The Ultimate List of Best Idea Tracking Tools for SaaS

Customer feedback and suggestions are vital for company success. They provide valuable insights into customer needs, preferences, and challenges, allowing businesses to enhance the value of what they offer to users. Yet, gathering and handling feedback can be time-consuming, especially with a large customer base. That's where the practice of idea tracking comes in.

You can run the process manually – the oldschool way, or you can use dedicated innovation management tools to do the job. Idea-tracking tools come in different shapes and sizes, ranging from simple feedback forms to complex software applications. They offer various features and functionalities, such as real-time feedback collection, idea voting and commenting, analytics and reporting, and integration with other workflow apps. All these features are suitable for different types of teams with their unique internal processes and structures. But before we further dive into tools, let’s get familiar with the concept first. 

What is Idea Tracking?

Idea tracking is the process of recording and managing ideas to bring them to fruition. It involves keeping track of ideas as they arise, evaluating their potential, and prioritizing them for implementation. Idea tracking tools are essential for individuals and teams looking to streamline their idea management process and bring their best ideas to life.

Why is Idea Tracking Important?

• Idea tracking helps to capture all ideas, big and small before they slip away and are forgotten.
• It allows for the evaluation of ideas based on their potential impact, feasibility, and alignment with business goals.
• By prioritizing ideas, teams can focus their efforts on those that are most likely to succeed and provide the greatest value.
• It promotes collaboration and transparency, allowing team members to contribute and provide feedback on each other's ideas.
• A good idea-tracking tool provides a centralized location for idea storage and management, making it easy to track progress and revisit ideas at a later time.

How to Select the Right Idea Tracking Tool

Choosing the right idea-tracking tool is essential for any startup that wants to grow and succeed. Here are some tips to help you select the right tool:

• Consider your specific needs and goals for idea tracking.
• Research and compare different tools based on features, pricing, and customer reviews.
• Choose a tool that fits your budget and offers the features you need.
• Look for a tool that is user-friendly and easy to navigate.
• Consider the level of customization and integration options offered by the tool.
• Ensure that the tool you choose has a reliable support team to help you with any issues or questions.
• Test out a few different tools before making a final decision.

List of Top 10 Idea Tracking Tools

If you’re on the lookout for the best idea-tracking tool for your business or personal use? Look no further as we have done the research for you! We have carefully selected the top 10 idea-tracking tools that will help you do the job without any extra effort. So without further ado, let’s dive in.

Introducing FeedBear: The Ultimate Idea Tracking Tool for Streamlined Product Development

Are you in need of the perfect idea-tracking tool to optimize your product development process? Look no further than FeedBear – an exceptional and cost-effective solution engineered to transform the way teams collect and utilize customer feedback.

FeedBear recognizes the significance of a streamlined and effective idea-tracking process, without compromising on functionality. That's why we've developed a tool that is not only user-friendly and intuitive but also loaded with powerful features. With FeedBear, your team can effortlessly gather, analyze, and address critical customer requests, driving product enhancements and ensuring customer satisfaction.

Here's why FeedBear stands out as the best idea-tracking tool:

Easy Idea Collection

With FeedBear, collecting customer ideas becomes a breeze. You can create multiple idea boards to collect feedback, feature requests, and bug reports directly from your customers. FeedBear also allows your users to comments and voting to boost collaboration and prioritize the most impactful changes.

Actionable Product Roadmap

FeedBear acts as a centralized hub for both your team and customers, enabling seamless collaboration. Engage your customers by sharing your roadmap, actively listening to their feedback, and cultivating a sense of community. Encourage discussions to uncover the genuine problems and needs your customers have, empowering you to make informed decisions.

Visualize your product roadmap with a Kanban-style view, tailored to effectively communicate your goals. Keep track of planned, in-progress, and completed ideas, ensuring team alignment and providing clear progress updates to your customers. With FeedBear, you retain complete control over the development process.

AI Powered Changelog

Keep your customers informed about new features and releases using FeedBear's integrated changelog feature. Close the feedback loop by generating excitement and ensuring that your customers are aware of the latest additions to your product. By actively involving customers in the process, you'll enhance retention rates and overall satisfaction.

Seamless Integrations

FeedBear seamlessly integrates with popular tools like Trello, Jira, Intercom, Slack, and Zapier. Incorporate FeedBear into your existing workflow effortlessly, enabling a smooth and efficient collaboration experience. No need to disrupt your established processes.

Simple and Customizable Design

FeedBear prioritizes simplicity. Our tool offers a user-friendly interface that is easy to navigate, even for users with minimal experience. Customize the design to match your branding and seamlessly embed your roadmap on your domain, website, or within your application.

Affordable Pricing Plans

Forget about complex pricing structures. FeedBear provides straightforward pricing plans that cover your entire team. Our Startup plan starts at just $49 per month for up to 3 team members, while our Business plan accommodates larger teams with unlimited members starting at $99 per month. Enjoy a wide range of features, seamless integrations, and incredible value for your investment.

Ready to unlock the complete potential of your customer feedback? Join the FeedBear family and never miss any idea again.

Brightidea

Brightidea is a tool designed for innovation teams to manage and track ideas in a streamlined manner. With this tool, users can create branded web portals, mobile apps, email campaigns, paper forms, or voice skills to gather ideas from anyone, anywhere. It also allows users to evaluate and prioritize ideas based on custom criteria, collaborate on solutions, and track outcomes for successful project execution. 

Core Features:

• Brightidea offers a centralized platform for collecting and organizing ideas.
• The software provides various tools, such as idea boards, filters, and tags, for visualizing and sorting ideas.
• Organizations can launch targeted idea campaigns with defined scopes, problem statements, evaluation criteria, and rewards.
• Brightidea enables organizations to create and manage innovation projects with clear goals, timelines, budgets, and deliverables.
• The software provides tools, such as surveys, forums, commenting, and ranking features, for collecting feedback from customers, employees, partners, etc.
• Organizations can source ideas from both internal and external sources using idea campaigns, suggestion boxes, hackathons, incubator programs, etc.
• Brightidea can integrate with various tools and platforms, such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, Salesforce, Jira, Zapier, etc.
• The software provides capable analytics tools to measure the impact of innovation initiatives on various metrics, such as ROI, engagement, participation, quality, diversity, etc.

Pricing Information

Brightidea.com does not publicly disclose its pricing information. To get a personalized quote according to your needs, you need to contact them directly. Nevertheless, users have reported that their flat-rate plan starts at $59 per month. 

Confluence

Confluence is a good collaboration tool that allows you to work with your team in creating, organizing, and discussing ideas. It helps in documenting your projects, sharing your knowledge, and aligning your goals with others. With Confluence, you can create pages, spaces, and blogs to store and present your information in a decent way. You can also enhance your content using templates, macros, and integrations. Also, you can invite feedback, comments, and votes from your team or stakeholders to track the progress of your ideas.

Core Features:

• Spaces: Create spaces for different teams, projects, or topics to organize and share work.
• Templates: Use templates to quickly create pages for common purposes.
• Feedback: Comment on pages, mention teammates, and use emojis to give feedback and suggestions.
• Integrations: Connect Confluence with other Atlassian products and third-party apps to streamline your workflow and access relevant information.

• Capture: Capture ideas from various sources and formats on Confluence pages.
• Organize: Organize ideas into spaces, pages, and subpages to create a clear structure and hierarchy for projects.
• Share: Share ideas with anyone in your organization or outside of it by inviting them to view or edit pages.
• Refine: Refine ideas by getting feedback from others through comments, mentions, and emojis, and use analytics tools to measure engagement.

Pricing Information

Confluence by Atlassian offers a cloud option with two plans: Standard and Premium. The Standard plan is available for up to 10 users at a cost of $5.75 per user per month, while the Premium plan is available for up to 10 users at a cost of $11 per user per month.

The Premium plan offers additional features such as unlimited storage, a financially backed 99.9% uptime SLA, and 24/7 Premium Support. It also includes advanced permissions, admin insights, anonymous access, audit logs, page archiving, a sandbox testing environment, and more.

Aha! Ideas

Aha! Ideas is a cloud-based software that helps you gather feedback, prioritize features, and create visual roadmaps. With Aha! Ideas, you can define your vision and goals based on customer needs and market insights. This tool allows you to collect feedback from various sources and turn them into actionable plans. You can also prioritize features based on value and effort, create roadmaps for different audiences, and track progress across teams.

Core Features:

• Ideas portals: Collect ideas from different sources and allow users to submit, vote, and comment on them
• In-app feedback widget: Capture ideas while customers are using your product
• Custom scorecards: Assign scores to ideas based on your own criteria such as value, effort, or risk
• Custom fields: Add additional information to ideas such as tags, categories, or statuses
• Custom workflows: Define the stages that ideas go through from submission to implementation
• Empathy sessions: Invite users to share their feedback live via video or audio calls
• Reports and charts: Visualize and analyze the data from your ideas such as votes, comments, scores, or statuses
• Product roadmaps: Link your ideas to your product strategy and show how they align with your goals and initiatives
• Integrations: Connect your ideas with other tools such as Jira, Trello, GitHub, or Slack

Pricing Information

Aha! Ideas offers comprehensive idea management software that enables you to crowdsource feedback, engage your community, and analyze trends. The Essentials plan starts at $39 per user per month with a minimum of three paid users. It includes unlimited portals for crowdsourcing feedback. On the other hand, the Advanced plan starts at $59 per user per month with a minimum of three paid users. In addition to everything included in the Essentials plan, it offers advanced analytics, custom fields, integrations, and more.

Aha! Roadmaps is a complete product management suite that comes with Ideas Essentials for crowdsourcing feedback. The Starter plan begins at $59 per user per month, while the Premium plan starts at $99 per user per month. The Enterprise plan is priced at $124 per user per month, and the Enterprise+ plan at $149 per user per month. You can also upgrade your Roadmaps account to include Ideas Advanced for an additional cost.

MindMeister

MindMeister is an idea-tracking tool that allows individuals and teams to visually capture, develop, and share ideas. With various layouts, themes, and icons, users can create unlimited mind maps to organize their thoughts and present their ideas professionally.

Core Features:

• Mindmap templates for brainstorming ideas on different topics or scenarios
• Mindmap editor for creating and editing mind maps to organize and structure ideas
• Attachments for adding additional information to ideas such as notes, links, images, or videos
• Project management with MeisterTask integration to turn mind maps into project plans and assign tasks and deadlines to team members
• Publishing and embedding for sharing mind maps online or embedding them on websites or blogs to get feedback or showcase work
• Inserting images, videos, audio files, emojis, and stickers to make mind maps more engaging and memorable
• Importing mind maps from other formats such as MindManager, Freemind, or XMind, and exporting mind maps as PDFs, images, or text outlines for printing or using in other applications
• History mode for tracking changes made to mind maps over time, seeing who contributed what, and restoring previous versions of mind maps

Pricing Information

The Basic plan is free and includes up to 3 mind maps, real-time collaboration, import functionality, and email support.

The Personal plan costs €4.99 per month (or $2.49 per month with a lifetime deal) and offers unlimited mind maps, advanced export options, file attachments, custom themes, statistics, and reports.

The Pro plan costs €8.25 per month and includes team management, branded presentations, custom styles, group sharing links, and priority support.

The Business plan costs €12.49 per month and includes everything in the Pro plan plus admin control panel, user groups, and custom domain mapping.

IdeaScale

IdeaScale is a tool for tracking ideas that helps connect organizations with individuals who have innovative thoughts. It enables users to capture, develop, prioritize, and select ideas that emerge in their ecosystem and turn them into organizational outputs such as projects and data. 

Core Features:

• IdeaScale is a cloud-based platform for idea management and innovation.
• Users can create communities to submit, comment, and vote on ideas.
• The platform has a responsive design that ensures optimal functionality across any device or browser.
• IdeaScale supports custom fields for ideas, profiles, or campaigns, enabling the collection of relevant data.
• The platform uses a stage-gate process for the development, prioritization, and selection of ideas.
• IdeaScale integrates seamlessly with various tools and systems, including Slack, Salesforce, and SharePoint.
• The platform has decent analytics and reporting features that provide valuable insights into the performance and impact of ideas.

Pricing Information

IdeaScale offers four pricing plans: Engage, Evolve, Advance, and Transform. The pricing for each plan is based on the number of users and features that users can access. The cost of the plans ranges from $12,999 to $64,999 per year.

For users who have a limited budget, IdeaScale provides a free plan that accommodates up to 25 users and 5 campaigns. However, the free plan has limited features and functionality compared to the paid plans. Users can upgrade to a paid plan at any time if they need more users or features.

For users who have specific needs or requirements that are not covered by the standard pricing plans, IdeaScale provides custom subscriptions. Users can contact IdeaScale’s team of advisors to request more information and get a personalized quote for their custom subscription.

Viima

Viima is an innovation platform that enables you to collect and develop ideas from employees or customers. It provides a flexible solution to adapt to any process or need, such as stage-gate, lean startup, hackathons, and more. Organizations of any size and industry use Viima to engage their audiences, prioritize ideas, and track their progress based on various criteria. 

Core Features:

• Idea contribution and development through the web, mobile, email, or Microsoft Teams
• Commenting, voting, and collaboration on ideas with others
• Unique algorithm to rank ideas based on popularity, feasibility, and impact
• Customizable ranking criteria and filters
• Creation and management of campaigns for specific goals or challenges
• Setting deadlines, rewards, and feedback mechanisms for each campaign
• Use of gamification tools such as points, badges, and leaderboards to motivate and engage users
• Provision of various reports and dashboards for monitoring and measuring the performance of ideas and campaigns
• Export of data to other tools for further analysis

Pricing Information

Viima offers different pricing plans based on the number of users and required features. The Free plan is for teams starting with innovation, allowing up to 10 users and 1 board. It includes basic features like idea submission, voting, commenting, and ranking, with self-service support. The Basic plan suits small teams, offering flexibility and control with up to 50 users and 3 boards. It includes custom fields, filters, categories, and integrations, costing $39/month with email support.

The Unlimited plan is for larger organizations needing full access, unlimited users and boards. It provides priority support and advanced features like campaigns, analytics, gamification, SSO, and API. The Unlimited plan costs $1799/month. All plans have a 7-day free trial of the Unlimited plan, and enterprise customers can request a custom quote.

Innovation Cloud

Innovation Cloud is an innovation management tool that makes it easier and faster to manage your innovation process from idea to final product. It helps you gather ideas from various sources, evaluate them using custom criteria, execute them using project management tools, and measure their impact.

Core Features:

• Involvement of everyone in the innovation process
• Efficient management of idea progress with a streamlined workflow
• Startup, Pro, and Enterprise plans for different company sizes and needs
• Integration with Microsoft365 and other tools
• Management of innovation process from idea to final product based on your exact needs
• Democratization of data and use of cloud-native application platforms for engaging experiences
• Unlocking new technical skills and expanded business capabilities by understanding customer needs and building innovations rapidly
• Insightful reports for better decision-making
• Customizable workflows, forms, fields, and categories to suit your specific innovation process
• Collaboration and communication tools such as comments, ratings, notifications, and feedback

Pricing Information

Innovationcloud starts with a free plan that includes 15 users, 100 ideas, and 1GB storage. It has features like collaboration, voting, idea board, sharing, control, dashboard, and scoring.

PRO 20 plan costs around $30 monthly. It includes 20 users, unlimited ideas, folders, and 2GB storage. It has all free plan features, plus folders, documents, groups, and analytics.

PRO 50 plan costs $70 monthly. It includes 50 users, unlimited ideas, folders, and 5GB storage. It has all PRO 20 features, plus custom fields and categories.

PRO 100 plan costs $115 per month. It includes 100 users, unlimited ideas, folders, and 10GB storage. It has all PRO 50 features, plus custom workflows.

Enterprise plan is customizable and requires demo request. It offers unlimited users, ideas, and storage. It includes all PRO 100 features, plus strategy planning, analytics, customization, and integration.

Sideways 6

Sideways 6 is a software platform that enables companies to engage their workforce in innovation and change. It offers a tool for employees to share their ideas for improving the business using existing collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams or Yammer. Managers can use Sideways 6 to analyze, collect and act on these ideas to create a culture of feedback and empowerment in the organization. 

Core Features:

• Idea challenges for targeted campaigns
• Gamification to motivate and reward employee participation
• Sentiment analysis to measure employee mood and satisfaction
• Chatbot for idea submission guidance and instant feedback
• Native integration with popular communication platforms
• Centralized dashboard for tracking, evaluating, and prioritizing ideas
• Automated workflows to streamline idea management processes
• Analytics and reporting for measuring impact on business outcomes and employee engagement

Pricing Information

Sideways 6 does not offer a free version, and their paid version starts at US$2,000.00/month, according to a third-party review site. However, the pricing information is not publicly available on their website, and they also offer customized pricing plans tailored to meet specific idea management requirements. To get a personalized quote, you can contact them using a form available on their website.

Crowdicity

Crowdicity is a cloud-based tool that helps organizations to collect, organize and act on ideas and feedback from stakeholders. With features like voting, commenting, and gamification, it helps teams collaborate across time zones and locations. 

Core Features:

• Challenge Management: Easily set and launch challenges, target user participation, refine ideas through systematic stage gates, and automate idea progression.
• Idea Management: Capture, categorize, and prioritize ideas using various criteria such as votes, comments, ratings, or tags. Collaborate on ideas with others using familiar social tools.
• Analytics Tools: Measure and monitor challenge and idea performance using various metrics such as engagement, diversity, impact, or innovation. Generate reports and insights to inform decision making.
• Mobile Engagement: Access Crowdicity from any device using a web browser or a native app. Receive notifications and updates on challenges and ideas via email or push messages.
• Access Control: Control who can access your Crowdicity platform by inviting users individually or using single sign-on (SSO) or LDAP integration. Assign different roles and permissions to users based on their level of involvement.
• Email Integration: Integrate Crowdicity with your email provider, such as Gmail or Outlook, to send and receive emails from your Crowdicity platform. Customize email templates and branding to match your organization’s identity.
• Custom Landing Pages and User Interface: Create custom landing pages for challenges and ideas to attract and engage users. Customize the look and feel of your Crowdicity platform using themes, colors, logos, and images.

Pricing Information

Crowdicity does not publicly disclose its pricing on its website. However, based on information from third-party sources, Crowdicity offers three pricing plans for its users.

The Starter plan is for small teams or projects testing Crowdicity's features. It includes up to 100 users, 1 challenge, basic analytics, and support. The monthly price is $99, and the annual price is $999.

The Professional plan suits medium-sized organizations or departments engaging more users and running multiple challenges. It includes up to 1000 users, 5 challenges, advanced analytics, and support. The monthly cost is $499, and the annual cost is $4999.

The Enterprise plan is for large organizations or networks engaging unlimited users and challenges. It offers custom features, integrations, analytics, and support. The price is available upon request.

Final Thoughts

After exploring various feedback tools, it becomes clear that FeedBear beats the competition by a mile. Not only does it offer a centralized idea board, but it also comes loaded with a customizable public roadmap and a clean, modern design.

With FeedBear, collaborating with your customers and keeping them informed while building the right features is effortless. It's an excellent option for those who want to keep things simple and avoid expensive subscriptions.

• FeedBear provides a centralized idea board, public roadmap, and changelog all in one place.
• It comes with a clean, modern design and at an affordable price.
• It allows for easy collaboration with customers and closes the feedback loop seamlessly.

While there may be other idea-tracking tools available, FeedBear is undoubtedly worth considering for its functionality and user-friendly approach.

Sign up now and enjoy FeedBear completely free for the next 14 days!