forth about them to make better decisions. This includes your marketing, support, sales, and success teams. 

For optimum results, it’s best to use feature request software since it provides real-time visibility into all of the feature requests your company receives. This removes silos and gaps of knowledge within your organization when dealing with feedback — making it possible to sustain and scale your product. 

For instance, feature request software often comes with a changelog and product roadmap that allow you to publicly display any changes that have been made and that you plan to make to your product. 

Let’s look at a quick example of how this type of visibility benefits your business. 

Think about your sales staff. They have a deep understanding of your customers’ needs and can anticipate how they will respond to new features. This means that if they see any planned features on your product roadmap that they think aren’t aligned with your customers' wants — they can let the product team know — and the reason why.

Top factors to consider when choosing feature request software 

Here are the top factors to consider when deciding what’s the best feature request software for your business:

• Voting and prioritization system: Your software should allow users to vote on feature requests. This gives your team valuable insights into what features are most in demand and what your team should prioritize building. 
• Categorization/Tagging: Categorize your feature requests into groups with tags — keeping similar ones together. This makes it easier for your team to identify requests that are “urgent,” ”nice to have” and more — then manage them accordingly. 
• Public-Facing portal: A public-facing portal provides your customers with a place where they can not only vote and react to your feature requests — but also encourage them to create their own ideas. 
• Status update: Provide status updates so your customers can stay informed about any progress made, and even receive alerts when specific milestones are reached. 
• Duplicate detection: Your software should come with duplicate detection capabilities. These include grouping duplicate feature requests together. In addition, if a user is creating a feature request that has already been published — the software should make it available for them to vote or comment on instead.  
• Feedback loop: Your software should help you manage the customer feedback loop. This means integrating with your tech stack, tracking the progress of your feature requests, and communicating this with your customers automatically.
• Product roadmaps and changelogs: If the software you choose provides a product roadmap, this will allow your users to see how their requests fit into the larger product development plan. In a similar vein, a changelog keeps users informed of any changes made to the software, demonstrating that their feedback is heard and valued.
• Security: Provide your users with added layers of protection, such as multi-factor authentication and secure data encryption to ensure sensitive information is kept secure. 
• Support and reliability: Upgrades and bug fixes make sure your feature request process always runs smoothly. In addition, your software should provide top-tier support to resolve any problems that may arise.
• Cost: Ideally, your budget should depend on the features your company needs. Keep in mind it’s important not to sacrifice functionality or ease of use for the sake of cost savings. 

Top 13 feature request trackers

Let’s take a look at the top 13 feature request trackers on the market that you can choose from:

Bettermode

Bettermode is an all-in-one community engagement platform that serves over 2,000 companies. It comes with pre-built templates that help you build a powerful community. One of these includes the Ideas Space template. It allows brands to gather feature requests to get ideas for their product development process. Let’s take a look at it in more detail:

Bettermode’s Ideas Space Template

With Bettermode’s Ideas Space template, your users can post feature requests — along with replying and reacting to them.  

The template also comes with a voting feature that allows your users to vote for their favorite feature requests — helping prioritize the most popular requests for your product.

It comes with customization options that allow you to enable the board, make it public or private, and more. In addition, you can also assign who can access the board, like your customers, admins, and team members.

Bettermode’s Ideas Space template works great in conjunction with three more of its Spaces — that together close the feedback loop. Let's take a look at them in more detail: 

Changelog

Bettermode’s Changelog Space documents all the changes you’ve made to your product. Your members can access it at any time to find the information they need.

With this space, the settings will automatically be set so that only admins and employees can post. But at the same time, it lets your users view and react to its published content.

Product updates 

Bettermode’s Product updates Space allows you to share notable updates about your product in detail — even providing a walk-through video that shows your customers how to use your new feature.

You can change the viewing style of the Space to Card, Gallery, List, or Carousel — depending on what you think will provide a better experience for your customers.

Product roadmap 

Bettermode’s Product RoadmapSpace is built with a three-column container layout. This layout is perfect for providing your customers with a high-level visual summary of the direction of your product — and the feature requests you plan to build. 

💡Top Tip: Since Bettermode lets you completely customize the layout and design of its Spaces — you can easily create a different layout for your roadmap that’s better suited to your product’s visual timeline.

Jira 

An Atlassian product that powers collaboration, Jira comes with a variety of feature request tools. These enable companies to funnel their feature requests from channels like Slack, email, Microsoft Teams, and more into one centralized place. 

The platform also comes with features that allow your users to view feedback boards and upvote feature requests without having to log in. 

Jira provides templates — including a Kanban board template. One of the advantages of using a Kanban board is transparency — since all users can see what’s happening in your feature requests process. 

You can also customize Jira’s templates so they align with your branding and product. 

Best for: Companies that also need bug reports and issue tracking

Features:

• Create and customize a forum for feature requests 
• Kanban boards 
• Good support materials 
• Pre-configured Jira templates

Cons: User interface could be smoother 

Pricing: Pricing is free for up to 10 users and the paid plan starts from $7.75 per user

Feature Upvote

Feature Upvote is an easy-to-use feedback board software that allows you to collect feature requests from your customers and internal teams.

The platform lets brands create both public and private feedback boards. At the same time, it comes with additional features that enable its users to create branded feedback boards.

With the software, you have the option to invite only specific customers or team members to boards. This comes in useful if your company has multiple products that each need separate feedback.

Feature Upvote provides the ability to prioritize the most popular feedback by moving it to the top of the board so users will notice it. You can also categorize requests into done, planned, not planned, or under construction. 

Best for: Brands that don’t want a lot of extra features 

Features:

• Can choose from 10 languages to build your product idea board 
• Boards are mobile friendly 
• Users don’t have to log in to leave feedback 
• Integrates with Slack, Microsoft Teams, and more 

Cons: No changelog or roadmap features 

Pricing: Comes with a 30-day free trial and the paid plans start from $49 per month

Canny

Canny is a customer-facing feedback forum with many features that allow you to collect, organize, track, and analyze your feedback requests. 

Some of these features include building a feedback board, having the option to choose whether your users need to log in to leave feedback, and more.

The platform also lets you pull in feature requests from various channels and organizes them in one place. This is done by integrating with your current tech stack, like CRM and customer support tools. 

It also avoids duplicate requests by offering users similar suggestions as they type their feature request into a search box. The platform comes with features that allow you to create roadmaps, release notes, changelogs, and more. 

Best for: Small to large businesses

Features:

• Automated updates 
• Embed feedback board into web pages or app
• Users can upvote
• Create roadmaps

Cons: Admin view can feel cluttered 

Pricing: Pricing is free with limited features and the paid plan starts from $360 per month

Savio

Savio is a product feedback management platform. It has features that allow you to prioritize your customers’ feature requests by sorting them using data. This type of data includes opportunity revenue and total revenue. 

The platform also helps teams close the loop by providing a "close the loop" email template that you can send to your users when a feature has launched. 

Their roadmaps link to customer evidence like total revenue and the number of requests. This helps increase the chance of getting buy-in from your stakeholders on your product's most significant opportunities.

Best for: B2B SaaS customer success teams

Features:

• Native integrations
• Segment users based on attributes imported from Intercom or Segment
• Prioritize high priority low effort features 
• Adjust the status of your feature requests for teams and customers to see 

Cons: The search bar on the web app could be improved

Pricing: Pricing starts from $39 per month

Rapidr

Rapidr is a customer feedback tool. It helps its customers build high-quality products with feature requests that have been gathered from emails, spreadsheets, Slack, and more. Along with that, you can analyze your feedback to identify the top feature requests you should implement. The platform also makes it possible to inform your customer about the progress of their feature request by updating its status.

Rapidr comes with features that enable specific end users and teams to share feedback privately.

The platform offers roadmaps — enabling you to visually layout milestones and clarify your product strategy.

Best for: Product teams

Features:

• Voting boards 
• Customer feedback portal 
• Build and share a roadmap 
• Custom domain

Cons: Can be expensive 

Pricing: Prices start from $49 per month

Sleekplan

Sleekplan is an all-in-one user feedback tool. It comes with feature voting boards that allow your team to understand what your customers want and need. Additionally, the platform handles the whole feedback loop from start to finish — from collection to updating users on the product development process. 

They offer the option to build a changelog for your customers. This keeps them informed on any notable changes made to your product — reducing confusion and fostering strong relationships. Sleekplan also has features that let you schedule updates to your changelog. 

The software comes with a widget that you can embed into your website or app to collect feedback from your user base. This widget can be both opened and closed to provide a better user experience for your customers.

Best for: SaaS companies 

Features:

• Roadmaps
• Changelog
• Embeddable widget 
• Satisfaction surveys

Cons: Can take a substantial amount of time to set up for new users 

Pricing: Pricing is free with limited features and the paid plan starts from $15 per month

Hellonext

Hellonext is a customer feedback tool that has many features. It allows you to create multiple product roadmaps — a standout component if you have more than one product. 

Moreover, it lets you pin certain posts to the top of your product feedback board to ensure they grab your users' attention.

The platform also helps you manage duplicate feature requests by merging them together. In addition, Hellonext is always expanding and releases new features fortnightly.

Best for: Companies that want to create multiple roadmaps

Features:

• Feedback widget that can be embedded in-app
• Automatically publish roadmaps 
• Users can react to feature requests 
• Light and dark mode 

Cons: Limited features compared to other platforms 

Pricing: Pricing is free with limited features and the paid plan starts from $65 per month

Roadmap

A feedback-driven product management software, Roadmap pulls in all of your feature requests and organizes them in a collaborative feedback inbox that your users always have access to.

Team members can add new feedback directly to Roadmap themselves — ensuring no feature request falls through the cracks. The platform also makes a profile page for every user that submits or engages with your feature requests that your team can review to learn more about them.

The platform lets you create an ideas backlog. This ensures that you always have new feature requests ready to work on once the time is right to implement them.

Best for: Brands focused on building interactive private and public roadmaps 

Features:

• Integrations 
• Private and public roadmaps 
• Feedback widget 
• Track unique data that’s relevant to your product and customers 

Cons: Some users don’t like the pricing plans

Pricing: Prices start from $19 per month

Trello

Acquired by Atlassian, Trello is a collaboration and project management tool.

It comes with an array of features that make it useful for managing feature requests. These features include customizable boards that contain cards. Customizing these boards is how you can organize your feature requests within Trello. For example, you can create a column that displays “in progress feature requests” and a card for each feature request that contains information about them. 

You can make private boards that are invite-only or public boards that anyone on the internet can have access — if they have the board link. 

Keep in mind that with public boards, users can only view your feature requests. They cannot add new ones unless you make them board members, but this means they can also edit all the board’s content — which may not be a suitable option for all brands.

Best for: Brands with small teams or startups

Features:

• Pubic and private boards 
• Easy to use 
• Customers can submit feature requests by email 
• Users can leave comments and upvote cards 

Cons: Limited features 

Pricing: Pricing is free with limited features and the paid plan starts from $5 per month

UserVoice

UserVoice is user feedback software. It comes with a robust set of features that make it ideal for companies that have large teams that require a lot of features. 

The platform offers feedback analytics that helps you prioritize and make the best product decisions for your company and customers. These types of analytics include ideas created, votes on ideas, comments on ideas, and more. 

UserVoice also allows you to send emails to your customers and ask them to provide their feedback on a feature. This shows you listen to your customers, their opinions matter, and your company values them.

It also comes with customizable reports that all stakeholders can access.

Best for: Large companies 

Features:

• Out-of-the-box integrations
• Update customers on the status of their feedback request 
• Branded feedback portal 
• Build and customize roadmaps 

Cons: Can be slow when using certain features

Pricing: Comes with a 21-day free trial and the paid plan starts from $799 per month

Usersnap

Usersnap is a user feedback software with over one million monthly users. The platform allows your team to follow up with customers and ask them questions about their feature requests. 

You can also send them different types of surveys to request their feedback about certain features. This includes a multiple-choice survey that’s easy for customers to complete and your team to analyze.

Usersnap’s standout feature is that it lets users create video captures and annotate screenshots to send to your team in their feature requests. This can be very helpful for teams when they want to better understand feature requests.

The platform also comes with voting functionality and bug-tracking features. This includes a customizable widget that allows users to report any bugs or issues. 

Best for: Brands with a lot of employees that want to scale 

Features:

• Customize branding of widgets 
• Over 2000 integrations
• Create public and private boards 
• Video captures and screenshots in feature requests

Cons: Doesn’t hide personal details in video recordings 

Pricing: Pricing starts from $69 per month

Productboard

A suite of project management software tools, Productboard is used by over 6000 companies. It comes with strong roadmap features, including roadmap templates that can be customized — ensuring they better align with your brand’s objectives.

It also offers detailed user insights that allow you to segment and filter your customers. This includes trending feature requests and creating a user impact score to work out which feature is right for your business.

Productboard also offers AI-powered features, like the ability to summarize the topic of multiple feature requests — saving your team members time and enabling them to deliver on requests faster.

Best for: Companies with a larger budget 

Features:

• Segment customers 
• Protects your data by regularly auditing their applications, systems, and networks to ensure security 
• Has at least a 99% uptime 
• Pre-built templates

Cons: Some users feel that there are too many features they don’t need

Pricing: Comes with a 15-day free trial and the paid plan starts from $20 per month

Conclusion

It’s essential for SaaS brands of all sizes to have a feature request tool that manages their customer feature request process. It should collect and organize your feature requests — and use this data to make more informed decisions about product development. 

There's a great range of options out there to choose from — some that are free with limited features and others that have paid plans and provide a robust set of features. 

Take the time to evaluate the features your brand needs and if they align with your company’s objectives — and then choose the one that's best for your business. This will ensure you keep on top of your customer base's needs and develop products that truly go above and beyond their expectations.

FAQ

How do you prioritize feature requests?

It's critical to prioritize feature requests in a way that maximizes profitability while minimizing costs and strain on your devs. This can be a difficult balancing act, but considering factors like customer demand, revenue potential, and available resources, you can ensure that your team only builds customer-centric features. Equally, it's important to keep in mind that not all requests are created equal. Some may have a higher priority than others based on their potential impact on the bottom line. It's vital to assess the impact each feature would have on your business and how many users it would benefit.

When should a feature request be created?

When is the best time to create a feature request? The answer is that it depends on the circumstances. If a feature is missing that is critical to the functionality of your product, then a request should be made as soon as possible. However, if the feature is not essential and can wait until a later time, it may be best to hold off on the request. No matter how small or simple the request may be, it's important that your customers know that the development team has limited resources. Therefore, users should ensure that their requests are well-thought-out and necessary.