Last Updated on July 11, 2024 by Ewen Finser
Most small to mid-sized ecommerce stores and websites barely spend ANY time on testing and feedback cycles in their dev process.
I know this because this is me! Most of the time we get some feedback from stakeholders, but in a very disorganized and ad hoc fashion. “What do you think about his redesign?”
Of course I know big companies do this all the time, judging by the QA / QC industry. The truth is that the tools these large enterprise players users are mostly out of reach for scrappy smaller operations.
This is why I was really intrigued when BugHerd hit my radar.
Finally a user testing and feedback tool that actually fit my budget (starting at just 39/month). So was there a catch?
In this review I’ll share my take on this platform as a whole, including some practical examples of how it works. I’ll close with a recommendation about who this is best for (and who it’s NOT right for).
Ok, let’s jump right in.
What Does BugHerd Do Exactly?
BugHerd is a feedback / review tool for websites, allowing for centralized feedback management and actionable insights to resolve bugs faster.
In other words, if you are a designer, design agency, project manager, or QA team, BugHerd makes your life MUCH easier WITHOUT the complexity of traditional QA tools.
One of the hallmarks of BugHerd is it’s “feedback in context” view where notes are attached to the visual elements of your website. Almost like adding comments to a a Google Doc.
What I Liked About BugHerd
Here are some of the leading features and functions that stood out to me testing BugHerd:
- Simple Implementation: If you’ve ever used QA tools, integrations can get really technical and finnicky. BugHerd can be implemented with a simple Javascript code, BUT my favorite user friendly implementation is their straightforward chrome extension. You don’t have to be technical to get this setup!
- Fast, Easy to Use: After struggling to setup heatmaps and other user feedback tools, using BugHerd was dead-simple and easy to comment on the fly. Part of the friction with getting quality feedback is making it easy for end users. With a simple Chrome add-on and sidebar task interface, getting feedback can quickly become an organizational norm.

- Relatively Cost Effective: I wouldn’t categorize BugHerd as cheap, but it is much more affordable than many of the alternatives I considered. The base plan of $39/month for up to 5 team members is more than ample for most companies to get up and running. For example, the other platform I strongly considered was Marker.io and their entry level plan is $59/month for up to 3 users.
- Easy Video Feedback: Finding a quick and easy screen recording / video app has always been the bane of my existence. I was surprised to find BugHerd’s video recording tool to be just as easy as the comment markup feature, with no lag. That’s better than Vimeo or Loom for me and I’m a power user!
What Could be Improved
Here are a few things I think BugHerd could work on:
- Pricing: Given the lack of significant feature differences in the pricing plans, I think a “per user” pricing scheme makes more sense that the preset tiers. Maybe even a base + per user vs the larger tiered jumps in pricing (see pricing considerations in the next section).
- Integrations: While they have some great existing integrations (and state more are coming soon), BugHerd lagged behind others like Marker for directly supported integrations (e.g. not Zapier).
Caveat: BugHerd is laser focused on USER feedback, so there’s no real automated code bug tracking. In other words, if something is sub-optimal or not working under the hood, BugHerd isn’t the right platform for that. It’s all about the user experience. I wouldn’t include this as a “con” per se, but more of an expectation setting issue as some competitors do both.
BugHerd Pricing Considerations
This is how BugHerd stacks up in terms of pricing:
There are a few differences in the advanced features area (can guests see feedback, etc…), but the main consideration here is the number of members.
At least that’s how it shook out for me: we’d generally fall in the Standard to Studio range and I didn’t see any reason to go beyond that as we have no more than 10 team members / stakeholders for most projects.
That said, I could see the storage limits factoring in at some point for power users, although we’d likely just remove old projects if that was the only limiting factor.
BugHerd Integrations
Integrations are always one of my key considerations, as mine – and most companies – are generally built on varied stacks of software. Good integrations can unlock tremendous value, if done correctly.
For BugHerd, I really liked their wide and varied integrations, including ones we use:
- monday.com
- Slack
- WordPress (this is huge – 90% of our sites are WordPress or WooCommerce)
Another integration partnership I found compelling was their Fullstory integration (another rising star in analytics / feedback). Their dynamic data insights based on user behavior tracking pair really nicely with the active feedback capabilities of BugHerd to actually tell a “full story” in both quantitative and qualitative heuristics.
BugHerd Alternatives & Peers
That said, it’s all relative. There are a variety of competitors that I would put in the same neighborhood and that are worth contrasting against your specific business use cases.
- Marker.io: I touched on this one briefly up front, but Marker is one of the most similar peers. Marker does have some more advanced features like session recordings and auto-error log file reports. The other big area of consideration is their much wider integration list.
- Feedbucket: Feedbucket adds some interesting features like being able to draw on screen and add attachments to comments. They also have an awesome integration with Asana (and other PM tools), if that’s a system you use.
- Superflow: Superflow is more targeted towards creative agencies looking to get feedback from clients. I specifically like their versioning functionality and “review from anywhere” functionality (e.g. you can action from a mobile device).
- Usersnap: Usersnap is quite similar to BugHerd, but with more structured use cases for Beta Testing, Usability testing, and User Acceptance. Helpful if you are working in an organization that already uses these frameworks.
- Ruttl: Ruttl is a more downmarket “budget” alternative to BugHerd, starting at just $6/month. They do extend beyond just website feedback and can also be used for PDF and document (content) mark-ups as well. Good for working with clients that include those types of deliverables.
- Ziflow: Ziflow is less about just feedback and more about an actual design workflow, with feedback built-in. Great for a more seamless, one-stop process.
So How Should Use BugHerd?
My overall take is that BugHerd is highly usable and accessible for almost any brand. It’s my favorite user feedback tool that I’ve tested recently.
That said, I do think there’s a few IDEAL use cases to consider:
- WordPress Site Owners / Operators: If you use WordPress, this is the best user feedback tool I’ve personally found to solicit asynchronous feedback from key stakeholders.
- Small Agencies / Designers: This tool makes you look much more professional as a service provider and with good reason!
- Internal Design Teams: This is also a great feedback tool for design teams working within larger companies to ensure all the key internal people get a chance to provide input.
Bottom Line: If you’ve held off on investing in a legit QA / QC solution due to cost, BugHerd is hands down the best option I’ve tried. It’s not as robust as some, but the tradeoff is an incredibly usable and reliable platform well worth the price.