A value proposition canvas puts what a customer needs next to what your product offers, on one page. The customer profile lists their jobs, pains and gains. The value map lists your products, pain relievers and gain creators. The template below is a B2B SaaS version, with a field for buyer role and a column for evidence. Copy it in one click or download the Word file. No signup.
The canvas comes from Strategyzer, the company whose founder and CEO, Alexander Osterwalder, invented the canvas with Yves Pigneur. It is the core tool of the book Value Proposition Design (Wiley, 2014) by Osterwalder, Pigneur, Gregory Bernarda and Alan Smith, and Wiley credits Smith with helping create it. Strategyzer's original is free to download from its site. Our version keeps the six boxes and adds what B2B teams need.
What goes in each box of the value proposition canvas?
| Side | Box | Question it answers | B2B SaaS example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Customer profile | Customer jobs | What is this person trying to get done at work? | Hit the quarterly pipeline number with a smaller team |
| Pains | What gets in the way, or what do they fear? | Reps spend Friday afternoons cleaning CRM data | |
| Gains | What outcome would make them look good? | A forecast the CFO stops questioning | |
| Value map | Products and services | What do we offer this person? | CRM sync, onboarding, a named support lead |
| Pain relievers | How exactly does the offer remove a pain? | Fields update from calls and email, so nobody types them in | |
| Gain creators | How exactly does the offer produce a gain? | Forecast categories set from deal activity, with a change log |
Fill in the customer profile first, and from evidence. A value map written before the profile describes your product, then invents a customer to match it.
Why does a B2B company need one canvas per buyer role?
Because the people in a B2B deal want different things. Forrester's State of Business Buying 2024 found that on average 13 people are involved in a B2B buying decision and that 89% of purchases involve two or more departments. The user wants less manual work. The economic buyer wants a cost they can defend. Security wants no new risk. One blended canvas averages those into a profile that matches nobody.
Start with two canvases: the main user and the economic buyer. Add a third for the approver who most often slows your deals, such as IT security or procurement.
Getting the match wrong is expensive. CB Insights' 2026 analysis of startup failures looked at 431 VC-backed companies that shut down since 2023. Of the 385 whose reasons it could identify, 43% cited poor product-market fit. The canvas does not prove fit. It makes your assumptions about fit specific enough to test.
Copy the value proposition canvas template
Paste it into a Google Doc, Notion page or Word file. Make one copy per buyer role. The Word version has the canvas as a two-sided table on page 1, the filled example on page 2 and the fit check on page 3.
VALUE PROPOSITION CANVAS (B2B SaaS version)
Based on the Value Proposition Canvas by Strategyzer (Alexander Osterwalder et al.)
Product: [ ] Segment: [company type and size]
Buyer role: [user / champion / economic buyer / approver]
Owner: [name] Last updated: [date]
Evidence: [number of interviews, recorded calls, lost-deal notes]
CUSTOMER PROFILE (fill this side first)
1. CUSTOMER JOBS (what this role is trying to get done)
- Functional job: [task, e.g. "close the books in five days"]
- Social job: [how they want to be seen, and by whom]
- Emotional job: [how they want to feel]
- How they do it today: [current tool, spreadsheet, agency, nothing]
2. PAINS (what gets in the way, ranked)
- [Pain] | Severity 1-5 | Evidence: [quote and source]
- [Pain] | Severity 1-5 | Evidence: [ ]
- [Pain] | Severity 1-5 | Evidence: [ ]
3. GAINS (outcomes they want, ranked)
- [Gain] | Importance 1-5 | Evidence: [quote and source]
- [Gain] | Importance 1-5 | Evidence: [ ]
- [Gain] | Importance 1-5 | Evidence: [ ]
VALUE MAP
4. PRODUCTS AND SERVICES
- [Feature, service, onboarding, integration]
5. PAIN RELIEVERS (one per top pain)
- Relieves pain [#] by [mechanism] | Proof: [customer, number, demo moment]
- Relieves pain [#] by [mechanism] | Proof: [ ]
6. GAIN CREATORS (one per top gain)
- Creates gain [#] by [mechanism] | Proof: [ ]
- Creates gain [#] by [mechanism] | Proof: [ ]
FIT CHECK
[ ] Each of the top 3 pains has a pain reliever with proof
[ ] Each of the top 3 gains has a gain creator
[ ] The jobs are written in the customer's words, checked in 5 interviews
[ ] We know what we leave out on purpose: [ ]
VALUE PROPOSITION IN ONE SENTENCE
For [role] at [segment] who need to [job], [product] [relieves the top pain]
by [mechanism], unlike [how they do it today].Download the value proposition canvas (.docx, Word and Google Docs)
A filled value proposition canvas for a B2B SaaS product
Illustrative, not a benchmark. The company is fictional.
Brambleway sells usage-based billing software to SaaS companies with 50 to 500 employees that charge by usage, such as API calls or seats used. This canvas is for the economic buyer: the VP of Finance.
| Box | Brambleway, for the VP of Finance |
|---|---|
| Evidence | 12 customer interviews, 20 recorded discovery calls, 9 lost-deal notes from the CRM |
| Jobs | Functional: bill every customer correctly each month and close the books on time. Social: be the finance lead the CEO trusts with pricing changes. Emotional: stop dreading the first week of the month. Today: spreadsheets plus a billing add-on to the accounting system. |
| Pains (ranked) | 1. Invoices go out wrong and customers dispute them (severity 5; 8 of 12 interviews). 2. Pricing changes take a quarter because billing cannot handle them (4). 3. Revenue numbers differ between billing and the board deck (4). |
| Gains (ranked) | 1. Close in five working days (importance 5). 2. Launch a new price plan in weeks, not quarters (4). 3. One revenue number that sales, finance and the board all use (4). |
| Products and services | Usage metering, invoice engine, accounting and CRM sync, migration service, named billing specialist |
| Pain relievers | For pain 1: usage is metered from the product's own events, and every invoice line links to the events behind it. Proof: dispute log before and after, shown in the demo. For pain 2: price plans are set up as configuration, not code. Proof: a customer story of a plan launched in three weeks. |
| Gain creators | For gain 1: invoices and revenue post to the accounting system daily, so month-end is a review, not a rebuild. For gain 3: one revenue report that syncs to the CRM and the board pack. |
| Left out on purpose | Tax calculation and payments. Brambleway integrates with the tools finance teams already use for both. |
| Value proposition | For finance leaders at usage-priced SaaS companies who need to bill correctly and close on time, Brambleway ties every invoice line to product usage, unlike spreadsheets and billing add-ons that finance has to check by hand. |
The user canvas, for the billing operations specialist, looks different. Their top pain is the hours spent fixing invoices by hand, and their main gain is fewer customer tickets about bills. Sellers use the finance canvas in the business case and the user canvas in the demo.
How do you fill in a value proposition canvas in a week?
- Pick one segment and one buyer role. "Mid-market SaaS" is too broad. "VP of Finance at usage-priced SaaS companies with 50 to 500 people" is a segment you can interview.
- Collect evidence before you write. Five to ten customer interviews, recorded sales calls and the notes on recent lost deals. Ask what they were trying to get done before they bought, and what nearly stopped them.
- Write jobs, pains and gains in their words. Copy phrases from transcripts. Rank pains by severity and gains by importance, and note how many sources mention each one.
- Map your offer to the top three of each. One pain reliever per top pain, with proof: a customer, a number or a demo moment. A pain reliever without proof is a claim.
- Mark what you leave out. Pains you do not solve are useful too: they tell sellers which deals to walk away from.
- Write the one-sentence value proposition at the bottom, then test it in your next five sales calls.
What mistakes make a value proposition canvas useless?
| Mistake | What it looks like | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Writing the value map first | The pains are your features in reverse | Fill the profile from interviews, then the map |
| One canvas for the whole buying group | "Wants efficiency" in every box | One canvas per buyer role |
| No ranking | Twelve pains, all treated the same | Rank, and work on the top three |
| Pain relievers without proof | "Saves time" with no customer or number | Add the customer, metric or demo moment, or cut the line |
| Filled once, never updated | Last updated two product launches ago | Review it each quarter with new call and loss data |
Where does the canvas fit with positioning and messaging?
The canvas is the research layer. It tells you what each buyer role needs and which of your capabilities matter to them. The value proposition is the promise that comes out of it: the one sentence at the bottom of the template. Positioning then places that promise against the alternatives the buyer is weighing, and a messaging framework turns it into the words each channel uses. For the positioning step, see our competitive positioning framework, and to compare the alternatives on the same criteria, use our competitive analysis template.
Our positioning and messaging service does this work once, from your calls and customer interviews: where you sit against the other options, and the words each buyer hears.
Frequently asked
What is a value proposition canvas?
A value proposition canvas is a one-page tool that sets what a customer needs next to what your product offers. One side, the customer profile, lists the jobs the customer is trying to get done, their pains and the gains they want. The other side, the value map, lists your products and services, how they relieve those pains and how they create those gains. Strategyzer, the company founded by Alexander Osterwalder, publishes the original.
What are the six parts of the value proposition canvas?
Customer jobs, pains and gains make up the customer profile. Products and services, pain relievers and gain creators make up the value map. You have fit when the pain relievers and gain creators match the pains and gains that matter most to the customer.
How is the value proposition canvas different from the business model canvas?
The business model canvas maps a whole business on nine blocks, from partners to revenue streams. The value proposition canvas zooms in on two of those blocks, customer segments and value propositions, and works out the match between them in detail. Many teams fill in the value proposition canvas first, then the business model canvas.
How do you fill in a value proposition canvas?
Start with the customer profile, from evidence: customer interviews, recorded sales calls and lost-deal notes. Rank the pains and gains by how much they matter to the customer. Then fill in the value map, one pain reliever per top pain, each with proof. Finish by checking fit and writing one sentence that states the value proposition.
Do B2B companies need more than one canvas?
Usually yes: one per buying role. Forrester found that 13 people are involved in a typical B2B buying decision and that 89% of purchases involve two or more departments. The person who uses your product, the champion and the economic buyer have different jobs and pains, so one blended canvas hides the differences that decide the deal.
Is the value proposition canvas free to use?
Yes. Strategyzer offers its original canvas as a free download on its website. The template on this page is our B2B SaaS version of it, with extra fields for buyer role, evidence and proof, and it is free to copy or download as a Word file with no signup.
