Today’s business workflows are more flexible, more virtual and more on-demand than anyone could have predicted even a few short years ago. For project and product managers, these business demands can make it difficult to help your team prioritize and plan.
Whether you work with a team or as an independent contractor, it’s important to keep tabs on the milestones toward achieving your big picture goals.
Why You Need Roadmap Software
What is a roadmap for? Roadmaps give project and product teams a visual representation of their full project or product plan, from start to finish.
Roadmapping software can improve team collaboration, outline priorities and keep everyone on schedule. Your visual roadmap will also create transparent project or product strategies.
Before Picking Your Software…
With new user interfaces available all the time, there are virtually unlimited roadmap templates to choose from. So how do you decide? In order to determine your team’s needs, ask the following questions:
Who will be able to access the roadmap?
What stakeholders will be able to access and view your product roadmap? How will remote or field team members access it? What resources are available for onboarding your team? Will you want all team members to have access to all information?
Who will maintain the roadmap?
Who will be structuring and maintaining the product roadmap? Is it a sole product owner or a team? If you have a full team, will roadmap editing fall to the project manager, or be handled by other team members? Whoever it is, it might be worth getting their input.
What will your roadmap need to show?
Will the best roadmap for your team feature Kanban boards, Gantt charts, or something else completely? Will you need to build a cross-departmental custom roadmap for your organization to meet the needs of different product development teams?
Choosing the Right Tools
Finding great product roadmap software means you can avoid duplicate work and information gaps. It creates a central location for your team to find needed resources and complete tasks. Here’s how to shop smart when looking for new software.
Get to Know the Features
Have a rough list of features your team needs and prioritize them during your search. Then find some tutorials on how to navigate different software and familiarize yourself with any new features. How does each option:
Track progress
Store customer feedback
Facilitate communication
Integrate with your existing tools
Divide manual work and automation
This is a very truncated list. Again, you know your team’s needs.
Check Out the Security
Any software you get for your business should offer you some protection. Will your internal and proprietary information be protected while using a roadmap planner tool? What advanced or enterprise-level security features are offered?
Third-Party Integrations
Your team is definitely using other software. Look at how potential tools will integrate with what you already use.
Mobile Access
Do you have employees who work remotely or who need access while in the field? This might mean you need your project roadmap software to offer a mobile app version or include functionality across several devices.
Budgeting
The range of pricing tiers vary with each platform. Some offer free plans for startups or individuals, while others may offer custom builds at custom pricing for enterprise or department-specific needs.
Support
Check out the level of tech support offered. Skim blogs or forums on their websites to see how quickly tech support responds to questions and get a feel for other teams’ experiences. See if they offer a 14-day trial so you can troubleshoot before committing your team to the software.
Top Roadmapping Software in 2022
1. Aha!
Why we love it: Flexible enough to fit both standard and hybrid teams, Aha! fits an array of needs. It offers several template options for your team to visually organize, like color-coding for at-a-glance progress views. On top of managing workflow, there are features that allow you to define work scope and host a backlog of team ideas.
Key Features:
Strategic Goal Settings
Crowdsource Ideas/Feedback
Live Progress Tracking
Integrations include: Google Chat, Slack, Salesforce, Zendesk, Asana, Trello, Dropbox, and Google Drive.
Price:
Premium - $59 per workspace editor per month
Enterprise - $99 per workspace editor per month
Enterprise+ - $149 per workspace editor per month
Aha! offers special pricing for businesses that qualify as startups.
2. Productboard
Why we love it: Productboard is a roadmap planner with a high focus on implementing feedback to meet customer needs. It seamlessly integrates customer insights your entire team can see, and allows customers to connect to your entire product development process.
Key Features:
Feedback Insights
Prioritization View
Visual Planning and Collaboration
Integrations include Zendesk, Slack, Jira, Microsoft Teams, Salesforce and Amplitude
Price:
Team Pricing; paid annually, the monthly cost is $20 for Essential access or $80 for Pro access, both per workspace editor per month.
Organization Pricing; these offerings come in Scale or Enterprise and are custom priced for what your organization needs.
3. Wrike
Why we love it: Wrike’s ability to create cross-team transparency is part of what makes it so popular. It’s opening dashboard gives you all the information you need to jump right into a project. It’s also scalable for future growth and works best for medium to large agencies, marketing teams, or other professional service providers.
Key Features:
At-a-glance Actionable Dashboard;
Real-time Analytics
Automated Workflow
Enterprise Level Customizations
Integrations include: Salesforce, Google Drive, Adobe Cloud, Jira, Slack, and an iOS App.
Price:
Free - for start-up teams
Professional - $9.80 per workspace editor per month
Business - $24.80 per workspace editor per month
Enterprise - Custom pricing
Wrike offers customized builds of its software for Marketing and Professional Service teams at custom prices.
4. Roadmunk
Why we love it: Roadmunk is one of the best product roadmap options available for Jira integration and data syncing. It also meets the needs of global enterprise customers and complies with leading standards with advanced security features. Benefits include the option to assign weighted priority scores to different features, allowing you to plan next steps strategically.
Key Features:
Client Feedback Manager
App Integration
Agile Timeline
Idea Prioritization
Integration: Platform has its own API for custom syncs, and includes integration with Jira and Azure DevOps
Price:
Starter - $19 a month, single workspace editor only
Business - $49 per workspace editor per month
Professional - $99 per workspace editor per month
Enterprise - Custom pricing
5. airfocus
Why we love it: With flexibility at the forefront, airfocus’s platform offers custom formats to fit your team’s workflow, including a drag-and-drop interface. You will find built-in apps to solve specific product management needs, such as prioritization and feedback gathering. The platform also includes great customer support to help as you mold it to fit your team.
Key Features:
Modularity
Prioritization
Data Visualization
Native Apps
Integrations include: Asana, Trello, Jira, Slack, and Zendesk
Price:
Essential - $15 per workspace editor per month
Advanced- $49 per workspace editor per month
Pro - $89 per workspace editor per month
Enterprise - Custom pricing, billed annually
Pricing for startups is available for businesses that qualify.
6. Craft.io
Why we love it: Craft.io links each part of your roadmap process to final deliverables and provides easy-to-read status updates. This helps your team visualize where you’re progressing and where you aren’t. Craft.io offers options to split activities into different priority levels or releases. It can also serve as a repository of product records, tracking specific product information like stakeholder feedback, user stories and strategic objectives and results.
Key Features:
Product Spec Editor
Capacity Planning
Prioritization Engine
Integrations include: Jira, Slack, Github, Salesforce, Dropbox, Google Workspace and Google Drive.
Price:
Essential - $39 per workspace editor per month
Pro - $89 per workspace editor per month
Enterprise - custom pricing
Craft.io offers special pricing packages for start-ups as well as custom priced options for digital agencies or software dev shops.
7. monday.com
Why we love it: Monday’s platform works well for teams of any size. It offers intuitive functions from choosing how to view data to dashboard timelines and calendars to Kanban boards or Gantt charts. It’s just as easy to automate tasks, as you can either pick built-in options or create your own automations.
Key Features:
Real-time Data Sync
Simple Visualization
Easy Automation
Integrations include: Github, Slack, Box, Salesforce, Google and Microsoft
Price:
Individual - Free, up to 2 seats [workspace editor]
Basic - $9 per workspace editor per month, minimum of $27
Standard - $12 per workspace editor per month, minimum of $36
Pro - $20 per workspace editor per month, minimum of $60
Enterprise - custom pricing \
8. Notion
Why we love it: Notion gets major props for its simple board or list views. It also offers users access to a global ecosystem of creators sharing community-made templates, integrations, and events, providing a plethora of resources and support. It hosts your current work alongside company knowledge bases, enabling everyone to stay on target and in touch. (We really love Notion.)
Key Features:
Simplicity
Community Resources
Cross-team Use
Integrations include: Github, Slack, Jira, Asana and Figma
Price: Standard annual pricing is:
Individual - Free for personal use
Personal Pro - $4 for personal use per month
Team - $8 per workspace editor per month
Enterprise - custom pricing
9. Jira
Why we love it: Nearly every roadmapping platform offers Jira integration, thanks to its core solutions for software project and product management. Depending on your team’s workflow structure, view your progress in sprints with a Scrum board, or long term progress with a Kanban board. Jira also offers many built-in customizations and automations.
Key Features:
Critical Insights and Reports
Customizable workflows
Drag-and-drop Automation
Integrations: over 3,000 apps via its marketplace
Price:
Free - free for use by up to 10 users
Standard - $7.50 per user per month
Premium - $14.50 per user per month
Enterprise - custom pricing
Essential - $39 per workspace editor per month
Pro - $89 per workspace editor per month
Enterprise - custom pricing
Craft.io offers special pricing packages for start-ups as well as custom priced options for digital agencies or software dev shops.
Product Spec Editor
Capacity Planning
Prioritization Engine
10. Github
Why we love it: A core project planning platform for developers, Github offers its version of roadmapping with Projects. A built-in offering to Github’s larger software, Projects is a way to manage your team's work, scaling from small to large projects, and offers ways to view your progress using spreadsheets, tables, or Kanban boards whether you are working through sprints, backlogs, or releases.
Key Features:
Custom Fields/Views
Coded Automation
Hierarchical Task Lists
Developer Focused
Integrations: over 1,000 apps via its marketplace
Price:
Basic Use - Free
Team - $44 per user per month
Enterprise - $231 per user per month, discounts available
11. Dragonboat
Why we love it: Dragonboat drives portfolio outcomes by giving teams a way to connect directly to initiatives and integrate with engineering tools. Integrations allow lots of flexibility for editors to structure roadmaps using existing information, such as pulling epics directly from Jira, Github, Asana or Clubhouse.
Key Features:
Data-Driven Prioritization
Portfolio Modeling
Enterprise-Grade Security
Integrations include: Slack, Asana, Jira, and Azure DevOps.
Price:
Starting - $39 per workspace editor per month
Scaling - $69 per workspace editor per month
Enterprise - $99 per workspace editor per month
Enterprise+ - custom pricing
12. Trello
Why we love it: Known best for its Kanban board aesthetic, premium versions of Trellow also offer timeline, calendar, and spreadsheet views. It also features an interactive map to track tasks by event locations or field team members. Trello offers a marketplace for both app integrations and board templates and options to let you repeat tasks using no-code automation.
Key Features:
No-Code Automation
Power Up Plug-ins
Custom Views
Integrations: almost 200 apps via its marketplace
Price:
Single Project - Free
Standard - $5 per user per month
Premium - $10 per user per month
Enterprise - starting at $17.50 per user per month
13. Zoho Sprints
Why we love it: In the name, Zoho Sprints is a project management tool for agile teams, providing a way to plan your sprints from development to delivery. The backlog allows you to use feedback from your last sprint to plan your next. Options include breaking down epics into sprints and personalized scrum views, and built-in apps create timesheets and other data reports.
Key Features:
Release Management
Timesheets
Data Reporting
Integrations include: Zapier, Github, Azure DevOps and 8 built-in native apps.
Price: Zoho’s annual pricing is user based, starting at $5 per user for the first 100 users and discounted as your team grows.
Which software is right for you?
The best roadmapping choice is the one that fits your needs. By evaluating the available options, managers can hone in on the roadmapping tool that will benefit their teams the most.
Once you have roadmapping and strategy tools in hand, the next step is finding the right team. MVP Match can help you find skilled freelancers perfect for your next big project or product launch.
If you’re a freelancer looking for your next project, join our network of freelancers and let us help you get connected to a team.
