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Free Idea Management Software in 2026: 6 Options and Where Each Stops

Six free ways to collect employee ideas in 2026, from Microsoft Forms to open source: what each does well, where it stops working, and what Hives.co costs instead.

Updated Alexander Wennerberg8 min read

Quick summary

You can collect employee ideas for nothing. Microsoft Forms, Google Forms, Trello’s free plan, Ideanote’s free plan and open-source tools such as Fider and Decidim all cost €0 in licence fees. They are good at the first half of the job: getting ideas in.

The second half is answering them. Someone has to read every idea, decide what happens to it and tell the person who sent it. Free tools leave that to a person with a spreadsheet, and that is where they stop working. A box that never answers goes quiet within months.

We should say where we stand. Hives.co is not free. There is no free plan and no free trial, and Core costs €695 a month, billed annually. This guide is still the one we would send a friend who asked: what the free options are, what each is good for, and the signs you have outgrown them.

Option What it costs Good for Where it stops
Microsoft Forms Included in Microsoft 365 A first test inside an organisation on Microsoft 365 Collects only. No owner, no reply, no status
Google Forms Free with a Google account The same test on Google Workspace, or with no account at all Same as Microsoft Forms
Trello (Free plan) Free, up to 10 collaborators per Workspace One team sorting its own ideas on a board 10 collaborators is a team, not a workforce
Ideanote (Free plan) Free, up to 10 users, no time limit A real idea tool for a small pilot 100 ideas, 5 collections, 10 users
Fider Free to self-host (AGPL-3.0) Feature requests and feedback, if IT will host it Built for product feedback, and you run the server
Decidim Free and open source Citizen participation for cities and public bodies Needs hosting and a technical team

1. Microsoft Forms: free if you already pay for Microsoft 365

If your organisation runs on Microsoft 365, you already have a free suggestion box. Make a form with three questions (what is the problem, what is your idea, where does it happen), share the link and the responses land in Excel.

It can be anonymous. Under Settings, untick Record name and responses come in without names. Microsoft’s own help page notes that limiting a form to people in your organisation is available on Microsoft 365 business and education accounts.

Where it stops: a form collects and nothing else. Nobody is assigned to an idea, the person who sent it never hears back unless someone emails them by hand, and nobody else can see what was suggested. It works while one person can read and answer everything. When that person goes on holiday, so does the programme.

2. Google Forms: the same, on Google

Google Forms does the same job for organisations on Google Workspace, and it works with a free personal account too. Responses go to a Google Sheet.

For anonymous ideas, go to Settings, then Responses, and set Collect email addresses to Do not collect. Check the setting on your own form, because Workspace accounts can be set to collect addresses.

Where it stops: the same place as Microsoft Forms. A sheet full of ideas is not a decision. The usual failure is a tab called Ideas with 200 rows, a Status column that stopped being filled in around row 40, and nobody quite sure whose job it was.

3. Trello’s free plan: a board for one team

Trello’s free plan lets up to 10 collaborators per Workspace share up to 10 boards. A board with four columns (New, Looking at it, Doing, Done) is an honest idea pipeline for one team, and moving a card is a visible answer.

Where it stops: 10 collaborators. That is enough for a team that sorts its own ideas, not for a suggestion box open to a whole site. Paid plans start at $5 per user per month billed annually (Standard), and per-user pricing grows with every person you invite.

4. Ideanote’s free plan: a real idea tool, small

Of the dedicated idea management tools we checked, Ideanote is the one with a permanent free plan. It covers up to 10 users, 100 ideas, 5 idea collections and 10 AI credits a month, with no time limit, and nearly all features except audit log and single sign-on.

Where it stops: the limits are a pilot’s limits. A good first challenge can bring in 100 ideas from a handful of people. The next step, Scale, costs $6 per user per month billed annually, up to 50 users. Above that, Ultimate starts at $899 a month for 100 users. Our pricing guide does the maths at different sizes.

5. Fider: open source, if IT will host it

Fider is an open-source feedback portal under the AGPL-3.0 licence. Self-hosting is free; the makers also run Fider Cloud, a managed version. People post suggestions, others vote, and admins mark a status.

Where it stops: it was built for feature requests from users of a product, and it shows. There is no evaluation step, no owner per idea and no value tracking. And free to self-host means your IT team owns the server, the updates, the backups and the security.

6. Decidim: open source for citizen participation

Decidim is free, open-source software for participation and community governance. More than 500 organisations use it, including Barcelona, Helsinki and the European Commission. It handles proposals, debates, voting and participatory budgets.

Where it stops: it is built for public participation, not for staff ideas, and it needs hosting and people who can configure it. For a city running a citizen budget it can be the right answer. For a plant manager who wants ideas from the night shift, it is a lot of machinery.

Not free, but close: HYPE Boards (formerly Viima) has no free plan. It offers a 14-day trial of its Pro plan and Basic starts at $79 a month.

Five signs you have outgrown a free tool

Free tools are fine for a test. These are the signs the test is over:

  1. Ideas wait more than two weeks for an answer. People stop sending ideas when nothing comes back. That is the whole reason suggestion boxes collect dust.
  2. One person is the system. If the programme stops when they are on holiday, it is not a programme yet.
  3. People without a desk can’t take part. A form link in an email does not reach a warehouse or a store floor. A QR code on the wall does.
  4. You hit the cap. 10 collaborators on Trello, 10 users or 100 ideas on Ideanote. The cap tends to arrive just as the programme starts to work.
  5. Someone asks what it was worth. A spreadsheet can count ideas. It struggles to show which ones were implemented and what they saved.

What Hives.co costs, and what you get for it

Hives.co has no free plan and no free trial. You can see the product in a 30-minute demo, and every price is on the pricing page:

Plan Price Managers Contributors
Core €695 a month 2 500
Pro €1,495 a month 10 10,000
Enterprise €1,995 a month 10+ Unlimited

All plans are billed annually, with no per-user fees. Registered non-profits pay half.

What the money buys is the second half of the job. Ideas come in from a QR code, a phone or Microsoft Teams. People sign in with the Microsoft or Google work account they already have. Every idea gets an owner and an answer, and a collection can save ideas without names when the topic calls for it. Customer data is hosted in the EU.

Halfords collected 515 ideas from colleagues across 400 stores in six months, worth £759,000 in business value. That is the kind of number a spreadsheet struggles to show.

Frequently asked questions

Is there free idea management software?

Yes. Ideanote has a free plan for up to 10 users and 100 ideas, with no time limit. Trello’s free plan covers up to 10 collaborators per Workspace. Microsoft Forms and Google Forms work as a free suggestion box, and Fider and Decidim are open source. All of them collect ideas well. None of them makes sure every idea gets an answer, which is the part that keeps people sending them.

Is there open-source idea management software?

Yes. Fider (AGPL-3.0) is an open-source feedback portal for suggestions and feature requests, free to self-host. Decidim is open-source participation software used by more than 500 organisations, including Barcelona and Helsinki, mainly for citizen participation. Both need someone to host and maintain them.

Can I make an anonymous suggestion box for free?

Yes. In Microsoft Forms, untick Record name in Settings. In Google Forms, set Collect email addresses to Do not collect under Settings, then Responses. Both give you anonymous ideas in a spreadsheet. What they don’t give you is a way to answer an anonymous person, so tell people up front where answers will be posted.

Does Hives.co have a free plan or a free trial?

No. Hives.co has no free plan and no free trial. Prices are published: Core is €695 a month, Pro €1,495 and Enterprise €1,995, billed annually, with no per-user fees. You can see the product in a 30-minute demo, and registered non-profits get 50% off every plan.

When is it worth paying for idea management software?

When answering ideas has become someone’s part-time job. If ideas come from several teams, sites or shifts, if people without a desk need to take part, or if someone wants to know what the programme was worth, a paid tool usually costs less than the time spent keeping a spreadsheet alive.

Next steps

Sources

All checked on 10 November 2026.

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