Best Productboard Alternative in 2026 — Same Features, 90% Less Cost
Need a Productboard alternative? fdback has feedback boards, roadmaps, and AI — without per-maker pricing.
Fdback.io
CEO & Founder
Looking for a Productboard Alternative? Let's Talk Numbers.
Productboard is a solid product management tool. It's been around since 2014, raised over $125 million in funding, and serves some big names.
But here's what nobody tells you during the sales demo: the pricing model is designed for enterprises with deep pockets, not growing teams trying to stay lean.
If you're reading this, you're probably experiencing one of these:
The budget shock — $59/maker/month sounds manageable until you realize your 10-person product team costs $7,080/year. And that's before the 5% annual increases.
The "maker" trap — Only some roles are free. Anyone who actually needs to do work? That's a paid seat.
The AI upsell — Want the AI features everyone's talking about? That's another $20/maker/month on top.
The setup marathon — Your team spent weeks in "implementation" instead of talking to customers.
Productboard was built for enterprise product orgs with procurement departments. If you're a startup or a growing SaaS team, there's a simpler way.
Why People Leave Productboard
The Per-Maker Pricing Adds Up Fast
Let's do the math that Productboard's pricing page doesn't make obvious.
A 20-person product team on the Pro plan ($59/maker/month):
Monthly: $1,180
Yearly: $14,160
After 3 years with 5% increases: ~$16,400/year
And that's just for the core product. Want AI-powered insights? Add $20/maker/month. Now you're looking at $18,960/year for a 20-person team.
Some teams report paying $70,000-$100,000 annually once they scale up. For a feedback and roadmap tool.
The Free Plan Is a Demo, Not a Plan
Productboard's "Starter" plan is technically free, but look at the limits:
50 feedback notes (that's nothing)
1 Teamspace
1 Objective
1 Product Portal
You'll hit those limits in your first week. It's a trial dressed up as a free tier.
Feature Gating Gets Frustrating
Want unlimited feedback notes? Pro plan ($59/maker).
Want more than 2 Insights automations? Pro plan.
Want SAML SSO? Enterprise (custom pricing, sales call required).
Want the Salesforce integration? Enterprise only.
Every time you need something reasonable, you're pushed to a higher tier. It's death by upgrade prompts.
The Learning Curve Is Brutal
I've talked to teams who spent months getting Productboard "set up properly." They hired consultants. They ran internal training sessions. They built documentation about how to use their documentation tool.
If your feedback tool needs an implementation team, something's wrong.
fdback: The Productboard Alternative Built for Growing Teams
We built fdback because we were tired of paying enterprise prices for features we'd never use.
No Per-User Pricing. Ever.
This is the big one.
fdback doesn't charge per user, per maker, per seat, or per whatever creative term pricing teams invent. Your whole team can access the tool without someone doing spreadsheet math every time you hire.
10 people? Same price. 50 people? Same price.
A Free Plan That's Actually Usable
Not 50 feedback notes. Not a 14-day trial.
One workspace, unlimited feedback, all features. Use it for as long as you want. We make money when you need multiple workspaces or advanced features, not by gating basic functionality.
AI That's Included, Not Upsold
Productboard charges $20/maker/month extra for AI features. For a 20-person team, that's $4,800/year just for the AI add-on.
fdback includes AI in every plan:
Duplicate detection — Catches "dark mode please" post #47 before it's submitted
Auto-tagging — Categorizes feedback so you don't have to
Smart summaries — See what users actually want without reading 500 posts
Spam filtering — Keeps the junk out automatically
No add-on pricing. No feature gates. It just works.
Three Tabs Instead of Thirty
Feedback — Users submit ideas, vote, and discuss. You see what matters.
Roadmap — Drag cards between columns. Public or private, your choice.
Changelog — Ship something, write an update, close the loop with everyone who asked.
That's the whole product. No strategic initiatives, no OKRs, no capability matrices, no portfolio views. Just the feedback loop that actually moves products forward.
Setup Takes Minutes, Not Months
Here's the fdback onboarding:
Sign up (email or Google)
Name your workspace
Share the link with users
That's it. No implementation calls, no training sessions, no configuration consultants. Most teams are collecting feedback within 20 minutes.
Integrations for Modern Teams
Slack — Notifications, or turn any message into feedback with "Send to Scout"
Discord — Push updates to your community automatically
Linear — Create tasks from feedback, sync status both ways
Webhooks — Connect to everything else
App Store & Play Store — Automatically imports reviews and turns them into actionable feedback
Productboard has more integrations, but half of them are enterprise tools you've never heard of. We focused on what startups and SaaS teams actually use.
The Price Difference Is Significant
Let's put the numbers side by side:
Productboard | fdback | |
|---|---|---|
Starting price | $19/maker/month | Free |
Full features | $59/maker/month | Free |
10-person team | $590/month ($7,080/year) | $0 |
20-person team | $1,180/month ($14,160/year) | $0 |
AI features | +$20/maker/month | Included |
Free plan limits | 50 feedback notes | Unlimited |
Annual price increases | 5% automatic | No |
Setup time | Weeks to months | Minutes |
A 20-person team switching from Productboard Pro to fdback saves roughly $14,000+ per year. With AI add-ons, that number gets closer to $19,000.
That's not a rounding error. That's a developer salary.
What Productboard Does Better
I'll be honest — Productboard isn't a bad product. It's just built for different teams.
If you need:
Deep Salesforce integration — Enterprise plan has it, we don't
SCIM provisioning and audit logs — Enterprise compliance stuff
Strategic planning and OKR alignment — Built into their workflow
Dedicated customer success manager — Comes with enterprise pricing
Productboard is genuinely good at serving large enterprise product orgs with complex needs and big budgets.
But if you're a startup, a SaaS team trying to stay lean, or anyone who thinks $14,000/year for a feedback tool is absurd? You don't need all that.
Comparing Other Tools?
We've written similar breakdowns:
Canny Alternative — Per-user pricing that scales poorly
Aha! Alternative — Enterprise complexity you probably don't need
UserVoice Alternative — Starting at $4,000/year minimum
Nolt Alternative — No free plan, limited features
Try It Before You Commit
Here's my suggestion:
Sign up for free — 2 minutes, no credit card, no sales call
Import your existing feedback — We can help migrate from Productboard
Use it for a month — See if your team actually needs the enterprise features or if the simple approach works better
The best feedback tool is the one your team uses daily. For most teams, that's not the one with 47 features — it's the one that gets out of the way.
