Why all teams need a Knowledge Base
What is a Knowledge Base?
A knowledge base is an online repository consisting of help documentation, articles and information on a company's products & services, industry-related topic or data. It serves as a tool to share your team's internal knowledge and acts as a publicly-accessible 'help centre' for users to refer to when troubleshooting or researching.
A Knowledge Base streamlines support by providing answers and solutions to common FAQs or issues, allowing customers to solve their own problems. Having a comprehensive Base serves as a centralised source of truth, reducing time wasted searching for resources, improving customer engagement with your product and lifting the support load for your teams. Ultimately, a good Knowledge Base builds a smoother experience for both users and teams, creating consistency across communication and a transparent brand image.
Why have a Knowledge Base?
In today's modern digital world, users expect instant answers. Based on an article published on LinkedIn, around 90% of US consumers say getting an immediate response when they have a question is essential to their engagement and prolonged interest, with around 70% defining "immediate" as within 10 minutes.
However, the average time for customer service support is 12 hours and 10 minutes. As a result, 60% have admitted to abandoning a purchase or sign up due to poor customer service, more specifically, slow response times. This serves as evidence that customer engagement and retention is extremely dependent on how quickly and effectively a team can deliver support. Additional to decreased customer loyalty, brand perception also takes a hit. 31% say "not responding to my messages quickly" is the most likely factor to make them feel negatively about a brand. This shows the way speed and accessibility isn't just about convenience any more, it's part of the experience. The numbers speak for how for many consumers, it is a dealbreaker.
What happens when we don't have one
When you don't have a Knowledge Base, the same questions keep popping up and the same answers are hidden in ten different places. The answers exist somewhere; buried in Slack threads, tucked away on a random Notion page, or in someone's head as a half-formed distant memory. This is why information bottlenecks occur, because your team is always looking for the right person, instead of the right article, to solve the problem.
Support teams become the unofficial search engine, answering the same trivial questions, "How to change my password?" "Where to find billing information?" and "What does this feature actually do?" on repeat. Answers to these questions could be solved with a simple article, but instead, your support team is overwhelmed with a constant flood of back-and-forth messages that have no real value. It's exhausting, inefficient and takes time and energy away from the more important things.
Internally, what starts off as "we'll just message each other" turns into teams keeping their own private notes and running their own makeshifts systems to suit their needs. Slowly, everyone drifts out of sync and this lack of alignment snowballs into confusion. When there is no centralised place to get reliable answers, information becomes fragmented and what seems like minor inconsistencies at first evolves into constant miscommunication, duplicated work and errors.
As your team grows, so does the complexity. More money, more features, more people and more problems if information isn't centralised and accessible. What was manageable with 5 people becomes unbearable for 50 people across different teams, time zones and platforms. Conversations that should take 5 minutes turn into 30-message threads, decisions get delayed because no one can find the details. Eventually, progress stalls, not because they are untalented or lazy, but because everyone is operating with different information and are trapped in a cycle of searching, clarifying and re-explaining things that should have already been properly documented.
Not to mention extra time wasted when onboarding. Whilst each new hire adds value, it also adds noise to an already confusing system. Instead of immediately starting on meaningful work, they spend time piecing together fragmented information and trying to make sense of inconsistent processes. Senior team members lose hours re-explaining things, and knowledge continues to live in people's heads, rather than a tangible or permanent place. Scaling shouldn't just be about hiring more people or building more features. It's about ensuring that everyone, existing and new, has the same information and can move in the same direction. Without the foundation of a Knowledge Base, growth turns into overwhelm. Teams spend more time keeping up than moving forward, and your company's potential is wasted as it tries to navigate the chaos of its own expansion.
For users, their experience isn't any better. Without a cohesive and comprehensive place to get answers, every small issue feels like a big problem. Users get frustrated with the ambiguity and lack of guidance, and over time, this frustration turns into dissatisfaction and disengagement. Customers will begin to feel neglected because responses are slow, and in the modern market that values speed and conveniences, unhappy customers will be quick to turn to alternatives. Not because your product is bad, but because someone else made it easier to understand.
Without a Knowledge Base, consumers think the team is non-responsive, inactive or disregards their users, negatively impacting brand trust, user confidence and long-term retention.
Ultimately, not having a Knowledge Base doesn't just mean 'disorganised'. it slows down progress, confuses the team and makes your product harder and less accessible to use. You could have the most brilliant product in the whole world, but if no one knows how to use it or where to find answers, it might as well not exist.
Benefits of a Knowledge Base
A Knowledge Base is a tool that both internally and externally improves the way a company operates. While on the surface, it may just look like a collection of informative articles and help documentation, underneath, it is a system that changes how teams communicate, how users engage with your product and how your company grows as a singular entity.
Customers like to feel independent. If they feel like they have the resources to solve their own problems, they are more inclined to take control, learn and explore, instead of waiting for support to sort out their issues. This independence builds a sense of genuine interest and loyalty to your products. Users trust products that make them feel capable, and are more likely to stay engaged because they are satisfied to get value faster. A Knowledge Base doesn't just fix customer problems, it fosters confidence and interest in users by empowering them to feel like an expert.
For teams, establishing a single centralised source of truth strengthens collaboration between teams. There is less back-and-forth, fewer misunderstanding and more trust in what is being shared. Transparency improves because information isn’t hidden in private chats or outdated documents. To users, your brand also appears more trustworthy because processes and information is visible, consistent, and reliable. You can use the information stored on public Knowledge Bases to support your decisions and align goals without having to search for context. This builds a culture of communication and transparency, as people both internally and externally can see how knowledge is shared.
Additionally, a Knowledge Base dramatically reduces support load. Instead of answering the same questions, teams can direct users to self-serve articles that address issues and provide information clearly. A few studies stated companies with a better structured Knowledge Base or help-centre portal saw 25-40% fewer support tickets. That means fewer repetitive emails, faster resolution times, and more focus on complex or high-impact things that actually need attention. Over time, this transforms customer support from a reactive process into a proactive one where users can solve problems on their own and teams can prioritise building better experiences rather than re-explaining the same questions.
A comprehensive Knowledge Base also boosts your SEO and discoverability. Every help article you publish becomes a potential entry point to your product for new users researching solutions. By using clear, descriptive titles and utilising keywords in your annotations, your articles rank organiscally in search results, driving traffic to your site. Over time, your Knowledge Base becomes a helpful tool continuously attracts and retains both existing customers and potential ones.
Forrester reported 97% of organisations had minimal to no digital document processes. In the digital market, being the 3% means staying transparent and having clear communication, to share knowledge and empower your users.
Who your Knowledge Base is actually for
Who your readers are
Teams
A Knowledge Base keeps everyone internally aligned by giving teams single source of truth to collaborate efficiently, make faster decisions, and stay consistent as they grow.
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Support teams: A Knowledge Base reduces support tickets by enabling self-serve and convenient responses within relevant articles. Customers always ask the same questions, so why multiply the amount of work you have to do, when you can answer it once and for all in your Knowledge Base. Over time when you start noticing trends in questions asked, you can proactively add articles to pre-empt questions, so your support team is ahead of the queue, instead of constantly putting out fires.
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Internal: Supports decisions, workflows and feature changes in one accessible place. By establishing your Knowledge Base as a centralised information hub, internal divisions can be aligned because everyone is using the same information. Furthermore, new recruits aren't wasting time looking for answers and senior members aren't wasting time helping them. Everything is documented, searchable, and easy to follow, which makes onboarding smoother, collaboration faster, and your entire team more confident in the way they work.
Users
A Knowledge Base gives users instant answers, encouraging them to explore and engage with your product by turning frustration into self-sufficiency and trust in your product.
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Pre-purchasers, evaluators & prospectors: Clear documentation is a sign of professionalism, reliability and good communication, making your product and company more appealing to prospectors. This clear communication helps potential customers evaluate complexity, value and capabilities by providing an insight into the workflows and integrations. Most of the time, you will earn brownie points by just having a visible Knowledge Base from onlookers who can see you are transparent, growing and ready to help.
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New users: Knowledge Base serves as a guided onboarding experience, clearly explaining key workflows. It encourages early success, increasing long-term engagement and interest because users feel confident they have the resources to learn at their own pace.
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Every day users: A Knowledge Base is the gift that keeps on giving. It is an ongoing resource, available for 24/7 troubleshooting, research or feature exploration. This reduces reliance on live support, meaning your team doesn't have to be online around the clock to waste time answering minor questions. Knowledge Bases also ensures high engagement with your existing users, by by encouraging continuous discovery of product capabilities. It demonstrates product reliability because users know help is always available.
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Community & developers: Knowledge Bases are a place for technical documentation, API references and integration guides. It builds trust between your company and developers who require such information. By making this data and answers publicly accessible, it encourages overall collaboration and innovation through the community.
What are the 2 types of Knowledge Bases?
Since there are two distinct groups of people who use Knowledge Bases, there is also two distinct types of Knowledge Bases. Simply put, there is the user-facing Knowledge Bases built for everyday customers who need quick answers, and the technical Knowledge Bases designed for developer & internal team use that dive into the product's infrastructure.
Let's take a look at a company that does both, Slack.
#1: Help Center Knowledge Base
This is the friendly face of our product; Visually engaging, bright colours and lots of pictures. Think of it as your digital front desk: the place where users go when they're curious or stuck. To make it as engaging and interesting to read as possible, it is interactive and intuitive, guiding users to the information they need without feeling like walking through a wall of text. Knowledge is typically separated into categories such as "Getting Started", "Billing", "Account Info" and "Troubleshooting", making navigating articles more structured and efficient to avoid making users more confused than they already are..
A good example of this is Slack's Help Centre, which is colourful and conversational.
Everything from the use of graphics to the clean layout is designed to be non-intimidating, perfect for simple everyday users. Knowledge from this base is accessible; short scannable articles, a search bar and visual cues like screenshots & videos. The main goal is to keep user experience friction-free by providing resources for users to independently solve their own problems, and should be considered a user-friendly extension for your product, not a corporate manual.
#2: Knowledge Base for Developers
On the other side of the spectrum, there is the developer-focused Knowledge Bases. These cover the code-heavy & technical documentation on your product's structure, architecture, functionality and integrations, helping developers & technical engineers with research and your internal team build and maintain your product.
Slack for Developers is a textbook example of the Developer Knowledge Base.
Unlike the colourful beginner-friendly help centre, developer Knowledge Bases are minimalist and well-structured, trading design for content and efficiency. In Slack's example, each document is structured by API type, making it efficient for developers and teams to locate the relevant documentation. The structure of the content typically follows a summary, followed by technical specifics and supporting video instructions & embedded code. Each page flows like a manual, in a way where developers can learn, test and build simultaneously without having to switch tabs. This results in a document that is functional and educational, minimising functional complexity so teams can focus on developing, not searching.
What does a good Knowledge Base look like?
What makes a Good Knowledge Base different from a Bad Knowledge Base?
A clunky Knowledge Base feels like talking to a friend who insists they’re “helping” but just repeats the same thing louder. You eventually stop asking and figure it out yourself out of sheer frustration. The differences between a good & base Knowledge Base may look subtle, but they have an enormous impact on reader's engagement, productivity and brand loyalty. A well-built Knowledge Base builds trust, confidence, and independence. It helps users feel supported even when no one’s online. A bad one, on the other hand, leaves people confused and questioning whether your company even cares, extremely frustrated with the effort it is to find answers.
Remember, your documentation isn’t just an information hub, it's the first impression of how much your team values communication, clarity, and user experience. Here's what separates a good Knowledge Base from a bad one:
A good Knowledge Base is user-focused; A bad one is company-focused.
Good documentation speaks to the user, not about the product. It anticipates real-world problems and explains things in plain language, often using examples and scenarios. For example: “If you can’t log in after resetting your password, try clearing your browser cache.” A bad Knowledge Base sounds like it;s been written from the company’s perspective, full of technical jargon or processes that make sense only to the team that built it. It’s accurate but unhelpful, because it forgets who it’s for.
A good Knowledge Base is proactive; a bad one is reactive.
A good Knowledge Base anticipates issues before they happen. It’s built on feedback, analytics, and patterns from real support tickets. When you notice the same question appearing repeatedly, you document the answer before the next customer asks. A bad one reacts only when users complain. Updates happen in crisis mode, and the same problems repeat. Proactivity turns your Knowledge Base from a static help centre into a living tool that constantly learns and improves.
A good Knowledge Base is integrated; a bad one is buried.
Good Knowledge Bases are woven into the product experience, like linked in tooltips, referenced in chatbots or appear as in-app widget pop-ups. They’re easy to access exactly when users need them. A bad one sits buried in your website footer, far removed from the product itself. Users have to leave what they’re doing just to find help, which disrupts their flow and increases frustration.
Best Practices when writing your Knowledge Base
A Knowledge Base is only as good as the effort and structure behind it. Whether you’re building one from scratch or improving what you already have, following best practices ensures your documentation is clear, useful, and genuinely empowering for users and teams alike.
Keep it simple and searchable
Your users shouldn’t need to learn how to use your Knowledge Base. Make it easy to search, navigate, and understand. Use short, descriptive titles like “How to Reset Your Password” instead of vague ones like “Account Help.” A strong search bar, logical categories, and intuitive tagging go a long way in helping users find what they need fast.
Treat it like a product
Your Knowledge Base shouldn’t be a “set and forget” project. Just like your product needs updates, your documentation does too. As your product grows, new features launch, or your UI changes, your Knowledge Base should evolve with it, so assign people to be responsible for keeping it updated. There’s nothing worse than outdated screenshots or instructions that don’t match what users see on screen, this confusion quickly turns into frustration and annoyance. Build documentation reviews into your release process and treat your Knowledge Base as part of your product, not an afterthought.
Build an ecosystem
People rarely stop after reading one article. Add “Related links,” “Find out more” or “You might also like” sections at the end of each page to guide readers naturally through their learning journey. It keeps them engaged and helps them explore deeper without getting lost. And don’t just hide your Knowledge Base in the footer. Link it in your product interface, onboarding emails, support chatbots, and help widgets. The easier it is to access, the more likely people will actually use it. It should also be integrated seamlessly into your product. The best documentation is there exactly when you need it, without ever having to leave the app.
Make it part of your brand
Your Knowledge Base is often one of the first impressions a user has of your company, so treat it like part of your brand experience. Match your tone, visuals, and design language to your product. If your product is friendly and playful, your documentation should sound that way too. Consistency in tone builds familiarity and trust.
Show, not tell
A good one uses visuals, screenshots, GIFs, or examples to make explanations click instantly. A bad one relies only on text, expecting users to visualise everything themselves. People learn by seeing, not just reading. Adding visual cues also humanise your articles, making them friendly, engaging and easy to follow. A bad one reads like a technical manual full off words and code. It's accurate but lifeless, often leaving users feeling alienated.
include ss of user mastery knowledge base interface
How to write a Knowledge Base (and maintain it)
Every article should follow a consistent format so readers know what to expect.
Here’s a simple, universal structure:
Title
Your title should make it obvious what the article is about at first glance.
Good examples which are short, clear, descriptive and actionable:
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"How to reset your password"
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“Fixing Integration Errors with Slack
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“Adding a New Member to Your Workspace”
Avoid vague statements
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"Password help"
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"Members and Stuff"
Tip: Use natural phrasing people would type into Google or your search bar. “How do I…” and “Where can I…” style titles often perform best.
Introduction & Short Summary
Start your article with a short, friendly paragraph that outlines what the user will achieve by following this guide and why it matters. This gives readers context before diving into the steps.
An example of a friendly, descriptive summary:
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"If you’ve recently updated your account settings and can’t access your dashboard, don’t panic! This guide walks you through how to reset your password in a few easy steps, with no developer help needed."
Your intro and short summary should answer 3 key questions within 2-4 sentences:
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What is this article about?
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Who is it for?
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What is the end result?
Prerequisites
If there’s anything users should do, check, or have access to before starting (like specific permissions, versions, or integrations), list them right here.
Examples:
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This feature is available for Pro Plan users only
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Ensure you have verified your email
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Please save all your work before undergoing this
This prevents unnecessary frustration and sets expectations early.
Step-by-step instructions
This is the core body of the article, where you walk users through exactly what to do. Keep it well-structured, visual and clear.
Format:
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Use numbered lists for sequential tasks
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Include screenshots with highlights, arrows or callouts to confirm progress
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Animated videos or gifs to demonstrate an action is also very helpful, or a short embedded video if the process is complex
Tip: Use consistent styling for interface elements. For example:
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Buttons → bold
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Menu items → italic
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Code →
inline code
This keeps the information scannable, easier to read and more visually engaging.
Explanation and Context
Once users know how to complete the task, add a short explanation that clarifies why things work this way or what’s changed. This section adds depth, showing users you’re not just giving steps, but understanding. It also helps them further understand the workflows, so next time they can sort out similar issues themselves.
Examples:
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"Resetting your password also logs you out of all devices for security reasons. If you use shared devices, remember to reauthenticate your session."
Troubleshooting & Common issues
Anticipate where users might get stuck and address it directly.
You can also use this section to link to other relevant guides and support documents. Integrating your Knowledge Base with the rest of your tools, like Changelogs, Roadmaps and Feature Requests further stimulates engagement and discovery of your site. This improves navigation and SEO by interlinking articles logically.
Feedback prompt
Encourage users to share if the article helped, helping you measure clarity and update accordingly. Encouraging feedback and continuous improvement further engages users and builds rapport with your team.
Examples:
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"Was this article helpful?"
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"Still stuck? Let us know here."
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Or even adding a simple comment box so users can share their thoughts
Metadata & Maintenance Info (For Internal Use)
Include a small footer or sidebar for team reference. It may not always be visible to the public, rather for internal organisation purposes.
Example:
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Last Updated: November 2025
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Author: Tom J.
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Version: v1.2.7
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Reviewed by: Support Team
This ensures accountability and helps your team know when an article needs review.
How to effectively use and maintain your Knowledge Base
Build a feedback loop between support and documentation
If users keep asking the same questions in support tickets, that’s your Knowledge Base telling you it needs an update. A strong feedback loop between your support and documentation teams keeps information fresh and relevant. For example, if 20% of tickets are about a confusing onboarding step, turn that insight into a new “Getting Started” article, then monitor if those tickets drop after publishing it. It’s a simple but powerful cycle: identify, document, review, and refine. Over time, you’ll spend less energy firefighting and more time preventing confusion before it even starts. Your Knowledge Base will become more proactive when you are able to see what users are really confused or concerned about.
User your Knowledge Base to guide improvement
Analytics can tell you exactly how users interact with your Knowledge Base. Check which articles are most visited, which ones have the highest bounce rates, and what people are searching for but not finding. Pair this with direct feedback, like a “Was this helpful?” button can reveal what’s working. Think of it as user testing for your documentation. The goal isn’t just to have articles, but to make sure they’re actually useful.
Invite collaboration
Good documentation is not a one-person job. Involve your whole team, support, product, and marketing, to keep articles accurate and consistent. Encourage feedback from customers and team members alike. When everyone contributes to maintaining clarity, you create a shared culture of transparency and learning, as well as keeping accountability.
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document360
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intercom
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knowledgebase.com
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zoho desk
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zen desk
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maybe one that ".so" (notion based)
Where your Knowledge Base should live
Your Knowledge Base should not be hidden in some dark corner of your website and require users to look for it. Ideally, it should be integrated directly into your product experience and visible. Remember, your Knowledge Base should be everywhere people have questions, not just located somewhere to be found eventually.
Linking from in-app tool tips, help icons and onboarding screens, the best Knowledge Bases are integrated into the user experience, so users can find answers without having to leave what they're doing, keeping the experience fluid and frustration-free. On a website, your Knowledge Base should live on either the header or the footer, staying visible instead of being hidden under a dropdown. The easier it is to find, the more likely users will try to solve their own problems before contacting support. For internal teams, Knowledge Bases should be accessible through your team's workspace (ie Notion) or embedded in collaboration or communication tools (ie Slack), so everyone has direct access to the same documents.
Your Knowledge Base also works best when it lives with your other SaaS tools; Changelogs, Roadmaps and Feature Requests. These tools shouldn’t exist in isolation; they’re all part of one continuous user journey. When a new feature is released in your Changelog, it should link directly to a Knowledge Base article explaining how to use it. When users explore your Roadmap and see what’s coming next, they should be able to click through to related documentation or FAQs for early context. And when users submit feature requests, your team should be able to reference relevant help docs or known workarounds straight from the same hub. Integrating these tools creates a full-circle experience; users can see what’s new, learn how it works, and understand what’s next without ever leaving your product. It’s the difference between scattered communication and a cohesive ecosystem that feels intentional, connected, and transparent.
Where to go when you want to build your Knowledge Base
usermastery
UserMastery is a Knowledge Base platform built for modern SaaS teams that want all their user communication tools in one place. Unlike standalone documentation platforms, UserMastery integrates the Knowledge Base, Changelog, Roadmap, and Feature Requests into a single cohesive system. This means help articles can directly link to feature updates, upcoming releases, or user feedback, creating a continuous and transparent communication loop between teams and customers. Its Knowledge Base feature allows teams to write, organise, and publish help documentation while maintaining the same branding across all tools Designed for accessibility and integration, UserMastery simplifies how teams manage content, making it easier for users to learn, explore, and engage without jumping between multiple tools.
HelpKit
HelpKit is a no-code tool that lets teams turn Notion pages into a fully-functioning Knowledge Base. It's useful for teams who already use Notion for internal documentation, as it removes the need to move and rebuild content elsewhere. Oce connected, HelpKit automatically syncs your Notion workspace and publishes it as a searchable, public-facing help centre with built-in categorisation, custom branding, and analytics. Because content is managed directly in Notion, teams can update or expand documentation without relying on developers. HelpKit’s focus on accessibility and simplicity makes it a good option for lean SaaS teams that want a straightforward, low-maintenance documentation system that still looks professional and integrates smoothly with their existing workflow.
Document360
Document360 is a comprehensive Knowledge Base platform built for teams that need more advanced structure and control over their documentation. Unlike lighter tools that simply display articles, Document360 is designed for scalable content management, supporting both internal and external Knowledge Bases within the same workspace. It offers granular permissions, version control, and category-based organisation, making it suitable for larger teams with complex workflows or multiple product lines. The editor supports formatting and design to match with your brand's iamge, code blocks, and media embedding, allowing articles to be both technical and user-friendly. Document360 also includes analytics to track article performance and search behaviour, helping teams identify content gaps and improve readability over time. It’s best suited for established SaaS companies or enterprises that need a feature-rich, customisable platform to maintain consistency and control across their documentation ecosystem.
Build Knowledge Bases with More Answers and Less Questions
Give your users answers before they even have to ask. User Mastery’s Help Documentation turns your knowledge into clean, organised and easy-to-update documents stored in one searchable database. Less support noise and happier users, because support shouldn’t be a full-time job.
Talk about all your new updates, no matter how small.