Let’s face it. Not all products are created in a garage and not everyone is Larry Page or Sergey Brin. If you are here, it is evident that you are aware of the struggles in the product development journey. The best product management tools are a great way to reduce those struggles to a minimum.
Having a great staff, excellent management, and a unique product does make things easier to manage. However, you can’t always have a choice in that case. The majority of the time, you’ll be joining an existing organization that has its own set of issues and concerns.
Due to these reasons, nearly 21% of products fail to satisfy their customers.
Product management tools are software that makes the job of a product manager easier. A product manager is in charge of the smooth delivery of goods from the initial stage (planning) to the final stage (launch).
There are several tools that you can use to aid in your product lifecycle.
In this article, we will list down ten product management tools that you can use, especially if your business is a product-centric startup building a behavioral analytics platform. This list is a useful resource to expedite your data-driven product management process as it grows over time.
However, first, let us discuss some basic features that you may look for in a product management tool.
What To Look For In A Product Management Tool?
Here’s a list of things to search for. As your list will change according to your demands, it is critical that you create your own checklist to start from.
These should be viewed as the bare minimum of tools for keeping a project on schedule and under budget. You may not have all the data you need to do the work until you have at least these.
1. Task hierarchy
Creating a task hierarchy is crucial in the development of any product. That is unquestionable. A task should have a beginning and completion date, as well as a runtime period for the number of hours it will take for project completion.
Moreover, the tool you select must have the ability to allocate work to resources. All of this is very basic stuff that should be included in every product you look at. Choosing product management software, on the other hand, is a matter of personal taste. If you like something, it’s usually a sign that it meets your requirements.
2. Progress sheet
A project timetable that does not include real-time employee input is akin to planning in a vacuum. You can make smart guesses about the tasks and their duration, but this will only get you halfway there. Moreover, you will have little information to measure the development of the actual product in operation without employee feedback.
All of this necessitates a progress sheet.
You might receive more than you bargained for when you throw your task plan out into the wild! You may discover that you have neglected half of the tasks.
3. Expense records
Almost every task takes more than just time to execute. They are typically accompanied by expenses. These expenses have an impact on the final price. If you don’t account for them, you’ll blow your budget.
Employees are less likely to provide crucial information if they do not have a record of expenses.
4. Team interaction tools
Team interactions tools are another important feature that you must look for. Interactions are crucial, especially when cross-functional or complicated tasks get underway. Having a quick and easy mechanism to communicate — as well as a record of all communications pertaining to the initiative will go a long way.
5. Ease of use
You won’t gain any meaningful actionable information if the product you purchase is so difficult to use that it requires a PMP certification to manage. The solution must have the same functionality as full-fledged project management software on the market, but it must be built for non-project managers to use.
This is related to the idea of selecting a tool that ‘feels nice’ to you. Only then will you devote the time and effort necessary to make it perform for you.
6. Data analytics
The distinction between plain reporting and effective information is made through meaningful summaries and graphics.
Actionable data enables you to act promptly in order to avoid a catastrophic loss. Some graphs can even predict what will happen next. All you have to do now is correct a few things to keep your project on track. You won’t know what’s coming if you don’t have them.
That being said, now is the time for us to explore all the best product management tools in detail.
Let’s start with…
1. Maze
Maze is an all-in-one fast testing platform that lets you test anything from prototypes to copies and gather user feedback.
Its product management tools enable you to collect actionable data from various teams and work collaboratively to improve user experiences. The quick testing tool excels in usability and remote testing, as well as providing other essential features like quantitative data, heatmaps, and automatic reports.
Maze reporting transforms your test findings into useful information and presents it in a visually appealing, customizable report. The site also has a number of direct interfaces that enable you to import a design from your preferred design tool. Marvel, Adobe XD, InVision, Figma, and Sketch are some of the connectors available.
Features That Make Maze The Best Product Management Tool
- Get actionable user insights to help make users’ voice to the decision-making process
- Make quick strategic product decisions based on visual, statistical data that collects the most important information for you.
- Democratize the data that drives product choices and sway stakeholders for more buy-in.
- With Maze’s flexible set of blocks, you may create bespoke, dynamic tests and surveys.
- Assess features and products with real users before releasing them.
Maze Free Trial & Pricing
Maze offers a forever-free plan for new users. The free plan offers adequate access to the software to help you figure out if it would serve your product management needs.
Next, once you are satisfied or your needs grow, you’d have to subscribe to a premium plan. Speaking of which, there are a couple of paid plans with monthly and yearly billing cycles.
- Free – A forever-free plan for 1 active project, 100 responses/month, 1 user seat, and integrations.
- Professional – This plan is available at $66/month and offers 10 active projects, 250 responses/month, 2 user seats, team management features, CSV export, and more.
- Organization – This is an enterprise-level plan for 10 users with unlimited features and usage. You’d have to request for custom pricing.
2. Chisel
If you are worried about all your product data being buried into various sheets and documents, Chisel is here to solve your problem. Chisel is an all-in-one solution for a product manager. From capturing your ideas to helping you deliver a successful launch, Chisel will be with you throughout your product development stages. It enables you to organize your tasks using the Kanban board, determine the priority and roadmap for your product, and finally align the team as per the priority to increase transparency and enhance productivity.
With Chisel, you can sync your roadmaps with multiple Jira and Azure DevOps integrations that can boost your development. Moreover, you can gather customer feedback by circulating over 10,000 customer surveys to gather quality customer feedback.
Features That Make Chisel The Best Product Management Tool
- Get actionable insights directly from your customers through Chisel’s customer surveys.
- Every team member can provide a prioritization score, which helps to determine the Team member prioritization summary collectively.
- The Idea Box enables you to capture, store and organize new ideas for innovation quickly.
- Team Alignment matrix, Kanban, and Release roadmap ensure that your team functions to its total capacity with minimal bottlenecks.
Chisel Free Trial & Pricing
Chisel’s pricing doesn’t fail to impress us either. You can avail most of their premium features in their free forever version. Here you can make most of all the benefits Chisel offers, including all the above features.
As your team expands and your product gains a more extensive customer base, you can explore Chisel’s premium and enterprise plans to help you with onboarding and training sessions.
Here is the pricing overview of all Chisel’s plans:
- Essential: A free forever plan that helps you manage unlimited boards and tasks in the treeview. You can gather up to 100 free responses from the customer surveys.
- Premium: This plan starts at $49 per month if billed annually. You get all their essential features plus Jira and Azure Ops integrations. Moreover, you can gather 10,000 responses from the customer surveys. A team will be dedicated to your onboarding and training sessions while offering exceptional customer support for all your concerns.
- Enterprise: This plan will require you to contact Chisel’s sales team since there will be a custom quote depending on your requirements. Advanced features under this plan include 100,000 customer survey responses and a dedicated customer success manager for your team.
3. Monday.com
Monday.com is a digital product management solution that assists businesses of all sizes in scheduling, monitoring, and managing their daily responsibilities. It enables teams to identify explicit ownership, assess and track their work. It also helps them organize sprints, and engage together on everything from large-scale product guidelines to weekly revisions.
Moreover, the agile solution at Monday.com simplifies it for teams to connect remotely.
It features a user interface that is basic and straightforward. The onboarding is fast and easy. Teams from every division may simply find the tools they need to customize their account to their specific needs.
Monday.com’s Work OS is composed of a blend of visual and flexible features that may be utilized to create whatever dynamic workflow your team needs. It supports Milestones, Kanban layouts, Gantt and task interdependence, and project analysis.
Features That Make Monday.com The Best Product Management Tool
- Manage several projects from a single location. Make your own dashboards, allocate teammates, and reduce congestion.
- By automating project approvals and duties, you can save time.
- To drive projects ahead, bridge communication barriers, assign resources, and update developments in real-time.
- To stay on course and meet your objectives, use simple, visual, and intuitive project widgets to see the progress of all of your tasks at a glance.
- Construct repeatable project architectures by using templates.
Monday.com Free Trial & Pricing
In addition to offering a great set of features, Monday.com also amazes us with its pricing plans. For starters, it offers a forever-free plan for 2 team members and all the features.
Besides this, as your team grows, your product management needs are also bound to increase. Hence it offers its pricing plans on the basis of team size i.e. user seats. The pricing comes with monthly and yearly billing cycles with advanced features in higher plans.
Here’s an overview of Monday.com pricing for 3 seats –
- Individual – A free plan for 2 users that allows you to manage unlimited boards, docs, etc. You also get 20 templates with more than 20 column types.
- Basic – This plan will cost you $30/month and includes all the basic features along with unlimited free viewers, items, 5 GM storage, and more.
- Standard – Than plan is chargeable at the rate of $36/month and unlocks advanced features like Timeline & Gantt views, Calendar view, guest actions, automation, integration, etc.
- Pro – You’d have to pay $60/month for more advanced features like private boards, chart view, time tracking, formula column, automation & integration with 25,000 actions, and much more.
- Enterprise – For enterprise-level product management needs and reporting, you’d have to get in touch with the Monday.com team for custom pricing.
4. Craft.io
This feature-rich tool was created to assist product managers in translating their vision into a plan and plan into actionable, prioritized activities. Craft.io prioritizes the user story and emphasizes transparency and cooperation.
This makes it simple to exchange plans and ideas that align not only your teams but all participants in the business as well.
Features That Make Craft.io The Best Product Management Tool
- Link all strategic aspects to product outputs directly, from profiles to OKRs
- All product decisions should be contextualized and guided by data insights
- Optimize, standardize, and improve output accuracy by implementing best-practice prioritizing frameworks, models, and multi-dimensional production scheduling
- Exchange dynamic links to roadmaps, scheduling, and prioritizing views in real-time
- Increase alignment and responsibility across the organization by connecting product and development teams in a shared workplace
Craft.io Free Trial & Pricing
It is yet another product management tool that allows you to start for free. Hence it offers a 14 day free trial period. The trial period would grant adequate access to the software so that you can test if it serves your needs.
Once the free trial ends, you’d then have the flexibility to upgrade to a premium plan. Craft.io offers three pricing plans with monthly and yearly billing options. Besides this, you’d unlock advanced features in higher plans.
- Essential – This plan is ideal for small teams and costs $49/month per user. In this plan, you are allowed to create unlimited product roadmaps with various product views, story mapping, and more.
- Pro – This plan comes with a price tag of $109/month per user. It offers features like unlimited contributors & viewers, create a dedicated feedback portal, create a workspace, live-share your product views across your company, etc.
- Enterprise – This plan requires you to get in touch with the sales team for custom pricing. Advanced features available in this plan are SSO integration, multi-factor authentication, Jira & Azure DevOps integration, private cloud, etc.
5. ClickUp
ClickUp is a single app that can replace all of the other apps for various business management tasks. It’s the way work will be done in the future. It is more than simply a task manager; it also includes docs, alerts, objectives, calendars, and a mailbox. The platform is fully adaptable, allowing many types of teams to organize, coordinate, and collaborate using the same platform.
The fundamental purpose of ClickUp is to make the whole world more efficient by reducing the friction that comes with using several different apps. Its completely customizable and exclusive functionalities make it a must-have for any organization that wants to store everything from concept to production in one place.
Features That Make ClickUp The Best Product Management Tool
- With stunning views that make project management a snap, track your entire process from beginning to end.
- Use any of ClickUp’s 10+ configurable views to manage your resources, such as a List, Box, Board, or Calendar view, or to construct your own process.
- By posting comments to every task or document, you may collaborate and ensure that your project is completely aligned.
- Assign action items to comments, communicate in real-time, share documents, and stay up to date with notifications that keep everything in one place.
- Organize all of your project’s key metrics in one location.
- Establish clear project expectations with timelines and use detailed reports to keep track of how much time is spent on each project.
ClickUp Free Trial & Pricing
Despite offering so many tools and features in a single app, ClickUp has kept its pricing very modest and inexpensive. For new users, it offers a forever free plan where it offers all the basic product management tools and features. Although, you should know that in the free plan, you are allowed to add unlimited members and manage unlimited tasks.
There are a few restrictions in the free plan and it also does not offer advanced features. To be able to access those features, you’d have to upgrade to a premium plan. Currently, ClickUp offers four premium plans with monthly and yearly subscription options.
- Unlimited – You’d have to pay $9/month per user for this plan. It comes with features like unlimited storage, dashboards, integrations, Gantt charts, custom fields, along with other amenities.
- Business – At the same time, this plan is chargeable at the rate of $19/month per user and comes with other advanced features like Google SSO, unlimited team, automation, public sharing, time tracking, and more.
- Business Plus – Similarly, this plan will cost you $29/month per user and includes team sharing, subtasks, custom role creation, custom permission, etc.
- Enterprise – Lastly, this plan comes with custom pricing that is made especially for your product management requirements. This plan offers highly advanced features like white-labeling, advanced permissions, enterprise API, SSO, etc.
6. Wrike
Wrike is an enterprise cooperation task management tool that helps companies to do their best work no matter where their employees are stationed. With many firms shifting to a remote workplace for their employees, it is the right platform for assuring cooperation and generating efficiencies for teams across the company.
Wrike is establishing the next generation of management control around the world, with tailored solutions for advertising and design teams, product managers, task management teams, professional solutions teams, and more.
It is by far the most versatile CWM platform, giving superior work management software that is both powerful and flexible enough for project managers in any division. Wrike is simple to set up for any division, team, or working style.
Features That Make Wrike The Best Product Management Tool
- Automation, real-time insight, customizable dashboards, and reporting help you make faster decisions and move projects forward.
- Help minimize bottlenecks, adapt, and guarantee that everyone in your company is working toward the same goals.
- Create a flawless strategy, whether Agile or waterfall. By consolidating projects on a single project management platform, you can hold your team accountable.
- Gantt charts with one-click adjustments help you see deadlines and critical path analyses.
- Showcase your project’s progress with personalized statuses that keep stakeholders up to date at all times.
Wrike Free Trial & Pricing
Just like other best product management tools, Wrike also allows you to start for free with its forever free plan. This free plan is ideal for a small team and offers all the basic product management needs. You can invite internal and external collaborators and also manage tasks as well.
To be able to invite more team members, and unlock advanced features, you’d have to subscribe to a premium plan. There are three pricing plans with different feature sets.
- Professional – This plan will cost you $9.80/month/user and offers features like shareable dashboards, interactive Gantt charts, up to 2 GB storage, etc.
- Business – It will cost you $24.80/month/user and provides access to features like custom fields, workflow, automation engine, task approval, time tracking, and more.
- Enterprise – For inviting unlimited team members and accessing enterprise-level features, you’d have to request for custom pricing.
7. Trello
Trello comes with a Kanban-style layout by default and a few other built-in features. These make it a good fit for anyone who loves the intuitive graphics of a Kanban board. Trello may be a tricky fit for larger enterprises with extensive requirements, but it can offer some useful workflow automation capabilities.
Features That Make Trello The Best Product Management Tool
- On a Trello board, lists and cards serve as the foundation for managing tasks.
- Task assignments, timeframes, productivity statistics, schedules, and other features can be added from there.
- Any card can be opened to reveal an ecology of lists, deadlines, attachments, chats, and more.
- Minimize the number of time-consuming tasks on your board with Butler, Trello’s built-in automation.
- Connect your Trello workflow to the applications your company already uses, or add a Power-Up to assist you to fine-tune unique needs.
Trello Free Trial & Pricing
Similar to other best product management tools, Trello offers a forever-free plan to all the new users and smaller teams. In this free plan, you will get all the necessary features to handle your product management needs. The best part about its free plan is that it allows you to create unlimited cards but is limited to 10 boards per workspace.
Besides this, you get all the basic features. That being said, if you want to access advanced features, you’d have to subscribe to its monthly or yearly subscription plans. There are three plans offered by Trello and each of them has a different set of features.
- Standard – By paying $6/month/user, you’d be able to manage unlimited boards, include custom fields, and have unlimited storage.
- Premium – Similarly, this plan is available at $12.50/month/user and offers features like dashboard view, timeline view, Calendar view, unlimited workspace command runs, security features, and more.
- Enterprise – Lastly, this plan is ideal for large teams (for 25 or more users) and has a price tag of $17.50/month/user. It offers advanced features like unlimited workspace, public board management, SSO, multi-board guests, etc.
8. Pendo
If you are looking for a tool that helps product managers create user-friendly solutions, Pendo is the one for you.
Product teams can use it to find out which functionalities customers are using. What aspects are they overlooking? Which ones make you happy, and which ones make you sad? You may create in-app messaging, guides, and walkthroughs to assist people to get the most out of your goods using the same insights.
You can use the Pendo software to coach users through the difficult patches and encourage them to adopt the characteristics that build raving fans by immediately discovering the exact features and workflows that give them pleasure and suffering.
Features That Make Pendo The Best Product Management Tool
- Get Insights into what users do throughout their product journey using analytics
- Increase onboarding and feature adoption by in-app messages and walkthroughs
- Choose things to implement next, organize and prioritize feedback on the product
- Create a seamless online and mobile experience
- Enhance customer retention, integrate product satisfaction evaluations and feedback.
Pendo Free Trial & Pricing
It’s evident that this software offers a multitude of features and modules for your product management needs. However, unlike other product management tools, Pendo likes to keep its pricing under the sheets. To be able to know more about its pricing, you’d have to get in touch with its sales team for custom pricing.
9. Basecamp
Basecamp’s solution, in response to the present issues, focuses heavily on enhancing remote team operations. The scheduling, messaging, and task tracking capabilities on this platform are designed to help teams work collectively in a clear and cooperative manner.
Features That Make Basecamp The Best Product Management Tool
- Chat with the group informally, ask random questions, and offer information without formality.
- Lets you share docs, files, photos, and spreadsheets.
- Organize your files in folders to make them easier to find.
- Create recurring questions so you don’t have to bother your staff with updates.
- On message boards, make announcements, pitch ideas, provide progress updates, and keep feedback on the topic.
- Create a shared calendar with crucial dates. Register for events in Google Calendar, iCal, or Outlook.
Basecamp Free Trial & Pricing
While other best product management tools believe in offering multiple plans for its features, Basecamp likes to keep things simple and offer just a single plan with all the features. Additionally, there are no limits in this plan.
But before you sign up for this plan, Basecamp offers a 30 day free trial period. The free trial grants complete access to the software so that you can test its efficacy.
- Basecamp Business – By paying $99/month, you’d be able to create unlimited projects, add unlimited users, and access all the other features as well.
10. Coda
Coda is a brand-new document software that combines together words, information, and teams. It starts with a blinking indicator on a blank screen and can grow to the size desired by your team.
It provides a set of building pieces that anyone can mix to create a doc that is as powerful as an app. This includes limitless depth webpages, rows that communicate with one another, and action icons that can be used inside or outside of your document. Coda docs have been created to aid people with everything from product launches to small business scaling and test preparation.
Features That Make Coda The Best Product Management Tool
- Pulls together all of your meeting notes, project specifications, action items, and coworkers in one convenient location.
- Lets you use the knowledge of exceptional product teams.
- Coda now supports Figma artboards and Miro sketches.
- Alternatively, you can update Jira issues with a single button press. No third-party software is too obscure with Zapier connectors and API.
Coda Free Trial & Pricing
You can start for free with Coda as it offers a forever free plan. In this free plan, you can create docs but with a size limit and have free packs. Additionally, it also facilitates real-time collaboration as well.
Next, if you want to access advanced features and add more Doc Makes, you’d have to subscribe to a premium plan. Currently, there are three pricing plans that come with monthly and yearly billing options. You can unlock advanced features as you go higher up the plan hierarchy.
- Pro – $10/month per Doc Maker with unlimited doc file size, hidden pages, and Pro packs.
- Team – The plan will cost you $30/month per Doc Maker and offers several features like unlimited automation, doc locking, etc.
- Enterprise – To be able to access features like user management doc, access controls, SSO, and so on, you’d have to request for custom pricing.
11. Dragonboat
Dragonboat is a feature-rich, easy-to-use product portfolio management software for teams focused on results. By linking OKRs, customer input, and roadmaps, it delivers integrated product planning, automated tracking, resource forecasting, and dynamic stakeholder reporting.
Product managers can use Dragonboat to aggregate opinions and suggestions, prioritize improvements, and build new ones.
Dragonboat allows you to distribute wealth to objectives, key outcomes, and other activities. You’ll be able to calculate the direct ROI of new product features and upgrades in this manner, ensuring that your team’s time is spent wisely.
Features That Make Dragonboat The Best Product Management Tool
- Develop a strategic framework to help all levels of the organization make better product decisions.
- Data-driven planning and portfolio management are employed to create roadmaps that are outcome-based
- Plan and execute product releases with confidence.
- To impact the next cycle of product strategy, compare the progress.
Dragonboat Free Trial & Pricing
In comparison to other best product management tools, Dragonboat does not offer a free trial or a plan. Instead, it allows you to request the software demo to check out its working.
After the demo, if you are convinced that Dragonboat is your “go-to” software, you can subscribe to its premium plans. There are three plans available with monthly and yearly subscription options.
- Starting – It will cost you $49/month per editor if you pick this plan. It also comes with features like unlimited roadmaps, teams, set OKRs, forecast resources, Gantt charts, etc.
- Scaling – Likewise, this plan comes at $89/month per editor and includes features like unlimited free Read-only users, multi-level portfolio trends, SSO with Google, etc.
- Enterprise POC – Lastly, you’d have to pay $129/month per editor for this plan. You’d be able to access features like data hierarchies, custom fields, data mapping, and more.
Wrapping Up
That’s all for this article. Hopefully, you have selected the tool/tools to use for your product management.
Fortunately for product managers, knowing how to code is not always necessary. Only 5% of product managers are capable of doing so. However, you should never underestimate your own worth as a product manager.
The importance and specific position of a product manager may be unclear in certain organizations. Yet, well-developed product management tools can increase your product and customer alignment.
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