OPINION
Why per-user pricing punishes
your best customers.
The customers who vote, comment and ask for things are the ones you most want to hear from.
Think about who ends up on a feedback board. Not the customers who quietly left. The engaged ones: they post an idea, vote on three more, and come back to see what shipped.
When a tool charges by tracked user, each of them is a line on your bill. Canny defines a tracked user as someone who has given feedback, by posting, voting or commenting (canny.io/pricing, checked 2026-10-20). Its free plan covers 25.
The incentive is backwards
You want more customers to speak up. The price wants fewer. Teams respond in quiet ways: they stop inviting the whole base, hide the board behind a login, or merge feedback into a spreadsheet when the next tier comes into view.
What to look for instead
- Price by something you control, like seats or features, not by how many customers talk.
- A way out. You should be able to export your data, or run the tool yourself.
- No surprise at the next tier. If a price is "contact us", ask the question before you invite your users.
That's why we're building Dupes Feedback as a free, self-hostable board: nothing on it grows with the number of people who vote. Come and vote on the next dupe.