What Is a Feature Inventory?

A feature inventory is a comprehensive, structured catalog of every capability, function, and user-facing element that a software product offers. It documents what the product does today, organized by category, module, or user workflow, and serves as a single source of truth for product managers, engineers, sales teams, and marketing when they need to understand the current state of the product. A well-maintained feature inventory reduces confusion, supports competitive positioning, and informs roadmap planning.

As software products grow, teams lose track of what they have built. Features ship, get iterated on, and sometimes get quietly deprecated without anyone updating a central record. The result is fragmented knowledge: sales reps describe capabilities that no longer work as expected, support teams cannot confirm whether a feature exists, and product managers accidentally prioritize building something the product already does.

A 2022 Pendo study found that 80% of features in the average software product are rarely or never used. Without an inventory, teams cannot even identify which features fall into that category, let alone decide whether to invest in improving, promoting, or removing them. The inventory provides the foundation for usage analysis, sunset decisions, and resource allocation.

For product managers, a feature inventory is an essential planning tool. It enables gap analysis against competitors, supports packaging and pricing decisions, and gives stakeholders a clear picture of product scope without requiring them to navigate the product themselves.

Building a feature inventory starts with a structured audit. Teams walk through each area of the product and document every discrete capability, noting its name, description, associated user role or persona, current status (active, beta, deprecated), and the module or section where it lives. Some teams add metadata like launch date, usage metrics, and the engineering team responsible for maintenance.

The format varies by organization. Spreadsheets work for smaller products. Larger organizations use product management platforms, internal wikis, or purpose-built databases that allow filtering, tagging, and cross-referencing. The key requirement is that the inventory is maintained as a living document, not a one-time snapshot. Teams that assign ownership of the inventory to a specific role, typically product management, and update it as part of the release process maintain the most accurate records.

A feature inventory also supports external communication. Marketing teams use it to build feature comparison pages. Sales teams reference it during demos and RFP responses. Customer success teams consult it when answering feature-availability questions. The inventory becomes a shared language that aligns internal teams around what the product actually does.

For strategic context on how feature inventories support broader intelligence efforts, see Competitive Intelligence SaaS Guide.

Product management platforms like Productboard, Aha!, and Notion can host feature inventories with rich metadata and filtering. Spreadsheet-based inventories remain common for early-stage teams. Glue supports feature inventory workflows by connecting product-level documentation to underlying codebase context, helping teams verify that documented features match actual implementation. Regardless of tool choice, the most important factor is consistent maintenance, as an outdated inventory is often worse than no inventory at all because it creates false confidence.

How often should a feature inventory be updated?

Update the inventory as part of every release cycle. When a feature ships, gets modified, or is deprecated, the inventory should reflect that change within the same sprint. Quarterly audits can catch anything that slipped through, but real-time maintenance prevents the inventory from drifting out of sync with the product.

What is the difference between a feature inventory and a product backlog?

A product backlog lists planned work, including features that do not yet exist. A feature inventory catalogs what the product currently offers. The backlog looks forward; the inventory looks at the present. Together, they give teams a complete picture of where the product is and where it is heading.

Who should have access to the feature inventory?

Everyone in the organization benefits from access. Product and engineering teams use it for planning. Sales and customer success teams use it for accurate customer communication. Marketing uses it for positioning and competitive analysis. Restricting access defeats the purpose of creating a shared source of truth.