Canny.io alternatives: where to go when your voters cost too much
Canny.io alternatives: why the bill climbs with every voter, seven tools to move to, and how to migrate without losing a vote.
The short answer: Featurebase if you want the most complete tool at a low entry price, Sleekplan if your voter history matters and you want comments to come along, Nolt or Upvoty if you want a flat bill no matter how many people vote, Frill if your whole team needs admin access, Fider if you'd rather self-host. One thing to know before you pick: Canny's CSV export gives you each post and its vote total, but the voter list comes out one post at a time, and comments only show up as a count. So the import path decides what you keep. We compared the seven destinations in this guide and checked their pricing pages in 2026.
The ranking is editorial: a sponsored spot is always labeled on its card, and no affiliate link changes a score.
Why teams leave Canny, even when they like it
Credit where it's due: Canny is a solid product. Review sites put it around 4.5 out of 5, and few users complain about the interface or the integrations. People leave for one reason above all, the pricing model. These are the six complaints that keep coming up in founder threads and goodbye posts.
Every voter is a line on your invoice
Canny bills on "tracked users": anyone tied to a piece of feedback, whether they posted, voted or commented, including people an admin or the Autopilot assistant added on their behalf. The more your community engages, the more you pay. One SaaS founder who left described hitting 943 tracked users for roughly 85 open suggestions, and a quote of $311 a month.
A steep jump from free to paid
The Free plan covers 25 tracked users and 5 managers. The next step, Pro, starts at $79 a month billed annually. There's nothing in between. For a solo developer or a startup with a hundred active customers, that gap is the most common complaint. One bootstrapped founder put it bluntly: the pricing "is not that friendly for bootstrappers."
The counter never goes down
A voter keeps counting as long as they're tied to feedback. Without a spending cap, Canny moves you up to the next tier automatically and prorates the bill. You don't decide when your price changes; your community does.
The spending cap stops collecting feedback
You can set a cap to avoid surprises. The catch: once you hit it, Canny stops recording feedback from new users. You protect the budget by losing input from the customers who just showed up. Almost no comparison article mentions this.
Pricing that keeps changing
Canny has reworked its pricing several times in a few years. One customer counted five changes before the sixth, and reviews mention a bill that went from $200 to $400 a month. The old Starter and Growth plans are gone; today the page lists Free, Pro and Business.
US-only data, enterprise SSO behind a quote
All Canny data sits in the United States, with no EU residency option. The data processing agreement relies on standard contractual clauses, and OpenAI is on the subprocessor list. Enterprise SSO (Okta, Entra ID, OneLogin, OIDC) is reserved for the Business plan, which is quote-only.
You're leaving because… go to…
The right Canny alternative depends on what's pushing you out. Usually only one row applies. Each card links to the full profile below.
Flat price from $29 a month, unlimited users and admins.
You need to keep voters and commentsSleekplanNative Canny importer via API key: votes, voters, comments, statuses.
You're an early-stage startup on a tight budgetFeaturebaseA usable free plan and 86% off for eligible startups.
You want to spend under $20 a monthUpvotyPower at $15 a month, unlimited tracked users.
You want the data on your own serverFiderOpen source, documented Docker and PostgreSQL setup.
You need an enterprise-grade toolUserVoiceBig budget, 20 admins on Launch, sales-led onboarding.
Canny alternatives, tool by tool
For each tool: why move to it, who it fits, where it falls short, how to migrate from Canny, and what it costs. Prices are the ones listed on each vendor's pricing page in 2026, in US dollars, before tax.
Featurebase: the most complete option at a low entry price
Our top pickWhy move to Featurebase. It's the closest match to what Canny does (voting board, public roadmap, help center), but it charges per seat on your team, not per person who votes. Your community can grow without touching the invoice. The company is based in Estonia, which helps when a European customer asks where the vendor sits.
Who it fits. Startups and SaaS teams with one to ten people on the product side who want everything in one place. The startup discount is unusually generous: 86% off if you're under two years old, under six employees and under $3M raised. Open source projects and nonprofits get 15%.
Who it doesn't fit. A large team where twenty people answer feedback. Per-seat pricing adds up fast; look at Nolt or Frill instead.
Where it falls short. Free covers 1 seat, 1 board and 1 roadmap. Growth is $29 per seat per month (5 boards), Professional $59 (10 boards, 20 "lite" seats), Enterprise $99 per seat with SAML and SCIM, minimum 5 seats. Removing Featurebase branding is another $69 a month, and only on Professional or Enterprise. Annual billing saves 20%.
How to migrate. The pricing page lists an automatic Canny import, but the only help article that spells out what comes across is the CSV path: title, content, board, status, date, tags and author. Votes arrive as a number only; voters and comments don't make it through that route. Ask support what the automatic import keeps before you commit. The trial runs 10 days, no card required.
- Free
- 1 seat, 1 board
- Paid
- Growth $29/seat/mo
- Startup deal
- 86% off if eligible
- Watch out
- CSV import drops voters
Sleekplan: the most faithful migration, voters included
Long historyWhy move to Sleekplan. It's the only destination here whose docs describe a native Canny importer that brings almost everything: posts with their original dates, comments and their authors, votes and voters, categories and statuses. You paste your Canny API key, the importer runs, and a log lands in your inbox. Sleekplan doesn't bill on tracked users, so your community can vote freely.
Who it fits. Teams with years of history in Canny and hundreds of voters they want to notify when a feature ships. If your voter list is the asset, this is where you take it. The vendor is Sleekplan GmbH, a German company.
Who it doesn't fit. Anyone who wants to pay month to month and see that price upfront: the page only lists annual pricing.
Where it falls short. Indie is free with 1 admin, a board and a changelog. Starter is $13 a month billed annually (3 seats, SSO), Business $38 a month billed annually (10 seats), Enterprise is quote-only with SAML (Okta, Azure AD, Auth0). Annual billing gets you two months free. The 30-day trial needs no card, then the account drops back to Indie.
How to migrate. Three rules from the importer docs. Turn off moderation before you start, or every imported post sits in a review queue. Run the import once: it doesn't deduplicate, so a second run creates duplicates. And note that each Canny board becomes a Sleekplan category; users are matched by email.
- Free
- Indie, 1 admin
- Paid
- Starter $13/mo (annual)
- Voters
- unlimited, not billed
- Canny import
- native, via API key
Nolt: a flat price no matter how many people vote
Predictable billWhy move to Nolt. Nolt is the mirror image of Canny: you pay per board, and users, content and admins are unlimited on every plan. If your product takes off, the invoice stays put. JWT single sign-on is included from the first plan, so customers can vote from inside your app without creating an account.
Who it fits. A single-product SaaS with a big, vocal customer base that wants a fixed budget and a simple interface.
Who it doesn't fit. Teams that need a turnkey migration. One founder who left Canny tried Nolt and called its Canny import unreliable, its support slow and its SSO incomplete, with no way to list users. It's a single account, but it lands right on migration day.
Where it falls short. Essential is $29 a month ($348 a year) for 1 board, with a roadmap and JWT SSO. Pro is $69 a month ($828 a year) for 5 boards, Jira, Linear and Asana integrations, and an export API. Enterprise is quote-only (SAML, OIDC, SCIM, 99.9% uptime SLA). Nonprofits get a discount.
How to migrate. Use the 10-day Pro trial (no card) to run a test import and count what arrives. Check it against your Canny export: post count, statuses, vote totals. If the gap is wide, don't switch yet.
- Paid
- Essential $29/mo
- Users
- unlimited
- SSO
- JWT from Essential
- Watch out
- check the Canny import
Upvoty: the smallest budget, voters not counted
Tight budgetWhy move to Upvoty. It's the cheapest option in this guide, and it doesn't count voters: unlimited tracked users from the first plan. In a founder forum thread about Canny alternatives for one-person SaaS, one user summed it up as "Fair pricing and everything you need."
Who it fits. A solo developer or a small team with one product that wants a voting board and public roadmap without thinking about the bill every month.
Who it doesn't fit. Anyone running several products on a small budget: each extra project means the Hyper plan.
Where it falls short. Power is $15 a month for 1 project. Super, at $25, adds the changelog and every integration. Hyper, at $49, unlocks unlimited projects, SAML SSO and an MCP server to plug in an AI assistant. Enterprise is quote-only, with a custom DPA. Annual billing only saves 10%, and the page doesn't list the annual amounts.
How to migrate. Start from your full-board Canny CSV and ask support during the 14-day trial (no card) how they take it in. Named voters won't survive a plain file, so plan a public post inviting your community to re-vote on the ideas that matter.
- Paid
- Power $15/mo
- Voters
- unlimited
- SAML
- Hyper plan, $49
- Annual
- only 10% off
Frill: when the whole team answers feedback
Unlimited adminsWhy move to Frill. Frill charges per plan, with unlimited admins and widgets on every paid tier. Support, product and sales can all respond to ideas without raising the bill. The interface is clean, and that's what users praise most.
Who it fits. Teams of 5 to 30 where lots of people handle customer feedback and the budget is fixed.
Who it doesn't fit. A startup with no budget: Frill has no free plan. Also a busy product on the entry plan, which caps you at 50 active ideas.
Where it falls short. Startup is $25 a month (50 active ideas, 1 survey), Business $49 (unlimited ideas, 3 surveys), Growth $149 and Enterprise $349 (SOC 2, audit logs, dedicated hosting). Some add-ons (privacy, extra surveys, white label) are paid with no listed price, so get the quote before you sign.
How to migrate. The trial runs 14 days with no card. Frill's pricing page doesn't spell out what a Canny import keeps, so run a test with your CSV and spot-check five ideas for title, status and votes. With 50 active ideas on Startup, archive stale ideas before you import.
- Free
- no, 14-day trial
- Paid
- Startup $25/mo
- Admins
- unlimited
- Watch out
- 50 active ideas on Startup
Fider: the open-source option, on your own server
Open sourceWhy move to Fider. Fider is an open-source feedback board. You can run it yourself with the official Docker image and a PostgreSQL database: the data stays on your server, wherever you want it, and nobody counts your voters. It answers the "is there a self-hosted Canny?" question that keeps coming up in developer forums.
Who it fits. A technical team comfortable running a server, or a company whose legal team wants data kept in-house.
Who it doesn't fit. A team without a developer: upkeep, updates and backups are on you.
Where it falls short. The free hosted version stops at 250 pieces of feedback. Pro is $25 a month, no contract, and adds moderation, unlimited feedback and search engine indexing.
How to migrate. There's no one-click Canny importer: you write a script that reads your CSV export and creates posts through Fider's API. Budget time to check statuses idea by idea afterward.
- Self-hosted
- Docker and PostgreSQL
- Hosted
- free up to 250 posts
- Paid
- Pro $25/mo
- Watch out
- scripted import
UserVoice: only if you're moving upmarket
EnterpriseWhy move to UserVoice. Nobody leaves Canny for UserVoice to save money. You go there if the company has grown, leadership wants an enterprise vendor with a sales team behind it, and the budget is there.
Who it fits. Mid-market and enterprise software companies with a product team of 10+ and account managers feeding in requests.
Who it doesn't fit. Any team leaving Canny over price: the gap is an order of magnitude.
Where it falls short. Launch is $1,000 a month, or $12,000 a year, with 20 admins. Business is $1,833 a month ($22,000 a year) with 50 admins. Enterprise is quote-only, and each extra admin costs $40 a month. The 30-day trial only opens after a demo.
How to migrate. Go through the sales team, which scopes the move during the trial. If you ever need to leave, our guide to switching from UserVoice covers the reverse path.
- Paid
- Launch $1,000/mo
- Commitment
- $12,000/yr minimum
- Admins
- 20 on Launch
- Watch out
- trial after a demo
All 7 alternatives side by side
Our default picks: Featurebase for a small team, Sleekplan if your voter history matters. For a rough sense of scale, take a three-person team and a growing community. On Canny you pay Pro at $79 a month (annual) while your voters stay under the tier, then more. Featurebase Growth runs $87 (3 seats at $29), Sleekplan Starter $13, Nolt Essential $29, Upvoty Power $15, and none of them move when your voter count doubles. One row per tool: left, the free plan and what gets billed; right, the first paid price and the import from Canny.
| Free plan and billing unit | First paid plan and Canny import | |
|---|---|---|
| CannyWhere you're starting | 25 tracked users, 5 managers; billed per voter | Pro $79/mo billed annually; Business by quote |
| FeaturebaseOur top pick | 1 seat, 1 board; billed per seat | Growth $29/seat/mo; CSV import without voters or comments |
| SleekplanLong history | Indie, 1 admin; billed per seat | Starter $13/mo billed annually; native Canny importer with voters |
| NoltPredictable bill | No free plan, 10-day trial; unlimited users | Essential $29/mo; test the Canny import on a trial |
| UpvotyTight budget | No free plan, 14-day trial; unlimited voters | Power $15/mo; start from the CSV export |
| FrillUnlimited admins | No free plan, 14-day trial; billed per plan | Startup $25/mo (50 active ideas); start from the CSV export |
| FiderOpen source | Free self-hosted; hosted up to 250 posts | Pro $25/mo; scripted import via the API |
| UserVoiceEnterprise | No free plan; 30-day trial after a demo | Launch $1,000/mo ($12,000/yr); vendor-led migration |
Entry prices in US dollars, before tax, subject to change. Always check against your real team size and community size.
Migrating from Canny in eight steps
Order matters. Each step protects something: your ideas, your voters, your SSO setup, and the trust of customers who took the time to give feedback.
Take stock of everything that's running
Day 1List every board, status, tag and category. Add your tracked-user count (that's your current bill), the integrations you've connected (Jira, Slack, Intercom, Zendesk) and the Autopilot sources, the assistant that pulls requests out of your support conversations. A simple sheet does the job: one row per item, with its equivalent in the new tool.
Why bother? Anything you don't write down won't come with you. And if your Jira tickets are linked to ideas, our guide to switching from Jira helps you see what breaks on the engineering side.
- Time
- one to two hours
- If you skip it
- a forgotten integration
Export each board and its voter lists
Day 1In Canny, go to Settings > Boards > Export Data for a full board, or export a filtered view. The file includes title, details, score (total votes), comment count, date, images, status, URL, tags, author, category, owner and associated MRR.
The tip most guides skip: voters export one post at a time, from the bottom-left corner of each post's voter list. Do it at least for your 20 most-voted ideas. For comments, the file only has the count, so save the ones that matter, or pick an API-based importer.
- Time
- half a day
- Keep
- the raw CSV, untouched
Pick the import path based on what you need to keep
Day 2Three cases. You want everything, voters and comments: use an importer that reads Canny with your API key, like Sleekplan's (Ducalis offers one too). Ideas and vote totals are enough: a CSV will do, for example into Featurebase. You're moving to a tool without an importer: script it against the API, or start fresh with your top 50 ideas copied over.
Choose the path before the tool. A cheaper tool that drops your voters costs you the list of people to notify when the feature ships.
- Keep everything
- API-key import
- Ideas only
- CSV
Set up the destination before importing
Day 2Create the boards, statuses and categories that will receive your ideas, using the same names as before. Turn off post moderation during the import, or every idea waits for approval. Mute voter notifications too: nobody should get 300 "your idea changed status" emails on import day.
- Time
- an hour
- Trap
- notifications left on
Run the import once, then spot-check
Day 3Run the import, once. Some importers don't deduplicate, and a second pass leaves duplicates to clean up by hand. Then pick five random ideas and compare them with Canny: title, status, date, author, vote count. If one is off by more than a few votes, find out why before you go further.
- Sample
- at least 5 ideas
- If you skip it
- duplicates
Reconnect SSO, the widget and every link
Day 3If customers vote without creating an account, that's SSO, the automatic sign-in from your app. Generate the new token in your app, swap the widget, point your subdomain or custom domain at the new tool, and update the links in your app and emails. Reconnect Jira and Slack too.
A Canny-side trap: switching a board from public to SSO cuts off access for existing voters, and re-linking their old votes to a new account doesn't happen on its own. Leave Canny's settings alone during the cutover.
- Time
- half a day
- Test
- one vote from inside your app
Catch the feedback that came in during the switch
Week 1Between the export and the cutover, customers kept posting on Canny. Run a filtered export for those days and add the ideas by hand. If you used Autopilot to read Intercom or Zendesk tickets, make sure the new feedback source is live. If you're also changing help desks, our guide to switching from Intercom can help.
- Time
- an hour
- If you skip it
- lost ideas
Tell your voters, then cancel Canny
Week 2Post an update on the new board, and email the voters on your top ideas using the lists from step 2. Without a voter import, that's your only way to reach them later. Only then cancel Canny, once the import checks out. Keep the cancellation confirmation and watch the next invoice: some reviews mention being charged after a scheduled cancellation.
- When
- after the import is verified
- Keep
- written confirmation
Is your tool missing from this page? Email us: hello@hackceleration.com
What makes a Canny migration go wrong
The same mistakes show up in goodbye posts and in vendor import guides. None is truly technical. They're oversights, and each one costs more than the time it would have taken to avoid it.
Assuming the CSV has everything
Canny's CSV gives you vote totals and comment counts, not the voters or the comment text. If you don't pull voters post by post or use an API importer, you can't notify anyone later.
Comparing prices without comparing units
Canny bills per voter, Featurebase and Sleekplan per seat, Nolt per board, Frill per plan. Model your real situation: team size, voters a year from now, number of products. Our ranking of product roadmap and feedback tools shows the cost for a five-person team.
Setting a spending cap without knowing the catch
If you're staying on Canny a few more months, a cap shields you from the next tier, but once reached it stops recording new users. During a migration, that's exactly where ideas disappear without anyone noticing.
Running the import twice
A failed import rerun without cleanup creates duplicates, with votes split across two copies of the same idea. Wipe everything before rerunning, or better, do a dry run on a trial account.
Forgetting the feedback entry points
Mixing up a voting board and a feedback tool
A voting board answers "what should we build next." It doesn't replace a survey or watching how people use your site. If that's what's missing, see our Typeform alternatives and our Hotjar review.
- Boards, statuses, tags, integrations and Autopilot sources listed
- CSV export of each board saved untouched
- Voters on top ideas exported post by post
- Import path chosen based on what you need to keep
- Statuses and categories created in the new tool
- Moderation and notifications off during import
- Import run once, five ideas spot-checked
- SSO, widget, domain and links switched over
- Feedback from the cutover window caught up
- Canny canceled after verification, confirmation saved
Canny alternatives: frequently asked questions
Is Canny free?
Yes, up to 25 tracked users, with 5 managers and unlimited boards, with no time limit. At voter 26 you need Pro, at $79 a month billed annually. Tip: open source projects and nonprofits can ask for a discount, and indie founders report getting a startup discount simply by asking.
How much does Canny cost in 2026?
Free is $0, Pro starts at $79 a month billed annually for the first hundred or so tracked users, and Business is quote-only from 5,000 tracked users. Annual billing saves 20%. The old Starter and Growth plans no longer exist, so be wary of pages that still quote them.
What is a tracked user in Canny?
Anyone tied to feedback: a post, a vote or a comment, even if an admin or Autopilot added it for them. Someone who voted once two years ago still counts as long as that vote stays linked. That's why the counter almost never goes down.
What's the best free Canny alternative?
Featurebase for a solo founder (1 seat, 1 board, 1 roadmap), Sleekplan Indie if you also want a changelog, Fider if you can self-host or stay under 250 posts on the hosted version. None of the three counts your voters. Our roadmap and feedback tool ranking compares more options.
How do I export votes and comments from Canny?
Vote totals come out in each board's CSV export (the Score column). Voter lists export post by post, from each voter list. Canny's help docs describe exporting the comment count, not the comment text, so to bring comments along use an importer that reads Canny with your API key, like Sleekplan's.
Is there an open-source alternative to Canny?
Yes: Fider, which you can run with Docker and PostgreSQL, or use hosted for free up to 250 posts. Factor in maintenance time and a script to bring over your Canny export, since there's no one-click importer.
Does Canny store data in the EU?
No. All data is stored in the United States with no EU option, under a DPA based on standard contractual clauses. If a European customer requires an EU vendor, Featurebase (Estonia) and Sleekplan (Germany) are the closest fits; confirm hosting location in their contracts. Self-hosted Fider lets you choose the server.
Canny or Productboard?
Canny collects votes from customers. Productboard is a product management suite built first for prioritizing and planning, with a 5-maker minimum and no public pricing. If your problem is the per-voter bill, Productboard isn't the fix. If you need real prioritization, it can sit next to a voting board. For the analytics side, see our product analytics ranking.
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