Votera — Self-Hosted Feedback Board, Roadmap & Changelog (PHP + MySQL) vs. renting SaaS
Your own feedback board, public roadmap, and changelog — unlimited voters, no per-user monthly bill.
The subscription math
Votera — Self-Hosted Feedback Board, Roadmap & Changelog (PHP + MySQL) — yours
$59.00
one-time · self-hosted · your data, your server
Buy once
Frill — rented
Startup $25/month, Business $49/month, Growth $149/month, Enterprise $349/month, with a monthly/yearly toggle. "Plans from $25/mo. Unlimited admins and unlimited widgets on every paid tier" — what the tiers ration is active ideas and surveys, not people [1]
Break-even: 3 months
of Frill equals the one-time price.
Assumption: The entry tier as published. Frill is the closest rival on this product in mechanism: like Votera it refuses to charge per admin, and meters the WORK instead — its own feature table reads "active ideas 50 unlimited unlimited", so Startup caps active ideas at 50 with one survey and unlimited ideas arrive one tier up at $49. Votera is $59 once, with unlimited voters and no idea ceiling at all.
How their pricing grows:
Frill meters by ACTIVE IDEAS and surveys rather than by seat: admins and widgets are unlimited on every paid tier, and what you buy with a higher tier is room for more feedback.
“plans from $25/mo. unlimited admins and unlimited widgets on every paid tier” — read 2026-09-03
What Frill does that we don't:
Frill bundles the whole feedback loop — ideas, roadmap, changelog, surveys and white labelling on the upper tiers — with SOC 2 on Enterprise.
Stay with Frill if you want the hosted widget, surveys and white labelling maintained for you. Votera is the same three surfaces — a feedback board, a public roadmap and a changelog — bought once and run on your own domain, with unlimited voters and no monthly bill behind them.
Canny — rented
Pro $99/mo month-to-month at 100 tracked users ($948/yr billed annually, i.e. $79/mo); ladder climbs with tracked users, which never reset, to $1,349/mo month-to-month; free plan capped at 25 [2]
Break-even: 1 month
of Canny equals the one-time price.
Assumption: Tracked users accumulate and never reset - the tier ladder on the same page runs up toward $474/mo as they grow. Votera has no per-user meter - $474/mo at 700 tracked users is on the same page. Annual billing runs $79/mo to $1,079/mo across the same ladder.
How their pricing grows:
Canny's paid pricing scales with tracked-user count, climbing through a fixed price ladder as that count grows, and tracked users never reset.
“Canny will automatically increase the price to the next increment when the tracked user limit is exceeded.” — read 2026-08-11
What Canny does that we don't:
Canny's Pro plan bundles integrations with project-management tools like Jira, ClickUp, Linear, and Asana, plus Zapier and Segment.
If you need voters automatically emailed when a linked idea ships, stay with Canny — Votera 2.0 notifies you on a new post or status change through your own SMTP; the changelog is the public record, not an auto-emailed voter list.
Featurebase — rented
Free plan; $29/seat/mo (Growth) to $99/seat/mo (Enterprise), billed yearly; AI resolutions $0.49 each [3]
Break-even: 3 months
of Featurebase equals the one-time price.
Assumption: Per-seat - the bill multiplies with team size, not usage. Every tier is priced 'Billed yearly'; the page shows no monthly rate. A whitelabel add-on at $69/mo was on this page on 2026-07-21 and is not on it on 2026-09-03, so the figure was dropped rather than carried. Votera is one payment for any team.
How their pricing grows:
Featurebase charges per seat per month across its paid tiers, plus a per-resolution fee for AI-handled support tickets, billed yearly.
“$0.49 per AI resolution Billed yearly” — read 2026-08-11
What Featurebase does that we don't:
Featurebase bundles a full helpdesk/support-ticketing platform with the feedback and roadmap tools in one subscription.
If you need granular custom admin roles for a larger team, stay with Featurebase — Votera ships with one admin account at install, and more team members are added directly in the database.
Nolt — rented
Essential $29/mo (1 board, $348 billed annually); Pro $69/mo ($828 billed annually) [4]
Break-even: 3 months
of Nolt equals the one-time price.
Assumption: Flat monthly with unlimited users - fairer than per-user, but still recurring, and one board on the base tier. Re-read 2026-09-07 through a rendering proxy (the site answers a real browser with a bot wall): $29/$348 and $69/$828 both unchanged since the 2026-07-21 read. Votera is unlimited boards, bought once.
How their pricing grows:
Nolt's entry-level Essential plan is a recurring $29/month (billed annually at $348) and caps you at a single board; more boards require the pricier Pro or custom Enterprise tier.
“Essential $ 29 / month $ 348 billed annually” — read 2026-08-11
What Nolt does that we don't:
Nolt includes unlimited users and admins on every plan, so a growing team doesn't add to the bill.
If you need single sign-on today, stay with Nolt — Votera's single sign-on hand-off to your own app is on the roadmap, not shipped in 1.0.
Savings calculator
SaaS figures use the cited plan price above (see the sources below); per-seat plans scale by the seat count from the same cited price. This is arithmetic, not a quote.
Why owning beats renting here
- One payment. No per-month, per-seat, or per-location fees — the license is perpetual.
- Your data stays on your server. Customer records never live in someone else's cloud.
- No plan ceilings. Records, users, and usage are limited by your hosting, not a pricing tier.
- It keeps working if the vendor doesn't. Self-hosted software can't be sunset out from under you.
Fair trade-offs: you host it, you back it up, and updates are yours to apply — see the product page for honest limitations.
Sources
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Frill — price checked 2026-09-03 —
source
“plans from $25/mo. unlimited admins and unlimited widgets on every paid tier ... startup$25per month ... business$49per month ... enterprise$349per month”
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Canny — price checked 2026-09-03 —
source
“The month-to-month pricing for the Pro plan is $99/mo for up to 100 tracked users ... The annual pricing is $948/yr ... Free plan: 25 tracked users”
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Featurebase — price checked 2026-09-03 —
source
“plans at $29, $59 and $99 per seat per month; $0.49 per AI resolution”
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Nolt — price checked 2026-09-07 —
source
“Essential - $348 billed annually - 1 board ... Pro - $828 billed annually”
Competitor prices change — always confirm on the linked page. We only print figures we could verify on the date shown.