Feedback arrives everywhere except somewhere useful
A DM on X, a Discord ping, a reply to your launch post, an email you starred and lost. Each one is real signal, none of it is in a place you can sort, and half of it is gone by Friday. A floating feedback button collects the same messages at the moment users feel them — categorized as a bug, idea, or review before they reach you.
Public boards feel empty until you are big
A feedback board with three posts looks like a product with three users. TellTide is private-first: feedback lands in your inbox, invisible to everyone else. You publish a roadmap item only when there is something worth voting on — so your public surface always looks intentional, never sparse.
Tool subscriptions eat side-project margins
Feedback tools priced per tracked user punish you for growing. TellTide’s free plan covers a full app — widget, inbox, API, and public roadmap — and paid pricing never scales with your user count. The margin you protect is your runway.
The workflow, end to end
Paste one script into your site (five minutes, honestly). Users send bug reports, feature requests, and reviews through the launcher; each lands in your private inbox with the page it came from.
Triage on your schedule — a coffee-length session twice a week is plenty at indie scale. When a request deserves public validation, publish it to your roadmap and let users vote instead of guessing what to build next.
What indie hackers lean on most
- Free plan with widget, inbox, API, and public roadmap
- No per-user pricing at any tier
- One-script install on any stack you ship
- Private inbox — no empty public board on day one
- Roadmap voting to validate before you build
Questions indie hackers ask before starting
Is TellTide free for indie projects?
Yes — the free plan includes the widget, private inbox, API, and a public roadmap for one app, with no time limit. Upgrade only when you need multiple apps or advanced features.
I ship on a weird stack. Will the widget work?
If it renders HTML, yes — the widget is one framework-agnostic script tag. For native or CLI projects, the HTTP API takes submissions from anything that can POST JSON.
Why is private-first feedback better for indie hackers?
Because raw feedback is messy: bug reports carry sensitive detail, reviews deserve personal replies, and half-formed ideas need clarification. A private inbox lets you handle each properly, then publish only credible feature requests to a roadmap where votes mean something.