Tools elevate talent: A flutist won’t sound as good on a pennywhistle, and a firefighter is going to be in trouble without his hose. Product managers are no different. They require top-tier product management tools to allow them to design, manage, and optimize their products to the best of their abilities.
PMs today need the best product management tools to do their jobs effectively and efficiently. These tools help keep product teams organized, informed with the most recent data, and free to plan and execute optimizations that create unparalleled user experiences. When a great PM pairs up with the best tools in the industry, they can do their jobs better and deliver a product your users have been waiting for.
If you’ve been keeping your eyes open for the best product management tools to boost your business—this list of 15 tools is the best place to start.
1. Appcues: Flow creation and testing
Appcues allows users to build and test new product flows that can onboard users, introduce new features, and inspire high customer retention. Appcues stands apart because of its no code-builder and analytics platform, making it easy for companies to continually test and optimize their products without needing a software development team to get involved.
Pros
- No-code builder means flows can be built and tested quickly.
- In-app announcements allow you to communicate directly with your users for increased engagement.
- Collect user data through NPS surveys, so you always have a finger on the pulse of your audience.
- Integrates with a multitude of products, including Slack, Salesforce, Heap, Amplitude, Mixpanel, Zendesk, and HubSpot
Cons
- Currently unable to customize NPS surveys
- Comprehensive tools, support, and analytics may be more than some companies need
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Discover how Appcues enhances your user onboarding flow
- No dev resources needed
- Boost your activation overnight
- Integrate easily with other analytics tools
Price
Appcues pricing depends on your number of active users and the number of user licenses you need for your team.If your product has 2,500 active users, the costs for different packages are:
- Essentials: $249/month (Allows for 3 user licenses)
- Growth: $879/month (Allows for 10 user licenses)
- Enterprise: Contact Sales (Allows for unlimited user licenses)
Learn more about these plans on the Appcues pricing page.
2. Tettra: Documentation hub
Tettra is a central hub for all of your team's documentation, including style guides, product specifications, and HR resources. Organizing, editing, and finding content is straightforward, so your team is able to harness all of their collective learning in one powerful space.
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Image from Tettra
Pros
Slack integrations allow teams to search for documentation within Slack channels by using slash commands.
- Appoint knowledge experts so everyone knows who to go to for the right answers on each topic.
- The searchable in-depth knowledge base helps onboard new team members by giving you a space to codify company policy and procedure.
Cons
- It takes time and energy to write out your documentation.
- Databases can quickly become disorganized if their structure isn’t well-thought-out in advance.
Price
Tettra pricing goes up as you add more users to your database. When billed annually, Tettra prices work out to:
- Starting: Free (up to 10 users)
- Scaling: $8.33 per user/month (up to 250 users)
- Enterprise: $16.66 per user/month (unlimited users)
Learn more about these plans on the Tettra pricing page.
3. Amplitude: Data analytics
As you scale your product, you need an analytics tool that will help you research and understand who your users are and how they use your product. With Amplitude, choose from various features to measure key metrics like retention and churn, or track a user’s unique path within your product.
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Image from Amplitude
Pros
- Custom dashboards allow you to quickly see your product's most important metrics broken down by your key segments.
- Amplitude Recommend uses machine learning to find personalizations that’ll engage the users in each of your segments.
- Integrations enable you to pull analytics data from multiple sources to get the most accurate picture of what your users are doing, and how they’re interacting with your product.
Cons
- There is a learning curve involved in knowing what metrics to track for best results.
- One of its top competitors, Google Analytics, is free (and Amplitude is not).
Price
Amplitude has three categories of plans: Starter, Growth, and Enterprise. The differentiator between these three is the analytics tools available. The free plan only gets access to core analytics. As you move to Enterprise, you get perks like automated insights and custom user permissions.
- Starter: Free
- Growth: Contact Sales
- Enterprise: Contact Sales
Learn more about these plans on the Amplitude pricing page.
4. Asana: Work allocation
Asana is a work management platform that aims to make work distribution transparent and intuitive. With its multitude of views and task management tools, Asana makes sure everyone knows what’s in progress, who owns that task, and what the next steps are.
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Image from Asana
Pros
The workflow builder lets teams define how repetitive tasks get done and opens up the possibility of automating certain parts of the workflow.
- Reporting and workload tools give managers insights into how much your team and team members are doing across multiple projects.
- Calendar views, Gantt charts, and kanban boards help keep projects on track so new features or product launches don’t fall behind schedule.
Cons
- Costs more than competitors like Trello.
- The basic plan doesn’t include a lot of the tools and integrations you’d want.
Price
Asana’s pricing depends on the features you want and the number of team members you have. The basic plan is great for small teams of less than 15, and you start to get the advanced features as you move into Premium, Business, and Enterprise.
- Basic: Free
- Premium: $10.99 per user/month
- Business: $24.99 per user/month
- Enterprise: Contact Sales
Learn more about these plans on the Asana pricing page.
5. Slack: Team communication
Slack is one of the most popular team communication platforms for a reason. It comes with a bevy of features, including voice and video, public and private channels, and a ton of useful integrations. The best part is that Slack is always improving. So if you feel it’s lacking something today, it may be fixed by next week.
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Image from Slack
Pros
- Smart integrations with tools like Google Calendars and Tettra make it your home base for all things work.
- Customizable channels give users convenient silos to ask questions, share news, and have conversations.
- Many people already use Slack, so experienced users can flatten the learning curve for new employees.
Cons
- With larger organizations, it can become a full-time job keeping on top of all the things happening on Slack.
- Search options can often be too frustrating to be useful.
Price
There are four Slack plans that range from free to Enterprise. As you pay for better plans, you get access to better customer support, more integrations, and security upgrades.
- Free
- Pro: $6.67 per user/month
- Business+: $12.50 per user/month
- Enterprise Grid: Contact Sales
Learn more about these plans on the Slack pricing page.
6. UserTesting: Customer research
The UserTesting platform gives PMs the tools they need to understand their customers. UserTesting uses the revolutionary concept of actually asking real humans what they think about a product, not just crunching numbers based on their actions. PMs can see and hear what real testers think about their product flows for genuine insights into how they can improve their UX and UI.
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Image from UserTesting
Pros
- Live testers give actual feedback and real reactions to your product and features.
- Gauge tester's reactions through NPS surveys, multiple-choice questions, or open-ended questions.
- Test your UI across multiple platforms, including desktop, mobile, and tablet.
Cons
- The UI has reports of being slightly buggy, especially with more complicated tests.
- You need to request pricing.
Price
UserTesting is quite tight-lipped about their prices. If you’d like to get a quote for one of their three tiers, you’ll need to talk to their sales team.
7. Hotjar: Heatmap and user data
Hotjar gives you visual insights into how users interact with your web pages and SaaS products. Their most famous view is their heatmap. This view shows you where users click and hover their mouse so you can tell what CTAs, links, and images get the most attention from users.
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Image from Hotjar
Pros
- Heatmaps and recordings give you direct insight into how users interact with your product.
- Discover what parts of your web pages get ignored the most so you can optimize their layout for better CTR and conversion rates.
- Create surveys to get direct customer feedback.
Cons
- Getting meaningful insights on more complicated websites can be tricky, especially when you have drop-down menus or modals.
- The free version is fairly limited.
Price
Hotjar has three paid plans and a free option. The free plan offers little more than basic heatmaps and recordings. However, it does give you a good chance to see whether this product is right for you. Higher tiers offer filters, more user sessions, and cohort analysis.
- Basic: Free
- Plus: $31/month (35 daily sessions)
- Business: $79/month (100 daily sessions)
- Scale: Contact sales (unlimited daily sessions)
Learn more about these plans on the Hotjar pricing page.
8. productboard: Roadmapping
If you’re looking for an all-in-one project management tool, productboard offers a solution that focuses on enabling users to know what they're building, for whom, and why. productboard is a tool for your entire organization to use in order to contribute to the product strategy. Sales, Marketing, and Customer Support can give their feedback and see what's coming down the pipe. Product Management can prioritize features and build a roadmap based on those priorities.
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Image from productboard
Pros
- Create shareable roadmaps so every team knows what's happening today, tomorrow, and next quarter.
- Collect user and product feedback in one place so it's easy to plan out new features or optimizations based on existing user data.
- Grade features based on user feedback so you can prioritize the most in-demand features in your roadmap.
Cons
- Some users complain about the integrations with other data platforms.
- Expensive when used among larger teams.
Price
There are four plans with productboard, the cheapest of which starts at $20 per user per month. The most significant difference between their tiers is integrations, so it's important to understand what integrations you'd like before you decide on a plan. If you aren't certain about their product, you can always try it out for a 15-day free trial.
- Essentials: $20 per user/month
- Pro: $60 per user/month
- Scale: Contact sales
- Enterprise: Contact sales
Learn more about these plans on the productboard pricing page.
9. Zendesk: Customer support
As your product grows, the amount of feedback from users also increases. Zendesk aims to help you streamline this process by speeding up your customer service and giving your support staff the workspace they need to create better real-time customer satisfaction outcomes. It also helps you learn from your feedback so you can build a bigger, better product with improved UX and UI.
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Image from Zendesk
Pros
- Zendesk supports omnichannel communication so you can chat with customers on social media, in-app, or through email.
- It helps you create support documentation so users can solve common issues on their own.
- Discover trends that you can optimize for to create an even better customer experience.
Cons
- It requires some work to integrate into your systems and train your team on best practices.
- It’s an expensive option since you pay per support agent.
Price
Zendesk’s pricing plans start at $49 per agent a month, making it a potentially expensive product. As you climb the pricing chart, expect to get more automation, multilingual support, customization options, and more.
- Suite Team: $49 per agent/month billed annually
- Suite Growth: $79 per agent/month billed annually
- Suite Professional: $99 per agent/month billed annually
- Suite Enterprise: $150 per agent/month billed annually
Learn more about these plans on the Zendesk pricing page.
10. SurveyMonkey: Survey creator
SurveyMonkey is an all-in-one survey creator that makes it easy to gather feedback from your users. Unlike so many product management tools, SurveyMonkey is incredibly straightforward. It creates surveys and does that singular job incredibly well, with multiple templates and tools that make survey creation as easy as possible.
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Image from SurveyMonkey
Pros
- Use SurveyMonkey Genius to estimate how effective your survey will be with your audience.
- Get insights automatically from survey responses so you can easily understand your user feedback.
- Analyze long answers with sentiment analyzers so you can get the gist of what people are telling you without reading hundreds of responses.
Cons
- We’ve heard that working with their customer service team isn’t always an ideal experience.
- The free plan is very restrictive.
Price
SurveyMonkey has seven plans differentiated by how many people will use the product and what level of service you want. With the better plans, you get increased survey numbers, options, and total responses. There is also a free plan, but it limits you to only 10 questions and 10 responses.
- Standard Annual: $16/month
- Standard Monthly: $99/month
- Advantage Annual: $32/month
- Premier Annual: $119/month
- Team Advantage: $25 per user/month
- Team Premier: $75 per user/month
- Enterprise: Contact Sales
Learn more about these plans on the SurveyMonkey pricing page.
11. Figma: Designing and Prototyping
Figma is a collaboration software that allows PMs to workshop new designs and prototypes with their teams. Since Figma doesn’t require in-depth coding knowledge, the whole team can work together without the need for your development team to mock up new prototypes or wireframes after each brainstorming session or iteration.
Image from Figma
Pros
- Use Figma’s design tool to create responsive designs so you can see how new ideas could impact the final product.
- Design mobile and desktop experiences through one program.
- Share your prototypes with anyone so you can get buy-in from multiple stakeholders.
Cons
- Figma is a complicated program that will require some time and experience to master.
- The automatic layout functions don’t always work the way you’d like them to.
Price
Figma has four pricing plans, including one that is completely free. The free plan won’t be enough for most teams, but it is a good chance to try out the product to see if you like it. As you climb the pricing plan ladder, it offers unlimited Figma files, better file management, and analytics.
- Starter: Free
- Professional: $12 per editor/month
- Organization: $45 per editor/month
- Enterprise: $75 per editor/month
Learn more about these plans on the Figma pricing page.
12. Optimizely: A/B Testing
Optimizely is a customer experience platform that specializes in A/B testing and personalization. PMs can easily run and analyze multiple A/B tests to improve their product’s UI and UX. Pair this with powerful personalization tools and analytics, and you can create a well-optimized personalized experience for your users.
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Image from Optimizely
Pros
- Use machine learning to identify user cohorts and target them with tailored messaging.
- Test your new designs with simple or advanced A/B test parameters to get the best possible user feedback.
- Have AI guide your optimizations to help you find new ways to increase your conversion rates.
Cons
- Optimizely can slow down your web pages.
- Integrating data from other sources can be difficult.
Price
Optimizely pricing depends on several factors, including which of their specific services you’re interested in purchasing. Contact their customer service to get a quote for your business.
13. Customer.io: Segmentation and customer communication
Customer.io is a messaging platform that aims to make it as easy as possible for businesses to craft and optimize custom messaging strategies. At the heart of this is a messaging flow creator, data analytics, and customer segmentation. Using these three features in conjunctions allows PMs to craft messages that speak to specific audiences in the places and times where they’ll be the most effective.
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Image from Customer.io
Pros
- Build custom cohorts based on demographics, in-app actions, and how they interact with your website.
- Use your cohorts in your targeted messaging or export them to your digital ad platform to market there.
- Analyze and test your communications to craft the perfect message.
Cons
- Their reporting functions are less customizable than they could be.
- Customer.io focuses primarily on email services.
Price
Customer.io includes a free trial of their basic package, which lasts for two weeks. Their paid subscription comes in two varieties:
- Basic: Minimum $150 a month
- Premium: Minimum $995 a month
The major difference between these two is that Premium comes with advanced features like HIPAA compliance and Managed Deliverability. Learn more about these plans on the Customer.io pricing page.
14. Team Meeting Checklist: Meeting planner
Team Meeting Checklist is a fun tool whose tiny footprint can save you some serious time by making meetings better (read: shorter). It consists of a checklist outlining what you need to do before, during, and after meetings for those meetings to be a success. This will help you keep your discussions focused and on time by forcing you to set goals and stick to a schedule.
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Image from Team Meeting Checklist
Pros
- It’s free and simple.
- Anyone can use it with no training at all.
- Team Meeting Checklist allows you to email other meeting participants with the planned agenda quickly.
Cons
- It doesn’t look like much.
- It only works if you actually commit to the checklist.
Price
Team Meeting Checklist is a completely free tool.
15. Zoom: Interview and video conferencing
Zoom is fully capable of running conferences with up to 500 people, which is great for bigger teams or if you need to run a webinar. The tool has everything you’d expect from a conferencing tool, including screen sharing, chat, and integrated scheduling. Overall it is a robust solution for your internal and external meetings.
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Image from Zoom
Pros
- It’s a popular tool that's easy to use.
- It has live transcription and recording options for keeping copies of your meetings handy.
- Meeting controls make it easy to manage large groups of people.
Cons
- The mobile app is fairly rudimentary.
- There is no web browser version.
Price
Zoom has four pricing plans that steadily increase the number of users you can host for longer amounts of time. For small teams, the free plan might be sufficient for your needs, making it a very good value.
- Basic: Free (up to 100 participants with a 40-minute limit)
- Pro: $149.90 per year/license (up to 100 participants with a 30-hour limit)
- Business: $199.90 per year/license (up to 300 participants)
- Enterprise: $240 per year/license (up to 500 participants)
Learn more about these plans on the Zoom pricing page.
FAQs
Have more questions? Well, we have more answers.
What tools are used in product management?
Product managers use all kinds of tools, ranging from those that help them mock up new flows to those that keep their teams organized. Broadly speaking, you could break down the kinds of tools product managers use into 5 main categories:
- UX and UI: These tools help you create better user experiences in your product. A good example of this kind of tool is Appcues, which lets you create and test new user flows.
- Analytics and Feedback: These tools help you understand how users are receiving your product. Hotjar, Amplitude, and SurveyMonkey are all examples of analytics and feedback tools.
- Strategy: These tools help you plan out your overall product vision, so you know how you’ll win over your target market. Figma and productboard both fall under this category.
- Management: These tools help you and your team interface more effectively. Team collaboration tools like Asana and Slack fall under this umbrella.
- Marketing: These tools help you get the word out about your new product, features, or events. Customer.io is an example of a marketing tool as it helps you send out targeted email campaigns.
Want to learn more about the best tools you can use today for product management? Take a look at some of these lists to find exactly what you’re looking for:
- 29 user onboarding tools to drive growth
- 9 customer retention tools you need to reduce churn
- 4 tools to easily manage your product launch calendars
What are the 3 areas of product management?
Product managers need a lot of skills to excel at their job. Everything from interpersonal skills to technical knowledge can help PMs produce and manage a better product for users. Generally, product manager skills can be broken down into three core areas:
- Strategic product management: Building and refining the strategy behind your product and how it will achieve a better product-market fit than your competitors.
- Technical product management: Planning and implementing the technical features that make up your product.
- Product marketing: Advertising your product through channels like email, referrals, and social.
If you’d like to learn more about product management, take a look at the product-led growth collective (not a new-age cult, we promise). In the collective, you learn how cutting-edge industry leaders approach product marketing. Not only will you learn what works best now, but you’ll also see what the future of product marketing will look like.
What is an example of a product management tool?
A product management tool is any tool a PM could use to help them do their job. These tools could help them manage their team, market their product, or design new onboarding flows. One example of a product management tool is Appcues. Appcues helps PMs and their teams quickly build user flows that could onboard new users, increase feature use, or stave off churn. No one product management tool can do everything (we’re still working on it). So until then, you’ll need a stack of tools to manage your product effectively—with each tool playing its part in the larger picture.
Put your product management tools to good use
Tools are great in the hands of experienced PMs, and you still need knowledge of marketing, UX, and team management best practices to get the most out of them. To level up your own product management skills, check out some of our ultimate guides to become an expert in no time at all.
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