Product requirements document (PRD) template

What is a Product Requirements Document?

A product requirements document (PRD) is a living, detailed guide to your product’s intended features, functionality, and purpose. Product managers (PMs) typically create and own PRDs to gain clarity and alignment with stakeholders around:

• What you’re building
• Who you’re building for
• Why you’re building this (i.e. what’s the added value?)
• How you plan to take this to market

A well-structured PRD helps product managers, developers, and designers stay on the same page and reduce miscommunication. In this guide, we’ll walk you through what a PRD is, how to write one, and provide a free PRD template to help you build better products faster.

Overview of PRD Sections

A well-structured PRD serves as a blueprint for product development, ensuring that all stakeholders have a clear understanding of the product’s vision, objectives, and requirements. It acts as a single source of truth that aligns teams across product, engineering, and marketing. A strong PRD includes:

• Executive summary: High-level overview of the product and its goals.
• Objectives & goals: The problem the product solves and success metrics.
• Target audience & personas: Who the product is designed for.
• Key features & requirements: Core functionalities and technical specifications.
• User stories & use cases: Scenarios illustrating product use.
• Technical & design considerations: Constraints, integrations, and dependencies.
• Milestones & timeline: Roadmap of key deliverables.

How to write a PRD (Step-by-step guide)

Creating a well-structured PRD is essential for ensuring clear communication between product managers, developers, and stakeholders. A step-by-step approach helps break down complex ideas into actionable requirements, aligning teams toward a shared vision.

The following guide provides a structured method to craft a PRD that is comprehensive, concise, and effective.

1. Define the product vision – Explain why this product should exist.
2. Identify key stakeholders – Outline who is responsible for what.
3. Outline technical and design considerations – Address system limitations.
4. Prioritize features – Highlight must-have vs. nice-to-have features.
5. Establish success metrics – Define what success looks like.
6. Review and iterate – Continuously update based on feedback.

What’s inside the Product Requirements Document template?

We’ve broken this PRD template down into three parts: Product/feature overview, solutions, and assumptions/risks.

Part one includes:

• Mission. This should be your elevator pitch. Keep it concise, specific, and use-case oriented.
• Target audience.Help your readers get a feel for what types of businesses will end up using your features by including an overview of the problem your PRD is looking to solve.
• Use cases.Describe how your target audience will use the product to solve their pain points.
• Jobs to be done (JTBD). We give you a formula to describe the different JTBD this solves.
• How this supports your strategy. Make sure you’re investing in the right things by answering these questions.
• Product outcomes. What are the high-level business objectives (like increasing revenue, reducing churn, or cutting costs) you’re aiming to achieve? What product metrics will you track to determine the product’s success?

Part two includes:

• Your ideal state. In a perfect world, how would you describe the customer’s new experience? What can they do? How do they feel?
• Test, release, and iteration plan.What are you NOT building? What’s out of scope? What alternatives did you consider?

Part three includes:

• Assumptions and risks.Jot down costs, timing, etc here. This is also a great place to jot down anything that remotely worries you about the project.
• Teams and cross-functional dependencies. What team(s) could be cross-functional partners or dependencies? 
• Go-to-market (GTM) launch. How will you launch this product or feature to the market with your cross-functional counterparts? 
• Open questions. List anything that’s rummaging around your brain as it relates to this product or initiatives that drove this project. 
• Change log. Track any notable changes made to this project, like bug fixes or feature additions. 

How to use this Product Requirements Document template

1. Create your PRD. Make your own copy of the PDR template above, rename your file, and update proper sharing settings. 
2. Fill out your first draft of the PRD. We’ve included the different sections required for this template, with descriptions on how to fill out each section. It’s totally okay to leave sections blank and keep this private until it’s ready for review.
3. Gather feedback and approval. Spend time getting input and alignment from your teams & stakeholders. Then, hold an in-person or async review to make decisions around key decisions and get approval to build your product/feature. Once this is complete, you can share with your design and engineering counterparts.
4. Continuously update. As time goes on and your work evolves, keep this PRD fresh and accurate.

PRD vs MRD vs BRD (Comparison table)

Understanding the differences between a Product Requirements Document (PRD), Market Requirements Document (MRD), and Business Requirements Document (BRD) is essential for aligning product development, market positioning, and business objectives. The table below provides a clear comparison to help teams determine which document best suits their needs.

Common PRD mistakes & best practices

Even the best Product Requirements Documents (PRDs) can fall short if common pitfalls are not addressed. A well-crafted PRD should be clear, concise, and adaptable to evolving user needs. By recognizing and avoiding these frequent mistakes, teams can create more effective PRDs that drive better collaboration and product outcomes. Below are some of the most common mistakes and best practices to keep in mind.

Common mistakes to avoid:

• Including excessive detail that makes the document overwhelming and difficult to follow.
• Failing to define measurable success metrics, leading to unclear performance evaluation.
• Excluding key stakeholders from the process, resulting in misalignment between teams.
• Neglecting to update the PRD as development progresses, causing outdated requirements.

Best practices for an effective PRD:

• Maintain flexibility so the document can adapt to user and business needs.
• Focus on user needs by clearly outlining how the product solves customer pain points.
• Incorporate visual aids like diagrams and mockups to improve clarity and communication.