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Balancing trust, access, and control on Webflow Enterprise

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In today’s age of software sprawl, the primary challenge isn’t adopting new tools — it’s controlling who can use them, how they’re used, and when access should end.

Most enterprises are managing 300–400+ apps at any given time, and without consistent Identity and Access Management (IAM), security gaps can multiply. Forgotten accounts, ad-hoc permissioning, and unclear ownership don’t just slow teams down — they expose organizations to real risk.

Webflow Enterprise takes a holistic approach to IAM, designed to give enterprises confidence that every step of the access lifecycle is secure and automated. Provisioning new users, managing authentication, applying granular access controls, monitoring usage, and deprovisioning at offboarding — we’ve built governance into each layer of the product.

By weaving IAM directly into the Webflow experience, we empower enterprises to scale web creation without compromising oversight. Teams gain the freedom to collaborate, while IT and Security teams maintain assurance that access is always accurate, auditable, and aligned with company policy.

The Webflow Identity and Access Management (IAM) lifecycle

Most Enterprise IT organizations evaluate SaaS platforms through the lens of IAM because every stage of the user lifecycle, from onboarding to offboarding, presents an opportunity for risk if not managed correctly. It’s not enough to offer isolated features — trust is built when a platform supports the entire lifecycle:

  1. Provisioning new users
  2. Authenticating access
  3. Authorizing the right level of permissions
  4. Monitoring user activity
  5. Deprovisioning access when employees leave

Webflow’s enterprise-grade offering maps directly to this framework. Let’s take a look at what you get at each stage of the lifecycle.

1. Provisioning: Secure and seamless onboarding

Manual onboarding doesn’t scale and it creates risk. IT teams need automated, standardized ways to get employees into tools quickly and securely. By adopting the same standards IT already uses across hundreds of apps, Webflow fits seamlessly into existing identity workflows.

Webflow supports enterprise provisioning in two ways:

This gives enterprises a scalable, secure way to get employees into Webflow without adding burden on IT.

“We manage hundreds of apps, and as our company grows it’s critical that we can easily create and remove user accounts at scale, ensuring that the right people have access to the right tools at the right time — all managed centrally through our IdP. And that’s what we get with automated SCIM provisioning and deprovisioning. And from a security perspective, this also helps us prevent audit findings and reduce risk with timely access revocations which is a big deal for our team.”
– Sid Bhargava, Sr. Enterprise Security Engineer at Webflow

2. Authentication: Strong frontline defense

Authentication is the first line of defense for enterprise security teams. And for most large organizations — including 72% of Fortune 500 companies — single sign-on (SSO) is a requirement in how they evaluate and adopt new applications.

Webflow provides multiple layers of authentication to align with those standards:

Together, these reduce reliance on individual credentials and align Webflow with enterprise security baselines.

3. Authorization: Enforcing least privilege at scale

One of the biggest risks in enterprise environments is over-permissioning — giving users more access than they need. Because of this, most IT teams look for tools that offer granular controls to tailor access to their needs.

Webflow delivers with multiple layers of granular authorization controls:

With these controls in place, organizations can scale their teams responsibly, ensuring growth is matched with the governance and security today’s enterprises demand.

“We operate in a heavily regulated industry where robust compliance and risk controls are vital. Being able to create custom roles for things like ‘Designer – can only publish to staging’ allows us to gatekeep the ability to publish to production to a select few and protect our production site.”‍
– Adam Jones, Head of Digital Marketing at L&C Mortgages

4. Monitoring: Visibility and compliance

Visibility into what’s happening and who’s doing what is non-negotiable for enterprise IT teams, with 90% of security leaders sharing that Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems are essential for their operations. 

Webflow Enterprise provides two layers of monitoring:

  • Site Activity log: Track the what, when, and who for important changes made to the site so you can fix issues faster.‍
  • Audit log API: Exportable logs that track important user events for compliance and monitoring — like login activity, role & permission changes, and more — that Security and IT teams can ingest into monitoring dashboards and SIEM tools.

This gives Security and IT teams the traceability they need to meet compliance requirements and respond quickly when issues arise.

5. Deprovisioning: Closing the loop

The user lifecycle ends with offboarding and it’s one of the riskiest moments if not managed well. Lingering accounts can often become targets for attack.

Webflow provides automated offboarding through:

  • SCIM deprovisioning: Automatically remove access when employees leave or change roles, keeping permissions tightly aligned with HR and IT systems.

Security and IT teams can rest assured that when platform access should end in Webflow, it truly does.

Building trust as a foundation, not a feature

We know that Enterprise IT and Security leaders aren’t just evaluating whether a platform can host content, they’re evaluating whether it can be governed at scale.

By investing across the Identity and Access Management (IAM) lifecycle, Webflow is making it easier for enterprises to automate, secure, and scale how they manage access so you can focus on driving results for your business, not on manual admin work.

This is not the end of the journey. As enterprises evolve, so will our investments in governance and trust, ensuring Webflow remains a platform IT and Security leaders can rely on with confidence.

If you’d like to speak to someone about getting access to the above capabilities on Webflow Enterprise, get in touch with our sales team.

Leading design through disruption: A conversation with Sara Vienna, Chief Design Officer at Metalab

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Sara’s path to leading one of the industry’s most respected design firms began with a cold email in 2014.

When her partner’s medical residency relocated them to San Diego, she reached out to Metalab — a decision that would shape the next decade of her career. Despite falling in love with the opportunity and the team during a visit to Victoria, Canada, she initially turned down their offer to prioritize what was best for her family at that moment.

What happened next speaks to both Sara’s character and Metalab’s culture: they offered her a year-long remote advisory role, understanding her circumstances and keeping the door open in the years that followed. By 2019, when life brought her to Hawaii and Metalab had evolved into a more remote-friendly organization, timing was on their collective sides. Sara joined as the Director of Design, eventually rising to her current role as Chief Design Officer, overseeing research and strategy, product design, and brand design for a global team spanning from Australia to Amsterdam. 

Now, as AI reshapes the design landscape, Sara is continuing to lead Metalab’s distributed, talented team of creatives, and I had the pleasure of chatting with her before she hits the stage at Webflow Conf later this month. We chatted about everything from her lessons in leadership to shifting client expectations, as well as why she believes it’s critical to make space for human creativity.

You’ve been leading design teams through some of the most rapid technological shifts we’ve ever seen. What’s one fundamental assumption about design that you’ve had to completely rethink as the web has evolved?

One of the first things that comes to mind is actually something important that hasn’t changed in order to live through this “moment” — whether you’re a leader, a contributor, or a practitioner. And that’s this idea of flexibility, openness, and continuously trying to improve. AI puts a real magnifying glass on this, but you always have to be somebody who’s willing to up your game and be willing to take constructive criticism and the hard feedback in stride.

The thing that has changed for me is the definition of craft. The definition of craft, especially way back in the day, for anybody who actually remembers pre-Figma days and pre-vector-based days of design, is this idea that the more time and attention — all those blood, sweat, and tears you put into something — the better it was. And that’s not necessarily the case anymore.

There’s a whole new opportunity to redefine what craft actually means, as long as what you’re producing with AI in the process and for AI-based products is something that really maps to user needs, business goals, and has that more-important-than-ever taste layer.

Perhaps we prompted it in an hour, and that still can be craft in my definition of what craft is, but you have to take a really deep, hard look at what the outcomes are, rather than time intentionally spent.

We’re seeing clients come to design firms with completely different expectations than they had even two years ago. Have client briefs offered a window into how their expectations have shifted?

At the end of the day, the brief is always about an interesting business problem to solve, and that will hopefully align with a human interest and user needs. But it’s not the briefs that are changing; it’s the stakes, in my opinion.

The expectations on all sides are heightened. The pressure, especially for a lot of early-stage startups, has changed, and the pressure for enterprise businesses has also changed because they’re constantly asking us, “What does AI mean for my business? What should I do?” And they want that guidance from people who are in the thick of it every day. 

We’re in a moment when making meaning sets apart businesses that win. And that can even be making meaning with a very straightforward productivity tool. Doing so with something that is, on the surface, boring, still creates an incredible “aha” moment — one that hits on that emotional element of what people are looking for. And because there’s so much crap out there, being able to do that — resonate and connect — is more important than ever. 

When you’re hiring or developing talent, what’s one capability or skill you look for today that wasn’t on your radar five years ago?

We’ve always looked for the right combination of hard and soft skills, and I don’t necessarily love either of those terms because it others the skills that make you really human and able to both work well and relate with others. 

That hasn’t changed, but we’re equally looking at those soft skills that might be even arguably more important as we start to see AI be able to do the things that only hard skills could do. A really great example: we definitely hire super talented designers with 3D skill sets, but as AI starts to be able to essentially output 3D designs, a lot of which are total slop — big, big underline — there are outputs that can actually be manipulated by a human touch and make them usable.

There’s this idea of, okay, if AI can get me 75% there, whereas we used to have to start completely from scratch with a ton of manual effort, there’s a moment where that hard skill set requirement changes. Then there’s the soft skill of being able to get people excited about the idea, and then you need to have the taste layer of it all to know when that AI is giving you total crap or giving you something that’s actually usable — that’s how developing design talent has changed a lot. 

How do you maintain what makes human creativity irreplaceable while also embracing tools that can accelerate the work?

I tend to loathe the idea of measuring design velocity. I think that when you start to do that, you actually take the magic away, and the magic is when you get those big unlock moments that literally change the game. 

People don’t hire us to produce something that looks cookie cutter. They hire us to really understand how to get to that deeply seated user need and human truth, and find a creative path towards that. 

It’s not perfect, but I honestly try to figure out every way of fighting tooth and nail for the space for people to be able to use their creativity. Sometimes a time constraint actually produces something that’s unexpected and beautiful, but there’s also moments that beg for space in the creative process. If you don’t, why bother? Why not just go use a template? 

Don’t get me wrong: that doesn’t mean that we can totally ignore deadlines or realities regarding delivering on something that actually impacts a business. But there’s tension because a lot of designers are also super artistic or artists, but our work is not art. It is a different practice that does need constraints.

If it’s not art, this gives us the ability to remove our ego and identity from the work we’re doing a little bit, too. This is ultimately really freeing because you remove a lot of the pressure that comes from the mindset of “I’m only as good as the thing that I create.” As designers, you have to create something that is influenced by many other people, users, the business itself, the clients themselves, and the business goal itself. Art does not function in that way. So when you remove that from yourself, there’s a freedom in that. 

If you had to give one piece of advice to a design leader who’s feeling overwhelmed by all the technological change happening right now, what would it be?

Being super curious about it all is one thing, but ultimately, you do you is my biggest piece of advice. There’s always going to be too much. We’re in a world of too much, and so you need to develop your filter for how you want to take what’s happening in the space and build it into your practice. 

Now, you want to make sure that the filter keeps you relevant. Stay curious and use that curiosity along with the things that you’re learning along the way to build your own filter. Don’t worry about everybody else. You have to do your own thing. When it feels authentic, it’s easy, and it’s fun. When it feels inauthentic, it feels like pulling teeth. 

What does your gut say? What’s your intuition say? How are you going to feel about your design decisions at the end of the day? That’s your call and in your control. There’s something unique we all have to share that’s innate and deeply inside of us that makes us who we are as humans. Trust in yourself.

Sara Vienna is the Chief Design Officer at Metalab. To hear more about her perspectives on design, creativity, and AI, she’ll be hitting the stage at Webflow Conf on September 17th for her exclusive breakout session, “Ctrl+Alt+Design: Rebooting creativity in the age of AI.” You won’t want to miss it and any of the amazing programming we have in store, so be sure to register for the free online event today! 

How to win AEO with content

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The way people discover and connect with brands is shifting.

Large language models (LLMs) are changing how information is presented online in a way that reshapes brand narratives and drives less organic traffic to websites. In a recent Webflow study, only one in four marketing practitioners acknowledged that they understood AEO, even though 93% of CMOs believe AEO will be critical to their company’s success in the next two years. For CMOs and the SEO leaders who support them, the challenge is clear: how do you build brand presence and drive revenue in an era where AI increasingly influences the search experience?

At Webflow, we believe the answer lies in focusing on the four pillars of Answer Engine Optimization (AEO): content, technical, authority, and measurement. In our previous post, we introduced the AEO maturity model. In this article, we’ll take a closer look at the content pillar, and explore what it takes to optimize the owned content that fuels long-term visibility and growth.

If you take away one thing

If there’s one takeaway, it’s this: AEO shifts content from simply targeting keywords to answering buyer questions, and ultimately delivering personalized, relevant experiences.

In this post, we’ll walk through that evolution, outlining five levels of progression that show how teams move from keyword-driven content to fully programmatic, personalized AEO.

Level 1: Keyword focused content

At this stage, content strategy is anchored in page-focused SEO. Most efforts center on keyword-heavy, product-oriented pages like homepages, landing pages, product pages or About Us sections.

Content is typically created as one-off pieces, with little connection to an ongoing narrative, and rarely updated. Blogs and FAQs, which LLMs often favor for their digestible, well-structured answers, are either missing or stale.

The result? Organic traffic at this level is mostly branded search, implying that your content primarily captures people who already know you or are close to buying.

The challenge at Level 1 is to shift from counting keywords to answering real buyer questions. 

Playbook for practitioners

A sampling of practical steps that SEO practitioners can take to move toward Level 2:

  • Identify the top ten questions buyers are asking (via sales calls, support tickets, or email threads).
  • Create or update five pages that directly answer one of these questions in plain, clear language.
  • Refresh five high-traffic but outdated pages with current information, clearer language, and a visible “last updated” date.

Playbook for leaders

Strategic questions CMOs can use to guide progress:

  • What questions do buyers consistently ask in deals that we win?
  • Where is the content we’ll update or create to start answering them comprehensively?

Level 2: Some answer oriented content

At Level 2, content starts to shift from keyword repetition to directly answering buyer questions. A handful of pages may appear in featured snippets or “People Also Ask” results. Content freshness improves, with about half visibly updated in the last year, and writing is clearer and more comprehensive. Still, much of the strategy remains keyword-driven.

The challenge at Level 2 is scale. Answers exist, but they’re scattered and isolated rather than forming clusters that cover a topic comprehensively.

Playbook for practitioners

  • Choose five high-priority buyer questions and create multiple answer pages around each one.
  • Focus on high “visit website” intent questions, such as templates, competitor comparisons, or time/resource-related queries.
  • Rewrite answer pages into shorter, extractable passages with clear subheads.
  • Improve readability for all new content to a Flesch score of 80+.

Playbook for leaders

  • For our top buyer questions, what related questions should we also be answering? Show me two clusters we’ll build this quarter to establish authority.
  • How are we planning content across the next two quarters to ensure consistent storylines?
  • As we scale, how do we make sure our voice stays consistent and on-brand?

Level 3: Answering clusters of questions

At Level 3, content evolves from scattered answers to structured clusters. Pages are semantically rich, easy to read, and designed in chunks that AI engines can readily surface. Competitor comparison pages begin to appear, and your authority on certain topics becomes clearer.

The challenge at Level 3 is discipline. To progress, you need to connect clusters under a hierarchy so you own entire topics, not just isolated pockets.

Playbook for practitioners

  • Choose one core topic and map questions across the full funnel (awareness → consideration → purchase → advocacy).
  • For example: “CRM software” could include “What is a CRM?” (awareness), “CRM vs. Email Marketing Tools” (consideration), “How to implement a CRM” (purchase), and “Advanced CRM strategies” (advocacy). 
  • Create a flagship piece of content (e.g., an annual report or research study) as an anchor for the topic.
  • Create multiple levels of answers that comprehensively answer all of these questions and the related questions that prospects might ask.
  • Ensure concise, extractable passages under H2/H3s for AI readability.
  • Establish an update cadence: refresh high-priority pages every 3-6 months, none older than 12 months.
  • Localize content and raise readability to a Flesch score of 90+ (conversational English).

Playbook for leaders

  • Which priority topic will we comprehensively own next?
  • What will our flagship annual piece of content be?
  • How are we systematically building clusters of answers that position us as the go-to authority?
  • Where can we add original insights or data to differentiate from competitor content?

Level 4: Hierarchy-driven content

At Level 4, content is structured around intentional hierarchies that span the entire funnel, from awareness through purchase to advocacy. Each major topic is anchored by a flagship piece and surrounded by supporting answers. Updates are consistent, content is localized, and underperforming content is pruned.

The challenge at Level 4 is moving beyond coverage to personalization. Tailoring content by industry, persona, or use case becomes the next area of focus.

Playbook for practitioners

  • Create segmented landing pages (by industry, persona, or use case).
  • Personalize examples, visuals, proof points, and CTAs for each audience. 
  • Introduce at least one new format — like video, animation, or interactive graphics. 

Playbook for leaders

  • Which content assets are most used by prospects and would benefit from personalization? 
  • What flagship format or asset will set us apart this quarter?
  • How are we aligning campaigns and hierarchies so every funnel stage is covered consistently?

Level 5: Programmatic, personalized content

At Level 5, teams practice Programmatic AEO: a fully developed content program that delivers personalized, relevant experiences for each segment, persona, account, and even individual. 

Traffic may be lower, but conversion rates rise thanks to tailored storytelling, experimentation, and 1:1 personalization. Flagship content becomes referencable across your industry, accelerating sales cycles and strengthening brand authority. At this level, you are likely experimenting with advanced formats like interactive tools, calculators, animations, and AI-driven experiences. 

The challenge at Level 5 is sustaining innovation. Teams must keep personalizing, experimenting, and monitoring how AI engines surface their answers.

Playbook for practitioners

  • Expand personalization as new segments emerge.
  • Expand interactivity with tools, calculators, or visual benchmarks.
  • Monitor AI outputs to confirm your answers are appearing in search experiences.

Playbook for leaders

  • How is our content being personalized for the segments that matter most this quarter?
  • What new formats are we testing to stay ahead of competitors?
  • How are we ensuring our flagship assets remain industry-defining and relevant?

Evolve your content for AEO success

Each level of content maturity builds on the last, evolving from keywords, to answers, to clusters, to hierarchies, and finally to personalization. For marketing leaders, this blog provides guidance to set the strategic direction of your AEO work by asking the right questions. For SEO practitioners, it’s full of project ideas and recommendations to put those strategies into action, driving the kinds of initiatives that move the organization one level higher in AEO maturity. 

The payoff is greater control of your brand narrative in AI-driven search, and the ability to drive more growth from your existing content.

Curious where your organization stands today? Take our quick AEO maturity assessment and see how your content stacks up, with tailored recommendations to accelerate your progress.

Introducing The Webflow Way: Best practices to help you build with confidence

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Is the way you’re building, managing, and optimizing your website today holding you back from scaling tomorrow?

Marketing teams today are being asked to deliver more for the business than ever before. With the website as the core driver, teams are tasked with driving revenue, brand awareness, conversions, adoption, upgrades — and the list goes on. To help teams meet these growing demands, Webflow’s Website Experience Platform (WXP) is designed to empower teams to unlock results across each stage of the website lifecycle.

As our customers continue to take on bigger, more ambitious goals, we’ve heard the ask for more foundational guidance that goes beyond how features work and into strategies and best practices for how to get the most out of each area of the platform. Things like: “How should I think about design systems? What strategies should we consider for optimization and testing? What are best practices for improving SEO? How can we work more collaboratively as a web team?”

To let you in on how the world’s top Webflow experts work in the platform to create world-class experiences and drive results, we’re excited to launch The Webflow Way — a new resource that documents in-depth best practices across six core areas of Webflow: Design Systems, CMS, SEO, Localization, Optimization, and Collaboration.

Whether you build for clients or for your own brand, this new resource is your blueprint for building scalable, high-performing web experiences — the Webflow way.

🔗 Explore the Webflow Way site

[embedded content]

What is The Webflow Way

The Webflow Way is our definitive reference guide, with best practices that help you work more effectively in Webflow to deliver and optimize the high performing site you need. It’s a strategic toolkit for teams who want to dream bigger, scale smarter, and collaborate faster. By applying these best practices, you can build bigger, more ambitious projects that drive better results and empower your team to continually push the limits of what your website can achieve.

The Webflow Way is structured around six core areas that map to key parts of the Webflow platform. Here’s what you can expect to get from each:

  • Design Systems: Ship faster, stay on brand, and scale with ease. Build reusable components, styles, and variables that drive consistency and efficiency across every team. Empower marketers to create their own pages with confidence, reduce design debt, and accelerate iteration — all while maintaining structure, accessibility, and brand integrity. 
  • CMS: Deliver dynamic, data-driven content at scale. Leverage structured content strategies with Collections, Lists, and Templates to streamline publishing workflows, improve SEO performance, and create cohesive digital experiences — all while making it easier for non-technical users to manage and update content.
  • Localization: Reach and resonate with global audiences. Adapt your site for international markets with strategies for translation, transcreation, localized assets, SEO, and multilingual workflows. Build global-ready experiences that perform locally, without losing quality or speed.
  • SEO: Improve discoverability and drive organic growth. Use scalable, technical and content-based SEO best practices to optimize your site for search engines. From metadata and sitemaps to canonical tags and site structure, this guidance ensures visibility for both static and CMS-powered content.
  • Analyze and Optimize: Boost conversions and make smarter decisions, faster. Turn insights into action with strategies for testing, personalization, and analytics. Learn how to define success metrics, track behavior, and build repeatable experimentation habits that continually improve performance and ROI.
  • Collaboration: Unblock teams and move faster together. Set up clear roles, permissions, and workflows that enable marketers, designers, developers, and editors to contribute effectively — without stepping on each other’s toes. Streamline feedback, versioning, and publishing to reduce bottlenecks and drive better outcomes, faster.

Each section is packed with best practices, examples, and actionable takeaways so you can put the guidance to work right away. And this is just the beginning. You can expect The Webflow Way to continue to evolve and improve as both the platform and our customer’s needs continue to evolve.

Who we built it with, and why

To build this first iteration of The Webflow Way best practices, we partnered with industry experts in our global Webflow community as well as Webflow product owners to give you proven strategies to take your website and its performance to new heights. These experts collectively represent the world’s top minds in how to leverage Webflow to drive business results, whose tips and tricks are grounded in real-world experience building the website experiences for some of the biggest brands in the world.

“The Webflow Way promotes consistency across frameworks and projects, giving us all a shared standard to build on.” – Timothy Ricks, Webflow Educator @ T.RICKS

“The Webflow Way is wisdom from the pros to help you build faster, design sharper, and launch like a legend.” – Michael Wells, Founder & Chief Technologist @ Sygnal

​​​We’ll continue to work closely with these professionals to ensure that these best practices meet your needs today and in the future.

And why did we build this? We want you to feel confident, inspired, and in control as you build for the web. You’re no longer guessing — you’re operating with intention, aligned with your team, and backed by Webflow’s platform and philosophy. You should feel like a pro because you’re building like one.

How The Webflow Way fits in with existing resources

You may be wondering how The Webflow Way best practices will work with existing resource hubs like Webflow University and the Help Center. We see these three resources working together in unison to give you multiple levels of support depending on what you’re looking for at different stages of your website lifecycle.

  • The Help Center details how it works. Get in-depth technical documentation and quick help for setup and troubleshooting across different products and features.
  • Webflow University teaches you how to do it. Follow guided tutorials and video lessons to learn how to use products and features in context.
  • The Webflow Way equips you with how to do it best. Apply strategic best practices to get the most out of those products and features to drive better business outcomes.

With The Webflow Way, we’re adding a powerful new layer to your toolkit — a strategic guide built to help you go beyond how-to and into how-to-do-it-best — right alongside Webflow University and the Help Center.

Start building The Webflow Way today

The Webflow Way is live, and it’s waiting to become your team’s new favorite resource. Whether you’re an agency working with clients, part of an in-house web team, or something in between – The Webflow Way is designed to help you succeed.

Build better. Build smarter. Build The Webflow Way.

🔗 Explore The Webflow Way site

📺 Join the livestream on September 9 @ 9am PT: Subscribe to our YouTube channel to be notified when the stream goes live

Introducing The Webflow Way: Best practices to help you build with confidence

· ·

Is the way you’re building, managing, and optimizing your website today holding you back from scaling tomorrow?

Marketing teams today are being asked to deliver more for the business than ever before. With the website as the core driver, teams are tasked with driving revenue, brand awareness, conversions, adoption, upgrades — and the list goes on. To help teams meet these growing demands, Webflow’s Website Experience Platform (WXP) is designed to empower teams to unlock results across each stage of the website lifecycle.

As our customers continue to take on bigger, more ambitious goals, we’ve heard the ask for more foundational guidance that goes beyond how features work and into strategies and best practices for how to get the most out of each area of the platform. Things like: “How should I think about design systems? What strategies should we consider for optimization and testing? What are best practices for improving SEO? How can we work more collaboratively as a web team?”

To let you in on how the world’s top Webflow experts work in the platform to create world-class experiences and drive results, we’re excited to launch The Webflow Way — a new resource that documents in-depth best practices across six core areas of Webflow: Design Systems, CMS, SEO, Localization, Optimization, and Collaboration.

Whether you build for clients or for your own brand, this new resource is your blueprint for building scalable, high-performing web experiences — the Webflow way.

🔗 Explore the Webflow Way site

[embedded content]

What is The Webflow Way

The Webflow Way is our definitive reference guide, with best practices that help you work more effectively in Webflow to deliver and optimize the high performing site you need. It’s a strategic toolkit for teams who want to dream bigger, scale smarter, and collaborate faster. By applying these best practices, you can build bigger, more ambitious projects that drive better results and empower your team to continually push the limits of what your website can achieve.

The Webflow Way is structured around six core areas that map to key parts of the Webflow platform. Here’s what you can expect to get from each:

  • Design Systems: Ship faster, stay on brand, and scale with ease. Build reusable components, styles, and variables that drive consistency and efficiency across every team. Empower marketers to create their own pages with confidence, reduce design debt, and accelerate iteration — all while maintaining structure, accessibility, and brand integrity. 
  • CMS: Deliver dynamic, data-driven content at scale. Leverage structured content strategies with Collections, Lists, and Templates to streamline publishing workflows, improve SEO performance, and create cohesive digital experiences — all while making it easier for non-technical users to manage and update content.
  • Localization: Reach and resonate with global audiences. Adapt your site for international markets with strategies for translation, transcreation, localized assets, SEO, and multilingual workflows. Build global-ready experiences that perform locally, without losing quality or speed.
  • SEO: Improve discoverability and drive organic growth. Use scalable, technical and content-based SEO best practices to optimize your site for search engines. From metadata and sitemaps to canonical tags and site structure, this guidance ensures visibility for both static and CMS-powered content.
  • Analyze and Optimize: Boost conversions and make smarter decisions, faster. Turn insights into action with strategies for testing, personalization, and analytics. Learn how to define success metrics, track behavior, and build repeatable experimentation habits that continually improve performance and ROI.
  • Collaboration: Unblock teams and move faster together. Set up clear roles, permissions, and workflows that enable marketers, designers, developers, and editors to contribute effectively — without stepping on each other’s toes. Streamline feedback, versioning, and publishing to reduce bottlenecks and drive better outcomes, faster.

Each section is packed with best practices, examples, and actionable takeaways so you can put the guidance to work right away. And this is just the beginning. You can expect The Webflow Way to continue to evolve and improve as both the platform and our customer’s needs continue to evolve.

Who we built it with, and why

To build this first iteration of The Webflow Way best practices, we partnered with industry experts in our global Webflow community as well as Webflow product owners to give you proven strategies to take your website and its performance to new heights. These experts collectively represent the world’s top minds in how to leverage Webflow to drive business results, whose tips and tricks are grounded in real-world experience building the website experiences for some of the biggest brands in the world.

“The Webflow Way promotes consistency across frameworks and projects, giving us all a shared standard to build on.” – Timothy Ricks, Webflow Educator @ T.RICKS

“The Webflow Way is wisdom from the pros to help you build faster, design sharper, and launch like a legend.” – Michael Wells, Founder & Chief Technologist @ Sygnal

​​​We’ll continue to work closely with these professionals to ensure that these best practices meet your needs today and in the future.

And why did we build this? We want you to feel confident, inspired, and in control as you build for the web. You’re no longer guessing — you’re operating with intention, aligned with your team, and backed by Webflow’s platform and philosophy. You should feel like a pro because you’re building like one.

How The Webflow Way fits in with existing resources

You may be wondering how The Webflow Way best practices will work with existing resource hubs like Webflow University and the Help Center. We see these three resources working together in unison to give you multiple levels of support depending on what you’re looking for at different stages of your website lifecycle.

  • The Help Center details how it works. Get in-depth technical documentation and quick help for setup and troubleshooting across different products and features.
  • Webflow University teaches you how to do it. Follow guided tutorials and video lessons to learn how to use products and features in context.
  • The Webflow Way equips you with how to do it best. Apply strategic best practices to get the most out of those products and features to drive better business outcomes.

With The Webflow Way, we’re adding a powerful new layer to your toolkit — a strategic guide built to help you go beyond how-to and into how-to-do-it-best — right alongside Webflow University and the Help Center.

Start building The Webflow Way today

The Webflow Way is live, and it’s waiting to become your team’s new favorite resource. Whether you’re an agency working with clients, part of an in-house web team, or something in between – The Webflow Way is designed to help you succeed.

Build better. Build smarter. Build The Webflow Way.

🔗 Explore The Webflow Way site

📺 Join the livestream on September 9 @ 9am PT: Subscribe to our YouTube channel to be notified when the stream goes live

10 Best IT Help Desk Software & Tools [September 2025]

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A proper IT help desk solution can help you improve ticket resolution times, reduce downtime, boost end-user satisfaction, and ensure your IT operations run smoothly.

In this guide, I’ll cover the 10 best IT help desk tools that can help you focus on solving problems and delivering great support, rather than juggling endless emails and manual tracking.

TL;DR

  • SmartSuite offers the best IT help desk software with its no-code configurability, visual automation, and ready-to-use templates that help you start in days and not weeks.
  • Multichannel platforms like Zendesk and Freshdesk are ideal for scalable omnichannel ticketing, AI-assisted triage, and fast time-to-value for customer-facing and internal support teams.
  • On the other hand, enterprise tools like ServiceNow and Jira Service Management can help you enforce CMDB-backed processes, rigorous change control, and DevOps + ITSM integration for complex environments.

What are the key factors to consider when evaluating IT help desk software?

The primary factors to consider when selecting IT help desk software are the support channels and SLA model it enables, the level of automation and self-service it offers, the quality of reporting and KPIs provided, and whether it will integrate, scale, and maintain security in your IT environment. 

Let’s go over each one of them in more detail: ⬇️

#1: What channels, SLA commitments, and ticket model do you need?

If I were you, I’d start by deciding which user-facing channels matter: email, phone, live chat, in-app tickets, SMS, and social or collaboration platform support. 

Each one of them requires different handling and tooling. 

I’d also think about SLA tiers (response vs resolution time), priority and urgency rules, and how the system handles escalations and on-call rotations. 

💡 Pro Tip: Evaluate ticket lifecycle features like automated routing, parent and child tickets, and history logs so audits and handovers are clean.

#2: How much automation and self-service should it provide?

Next up, you should decide how much of the workload you want the tool to remove, such as automated ticket triage, canned responses, assignment rules, and workflow-driven approvals, which can dramatically cut manual effort. 

Self-service options (e.g., searchable knowledge base, guided troubleshooting flows, and chatbots) reduce ticket volume and let users resolve issues faster.

➡️ Useful automations to look for:

  • Auto-tagging.
  • Priority scoring.
  • SLA-based escalations.
  • Recurring task scheduling.

#3: What reporting, metrics, and visibility do you require?

Good help desk software should surface operational KPIs (e.g., MTTR, first response time, backlog, reopen rate) and user satisfaction metrics (e.g., CSAT, NPS) so you can spot process bottlenecks and measure improvements. 

If I were looking for an IT help desk tool, I’d be looking for customizable dashboards, drilldowns by queue/agent/team, and trend charts.

➡️ Typical dashboards to look for include executive overview, team performance, SLA compliance, and customer feedback trends.

#4: How well does it integrate, scale, and meet security needs?

Last but not least, you want to confirm whether the product offers the connectors or APIs you need to tie into ITSM tools, asset CMDBs, SSO providers, alerting systems, and your HR systems, so context flows into tickets. 

If you plan on serving different business units, you can also assess multi-brand support, role-based access control, audit logging, encryption, and compliance that matches your risk profile.

What are the best IT help desk tools on the market in 2025?

The best IT help desk solutions on the market include SmartSuite with its no-code configurability, automations, and pre-built IT help desk template, Zendesk and Freshdesk.

Here’s a comprehensive breakdown:

#1: SmartSuite: Best for small-to-mid-sized IT teams that need a full-featured help desk quickly without developer support.

#2: Zendesk: Best for organizations that need a user-friendly, highly scalable omnichannel support platform for both customer and internal IT help desk use.

#3: Freshdesk: Best for small to mid-market teams that want value, rapid deployment, and built-in automation without heavy upfront cost.

#4: Help Scout: Best for customer support teams looking to use AI to help support reps handle more tickets.

#5: Jira Service Management: Best for engineering-led organizations that need tight DevOps and ITSM integration and advanced change control.

#6: Zoho Desk: Best for budget-conscious businesses already using the Zoho ecosystem who want an integrated, customizable help desk.

#7: SysAid: Best for mid-market IT teams that want a combined help desk and endpoint solution with flexible deployment.

#8: ServiceNow: Best for large enterprises that need a highly configurable, cross-enterprise ITSM and workflow automation platform.

#9: SolarWinds: Best for IT operations teams that already use SolarWinds monitoring and want alert and ticket workflows.

#10: Atera: Best for small IT teams that need unified RMM, help desk, and billing in one platform.

#1: SmartSuite

SmartSuite offers the best IT help desk software with its no-code configurability, visual automation, interconnected records, prebuilt templates, and role-based access.

Here’s how you can create a DIY IT help desk with SmartSuite, a tutorial of one of our partners:

[embedded content]

Let’s go over the capabilities and use cases that make SmartSuite the best choice for small and large IT teams looking to build an IT help desk: 👇

Comprehensive DIY Help Desk Solution

Our no-code, easy-to-use platform empowers IT teams, service managers, and sysadmins to automate the full help-desk lifecycle without writing a single line of code.

Here are the use cases that you’ll get with SmartSuite:

  • Create reports and dynamic dashboards: Monitor executive and operational views into your support organization with built-in charting and metric widgets for ticket volume, SLA compliance, MTTR, backlog by queue, and on-call load.

You’ll also be able to build role-specific dashboards for managers, engineers, and executives that update in real-time.

  • Collaborate and respond to incidents in real-time: Engage engineers, security, and third-party vendors in a threaded conversation directly on tickets and incident records.
  • Automate ticket creation, intelligent routing, and approvals: Capture requests via forms, email, monitoring alerts or APIs and automatically triage them with rules that route to the proper queue, assign priority, and trigger escalation paths.
  • Keep help desk and infrastructure data secure: Define teams, roles, and field-level access to ensure only authorized staff see PII, sensitive configuration details, or vendor contracts.
  • Integrate with your existing systems: SmartSuite integrates with ticketing platforms, identity providers, procurement systems, monitoring tools, and CMDBs so you can consolidate and centralize operational data.

💡 For example, you’ll be able to push change approvals or deployment tasks into downstream ticketing or deployment pipelines.

  • Monitor, measure and score: Create SLA calculations, priority scoring, and health indicators to evaluate every aspect of service delivery.
  • Policy and knowledge management: Assign ownership, manage revisions, and publish standard operating procedures and runbooks so frontline staff have up-to-date guidance directly where they work.

Standardize Your Team’s IT Workflows

Your team can standardize your IT request workflow with a centralized work request process. 

Our platform lets you prioritize tasks, assign IT staff and ensure that you achieve SLAs.

You can monitor your team with flexible reports and dashboards that keep you updated in real-time.

Apart from that, SmartSuite’s no-code automation builder provides IT teams with a visual interface that makes it easy to respond to events and take action.

That means you can customize your ITSM workflows without technical resources.

💡 Are you working from mobile? Stay connected to critical IT information, tickets and device information with our native iOS and Android apps.

Your team can use our mobile apps to share files, images, updates and other feedback to resolve problems and close tickets.

Ready-To-Use IT Help Desk Template

We have prepared an IT help desk template for teams looking to get started right away, instead of building everything from scratch.

You’ll be able to find our template with a field for:

  • User requests.
  • Requestor.
  • The creation date.
  • Type of request, department, and its priority.

Your team can then map the requests by ‘’open’’, ‘’working’’, ‘’waiting approval’’, and ‘’resolved.’’

You can customize our ITSM management templates here for various use cases, such as IT Security Policies, IT Security Audits, and IT Work Requests.

Pricing

SmartSuite has a free plan with access to 250+ automation actions, team collaboration, multi-dashboard views, and more.

There are four paid plans with a 14-day free trial (no CC required):

  • Team: Starts at $12/user per month, including Gantt charts, timeline views, 5000 automation runs, and native time tracking.
  • Professional: Starts at $30/user per month and adds two-factor authentication, Gmail & Outlook integrations, and unlimited editors.
  • Enterprise: Starts at $45/user/month and includes access to audit logs, data loss prevention, and 50,000 monthly API calls.
  • Signature: A customized plan tailored to your organization’s needs and team size with no predefined limits.

Pros & Cons

✅ A generous free plan that includes access to advanced features of the platform for up to 5 solutions.

✅ Free IT help desk template that you can get started with right away.

✅ Reporting, SLA tracking and executive dashboards.

✅ Integrated document and file management.

✅ Real-time collaboration & vendor coordination.

✅ Modern and intuitive UI.

❌ Fewer native integrations when compared to other competitors on the market.

#2: Zendesk

Best for: Organizations that need a user-friendly, highly scalable omnichannel support platform for both customer and internal IT help desk use.

Similar to: Freshdesk, SolarWinds.

Zendesk is a scalable, omnichannel ticketing platform with an intuitive agent interface, powerful workflow automation, and strong self-service capabilities.

The platform’s ecosystem of apps and reporting helps support teams standardize SLAs and measure agent performance across channels.

Features

  • Omnichannel ticketing that unifies email, chat, voice, and social conversations into a single agent workspace for faster resolution.
  • Get access to an AI-powered live chat for effective customer support and engagement.
  • Automations to help you streamline workflows, route tickets, and provide quick resolutions.

Standout Feature: Incident Management Automation

Zendesk’s standout feature for me has to be its Incident Management workflow that automatically assigns incidents to the right agents who can resolve the issue. 

Pricing

Zendesk offers four main basic pricing plans:

  • Suite Team: $55 per agent/month, which includes basic support features.
  • Suite Growth: $89 per agent/month, which adds advanced tools like multiple ticket forms and SLAs.
  • Suite Professional: $115 per agent/month, which includes custom analytics and skills-based routing.
  • Suite Enterprise: $169 per agent/month, which offers advanced customization and compliance features.

💡 Note that some of the IT support capabilities will need to be purchased as add-ons, and they will be billed separately.

Pros and Cons

✅ A smart live chat, ticketing system, knowledge base, automation and analytics.

✅ The platform is highly customizable to meet specific business needs.

✅ Skill-based routing for incident management.

❌ Ticket management could be improved, with users of the platform requesting more filters and the ability to create folders.

❌ Some IT support features need to be purchased as add-ons, which can scale your costs quickly.

#3: Freshdesk

Best for: Small to mid-market teams that want value, rapid deployment, and built-in automation without heavy upfront cost.

Similar to: Jira Service Management, Zendesk.

Freshdesk combines affordable pricing with modern automation and AI-assisted routing, giving fast setup and good multichannel support for SMBs and growing teams. 

The platform’s modular plans let teams add self-service, automation, and analytics as needs grow.

Features

  • AI-assisted ticket triage and automation that reduces manual routing and speeds first response.
  • Freddy AI agent that can engage customers 24/7 with intelligent email bots that deflect up to 77% of customer requests.
  • Self-service portal that helps you independently find solutions and submit requests.

Standout Feature: Best-In-Class Automations

Freshdesk stood out to me with its automation capabilities that help you automate tasks like:

  • Ticket assignments.
  • Repetitive responses.
  • Workflow management.

Pricing

Freshdesk offers 4 paid plans with a free version that lets you try the tool for up to 2 agents with basic features:

  • Growth: $15/agent/month billed annually, which includes ticketing, a shared inbox, threads, tasks, and a customer portal.
  • Pro: $49/agent/month billed annually, which adds multilingual conversations and collaborators.
  • Pro + AI Copilot: $78/agent/month billed annually, which adds access to its Freddy AI Copilot and insights.
  • Enterprise: $79/agent/month billed annually, which adds audit logs, approval workflows, skills-based assignments, additional security features, and more.

Pros and Cons 

✅ The tool’s interface is easy to set up and use daily.

✅ AI agent (Freddy) that can resolve up to 77% of queries.

✅ Native integrations with other Freshworks products and third-party tools.

❌ Fewer native integrations when compared to Freshservice alternatives.

❌ The customer support has been reported to be slow by verified users on G2.

#4: Help Scout

Best for: Customer support teams looking to use AI to help support reps handle more tickets.

Similar to: Zendesk, Freshdesk.

Help Scout is an email-centric help desk that feels like a shared inbox but adds workflow features, collision detection, and an integrated knowledge base for human, personal support. 

The platform is deliberately simple so small support teams can deliver consistent, conversational IT help without complex configuration.

Features

  • Shared inbox with collision detection and internal notes so multiple agents can collaborate on a single ticket without stepping on each other.
  • It’s capable of automating routine tasks like ticket assignments and repetitive responses so your agents can focus on higher-value tasks.
  • Provides a knowledge base and community forums to enable customers to find answers independently.

Standout Feature: Analytics & Reporting Capabilities

Help Scout offers best-in-class analytics and reporting capabilities that dive deeper into each conversation of your human reps and AI chatbot and evaluate responses from your end users.

Pricing

HelpScout offers four paid plans that teams can choose from:

  • Free: $0/month, which includes an Inbox with all channels, a Docs knowledge base, and a help widget with AI answers.
  • Standard: $50/month, which includes 2 shared inboxes, 1 knowledge base, automated workflows, and reporting.
  • Plus: $75/month, which adds 5 shared inboxes, 2 knowledge bases, 25 light users, advanced permissions, and custom reporting.
  • Pro: Custom pricing, which adds 25 shared inboxes, 10 knowledge bases, 50 light users, enterprise security, HIPAA compliance, and dedicated support.

Pros and Cons 

✅ The platform is easy to learn and use, with a simple and intuitive interface.

✅ Useful workflows to automate actions like sending notifications for bad customer ratings.

✅ Good reporting capabilities.

❌ The software can get quite expensive if your platform is handling thousands of customer requests.

❌ The tool does not support live technical support features like screen control and risk identification, unlike some other competitors on the market.

#5: Jira Service Management

Best for: Engineering-led organizations that need tight DevOps and ITSM integration and advanced change control.

Similar to: Zendesk.

Jira Service Management brings ITIL-aligned service management together with Jira’s developer issue tracking, making it ideal for IT ops that must coordinate incidents, changes, and development work. 

The tool’s strong automation, SLAs, and change management features help keep incidents and deployments tightly linked to engineering.

Features

  • Built-in ITIL workflows and change management that connect service requests and incidents directly to development tickets.
  • The tool empowers development and IT operations teams to respond rapidly to incidents, resolve them, and continuously learn from them.
  • A good range of plugins for additional integrations, workflow enhancements, reporting, and automation.

Standout Feature: Ready-To-Use ITSM Templates

Jira Service Management helps you get started with an IT help desk solution quickly, with out-of-the-box ITSM templates that can be customized.

Pricing 

Jira Service Management offers four pricing plans for IT teams:

  • Free: $0, for up to 3 agents, with access to basic features.
  • Standard: $17.65 per agent/month, includes custom-branded help centre, alerts, on-call schedules, unlimited email notifications, and 9/5 support.
  • Premium: $44.27 per agent/month, adds AI-powered services, virtual agent, asset and configuration management, advanced alert integrations, and 24/7 support.
  • Enterprise: Custom pricing, adds advanced analytics, security, and unlimited automations, with up to 150 instances and 24/7 dedicated support.

Pros and Cons 

✅ Centralized incident ticketing system that provides full visibility into ongoing issues.

✅ Advanced automation features to establish predefined workflows and triggers.

✅ Pre-built IT help desk and other ITSM templates that you can get started with.

❌ A certain amount of dependence on plugins for some features, which some users find inconvenient.

❌ Non-technical users might find Jira’s interface confusing at first, which is why some people have been looking for Jira SM alternatives.

#6: Zoho Desk

Best for: Budget-conscious businesses already using the Zoho ecosystem who want an integrated, customizable help desk.

Similar to: Zendesk.

Zoho Desk offers a highly configurable, cost-effective help desk with contextual ticketing, decent automation, and integration into the broader Zoho suite for CRM, projects, and finance. 

I think of the platform as a practical choice where budget and ecosystem integration matter.

Features

  • Omnichannel ticketing across email, web forms, social, messaging, phone, and chat that brings all user requests into a contextual ticket view.
  • Built-in self-service and an Answer Bot, so your end users can resolve common IT issues without opening tickets.
  • Blueprint & workflow automation that let you build guided, repeatable IT processes with the tool’s low-code drag-and-drop automation builder.

Standout Feature: Zia’s AI Suggestions & Automations

You can use Zia (Zoho’s AI) for sentiment detection, ticket summarization, auto-tagging and suggested replies so agents spend less time on routine text work.

But that’s not where it ends.

Zoho Desk combines Zia’s AI suggestions and automated answer-bot capabilities with Blueprint visual flows so your IT team can automate routine remediation steps and enforce process compliance.

Pricing

Zoho Desk has a free plan that lets you get access to 3 user licenses to try out its email ticketing.

Apart from this, there are 4 paid plans that you can choose from:

  • Express: $7/month/seat when billed annually, which gives you access to ticketing on email, social media, web forms, direct assignment, workflows, a custom domain, and multi-level escalations.
  • Standard: $14/month/seat when billed annually, which adds business messaging, instant messaging, a community forum, a knowledge base, work modes, and generative AI.
  • Professional: $23/month/seat when billed annually, which adds telephony, blueprints, multi-department arrangements, round-robin assignment, and custom lookup fields.
  • Enterprise: $40/month/seat when billed annually, which adds an answer bot, Zia, live chat, guided conversations, skill-based assignment, custom modules and multi-level IVR.

Pros & Cons

✅ Feature-rich tiers at lower entry prices than other competitors.

✅ Easy integrations with Zoho CRM, Analytics, Assist, SalesIQ and many marketplace extensions for your IT workflows.

✅ Good automation capabilities, such as blueprints and workflow rules that fit ITSM-style processes.

❌ Powerful features sometimes come with a learning curve.

❌ Advanced AI and bot features are limited to higher tiers.

#7: SysAid

Best for: Mid-market IT teams that want a combined help desk and endpoint solution with flexible deployment.

Similar to: Atera, SolarWinds Service Desk.

SysAid packages ITSM features, including ticketing, asset discovery, patching, and automation into a single platform aimed at IT teams that want on-prem or hybrid deployment options. 

What stood out to me about the platform is that it emphasizes endpoint and asset management alongside traditional help desk workflows.

Features

  • Automated help desk and ticketing system that lets you create and monitor support tickets, with features like automatic ticket creation from emails.
  • Integrated asset discovery and patch management so ticketing can be directly tied to device status and remediation.
  • Built-in AI agents and workflow automation that streamline routing, escalation and common remediation tasks.

Standout Feature: Agentic Service Management

SysAid offers an agentic AI solution that lets you automatically detect and resolve issues.

The tool is also capable of routing, fulfilling, and tracking requests with service-level agreement awareness.

Pricing

SysAid offers three main pricing plans, but has not disclosed its pricing for them:

  • Help Desk: Designed for lean teams, includes incident management, self-service portal, service catalog, asset management, and basic reporting.
  • ITSM: For mid-sized organizations, it adds workflow automations, third-party integrations, and advanced SLA management.
  • Enterprise: For large teams, includes all IT service management features with unlimited agents, automation rules, and custom columns.

Pros and Cons

✅ Advanced help desk functionality for managing incidents, requests, and problems.

✅ The tool lets you customize workflows and reports to meet your needs.

✅ Enterprise-grade ITSM solution that is similar to tools like BMC Helix.

❌ Outdated UI, according to users of the software.

❌ A long implementation process, according to customers of the tool.

#8: ServiceNow

Best for: Large enterprises that need a highly configurable, cross-enterprise ITSM and workflow automation platform.

Similar to: Jira Service Management.

ServiceNow offers an enterprise-grade ITSM platform with a comprehensive CMDB, powerful automation and orchestration, and a service catalogue that scales across your organization. 

The tool aims to replace fragmented processes with its end-to-end digital workflows for IT, HR, security, and more.

Features

  • Enterprise CMDB plus workflow orchestration that automates complex service requests, incidents, and change approvals across teams.
  • Now Assist for ITSM to help your team accelerate productivity with generative AI on the Now Platform.
  • A management database that helps you track the dependencies and relationships of supported IT services to maintain continuity.

Standout Feature: Virtual Agent

ServiceNow’s ITSM offering comes with a Virtual Agent, which makes it easy for end users to resolve issues quickly from a conversational chatbot that has been trained with commonly asked questions and answers.

Pricing

ServiceNow’s pricing is not publicly disclosed, so you’d have to book a demo with their team.

I found some ServiceNow customer and public reviews, which show that the average cost of ServiceNow contracts can range between $50,000 and $500,000 annually.

Apparently, its cost structure depends on the number of licenses, features, and other configuration requirements.

Pros & Cons

✅ Best-in-class IT service management capabilities that can scale.

✅ Delight end users with relevant, contextual, and conversational exchanges with a chatbot.

✅ Integrations with other platforms and centralized management of alerts and IT service management tickets.

❌ The tool comes with a steep learning curve and complexity, which is why some teams have been looking for ServiceNow alternatives.

❌ Training, skills development, and ongoing support can be costly.

#9: SolarWinds Service Desk

Best for: IT operations teams that already use SolarWinds monitoring and want alert and ticket workflows.

Similar to: Zendesk.

SolarWinds Service Desk ties classic ITSM ticketing and asset management to SolarWinds’ monitoring for faster incident detection and remediation when paired with network and systems monitoring. 

I think of the platform as practical for operations teams that want monitoring alerts to drive prioritized tickets.

Features

  • Direct integration between monitoring, alerting and ticket creation so incidents detected by network tools automatically generate and prioritize tickets.
  • Automated incident management is tightly connected to IT asset records, so tickets immediately reflect hardware/software context.
  • Complete visibility into your IT assets, including hardware, software, and licenses, enabling effective lifecycle management and cost optimization. 

Standout Feature: SolarWinds AI

SolarWinds’ AI capabilities help you build support agents that can resolve or troubleshoot problems based on the initial request and comments within the ticket.

Pricing

SolarWinds Service Desk offers three pricing plans:

  • Essentials: $39 per technician/month, includes incident management, knowledge base, service portal, asset management, and SLA management.
  • Advanced: $79 per technician/month, adds custom fields, advanced automations, virtual agent, network discovery, and API access.
  • Premier: $99 per technician/month, includes visual CMDB, advanced support, and up to 1,500 API calls per user per minute.

Pros and Cons

✅ Easy and quick implementation of the tool, when compared to other solutions on the market.

✅ Advanced automation capabilities.

✅ Build an AI-powered agent to answer common questions.

❌ The platform’s navigation can sometimes be confusing.

❌ The tool’s entry pricing is more expensive than the majority of the other IT help desk tools on the market.

#10: Atera

Best for: Small IT teams that need unified RMM, help desk, and billing in one platform.

Similar to: SolarWinds.

Atera is an all-in-one RMM, PSA, and help desk built for MSPs and small IT shops, providing remote access, patching, ticketing, and billing in a single interface.

I think that combination makes it easy to run day-to-day managed services without having to stitch tools together.

Features

  • Integrated RMM and PSA-backed ticketing that links remote diagnostics, patching, and billing to each support ticket.
  • Atera automates software patching and updates for Windows, Mac, and various applications to keep systems secure and up-to-date.
  • The tool’s integrated helpdesk and ticketing system can help you better manage support requests and incidents.

Standout Feature: AI Copilot For Ticketing

What stood out to me about Atera is its AI copilot that helps you accelerate troubleshooting and optimize daily IT tasks with contextual recommendations.

Your team will be able to automate replies and use its real-time diagnostics to resolve issues proactively.

Pricing

Atera offers four main pricing plans for IT departments:

  • Professional: $149 per technician/month (billed annually), which includes remote monitoring, patch management, automations, helpdesk, and ticketing.
  • Expert: $189 per technician/month (billed annually), which adds advanced security features, network discovery, and more customization options.
  • Master: $219 per technician/month (billed annually), which adds audit logs with 1 year retention, custom support addresses, and reporting.
  • Enterprise: Custom pricing, which adds onboarding, premium customer support, and enterprise-grade security with custom analytics.

Pros and cons 

✅ Integrated RMM and PSA-backed ticketing.

✅ Intuitive user interface and easy deployment.

✅ AI copilot that helps you accelerate troubleshooting

❌ Limited mobile app functionality, according to customers of the platform.

❌ More expensive than other tools on the market.

Set Up Your IT Help Desk In Days & Not Weeks With SmartSuite’s Template

That was it from our analysis of the 10 best IT help desk platforms on the market in 2025 for ITSM.

If you’re an IT lead looking to build an IT help desk, SmartSuite is an ideal starting point with our free plan and pre-built ITSM templates. 

Your team can stand up a complete ticketing and incident management system in minutes with no coding required.

With SmartSuite, your IT help desk becomes a central hub for managing incidents, assets, and service requests: a secure, auditable, and easy way to adapt as your needs evolve.

Here’s what’s in it for your team when you try SmartSuite:

  • Access to a free plan with features including multi-board views (Kanban, Chart, Map, Timeline, Card, and Calendar), 100 automations/month, and 40+ field types, including formula and linked record fields.
  • No-code automation builder to set up to 500,000 trigger/action workflows.
  • Built-in productivity tools, including time tracking, status tracking, and checklists.
  • Team collaboration and planning tools such as whiteboards and SmartSuite docs.
  • Resource management across projects and teams.
  • 40+ field types, including the option to add your custom fields.

Sign up for a free plan to test the water or get a 14-day free trial to explore all its amazing features.

Or, if you’d like to talk to our team of experts, schedule a demo.

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SmartSuite Blog | Business Runs Smarter on SmartSuite

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Governance Risk & Compliance

Experience the friendliest, most flexible enterprise governance, risk and compliance solution. From novice to experienced practitioners, get elegant features and unprecedented cross-team collaboration over a network of interconnected GRC practice areas.

ServiceNow vs. BMC Helix vs. SmartSuite: Which One Is Better?

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Are you trying to figure out if ServiceNow or BMC Helix is the better ITSM solution for your organization?

Both ServiceNow and BMC Helix are well-established in the IT service management space: ServiceNow with its enterprise-grade depth and BMC Helix with its stronger focus on ITIL-aligned workflows, CMDB-first visibility, and automation.

Choosing the right fit isn’t easy, as it depends on your team’s size, budget, and the maturity of your ITIL/process discipline.

➡️ In this comparison, I’ll break down the key features, pricing posture, and customer feedback for both platforms to help you decide with confidence.

💡 I’ll also introduce you to a third alternative that blends flexibility, affordability, and ease of use in one platform: SmartSuite.

TL;DR

✅ ServiceNow is ideal for enterprises that need a highly customizable, ITIL-aligned platform with a huge ecosystem of modules (incident, change, asset, service management), deep automation, and extensive native integrations. 

It’s powerful, but expensive and often complex to implement and maintain.

✅ BMC Helix is a strong choice for organizations that want enterprise-grade ITSM with a CMDB-centric approach, change management, and built-in automation/virtual-agent capabilities.

Despite this, getting the full value typically requires meaningful implementation effort and admin resources, and some users note a learning curve and outdated UX.

✅ SmartSuite delivers strong value with an all-in-one work management platform that goes beyond ITSM. It combines customization, templates, and built-in communication features at a lower entry price. 

While its integration depth is more limited, it’s an excellent fit for teams of all sizes looking for flexibility and affordability.

ServiceNow vs. BMC Helix vs. SmartSuite: ITSM Features

TL;DR:

  • ServiceNow offers advanced modules for incident, change, problem, and asset management and excels at deep ITIL alignment, extensibility, and a huge marketplace.
  • BMC Helix delivers a CMDB-first, ITIL-aligned ITSM platform with strong change management, AI-assisted automation (virtual agents, predictive analytics), and enterprise-scale capabilities.
  • SmartSuite delivers a no-code, all-in-one ITSM and work management platform that streamlines service requests, ticketing, asset tracking, and internal IT projects. It stands out for IT teams that want flexible, fast-to-deploy ITSM.

Let’s go over the 3 tools’ features, starting with SmartSuite: 👇

SmartSuite’s ITSM Features

SmartSuite offers a no-code, easy-to-use ITSM software that helps you streamline critical IT processes, organise projects, and eliminate traditional obstacles in the tech landscape.

Here’s a walkthrough of the tool and our solution for IT leaders:

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Let’s go over the capabilities that make SmartSuite the best choice for small and large IT teams looking for an ITSM platform: 👇

All-In-One IT Service Management

SmartSuite helps enterprises manage their IT processes, projects, and assets in a single, unified solution.

Our no-code, easy-to-use platform lets you automate all technical processes with ease.

Here are the use cases that your IT team will get with SmartSuite:

  • Manage critical IT processes: Your team can manage IT data and workflows in one place, from deploying help desk and issue management solutions to ensuring core business operations stay uninterrupted.
  • Track tickets & issues: It’s possible to deploy a help desk and issue management solutions to ensure your business operations are not interrupted.
  • Manage your IT assets and licenses: Track all of your IT assets, to whom they are deployed to and what software versions are deployed.
  • Manage internal IT projects: Plan deployments, schedule your teams, and monitor progress to ensure you deliver on time and under budget.
  • Integrate with your existing systems: Integrate with existing systems and data to consolidate and centralize your data. 
  • Automate for accuracy and efficiency: Your team can remove inefficiencies and the chance for human error by automating repeatable workflows.
  • Monitor and report on your work with customizable IT dashboards: You’ll be able to slice and dice data, track help tickets, work requests, and more in dynamic interactive dashboards.

Standardize Your Team’s IT Workflows

Your IT team can standardize IT request workflows with a centralized work request process. 

Our platform lets you prioritize tasks, assign IT staff and ensure that you achieve SLAs.

You’ll also be able to monitor your team with flexible reports and dashboards that keep you updated in real time.

Apart from that, SmartSuite’s no-code automation builder provides IT teams with a visual interface that makes it easy to respond to events and take action.

That means you can customize your ITSM workflows without technical resources.

💡 Are you working from mobile? Stay connected to critical IT information, tickets and device information with our native iOS and Android apps.

Your team can use our mobile apps to share files, images, updates and other feedback to resolve problems and close tickets.

Out-of-the-box ITSM Templates

Our team has prepared a few ITSM templates for IT teams looking to get started right away, instead of building everything from scratch, such as an IT Help Desk.

Our ITSM template includes a:

  • IT Service Request Management, where you can streamline work requests, automate repetitive tasks, and manage IT assets.
  • IT Help Desk, which we built for internal IT departments looking to capture and resolve internal technology issues.
  • IT Asset Tracker, where you can keep track of IT assets issued to employees or implemented in networks, facilities and workspaces.

You can customize our ITSM management templates here for various use cases, such as IT Security Policies, IT Security Audits, and IT Work Requests.

ServiceNow’s ITSM Features

Incident & Problem Management

ServiceNow offers an incident management system that lets your IT team capture, prioritize, and resolve issues through a centralized interface. 

The software supports automated workflows for escalations and SLA tracking, ensuring critical tickets are addressed promptly.

Its problem management module helps you identify root causes of recurring incidents and maintains a known-error database, so fixes can be applied faster next time a similar issue arises.

➡️ Together, these tools streamline issue resolution and reduce downtime by enforcing ITIL best practices and providing agents with all the context needed to better close incidents.

Change & Asset Management

ServiceNow’s change management capabilities let you plan and authorize IT system changes with minimal risk. 

The platform provides structured change request workflows, integration with a Change Advisory Board (CAB), and a visual change calendar to avoid conflicts and schedule updates safely. 

Alongside change management, the tool also includes a full asset management module that automatically discovers hardware/software and tracks inventory throughout its lifecycle. 

➡️ You can monitor warranties, licenses, and contracts to ensure compliance and optimize usage.

CMDB & Service Mapping

At the core of ServiceNow’s platform is the Configuration Management Database (CMDB), which is a single source of truth for all IT components. 

The CMDB enables relationship mapping so your IT team can see dependencies between devices, applications, and services.

➡️ Before making any changes, your engineers can use the CMDB to predict how an update to one component might affect others (i.e., change impact analysis).

ServiceNow also offers service mapping that visually ties CIs (configuration items) to the services they support, providing you with a holistic view of the IT infrastructure. 

💡 What this means for your team is that you can quickly drill from a service outage down to the underlying components and respond with minimal guesswork.

BMC Helix’s ITSM Features

Incident & Problem Management

Helix provides a mature incident and problem management engine that maps directly to ITIL workflows so your team can triage, escalate and resolve incidents with structured SLAs and routing rules.

The tool supports automated incident matching and clustering so recurring incidents can be surfaced to problem teams for root-cause work to help you reduce repeat tickets. 

Your IT team will also get access to built-in dashboards and time-tracking to measure MTTR and SLA health. 

💡 Already following ITIL? Helix’s incident/problem flows are comprehensive and built for enterprise scale. 

Change & Release Management

I think of Helix’s change management module as one of its core strengths, as it offers controlled change workflows, approval chains, risk assessment and impact analysis tied to a central CMDB. 

The platform’s change policies, automated approvals and scheduled windows will help you reduce human error and help minimize disruption from releases. 

➡️ What I’ve noticed is that that Helix includes features to enforce operational guardrails, such as RFC templates, CAB scheduling, and backout plans, while also supporting automation for low-risk changes.

AI, Automation & Virtual Agents

Helix has been investing in AI-driven capabilities:

  • Virtual agents for self-service.
  • Predictive analytics to surface problem hotspots.
  • Automation capabilities to route and resolve common incidents. 

These AI use cases can help you reduce manual ticket handling by automating triage, suggesting knowledge base articles, and identifying clusters of related incidents for proactive remediation. 

➡️ The platform also exposes APIs and automation hooks, so you can plug workflow platforms and RPA tools into ticket lifecycles.

Integrations: ServiceNow vs. BMC Helix vs. SmartSuite

SmartSuite’s Integrations

SmartSuite integrates directly with ITSM-related platforms and offers additional connectivity through Zapier, Make, and native API support. 

The software covers the essentials for IT leaders looking to centralize service workflows, compliance, and incident management without heavy setup, including:

  • Microsoft Teams and Slack for communication.
  • Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 for productivity.
  • Okta for identity and access management.
  • Jira for development and issue tracking.
  • Zapier & Make for extended workflow automation.

ServiceNow’s Integrations

ServiceNow offers one of the best integration ecosystems on the market, with native connectors and APIs for virtually every enterprise system. 

From HR and finance to security and DevOps tools, its ServiceNow IntegrationHub allows IT teams to unify workflows across business functions:

  • Microsoft Teams and Slack.
  • Jira and Confluence.
  • AWS, Azure, and GCP.
  • Splunk and Datadog.
  • Okta and Active Directory.

➡️ Note: ServiceNow’s integrations can require technical expertise and additional licensing costs.

BMC Helix’s Integrations

BMC Helix provides a flexible integration model, combining robust APIs, prebuilt connectors, and iPaaS support, so you can tie ITSM into your wider tool stack.

From monitoring and identity to DevOps and collaboration tools, Helix enables teams to unify workflows across IT and business functions:

  • Microsoft Teams and Slack: Real-time ticket updates and chatops.
  • Jira and Confluence: Bi-directional issue linking and documentation sync.
  • AWS, Azure, and GCP: Cloud asset discovery and event ingestion.
  • Splunk and Datadog: Ingest metrics and correlated alerts.
  • Okta and Active Directory: User provisioning and SSO access control.
  • BMC Discovery and other discovery/asset feeds: Automated CI mapping for accurate CMDB.
  • Ansible, Puppet, and Chef (orchestration/runbook automation): Trigger remediations and runbooks automatically.
  • iPaaS/connectors (Workato, MuleSoft, Zapier): Orchestrate multi-system workflows without code.

Pricing: ServiceNow vs. BMC Helix vs. SmartSuite

SmartSuite’s Pricing

Unlike ServiceNow & BMC Helix, SmartSuite offers a free-forever plan with access to 250+ automation actions, team collaboration, multi-dashboard views, and more.

There are four paid plans with a 14-day free trial (no CC required):

  • Team: Starts at $12/user per month, including Gantt charts, timeline views, 5000 automation runs, and native time tracking.
  • Professional: Starts at $30/user per month and adds two-factor authentication, Gmail & Outlook integrations, and unlimited editors.
  • Enterprise: Starts at $45/user/month and includes access to audit logs, data loss prevention, and 50,000 monthly API calls.
  • Signature: A custom plan tailored to your needs and team size with no predefined limits.

ServiceNow’s Pricing

ServiceNow’s pricing is not publicly disclosed, so you’d have to book a demo with their team to get a quote.

How Much Does ServiceNow Really Cost?

I did find ServiceNow customer and public reviews, which show that the average cost of ServiceNow contracts can range between $50,000 and $500,000 annually.

Source

According to insiders, the pricing structure depends on:

  • The number of users/licenses you require.
  • The types of product required (IT Service Management, HR Service Delivery, or Now platform).
  • The level of support that you’ll need.
  • The additional features or configurations.

BMC Helix’s Pricing

As reviewed in our comprehensive BMC Helix pricing guide, the platform uses a modular, user-based pricing model that varies by product suite (e.g., ITSM), license type (named vs concurrent), and deployment model (on-prem vs SaaS).

The cost depends on:

  • Which modules do you require, such as IT Service Management, Operations Management, AIOps, Virtual Agent, and Knowledge Management, as separate or bundled services?
  • The type and number of users: Licenses can be assigned as named (per individual) or concurrent (shared among users), with analyst licenses priced higher than self-service or requestor roles.
  • Deployment preference: Prices are different between SaaS (Helix delivered via BMC cloud or AWS) and on-premise or hybrid deployments.
  • Contract terms and volume: Discounts may apply for long-term contracts or enterprise-scale purchases. SaaS offerings also allow purchasing in credits (e.g., $10,000 worth of credits for a year, as you’ll see later).
  • Use of AI add-ons like HelixGPT: AI features are bundled into some editions but require separate backend token usage charges (e.g., Azure OpenAI or GCP Vertex costs).

How Much Does BMC Helix Really Cost?

According to insiders from Vendr, BMC Helix pricing costs approximately $30,000 per year, based on data from three recent deals. 

For companies looking at per-user pricing, the going rate for a named user (e.g., help desk analysts, asset owners, or admins) is $114.75/month, according to BMC Helix’s Salesforce AppExchange listing.

➡️ Self-service users (those simply submitting IT tickets or requests) are included at no extra cost in that offering.

Another source, the UK Government’s Digital Marketplace, provides detailed SaaS pricing, including:

  • £218.15/month per concurrent Service Desk user.
  • £72.70/month per named Service Desk user.
  • £395.70/month per concurrent user for the full Helix Suite.
  • £131.90/month per named user for the full Helix Suite.

If you purchase BMC Helix via the AWS Marketplace, the platform also offers a $10,000/year SaaS credit bundle for 12 months. 

These credits are prepaid and applied against licenses or usage, with any overage billed separately.

💡 According to a BMC forum post, BMC Helix Knowledge Management requires “a minimum of 30 user subscriptions at $149/month, including one named user” at initial purchase.

What are customers saying about ServiceNow, BMC Helix, & SmartSuite?

TL;DR:

  • ServiceNow users appreciate its enterprise-grade ITSM capabilities, powerful automation, and deep ITIL alignment. Despite this, the tool can be complex, expensive, and requires significant time and expertise to implement.
  • BMC Helix users praise its automation, change management and CMDB strength for enterprise environments, but many cite complexity, a steep implementation curve, UI/UX and occasional performance or integration challenges.
  • SmartSuite users are fond of its user-friendly design, no-code customization, built-in collaboration tools, and strong value for money. That said, some reviewers note fewer native integrations for enterprise tools.

ServiceNow Reviews

G2 Rating: 4.4/5.

What users love:

  • Powerful incident/workflow automation.
  • Above-average tracking and reporting.
  • Wide array of built-in ITIL processes and integrations.

‘’ServiceNow ITSM is very user-friendly and customizable. It helps automate repetitive tasks, manage incidents and requests smoothly, and improves overall productivity.’’ – G2 Review.

Common complaints:

  • A learning curve and need for training (which can mean additional costs).
  • High licensing and implementation costs have pushed some organizations to remove roles to keep costs down.
  • Complexity of customization.

‘’As per my understanding, the per-user cost is very high for ServiceNow. We needed to remove a few of the roles because of the high cost.’’ – G2 Review.

BMC Helix Reviews

G2 Rating: 3.7/5.

What users love:

  • Powerful automation and workflow customization that cuts manual work and speeds up incident/change processing.
  • Change management and CMDB integration for impact analysis and auditability.
  • Good range of integrations with other DevOps tools, New Relic, and OIC.

‘’An enterprise-level tool that is used globally for service management and routing of incidents. Integrations with DevOps tools, New Relic, and OIC. Built-in knowledge management for effective use and up-to-date information.’’ – G2 Review.

Common complaints:

  • Outdated or clunky UI and an uneven user experience compared to newer competitors. 
  • The platform requires significant configuration or partner support to unlock full value. 
  • Performance or integration pain points reported by some customers (esp. when integrating many third-party systems).

‘’Expensive compared to other ITSM tools. Not easy to maintain, sometimes causes troubles like performance issues.’’ – G2 Review.

SmartSuite Reviews

G2 Rating: 4.9/5.

What users love:

  • Intuitive, spreadsheet-like interface.
  • Extensive customization and pre-built ITSM templates have helped teams get started in days and not months.
  • Built-in collaboration and strong value for money.

‘’I love how intuitive SmartSuite is from the moment you log in. It’s easy to navigate, and the templates really made it simple to quickly realize all the potential ways to utilize the software. I love how easy it is to see progress on a project at any point, and how all files, communication and calendar are tied in within the task. So insanely simple, but there is so much you can do.’’ – Capterra Review.

Common complaints:

  • Learning curve for advanced features.
  • Per-user pricing can add up.
  • Limited out-of-the-box integrations compared to ITSM leaders.

‘’While SmartSuite offers a good range of automation tools, we find that some essential automation features are not yet available. Enhancements such as more customizable workflow automation and integration with other automation platforms would be beneficial. These additions would reduce the need for manual interventions and increase efficiency across our operations.’’ – G2 Review.

Which platform should you choose for IT service management?

If you’ve read through the article so far and still haven’t figured it out, here’s a quick use case summary to help you see the 3 tools from a bird’s eye view: ⬇️

SmartSuite is the right choice if you:

✅ Are looking for an all-in-one ITSM platform with a user-friendly, no-code interface and drag-and-drop customization.

✅ Need to centralize IT ticketing, issue tracking, asset management, and internal IT projects.

✅ Are looking for an affordable ITSM solution that scales from small IT teams to enterprise IT departments.

✅ Want ready-to-use ITSM templates (help desk, service requests, asset tracker) to get started quickly.

✅ Prefer built-in automation and customizable dashboards to monitor SLAs, tickets, and IT projects in real time.

✅ Need mobile access for IT staff to resolve tickets, manage assets, and stay connected on the go.

SmartSuite isn’t the best option if you:

❌ Require a legacy ITSM vendor with a decades-long enterprise track record like ServiceNow.

❌ Are looking for deep, pre-built ITIL workflows.

❌ Expect hundreds of native enterprise integrations (ServiceNow and BMC Helix currently offer broader ecosystems).

ServiceNow is the ideal choice if you:

✅ Manage IT operations at a large enterprise or across many departments and need a single, unified platform.

✅ Require a highly customizable, ITIL-aligned solution with enterprise-grade workflows.

✅ Have the budget and resources for a full-featured platform that can scale globally.

✅ Need advanced automation, AI-driven capabilities, and extensive integration options.

ServiceNow isn’t the best choice if you:

❌ Are a part of a small or lean IT team and prefer a simpler, quicker setup with lower cost.

❌ Don’t look for extensive customization or formal ITIL processes.

❌ Have budget constraints, as licensing and implementation costs are high, which is why some IT leads have been looking for ServiceNow alternatives.

BMC Helix is the ideal choice if you:

✅ Operate in a mid-to-large enterprise that needs full ITIL discipline (incidents, changes, CMDB, SLAs).

✅ Need strong, auditable change management and a single CMDB for impact analysis.

✅ Want built-in automation and AI capabilities (virtual agents, predictive analytics).

✅ Require options for both cloud and on-prem deployments and enterprise-grade scalability.

BMC Helix isn’t the best choice if you:

❌ Need a lightweight, low-cost helpdesk for small teams or startups.

❌ Require a modern, consumer-grade UI out of the box.

❌ Want to avoid substantial implementation and configuration effort, which is why some companies have been looking for BMC Helix alternatives.

Set Up Your Workspace In Days & Not Months With SmartSuite’s ITSM Templates

If you’re an IT lead looking to build IT service management workflows, give SmartSuite a chance with our free plan and pre-built ITSM templates.

SmartSuite’s solution for IT leaders offers just the right customization, native collaboration capabilities and a library of 200+ project management templates to help teams create and maintain a project management workflow.

Here’s what’s in it for your team when you try SmartSuite:

  • Access to a free plan with features including multi-board views (Kanban, Chart, Map, Timeline, Card, and Calendar), 100 automations/month, and 40+ field types, including formula and linked record fields.
  • No-code automation builder to set up to 500,000 trigger/action workflows.
  • Built-in productivity tools, including time tracking, status tracking, and checklists.
  • Team collaboration and planning tools such as whiteboards and SmartSuite docs.
  • Resource management across projects and teams.
  • 40+ field types, including the option to add your custom fields.

Sign up for a free plan to test the water or get a 14-day free trial to explore all its amazing features.

Or, if you’d like to talk to our team of experts, schedule a demo.

Read More

What’s New: What we launched in August 2025

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Great work doesn’t come out of nowhere — it builds on what came before. Your team’s research insights, brainstorm notes, and workshop outcomes all bring value to the table. That shouldn’t vanish every time you switch tools or start working on something new.

This month’s Miro updates carry your thinking forward. From AI that’s clued in on context to an Adobe Express integration that makes it easy to edit and repurpose creative assets — you can keep building on your existing work instead of always starting from scratch.

Create with AI: the canvas is your prompt

Most AI tools need you to explain what you’re working on. Miro AI just gets it. It now understands any content you select on the canvas — like screenshots, stickies, diagrams, and even the results of your team’s dot voting session. And it doesn’t just read each individual element, but also connects the dots between them. That means anything you create with AI is grounded in the context of real work you’ve already done.

Use it to fast-track your next step: a summary of your kickoff call notes, a product brief based on your latest research report, a process diagram, or anything else you need to move forward. Refine the result until it’s just right, add it to the board, and bring in your team to build on it together. Watch a quick demo of how it works.

Miro agent in Microsoft Copilot 

First, Microsoft Copilot could search content in Miro. Now it can build it, too. Ask the new Miro agent in Copilot to create whatever you need: a doc, flowchart, or a set of fresh ideas on sticky notes.

Skip the manual work, and move straight from an idea to a tangible asset. Your Teams chat kicks off your brainstorm. Meeting notes turn into a project plan. A technical discussion is the starting point for your system diagram. All you have to do is give it a prompt like “Hey Miro, create a product requirements doc based on this chat.” Ready to try it out? Get it on Microsoft AppSource.

Please note: you need access to a Copilot license to use this feature. Reach out to your Miro or Microsoft admin with any questions about access.

Video call updates

Ever finish a productive call, only to realize no one remembers what was decided? We’ve got you covered.

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Video call recordings (Beta)

Record a video call so you can revisit it later, or send it to teammates who couldn’t attend. Walkthrough, workshop, training session — run it live once, hit record, and share the recording so people can catch up on their own time.

Video call transcripts (Beta)

Grab a transcript of your video call in just one click. It appears right on your board, ready to review, edit, and share. No need to dig through every line manually — just ask Miro AI to summarize it, translate it, and pull out key insights in a matter of seconds. Every conversation becomes a resource your team can refer to and build on.

Adobe Express integration

Visuals play a huge part in how you plan and present your work. Whether you’re running a workshop, sharing a feature concept, or prepping for a client meeting, the right image gets your message across. But what if that image needs a few tweaks? Typically, you’d have to switch to a design tool, chase down a designer, or settle for “good enough”. 

With Adobe Express now integrated into Miro, you can edit images right on your board — using trusted Adobe tools that creatives rely on every day. Tidy up screenshots, remove backgrounds, and quickly polish images so they’re ready to present. 

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Need more creative control? Open up the full Adobe Express experience right in Miro to access templates, brand kits, and video editing tools — and create on-brand content, without switching tabs.

The most useful templates come from lived experience, not theory. In Miroverse, you’ve got access to 6,000+ templates and frameworks built by real people who have solved these problems before. From solo experts to teams at top companies, they’re sharing what works so you don’t have to start from scratch. Here’s what caught our eye this month:

  • Circle’s Community Onboarding Map is your blueprint for delivering an intentional and seamless experience to new community members.
  • Colin Duff’s Jobs to Be Done Template gives you a proven framework for uncovering real customer needs and strengthening your product-market fit.
  • David Pereira’s Extreme Backlog Cleaning helps teams clear out stale tasks, realign on business goals, and create space for high-impact, fresh initiatives.

Love creating in Miro? Publish a template to Miroverse to share your expertise with 95M+ users worldwide.

Lock in your spot at Canvas 25 

Miro’s biggest event of the year, Canvas 25, is back on October 14 — and you’re in for something epic. This year, we’re diving into how AI is transforming the way teams collaborate. You’ll get an exclusive first look at new Miro features, watch inspiring keynotes from leading AI thinkers, and put it all into practice at hands-on training sessions. 

Join us in New York City or stream it online to see where the future of human-AI collaboration is heading — and how you can get there first. Save your spot.

Keep building forward

That’s a wrap on this month’s updates! They all help your team leverage existing work, decisions, and shared context — so you can keep moving forward instead of rehashing what you’ve already figured out. Because the fastest way to ship great work isn’t starting over. It’s building on what’s already there.

ROI of websites: Metrics that matter to the C-suite

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image

Marketing leaders understand the real potential return on investment (ROI) of an optimized website.

While they often focus on metrics like conversion and engagement, other executives are drawn to ROI and revenue impact — and demand results faster than most web analytics can deliver. 

Moreover, with limited budgets and fragmented ownership of site responsibilities, approval processes become complicated, leading to differing priorities and misalignment on goals.

However, getting C-suite buy-in can happen with the right metrics and narratives. Whether you’re speaking with an executive or an executive yourself, this blog will demonstrate how to effectively connect website performance to business outcomes.

Why traditional website metrics fall short for the C-suite

Because marketing and executive leadership approaches measuring success, perceiving digital assets, and hitting timelines differently, traditional website metrics often fail to prove website value. 

Measurement and attribution disconnect

Traditional website metrics like page views and load times only offer surface-level insights into website performance and don’t align with executive priorities such as ROI, revenue impact, and cost efficiency. It becomes difficult to isolate a website’s specific ROI contributions because they’re part of customer journeys that span multiple touchpoints. 

Perception and prioritization issues

Many executives still see websites primarily as branding vehicles rather than revenue-generating assets. Limited budgets force executives to choose between website investments and more tangible initiatives — typically those with more immediate financial returns.

Timeline misalignment

The C-suite often focuses on quarterly results, creating pressure for faster returns from all teams — not just marketing. On the contrary, website experimentation and investments can show quick results, but the impact on the business typically takes longer over weeks or months at minimum — and sometimes years.

Organizational structure barriers

With website responsibilities spanning multiple teams, fragmented ownership becomes a core issue and complicates decision-making. The budget may have to come from multiple departments as well, meaning approval requires coordination across different departments. These differing priorities between teams can easily lead to conflicting goals and delayed decisions.

Key website metrics that resonate with executives

There are a few crucial areas where metrics show the true impact of marketing efforts. Let’s look at how these metrics impact marketing as well as executives across the organization. 

Revenue impact metrics

  • Conversion rate: Marketing values this as a direct measure of campaign effectiveness and user experience success. It’s a clear indicator of how well the website turns visitors into paying customers, directly impacting bottom-line revenue.
  • Customer acquisition cost (CAC) reduction: Marketing teams use this to prove their efficiency and optimize budget allocation across channels. Other executives appreciate it because lowering acquisition costs means improving ROI on marketing investments.
  • Customer lifetime value (CLV): Marketing sees this as validation that their efforts attract high-quality, loyal customers. C-suite executives value CLV because it demonstrates long-term revenue potential and helps justify upfront investment costs.

Operational efficiency metrics

  • Cost savings from self-service capabilities: Marketing benefits from reduced pressure on customer service teams and improved customer satisfaction scores. Other executives appreciate the direct cost reduction and ability to scale operations without proportional increases in support staff.
  • Reduction in support tickets: Marketing values this as proof that better website experiences reduce customer friction and complaints. C-suite executives see immediate operational cost savings and improved resource allocation. 
  • Resource allocation optimization: Marketing can reallocate budget from reactive support to proactive growth initiatives. Other executives appreciate improved operational efficiency and the ability to deploy resources toward higher-value projects.
  • Speed-to-market improvements: Marketing values faster campaign launches and content updates that keep pace with market demands. C-suite executives see competitive advantages through quicker response to market opportunities and reduced opportunity costs.

Competitive advantage metrics

  • Market share: Marketing uses this to demonstrate brand strength and campaign effectiveness against competitors. C-suite executives view market share as a key indicator of business growth and competitive positioning.
  • Data comparing your site vs. competitors: Marketing leverages this data to identify improvement opportunities and prove superior user experience. Other executives use competitive comparisons to assess market position and justify investment decisions.
  • Industry benchmarking: Marketing uses benchmarks to set realistic goals and prove performance against industry standards. C-suite executives rely on benchmarking to ensure the company remains competitive and doesn’t fall behind industry best practices.
  • AI-referred traffic: As LLMs continue taking over search, it’s important to optimize your content to appear in AI searches. An increasing presence in AI searches means your content — and subsequently your brand — is tailored to reach the right audience.

Risk mitigation metrics

  • Security incident prevention value: Marketing cares about maintaining customer trust and brand reputation in digital channels. C-suite executives focus on avoiding costly breaches, regulatory fines, and the significant financial impact of security incidents.
  • Compliance-related cost avoidance: Marketing values avoiding campaign disruptions and maintaining consistent user experiences across markets. Other executives appreciate avoiding regulatory penalties, legal costs, and the operational burden of compliance failures.
  • Brand reputation protection: Marketing sees this as essential for maintaining customer trust and campaign effectiveness. C-suite executives understand that reputation damage can have lasting financial impact and significantly reduce company valuation.

How to calculate website ROI: an example 

One of the most important website metrics for any executive is ROI. Knowing how to calculate it shows your understanding of the metric and how it impacts your business objectives. Use this formula to calculate website ROI:

Website ROI = (Incremental Revenue – Investment Cost) / Investment Cost × 100%

Consider this example of how to calculate ROI: A B2B company invested $250,000 in a website redesign. Before the redesign, their metrics are:

  • Monthly visitors: 50,000
  • Conversion rate to qualified leads: 1.5%
  • Lead-to-customer rate: 10%
  • Average customer value: $15,000

With a pre-redesign revenue of: 

  • Monthly leads: 50,000 × 1.5% = 750
  • Monthly customers: 750 × 10% = 75
  • Monthly revenue: 75 × $15,000 = $1,125,000

After the redesign, their metrics are:

  • Monthly visitors: 65,000 (30% increase)
  • Conversion rate to qualified leads: 2.2% (47% increase)
  • Lead-to-customer rate: 12% (20% increase)
  • Average customer value: $15,000 (unchanged)

With a post-redesign revenue of:

  • Monthly leads: 65,000 × 2.2% = 1,430
  • Monthly customers: 1,430 × 12% = 171.6
  • Monthly revenue: 171.6 × $15,000 = $2,574,000

First, calculate the incremental monthly revenue by subtracting the pre-redesign monthly revenue from the post-redesign monthly revenue: $2,574,000 – $1,125,000 = $1,449,000. 

You’ll need the annual incremental to calculate the business’ ROI in the first year, which means $1,449,000 × 12 = $17,388,000. With an original investment of $250,000, the ROI can be calculated as such:

ROI = ($17,388,000 – $250,000) / $250,000 × 100% = 6,855%

How to make the case to executives

Focus on the right narrative and unique priorities — which vary depending on the executive — to convince the C-suite to make an investment in your website.

  • CEO: Emphasize strategic advantage and market positioning, focusing on competitive advantage metrics.
  • CFO: Focus on financial metrics and efficiency gains, focusing on revenue impact metrics.
  • CTO/CIO: Highlight technical debt reduction, security strengths, and integration benefits, focusing on operational efficiency and risk mitigation metrics.
  • COO: Showcase operational improvements and process efficiencies, focusing on operational efficiency metrics.

Why Webflow is uniquely positioned to deliver ROI on website investment

Marketing leaders face increasing pressure to demonstrate measurable ROI, and the choice of website platform can make or break your ability to prove value to the C-suite. Webflow stands out as the only Website Experience Platform (WXP) that combines enterprise-grade capabilities with the agility needed to drive and measure meaningful business outcomes.

For CMOs building the business case for Webflow investment, Webflow delivers website ROI through four critical areas that resonate with executive stakeholders:

  1. Revenue velocity: Webflow’s optimization capabilities enable faster growth in key business metrics. Make informed decisions with insights that maximize conversions, customize user experiences, and leverage AI-powered optimization to scale faster and smarter.
  2. Strategic speed-to-market: Webflow’s visual-first CMS enables marketing teams to launch new campaigns, pages, and A/B tests in hours rather than weeks. This means your team can capitalize on market opportunities, seasonal trends, and competitive gaps before they — and your revenue growth opportunities — disappear. 
  3. Operational efficiency: By eliminating traditional collaboration and technical bottlenecks, Webflow reduces the total cost of website ownership, dev tickets, and more — while increasing team productivity. 
  4. Enterprise SEO foundation: Webflow’s clean code structure and automatic SEO optimizations provide the foundation for organic growth that scales. Our WXP generates fast-loading pages that search engines favor, while giving marketers granular control over meta data, schema markup, and site architecture. 

The combination of these factors creates a compelling ROI story that extends beyond traditional marketing metrics to impact fundamental business outcomes. For CMOs seeking to demonstrate the strategic value of marketing technology investments, Webflow provides both the capabilities needed to drive results and the measurement tools required to prove them.

‍

How to choose between a blog, resource center, and content hub for maximum impact

· ·

Many businesses throw content at the wall and hope it sticks, resulting in a scattered user experience and missed conversion opportunities.

According to recent research, only 57% of businesses have a documented content strategy, while 82% of consumers say they abandon purchases due to poor website user experience.

The problems run deeper than most teams realize. 

Content creators often mix up the purpose of a blog versus a resource center, which leads to overlapping efforts and diluted messaging, negatively impacting your lead generation effectiveness and SEO performance. Sales teams struggle with unqualified leads from poorly structured content funnels, and marketing teams can’t properly attribute content performance to business outcomes.

Understanding the differences between blogs, resource centers, and content hubs can help you choose the structure that fits your goals and learn how to implement them effectively. 

Defining blogs, content hubs, and resource centers

Let’s define each of these in more detail, so we can understand how they might be used together. 

  • A blog is time-based content designed for regular consumption, ongoing engagement, and search engine discovery. When building a blog, it’s vital to focus on fresh, timely, conversational content that builds relationships over time, with an ideal cadence of multiple posts per week.
  • A resource center is a content library with high-value, actionable resources that solve specific problems in exchange for sharing contact information. Content here is often tiered based on prospect readiness. This approach is particularly effective for complex B2B sales and high-consideration purchases.
  • A content hub is evergreen content that’s thematically organized by specific topics, industries, or expertise areas. This structure establishes authority and serves prospects and existing customers with ongoing education.

While these represent the most common structural approaches, it’s worth noting that successful websites often blend elements from different structures. 

Deep dive: How each structure works

Let’s take a deeper look to understand how each of these structures works.

Blog 

Purpose:

  • SEO traffic through fresh content signals and keyword targeting
  • Thought leadership through consistent industry commentary and insights
  • Ongoing audience engagement and community building through regular communication
  • Brand personality through authentic voice and perspective sharing

Organization and navigation: A blog is organized in reverse chronological order, with categories and tags. Users navigate through category dropdowns for broad topics, tag clouds for granular discovery, date-based archives, and related post suggestions. Author pages add another discovery layer. A typical user journey follows: discovery through search, social, or email → content consumption → related content exploration → newsletter signup or social following. 

Technical foundation: RSS feeds, commenting systems, social media integration, and email subscription forms must seamlessly support content syndication and community building.

Success metrics: Reach and relationship building (e.g., organic traffic growth, time on page, bounce rate, social engagement, and email subscriptions).

Content strategy: Diverse types of content, including industry commentary, tutorials, opinion pieces, company updates, and guest posts. The SEO strategy targets trending keywords while building long-term topic authority through regular publishing and featured snippet optimization.

Resource center

Purpose:

  • Lead capture through form fills 
  • Prospect nurturing and sales enablement through educational content that addresses specific pain points throughout the buyer’s journey
  • Customer segmentation through content preferences and engagement tracking

Organization and navigation: Resource centers have topic-based hierarchies with filtering by content type, industry, role, and funnel stage. Advanced search includes auto-complete and semantic understanding, while faceted filtering and personalization create adaptive experiences. A typical user journey follows: problem identification → resource search/browse → content preview → form completion → download → email nurturing sequences.

Technical foundation: A resource center integrates form builders, CRM systems, marketing automation, and analytics tracking to create seamless conversion experiences and detailed prospect intelligence.

Success metrics: Top-of-funnel conversion, as measured through form completion rates, download numbers, lead quality scores, cost per lead, and sales funnel progression. 

Content strategy: Whitepapers, case studies, templates, tools, webinars, and assessments that justify sharing email addresses. Lead scoring assigns values based on content type and behavior, while gating content balances conversion with user experience.

Content hub 

Purpose:

  • Establishing market authority and competitive differentiation through comprehensive topic coverage and original research
  • SEO dominance through topic cluster content and comprehensive keyword coverage
  • Customer retention by delivering value (through customer education) and encouraging repeat visits

Organization and navigation: A content hub centers around a hub and spoke model, with main hub pages supported by bespoke content, topic-based silos, and curated learning paths. Navigation includes breadcrumb trails, “next in series” suggestions, and progress tracking. A typical user journey follows: topic discovery → foundational learning → deep-dive exploration → application and mastery → ongoing reference for skill development.

Technical foundation: Content relationship mapping, progress tracking systems, bookmark functionality, and contextual search lead to a strong user experience.

Success metrics: Learning effectiveness and authority building, including topic authority metrics, education completion rates, time spent on content, return visitor percentage, and customer satisfaction scores. 

Content strategy: Comprehensive guides, original research, step-by-step processes, best practice frameworks, industry insights, and tool comparisons build authority through thorough coverage.

Comparison of content program components across Blog, Resource center, and Content hub.
Component Blog Resource center Content hub
Primary business objective Brand awareness and thought leadership Lead generation and pipeline building Authority establishment and customer education
Revenue impact model Indirect through brand building and SEO Direct through lead capture and nurturing Mixed through authority building and customer success
Competitive differentiation Unique perspective and timely insights Valuable resources and expertise demonstration Comprehensive knowledge and educational excellence
Customer lifecycle stage Awareness and early consideration Consideration and evaluation Awareness, consideration, evaluation, and decision
CMS requirements Standard blog functionality Advanced forms, CRM integration Custom content types with relationship fields, advanced tagging, personalized content recommendations

When to use each content structure

Choosing the right content structure depends on your primary business goals, audience characteristics, available resources, and market position. Here’s how to match structure to strategy:

Choose a blog when:

  • Primary goal: Drive organic traffic and build brand awareness through consistent thought leadership and industry commentary.
  • Audience: General market seeking broader expertise, industry peers interested in your perspective, and potential customers in early research stages who value timely insights and authentic communication.
  • Resources: Regular content creation capacity with team members who can consistently produce quality content multiple times per week.

Examples in action:

The Slack blog groups content by topic and persona (developers in this case) to show expertise and targeted content for their audience base.

The HubSpot team created blogs based on topic and audience personas, with a topic-based sidebar, to give visitors a more personalized, choose-your-own-adventure feel to the content journey.

Choose a resource center when:

  • Primary goal: Generate and nurture leads through valuable content exchange that supports complex sales processes.
  • Audience: Decision-makers actively researching solutions, buyers in consideration phases comparing vendors, and stakeholders who need detailed information to support purchasing decisions.
  • Lengthy sales process: Longer consideration cycles that require education, multiple stakeholders, and significant investment decisions where trust and expertise demonstration matter more than quick conversions.

Examples in action:

Gong’s resource center puts the goal front and center, making the visitor’s goal their filtering option. Doing so creates a clear distinction right away of what Gong helps customers achieve, and identifies key needs for audience members.

Keap makes it easy to find all learning content in one spot with links directly to all formats at the top of their resource center.

Choose a content hub when

  • Primary goal: Establish thought leadership in specific areas while educating existing customers and demonstrating comprehensive expertise to prospects.
  • Audience: Existing customers seeking ongoing education and skill development, prospects needing deep expertise validation before major commitments, and industry professionals looking for comprehensive learning resources.

Market positioning: Demonstrate comprehensive knowledge that competitors cannot easily replicate, establishing category leadership, or supporting complex customer success initiatives.

Examples in action:

Square created a content hub that functionally mirrors a blog, but focuses entirely on starting your business. Visitors get a similar experience to a blog, but with the singular focus of how to grow your business.

The Cleveland Clinic built a content hub that gives advice to patients for essential health best practices. A content hub like this establishes expertise, trust, and authority in a brand.

Making them work together

As business needs change, the most successful content strategies evolve by adopting multiple structures into their portfolio. Here’s how to make them work in harmony:

  • Content repurposing: Turn blog posts into resource center materials by expanding them — or consolidating multiple — into comprehensive guides. Convert resource center content into hub modules by removing gates and adding interactive elements. ‍
  • Cross-linking approach: Connect related content across structures to guide users through a natural progression. Blog posts reference detailed hub resources, resource center content links to relevant blog insights, and hub content supports blog authority.‍
  • User journey mapping: Design intentional paths that guide users from discovery to conversion to retention. Blog content attracts initial awareness through search and social sharing. The resource center captures lead information while providing valuable tools and insights. The content hub supports learning and skill development while building authority and trust.‍
  • Structure integrity: Keep each format true to its core purpose as you expand. Blogs should remain open and discoverable, resource centers should offer clear value exchange for contact information, and content hubs should prioritize learning and exploration. This clarity helps users understand what to expect from each section.‍
  • Aligned success metrics: Establish distinct success metrics aligned with each structure’s primary purpose: blogs for reach and engagement, resource centers for lead quality and conversion, and content hubs for authority building and educational effectiveness. Mixing metrics can weaken each structure’s unique value. 

Building your content foundation for growth

With Webflow’s visual design capabilities, you can create distinct experiences for each content structure while maintaining brand consistency. The built-in CMS lets you organize content differently across sections: open blog posts for discovery, gated resource downloads with custom forms, and searchable hub content with advanced filtering. You can easily implement cross-linking between structures, set up different conversion paths, and track separate analytics for each content type.

Ready to optimize your content structure? See how to use Webflow to build your blog, resource center, and/or content hub. 

‍

10 Best Compliance Management Software & Tools In 2025

· ·

Are you looking for compliance management software to streamline processes, reduce risk, and keep your organization audit-ready with confidence?

A good compliance management software can help you centralize policies, automate compliance tasks, monitor risks in real-time, and simplify reporting.

I’ll cover the 10 best compliance management tools that can help you reduce regulatory risk, save time on manual processes, and ensure consistent adherence to industry standards and policies.

TL;DR

  • SmartSuite offers the best compliance management software with its all-in-one compliance hub, no-code automation builder, and ready-to-use GRC templates.
  • Enterprise-grade tools like Diligent and IBM OpenPages are ideal for large organizations that need advanced risk modeling, board-level governance, and AI-powered compliance insights.
  • On the other hand, platforms like AuditBoard and SAI360 can help finance, audit, and training-focused teams streamline audits, manage policies, and link compliance with workforce behavior.

Before we begin, I wanted to go over some of the factors to consider when you’re buying compliance management solutions:

What are the factors to consider when evaluating compliance management tools?

The main factors to consider when buying compliance management software include how comprehensive do you need your compliance coverage to be, the level of automations, reporting & analytical capabilities, and its range of integrations.

Let’s dive deeper into each one of them: ⬇️

#1: How comprehensive do you need your compliance coverage to be?

The first question you need to ask yourself is if the compliance software should cover just a few key regulations or a broad spectrum of compliance requirements.

If I were you, I’d consider both industry-specific regulations and global standards, as well as your organization’s internal policies.

➡️ A broader coverage typically reduces the need for multiple tools and ensures a more unified compliance approach.

#2: What level of automation is essential for your compliance processes?

The 2nd question you need to ask yourself is how much you want the software to handle automatically versus manually.

Automation can include policy distribution, audit reminders, and real-time monitoring.

💡 Pro Tip: High levels of automation save time and reduce human error even though it might require more set-up and training upfront (not with every tool, as we’ll explore).

#3: How important is reporting and analytics for your team?

The 3rd question you need to ask yourself is whether you need basic compliance logs or advanced dashboards and insights. 

Here are a few features to look for:

  • Customizable reporting for different audiences.
  • Risk scoring and trend analysis.

➡️ Strong reporting capabilities help your organization with proactive risk management and simplify communication with regulators or executives.

#4: What level of integration do you require with your existing systems?

Last but not least, you need to ask yourself is whether the software needs to work alongside tools you already use, such as HR platforms or security monitoring systems. 

💡 Seamless integration reduces duplicate work, ensures consistent data, and gives a clearer view of compliance across the organization.

What are the best compliance management tools on the market?

The best compliance management solutions on the market include SmartSuite with its all-in-one compliance management capabilities, intuitive interface and affordable pricing structure, as well as Diligent and IBM OpenPages.

Here’s a comprehensive breakdown:

#1: SmartSuite: Best for banks and credit unions looking to centralize and automate the entire policy lifecycle with no-code workflows and pre-built compliance templates.

#2: Diligent: Best for enterprises needing a governance, risk, and compliance platform with board-level oversight, real-time dashboards, and AI-driven insights.

#3: IBM OpenPages: Best for global enterprises seeking AI-enhanced policy and risk management tightly integrated with IBM’s analytics and cloud ecosystem.

#4: MetricStream: Best for large organizations requiring a scalable GRC solution that links policies, risk, and compliance into a single framework.

#5: AuditBoard: Best for audit and compliance teams that need to streamline SOX, internal audits, and policy management in one connected platform.

#6: SAI360: Best for highly regulated industries that need compliance training, policy management, ethics oversight, and regulatory reporting in one system.

#7: Onspring: Best for organizations wanting a no-code, user-friendly compliance solution with strong reporting, workflow automation, and customizable dashboards.

#8: LogicGate Risk Cloud: Best for companies needing a flexible, modular GRC platform to build custom risk and compliance workflows.

#9: Pathlock: Best for enterprises focused on access controls, segregation of duties (SoD), and automating user compliance across ERP systems.

#10: SAP GRC: Best for large enterprises already on SAP that need integrated governance, risk, and compliance directly within their ERP ecosystem.

#1: SmartSuite

SmartSuite offers the best compliance management solution on the market for banks and credit unions with our modern, no-code project management platform.

Our GRC software shines at compliance because it reduces fragmentation: policies, control definitions, assessment results, incident records and related evidence live together, not scattered across drives, email threads and ad-hoc spreadsheets.

💡 We have recently partnered with the Cyber Risk Institute to deliver a CRI profile for U.S. Banks’ compliance needs.

Let’s go over the functionality that makes SmartSuite the best choice for compliance teams looking for a compliance management solution: 👇

Comprehensive Compliance Management

Compliance should be simple, automated, and accessible to all financial institutions, regardless of their size.

With our no-code, easy-to-use solution, you can automate all compliance processes with a start date next week and not next year.

SmartSuite helps you achieve and maintain compliance without the expense and complexity of adapting legacy GRC solutions to accommodate new compliance requirements.

Here are the use cases that you’ll get with SmartSuite:

  • Create reports and dynamic dashboards: Your team can monitor executive views into your organization’s overall risk profile with powerful charting and metrics widgets. 
  • Collaborate and respond to risks in real-time: Engage key stakeholders in a real-time discussion of potential threats or vulnerabilities.

Our tool will also provide you with instant updates when critical information becomes available.

  • Automate policy creation, real-time approval, and control assessments: Streamline risk management by building an integrated program on a single platform.
  • Keep risk and compliance data secure: Define your teams and manage access to information across all GRC practice areas.
  • Integrate with your existing systems and data to consolidate and centralize your data. 
  • Automate for accuracy and efficiency to remove inefficiencies and the chance for human error by automating repeatable workflows.

SmartSuite’s no-code automation builder provides you with a visual interface that makes it easy to respond to events and take action. 

That means your compliance team can customize your GRC workflows without technical resources.

  • Monitor, measure and score: Create risk calculations and metrics to evaluate every aspect of risk.
  • Policy management: It’s possible to establish a strong foundation from the get-go with streamlined and flexible policy management.

Your team will be able to assign ownership, manage revisions, and ensure your policies consistently align with key business initiatives and regulatory requirements.

  • PSTOS Compliance Tracker: Designed for regulatory compliance and built on SmartSuite.

This solution focuses on data security as the core of compliance frameworks with services such as compliance readiness, virtual CISO, and IT security implementation.

Learn more about it from this webinar that we did on the topic:

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Prioritize & Mitigate Risks

With SmartSuite, you and your team can create a centralized risk register to effectively identify potential risks to your organization.

You will be able to properly assess threats and establish risk mitigation strategies inside SmartSuite.

Your team can ensure that the appropriate controls are in place and measure their effectiveness by evaluating risk indicators and displaying results in SmartSuite’s rollup reports and dashboards.

💡 Pro Tip: Teams that use our platform use automation to move tasks through defined workflow stages that comply with their policies and procedures.

We understand how crucial threat management is and the need to respond quickly to incidents.

SmartSuite lets you centralize incident response and threat mitigation by linking incidents to assets and organizational data to offer context during your investigations.

Your compliance team can also set up automation with our no-code automation builder to escalate critical events to make sure that your team is aware of active risks to your organization.

Ready-To-Use Compliance Templates

We have a few compliance templates for your team can get started with right away, instead of building everything from scratch.

Our general risk management template includes a:

  • Risk register, where your team can break down the risks, the risk owner, the annual loss expectancy, risk event category, risk type, volatility, and status.
  • Issue assessments, where you’ll be able to see a comprehensive breakdown of each risk.
  • Action plans, where you can describe the actions (best practices) to mitigate the risks.
  • A separate tab for control standards, your findings, exception requests, risk assessment by type, and risk assessment issues.

You can customize our risk management template here.

Alternatively, check out and customize our 14 other risk management templates for various use cases, such as contract management, policy management, and incident management.

Pricing

SmartSuite offers a free-forever plan with access to 250+ automation actions, team collaboration, multi-dashboard views, and more.

There are four paid plans with a 14-day free trial (no CC required):

  • Team: Starts at $12/user per month, including Gantt charts, timeline views, 5000 automation runs, and native time tracking.
  • Professional: Starts at $30/user per month and adds two-factor authentication, Gmail & Outlook integrations, and unlimited editors.
  • Enterprise: Starts at $45/user/month and includes access to audit logs, data loss prevention, and 50,000 monthly API calls.
  • Signature: A custom plan tailored to your needs and team size with no predefined limits.

Pros & Cons

✅ A free-forever plan that includes access to advanced features of the tool for up to 5 solutions.

✅ 15 pre-built GRC templates for various use cases.

✅ Dynamic dashboards and reports that are easy to build and navigate, unlike some alternatives that require you to hire consultants to do it.

✅ All-in-one document and file management.

✅ Automate risk scoring, compliance tracking, audits, and vendor reviews.

✅ A modern solution with an intuitive user interface.

❌ Fewer native integrations when compared to other platforms in this list.

#2: Diligent

Best for: Organizations that need executive-level governance and audit-ready documentation tied directly to board workflows.

Similar to: Onspring, ArcherIRM.

Diligent centralizes board governance, audit and compliance workflows in a security-focused platform.

The platform combines policy, control and board-management capabilities so compliance teams and directors can coordinate reviews, attestations and reporting in a single place.

Features

  • Integrated board and audit reporting with immutable evidence trails that link policies, approvals and attestation records.
  • Continuous monitoring & automated analytics: Configure ongoing data tests and automate business process monitoring (e.g. internal control testing) to detect anomalies and maintain compliance in real-time.
  • Robotic automation via Robots/ACL: It’s possible to use scripted tasks in Python or ACL to automate data aggregation, testing, and remediation notifications.

Standout Feature: Diligent AI

Diligent’s purpose-built AI assistant helps you boost productivity, anticipate risk, and stay compliant by generating summaries, mapping out regulatory requirements, and automatically benchmarking ESG and risk in real-time against peers.

Pricing

There’s no official information on Diligent’s pricing plans; however, we were able to find some reported numbers.

According to 3rd-party data from Vendr, the median buyer of Diligent spends $23,800/year for its solution, with the tool going up to $45,792/year.

Pros & Cons

✅ One centralized GRC system replaces multiple tools and simplifies oversight across risk and audit workflows.

✅ Integration-rich, allowing users to create seamless workflows between tools.

✅ An AI assistant that can help you boost productivity. 

❌ A steep learning curve and long initial setup and onboarding times, which is why some users have been looking for Diligent alternatives.

❌ The platform’s pricing can get expensive.

#3: IBM OpenPages

Best for: Large enterprises with complex, cross-domain risk data that must be normalized and analyzed centrally.

Similar to: SAI360.

IBM OpenPages scales for large enterprises with deep risk modeling, metadata-driven taxonomies and strong integration into enterprise data landscapes.

The platform’s strengths are in configurable risk frameworks, analytics and the ability to centralize disparate risk data for consistent assessments.

Features

  • Advanced enterprise risk modeling and scenario analysis that unify risk data from multiple business units for consolidated reporting.
  • Uses IBM Watson for natural language processing and machine learning to provide predictive analytics and automate classifications to enhance decision-making and efficiency. 
  • Features a drag-and-drop workflow editor that allows users to automate GRC processes to improve time-to-value and reduce manual effort. 

Standout Feature: IBM Cognos Analytics (Predictive Insights)

What stood out to me about IBM OpenPages is that it lets you get valuable insights into the state of risk across the organization with its IBM Cognos Analytics for self-service data exploration.

Pricing 

There are several ways to purchase the IBM OpenPages solution:

  1. As a SaaS solution: Essentials Edition starts at $3,300, and the Standard one starts at $6,050.
  2. As an On-cloud solution: the Single Solution starts at $6,250, and the Enterprise one starts at $9,000.
  3. As part of IBM Cloud Pak for Data: the Single Solution starts at $162,000, and the Solution Bundle starts at $207,000.
  4. As On-Premises: You need to contact their team for a quote.

Regardless of which package you choose in the end, each will include a core set of IBM OpenPages features, such as its AI features, workflow automation, integrated reports, etc.

Pros & Cons

✅ Scalable architecture that was designed to scale to tens of thousands of users.

✅ Enhances efficiency and accuracy through bespoke AI models and automated processes.

✅ Get valuable insights into the state of risk across the organization with its IBM Cognos Analytics.

❌ The platform has high implementation costs that make it prohibitive for SMEs.

❌ There are reported limited customization options by G2 reviews.

#4: MetricStream

Best for: Highly regulated organizations that require a mature, configurable GRC framework and broad regulatory coverage.

Similar to: LogicGate, SAP GRC.

MetricStream excels in large enterprise environments by connecting policy management with broader GRC programs. 

It’s designed for scalability, compliance automation, and enterprise-wide risk frameworks.

Features

  • Centralized control library and regulatory mapping that lets you link controls to specific laws, standards and audit requirements.
  • Automated compliance management with regulatory change tracking, policy alignment, and impact assessments to minimize compliance violations.
  • Real-time cyber risk intelligence and unified IT risk management to proactively address threats and ensure regulatory adherence.
  • Centralized third- and fourth-party risk management, including performance tracking and business continuity risk assessment.

Standout Feature: AI-powered insights (AiSPIRE) 

MetricStream also offers an AI-powered insights tool, AiSPIRE, that can be used for predictive risk identification, duplicate control detection, and cognitive recommendations.

Pricing

MetricStream does not disclose its pricing structure, so you’d have to contact them to get a product demo and a quote.

Pros & Cons

✅ Real-time cyber risk intelligence capabilities.

✅ Advanced analytics alongside real-time reporting.

✅ An AI-powered insights tool, AiSPIRE, that can be used for predictive risk identification.

❌ The platform’s pricing structure is not SME-friendly, according to G2 reviews.

❌ The tool has an outdated interface that can be hard to navigate, which is why some people have been looking for MetricStream alternatives.

#5: AuditBoard

Best for: Finance and internal audit teams focused on SOX, internal control testing, and audit efficiency.

Similar to: ArcherIRM, ServiceNow.

AuditBoard is purpose-built for audit and SOX teams, delivering streamlined audit planning, evidence collection and automated testing that dramatically reduces manual audit work.

The platform’s UI and workflows are optimized for auditors and finance teams, making SOX and internal audit programs faster and more transparent.

Features

  • Purpose-built SOX and audit management with automated testing, evidence collection and auditor-friendly workpapers.
  • Flexible reporting and dashboards: Customizable reports and out-of-the-box dashboards that help uncover insights, track trends, and support fast, data-driven decisions.
  • Integrated workflows and APIs that help you streamline data collection and task management through integrations.

Standout Feature: Preloaded Library of 30+ Frameworks

What stood out to me about AuditBoard’s solution is that it offers access to its preloaded library of 30+ frameworks (including SOC 2, ISO 27001, and GDPR) to help you stay audit-ready as your organization scales.

Pricing

AuditBoard has not disclosed its pricing, so you’d have to contact them to book a demo and get a quote.

Pros & Cons

✅ Access to a single, comprehensive view of organizational risk.

✅ Modern interface with good AI capabilities.

✅ Access to a preloaded library of 30+ frameworks to help you stay audit-ready.

❌ The median contract value of the tool is around $42,775/year, according to insiders, which is why some users have been looking for AuditBoard alternatives.

❌ Some customers of the platform find it difficult to use, with some of them requiring special training.

#6: SAI360

Best for: Organizations that must combine EHS, compliance training and case management into a single program.

Similar to: ArcherIRM, MetricStream.

SAI360 combines compliance, risk and EHS capabilities with strong content and training features, linking learning and policy attestation to compliance outcomes. 

The platform is useful where behavior, training and incident/case management must be tightly connected to reduce operational and safety risk.

Features

  • Built-in compliance training and policy attestation workflows tied to incident and case management for measurable behavior change.
  • Leverages AI to enhance reporting, risk assessment, and operational efficiency.
  • Pre-mapped frameworks and controls aligned with international regulations for faster deployment and easier compliance.

Standout Feature: Integrated GRC from Every Angle

What stood out to me about SAI360 is that it offers a holistic, enterprise-wide approach that helps you unify risk, compliance, and ethics management into one customizable system.

Pricing

SAI360 does not disclose its pricing, so you’d have to contact them to get a product demo and a quote.

Pros & Cons

✅ AI-powered reporting, risk assessment, and operational efficiency.

✅ A holistic approach that helps you unify risk, compliance, and ethics management.

✅ 20+ preconfigured GRC modules.

❌ The tool is described as outdated and difficult to manage by G2 reviews, which is why some people have been looking for SAI360 alternatives.

❌ Admins are not able to easily modify fields or workflows.

#7: Onspring

Best for: Mid-market organizations and teams that want heavy configurability without long IT projects.

Similar to: ArcherIRM.

Onspring is a flexible, low-code GRC platform that lets teams rapidly configure processes, reports and dashboards without heavy IT involvement, great for mid-market and distributed teams. 

The software’s configurability accelerates deployment of audit, risk and compliance processes tailored to organizational context.

Features

  • Configurable workflow automation and real-time dashboards that produce auditable trails and control-effectiveness metrics.
  • Create a comprehensive risk register and automate risk assessments.
  • You can assess, tier, and track vendors and integrate criticality ratings from cyber and financial monitoring services.

Standout Feature: Surveys for Easy Assessments

Onspring lets you use its point & click survey builder to build and send surveys to internal, external & third-party recipients.

It then automatically collects and scores results, assigns risk scores and can be customized to trigger follow-up actions.

Pricing

Onspring has 3 different pricing models that you can choose from based on which one better fits your needs: 

  • Pricing per user seat, where all users get access to all products on the Onspring’s platform.
  • Pricing by product, where your team (with unlimited users) selects only a portion of the features to access.
  • A hybrid model, where some users have unlimited access to the platform, while other users have limited access to other features.

After choosing your pricing model, Onspring offers four paid tiers – Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum – each adding more capacity and features:

  • The Bronze plan includes core no-code workflow tools, basic reports, and modest storage limits.
  • Upgrading to Silver and Gold adds increased database/attachment storage, extra API call capacity, additional admin training seats, and development/test environments.
  • The Platinum tier provides maximum storage, the highest API limits, priority support, and all non-production environments (dev, test, sandbox).

Pros & Cons

✅ Good flexibility and customization options, according to G2 reviews.

✅ The platform is easy to learn, and the no-code build makes it easier to set up the solution.

✅ Best-in-class reporting with live dashboards.

❌ Expensive per-seat pricing, according to reviews on G2.

❌ The tool has an outdated interface that can be hard to use for some users, which is why some people have been looking for Onspring alternatives.

#8: LogicGate

Best for: Teams that need a highly flexible, visual rules engine to model complex decision logic and automate remediation.

Similar to: SAP GRC, ArcherIRM.

LogicGate offers a visual, no-code risk orchestration engine that helps compliance teams automate decision logic and remediate issues with conditional workflows and risk playbooks. 

The platform is especially useful where process flexibility and rapid change to workflows are required.

Features

  • Flexible risk automation engine with conditional workflows and automated escalation for incident and control lifecycles.
  • Centralized risk repository for visibility across governance, compliance, and third-party risks.
  • Automated compliance reporting with built-in templates that you can start with, and audit trails.

Standout Feature: AI-powered insights (Spark AI)

What stood out to me about LogicGate is its AI-powered insights that help you predict risk and support your decision-making.

➡️ Spark AI also lets teams generate executive summaries, which I found to be quite useful for busy executives looking for a quick update.

Pricing

LogicGate does not publicly disclose its pricing, so you’d have to book a personalized demo with their team to get a quote.

Pros & Cons

✅ AI-powered insights that help you predict risk and support your decision-making.

✅ LogicGate Risk Cloud automates control follow-up tasks to help you increase efficiency.

✅ Users of the tool like how responsive the customer service team is.

❌ Users of the tool find the calculation functionality complicated, particularly with labels and percentages.

❌ The reporting features have limitations according to G2 reviews, which is why some users have been looking for LogicGate alternatives.

#9: Pathlock

Best for: Organizations where application-level access controls and SOD within ERP systems are primary compliance concerns.

Similar to: SAP GRC, LogicGate.

Pathlock specializes in application-level continuous controls monitoring and access governance, making it ideal where ERP and business-application controls (segregation of duties, access changes) are central to compliance. 

It continuously monitors transactions and user access to detect control violations in real time.

Features

  • Continuous access controls and segregation-of-duties monitoring within ERP and cloud applications to prevent and detect policy violations.
  • Automated SoD conflict detection using your real-time financial data and transaction monitoring to minimize fraud risks, making it a good option for financial institutions.
  • Compliant provisioning workflows that aim to enforce access policies during user onboarding and role changes.

Standout Feature: Risk Quantification

What stood out to me about Pathlock is that it offers risk quantification that integrations SoD analysis with live transaction data so your organization can prioritize high-impact risks.

Pricing

Pathlock does not disclose its pricing on its website, so you’d have to book a personalized demo with their team to learn more about the tool.

Pros & Cons

✅ Strong security features, including data masking and multi-factor authentication.

✅ Automated audit and compliance processes that simplify regulatory requirements and improve financial transparency.

✅ The tool has a user-friendly interface and easy navigation, according to G2 reviews.

❌ Documentation and guidance are sometimes lacking, according to G2 reviews.

❌ Implementation and configuration can be complex and time-consuming, especially for larger organizations with custom requirements.

#10: SAP GRC

Best for: Large enterprises running SAP who need embedded, transaction-level control and access governance inside their ERP environment.

Similar to: Pathlock, ServiceNow.

SAP GRC is tightly integrated with SAP enterprise systems and excels at embedding compliance, access control and process controls directly into core transactional landscapes.

Its value is strongest where automated enforcement of access rules, process controls and remediation against SAP data and processes is required.

Features

  • Integrated access control, risk evaluation and automated remediation tightly coupled with SAP ERP processes and master data.
  • Compliance automation that helps you streamline documentation, testing, and remediation of critical process risks and controls.
  • Real-time control monitoring: Centralized visibility into risks, controls, and business impacts across SAP’s S/4HANA environments.

Standout Feature: Best-in-class Fraud Detection & Predictive Analysis

What stood out to me about SAP’s GRC platform is its fraud detection that screens transactional data in real-time using AI and customizable rules to uncover fraud, policy violations, and suspicious patterns.

Pricing

SAP’s GRC solution does not disclose its pricing tiers, so you’d have to contact their team for a demo and a personalized quote.

Pros & Cons

✅ Identifying, assessing, and mitigating risks.

✅ Integrates well with other SAP GRC modules and core systems like S/4HANA.

✅ Customizable rules to uncover fraud, policy violations, and suspicious patterns.

❌ The user interface can feel dated and complex for new users, according to G2 reviews.

❌ Can be costly compared to similar solutions in the market, which is why some users have been looking for SAP GRC alternatives.

Next Steps For Compliance Teams: Get Started With SmartSuite & Our Templates For Free

If you’re a compliance leader looking to build compliance workstreams and effectively prioritize and mitigate risks, you can give SmartSuite a chance with our free plan and ready-to-use GRC templates.

SmartSuite’s platform offers just the right customization, native collaboration capabilities and a library of 200+ project management templates to help compliance teams create and maintain a project management workflow.

Here’s what’s in it for your team when you try SmartSuite:

  • Access to a generous free plan with features including multi-board views (Kanban, Chart, Map, Timeline, Card, and Calendar), 100 automations/month, and 40+ field types, including formula and linked record fields.
  • No-code automation builder to set up to 500,000 trigger/action workflows.
  • Built-in productivity tools, including time tracking, status tracking, and checklists.
  • Team collaboration and planning tools such as whiteboards and SmartSuite docs.
  • Resource management across projects and teams.
  • 40+ field types, including the option to add your custom fields.

Sign up for a free plan to test the water or get a 14-day free trial to explore all its amazing features.

Or, if you’d like to talk to our team of experts, schedule a demo.

Read More

Transform your collaboration and context into the prompt with Create with AI

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Create with AI understands your teamwork on the canvas. So instead of switching between tools and copying over critical context to create great prompts, you get ahead in one place with a smart collaborator that’s already thinking what you’re thinking.

AI that sees the big picture

Imagine this: You’ve just wrapped up an intensive brainstorming session with your team. Your Miro board is bursting with colorful sticky notes, sketches, and scattered ideas that capture the essence of your next big project. But now comes the hard part — moving it all forward.

What if this canvas could not only contain your ideas but actually process and progress them? What if it could read the relationships between your sticky notes, interpret your hand-drawn doodles, understand dot voting patterns, comprehend the flow of your diagrams, and even process content from integrated tools — all while helping you transform raw creativity into actionable outputs?

That’s exactly what Create with AI‘s visual context processing does. It doesn’t need the perfect prompt to generate content because it already sees your board the way you do — understanding every visual element, connection, and nuance — so it can build meaningfully on what’s already there.

Here’s how it works: Simply select any combination of content on your board, whether it’s sticky notes, images, diagrams, dot votes, Google docs or entire workshop sections. When you open Create with AI, it automatically processes all that visual information as context. It can then generate whatever format you need onto the canvas, ready for further teamwork — documents, tables, diagrams, prototypes, sticky notes etc. All generated by Miro AI on one collaborative canvas. 

The result? Instead of switching tools or breaking concentration to bring AI up to speed, you can immediately access a creative generator that has a perfect understanding of everything you’re trying to achieve.

Transforming your canvas into a prompt isn’t just about creating new content — it’s also about evolving what’s already on your board and helping you maintain momentum. For instance, Create with AI allows you to turn existing artifacts into different types of content. So a sticky note can become a Doc. A Doc becomes a Table. A Table becomes a Diagram. And a Diagram becomes a Prototype.

Whatever your objective, Create with AI reads more than the lines and helps you move forward faster. 

From creative chaos to project clarity

We’ve already been testing this out with some of our customers. Sarah, a Product Manager at a growing SaaS company, ran a user research and team brainstorm session. By the end of it, her board contained dozens of sticky notes with user quotes, pain points, feature requests and solutions.

Instead of manually synthesizing this information, she selected all the research notes and simply asked Create with AI to generate a product brief based on the insights. The AI understood not just the individual notes, but their relationships and patterns, producing a comprehensive brief that would have taken hours to create manually.

The first step to smarter collaboration

Visual context processing represents a fundamental shift in how we think about AI in collaborative workspaces. Instead of AI being an external tool we consult, it’s integrated into our team processes, understanding our work as we create it and helping us see possibilities we might miss.

Take, for example, being able to quickly summarize the content on a board. Miro makes it so easy to gather a lot of great insights in workshops but slimming it down into a summary is what takes the longest. So, it not only helps to distill board content but also to maintain momentum and stay in a collaborative environment. 

As teams continue to work more visually and collaboratively, the ability to have AI that truly understands the visual context of our work — that’s already part of the teamwork — becomes not just helpful but essential. 

Design meets collaboration: Adobe Express now in Miro

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We’ve teamed up with Adobe to bring powerful visual editing into the heart of your collaborative workflows. With Adobe Express now integrated in Miro, you can plan, brainstorm, and design—all in one place.

This partnership gives teams the creative tools they need, right where collaboration happens. No more bouncing between apps, waiting on file transfers, or losing momentum.

This launch marks the beginning of a shared vision between Miro and Adobe to redefine how teams create together. As AI continues to transform creative workflows, and this integration is just the first step toward more intelligent, seamless collaboration.

Two ways to create in Miro

1. Lightweight image editing, right on the board

Quick tweaks—made quicker. Select any image in Miro and click Edit image to:

  • Crop, resize, and round corners
  • Adjust brightness, contrast, and opacity
  • Remove backgrounds or erase elements using AI and Adobe Firely (Adobe login required)

No uploads, no new tabs—just faster visual edits to keep ideas moving.

“It’s approachable for everybody, not just for designers, especially because of how easy it is to use within Miro.”

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 2. Full Adobe Express workspace, embedded in Miro

Need to design something from scratch? Open the full Adobe Express experience directly within Miro.

You’ll get access to:

  • Brand kits and professional templates
  • Multi-page design tools
  • Video and animation editing
  • Full creative control without leaving your board
  • Adobe Firefly and other AI-powered tools

Your content stays in context—whether it’s a social post, workshop slide, or campaign asset.

“As a designer, I can quickly create promo graphics for workshops right in Miro, which is an important tool for me.”

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An integration for fast-moving, visual teams

Whether you’re planning a marketing campaign, building training materials, or leading a product workshop, this integration is designed for you. It’s especially valuable for:

  • Marketers planning content calendars and social campaigns
  • Workshop facilitators polishing materials on the fly
  • Product teams and PMs turning rough wireframes into stakeholder-ready presentations

Let’s say you’re a social media marketer gearing up for next quarter. You’ve got a mix of brand moments, influencer partnerships, and reactive content ideas floating around—but they’re scattered across docs, decks, and your brain.

Enter the Social Media Campaign Blueprint: a pre-built Miro board co-designed with Adobe Express in mind. It’s your one-stop workspace to go from rough concepts to finished visuals, all in one place—and all while staying in sync with your team.

Here’s how it works:

Step 1: Set your North Star

Before jumping into content ideas, anchor your team with big-picture priorities. At the top of the Blueprint board, you’ll find space to embed a quarterly calendar, slide deck, or marketing roadmap using Adobe Express.

Use Express to quickly brand or polish these foundational visuals—add your team’s colors, logos, or creative treatments so everyone starts from a shared vision.

“I spend a lot of time in Miro, so having Adobe Express functionality within one tool I already use is hugely helpful in streamlining things for me.”

 Step 2: Brainstorm content & gather inspiration

This is your idea garden. Use Miro’s sticky stacks to throw out content themes, campaign hooks, trends, influencer tie-ins—whatever sparks ideas.

Use Miro’s rich embed feature to drop in inspiration from around the web: Instagram posts, landing pages, blog content, or TikToks. Then use arrows to connect ideas, themes, or assets—it’s a visual mind map of what’s possible.

No idea is too rough at this stage. Think big, get messy, and use the collaborative canvas to spark creative collisions.

Step 3: Sort ideas into a campaign plan

Now it’s time to get strategic. Move your strongest stickies down into the content calendar section and group them by week, channel, or campaign pillar.

You can drag and drop notes into your ideal cadence, stack by platform (Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok), or organize by theme. Customize the layout to fit your team’s rhythm.

You’re no longer just brainstorming—you’re building a real, visual plan.

Step 4: Produce visual content without leaving the board

With your content plan locked, start turning ideas into assets—without ever opening another tab.

Use Adobe Express directly in Miro to:

  • Drop in WIP visuals, templates, or screenshots
  • Remove image backgrounds instantly
  • Add branded text overlays or polish layouts
  • Launch the full Adobe Express experience to design multi-page posts or video teasers

Once you’re done, save your finished designs right back to the board for team review, approvals, or next steps. It keeps production fast and feedback cycles short—no more chasing files in email threads or Slack.

“I used to use another tool and upload .pngs to Miro, but now I don’t anymore – the Adobe Express integration streamlines a lot of the process for me.”

Adobe Express’s Social Media Campaign Blueprint will be coming soon.

A smarter approach to strategic IT planning

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Article summary

Traditional IT planning focuses on the cost-cutting benefits of tool consolidation. But leading IT organizations use four strategic lenses to align with digital transformation goals: Enabling operational stability through enterprise-grade security, compliance, and scalability; amplifying business processes by identifying platforms serving multiple use cases; encouraging collaboration by prioritizing tools that facilitate cross-functional work; and approaching consolidation as a catalyst for innovation, not just optimization. When consolidation is driven by strategic IT planning rather than cost pressure, benefits compound over time as teams become more collaborative, processes more efficient, and organizations more agile

The era of ‘get more apps’ is officially over. After a decade of explosive SaaS growth—from $30 billion to $300 billion in global revenue—IT leaders face a new reality. Strategic IT planning is no longer about adding tools. It’s about making deliberate choices that drive digital transformation.

The numbers tell the story. While global SaaS revenue continues growing, the average number of enterprise applications fell for the first time in 2024. Meanwhile, 31% of software buyers have replaced expensive tools. The shift from expansion to optimization isn’t just a trend—it’s a strategic imperative.

But here’s what separates high-performing IT organizations: They don’t see consolidation as cost-cutting. They see it as the foundation of digital transformation.

Why strategic IT planning demands a new approach

Traditional IT planning focused on technology in isolation—evaluating tools by features, performance, and price. But in today’s interconnected business environment, the key question isn’t what a tool can do, but how it enables people to work together more effectively.

At Miro, we’ve had thousands of conversations with businesses that have gone through tool consolidation as part of their strategic IT planning. And in almost every case, the ones that did it best optimized for team potential. Instead of asking “What’s the best software for X?” they asked “How can we empower our teams to achieve Y?”

This transforms tool consolidation from reactive maintenance into a proactive strategy that drives business outcomes. When you consolidate strategically, you increase innovation velocity, improve cross-functional collaboration, and accelerate digital transformation.

The four pillars of transformation-driven consolidation

Leading IT organizations approach tool consolidation through four strategic lenses that align with broader digital transformation goals.

1. Enabling operational stability

Strategic IT planning starts with technology foundations that support business growth. This means consolidating onto platforms offering enterprise-grade security, compliance, and scalability.

When Workday chose between visual collaboration tools, security was a strategic differentiator. With robust SSO, SCIM provisioning, and role-based permissions, Miro gave IT full control over access and data protection. Result: 3,000 employees and over 60,000 documents migrated from Lucid while maintaining the highest security standards.

2. Amplifying business processes

Strategic IT planning identifies platforms serving multiple use cases while maintaining specialized functionality. Instead of different tools for different teams, choose solutions that adapt to how people work.

Miro exemplifies this by supporting roadmapping, goal management, AI transformation, and many more use cases. Rather than forcing rigid workflows, it provides enterprise-scale collaboration structure while adapting to team needs.

3. Co-creating across boundaries

Digital transformation requires breaking silos between IT, business units, and external partners. Strategic IT planning prioritizes tools that facilitate cross-functional collaboration.

At Keller Williams, this drove their decision to use Miro for Big Room Planning across 300 people from multiple teams. Result: 50% reduction in time to market for new products and 10% increase in sprint speeds.

4. Transforming how work gets done

The highest level of strategic IT planning uses technology to create previously impossible ways of working. Here, consolidation becomes a catalyst for innovation, not just optimization.

Xero’s experience illustrates this transformation. Tool consolidation became the foundation for a Customer Journey Framework that identified new business opportunities. “It helped us identify gaps and highlight jobs that Xero could potentially get into,” explained their Head of Experience Strategy.

The visual advantage in strategic planning

Strategic IT planning’s biggest challenge is stakeholder alignment around complex decisions. Spreadsheets and technical assessments don’t translate well to business leaders who need to understand strategic implications.

Visual collaboration platforms become essential to the planning process itself. When you can map toolsets, visualize consolidation opportunities, and model future states on shared canvases, strategic conversations become more productive and decisions happen faster.

Smart IT leaders use Miro for planning consolidation itself—interactive workshops, stakeholder alignment sessions, and roadmap development all benefit from visual collaboration.

Measuring transformation success

Strategic IT planning requires metrics beyond traditional IT measurements. While system uptime and license costs matter, transformation success is measured in business terms.

Effective IT leaders track value-based metrics:

  • Innovation velocity: Miro users see 19% reduction in project completion time
  • Cross-functional collaboration: 80% of users report increased team alignment
  • Employee productivity: 79% say Miro increased work productivity
  • Strategic agility: Can the organization respond quickly to market changes?

When you measure success in these terms, consolidation becomes competitive advantage, not just operational efficiency.

The compound effect of strategic consolidation

When consolidation is driven by strategic IT planning rather than cost pressure, benefits compound over time. Teams become more collaborative, processes more efficient, organizations more agile.

At Centrica, this compound effect improved both efficiency and innovation capability. “What Miro gives us is a repeatable, scalable process for innovation that we can use in all our future programs,” noted their Head of Integration. “Without it, we’d be moving much slower and introducing more risk.”

The organizations that will thrive are those mastering the balance between innovation and operational efficiency. They’ll use strategic IT planning to create technology ecosystems that empower people, enable collaboration, and accelerate transformation.

This requires a fundamental shift in IT leadership—from gatekeepers of technology to enablers of business strategy. From optimizing system performance to optimizing human potential.

Tool consolidation isn’t the end goal—it’s the means to an end. When approached strategically, it becomes a powerful lever for digital transformation that drives lasting competitive advantage.

Ready to transform your strategic IT planning approach? Start by mapping your current toolset and identifying consolidation opportunities that align with broader business objectives.

10 Best Third-Party Risk Management Software In 2025

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Are you looking for third-party risk management software to centralize vendor data, automate due diligence and risk scoring, ensure regulatory compliance, and/or continuously monitor suppliers?

A good third-party risk management software can continuously monitor vendors, automate due diligence and risk scoring, prioritize high-risk relationships for remediation, and produce audit-ready evidence.

In this buyer guide, I’ll cover the 10 best third-party risk management tools that can help you define risk templates, scoring criteria, control weightings, and playbooks per vendor type or criticality. 

TL;DR

  • SmartSuite offers the best third-party risk management software with its all-in-one risk management capabilities, no-code automation builder, and pre-built vendor risk templates.
  • Enterprise-grade tools like Diligent, OneTrust, and IBM OpenPages are ideal for large organizations that need deep regulatory mapping, audit readiness, and AI-powered governance.
  • On the other hand, there are tools like StandardFusion, SAI360, and AuditBoard that can help mid-sized companies streamline vendor assessments, unify compliance, and stay audit-ready without heavyweight complexity.

Before we begin, I wanted to go over some of the factors to consider when you’re evaluating third-party risk management solutions:

What are the factors to consider when evaluating third-party risk management tools?

The main factors to consider in third-party risk management software include coverage of the full vendor risk lifecycle, integrations, workflow flexibility, and how audit-ready you can be with it.

Let’s dive deeper into each one of them: ⬇️

#1: Coverage of the full vendor risk lifecycle

The platform should support the entire vendor lifecycle, from onboarding and initial due diligence through ongoing monitoring, issue remediation, and offboarding. 

Look for built-in assessment templates, automated evidence collection, and the ability to track corrective actions and remediation deadlines. 

💡 If your program requires continuous monitoring (e.g., threat intelligence, financial health, or regulatory watchlists), confirm that those feeds and alerting capabilities are native or easily integrated. 

#2: Integration, data sources, and automation

Risk programs rely on data flowing in from many systems, so evaluate the product’s integrations (APIs, SSO, GRC, procurement, ERP, SIEM, and ticketing/ITSM). 

Ask whether it can automatically ingest questionnaires, evidence, security scans, and third-party alerts; manual uploads quickly become unscalable. 

Also, check workflow automation: automated risk scoring, reassessment triggers, escalation paths, and remediation task creation save time and reduce human error. 

#3: Risk modelling, customization, and workflow flexibility

The tool should let you define risk templates, scoring criteria, control weightings, and playbooks per vendor type or criticality. 

Customizable workflows and role-based approvals are essential so legal, security, procurement, and business owners see only what they need and can act without bottlenecks. 

💡 Scalability matters too if you’re an enterprise: ensure the product can handle thousands of vendors, varied assessment cadences, and different SLAs as your program grows. 

#4: Reporting, auditability, and evidence management

Regulators and auditors will want clear evidence trails, immutable audit logs, and easy exports of assessments, remediation actions, and approvals.

Dashboards and reporting should enable you to slice risk by business unit, vendor criticality, contractual obligations, and open remediation items, providing leadership with concise, actionable views. 

Your team should check whether the product supports templated executive reports, scheduled exports, and ad-hoc queries without heavy professional services. 

➡️ Pro Tip: Good evidence management (timestamped docs, versioning, and secure storage) turns a GRC tool into a defensible record during incidents or audits.

What are the best third-party risk management platforms on the market?

The best third-party risk management platforms on the market include SmartSuite with its all-in-one risk management capabilities, intuitive interface and affordable pricing structure, as well as Diligent and OneTrust.

Here’s a comprehensive breakdown:

#1: SmartSuite: Best for banks and credit unions looking to centralize vendor risk, automate compliance, and launch third-party risk management workflows in days with no-code automation and pre-built templates.

#2: Diligent: Best for compliance teams needing board-level governance, enterprise policy oversight, and AI-powered regulatory insights.

#3: OneTrust: Best for enterprises seeking to unify privacy, security, and GRC while automating vendor assessments and regulatory compliance across 50+ frameworks.

#4: LogicGate: Best for organizations that need customizable workflows and AI-driven insights to automate vendor onboarding, risk scoring, and remediation playbooks.

#5: IBM OpenPages: Best for enterprises requiring AI-powered risk analytics, deep regulatory mapping, and scalable vendor lifecycle management.

#6: StandardFusion: Best for mid-market organizations looking for a straightforward, user-friendly platform with control libraries, evidence collection, and vendor assessments.

#7: SAI360: Best for companies that want an enterprise-wide, customizable system unifying risk, compliance, and ethics management with extensive pre-mapped frameworks.

#8: MetricStream: Best for large enterprises managing global vendor risk with AI-powered insights, deep audit integration, and supplier lifecycle management.

#9: ServiceNow: Best for enterprises wanting integrated vendor risk management embedded directly into ITSM and security operations.

#10: AuditBoard: Best for audit and risk teams needing strong evidence workflows, pre-built frameworks, and clear visibility into vendor control testing and remediation.

#1: SmartSuite

SmartSuite offers the best third-party risk management software on the market for banks and credit unions with our modern, no-code project management platform.

Our GRC software gives you a single, flexible workspace to catalogue vendors, run periodic assessments, automate contract and control workflows, score and monitor vendor risk, and link incidents to vendor assets without heavy IT involvement.

💡 We have recently partnered with the Cyber Risk Institute to deliver a CRI profile for U.S. Banks’ compliance needs.

Let’s go over the functionality that makes SmartSuite the best choice for compliance teams looking for a third-party risk management solution: 👇

All-In-One Risk Management Software

Our no-code, easy-to-use platform empowers compliance managers and CISOs to automate all risk management processes with ease.

Here are the use cases that you’ll get with SmartSuite:

  • Create reports and dynamic dashboards: Monitor executive views into your organization’s overall risk profile with powerful charting and metrics widgets. 
  • Collaborate and respond to risks in real-time: Engage key stakeholders in a real-time discussion of potential threats or vulnerabilities.

Our software will also let you get instant updates when critical information is available.

  • Automate policy creation, real-time approval, and control assessments: Streamline risk management by building an integrated program on a single platform.
  • Keep risk and compliance data secure: Define your teams and manage access to information across all GRC practice areas.
  • Integrate with your existing systems: Our GRC software lets you integrate with existing systems (ticketing, identity, procurement, CMDBs) and data to consolidate and centralize your data. 

Your team will be able to:

  • Pull vendor contract data from procurement systems or push assessment tasks into the ticketing system.
  • Sync vendor asset inventories from CMDBs so risk assessments reflect the actual scope of access.
  • Retrieve security telemetry or incident data into vendor records to automate risk reclassification.
  • Monitor, measure and score: Create risk calculations and metrics to evaluate every aspect of risk.
  • Policy management: It’s possible to establish a strong foundation from the get-go with streamlined and flexible policy management.

You’ll be able to assign ownership, manage revisions, and ensure your policies consistently align with key business initiatives and regulatory requirements.

  • PSTOS Compliance Tracker: Designed for regulatory compliance and built on SmartSuite.

This solution focuses on data security as the core of compliance frameworks with services such as compliance readiness, virtual CISO, and IT security implementation.

Learn more about it from this webinar that we did on the topic:

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Prioritize & Mitigate Risks

With SmartSuite, you can create a centralized risk register to effectively identify potential risks to your organization.

You will be able to properly assess threats and establish risk mitigation strategies inside SmartSuite.

Your team can ensure that the appropriate controls are in place and measure their effectiveness by evaluating risk indicators and displaying results in SmartSuite’s rollup reports and dashboards.

💡 Pro Tip: Teams that use our platform use automation to move tasks through defined workflow stages that comply with their policies and procedures.

We understand how crucial threat management is and the need to respond quickly to incidents.

SmartSuite lets you centralize incident response and threat mitigation by linking incidents to assets and organizational data to offer context during your investigations.

Your compliance team can also set up automation with our no-code automation builder to escalate critical events to make sure that your team is aware of active risks to your organization.

No-code automation to enforce process and reduce human error

SmartSuite’s no-code automation builder provides you with a visual interface that makes it easy to respond to events and take action. 

For TPRM, you can use automation to:

  • Auto-assign assessment tasks when a vendor is onboarded.
  • Escalate high-severity findings to the vendor owner and CISO when a score threshold is exceeded.
  • Auto-create remediation tasks from failed control checks and move them through predefined workflow stages.
  • Send reminders for expiring certificates, upcoming renewals, or overdue remediation.

💡 This removes a lot of operational friction: policies are enforced by workflow rather than memory or spreadsheets, which improves compliance and speeds up remediation.

Pre-Built Third-Party Risk Management Templates

SmartSuite’s third-party templates let you consolidate every vendor record into one place with fields for:

  • Legal name, DBA, vendor type, location, line of business
  • Contract info (start/renewal/termination dates), owners, SLAs
  • Criticality/tier, data access levels, and assets the vendor touches
  • Assessment history, findings, remediation plans, attachments (contracts, attestation docs)

➡️ Having all vendor facts, contracts, and assessment artefacts co-located removes the spreadsheet chaos and makes it possible to link vendor records directly into risk processes, dashboards, and automations.

Our general risk management template includes:

  • Third-Party Risk, where you can view vendor profiles, vendor engagements, and build a vendor risk assessment sheet.
  • Risk register, where you can break down the risks, the risk owner, the annual loss expectancy, risk event category, risk type, volatility, and status.
  • Issue assessments, where you’ll be able to see a comprehensive breakdown of each risk.
  • Action plans, where you can describe the actions (best practices) to mitigate the risks.
  • A separate tab for control standards, your findings, exception requests, risk assessment by type, and risk assessment issues.

You can customize our risk management template here.

Alternatively, check out and customize our 14 other risk management templates for various use cases, such as contract management, policy management, and incident management.

Pricing

SmartSuite offers a free plan with access to 250+ automation actions, team collaboration, multi-dashboard views, and more.

There are four paid plans with a 14-day free trial (no CC required):

  • Team: Starts at $12/user per month, including Gantt charts, timeline views, 5000 automation runs, and native time tracking.
  • Professional: Starts at $30/user per month and adds two-factor authentication, Gmail & Outlook integrations, and unlimited editors.
  • Enterprise: Starts at $45/user/month and includes access to audit logs, data loss prevention, and 50,000 monthly API calls.
  • Signature: A customized plan tailored to your organization’s needs and team size with no predefined limits.

Pros & Cons

✅ A generous free plan that includes access to advanced features of the tool for up to 5 solutions.

✅ 15 out-of-the-box GRC templates for various use cases.

✅ Dynamic dashboards and reports that are easy to build and navigate, unlike some alternatives that require you to hire consultants to do it.

✅ All-in-one document and file management.

✅ You’ll be able to automate risk scoring, compliance tracking, audits, and vendor reviews.

✅ A modern solution with an intuitive user interface.

❌ Fewer native integrations when compared to other platforms in this list.

#2: Diligent

Best for: Compliance teams looking for board-level governance and enterprise policy oversight.

Similar to: Onspring, ArcherIRM.

Diligent excels at board-level governance and enterprise policy oversight, giving executives a consolidated view of vendor and third-party exposures. 

It’s strong where compliance needs to be tied directly to governance and decision-making.

Features

  • Centralized vendor due diligence workflows that track onboarding, approvals, and remediation across business units.
  • You can configure ongoing data tests and automate business process monitoring (e.g. internal control testing) to detect anomalies and maintain compliance in real-time.
  • It’s possible to use scripted tasks in Python or ACL to automate data aggregation, testing, and remediation notifications.

Standout Feature: Diligent AI

What stood out to me about Diligent is its AI assistant that helps you anticipate risk and stay compliant by generating summaries, mapping out regulatory requirements, and automatically benchmarking ESG and risk in real-time.

Pricing

There’s no official data on Diligent’s pricing plans; however, our team was able to find some reported numbers.

According to 3rd-party data from Vendr, the median buyer of Diligent spends $23,800/year for its solution, with the tool going up to $45,792/year.

Pros & Cons

✅ One centralized GRC system that aims to replace multiple tools and simplifies oversight across risk and audit workflows.

✅ Integration-rich, allowing you to create seamless workflows between tools.

✅ An AI-powered assistant that can help you boost productivity. 

❌ A steep learning curve and long initial setup and onboarding times.

❌ The tool’s pricing can get expensive, which is why some users have been looking for Diligent alternatives.

#3: OneTrust

Best for: Enterprises looking to combine privacy, security, and GRC capabilities.

Similar to: ServiceNow.

OneTrust combines privacy, security, and GRC capabilities so vendor assessments, data-processing mapping, and regulatory requirements are handled in the same platform. 

Its modular design makes it easy to expand TPRM controls as new regulations or risks emerge.

Features

  • Automated vendor risk assessments and attestations mapped to privacy and regulatory frameworks.
  • Connect compliance teams and departments via automated workflows and 200+ pre-built integrations.
  • Map systems, data, and risks in one unified view: You can prioritize action with dynamic scoring and strategic impact insights.
  • You can automatically generate the required controls and evidence tasks.

Standout Feature: Proprietary Shared Evidence Framework

OneTrust stood out to me with its functionality to collect evidence once and comply across 50+ frameworks with OneTrust’s shared evidence framework to help you eliminate duplicate data requests.

Pricing

OneTrust has different pricing plans for its 5 product lines, all of which have custom pricing:

  • Consent & Preferences: Capture and activate consent, preferences, and first-party data across your user touchpoints.
  • Privacy Automation: Simplify compliance, improve operational efficiency, and help your business better use personal data.
  • Third-Party Management: Third-party risk management and the ability to fully manage your third-party lifecycle.
  • Tech Risk & Compliance​: Scale governance, risk, and compliance, and mature your risk program.​
  • AI Governance: Gain visibility and control over your AI technology and empower risk-based decisions.​

➡️ You can review our OneTrust pricing guide, where I go over how much the tool really costs.

Pros & Cons

✅ Collect evidence and comply across 50+ frameworks with OneTrust’s shared evidence framework.

✅ Comprehensive range of integrations when compared to other competitors in this list.

✅ Monitor and manage your program with dynamic dashboards.

❌ The cost can be an issue for smaller companies, as it’s expensive, which is why some people have been looking for OneTrust alternatives.

❌ The UI has been described as outdated and not user-friendly by G2 reviews.

#4: LogicGate

Best for: Setting up dynamic questionnaires that automate onboarding, risk scoring, and issue escalation.

Similar to: ServiceNow GRC.

LogicGate’s low-code risk-orchestration engine lets teams model complex third-party processes and automate remediation playbooks without heavy IT support.

 That flexibility makes it ideal for organizations that need bespoke workflows for vendor risk.

Features

  • Customizable workflows and dynamic questionnaires that automate onboarding, risk scoring, and issue escalation.
  • Centralized risk repository for visibility across governance, compliance, and third-party risks.
  • Pre-built templates that your team can start with to automate compliance reporting, as well as audit trails.

Standout Feature: Spark AI

LogicGate offers AI-powered insights that help you predict risk and support your decision-making.

➡️ Spark AI also helps you generate executive summaries, which are ideal for busy CEOs looking for a quick update.

Pricing

LogicGate does not publicly disclose its pricing, so you’d have to book a personalized demo with their team to get a quote.

➡️ You can take a look at our LogicGate pricing review, where we found some reported numbers and also discuss whether it has good value for money.

Pros & Cons

✅ AI-driven insights that help you predict risk and support your decision-making.

✅ LogicGate Risk Cloud automates control follow-up tasks.

✅ Customers of the platform appreciate how responsive the customer service team has been.

❌ Some of LogicGate’s customers find the calculation functionality complicated, particularly with labels and percentages.

❌ The reporting features have limitations, which is why some users have been looking for LogicGate alternatives.

#5: IBM OpenPages

Best for: Connecting to enterprise data sources and reporting, so third-party exposures can be surfaced across business units

Similar to: SAI360.

IBM OpenPages delivers enterprise-grade GRC with strong risk taxonomy, regulatory mapping, and analytics, enabling organizations to manage vendor and third-party risk at scale. 

It connects to enterprise data sources and reporting so third-party exposures can be surfaced across business units and regulatory regimes.

Features

  • Centralized third-party risk register with configurable scoring, workflow automation, and regulatory mapping to manage vendor lifecycle, assessments, and remediation.
  • Utilizes IBM Watson for natural language processing and machine learning (ML) to provide predictive analytics and automate classifications.
  • Features a drag-and-drop workflow editor that helps you automate GRC processes to improve time-to-value and reduce manual effort. 

Standout Feature: IBM Cognos Analytics (Predictive Insights)

IBM OpenPages stood out to me with its valuable insights into the state of risk across the organization, with its IBM Cognos Analytics for self-service data exploration.

Pricing

IBM OpenPage’s pricing can be a little confusing, but there are 4 ways to purchase the solution:

  • As a SaaS solution: Essentials Edition starts at $3,300, and the Standard one starts at $6,050.
  • As an On-cloud solution: the Single Solution starts at $6,250, and the Enterprise one starts at $9,000.
  • As part of IBM Cloud Pak for Data: the Single Solution starts at $162,000, and the Solution Bundle starts at $207,000.
  • As On-Premises: You need to contact their team for a quote.

Regardless of which package you opt for in the end, each one will include a core set of IBM OpenPages features, such as its AI features, workflow automation, integrated reports, etc.

Pros & Cons

✅ Scalable architecture that was designed to scale to tens of thousands of users.

✅ Enhances efficiency and accuracy through bespoke AI models and automated processes.

✅ Get valuable insights into the state of risk across the organization with IBM Cognos Analytics.

❌ The platform’s high implementation costs can make it prohibitive for SMEs.

❌ There are reported to be limited customization options, which is why some users have been looking for IBM OpenPages alternatives.

#6: StandardFusion

Best for: Organizations looking for straightforward control libraries, evidence collection, and vendor assessments.

Similar to: IBM OpenPages.

StandardFusion is a cloud-native, user-friendly GRC platform that’s built for quick deployment and practical vendor-risk workflows, making it attractive to mid-market and scaling teams.

The platform focuses on straightforward control libraries, evidence collection, and vendor assessments without heavyweight enterprise complexity.

Features

  • Intuitive vendor risk assessments and control management with centralized evidence storage and attestation workflows to simplify third-party audits and ongoing monitoring.
  • Enterprise Risk Management integration that lets you guide all GRC activities for strategic decision-making and risk mitigation.
  • Centralized data and analytics for monitoring internal controls.

Standout Feature: Automated Workflows

What stood out to me about StandardFusion is its automated workflows that aim to streamline your GRC processes and reduce system complexity.

Pricing

StandardFusion does not currently disclose its pricing structure, so you’ll have to reach out to them to get a product demo and a quote.

Pros & Cons

✅ User-friendly user interface that is easy to navigate.

✅ Comprehensive control, monitoring, and risk management features.

✅ Consolidates multiple compliance frameworks (e.g., ISO 27001, SOC 2, GDPR, HIPAA, NIST) in one platform.

❌ Recurring task management and tracking can be difficult, according to G2 reviews.

❌ The platform’s annual price increases are a concern for smaller enterprises.

#7: SAI360

Best for: Companies looking to unify risk, compliance, and ethics management into one customizable platform.

Similar to: MetricStream.

SAI360 delivers broad GRC coverage with extensive compliance content and supplier risk modules tailored to regulated industries, supporting complex, jurisdictional requirements. 

The platform is useful where compliance libraries and prescriptive assessments are needed for vendors.

Features

  • 20+ GRC modules for enterprise risk, IT risk, third-party risk, internal audit, business continuity, policy, and incident management.
  • Large compliance and supplier-risk content library coupled with automated assessments and remediation workflows.
  • Built-in e-learning so your team can be well-prepared to meet regulatory demands.
  • Pre-mapped frameworks and controls aligned with global regulations for faster deployment and easier compliance.

Standout Feature: Integrated GRC from Every Angle

SAI360 offers a holistic, enterprise-wide approach that can help you unify risk, compliance, and ethics management into one customizable system.

Pricing

SAI360 does not currently disclose its pricing, so you’d have to contact them to get a product demo and a quote.

However, we researched SAI360’s pricing and found some reported numbers, so do check out our guide on it.

Pros & Cons

✅ Best-in-class reporting, risk assessment, and operational efficiency for enterprises.

✅ A holistic approach that helps your team unify risk, compliance, and ethics management.

✅ 20+ ready-to-use GRC modules that you can get started with without having to set up the platform for months.

❌ The platform is described as outdated and difficult to manage by user reviews.

❌ Admins cannot easily modify fields or workflows, which has made some customers upset with the tool.

#8: MetricStream

Best for: Enterprises looking for an all-in-one platform to manage risk on a global scale.

Similar to: LogicGate, SAP GRC.

MetricStream scales for large enterprises, combining supplier lifecycle management with audit and control frameworks so vendor risks are managed across global operations. 

The platform is built for organizations that need deep regulatory mapping and audit integration.

Features

  • Standardized enterprise-wide risk management frameworks that come with advanced analytics and real-time reporting.
  • Enterprise supplier-lifecycle management that ties vendor risk to audits, controls, and regulatory requirements.
  • Cyber risk intelligence and unified IT risk management to proactively address threats and ensure regulatory compliance.
  • Centralized third-party risk management, including performance tracking and business continuity risk assessment.

Standout Feature: AI-powered insights (AiSPIRE) 

MetricStream stood out to me with its AI-powered insights solution, AiSPIRE, which can be used for predictive risk identification, duplicate control detection, and cognitive recommendations.

Pricing

MetricStream does not disclose its pricing structure, so you’d have to contact them to get a product demo and a quote.

However, our team did some digging and created an in-depth MetricStream pricing guide, where I found some reported numbers:

  • Small enterprise deployment costs between $75,000 – $150,000 per year.
  • Medium enterprise deployment costs between $250,000 – $500,000 per year.
  • Large enterprise deployment can cost between $750,000 – $1,000,000 per year.

Pros & Cons

✅ Real-time cyber risk intelligence capabilities.

✅ Advanced analytics alongside real-time reporting.

✅ An AI-powered insights tool, AiSPIRE, that you can use for predictive risk identification.

❌ The platform’s pricing structure is not SME-friendly, according to user reviews.

❌ The interface can be hard to navigate, which is why some users look for MetricStream alternatives.

#9: ServiceNow

Best for: Enterprises looking for integrated risk management and compliance automation.

Similar to: SAI360.

ServiceNow embeds vendor risk into ITSM and security operations on the Now Platform, enabling real-time workflows, ticketing, and remediation tied to vendor incidents. 

That makes it powerful for organizations that want vendor risk visible where IT and security teams already work.

Features

  • Eliminate silos by centralizing enterprise risk and compliance data into one source.
  • Workflow-driven vendor risk management integrated with ITSM, security incidents, and the CMDB for contextual impact analysis.
  • The GRC solution operates on ServiceNow’s Now Platform, which enables seamless data sharing and real-time collaboration across all GRC products.
  • 3rd party risk management that helps you identify and mitigate risks from external vendors and partners.

➡️ You can learn more about ServiceNow in our comprehensive ServiceNow review.

Standout Feature: AI-Powered Actionable Insights

ServiceNow stood out to me with its AI-powered actionable insights that help you accelerate decision-making with predictive analytics and process optimization.

Pricing

ServiceNow’s pricing is not disclosed, so you’d have to book a demo with their team.

We found ServiceNow customer and public reviews, which show that the average cost of ServiceNow contracts can range between $50,000 and $500,000 annually.

Apparently, the pricing structure depends on the number of licenses, features, and other configuration requirements.

Pros & Cons

✅ Comprehensive risk, audit, and compliance management features.

✅ Real-time risk monitoring and prioritization.

✅ A comprehensive range of native integrations with other tools.

❌ Steep learning curve and complexity, unlike some ServiceNow alternatives.

❌ Training, skills development, and ongoing support can be costly.

#10: AuditBoard

Best for: Companies looking to streamline control testing and remediation tracking.

Similar to: LogicGate.

AuditBoard is audit-centric, giving audit and risk teams end-to-end visibility into third-party controls, findings, and remediation with strong evidence and testing workflows. 

It’s ideal where auditability and clear control testing of vendors are priorities.

Features

  • A comprehensive view of organizational risk that connects your audit, risk, and compliance teams.
  • Audit-focused vendor risk assessments and evidence management that streamline control testing and remediation tracking.
  • Customizable reports and pre-built dashboards that can help your compliance team uncover insights, track trends, and support data-driven decisions.
  • Integrated workflows and APIs that help you streamline data collection and task management through integrations.

Standout Feature: Pre-Built 30+ Frameworks

AuditBoard offers access to its preloaded library of 30+ frameworks (including SOC 2, ISO 27001, and GDPR) to help you stay audit-ready as your organization scales.

Pricing

AuditBoard has not yet disclosed its pricing, so you’d have to contact them to book a demo and get a quote.

Pros & Cons

✅ Access to a single view of organizational risk.

✅ Modern interface with good AI capabilities.

✅ Access to a preloaded library of 30+ frameworks to help you stay ready for audits.

❌ The average contract value of the tool is around $42,775/year, according to insiders, which is why some people have been looking for AuditBoard alternatives.

❌ Some users of the platform find it difficult to use.

Get Started With SmartSuite & Our Ready-To-Use Third-Party Risk Management Templates For Free

That was it from our list of the 10 best third-party risk management platforms on the market in 2025 for compliance teams looking for a solution.

If your team needs to centralize vendor risk, shorten time-to-remediation, and keep stakeholders informed, try SmartSuite with its free plan and pre-built vendor-risk templates.

SmartSuite offers straightforward configuration, centralized evidence collection, and workflow-driven assessments to help teams build repeatable vendor onboarding and monitoring playbooks, assign ownership, and track remediation from initial assessment through ongoing monitoring.

Here’s what’s in it for your team when you try SmartSuite:

  • Access to a generous free plan with features including multi-board views (Kanban, Chart, Map, Timeline, Card, and Calendar), 100 automations/month, and 40+ field types, including formula and linked record fields.
  • No-code automation builder to set up to 500,000 trigger/action workflows.
  • Built-in productivity tools, including time tracking, status tracking, and checklists.
  • Team collaboration and planning tools such as whiteboards and SmartSuite docs.
  • Resource management across projects and teams.
  • 40+ field types, including the option to add your custom fields.

Sign up for a free plan to test the water or get a 14-day free trial to explore all its amazing features.

Or, if you’d like to talk to our team of experts, schedule a demo.

Read More

Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: One Platform. Total Control: Simplifying IT Service, Operations & Business Management with SmartSuite . After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the webinar.

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A look at our roadmap: shipping for resiliency, security, and performance

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In the days following our availability incident in July, our team shared the details about what happened, what we learned, and the immediate steps we’re taking to strengthen our systems.

The honest, direct, and deeply engaged responses to that post were a reminder of just how much our customers care about Webflow and the work we do together. Thank you for continuing to hold us to a high standard.

Today, we’re looking ahead.

We’re accelerating several key product and infrastructure investments designed to make Webflow more resilient, secure, and performant than ever. Some of these have been in flight for months. Others are being fast-tracked or expanded in scope. All of them share a common goal: giving you confidence in the platform you rely on to build, launch, and scale your most important work.

While our team is constantly making Tiny but Mighty performance improvements across the platform, like an upcoming improvement to load times in the dashboard, we thought it might be helpful to share some insight into the bigger initiatives we have planned.

Here’s a look at what you can expect.

Continued investment in resilient infrastructure for hosted sites

Last year, our hosting infrastructure began leveraging the Cloudflare global network, which spans over 330 cities in more than 125 countries and connects directly with approximately 13,000 networks, including every major ISP, cloud provider, and enterprise.

We started by using the Cloudflare content delivery network (CDN) to serve static assets, such as images, across all hosted websites. Today, this CDN delivers over 98% of all static assets for hosted sites from the Cloudflare network edge, ensuring fast and reliable downloads. If you’ve published a website on Webflow within the past year, it’s using this CDN.

We continued to improve our hosting infrastructure by moving secure connections on our network to Cloudflare. This change not only improves performance and uptime, but also provides best-in-class protection from malicious traffic through Cloudflare’s world-class DDoS mitigation services.

For any Webflow-hosted website created since April 21, 2025, you are already using the latest Cloudflare CDN and secure SSL/TLS connections. For websites created before this date, and out of an abundance of caution given the wide variety of hosting and reverse-proxy configurations across the Internet, we’ve been developing in-product migration support to bring these sites onto the latest infrastructure.

To support teams in bring their sites onto the latest infrastructure, we’ve developed in-product migration support.

While much of the backend migration is already complete, in the coming weeks we’ll begin asking customers with sites built before April 21, 2025 to update their custom domain settings via the Webflow dashboard to take full advantage of leveraging Cloudflare’s network.

Unlocking scale by re-architecting the Webflow CMS 

Webflow’s CMS has long been a cornerstone of how marketers, designers, and developers build dynamic, content-rich experiences without sacrificing creative control. However, as your teams, and their needs, have grown, your content operations have also become much more complex.

To ensure we’re evolving with you, our team has been hard at work transforming our CMS. This is the biggest architectural update to our CMS since its launch, and it’s designed to unlock even more superpowers for your teams while ensuring your data is stored and delivered in the most performant, resilient way possible.

This foundational investment will allow the Webflow CMS to scale with your goals–supporting even the most complex data models and ensuring your content is delivered in scaled and reliable ways across your Webflow sites, our headless CMS APIs, and anywhere your content needs to be displayed.

Here’s what these updates will help us unlock:

  • Custom storage capacity and flexibility for large, complex data sets so high-scale teams can store and structure their CMS data as their business demands today, and as their needs evolve in the future.
  • More scalable content delivery across channels, including more efficient and precise search, sort, and filter capabilities both within Webflow’s CMS and via our headless APIs.
  • Increased flexibility when designing with CMS data, including significantly raising the ceiling on per-page Collection lists and nested Collection lists–so you can create custom, content-rich experiences to meet your goals without constraints or performance concerns.

We will be migrating all Webflow customers to this new, modernized architecture by early next year, and we’ll be sharing more details at Webflow Conf in September. 

Intelligent protection and performance in a changing web

As the web continues to evolve, particularly with the growing traffic from LLM bots and automated agents, we’re making strategic investments to help keep your sites protected with the goal to provide best-in-class bot management and control so you can maintain the performance, security, and integrity of your sites and content, no matter what’s crawling them.

Recently, our team added llms.txt support to help you control how search engines and AI bots interact with your site and we are continuing to work on new features to help you manage how your content is accessed, reused, and indexed by AI–putting you in control as bot traffic grows more complex and harder to manage.

Smarter spam filtering and form controls

Last year, we began deploying form spam protection for all customers by leveraging Cloudflare Turnstile. This technology verifies that web visitors to your site are real and blocks unwanted bots without introducing friction or slowing down the experience for users.

To complement this feature, we’ll be launching new form management tools later this year. These improvements will give you deeper control over how forms are configured, and how form spam is handled.

A new spam inbox will let you review, manage, and recover form submissions that have been flagged as spam.

This update will unlock new form-level settings, giving you the ability to configure key settings such as notification recipients, enabling webhooks, integrating with native Apps, and adjusting spam settings for each form independently.

Additionally, we’ll be improving your visibility and control over form data by introducing a new spam inbox where you can review, manage, and recover submissions that have been flagged as spam.

These updates give you better control over your forms so you can stay responsive to real users, and maintain clean data pipelines across your website experience.

Enterprise-grade governance and control

Finally, as more large organizations build and grow with Webflow, we’re investing in features that meet their evolving needs for governance, customization, and security at scale. From secure team management to content-level permissions, our goal is to give Enterprise customers confidence and flexibility across every surface of their operations.

SCIM user provisioning

SCIM provisioning allows for automated user onboarding and offboarding through your identity provider

For IT and admin teams, managing access at scale needs to be seamless and secure. With SCIM provisioning, Webflow now supports automated user onboarding and offboarding through your identity provider. This reduces manual work, ensures the right people always have access to the right resources, and supports enterprise-grade compliance.

SCIM provisioning is available today for all Enterprise customers.

CMS Collection access control

Currently in private beta, Collection-level access control lets Admins specify which team members or partners can edit which Collections

We’re also bringing more granular content permissions to the CMS. With Collection-level access control (currently in private beta), Admins can specify which team members or partners can edit which Collections–unlocking safer collaboration, better workflows, and faster publishing cycles for editorial teams.

This update is especially powerful for agencies, enterprise marketing teams, and content operations that require both speed and control.

These features build on our recent releases like Custom Roles and the Audit Log API, and represent the next step in making Webflow the best platform for teams working at scale, without sacrificing usability or speed.

Looking ahead

Our focus goes beyond stability—we’re evolving Webflow into the most resilient, empowering platform for the next generation of digital experiences.

Over the coming weeks and months, you’ll see us continue to roll out product improvements that reinforce resilience, security, and performance, while staying focused on the creative freedom and flexibility that have always defined our platform.

And we can’t wait to share even more when we take the stage at Webflow Conf on September 17.
Until then, thank you for building with us. We’re more committed than ever to be delivering a platform that’s as ambitious, reliable, and forward-looking as you are.

— Rachel + Allan 🚢🚢🚢

‍

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