FAQ

Answers to the questions buyers ask before they start.

Honest answers to the questions we get most often, including the sharpest critiques from people who don't think the hosted senior PM category is real yet.

I don't know anything about product management. Is this for me?
Especially you. Product management is the job big companies pay $130K+ for: figuring out what customers want, what competitors are doing, and what to build next, before the building starts. ProductLobster does that job for your product and explains everything in plain language as it goes. You'll never be quizzed on frameworks or asked to learn the vocabulary. You bring what you know about your product; the Lobsters bring the rest.
How is this different from ChatGPT or Claude?
ChatGPT and Claude are general-purpose AI tools. They're great for brainstorming, drafting, and answering questions. ProductLobster is a hosted senior PM that runs structured PM work: customer research, competitive analysis, strategic framing, prototype iteration, decision capture. Over a per-product memory that compounds with every decision you make. The difference is the difference between a smart conversation and a senior PM running the work.
How is this different from ChatPRD?
ChatPRD is a PRD generator. It writes the document. ProductLobster runs the PM work that produces the decisions a PRD codifies. Then it keeps those decisions as versioned state your next analysis can read. If you're a PM who wants a faster PRD, ChatPRD is the right tool. If you're a business that needs a PM team, we are.
How is this different from Glean, Notion AI, and horizontal Company Brain tools?
Glean and Notion AI are horizontal: they index your whole company shallowly. ProductLobster is vertical: it knows your product deeply. A combine harvester is the wrong tool for a window box. We're the right-sized tool for a small team focused on shipping a product.
Won't this be replaced by Anthropic's Auto Memory feature?
Auto Memory remembers your build commands and debugging lessons. It solves the engineer's problem. ProductLobster runs the senior PM workflow over your product's evidence and decisions. Different layers. Auto Memory is substrate; ProductLobster is hosted workflow software with opinionated PM judgment built in. The two compose. Your CLAUDE.md is what the engineer needs; ProductLobster is what the business needs.
Why not Claude Skills plus a CLAUDE.md for product work?
Claude Skills are reusable how-tos for your local agent. ProductLobster is a hosted senior PM you call. The skills tell your agent how to do something generically. ProductLobster does the thing, with your product's full history, opinionated methodology, and decision-grade memory behind it. They compose: a thin Claude Skill on your side can call ProductLobster on the server side. The skill is the doorbell; ProductLobster is the PM who answers.
I see GitHub repos with free PM skills for Claude Code. Why pay for ProductLobster?
The repo is a toolbox. ProductLobster is the workshop, the tools, the workflow, and the senior PM running the work. A repo can't run your audit pipeline; can't maintain your product's memory across sessions; can't fast-forward stages; can't refine your checkpoints; can't generate prototypes grounded in your accumulated context; can't validate its own output. And when we ship sharper methodology, you get it the next morning. A forked repo rots.
How do you handle pricing? What is a "hybrid overage"?
You pay a flat monthly tier (Free, Plus $29, Pro $79, Studio $200). Tiers include monthly allowances of analyses and prototypes. When you go over, you pay per unit in human-readable amounts: extra audit, extra launch analysis, extra prototype, extra focused analysis, extra refinement session. No token meters. No opaque limits. No surprise bills.
I live in Codex, Claude Code, or Cursor. Can I use ProductLobster from there?
Yes. ProductLobster connects as a native MCP server, and there's a `plob` CLI on npm (`npm i -g @productlobster/plob`). Your agent calls Brain commands (`plob audit`, `plob focused-analysis`, `plob context-pack`, and more); we run the work server-side; the structured result comes back. Same Product Brain as the hosted app. You can use both doorways for the same workspace.
What if I cancel my subscription?
You stop paying. Your decisions, your strategic state, and your locked product profiles are exportable. The methodology and prompts that ran the workflow stay with us; those were never yours to take. We don't ship portable methodology artifacts because we'd love to keep building better ones for you. You're free to leave anytime.
Is my product data safe?
Yes. The agentic surface ships OAuth-first authentication, scoped permissions per workspace, and every Brain command call audit-logged. We validate and quarantine uploaded content before any model reads it, so a hostile document or a prompt-injection payload in someone's email cannot escalate into your product's state. We don't train on your data, ever.
Can it connect to Linear, Slack, Granola, or Gmail yet?
Not yet — those connectors are the next thing we're building. Today the agentic surface is live (a native MCP server and a `plob` CLI on npm), and ProductLobster captures the why for every decision you make in it. The cross-system onramp that reads decisions out of the tools your team already uses is in active development. Join the early-access list and you'll get it as it lands.
Do I have to move all my work into ProductLobster?
No. Today you bring your product to ProductLobster. Soon it'll connect to the tools you already use (Linear, your meeting notes, Slack) and build the decision record from there. You keep working where you work.
Does it make decisions for me?
No. It captures decisions and surfaces what matters; you make the call and confirm what it captured. A partner, not autopilot.
How is this different from Productboard or Aha! adding AI?
They store the current state of your roadmap and added AI on top. ProductLobster captures the decision and the why as you make it, and can replay the reasoning later. A current-state database can't do that, no matter how much AI you bolt on.
Why is it called ProductLobster?
Because the name made us smile, and it turned out lobsters are a fair metaphor for what we sell: delicious, valuable, and once you've had a good one you don't settle for less. Also, our lobsters wear waiter's jackets. The work is serious. We never understood why the brand has to be.
Who built this and why should I trust it?
ProductLobster is built and run by a senior product leader with twenty-five years in product: Chief Product Officer, SVP and VP of Product, and Executive and Senior Director roles across consumer media, enterprise SaaS, and AI-native startups, plus a coach to senior product managers and executives. The methodology in ProductLobster is the methodology they run when they're on a team. ProductLobster is the version that doesn't require them to be on your team.

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