Build an Online Community Around Your Product

Keep customer conversations in one place

A searchable feedback portal gives customers a clear destination for ideas and product questions. Similar requests can be merged, making recurring needs easier to understand and reducing repeated conversations across separate support channels.

Learn which problems matter to your audience

Votes, comments, and user information add context to each request. They are inputs for prioritization—not a replacement for product strategy—and help your team ask better follow-up questions before committing to a solution.

Make product development more transparent

Statuses and roadmaps show what is under consideration, planned, or in progress. Customers can follow relevant posts instead of asking your team for individual updates.

Close the loop when work is complete

Publish release notes in your changelog and notify subscribers when a request changes status. Contributors can see that their feedback was heard even when the final product decision differs from the original suggestion.

1. Collect ideas and questions

Create separate feedback boards for feature requests, bugs, integrations, or internal suggestions. Customers can search existing posts, add context, and join the discussion.

2. Discuss and prioritize feedback

Let community members vote on features, then review voters and comments to understand who needs an improvement and why. Merge overlapping posts so demand is not split between duplicate requests.

3. Share plans and progress

Move selected requests onto a public or private roadmap. Custom statuses, tags, assignees, and audience settings help you present the right level of detail to each community.

4. Announce product updates

Turn completed work into changelog entries with text, images, video, comments, and reactions. Subscribers can receive updates, bringing the conversation back to the people who asked for the change.

Customer-facing SaaS communities

Create a public home for feature requests, product questions, roadmap updates, and release announcements. Customers can participate when they have something to add and follow posts that matter to them.

Private customer advisory groups

Invite selected customers into restricted boards or roadmaps to discuss early concepts, beta features, or needs that should not be visible to the wider audience.

Internal employee communities

Use private boards for ideas from sales, support, engineering, and other teams. Voting and comments keep internal product feedback transparent while access controls protect sensitive discussions.

What is an online community platform?

An online community platform gives customers and a product team a shared place to exchange ideas, discuss feedback, vote on requests, and follow product updates.

How is a product community different from a traditional forum?

A traditional forum is organized mainly around conversations. A product community connects conversations to feedback boards, feature voting, roadmap statuses, and changelog updates so useful ideas can move into the product workflow.

Can an online customer community be private?

Yes. Productroad supports private boards, private roadmaps, user and team groups, and a closed portal mode for communities that should not be public.

Can I use my own branding and domain?

Yes. You can add your logo, favicon, and brand colors, and publish the community on a custom domain with SSL.

Does Productroad include a roadmap and changelog?

Yes. Productroad connects customer feedback with public or private roadmaps and a changelog, helping teams share plans, progress, and completed updates in one community.