25 Best Product Management Software For Faster Time-to-Market In 2024
10 Best Product Management Software Shortlist
Here's my pick of the 10 best software from the 25 tools reviewed.
Our one-on-one guidance will help you find the perfect fit.
As a product manager, your workload is no joke—so you need serious product management tools to match. Between the constant treadmill of backlog items to build and stakeholders to loop in, the software you use has to be reliable, versatile, and boast features so smart you'll wish you built them yourself. Using these criteria, along with my own experience as a product manager, I've tested and ranked the absolute best product management software on the market right now.
Why Trust Our Product Management Software Review
We’ve been testing and reviewing product management software since 2021. As product managers ourselves, we know how critical, and difficult it is to make the right decision when selecting software.
We invest in deep research to help our audience make better software purchasing decisions. We’ve tested more than 2,000 tools for different product management use cases and written over 1,000 comprehensive software reviews. Learn how we stay transparent & our product management software review methodology.
The Best Product Management Tools Comparison Chart
Here is a table where you can compare the tools we just covered in the overviews.
| Tools | Price | |
|---|---|---|
| ClickUp | From $7/user/month | Website |
| Wrike | From $9.80/user/month (min of 2 seats) | Website |
| UserGuiding | From $89/month (billed annually) | Website |
| Shortcut | From $8.50/user/month | Website |
| Craft.io | From $19/editor/month | Website |
| ProdPad | From $25/user/month | Website |
| monday dev | From $8/user/month | Website |
| Productive | From $9/user/month | Website |
| Confluence | From $5/user/month (billed annually) | Website |
| airfocus | From $59/editor/month | Website |
Compare Software Specs Side by Side
Use our comparison chart to review and evaluate software specs side-by-side.
Compare SoftwareHow to Choose Product Management Software
With so many different product management solutions available, it can be challenging to make decisions on what product management software is going to be the best fit for your needs.
As you're evaluating trialing, and shortlisting product management software, consider:
- What problem are you trying to solve -Start by identifying the product management feature gap you're trying to fill to clarify the features and functionality the product management software needs to provide.
- Who will need to use it - To evaluate cost and requirements, look at who'll be using the software and how many licenses or seats you’ll need. You'll also want to assess if the tool will be solely for product managers, or if more departments on your team will require access. Factor in how important ease of use, or speed of getting up and running is for your product management software users.
- What other tools it needs to work with - Determine what tools you're replacing, which tools are staying, and any existing tools you'll need to integrate with, such as communications, CRM, customer support, development or sales software. Decide if your existing tools need to integrate with your new product management tool, or alternatively, if you can replace multiple options with one consolidated product management tool.
- What outcomes are important - Factor in the result that the software needs to deliver to be considered a success. Consider what capability you want to gain, or what you want to improve, and how you will be measuring success. For example, an outcome could be the ability to get greater visibility into feature delivery timing or overall team performance. Keep the outcomes you want front of mind as you’re evaluating different options to prioritize the maximum impact for your team.
- How it would work within your organization - Account for your existing workflows and delivery methodology. Be clear on what's working well, and the areas that are causing issues that need to be addressed. Remember every team is different — don’t assume that because a product management tool is popular means it'll be a fit for your organization.
Best Product Management Software Reviews
Read more detailed information on each tool, what their standout features are and initial pricing information.
ClickUp is a product management tool that bills itself as the “one app to replace them all,” packaging tasks, docs, chat, goals, and dashboards into one solution. They are used by over 800,000 teams across companies like Samsung, Belmond, Booking.com, and IBM. Because it does so much, you might wonder about the learning curve; ClickUp has you covered with hep docs, on-demand demos, webinars, and even the “ClickUp university” to make sure you’re getting the most out of the platform.
Key product management features include task boards for product roadmaps, collaborative docs for idea sharing, spring management tools for development, and guest accounts for stakeholder access. You’ll also have access to native time tracking and workload capacity reports so you can see what each team member has on their plate in real time.
Why I Picked ClickUp: If you want to nix the digital clutter and have all workflow functionality tied to one app, then ClickUp is the way to go.
ClickUp Standout Features & Integrations
Features include task scheduling/tracking, project management, resource management, budgeting, contact management, data visualizations, employee database, expense tracking, file sharing, third-party plugins, collaboration support, timesheets, roadmapping, chat, customer management, email integration, feedback management, and process reporting.
Integrations include Slack, Google Workspace, Dropbox, and many more tools, as well as over 1,000+ integrations through Zapier.
ClickUp Pricing & Plans
ClickUp is free to use for unlimited users with some feature limitations. Paid plans cost from $5/user/month and offer a 30-day refund policy if you’re unsatisfied with the app.
Wrike is a cloud-based work management platform that helps product managers and their teams stay organized and on the same page. This comprehensive tool allows product managers to take control of their entire workflow—from planning to execution—in one place. Wrike offers a range of features to help users stay organized and efficient throughout the development process. These include task tracking, project timelines, resource allocation, and budget tracking. With these features, users can easily manage multiple projects simultaneously and ensure tasks are completed on time and within budget. Additionally, team members can collaborate by sharing files in real time using Wrike's collaboration tools.
Wrike includes several productivity features that help keep teams focused on their goals. With the Kanban board feature, users can visually track projects through different completion phases without switching between multiple views or screens. This gives them an at-a-glance view of each project's standing at any given time. Users can set up automated reminders so that tasks are noticed in the hustle and bustle of day-to-day operations. Wrike's workload view gives users a bird’s-eye view of how much work each person in the project has taken on, how the tasks are divided, and who's responsible for what. You can see upcoming due dates and project timelines at a glance, drag-and-drop tasks from one individual to another, and easily view task progress as it relates to overall workloads.
Why I Picked Wrike: Wrike provides analytics tools that give product managers full visibility of how their teams perform over time. With custom reports, users can track key performance indicators such as task completion rate, average duration per task, and resource utilization rate, allowing them to make data-driven decisions about optimizing their processes for maximum efficiency and effectiveness. Wrike also supports integration with third-party analytics platforms such as Google Analytics and Salesforce so that users can gain even more insights into their data when needed.
Wrike Standout Features & Integrations
Features include project management, task scheduling/tracking, resource management, expense tracking, API, budgeting, Gantt charts, marketing automations, collaboration support, and reporting.
Integrations include 400+ pre-built native integrations, including integrations with the most popular file management software from Microsoft, Google, and Dropbox, along with sales and marketing software from Salesforce and Marketo.
Wrike Pricing & Plans
Wrike costs from $9.80/user/month and offers a 14-day free trial.
UserGuiding is a comprehensive product adoption platform designed to enhance user experiences and onboarding processes without requiring any coding.
Why I picked UserGuiding: As a product management tool, UserGuiding is unique in that it focuses on managing the product adoption stage. Its product tours allow users to understand the value of a product through interactive walkthroughs while its onboarding checklists provide users with a clear path to follow, ensuring they complete essential tasks. The platform's segmentation feature also enables personalized content delivery.
With in-depth analytics, companies can also track user behavior, measure the effectiveness of their onboarding processes, and make data-driven decisions to enhance user adoption. The tool's ability to create and deploy in-app surveys allows for quick feedback collection, helping to refine user experiences continuously.
UserGuiding Standout Features & Integrations
Features include resource centers, NPS surveys, customization options, announcements, product updates, and hotspots.
Integrations include Slack, Zapier, Segment, Mixpanel, Google Analytics, Intercom, HubSpot, Salesforce, and Pendo.
Shortcut is a cloud-based project management platform designed to bring product and engineering teams together, offering features such as boards, reporting, roadmaps, and integrations to help teams work cross-functionally and align their work with company goals.
Why I picked Shortcut: Shortcut offers Kanban boards, which allow teams to visualize their work and track progress in real time. This feature is particularly beneficial for agile teams that need to manage their tasks efficiently and adapt quickly to changes. The sprint planning feature further supports agile methodologies by enabling teams to organize their work into manageable intervals and plan, execute, and review their tasks in iterative cycles.
Additionally, the issue tracking system in Shortcut helps teams identify, document, and resolve bugs and other issues quickly, maintaining code quality and ensuring smooth product releases. The roadmaps feature also provides a high-level view of a project’s milestones and deliverables.
Shortcut Standout Features & Integrations
Features include boards, reporting, roadmaps, cross-function collaboration, and sharing and collaborating on documents. It also offers features for automating repetitive tasks, freeing up time for teams to focus on more strategic activities.
Integrations include Slack, GitHub, GitLab, Google Drive, Dropbox, Google Calendar, Figma, Zapier, ProductBoard, Miro, Zendesk, Notion, and Box.
Shortcut Pricing & Plans
Pricing begins at $8.50/user/month. A free plan is also available.
Craft.io is an end-to-end product management platform with best practices built in. It provides product professionals with an all-in-one solution to effectively manage the entire lifecycle of their digital products, from feedback collection and feature definition to prioritization, capacity planning, road mapping, and portfolio management.
Product teams can use this tool to create a single source of truth where they can slice & dice their data to create tailored, always up-to-date roadmaps that seamlessly connect strategy to features and tell a compelling product story.
Why I Picked Craft.io: The platform is built to enable product professionals with best practices built into every step of the way. The platform can help even seasoned Product Managers create, view, update, adjust, and share the right product data more quickly and efficiently with the Guru layer. For example, pre-built templates for product epics, user personas, and prioritization frameworks can help an experienced Product Manager develop these assets in minutes—as opposed to spending hours building them manually in static files.
Craft.io Standout Features & Integrations
Features include roadmapping, Guru views, data visualization, product management, prioritization, customer management, Gantt charts, workflow management/tracking, and capacity planning.
Integrations include Jira, Azure DevOps, GitLab, GitHub, Targetprocess, Okta, Google Workspace, Active Directory, SAML, Confluence, PingIdentity, and thousands of additional applications via a paid account with Zapier.
Craft.io Pricing & Plans
Craft.io starts at $19 per editor per month when billed annually. A 14-day free trial is also available.
ProdPad is a lean product roadmap tool that keeps everyone on your team informed and aligned. Product management gurus will appreciate features such as product spec templates, annotated designs and versioning, and realistic user personas.
Some users might struggle with ProdPad’s browsing and search capabilities, which are not nearly as streamlined as they could be (good luck hunting for that “one” important item in your ideas bank). Regular clean-up and internal naming conventions can ease this pain.
Why I Picked ProdPad: ProdPad spends considerable effort on ensuring their planning, ideas, and roadmaps solutions are strong; they meet and exceed what I am looking for when I list idea capturing as a must-have in any product management tools review criteria.
ProdPad Standout Features & Integrations
Features include roadmapping, project management, task scheduling/tracking, customer management, prioritization, and notifications.
Integration include Slack, Trello, Jira, Active Directory, Azure DevOps, Confluence, Doorbell.io, Dropbox, GitHub, Google Apps, Pivotal Tracker, Rally, TFS, UserVoice, and over 1000 more options with a connection through Zapier.
ProdPad Pricing & Plans
ProdPad costs from $25/user/month and has a free 7-30 day free trial (see: their “free trial” rewards system).
monday dev is a versatile product management tool that aids product and development teams in planning, building, and launching new products.
Why I picked monday dev: I like that monday dev provides a comprehensive suite of tools that support agile methodologies. Its user-friendly interface facilitates detailed, interactive roadmaps, making it easy to track the entire product development lifecycle. The platform's drag-and-drop functionality also simplifies task organization and prioritization, milestone setting, and progress tracking, ensuring that teams can maintain full visibility and alignment throughout their projects.
monday dev also has robust visualization capabilities, including Gantt charts and Kanban boards. These tools offer multiple ways for teams to manage their work effectively, whether it's backlog and feature management or sprint planning and execution. The platform also excels in real-time collaboration and communication, enabling team members to comment on tasks, share updates, and attach relevant files directly within the interface.
monday dev Standout Features & Integrations
Features include burndown charts, automation of repetitive tasks and workflows, custom dashboards, task scheduling and tracking, resource management, and budgeting.
Integrations include Zoom, Google Drive, GitHub, Jira, Microsoft Teams, Slack, Trello, Dropbox, Asana, and more.
monday dev Pricing & Plans
Pricing starts from $8/user/month with a free trial available.
Best for project management throughout the product lifecycle
Productive is a comprehensive agency management platform designed to streamline operations for agencies of all sizes. This tool provides a single source of truth for managing projects, finances, resources, and client relationships.
Why I picked Productive: Productive is unique in that it provides project management functionalities essential for managing the lifecycle of products while also offering comprehensive features for financial, resource, and client management. This all-in-one approach makes it ideal for agencies and in-house teams that focus on all aspects of software and product development, from task assignments and collaborative document planning to allocating resources and understanding the financial impact of each project within the product development lifecycle.
Its project management features include multiple visual views, such as Gantt charts, boards, timelines, calendars, and workload charts, and its comprehensive budgeting tools allow teams to manage project costs, forecast revenues, and maintain profitability. If teams work on multiple products simultaneously, Productive also has the capacity to track progress and data for each project across the product portfolio.
Productive Standout Features & Integrations
Features include invoicing, collaborative documents, workload planning, revenue forecasting, expense approvals, multiple subsidiaries support, advanced time tracking, overhead calculation, and schedule report sending.
Integrations include Jira, Slack, QuickBooks, Xero, Trello, Zapier, Google Drive, Sage, BambooHR, Gusto, and HubSpot.
Productive Pricing & Plans
Pricing begins from $9/user/month with a free trial available.
Best for its wide variety of product collaboration templates
Confluence is a remote-friendly team workspace, project management, software development, product management, and marketing & sales management solution all rolled into one. It enables teams to create, organize, and collaborate on work in a single place, regardless of their location.
Powered by Atlassian, Confluence integrates seamlessly with Jira software and is a versatile virtual workspace that provides many features for project collaboration and knowledge management. It can serve as a single platform for product development teams and other personnel within an organization by allowing users to create a robust knowledge base for product requirements and documentation. The tool comes with advanced search and page tree functions, as well as best practice templates.
The platform’s product management module lets you keep track of everything related to your products from conception to the final launch, all in one place. With the built-in product management template, you can define, track, and scope the requirements for various products and/or features. You can also work together to capture the entire team’s high-level product roadmap, as well as prepare a product launch, document the launch strategy, and plan the launch activities.
There is also a product management template that is tailored for premortem activities. This template can be used to run a premortem session with the entire team to evaluate, identify, and plan for potential risks.
Confluence may also serve as a communication and collaboration tool for project planning and product management. Users are able to create, collaborate, and comment on different pages, project plans, and product requirements. Multiple team members and collaborators can comment on and edit project plans, product roadmaps, and requirements in real time.
Confluence is always free for up to 10 users. An Enterprise package is also available with quote-based pricing.
airfocus is the market’s first and only modular product management platform, specifically tailored for product teams to manage market-facing products, internal products, IT portfolios, and more. The flexible platform helps product teams manage strategy, understand user needs, prioritize, and align their teams around clear roadmaps.
airfocus users can set up their roadmaps quickly with the intuitive drag-and-drop interface and use the library of fully adjustable templates built on proven product management and roadmapping methods.
Why I Picked airfocus: airfocus stands out in its ability to rate and rank each initiative and feature of your product based on customizable scoring criteria that users can input themselves. This capability will uniquely service product management teams who struggle with stable priority rankings.
airfocus Standout Features & Integrations
Features include roadmapping, project management, task scheduling/tracking, customer feedback management, prioritization, and notifications.
Integrations include Slack, Zendesk, Jira, Trello, Asana, Azure DevOps, Shortcut, Microsoft Planner, GitHub, Intercom, Google Chrome, and hundreds more through Zapier.
airfocus Pricing & Plans
airfocus starts from $19/month and offers a 14-day free trial.
Related Product Management Software Reviews
If you still haven't found what you're looking for here, check out these tools closely related to product management software that we've tested and evaluated:
- Best Product Planning Software
- Best UX Design Tools
- Best Product Development Software
- Best Product Analytics Tools
- Best Idea Management Software
- Best Heatmap Software
Selection Criteria For Product Management Software
Perhaps you're wondering how I selected the best product management tools for this list? To build this top 10 list, I evaluated and compared a wide range of product development software with positive user ratings. I then further honed my list using the selection criteria below to see how each platform stacked up against the next one. I also looked at some of the common challenges in product management to pinpoint the features that add plenty of value.
Overall, selecting the right product management software requires an in-depth understanding of the software's capabilities and how they align with specific use cases.
Here’s a summary of my evaluation criteria:
Product Management Software Core Features (20% of final scoring): We test core features to see how well the software can perform the core functions and jobs to be done, required for a tool of its type. This allows us to discount and discard tools that advertise for a specific use case but don't have the functionality to back it up.
To be considered for inclusion on my list of the best product management software, the solution had to support the ability to fulfill common use cases, including:
- Roadmapping - Creating roadmaps designed to manage the entire product lifecycle.
- Collaboration - Coordinating team collaboration and facilitating communication across departments.
- Idea Management - capturing and integrating customer feedback into product planning.
- Reporting and Analytics - Providing actionable insights through comprehensive analytics.
- Task Management - Streamlining task management and workflow automation.
Additional Standout Features (20% of final scoring): We evaluate uncommon, standout features that go above and beyond the core features defined, and typically found in the category. Standout feature examples might include AI integration, advanced user analytics, or unique collaboration capabilities. A high score reflects standout features that will make work faster, more efficient, or offer additional value.
In identifying unique features and functionality, I particularly focused on:
- Advanced Integration with CRM and Sales Tools: Prioritizing seamless integration with CRM systems like Salesforce by evaluating their capability to sync product management and sales data and how the integration impacted sales metrics.
- Customizable User Interface (UI): Ensuring that tools allow modifications to layouts and views for specific team needs, and assessed user feedback on customization's impact on workflow.
- In-Depth User Behavior Analytics: Seeking out tools with comprehensive user analytics and assessing their ability to provide granular insights into user behavior to inform data-driven product decisions.
- AI-Enabled User Feedback Analysis: Investigating software that uses AI to process and analyze user feedback and exploring the effectiveness of these insights in driving product strategy and feature prioritization.
- Predictive Analytics and Forecasting: Looking for tools that provide advanced predictive models to forecast product success by analyzing historical data and market trends, validating their precision against actual outcomes.
Ease of Use (10% of final scoring): We consider how quick and easy it is for the primary user to execute the tasks defined in the core features. High-scoring software will be well designed, intuitive to use, offer mobile apps, provide templates and make relatively complex tasks seem simple.
Onboarding (10% of final scoring): We know how important rapid team adoption is for a new platform, so we evaluate how easy it is to learn and use the software with minimal training. We evaluate how quickly a team member can get set up and start using the software with no experience. High scoring software indicates little or no support is required.
Customer Support (10% of final scoring): We review how quick and easy it is to get unstuck and find help by phone, live chat, or knowledge base. Software that provides real-time support scores best, while chatbots score worst.
Integrations (10% of final scoring): We evaluate how easy it is to integrate with other tools typically found in the tech stack to expand the functionality and utility of the software. Software offering plentiful native integrations, and API access to build custom integrations, score best, those with no integrations score worst.
Customer Reviews (10% of final scoring): Beyond our own testing and evaluation, we consider the net promotor score from current and past customers. We review their likelihood, given the option, to choose the software again for the core functionality. A high scoring software reflects a high net promotor score from current or past customers.
Value For Money (10% of final scoring): Lastly, in consideration of all the other criteria, we review the average price of entry level plans against the core features and consider the value of the other evaluation criteria. Software that delivers more, for less, will score higher.
Through this holistic approach, focusing on core functionalities, standout features, usability, onboarding, customer support, value, and customer reviews, we aim to identify product management solutions that meet team needs and provide the tools they need to succeed.
Evaluation Methodology for Product Management Software
To evaluate product management software, I developed a comprehensive methodology that involved testing various tools across different use cases. Each software was assessed against a rubric covering seven critical aspects, with each criterion given a weighted score. These scores were then tallied to arrive at a final star rating for each product.
- Core Product Management Software Functionality (20% of final scoring):
- This criterion focused on essential features like roadmap planning, task management, and collaboration tools.
- I tested each software's ability to handle these core functionalities in various scenarios, from small teams to large-scale product launches.
- Additional Standout Features (20% of final scoring):
- Here, I looked for innovative features such as AI integration, advanced user analytics, or unique collaboration capabilities.
- I evaluated how these features contributed to the overall effectiveness and differentiation of the software.
- Ease of Use (10% of final scoring):
- The focus was on the user interface and overall user experience.
- I assessed how intuitive and easy it was to navigate the software, including the complexity of its features and the learning curve involved.
- Onboarding (10% of final scoring):
- I evaluated the onboarding process, including the availability and quality of training materials, templates, and interactive tours.
- The ease with which new users could start using the software effectively was a key consideration.
- Integrations (10% of final scoring):
- The ease with which new users could start using the software effectively was a key consideration.
- Customer Support (10% of final scoring):
- This involved assessing the responsiveness, availability, and helpfulness of the customer support team.
- I also looked at the variety of support channels offered, such as live chat, email, and phone support.
- Value for Money (10% of final scoring):
- I compared the pricing of the software against its feature set and performance.
- This involved considering whether the software offered a good return on investment, particularly for small to medium-sized businesses.
- Customer Reviews (10% of final scoring):
- Customer feedback from various review platforms was analyzed.
- I focused on overall satisfaction, specific praises, and common criticisms to gauge real-world user experiences.
Each software's scores in these categories were calculated based on their performance, weighted according to the importance of each criterion, and then summed to provide an overall star rating. This methodical approach ensured a balanced and comprehensive evaluation, providing clear insights into the strengths and weaknesses of each product management tool.
Trends in Product Management Software for 2024
In 2024, product management software is evolving rapidly, introducing new features that are reshaping how product managers plan, develop, and market products. These trends reflect the industry's response to the changing needs of product managers, especially focusing on customer-centric development and operational efficiency.
- AI Integration: AI-powered tools, like Zeda.io, are providing insightful customer feedback and guiding product development decisions. This trend is pivotal for creating revenue-driving product roadmaps based on customer insights and product intelligence.
- Focus on Cybersecurity: With the rise of data breaches, product managers are increasingly responsible for ensuring the cybersecurity of their products throughout their lifecycle. This trend reflects the growing concern for data security in product management.
- Emotional Intelligence in Product Management: The importance of emotional intelligence in product management is rising, focusing on empathy, team collaboration, and stakeholder management. Product management software with features like collaborative tools and feedback analysis can help foster a deeper understanding of customer and team emotions.
- Greater Emphasis on Remote Collaboration: With the rise of remote work, there's an increasing demand for features that support remote collaboration. This includes tools for virtual brainstorming, remote sprint planning, and online feedback collection, enabling teams to work effectively regardless of their location.
- Increased Focus on Sustainability: Product management tools are also starting to include features that help in planning and tracking a product's environmental impact. This trend is driven by the increasing importance of corporate responsibility and sustainability in product development.
As product management continues to evolve, these trends are not just shaping the tools and software used, but also the way people approach product development and management. Product managers must adapt to these changes by leveraging new technologies and methodologies to stay competitive and effective.
What Is Product Management Software?
Product management software is a specialized tool or suite of applications that help businesses and product teams effectively plan, develop, and manage their products throughout their lifecycle. It provides functionalities that aid in tasks such as idea generation, product planning, collaboration, communication, and tracking the progress of product development. It also serves as a central hub for product managers, designers, developers, and other stakeholders to collaborate, streamline workflows, and make informed decisions.
Product management software often includes features for roadmap planning, task management, documentation, team collaboration, and integration with other tools to streamline the overall product management process.
Features of Product Management Software
Here's a look at some of the key features of product management software. Each of these features plays a pivotal role in the successful management and execution of product-related tasks and strategies:
- Product Lifecycle Management (PLM): Manages the entire lifecycle of a product from inception to retirement. PLM features are crucial for maintaining a comprehensive view of the product's development and ensuring consistent progress through each stage.
- Idea Management: Captures and organizes ideas for product features or improvements. This feature is important for fostering innovation, enabling teams to brainstorm and prioritize ideas effectively.
- Budgeting and Financial Tools: Track and manage the financial aspects of product development. Effective budget management is key to ensuring that product launches and updates stay within financial constraints and resources are allocated efficiently.
- Compliance and Regulation Tracking: Ensures product compliance with industry standards and regulations. This feature is essential, especially in highly regulated industries, for mitigating risks and ensuring legal compliance.
- Feedback Management: Collects and organizes customer and stakeholder feedback. This feature helps in prioritizing product features and improvements based on direct user input, making the product more market-fit.
These features enhance the capabilities of product management software, ensuring that product managers have a comprehensive suite of tools to effectively plan, develop, and monitor their products.
Benefits of Product Management Software
Product management software offers a range of benefits that can help users manage a product's lifecycle both efficiently and effectively. Understanding these benefits is key to making an informed decision about which tool will be the best fit for your needs. These benefits include:
- Enhanced Collaboration: This software facilitates better teamwork and ensures that everyone is aligned with the product goals, leading to more cohesive product development.
- Data-Driven Insights: By analyzing product performance and market data, businesses can make strategic decisions that align with customer needs and market trends.
- Increased Productivity: Product management software reduces manual workloads, allowing teams to focus on more critical aspects of product development and innovation.
- Risk Management: Early identification of risks allows for proactive mitigation, reducing the likelihood of product delays or budget overruns.
- Customer-Centric Development: Integrating customer feedback directly into the development process ensures that the end product meets market demands and customer expectations.
Product management software is a pivotal tool that not only streamlines various aspects of product development but also ensures that products are developed in line with market needs and customer expectations. These benefits collectively contribute to the creation of successful products and the overall growth of an organization.
Costs & Pricing for Product Management Software
Choosing the right plan and pricing for product management software is all about finding that 'Goldilocks zone' between getting the features your product team needs at the right price point. Here's a breakdown of typical product management software plan options and the features you can typically expect from each tier:
Plan Comparison Table for Product Management Software
| Plan Type | Average Price | Best For | Common Features |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter/Basic | $0 - $15 per month | Early-stage startups working toward product-market fit | - Basic product management features - Limited projects and users - Essential collaboration tools |
| Professional | $15 - $50 per month | Growth-stage startups | - Advanced features like roadmapping - Unlimited projects - Enhanced collaboration tools, basic integrations |
| Business | $50 - $100 per month | Mature organizations, companies expanding their product portfolio | - Full feature access - Advanced analytics - Comprehensive integrations - Higher security levels |
| Enterprise | Custom Pricing | Enterprise organizations | - Custom features - Dedicated support - Advanced security - Scalability options |
| Free | $0 | Founders building their first MVPs | - Limited feature access - Suitable for small teams or individual use |
Each plan typically caters to different business needs, with more advanced features and customization options available at higher pricing tiers. Free options, while limited in functionality, usually offer a good starting point for small teams or individuals just dipping their toes into the pool of product management software options.
When considering these plans, I recommend evaluating your specific needs, such as your team size, the complexity of your products, and the integrations you'll need. Balancing these factors with your budget considerations will help you select the most appropriate plan.
Product Management Software Frequently Asked Questions
Find answers to common questions other people ask about this topic.
Why is product management important?
Product management is important because without it, there are many challenges that can kill your product and make your efforts obsolete. Examples of these challenges are:
- Struggling to keep up with technological changes
- Fierce competition
- Your industry’s boundaries keep changing
- New entrants in your market
- Outliving the novelty factor
Learn more about why product management is important and how your role as a product manager is a crucial piece to the product’s success.
What is a product roadmap used for?
Product management software is used by product teams for any or all of these product-related tasks: prototyping, defining a product roadmap, user journey mapping, user behavior research, product road mapping, feature prioritization, managing sprints, analyzing product data, process mapping, and managing product releases.
Product management software is also critical for remote product management teams who need a central place to develop and manage their products.
Product Management Software vs Project Management Software
There’s a lot of overlap in project management software and product management applications. For example, many of the best tools on this list offer modules to help with both the project management and product management process.
This means in many cases you won’t use different software—you’ll use a single tool where you’ll find project management features like resourcing, scheduling, and reporting alongside product management features like road mapping, product boards, and product diagrams. In this case, you get team management applications, project management applications, and product lifecycle management tools bundled together, or, alternatively as separate modules that you can activate as you need them.
Related Read: How To Use User Story Mapping To Improve Agile Backlog Prioritization
Can these software solutions support agile and waterfall methodologies?
Absolutely, there are tools that cater more to agile or waterfall workflows, but many modern product management software solutions are designed to be versatile enough to support both. This flexibility allows teams to choose the approach that best fits their project needs and organizational culture.
To support agile product management methodologies, tools might offer sprint planning, backlog management, and Kanban boards. These features enhance iterative development, continuous feedback, and adaptability. Meanwhile, for waterfall methodology teams, these tools offer Gantt charts, milestone tracking, and detailed project planning. This ensures projects stay on track from start to finish, regardless of the methodology used.
What is feature flagging in product management?
Feature flagging, also known as feature toggling or feature flags, is a software development and product management technique used to enable or disable certain features or functionality within a software application or product. It allows product teams to control the release and visibility of specific features to different user segments or under different conditions. This approach is particularly valuable in agile development and continuous deployment environments.
Feature flagging software provides product managers with the functionality required to control projects and de-risk feature releases.
How do these tools manage product lifecycle from ideation to retirement?
Many product management software platforms offer features that support every stage of the product lifecycle. Some might focus on one or a selection of the stages, but here are some of the tools that can be useful at each stage:
- Ideation Stage: Idea boards and prioritization matrices help organize and prioritize ideas.
- Development Stage: Task assignments and timeline tracking tools keep projects on schedule.
- Launch Stage: Integrated marketing tools and launch planners ensure a smooth rollout.
- Maturity Stage: Analytics dashboards and user feedback tools facilitate ongoing improvements.
- Retirement Stage: Workflow management systems aid in the efficient sunsetting of products.
These targeted features empower teams to navigate each phase effectively, ensuring products evolve in response to market demands and internal goals.
Can these tools help with market analysis and competitor research?
Certainly, some product management tools offer integrations with data analytics platforms and web research tools. Others have feedback collection and analytics tools built in. This means you can gather, analyze, and track market trends, customer preferences, and competitor activities directly within your product management software. By leveraging these tools, product managers can make more informed decisions, identify market opportunities, and develop strategies that are responsive to the competitive landscape.
Are there different types of product management software?
Some product management software are all-in-one suites, like several of the suites listed above. But there are also a number of great specialized tools that zero in on a particular niche within product planning, research, development, or strategy.
Here is a list of a few types of product management tools for developing, prioritizing, designing, and planning products:
- OKR Software & Tools – Develop and track objectives and key results for your product lifecycle.
- Prototyping Tools – Build product prototypes with little to no coding knowledge.
- Wireframing Tools – Wireframe an app or website with drag-and-drop functionality.
- Customer Feedback Tools – Collect customer feedback and rate it according to priority.
- Roadmap Tools – Visualize the future of your product with product roadmap tools.
- Flowchart Tools – Visualize ideas, brainstorm, or cutomer pathways using online flowcharts.
- Backlog Tools – Log, track, and manage all the backlog items for your product.
- Analytics Tools – Learn about how your poduct is perfoming in the wild to craft actionable insights.
- Product Portfolio Tools – Manage multiple ongoing product projects in one central location.
- Agile Product Management Tools – For Agile product workflows that champion speed and revision.
- Product Adoption Software – Help users and customers make the most out of your product with wikis, wizards, and walkthroughs.
What's Next?
What do you think is the best product development software, and why? How do you use user stories for product focus and feature prioritization? Do you think it’s better to use an all-in-one tool or do you prefer a collection of product development software?
Weigh in with the rest of The PM community and product experts in the comments below especially if there's a software platform that you use that we didn't include in this list!