How to Collect and Prioritize Feature Requests for a SaaS Product

If you’re building a SaaS product, feedback shows up faster than you expect.

It starts innocently. A couple of emails. A support ticket here and there. Maybe a message on Twitter or a quick Slack note. At first, it feels encouraging. People care enough to share ideas.

Then one day you realize the same feature request has been mentioned three different times, in three different places, and you still don’t know if it actually matters.

That’s usually the moment things start to feel messy.

This article walks through a simple, practical way to collect and prioritize feature requests for a SaaS product, without surveys, complex frameworks, or enterprise-level overhead.

Why feature requests get out of control so quickly

Most SaaS teams begin in the same way. Feedback comes in wherever users already are. Emails, support conversations, chat tools, social media, internal notes. When you only have a handful of users, this is manageable.

Once your product grows even a little, things change.

With more users, more channels, and more people involved in product decisions, visibility disappears. You lose track of which features are requested repeatedly, who asked for what, and which ideas are genuinely important versus simply loud.

At that point, product decisions stop being driven by insight and start being driven by whoever spoke most recently.

Common mistakes teams make with feature requests

Before talking about what works, it’s worth being honest about what usually doesn’t.

One common mistake is using surveys to collect feature requests. Surveys work well for measuring satisfaction or gathering broad feedback, but they fall apart when used for ongoing product ideas. Users can’t see what’s already been suggested, there’s no way to vote or prioritize, and the results become outdated almost immediately. Feature requests aren’t a one-time question. They’re an ongoing conversation.

Another mistake is relying on spreadsheets. They feel simple at first, but they quickly turn into internal to-do lists. There’s no user context, no transparency, and no way to keep customers informed. Over time, they become a dumping ground rather than a decision-making tool.

Then there’s the most dangerous mistake of all: building what the loudest users ask for. When feedback isn’t centralized, it’s natural to prioritize the biggest customer, the angriest message, or the last conversation you remember. That approach almost always leads to biased decisions and features that only a small group actually wants.

What a good feature request system should do

A solid system for managing feature requests doesn’t need to be complex, but it does need to cover a few essentials.

First, all feedback should live in one place. When ideas are scattered across tools, you never see the full picture.

Second, users should be able to vote. Voting isn’t perfect, but it turns opinions into data and helps patterns emerge naturally.

Third, there needs to be context. Knowing who requested something and why often matters as much as the number of votes.

Finally, the loop has to be closed. Users should be able to see when ideas are being reviewed, planned, or released. When feedback disappears into silence, trust erodes quickly.

If a system misses any of these pieces, it eventually breaks down.

A simple way to collect feature requests

For most SaaS teams, especially indie founders and small product teams, the simplest setup works best.

Start by giving users a single public place to submit ideas. Instead of asking them to email feature requests or drop them into chat, guide everything to one shared space. Users can browse existing ideas, avoid duplicates, and upvote what matters to them.

This alone removes a surprising amount of noise. It also sets expectations. Users know where feedback goes and that it won’t vanish into a black hole.

Why voting works better than guessing

Votes shouldn’t replace product judgment, but they’re incredibly helpful.

They make it easier to spot patterns, understand demand across your user base, and justify decisions internally. Instead of saying “a few people asked for this,” you can point to a clear signal and say, “this has been requested by dozens of users.”

That’s a much stronger foundation for product decisions than reacting to whoever shouts the loudest.

Transparency matters more than you think

Feature requests shouldn’t disappear after they’re submitted.

When users can see statuses like “under review,” “planned,” or “in progress,” something important happens. They stop asking for constant updates. They feel heard, even if a feature isn’t built right away.

Transparency reduces frustration, lowers churn caused by silence, and builds long-term trust with your users.

How to prioritize without overthinking it

Votes alone aren’t enough. Prioritization isn’t about democracy, it’s about making informed trade-offs.

A simple approach works well for most teams. Look at how many users want a feature, how much impact it would have if shipped, and how difficult it is to build. You don’t need complex scoring models early on.

The real advantage comes from having feedback that’s visible and structured. When everything is in one place, combining votes, context, and product intuition becomes much easier.

Do you need a dedicated feature request tool?

If product feedback is important to your roadmap, the answer is usually yes.

A dedicated tool helps centralize requests, collect votes automatically, keep users informed, and avoid building internal systems you’ll eventually abandon. The key is choosing something that matches your stage.

Many tools are designed for large enterprise teams and come with complex workflows, per-seat pricing, and features you may never need. For indie founders and small SaaS teams, simplicity often matters more than power.

Keeping things simple as you grow

Tools like fdback.io are built specifically for product-led teams that want a straightforward way to manage feature requests.

Instead of juggling surveys or spreadsheets, you get a public feedback board, voting, a simple roadmap, and changelogs to keep users in the loop. The focus isn’t on process for the sake of process, but on making better product decisions with less effort.

Start collecting feature requests the right way

If feedback is already coming in from everywhere, the hardest part isn’t getting ideas. It’s keeping them organized.

Centralizing feature requests early saves you from painful cleanup later. It helps you build what users actually want, communicate more clearly, and move faster with confidence.

When feedback stops being noise and starts becoming a signal, product decisions get a lot easier.