10 GetBeamer Alternatives for SaaS User Feedback and Announcements
These Beamer alternatives can be used to collect user feedback and announce product updates in a simpler and more affordable way.
While GetBeamer is a useful platform for SaaS companies with massive user bases, the features and pricing is too complex for small and medium-sized SaaS companies who need an easier way for product managers to communicate with users directly.
Let’s take a look at what you can do with Beamer, why you might need an alternative, and the different products to consider.
What can you do with Beamer?
Beamer is a release notes platform that SaaS product managers and entrepreneurs use to send notifications to customers about product updates. You can use the notification center, in-app widgets, or changelog to let users know about your feature announcements. The platform offers user segmentation so you can select the right users to notify based on the products and features that they use.
Common motivations to seek out a Beamer alternative
Beamer is not a viable solution for many product managers because it’s very limited in what it can do. With Beamer, you can only collect feedback on your own posts, meaning your new feature announcements. So you’ll only know what users think about that feature after you announce it.
Here are all of the common reasons to avoid choosing Beamer:
Feedback is only available on release notes - Wouldn’t you rather know what users think about something before you build it, instead of after? Instead of using Beamer, you might want to use a product that offers feedback idea boards for feature requests so you can see how much certain ideas get upvoted, and what other users comment on each other’s ideas.
Want feedback, public roadmap, and release notes in one place - Only having release notes as the main feature doesn’t make for a good workflow. Instead, it makes more sense to have one platform for product managers to communicate with users. You might want a Beamer alternative that offers idea boards, public roadmaps, and feature announcements in one place. This opens up communication between users and product managers more easily.
Overly complex and made for large platforms - Another reason to seek out a Beamer competitor is because it’s designed for large, complex platforms with many sub-products and features. The segmentation feature they offer is useful only if your company builds software with very different use cases. But if the majority of your users interact with your product in approximately the same way, then the need for segmentation plummets, and you’ll be paying for features you don’t need. (All while not getting a public roadmap or idea board.)
Top 10 Beamer alternatives
Here are the top alternatives to using Beamer for collecting feedback from your SaaS users and letting them know of new product updates.
1. Frill
Frill is a user feedback software that is super easy to use. With single-sign on, users can login to give you a new idea. Plus, they can comment and upvote on other ideas. You can add these ideas to your public roadmap on Frill and also use Frill for feature announcements.
Pricing:
On the Startup plan, you can track up to 50 ideas in your idea board for just $25 per month. And on the Business plan, you’ll get unlimited ideas for $49 per month.
Frill’s roadmaps and announcement features are available on all plans—even our $25-per-month plan!
2. Upvoty
Upvoty’s top features include feedback boards, product roadmap, and changelog. You can update the product roadmap statuses to match your workflow and comment back and forth on ideas with users.
Pricing:
Upvoty doesn’t have a free plan, but you can opt for their $15 per month plan if you have fewer than 150 users.
3. UserReport
UserReport is an enterprise-ready user feedback software that is popular amongst B2C brands like Bauer, Toyota, and Tripadvisor.
Pricing:
UserReport’s pricing isn’t available online (meaning it’s expensive), so you’ll need to speak with sales for an accurate quote.
4. Nolt
With Nolt, you can create feedback boards to communicate directly with users. The platform also offers a public roadmap, anonymous voting, and board privacy.
Pricing:
Nolt doesn’t have a free plan, so you’ll need to sign up for their $25 per month plan.
5. Hellonext
Hellonext is another Beamer alternative that can be used by smaller SaaS companies to save on the expenses associated with collecting feedback and announcing new features. Similar to some of the other alternatives mentioned above, Hellonext offers user feedback boards, public roadmaps, and changelogs.
Pricing:
Hellonext doesn’t offer a free plan. You’ll need to sign up for the $12 per month plan to get started, or you can opt for the $25 per month plan for more integrations.
6. Savio
With Savio, you can centralize feature requests from multiple channels such has customer support, Slack, Intercom, and other channels. The platform doesn’t offer feedback boards, but rather feature request lists, making it not as user-friendly for your users and customers.
Pricing:
Savio doesn’t have a free plan, but you can sign up for the SMB plan and pay $49 per month for up to 3 teammates.
7. ProductBoard
Productboard is a platform for building roadmaps, prioritizing features, and centralizing feedback. You can collect user feedback in one place and determine which features to build based on user insights behind those suggestions.
Pricing:
Productboard doesn’t offer a free plan. Their pricing is $25 per user per month for the lowest plan, and $100 per user per month for the highest plan, which includes unlimited customer feedback and several integrations.
8. Qualaroo
Qualaroo is a customer and user feedback software that is primarily used by consumer tech companies. They have notable customers including eBay, Udemy, and LinkedIn. The platform offers a website feedback widget with multiple types of feedback collection including checkboxes, dropdown, radio, text-based, NPS, etc. You can set up various triggers for the feedback collection pop-up to appear for users.
Pricing:
The pricing is tracked per website page view. On the Premium plan, you would pay $160 per month for 100,000 page views. As this product is aimed at consumer brands, the monthly fees are likely to be much higher for many customers.
9. Usersnap
With Usersnap, you can collect customer feedback with screenshots, surveys, and feature requests. You can set in-app surveys that trigger based on customer behavior events if you want to collect feedback from only certain users. Customers can also report bugs, not just requests.
Pricing:
The $9 per month plan allows you to use some of the QA features, but not most of the feedback features. Companies will need the $129 plan to access most features.
10. UseResponse
UseResponse is a multichannel customer support software that offers feedback, help desk, and knowledge base features in one place. You can integrate your other help desk and messaging tools with UseResponse if you only want to use it for customer feedback.
Pricing:
As an enterprise solution, UseResponse’s lowest plan is $1490 per year. They don’t offer monthly pricing, so you’ll want to do your research before deciding to sign up.
What to look for in a Beamer alternative
Clearly, there are lots of different platforms designed to help SaaS companies collect feedback from their users, implement it, and communicate those updates. Some of these platforms overlap with other functions, like customer support, while others aim to be designed specifically for feedback.
All in all, here are the top things to look for when choosing a platform that can replace Beamer:
Idea board for user feedback - It doesn’t make sense to only collect feedback on your product announcements. You should also be able to collect feedback from users at any time, for any reason.
Public roadmap - You’ll want to easily turn the ideas on your idea board into items on your public roadmap, so look for a platform that also offers this feature.
In-app widget - With an in-app widget, you can remind users to leave you feedback on your idea board at any time.
Announcements (release notes) - Announcements are an essential way of retaining customers. Look for a platform that lets you update your users in the same place as the idea board, so it’s always easy for users to see what other users have suggested, what’s in the roadmap, and what has already been released.
Great UX and single-sign on for users - Having everything related to updates in one place makes things easier for users. You should also check that the platform has simple UX and single-sign on to increase participation.
Pricing that fits your needs - And of course, you don’t want to pay a thousand bucks a month for the above features, so check for simple SaaS apps, and avoid big enterprise platforms.
While Beamer does have interesting segmentation features, the fact that it’s built solely for release notes is a major miss.
Instead, collaborate with your users in a way that fosters open feedback, as well as engagement and upvoting amongst your users.
Want to collect and implement user feedback? Check out Frill.