I recently started a new job, and my company uses a few SaaS tools that are new to me. This means that not only did I need to learn the ins and outs of my new company and our product, but I also needed to get up to speed on new tools that my teams are using to collaborate.
Thankfully, most of those new-to-me tools come from companies that know the importance of having a SaaS knowledge base, making it easy for me to start using the product on my own.
Customer education resources like a SaaS knowledge base are a critical investment for organizations, with data showing that customer education can positively influence everything from product adoption to customer loyalty.
In this article, I’ve rounded up 10 excellent SaaS knowledge base examples and what I think they’re doing right.
HubSpot's Knowledge Base Software
Enable customers to get answers quickly with a searchable knowledge base built from common support questions.
- Create self-serve help articles that are optimized for search
- Make it easy to browse knowledge base articles by topic
- Improve knowledge base content and fill gaps with insights
- And more!
What is a SaaS knowledge base?
A SaaS knowledge base is a digital library of information that customers need in order to use a company’s products or services effectively. This repository of information provides self-service support and answers to frequently asked questions that can be used by both customers and internal employees. A SaaS knowledge base may contain a variety of content, including FAQ documents, topic-based articles, troubleshooting guides, video tutorials, and more.
Why SaaS Companies Need a Knowledge Base
There are many benefits to building a knowledge base, but I’d like to focus on three major reasons why SaaS companies today absolutely need a knowledge base.
Reason #1: Customers need help with software tools.
I hate to break it to you, but your product is not the only SaaS tool your customers are using.
Customers use a lot of tools and apps to get their daily work done, with recent data showing that the average department uses 87 SaaS products (and that number skyrockets at the company-wide level).
I’ve seen even the most tech-savvy users still get stuck when using a product, and getting help quickly was important to them. If your customers get stuck and can’t complete their dedicated tasks in your product, not only does their daily workflow get delayed, but the time it takes for them to see value with your product also gets delayed, which is bad for your business.
A whopping 75% of surveyed users said they’d stop using a product altogether if they ran into friction, and a simple way to reduce friction is to provide a knowledge base so customers can self-serve.
Additionally, by providing a SaaS knowledge base that helps customers find answers to commonly asked questions, you help them avoid opening a ticket or calling your help desk. This drives faster resolution for your customer and also helps drive down support ticket volume.
I asked Nic Brown, senior customer education manager at Salesloft, about the importance of software companies having a knowledge base. He told me, “For a SaaS company, a strong knowledge base can be a game-changer. A lot of users today prefer to self-serve; they’d rather look something up and solve it themselves than open a ticket or hop on a call.”
And according to Brown, offering self-service options benefits the long-term relationship with the customer, too.
“Having a knowledge base empowers customers to solve problems on their own, on their own schedule, without having to open a ticket or wait in a queue. That kind of self-service builds confidence and keeps users engaged.”
Reason #2: A knowledge base improves the customer experience.
If you’re not meeting your customers’ expectations, you’re not delivering a great customer experience. And I think we all know that the customer experience directly impacts whether or not a customer decides to renew or expand with a company.
You may be surprised to learn that the overwhelming majority of customers today want to try to solve their own problems and they expect the companies they work with to provide self-serve resources.
So, if your company is one of the two-thirds of companies not currently offering self-service resources, there’s a good chance you’re missing an opportunity to deliver a great customer experience.
From what I’ve seen, customers want to be proficient in your product because it helps them do their jobs better and hit their goals. When I present topic-based webinars to my customer base, I always get the question, “Where can I find training and documentation on this?”
My take? Your customers are hungry for education on your product, and by delivering it, you’re meeting their expectations and delivering a great customer experience.
Plus, there’s a chance that if you’re not offering self-service options, your competitors are.
Build a Knowledge Base with HubSpot's Service Hub
Reason #3: A knowledge base will help your company scale.
I don’t know many SaaS companies that aren’t currently focused on scaling their business and trying to do more with less.
In fact, Brown pointed out to me that because SaaS companies move fast, a knowledge base can be a critical tool in helping a company scale.
“In this fast-paced environment, a knowledge base isn’t just helpful — it’s essential. It gives customers a way to find what they need on their own terms, and for the business, it cuts down on repeat questions, helps support teams focus on more complex issues, and ensures consistent messaging across the company,” he said.
Brown also pointed out that a knowledge base scales with your customer base, saying, “Instead of hiring more agents with every growth spike, you invest in content that serves thousands.”
Brown also shared that another benefit of a knowledge base is that it can surface key insights that SaaS companies need to grow. A knowledge base can show you what your customers are struggling with, allowing you to quickly address those gaps with customer education, product enhancements, or even improved customer journey points.
Together, this enables your company to keep up with your customers’ changing needs.
For more on this topic, check out my article The benefits of a knowledge base and why your company needs one. And if you’re ready to start building yours, I’d recommend HubSpot’s knowledge base software.
10 SaaS Knowledge Base Examples
If you’re looking for inspiration on building (or improving) your company’s knowledge base, I’ve got you covered.
I’ve pulled together some examples of SaaS companies that have built great knowledge bases, and I’ll walk you through what I think makes them stand out.
1. Salesloft
Salesloft’s knowledge base is not only aesthetically pleasing (I’m a big fan of boxing the categories) but it also delivers easy navigation for users with the search bar at the top as well as the option to adjust the language (A+ for accessibility!)
I like that they’ve created categories for their product’s specific features and outcomes, and if you were to scroll down, you’d also see categories for important things like integrations and reporting/analytics.
What I love about it: I’m a big fan of personalization, and Salesloft did a great job of creating and organizing their knowledge base content in a way that’s relevant to multiple levels of personalization, including:
- Important customer journey points (Getting Started).
- Their user’s role (Admin Guides/User Guides).
As a CSM, I’m a huge proponent of creating content for new users and admins, as it’s incredibly time-consuming to train a new point of contact on your product’s features and benefits.
2. Slack
Slack’s knowledge base also gets a nod for being aesthetically pleasing, as I like the use of icons and imagery, which feels playful and true to their brand. I don’t know about you, but when I’m met with a long list of links I get a bit overwhelmed, and the way Slack has set this up makes it feel easier for me to focus on what I might be looking for.
What I love about it: I like that they’ve included multiple ways to look for content, somehow seamlessly implementing all of these options on their landing page:
- A search bar.
- Structured categories.
- Featured articles.
- Common troubleshooting topics.
They essentially created a combination of multiple knowledge base formats all in one landing page, and they did it well.
Additionally, if you were to scroll down a bit more, you’d see Slack tips. I think this is a great way to help users see value early on and get some quick wins!
3. Gong
Gong’s knowledge base does a great job of covering all the bases for Gong users. They’ve included a search bar at the top, categories based on product features, and differentiation between using and configuring the tool.
If I’m a Gong user, chances are I don’t need to know how to configure the product, I just want to know the best ways to use certain features. This section separation then makes it easy for me to find what I need for my specific role.
What I love about it: I personally like the “What’s new in Gong?” callout at the top of the page. This is a great way to make sure your customers learn about new releases and product enhancements, and it ensures they have the content they need to adopt those features.
I also want to give an A+ for the New to Gong section. I think putting it at the top of the page makes it easy for new users to find what they need to get up and running with Gong.
4. G2
I’m a big fan of companies that leverage AI tools built on large language models to help customers self-service, so I wanted to show you how G2 is doing this within their knowledge base.
G2’s knowledge base landing page allows you to search for your own topic or access content via their listed categories, but they also offer Monty — their AI-bot powered by ChatGPT — so that you can ask more nuanced questions.
You can see that Monty responds to my question with not only information and a direct link for what I need to do next, but a bit of sentiment, too.
What I love about it: I think implementing an AI bot into their knowledge base is a game-changer for the customer experience, and I wish more companies were doing this. Not only does it make it easy for me as a customer to find what I need, but it’s going to make it easy for G2 to surface insights and themes to see where customers are still struggling.
It’s no secret that using the right AI tools can help your customers quickly find answers and avoid submitting a support ticket, so it’s a no-brainer to include an AI bot that syncs up with your knowledge base.
5. Maven AGI
Continuing with the theme of AI, I wanted to see how a company with an AI-focused product manages customer education in its knowledge base.
Maven AGI’s knowledge base includes a search bar, product-specific categories under the Welcome option, and a menu bar with quick links to content by product, feature, or desired outcome.
Maven also includes a glossary of terms, which I think is a nice touch, especially for customers who may be new to working with AI.
What I love about it: I like that Maven AGI has created an entire section about training the product, because anyone who’s worked with AI knows that training your model is critical to getting your desired outcomes.
I also like that they include best practice recommendations in their knowledge base. For example, in their content for adding knowledge, they include best practices like data quality, security considerations, etc. I think this is a great forward-thinking step that can help customers avoid future issues.
I also give them an A+ for including Advanced Options in their content. This approach empowers more tech-savvy customers to increase their product adoption sophistication.
HubSpot's Knowledge Base Software
Enable customers to get answers quickly with a searchable knowledge base built from common support questions.
- Create self-serve help articles that are optimized for search
- Make it easy to browse knowledge base articles by topic
- Improve knowledge base content and fill gaps with insights
- And more!
6. Monday.com
Monday takes a unique approach to their knowledge base by first offering customers the option of how to consume content instead of what to consume. They offer the option for reading articles, watching video tutorials, and more.
If you were to scroll down, you’d be greeted with a Getting Started section and the option to learn by content type (article, video, or academy). Scrolling further down gives customers popular resources and most loved features from Monday.com customers.
What I love about it: I like that they let the customer choose the format in which they learn best. If you click on Read Articles, you’re taken to a more standard help center page where you can search by topic, explore by topic, or explore by product.
I also like that once I navigated to the articles page, their chatbot widget popped up and immediately asked if I needed help.
7. Canva
Canva is a product that spans the B2C and B2B space, so they have the unique challenge of creating knowledge base content that is relevant to a variety of roles and industries.
Their main knowledge base landing page allows you to search for a topic (and uses a nice AI functionality to summarize a response and suggest content for you), while also giving users the option to browse by topic.
What I love about it: I personally like Canva’s Solve Your Issue troubleshooting wizard, which is located at the bottom of the knowledge base’s landing page. This allows you to choose your issue from specific options, and based on your inputs it uses AI to scan the knowledge base and quickly provide a suggested resolution or help you create a support ticket.
8. Grammarly
Grammarly is another tool that serves both individual customers and organizations, and I like that they have a clearly defined section in their knowledge base for Businesses & Schools. When you click on that category, you’re taken to a page that has a list of articles by subcategories relevant to an organization, including things like team features, subscription and payments, and managing permissions.
Additionally, their main landing page does a nice job of offering users the option to search by topic, see featured articles, or browse by category.
What I love about it: I like that Grammarly’s categories are built more around behaviors than specific features or topics. For example, if I land here knowing I want to troubleshoot an issue, I’ll easily know that Resolve Issues is the icon I should click on.
I think for a company that has one main product (versus multiple), this can be a nice way to organize your knowledge base. I also like that they offer Tips & Tutorials, both as a category and as a featured article. Driving customers to learn how to get more out of your product is a great way to get them to love using it.
9. Notion
Since Brown has been in the knowledge base industry for a long time, I asked him if there was a SaaS knowledge base that impressed him, and he recommended this one to me.
When asked what he liked about it, he said, “It’s beautifully organized, intuitive to navigate, and uses a mix of short articles, visuals, and embedded videos … The tone is approachable and in line with their brand — no jargon, just clear explanations.”
I agree with his assessment, and I also found the left-side menu a great navigational element.
What I love about it: I love that Notion created guides within their knowledge base, and that they feel use-case focused and also share best practices for using Notion. As a CSM, I’m a big fan of content that feels like it’s offering strategic guidance to a customer — meaning it doesn’t just focus on how to do something, but it explains the value they’ll get from actually doing it.
10. HubSpot
For a company that has multiple product lines, HubSpot does a great job of organizing their knowledge base in a way that caters to the unique needs of their many users.
Their knowledge base has an easy-to-access search bar with the highest-rated articles underneath. They also make content easy to navigate by having dedicated boxes for each category. I like that those categories cover both important behaviors (like Account & Setup and Getting Started) as well as feature and product-related sections (like Marketing & Messaging).
This is a smart approach because if I’m a customer who’s using a specific HubSpot tool like the CRM, I’ll know to navigate to the CRM section to quickly find what I’m looking for.
I give them bonus points for the AI chatbot widget that pops up and asks if you need help — you can ask it full questions or choose from a few common options.
What I love about it: I really like that HubSpot features their “highest rated” articles. I think this is a unique approach because while many companies showcase their top-viewed articles, HubSpot’s approach is centered around surfacing content to customers that other customers have already deemed helpful.
I also commend them for including a section dedicated to partners. This level of personalization is important, and it shows that HubSpot recognizes that their partners need specific or additional resources.
The best SaaS knowledge bases are built around the customer.
Across the 10 SaaS knowledge bases I listed for you today, I think it’s worth highlighting how each of them brought something unique to the table, and no two were built the same way. In my opinion, this is reflective of how each company is trying to meet their own unique customer needs when it comes to customer education.
My top three favorite features from these knowledge bases would have to be:
- The use-case-driven product guides from Notion.
- The personalization aspect of including new user and new admin guides from Salesloft.
- The inclusion of best practices and advanced options in articles from Maven AGI.
And my final tip? No matter how you decide to organize your knowledge base, make sure it’s customer-centric and easy to navigate, and you’ll be well on your way to success.
HubSpot's Knowledge Base Software
Enable customers to get answers quickly with a searchable knowledge base built from common support questions.
- Create self-serve help articles that are optimized for search
- Make it easy to browse knowledge base articles by topic
- Improve knowledge base content and fill gaps with insights
- And more!