Canny made feature voting normal. Customers post an idea, others vote, and you get a ranked list instead of a pile of Slack messages. So why do small SaaS teams go looking for a Canny alternative? Usually the price jump after the free plan, or the feeling that feedback shouldn’t live apart from the support conversations it came from.
Here are five alternatives, what they cost and who each one suits. Every price is from the company’s own pricing page.
What Canny costs
Canny is free for up to 25 tracked users. Pro starts at $79 a month billed yearly, or $99 monthly, for 100 tracked users, and Business is priced on request. Its Autopilot features, on every plan, pull feedback out of support and sales conversations, remove duplicates and summarise comments.
The catch for a growing SaaS is that pricing rises with tracked users, so a busy board pushes you up the tiers quickly. And Canny focuses on feedback, the roadmap and the changelog. There’s no support inbox or help centre, so the conversations behind each request live in another tool.
The alternatives at a glance
| Tool | Lowest paid plan | Priced by | Also includes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rectify | $29 a month | Plan (3 seats) | Support inbox, help centre, replay, uptime, AI teammate |
| Featurebase | $37 a seat a month ($29 yearly) | Seat | Helpdesk, help centre, surveys |
| Frill | $25 a month | Plan (50 active ideas) | Announcements, surveys |
| Sleekplan | $13 a month, billed yearly | Plan (3 seats) | Changelog, NPS and CSAT |
| Productboard | On request | Maker | Product management and planning |
1. Rectify: feedback that stays connected
Rectify’s public boards do what you’d expect from Canny: customers post ideas and vote, you set statuses, and the roadmap moves the moment you do. It catches duplicates before they’re posted, tags and summarises requests with AI, and tells every follower when their idea ships, in a changelog entry that names what they asked for.
The difference is everything around the board. Each request is tied to the evidence behind it: the support chats, bug reports and session replays where customers raised it. Your AI teammate, Quanta, can read all of it and answer “what are paying customers asking for most?” in plain English. The same workspace runs your support inbox, help centre and uptime monitoring.
Price: per plan, not per tracked user. Free to start, then $29 a month for 3 seats, $59 for 10, $99 for 25.
Pick it if you want requests and the conversations behind them in one place. See the feature requests and roadmap page, or Rectify vs Canny side by side.
2. Featurebase: Canny’s closest rival
Featurebase covers feedback boards, roadmaps and a changelog, then adds a helpdesk with live chat, email and an AI agent. It can sync revenue data, so you can rank requests by what the customers asking for them pay. Growth is $37 a seat a month, or $29 billed yearly; the AI agent costs $0.49 per resolution.
Pick it if you want a feedback tool with support attached, priced per seat. Compared in detail in Rectify vs Featurebase.
3. Frill: simple and pretty
Frill keeps things tidy: ideas, a roadmap and announcements, with unlimited admins and unlimited widgets on every paid plan. Startup is $25 a month for up to 50 active ideas and one survey. Business is $49 with unlimited ideas, Growth $149 adds white labelling and privacy options, and Enterprise is $349.
Pick it if you want a clean board quickly and don’t need much else.
4. Sleekplan: the budget option
Sleekplan has a genuinely free plan, Indie, with a feedback board, changelog and announcements for a single admin. Starter is $13 a month billed yearly for 3 team seats and adds CSAT and NPS, AI credits and SSO. Business is $38 a month billed yearly for 10 seats, with surveys, a custom domain and no Sleekplan branding.
Pick it if you want voting, a changelog and NPS for very little money.
5. Productboard: for product managers
Productboard is a product management system first: feedback portals, roadmaps in timeline and column views, release planning and an AI assistant called Spark. Pricing isn’t published; the Business plan is sold through a demo and includes 25 contributors and 2 product portals.
Pick it if you have dedicated product managers and a planning process to match. For a founder-led team, it’s more than you need.
How to choose
- You just want a voting board. Sleekplan or Frill, and keep it simple.
- Your board is busy and Canny’s tracked-user pricing hurts. Anything priced per plan or seat: Rectify, Frill, Sleekplan or Featurebase.
- Requests mostly arrive through support. Rectify or Featurebase, so the conversation and the request stay linked.
- You run a product org with PMs. Productboard.
Moving off Canny
- Export your posts, votes and comments from Canny, and check how your new tool imports them before you switch.
- Recreate your statuses and tags first, so imported ideas land in the right place.
- Swap the widget or portal link in your product and emails.
- Post a short changelog entry announcing the new board (our release notes template helps). Customers who followed ideas will want to know where they went.
Questions founders ask
Is there a free Canny alternative?
Yes. Sleekplan’s Indie plan is free with a feedback board and changelog for one admin, and Rectify’s Idea plan is free with a roadmap, changelog, status page and support inbox. Canny itself is free for up to 25 tracked users.
What’s the difference between a feedback board and a roadmap?
A feedback board is where customers post and vote on ideas. A roadmap shows what you’ve decided to build and where it’s up to. Most tools here link the two, so an idea moves from the board onto the roadmap and its voters hear when it ships.
Prices and features are taken from each company’s own pricing page: Canny, Rectify, Featurebase, Frill, Sleekplan and Productboard. Prices change, so check theirs before you decide.
Close the loop
A voting board is only half the job. The other half is telling people when their idea ships. Hire Rectify free and Quanta does both.
