Integration Strategy Template for PMs

Score each integration on three dimensions: (1) Customer demand (% of customers requesting it, weighted by segment value), (2) Strategic value (competitive differentiation, retention impact, new market access), (3) Engineering effort (build time, maintenance burden). Use the [RICE Calculator](/tools/rice-calculator) to formalize the scoring. Prioritize integrations that are high demand + high strategic value, regardless of engineering effort. Low-demand integrations should use middleware or partner approaches.

Build native integrations first. A developer platform (public API, app marketplace, partner program) requires significant investment in API quality, documentation, developer support, and ecosystem management. You need at least 5-10 native integrations and 1,000+ customers before a platform approach generates meaningful partner interest. Start with native integrations for the top 5 tools in your customer stack, then invest in the API platform when partner demand is proven.

Three layers: (1) Monitoring: automated tests that run daily against each integration's API endpoints. (2) Alerting: notify the integration team within 1 hour of a breaking change. (3) Versioning: support the previous API version for 30 days while updating. Budget 15-25% of integration engineering time for maintenance. The [Product Strategy Handbook](/strategy-guide) covers how to plan for platform dependencies.

For the top 5-10 tools in your customer stack, build native. For the next 10-20, evaluate case by case (native if strategic, partner-built if not). For the long tail (50+), rely on middleware (Zapier, Make) and customer-built (API). A typical integration portfolio at scale: 20% native, 30% partner-built, 50% middleware/customer-built.

Three models: (1) Include integrations in all plans (most common for mid-market SaaS). (2) Gate specific integrations by tier (e.g., Salesforce sync only on Enterprise). (3) Charge per integration (rare, usually for data-heavy or compute-heavy integrations). Model 1 maximizes adoption and retention. Model 2 works if the gated integration serves only the enterprise segment. Model 3 works only for integrations with significant infrastructure costs. The [Pricing Strategy Template](/templates/pricing-strategy-template) covers pricing model selection in depth. ---