How do I check a small SaaS product’s support ticket history before buying?

Ask for the export before you ask for explanations. Group the tickets into categories such as bugs, billing, how-to questions and feature requests. A large how-to category suggests the product is hard to use. Repeated bug reports on one feature suggest weak code that you will inherit. Billing tickets can point at problems in the payment setup.

Look at response and resolution times, and at who answered. If the founder handled nearly every ticket, ask what the workload really was and whether you can carry it. Note tickets that were left open or closed without a solution, and ask the seller what happened with them.

Read some of the angriest tickets in full. Ask whether those customers stayed. Check whether any customer asked for something the seller promised and never built. Last, ask whether the tickets contain private customer information, and how it will be handled when the data moves to you. Compare what the tickets say with the product’s public reviews and any status page history. When the two tell the same story you can trust the picture, and when they differ, ask the seller to explain why. Keep notes on every pattern, so you can raise them when you discuss the terms.

Key takeaways

• Sort tickets by topic and look for problems that keep returning.
• Find out who handled the tickets and how much time it took.
• Look for promised features that customers are still waiting on.