Eric Metelka
May 9, 2024
Before joining Eppo as Head of Product, Eric led experimentation programs at companies like Cameo and Cars.com
Back to Outperform
Tips
What is Feature Creep? + How to Prevent It (with Examples)
Follow our essential guide to prevent feature creep in your SaaS product. Learn the causes, signs, and solutions.
Have you ever felt like you keep adding more features to your SaaS to the point that you lose track of its original focus?
Whether due to stakeholder pressure, rapid market changes, or trying to keep up with the competition, it’s very common for software solutions to end up looking like a bloated mess.
This phenomenon is called feature creep. In this guide, we’ll walk you through how to avoid it altogether.
We’ll go over:
What is feature creep?
The causes behind feature creep
How to quickly identify feature creep
How to prevent feature creep
Some example scenarios of feature creep happening
How Eppo can help you avoid feature creep before it happens
Let's get started.
What is feature creep?
Feature creep is the tendency to continually add new features to a product, even when they fall outside the original scope. While adding functionality might seem like a way to boost the value of your SaaS offering, it often has the opposite effect.
Picture this: Your team had a clear idea for your SaaS product — a solution to a very specific problem. At first, it was all smooth sailing, but over time, requests for new features started trickling in fast.
Before you know it, a customer asks for a niche customization, a competitor releases a new feature, or — like with AI — new tech disrupts the market seemingly out of nowhere, and you’re forced to adapt. It’s understandable to assume that “more is more.”
But not only is continuously adding bells and whistles to your product very resource intensive, these additions end up chipping away at the clarity of your product.
The result? Feature creep makes your SaaS product more complicated for users. This damages the user experience, potentially leading to frustrated customers and lost business.
What's more, this bloat makes your product a headache to maintain. Every new feature you try to add becomes a struggle as you wrestle with making sure everything plays nicely together and the user interface doesn’t become a saturated mess.
The worst thing is that, since it strains development resources, feature creep sabotages your workflow by slowing down the delivery of the core features your users actually need.
What causes feature creep?
Feature creep doesn't happen overnight. It's a gradual process, making it even more insidious. Here are some reasons why:
No clear guiding star: If you don't start with a concrete vision of your product's purpose and target audience, you're sailing without a compass. It becomes easy to justify adding features that initially feel like "good ideas," even if they don't truly serve your core users.
The lure of "more": It's tempting to think that more features equal a better product. But the truth is that piling on features often makes your software less appealing. Users want solutions, not a Swiss Army knife with a bunch of tools they'll never use.
Pressure from all sides: Stakeholders want to see new additions, the market changes rapidly, and competitors release something flashy. All this pressure can push you away from your original focus and towards a feature frenzy.
The creeping blur: As time goes on, even the best-laid plans can start to go astray. Team members may change, original goals become less clear, and the reasons for saying "no" to new features lose their sharpness. This leaves your product vulnerable to ill-advised additions.
How to recognize feature creep
As you know by now, feature creep can be sneaky. But there are some warning signs to watch out for:
The ever-expanding to-do list: Is your development backlog growing faster than you're checking items off? If new features keep popping up while existing ones languish, there's a good chance feature creep has taken hold.
Missing deadlines and stretched budgets: Feature creep throws a wrench in even the most careful plans. When you're constantly adding new work, timetables slip and costs start to rise.
Complexity without reason: Does your product feel less intuitive now than it did initially? Are users getting lost or having to dig deeper into the interface to find what they need? This increasing complexity without a clear benefit is a red flag.
Annoyed users: Your customers are your best early warning system. If you notice more support tickets, fewer renewals, or feedback mentioning the product is hard to use, you’re most likely facing the consequences of feature creep.
Change without approval: Have new features started appearing without a clear decision-making process? This is a major sign that your project is starting to run off the rails.
Quick reminder: Don't just focus on your product itself. Feature creep leaves its mark on key business metrics like revenue and retention, so keep an eye on how adding features impacts those vital numbers.
Tips for preventing feature creep
Of course, fighting feature creep isn't about saying "no" to every new idea. It's about setting up systems to protect your product's vision and the health of your business. Here's how:
Start with a crystal-clear project scope and goals
Think of your project scope and goals as the blueprints of your product. Without a solid foundation, you risk ending up with a structure that's unstable, confusing, and doesn't serve its intended purpose.
That's why defining the following with absolute clarity is essential:
Who is this for? Get laser-focused on your target audience. Are you serving enterprises focused on efficiency or small businesses that need quick solutions? Understanding your core user paints a clear picture of who you're building for — and who you aren't.
What's the core problem? Strip away the bells and whistles to focus on the fundamental value proposition. Is it streamlining a complex workflow? Making data more accessible? This core problem becomes your North Star.
What's the MVP? Define the minimum viable product (minimum set of features for core value delivery for the initial release). This forces you to ruthlessly prioritize the features absolutely necessary to deliver on your product's promise.
This upfront planning might feel restrictive, but it's your first line of defense against feature creep. A clear project scope prevents insistent feature suggestions, however well-meaning, from throwing your plans off track.
Implement strict (but fair) project governance
Once you define your project scope, you need a system to protect it. This is where strict project governance comes in. Here's how to ensure your governance system is effective:
The gatekeeper(s): Establish who has the authority to approve or deny new feature requests. This might be a product manager, a committee, or a dedicated role, depending on your team structure.
The criteria: Define the specific factors that any new feature must meet to be considered. Does it directly support the core problem your product addresses? Does it align with your target audience's needs? Are there clear metrics for gauging success?
Keep everyone in the loop: Team members proposing new features need to know the "why" behind any rejections, and stakeholders need to understand how prioritization decisions are being made.
This keeps the focus on what truly moves your product forward — new functionalities need to justify their existence. It also helps avoid the frustration and wasted resources from developing features that ultimately get scrapped or underperformed.
Use feature flags to control how you introduce new features
Releasing features without proper testing and experimentation is a definitive no-go. Using feature flags helps you determine how certain features are performing with some users so you can eventually release them to all users, knowing they will be well received.
Here's how feature flags work in practice:
Build, but don't launch: You can fully develop a new feature within your codebase but keep it invisible to the majority of users.
Targeted testing: Selectively roll out the feature to a small group — it could be internal testers, a segment of your user base, or a specific geographic region. This allows you to collect crucial feedback and data without risking a wide-scale launch.
Better decision-making: Monitor how the new feature impacts key metrics. Is it improving user engagement? Driving conversions? This data allows you to test and improve it (or even scrap it) before it’s made available to your entire user base.
How Eppo helps: Eppo offers enterprise-grade feature flagging capabilities, making it easy to implement and manage feature flags throughout your development cycle, enabling this type of safe and controlled experimentation.
How preventing feature creep protects your key business metrics
The strategies we've covered help create a much better user experience, but they also impact important business metrics like your budget, revenue, and customer satisfaction:
Budget control: Feature creep is the enemy of predictable costs. When you have a well-defined project scope and strict governance, you avoid those costly detours where unplanned features push development time and resources over the edge.
Plus, feature flags let you minimize the risk of "big bang" launches that can strain your budget if things go wrong.
Revenue growth: A bloated product riddled with underperforming features can confuse and frustrate users. By prioritizing features that directly address the real needs of your audience, you create a product that people love to use and are willing to pay for.
What’s more, controlled experimentation helps identify features that drive conversions and boost revenue, both real business metrics you want to keep on your radar at all times.
Customer satisfaction: Happy customers are what makes SaaS businesses thrive. A focused product that delivers on its promises means satisfied and engaged users who keep coming back for more. This loyalty is reflected in increased retention rates.
Real-world examples of feature creep
To give you a clearer picture of the effects feature creep can have, let’s look at two example scenarios where feature creep took hold:
Example 1: Software project goes off the rails
Original scope: A team is tasked with building custom inventory management software for a mid-sized retailer. The focus is on streamlining stock tracking and generating automatic purchase orders.
Where the creep began: During development, stakeholders suggest adding additional modules for sales analytics and CRM. It all seemed like good value at the time.
The result: The project gets bogged down. The team must learn new technologies to tackle the additional modules, and integration creates unforeseen challenges. The promised release is delayed by six months, frustrating the client and costing the team thousands of dollars in lost revenue opportunities.
Solution: To get back on track, the development firm could have:
Revisited the project scope: By sitting down with stakeholders and refocusing on the core needs of the inventory management system, they could have prioritized those features and tabled the CRM and analytics for a later phase.
Implemented stricter change control: Establishing a clear process for reviewing and approving new feature requests would have helped to avoid feature creep in the first place.
Example 2: Mobile app loses focus
Original scope: A startup launches a fitness app with a core premise of offering personalized workout plans based on the user's goals and fitness level.
Where the creep began: User feedback is positive, but many users ask for social features like the ability to share workouts and compete on leaderboards. The team dives into development without a clear strategy.
The result: The social features add complexity, making the interface less intuitive for the core audience. Developing and maintaining these features pulls resources away from improving the workout recommendation engine. The app doesn't gain the critical mass of users it needs, and development costs exceed projections.
Solution: Here's how the app team could have navigated this situation:
Stronger prioritization: Instead of jumping straight into social features, the team could have conducted user research to determine how important these features were compared to improvements in the core workout experience.
Use of feature flags: By implementing feature flags, the team could have built and tested the social features with a limited group of users before making a wider rollout. This would have allowed them to gather feedback and identify any usability issues before a full launch.
Ready to avoid feature creep for good?
Eppo is a powerful experimentation and feature management platform designed to simplify the way you introduce and evaluate new features. Eppo’s tools are vital for shielding your product from the pitfalls of feature creep.
Eppo offers a structured approach to product development, empowering you to test ideas rigorously and incorporate data-driven insights into your roadmap. It caters to teams committed to experimentation, helping them manage feature launches with confidence.
Here's how Eppo safeguards your product against feature creep:
Makes focus a priority: Eppo's workflow emphasizes clarity, encouraging you to define the core needs your features address. This combats the tendency to add features for the sake of it.
Enables rapid validation: Eppo enables you to deploy and test features quickly via feature flags. This prevents bloat by allowing you to get real-world feedback before committing many resources.
Provides data you can trust: Eppo's advanced statistical engine and warehouse-native integration deliver trustworthy insights. This helps combat feature creep that stems from guesswork or stakeholder pressure.
Encourages continuous evaluation: Eppo's reporting and analysis tools allow you to track the impact of each feature over time. This helps identify underperforming features quickly.
Fosters an experimentation culture: Eppo's accessibility and focus on knowledge-sharing builds a team-wide understanding of the importance of focused development. This combats the urge to pile on features without clear justification.
Key Eppo features for preventing feature creep:
Feature flags: Roll out and test features in controlled environments, minimizing disruption and enabling quick pivots.
Rigorous statistical methods: CUPED++ and advanced analysis shorten experiment times and provide reliable results to guide decision-making.
Centralized knowledge base: Experiment reports and data insights create a shared understanding of what works, preventing ill-informed feature additions.
Real-time metric monitoring: Alerts and dashboards prevent features with a potential negative impact from slipping through the cracks.
Follow our essential guide to prevent feature creep in your SaaS product. Learn the causes, signs, and solutions.
