The price anchor
| Shipnotes | Canny | |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly | $0 — no subscription | $79/mo |
| Annual | $0 after purchase | $948 |
| 5-year total | $129 | $4,740 |
| 10-year total | $129 | $9,480 |
Subscription figures from the vendor's published pricing ($79/mo, ~$948/yr); the Shipnotes column is the full price, paid once.
Break-even analysis
Canny costs $79 every month. Shipnotes pays for itself in about 7 weeks — then your changelog is free for the life of your product.
- After 1 year: Shipnotes has cost you $129 total — Canny has cost $948.
- After 3 years: Shipnotes is still $129 — the subscription is at $2,844.
- After 5 years: Shipnotes is still $129 — the subscription is at $4,740.
What you get for $129 once
- Public changelog. Write posts in Markdown, tag them New / Improved / Fixed, publish with one click. Valid RSS 2.0 feed included.
- Public roadmap board. Planned / In Progress / Shipped columns, sorted by votes, so users can see where things stand.
- Feature requests + voting. Visitors submit ideas and upvote — one vote per visitor, no account or signup wall — with comment threads.
- Moderation that scales. Approve, decline with a public reason, or merge duplicates — votes carry over and are deduped.
- Email subscribers. Bring your own SMTP; publishing a post emails every subscriber with one-click unsubscribe.
- No renewal, ever. The license does not expire and there is no per-seat meter — $129 is the whole price.
Pricing questions
Is it really free on GitHub?
Yes — MIT source at github.com/bensblueprints/changelog-roadmap-mvp. $129 buys the packaged version, 1-click setup and updates.
Do voters need accounts?
No — and that's deliberate. Canny puts votes behind a signup wall; Shipnotes uses a per-visitor token (one vote each, repeat votes rejected server-side). Lower friction means you hear from far more of your users.
What doesn't it have vs Canny?
Honestly: no Jira/Slack/Intercom integrations, no user segmentation or revenue-weighted prioritization, no SSO-identified voters. Shipnotes is the core loop — changelog, roadmap, voting, email — done well. If your PM team lives in Canny's integrations, Canny earns its price.
Does the widget slow my site down?
No — it's one small deferred script tag that renders a bell with an unread badge. You can attach it to your own button with data-target and theme it with data-accent.
Shipnotes — $129, one time
Or get Shipnotes plus every other app in the suite: the OneTimeSuite bundle is currently $97, one time.