15 Best Idea Management Platforms, Tools & Softwares

Let’s start with Quentin Tarantino’s words “The good ideas will survive”

Ideas can come from anywhere, including your employees, customers, and brainstorming sessions. Maybe even when you’re counting sheep to fall asleep.   

But imagine missing out on the important ones. Better to be safe than sorry, right?

It’s best to collect your vision before it’s lost in time. For that, you need a way to collect, refine, and act on ideas before they slip through the cracks. 

That’s where idea management software steps in. Some come with AI insights, while others focus on collaboration or automation. 

Whatever you need, there’s a tool that fits. 

Here are 15 of the best platforms to help you keep the creativity flowing and turn great ideas into real results.

1. Wazoku

With Wazoku, your business can track emerging trends, and implement ideas more effectively. It works on a Connected Collective Intelligence model with four components. 

To keep all innovation data in one place, there’s Centralized Data Management. Following that, you get Real-Time insights; here, Wazoku relies on AI systems and generates up-to-date data quickly. 

Strategic Alignment ensures all new ideas align with your business goals, while Enhanced Collaboration & Integration is for connecting teams, and breaking down silos so everyone can share and act on insights. 

Creatives will also find their collaborative forums quite engaging. Think of them as portals where people can submit ideas, and even discuss them further.

Now, if you want your team to get a hang of the tool, there’s Wazoku Innovation Academy. It’s resourceful and can be paired with contribution rewards to motivate your employees.

You can also draft personalized pulse surveys and collect contextual feedback through them. It can be related to anything like, workplace hazards, competitor analysis, and more.

Pricing

You need to fill out a customized form and then Wazoko’s team will reach out to you with pricing details.

Pros

• R.I.S.E framework strategically manages and tracks your innovation
• Challenge Driven Innovation methodology for systematic and sustainability
• Cross-functional collaboration between Scouting, Corporate Venturing, and more
• Extensive Wazoku Crowd’s community of over 700,000 individuals

Cons

• Customization needs to be improved

2. ITONICS

ITONICS claims itself to be the Innovation OS. Let’s see if it’s worth the hype. 

Their first core feature is called Foresight. 

It helps you track trends, technologies, and risks, so your business can spot new opportunities fast. Using Foresight, you can also automate tagging, and turn complex data into actionable insights with visualizations and keep teams aligned.

Then, comes Ideation, which is all about idea collection, management, and evaluation.  Here, you get tools for GenAI-powered ideation campaigns, collaboration tools, real-time dashboards, and idea boards to make informed decisions.

Portfolio feature helps prioritize projects, plan investments, and stay adaptable in changing markets. For example, you can integrate projects and programs with foresight-driven insights.  You can even get rid of non-ROI projects and unify all reports under one platform.

With ITONICS, your team can even visualize interdependencies and focus on long-term goals with Matrix insights.

Pricing

ITONICS comes with three different plans for Foresight, Ideation, and Portfolio. 

• Team
• Professional
• Enterprise

Since each plan is tailored according to the needs of your business,  there’s no such price mentioned.

But you can go through the specs for each plan and book a demo. 

Pros

• Interactive Roadmaps to mitigate risks
• Kanban Boards and automated recommendations to eliminate inefficiencies 
• Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) and Single Sign-On (SSO)
• Solid support with blogs, webinars, guides, events, and toolkits
• ITONICS Campus partners with universities to support academic ventures

Cons

• Despite resources setup feels complex
• Takes a while to get a hang of the features

3. Miro

Miro is a collaborative online whiteboard that can help your teams brainstorm, plan, and execute projects. Whether you’re in product development, marketing, or IT, Miro brings people together in one dynamic space. 

It comes with a user-friendly workspace where ideas flow freely. If you have a remote team, you can collaborate in real time across different time zones. 

Miro AI helps you work smarter, not harder. It collects your sticky notes and categorizes them according to the sentiment. Miro’s AI rewrites and refines text, and even turns them into documents, reports, visual diagrams, or summaries based on your inputs.

To automate repetitive tasks and turn messy ideas into structured outputs, you get the AI shortcuts feature. And since Miro adapts to workflow, you can use it to map ideas, design, or plan. It even organizes, edits, and automates, so you can focus on what matters.

Beyond ideation, Miro integrates with 160+ tools like Slack, MS Teams, Asana, and GitHub. 

For smarter communication, you get video walkthroughs, interactive elements, and plug-and-play templates. It makes teamwork engaging and efficient. 

Pricing

Miro comes with four different plans. 

Unlike other tools, there’s a free plan too. While it’s quite basic, you still get perks like 3000+ templates and 3 editable boards. 

Aside from the Enterprise plan, which starts for a team of minimum 30 members, the other paid plans will cost each of your team members the same price. 

• Starter Plan: $8/month
• Business: $16/month

Pros

•  Comes with over 2500 diagramming shapes and icons like Flowcharts
• Content recovery with board version history
• 24/7 support, and guaranteed SLAs with Enterprise plan
• Extensive collaboration with unlimited guests on private and team boards
• Meeting tools like timer, voting, video call, estimation app, private mode, and more
• Single Sign On (SSO) through OKTA, OneLogin, Auth0, etc

Cons

• Free trial limited to the Business plan
• Collaborating on a single workspace can feel cluttered 

4. LaunchPath

LaunchPath too works on certain principles to help you manage your ideas. Let’s cover them one by one.

First up, we have Ideate and this is where innovators brainstorm and refine their ideas.

Here you can use an idea canvas, apply key evaluation criteria, and get feedback from mentors. Then LaunchPath uses its innovation management system to convert your visions into projects. 

Once an idea is formed, it needs to be tested and it comes under Validate. 

Here as an innovator, you can use tools for market research, customer discovery, and feasibility checks. LaunchPath’s framework ensures your idea stays practical and impactful.

Lastly, under Evaluate & Decide, you get regular feedback and automated reviews to keep track of your progress. You can also get insights from your peers and mentors. This is important for the final adjustments before you start your project. 

And there is more to LaunchPath. 

Like, cross-functional teams can collaborate and work to refine ideas. Meanwhile, AI-powered brainstorming sparks new concepts, and AI insights align them with trends, funding, and goals.

Pricing

LaunchPath currently offers three plans, with a free trial only for the Team plan. 

• Team: $49/month per user
• Business: $7500/year for 20 users
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

Pros

• AI-powered portfolio performance analysis and business case development 
• LaunchPath comes with API, webhooks, and  Zapier for integration
• Dedicated infrastructure and multilingual support with Enterprise plan
• Single Sign-On (ADFS, Azure AD, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, etc)

Cons

• Lack of a free plan
• The most basic plan comes with a minimum cap of 5 users

5. Qmarkets

Qmarkets comes with a structured approach to innovation. With a concept of 5-Qs, it makes it easy to collect and implement your impactful ideas.

With Q-ideate, your teams can collaborate and refine ideas in a way that feels natural. It’s like a space where you can crowdsource and commercialize new services. You can even discuss business dilemmas, customer pain points, and market challenges.

Q-optimize uses AI to get rid of the guesswork. It brings you data-driven insights to refine products, services, and strategies. 

Since keeping up with trends can be overwhelming, Q-trend makes it easy too. You can use it to identify upcoming industry shifts and ideas before they become mainstream. Q-trend makes trend analysis a team effort, turning insights into something everyone can collaborate on.

Then to connect your businesses with the right people and opportunities there’s Q-scout. This means you can track your pipeline, measure progress, and manage deals with start-up owners, patent holders, and partners.

Innovation only matters if it leads to real impact, and that’s where Q-impact comes in. 

Here, you get end-to-end innovation project management and intuitive tools to manage your innovation portfolio. You get custom workflows, kanban boards, innovation funnel, portfolio analysis, and more.

Pricing

While you only get a price when you reach out to Qmarkets, their plans are versatile. 

As a part of Crowdsourcing tools(Q-ideate and Q-optimize), you have the Core plan and the Enterprise plan. Then for Strategic Innovation Tools(Q-Impact, Q-Scout, and Q-Trend), there’s a separate Enterprise plan.

Pros

• Tools for budget control and risk management
• Semantic search database to find relevant startups
• Get AI-recommended experts based on experience and profile criteria
• Option to compare costs and revenue to calculate ROI
• Advanced analytics with customizable dashboards, reports, and insights

Cons

• UI can be more intuitive 
• Hard to find fresh reviews for the product 

6. Ideawake

Ideawake helps your organizations foster innovation and collaboration at scale. It makes the tiresome process of collecting, refining, and implementing ideas easy. But how? Through customizable workflows

You also get AI-powered duplicate detection. This is to declutter repeating ideas and challenge your team to spark creative, goal-focused solutions. 

Ideawake claims that its gamification features, like leaderboards and prizes, make participation more engaging. They say these features can boost engagement rates to 50%-80%.

And this is far higher than tools like Microsoft Forms.

For real-time insights into innovation performance, you get customizable dashboards and analytics. And to check your progress without any hassle you can track KPIs, identify gaps, and more. 

Then, your teams can gather feedback, comment, and vote on ideas in real-time. Ideawake does this to make collaboration easy and break down silos. 

With a focus on ROI, Ideawake even prioritizes engagement. Their plans are scalable for enterprises, so you can tweak them as you grow.  

Pricing

While choosing your Ideawake plan, keep in mind that each plan comes with a different number of workflows, automation, and groups. 

• Flex: $500/month
• Business: $300-$2250/month(based on users)
• Enterprise: Custom price after a demo

Once you choose your licensing option, you’ve to pay additionally for Success & Support. The Standard plan comes at $100/month, the Premium plan for $325/month, and the Enterprise plan for $550/month.

Pros

• All-round support system with Innovation Specialist and Priority Support
• Supports anonymous submission of ideas and feedback for open discussions  
• Ideawake automatically notifies stakeholders about updates and progress
• Simple UI with intuitive features for beginners 

Cons

• Flex plan feels limiting with a cap on workflows and automation
• Reporting features can be improved

7. Mural

With Mural you get sticky notes, text, diagrams, images, and GIFs and this makes your ideas come to life. Its resizable canvas gives you unlimited space, while mapping tools help you organize complex workflows.

One of Mural’s biggest strengths is its flexibility. Since transparency is quite important, you control who can view, edit, or facilitate your projects. It also has built-in chat, comments, and sharing options, so communication is seamless. 

If you’re leading a meeting, tools like timers, participant summons, and private mode help keep sessions focused and productive.  

Mural even integrates with a bunch of popular apps like Microsoft Teams, Adobe, Azure DevOps, and Confluence. This keeps Mural connected to your existing workflows.

Whether you’re a designer, strategist, or educator, Mural adapts to your workflow with its smart AI and it doesn’t end there.

You can use Mural AI to generate ideas, questions, and statements through natural conversations. Their AI even uses details like goals, pain points, and attendees to suggest templates. 

Pricing

Mural’s pricing plans are quite impressive. You get a handy free plan with three paid plans at a per-member cost.

• Team+:$9.99/month
• Business:$17.99/month
• Enterprise: Contact Sales

Pros

• The free plan supports unlimited team members
• Mural comes with audit Logs, downloadable reports, and reporting APIs
• Single sign-on and Require 2-factor-authentication for members and guests
• Available on the Web, iOS iPhone & iPad app, Windows 10, Android, macOS
• In-house customer success professionals

Cons

• Takes up a bit of memory or might be slow sometimes
•  Can be a bit tricky for newbies

8. Microsoft Whiteboard

Microsoft Whiteboard is a flexible digital canvas. As part of the Microsoft 365 ecosystem, it helps you capture, organize, and share ideas with ease. From brainstorming, sketching out a workflow, and taking quick notes, you can do it all with your team on a common workspace. 

Like Mural, you get a resizable canvas here, but with the option to add sticky notes, text, images, GIFs, and diagrams. Plus, over 60 free templates and mapping tools help you structure even the most complex ideas.  

What makes Whiteboard great is how teamwork becomes a breeze. 

Everyone on your team can work on the same board in real-time. Then MS Loop syncs data across your chats, meetings, emails, and documents. Plus, your work is automatically saved to the cloud, so you can pick up right where you left off.  

Want to draw? There’s an option for that too. 

Smart Inking feature turns your rough sketches into clean shapes. And if you’re using an iPad with an Apple Pencil, your handwritten notes can instantly convert to text.  

Pricing

And while you can use MS Whiteboard for free, it’s a part of the MS 365 workspace. 

This means all the plans are split into three categories: For Home, For Business, and Copilot and Business with cheapest one starting for $6/month.

Pros

• User-friendly interface with familiar tools
• Connects well with Microsoft 365 apps like Teams, OneNote, Sharepoint, and more
• Guides and blogs for beginners to get started
• MS Whiteboard works well for remote and in-classroom learning

Cons

• Not as versatile as other alternatives
• Limited integration with tools outside the Microsoft ecosystem

9. Bluescape

Bluescape’s virtual whiteboard is perfect for teams that love brainstorming, creating diagrams, and working on presentations together. Its real-time collaboration comes with file integration, and easy navigation, so your teams don’t get lost. 

You don’t just get a regular workspace. 

While working on a project you can use emoji for engaging responses, zoom in to catch every detail of attached images. And for virtual reviews you can even sync video playback. It doesn’t matter if it’s your laptops, mobile device, or in-room displays, you can interact from any device.

Sharing content is just as easy. You can upload high-res files, edit documents, and review videos without lag. Bluescape claims to ensure the best quality, which means compression won’t ruin your graphics. 

By connecting with different tools and apps to automate workflows Bluescape’s API takes some load off your team. For quicker data analysis, pair it with other features like document summarization, geo-data visualization, and pattern-of-life profiling. 

Pricing

Aside from the free plan, Bluescape charges every user the same amount for the opted billing plan.  

• Team:$10/month
• Business:$20/month
• Enterprise: Contact Sales

Pros

• Bluescape supports Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud
• Drag-and-drop workspace with over 200 templates
• Strong security with SSO, custom permissions, roles, and user-level authorizations
• Impressive integrations for the free plan including Microsoft Teams and Slack
• Watermarking feature to protect the documents, images, and videos 

Cons

• Not ideal for CX needs like collecting feedback
• Outdated reviews

10. Brightidea

Whether you’re crowdsourcing ideas, running innovation programs, or tracking project success, Brightidea covers it all.

It comes with an Idea Box feature, where your customers and colleagues can store their ideas. This makes it easy for the managers to categorize them for final feedback and evaluation. 

Teams can also create Programs like Innovation Challenges to explore new opportunities. And while doing so, BrightIdea has got your back. 

Like, if you want to create a Hackathon, you’ll find resources like a knowledge base, playbook, blogs, presentation, and videos to get started. 

Then using the Lab feature, your team can test and refine ideas before launching them.  S

For making it easy to track ideas from start to finish, Brightidea also includes an innovation pipeline. Using this your business can measure the financial impact of the ideas using ROI tracking. Now, this also comes handy when you’re sharing results with stakeholders.

Brightidea works with Slack, Microsoft Teams, Jira, and Google Docs. It also supports Zapier and has a REST API for custom setups. So, you can align it with your other workflows.

Pricing

Custom pricing based on business needs.

Pros

• AI-powered idea evaluation
• Customizable workflows for different industries
• Comes with a range of products like Memo, Ecosystem, and Idea Box
• Real-time innovation tracking & analytics
• Mobile app for idea submission on the go

Cons

• Pricing isn’t publicly available
• Can feel complex for smaller teams

11. HYPE

HYPE gives you the flexibility to fully customize your idea management process. You can find four different modules that can be used in any combination of your choice.

First up, we have HYPE Innovate to spot trends and create strategies to align your goals with practical roadmaps. Within this you get tools like drag-and-drop templates, portfolio analyzer, and dynamic collaboration with features like commenting, voting, and real-time updates.

Then HYPE Partnering is all about scouting and managing your innovation partners. For instance, you can start a portal where potential clients can submit their proposals. Plus, with auto-updating profiles, you can track topics and identify new areas for partnerships.

For the creatives, there is the HYPE Board feature.

You get an intuitive interface, automated workflows, and an option for idea validation. Meanwhile, the templates are quick to set up. This gives you time to group ideas by product line and create layered categories with subcategories for complex projects.  

You can also get your team trained with HYPE Innovation Consulting.

If you’re just getting started, HYPE’s team will understand your business needs and then create a “roadmap to success”. Their experts claim to help you build a sustainable innovation program with a brand-centric foundation. 

Pricing

HYPE’s pricing plans aren’t transparent. 

For a custom quote, you need to fill out a form.

Pros

• Pairwise feature for quick comparisons and Scorecard for detailed analysis
• HYPE is a multilingual global innovation platform
• AI-powered search with an extensive database of websites, patents, news, and more
• Tailored data collection with dropdowns, multi-select menus, and custom filters 
• HYPE Boards connect with tools like MS 365, Jira, and Teams with REST API

Cons

• Some users can tackle a learning curve 

12. FigJam by Figma

And here’s a gem for the creatives and designers.

FigJam by Figma is perfect for brainstorming, planning projects, and solving problems together. With tools like sticky notes, markers, and drawing tools, your team can visually map out ideas and stay organized. 

The features are quite interactive too. Like real-time reactions with stamps and emotes, make collaboration fun. You can even invite people from other teams or companies to join your project without a login. This comes in handy for quick feedback.

FigJam also supports dynamic conversations with Spotlight mode. This way teams can focus on what matters the most.

Those with an iPad can use the FigJam app to sketch and explore ideas. You can also use prompts to automate workflows. In a matter of a few seconds, you can design custom templates, visualize timelines, and more. 

For more automation, you can connect your FigJam account to tools like Asana, Jira, and GitHub. 

Pricing

Like Figma, FigJam too has four simple plans. 

The Starter Team plan comes for free while the other three plans(Professional, Organization, and Enterprise) cost $5/month per seat. You can manage your full seats from the Admin Dashboard.

Although all paid plans start at the same price, they differ in terms of usability and features. Plus, students and teachers can even enjoy the Professional plan for free. 

Pros

• FigJam comes with a handy free plan
• Interactive features like music player, custom color palettes, and Bitmojis
• Jambot AI to brainstorm ideas and code up your designs
• Wide range of useful plugins and widgets 
• FigJam has over 300 ready-made templates including flowcharts and roadmaps

Cons

• More suitable for creative teams
• Lacks the depth of other Idea management tools

13. Aha! Ideas

From brainstorming to execution, Aha! Ideas keep your teams focused on what matters.

As a part of the Aha! Product suite, it centralizes feedback and turns suggestions into actionable plans. Teams can easily track voting trends by customer segment, and use AI to spot key patterns and trends.  

For things like use cases or business impact, you can use Dynamic Forms. You can also create a custom-branded portal where users can share ideas, get product updates, and leave notes. Plus, you can set up in-app submissions with a custom widget in just seconds.

Ah! Ideas make your workflow smoother with automation.

To keep things sorted you can assign ideas, rank them with scorecards, and update contributions automatically. For example, your product manager can use reports to match top-voted ideas with sales opportunities or share roadmaps directly with your customers.

With Aha! Whiteboards you can tweak user flows, create mockups, and collaborate on roadmaps. It has over 100 templates for strategic models, wireframes, technical diagrams, and more.

Pricing

If you go with Aha! Roadmaps, it’ll cost you $59/month per user. It includes tools like Aha! Ideas, Aha! Whiteboard and Aha! Knowledge Essentials. 

Otherwise, Aha! Ideas will cost you $39/month per user with a main focus on idea management. 

Pros

• Bi-directional integration with Salesforce
• Rich in customization(theme color, terminology, idea capture forms, and more)
• Gantt charts to plan major idea launches
• Option to create technical guides, how-to articles, and more 
• Aha! Roadmaps has over 75 pre-built product reports

Cons

• Features can overwhelm beginners
• Integrations make the workspace cluttered 

14. Jira Product Discovery(JPD)

With customizable roadmaps and features for stakeholder engagement, Jira Product Discovery keeps everyone aligned and informed. It’s a practical way to turn ideas into actionable plans without unnecessary complexity.

Before any idea moves to the development backlog, your team can also add research or data from third-party apps. Plus, your teammates can react, comment, and vote on ideas to share their feedback and support your strategy.  

Jira makes prioritization flexible too. 

Whether you follow the RICE method or your framework, you can use custom fields like impact and effort to score ideas. To compare ideas side by side, you can simply shift to different views(List, Matrix, Board, and Timeline). 

Jira Product Discovery works with Jira’s ecosystem, moving from discovery to delivery is easy. Like, your team can link ideas directly to Jira tickets. And since, the entire journey is under a single workflow, developers get a clear context on priorities. 

Not to mention, newbies can find resources like webinars and the Atlassian community helpful.

Pricing

For a small tea of 3 people, there’s the Free Forever plan. The other two paid plans cost you for every team member.  

• Standard:$10/month
• Premium:$25/month

On an annual billing, you’ll save up to 17%.

Pros

• Unlimited contributor limit per site on all plans
• Chrome extension to capture ideas and insights from any website
• Quickly exports ideas to Excel spreadsheets or Google Sheets
• Project Management tools like Continuous Discovery, Scrum, and Kanban 
• Intuitive design makes it beginner-friendly

Cons

• The free plan lacks essential features like a Roadmap and the option to assign custom project roles
• Cheaper alternatives available

15. Canny

And here’s my final pick, Canny. 

Canny combines feedback and idea management to help you collect, organize, and prioritize ideas. For starters, it deduplicates ideas to keep your workflow tidy.

Since everything is central, you can maintain a transparent roadmap of what you’re working on. But that doesn’t mean your data is at risk. Canny gives you different privacy options to limit user access to your boards. 

To ensure no one misses out on important details, you can pin responses, add internal comments, format posts for better readability and even track feedback manually. 

Canny comes with customizable boards, where ideas can be sorted by categories or teams. You can even filter feedback to segment data(e.g. Submissions by subscribed users) 

Then there’s a prioritization system to score ideas based on metrics like revenue and customer impact. You can also set estimated dates, to mark deadlines for time-bound projects. Once that’s sorted, you can automatically send alerts to keep everyone updated about the progress and priorities. 

Pricing

If you’re not sure about the tool, there’s a handy free plan to get started. It supports unlimited users, single sign-on, and private boards.

On the flip, you can get around 20% off on the annual subscription of these plans:

• Starter: $79/month
• Growth:$359/month
• Business: The sales team will contact you after a requested demo

Pros

• Special discounts for startups, healthcare, nonprofits, and educational institutes
• All Canny plans are CCPA and GDPR compliant  
• Advanced customization with admin badges, subdomains, widgets, and ETAs
• Unlimited integration with Growth and Business plans

Cons

• Lacks visual brainstorming tools 
• Canny focuses more on feedback-inclined idea management 

Final Words

There you have it, the 15 best idea management tools. 

Each one brings something unique to the table, whether it’s AI insights, creative whiteboards, multi-team collaboration, or workflow automation. No matter what you’re looking for, there’s something here to keep your ideas flowing. 

So, try the ones you think align with your goals and bring the next big change.