Operating a customer community platform is an increasingly important strategy for B2B SaaS companies looking to enhance their customer’s experience. These handy platforms offer a wide range of benefits, including enhancing brand loyalty, increasing engagement, and ultimately boosting retention.
After all, the right customer community platform can be used by B2B SaaS companies for a wide range of purposes. They can be used for community support, hosting Q&A forums, providing knowledge bases, and promoting events, all from one convenient, easy-to-use platform that allows customers to self-serve.
Choosing the right platform is vital for unlocking all those benefits. At their best, customer community platforms boast intuitive design, allowing for customization and branding, and integrate with the company’s existing tech stack.
Some platforms do those things better than others. In this post, we’ll take a deep dive into some of the best on the market.
1) Bettermode: Best For Mid-Market B2B SaaS Teams
Bettermode is a B2B SaaS company-focused community platform that unlocks real value. Not only can it be fully branded, but it helps to drive revenue in direct ways. It’s a branded platform that excels at support deflection, customer education, product feedback, and advocacy. It’s a great option for mid-market B2B SaaS teams, typically those with around 50 – 500 employees, helping to replace myriad Slack channels, forums, and support ticket software all in one centralized, branded hub.
Bettermode also does something that few others in this segment do, and that’s publish its pricing. The starter package costs $399/month and covers up to 10,000 members. From there, pricing scales predictably, with the growth package (25,000 members) costing $1,500/month. A premium package that covers up to 100,000 members is available on request. We also liked that annual billing helps save up to 16% and that there are no transaction fees.
Whichever plan you choose, you’ll get access to the full community toolkit. That includes member profiles, private spaces, Q&A, events, discussions, polls, built-in analytics and SEO tools, email digests, customization, and much more. The platform also integrates with virtually all the tech your team is already using, including Salesforce, Zendesk, Mixpanel, Hotjar, Mailchimp, and Discord, among others. While it’s a relatively new player on the scene, it’s already trusted by IBM, Lenovo, Webflow, and Deepl, among other big-name customers, and there’s every chance it becomes the all-out leader in the field before too long.
2) HigherLogic: A Reliable Customer Community Platform for B2B SaaS Companies
HigherLogic has been around for a long time, and has earned a reputation for being a reliable customer community platform. It offers plenty of features, including a big widget catalog and pre-built analytics tools. Big on compliance, it’s mostly aimed at governments and healthcare organizations, but can be adapted for use by B2B SaaS companies.
While HigherLogic does now feel a little dated, its design and usability are clean and effective. It’s generally thought of as a safe choice rather than anything cutting-edge. One downside about HigherLogic is that there’s no pricing available, so you’ll need to get in touch directly to learn about the cost. Implementation is also known for being a little slower than other customer community platforms. Still, it’s established itself as one of the biggest in the world, and is trusted by many leading businesses and organizations.
3) Khoros: Best For Large, Big-Budget Businesses
Khoros has been around since 2001, and during that time has powered more than 4000 communities, resulting in more than $500 million in savings on annual support costs. A large platform, its modules include communities, care, and marketing, and include features such as AI-powered moderation and broad analytical tools.
While not necessarily entry-level or overly intuitive — it requires in-house development support to run effectively — it is known for being powerful and cutting-edge. As with HigherLogic, you’ll need to get in touch with Khoros to learn about the pricing, and many users do say that prices tend to rise each year. Still, for large companies with a big budget and the tools/resources to undertake the learning curve, Khoros can be an effective way to develop your customer relationships.
4) Discourse: Best For Companies Happy to DIY
Discourse is a favorite of developers thanks to its open-source framework, which allows businesses to develop their own fully customizable customer community platform. It’s trusted by some of the biggest brands in the world, including OpenAI, Asana, and Zoom, and is also one of the most affordable on the market. Self-hosting options are free, while managed hosting ranges from $100 to $500. Free options come with much less support, and you’ll have to do everything yourself. There’s a free trial for the paid plans available, allowing businesses to test drive the platform for 14 days.
5) Zapnito: A Good Option for Building B2B Knowledge Bases
Zapnito isn’t as powerful as some of the other names on this list, but it has developed a strong reputation with companies looking to enhance knowledge-sharing with their customers. The platform provides a streamlined brand destination for knowledge, which can be personalized for each user. It’s a place where customers can connect and share knowledge, including through discussions and online events. As with other platforms, this one asks customers to get in touch for pricing.
Summing Up The Best Customer Community Platforms for B2B SaaS Companies
The leading B2B SaaS companies are investing heavily in customer community platforms, and with good reason. The right ones do the jobs of entire tech stacks, allowing brands to unlock real revenue through a platform that offers its customers genuine value.
As we’ve seen, there are plenty of excellent and well-known customer community platforms on the market. Choosing the one that’s right for you will depend on your organization’s goals. If you’re just looking to share knowledge, then Zapnito, which is almost exclusively focused on knowledge-sharing, could be the right option. For organizations needing a more rounded customer community platform, or who just want to know upfront how much the platform will cost them, Bettermode would be our recommended choice.
