In recent years, digital whiteboards have become increasingly popular for remote and distributed teams. In fact, the market size for these tools has grown to about $8 billion—and it’s not hard to see why. Whiteboards have become a standard part of any work cycle. They’re where teams come together to innovate, brainstorm, and truly create the ideas that move businesses forward.
But for an IT leader, whiteboards come with their own set of challenges. Most often, whiteboards are another standalone solution in an already crowded tech stack. What’s more, they require their own security, maintenance, and compliance review — as well as their own dedicated budget. In fact, standalone whiteboards, along with other redundant tools, are a major cost driver for enterprise organizations, sometimes to the tune of $300,000 / year.
The good news is that IT leaders can effectively reduce costs while still offering teams a space for the creative and unrestricted brainstorming that whiteboards facilitate. The key is maximizing your current tech stack by abandoning standalone solutions, and instead, consolidating on tools that provide functionality without increasing security maintenance.
The true cost of standalone whiteboard solutions
Cost management is a known priority for C-Suite leaders across the board. For an IT leader, managing and minimizing costs means taking a hard look at your organization’s existing tech stack and cutting unnecessary and redundant tools where possible. Standalone digital whiteboard solutions – like Miro and Mural – are often prime candidates for cost reduction.
This isn’t because whiteboards themselves are unnecessary tools. In fact, when properly integrated in an organization’s tech stack, digital whiteboards are fantastic at fostering team collaboration and enabling freeform thinking. But the fact that Miro and Mural are standalone whiteboard solutions present a unique set of challenges. Common problems IT leaders run into when considering such standalone solutions include:
- Disconnected workflows: For most teams, whiteboards are a brainstorming tool. But brainstorming is just one phase of the work lifecycle. IT leaders still need to pay separate licenses for tools that help execute on brainstormed ideas — tools for project management, documentation, remote communication, and GenAI capabilities. IT leaders then need to connect those tools to the whiteboards themselves, so data isn’t lost.
- Increased security risks: Maintaining multiple point solutions throughout your organization increases the risk of a security breach or threat, simply because there are more points of entry for potential hackers. Additionally, standardizing security across multiple applications is always challenging, leaving gaps in protection for any niche whiteboard solution.
- High price-tag: Many standalone tools position themselves as a premium whiteboarding solution, calling themselves “visual work platforms” or “innovative workspaces”. While these names are exciting, they’re often simply used to justify a high price-tag. In fact, some whiteboard solutions charge around $16-17 / seat / month.
Learn how switching to Confluence whiteboards helped Reddit save $300,000 a year.
Creating a more cost efficient tech stack with Confluence
What IT leaders need is a flexible whiteboard solution — one that provides the functionality teams require, without breaking the bank. And this is where Confluence really shines.
Confluence is Atlassian’s industry-leading knowledge management solution. It acts as a digital workspace that helps teams discover and share the information they need to collaborate more efficiently and effectively. Common Confluence use cases include project collaboration, async collaboration, documentation, company-wide intranets, and – of course – whiteboarding.
By combining a whiteboard solution with a robust knowledge management platform all in one license, Confluence empowers team collaboration and freeform thinking, while minimizing problems like disjointed workflows and security concerns. That’s the brilliance — and one of the key benefits — of Confluence: it nurtures the teamwork that organizations need to flourish in a single platform.
We are using Confluence for brainstorming, project planning, meeting notes, project roadmaps, whiteboarding, prioritization, and content collaboration. We are not just using it with technical teams but also business teams. It’s being used everywhere.”
Head of Collaboration, Luxury Fashion House, quoted from Forrester’s Total Economic Impact of Confluence report
The other key benefit of using Confluence for knowledge management and whiteboards is cost. Some standalone whiteboard solutions go for about $16-17 / seat / month. By contrast, Confluence charges $10 / seat / month, and provides more than just whiteboards. It also includes core knowledge management functionality, like collaborative spaces, databases, GenAI features, templates, and much more. Confluence also accelerates whiteboard adoption among teams, since every user with access to your knowledge management system also has access to whiteboarding functionality.
The math isn’t difficult: with Confluence you’re paying less money, and you’re getting more.
A deep dive into Confluence whiteboards
The benefits of using Confluence whiteboards goes beyond tool consolidation and saving on budget. Confluence’s whiteboards create a more connected experience between each phase of work, helping teams brainstorm innovative ideas and then transform those thoughts into actionable steps in a larger project.
But switching tools is never easy, and one objection IT leaders constantly run into when trying to consolidate their tech stack is, “My standalone solution has functionality that the consolidated solution doesn’t, so we can’t switch tools. I won’t be able to do my job.”
The good news is that when it comes to whiteboards, standalone solutions and consolidated solutions are on an even playing field. In fact, Confluence’s whiteboard solution is trusted by brands like GoDaddy and Mercari and includes all the key whiteboarding functionality that teams expect, like:
Templates: Kick-start work with dozens of templates from our template library, including flow charts, retros, roadmaps, workflows, and concept maps.
Collaborative tools: Collaborate and engage your teammates by voting on different ideas, giving feedback with comments or stamps, or @ mentioning people on content.
Tight integrations: Seamlessly transform your ideas to action by converting stickies into Jira tasks, or creating relationships between issues using smart connectors.
Public, editable whiteboards: Share and collaborate on whiteboards with people outside your organization.
Built-in workflows using automations: Use AI to streamline your creativity with functionality like clustering related stickies or generating new ideas based on an initial sticky note.
Making the switch from standalone solutions to Confluence
Taking the leap from one tool to another can be a daunting task for IT. Not only will there be years’ worth of information to transfer between tools, but also, people can be reluctant to change ways of working.
The good news is that as a knowledge management system, Confluence is designed to make information accessible, intuitive, and easily activated – even in times of transition. Some ways Confluence can help the transition from standalone whiteboard solutions include:
- Import whiteboards from other tools: Confluence can import existing whiteboards into the platform as a PNG, making the transition smoother and less disruptive for teams.
For common standalone solutions like Miro, the importers also provide native editable elements. This means that once content is in Confluence whiteboards, it can be edited directly, so your teams can pick up working where they left off.
Coming soon: Imports from Mural with editable elements is planned to be available in H2 2025.
- Smart discoverability: Confluence’s natural language search means that teams don’t have to sink time into finding their old whiteboards. They can just type the whiteboard name into our search bar, and Confluence’s world-class search will surface the right board.
- Familiar platform: Often the most difficult part of switching tools is getting teams used to a new interface. Because Confluence is already ingrained in employee workflows, teams will have a minimal learning curve and virtually no interruptions to productivity.
Confluence whiteboard has helped Trust Bank collaborate more effectively across our teams, especially in the discovery and delivery phases of our product development. This has allowed us to visualize and align on development plans and key priorities, raise and identify risks and blockers early, and track progress on key items at a glance. “
Stewart Gray, Agile Coach, Trust Bank
The Atlassian difference: whiteboards & knowledge management in one
In a world where distributed teams need to collaborate and IT leaders need to work with limited budgets, tools that can do more with less are essential for success. Confluence’s native whiteboard and knowledge management capabilities empower teams to move seamlessly from brainstorming to execution while delivering cost savings and increased efficiency.
Ready to see how Confluence can transform your team’s workflows? Learn more here.