Living Spec
Living Spec provides a collaborative document-tree platform that lets product and project teams create, manage, and maintain software specifications from concept through delivery. It serves product managers, designers, engineers, and QA professionals through a freemium, per-collaborator SaaS subscription model with AI-assisted authoring and bi-directional integrations.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2020
- HeadquartersGilbert, United States
- Headcount1–10
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What Living Spec does
Living Spec Inc. is a privately held software company founded in 2020 by Dylan Schiemann and Nemanja Tosic and headquartered in Gilbert, Arizona (incorporated in Oregon). It builds a collaborative platform designed to help product and project teams create, manage, and maintain product specifications from early concept through production and maintenance. The company's purpose-built information model is the Collaborative Document Tree — a hierarchical structure that embeds pages, tasks, files, comments, references, and users inside a unified "Spec" document rather than splitting them across separate tools. The platform is targeted at product managers, designers, engineers, and QA professionals, with secondary use among project teams and open-source projects needing public, cloneable specifications.
The product surface includes a rich content editor, Dynamic Pages that auto-aggregate content from criteria-based filters, Contextual Sidebars showing relationships and impact across the document tree, a Time Travel / version-history system with before-and-after diff views, Snippets for reusable text patterns, Account Fusion for multi-email profile management, and Email Parsing that converts inbound messages and attachments into child pages. AI features — AI Sentence Completion, Speech-to-Text Dictation, Audio/Video Transcription, and ChatGPT-powered Chat Prompts — are integrated into the editor with a stated policy of not training on user data and offering sandboxed LLM options. Bi-directional integrations connect Living Spec to Linear, Atlassian Jira, Asana, Slack, GitHub Issues, Basecamp ToDos, Pivotal Tracker, Shortcut, and ClickUp. A Figma integration is publicly listed as next on the roadmap, alongside planned Apple SSO and Okta SSO support.
Living Spec operates a product-led, self-serve go-to-market model with a freemium tier (free for open-source projects and a 3-collaborator free tier for small teams) and three paid plans — SpecSter at $10, SpecCer at $20, and SpecTacular at $50 per collaborator per month — billed monthly with annual options. A curated Partner Program extends reach into enterprise implementations, and the product is monetized through external billing on salesbricks.com. The company is founder-owned, has 1–10 employees, has not publicly disclosed any institutional venture funding or revenue, and shows active product development and marketing activity through at least March 2025.
Living Spec firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Living Spec
- Legal name
- Living Spec Inc.
- Website
- https://livingspec.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2020
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 1–10 employees
- Short description
- Living Spec provides a collaborative document-tree platform that lets product and project teams create, manage, and maintain software specifications from concept through delivery. It serves product managers, designers, engineers, and QA professionals through a freemium, per-collaborator SaaS subscription model with AI-assisted authoring and bi-directional integrations.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Where Living Spec is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Gilbert
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices1 record
Markets served
Living Spec business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Technology or R&D, Personnel, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales, Operations
Revenue model
- Subscription Plans: Per-collaborator monthly subscription model with 5 tiers ranging from free to $50/collaborator/month. Collaborators are users who can make changes to specs. Annual billing available.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Freemium | Monthly | Free tier for open source projects |
| Freemium | Monthly | Free tier for small teams |
| Subscription | Monthly | Entry paid tier for teams |
| Subscription | Monthly | Mid-tier team plan |
| Subscription | Monthly | Premium team plan |
Go-to-market motion2 records
Distribution channels3 records
Marketing channels5 records
Living Spec product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Living Spec is a collaborative SaaS platform that helps product and project teams create, deliver, and maintain products by organizing specifications in hierarchical documents called Specs, which embed pages, tasks, files, and comments in a single source of truth. The platform integrates AI-powered capabilities (sentence completion, speech-to-text dictation, audio/video transcription, and ChatGPT chat prompts), version history with rollback, and bi-directional integrations with task management tools such as Linear, Jira, Asana, and Slack.
Product overview
Living Spec is a single unified collaborative platform for product and project specification management, designed to help teams create, deliver, and maintain products from messy ideas to final delivery. The platform centers on a flexible document architecture called a 'Spec' (Collaborative Document Tree) that contains hierarchical pages, tasks, files, comments, and references. Core integrated capabilities include AI-powered features (sentence completion, speech-to-text dictation, transcription, and ChatGPT chat prompts), version history control, tagging systems, and contextual insights with auto-generated graphs. The platform includes built-in integrations with task management tools (Asana, Jira, Linear, Slack, GitHub Issues, Basecamp ToDos, Pivotal Tracker, Shortcut, ClickUp), supports email parsing for content import, and offers reusable Snippets and Cloneable Spec templates. Access is structured through tiered plans (OpenSpec, SpecTator, SpecSter, SpecCer, SpecTacular) with varying collaboration limits and feature access, plus a Partner Program connecting users with specialized implementation support.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Products and services
- Living Spec Platform A unified collaborative SaaS platform for product and project specification management. The platform centers on a flexible document architecture called a Spec (Collaborative Document Tree) containing hierarchical pages, tasks, files, comments, links, and users edited in real time. It includes AI features (sentence completion, speech-to-text dictation, audio/video transcription, ChatGPT chat prompts), version history with Time Travel rollback, dynamic pages, contextual sidebars with auto-generated graphs, email parsing, snippets, cloneable templates, tagging, smart notifications, sharing/permissions, and bi-directional integrations with task and communication tools.
- Partner Program
Quantifiable outcome
- Reduction in wasted time, energy, and money from miscommunication
- +1 more outcomes
Companies that use Living Spec
Customer profileSegments4 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
Living Spec technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- No
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration13 records
AI capability4 records
Feature15 records
Living Spec partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Six partnerships are on record, tiered core.
- LinearcoreBi-directional integration with Linear allowing users to import and/or sync tasks with Living Spec Documents. Integration gathers user data, task data, product data, project data, and metadata from Linear.
- SlackcoreBi-directional Slack integration allowing users to forward Slack messages to any page within a Living Spec Document. Can also create tasks directly from Slack using integration bot or message shortcut.
- Atlassian JiracoreIntegration with Atlassian Jira allowing import and/or bi-directional sync of issues with Living Spec Documents.
- AsanacoreIntegration with Asana allowing users to import and/or sync tasks with Living Spec Documents.
- GitHubcoreIntegration with GitHub issues allowing import of issues into Living Spec Documents.
- GooglecoreGoogle authentication integration for user registration and login. Also supports Google Single Sign-On (SSO) for account access.
Scale indicators1 record
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights5 records
Living Spec competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- Notion: Notion is a collaborative workspace combining documents, databases, wikis, and project management. It directly competes with Living Spec for product, design, and engineering team documentation and spec workflows, and offers overlapping AI features (Notion AI) at scale.
- Coda: Coda is a collaborative doc-plus-app platform with building blocks (tables, buttons, automations) used heavily by product teams for specs, project trackers, and lightweight apps. It targets the same buyer as Living Spec and competes on flexibility of document-as-database workflows.
- Productboard: Productboard is a product management platform for prioritizing roadmaps, capturing customer feedback, and managing specs. It overlaps with Living Spec's product-team buyer and spec-centric workflow, though it focuses more on prioritization and feedback aggregation than document authoring.
- Aha!: Aha! is a product roadmap, strategy, and requirements management suite used by product managers for PRDs and specs. It competes directly with Living Spec for the spec-writing portion of the product lifecycle and is often evaluated in the same buying process.
- Linear: Linear is an issue-tracking and project-management tool favored by product and engineering teams. While Living Spec has a bi-directional Linear integration, Linear's expanding docs/initiative features (Linear Initiatives, Projects) increasingly overlap with Living Spec's spec-management positioning.
- Slab: Slab is a team knowledge base and wiki product targeting product, engineering, and operations teams. It competes with Living Spec's collaborative documentation layer, emphasizing search, version history, and integrations similar to Living Spec's feature set.
- Craft Docs: Craft is a visually polished collaborative documents and notes app for Apple platforms and the web, with strong block-based authoring and AI features. It targets a similar knowledge-worker and product-team audience and is often considered alongside Living Spec for spec and documentation use cases.
Broad incumbents
- Atlassian Confluence: Confluence is the dominant enterprise wiki and team-documentation product, deeply integrated with Jira. It is the incumbent Living Spec must displace in product-team documentation use cases, with the advantage of massive distribution through Atlassian's enterprise base and bundled Atlassian Intelligence features.
- ClickUp: ClickUp is an all-in-one productivity platform combining docs, tasks, whiteboards, goals, and chat. It is an existing Living Spec integration partner and a broader incumbent that bundles spec-style documents into a larger project-management suite at competitive price points.
Emerging players
- Height: Height is an AI-autonomous project management tool with integrated docs, tasks, and chat for product teams. As a smaller emerging player with a similar product-team focus and AI-forward roadmap, it competes for the same early-adopter segment Living Spec targets.
Market position
Strengths4 records
Weaknesses4 records
Competitive moat5 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights6 records
Customer concentration
Living Spec social profiles
Digital presenceLiving Spec financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Living Spec leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles2 records
Living Spec funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds1 record
Investors1 record
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Living Spec M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Living Spec
What does Living Spec do?
Living Spec is a collaborative SaaS platform that helps product and project teams create, deliver, and maintain products by organizing specifications in hierarchical documents called Specs, which embed pages, tasks, files, and comments in a single source of truth. The platform integrates AI-powered capabilities (sentence completion, speech-to-text dictation, audio/video transcription, and ChatGPT chat prompts), version history with rollback, and bi-directional integrations with task management tools such as Linear, Jira, Asana, and Slack.
Is Living Spec a public or private company?
Living Spec is a private company. It is classified as founder individual operated bootstrapped and is currently operating.
When was Living Spec founded?
Living Spec was founded in 2020. It employs 1 to 10 people.
Where is Living Spec based?
Living Spec is headquartered in Gilbert, United States, in the North America region.
How does Living Spec make money?
One revenue line is on record: subscription Plans.
Who are Living Spec's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are Notion, Coda, Productboard, Aha!, Linear, Slab and Craft Docs. Broad incumbents are Atlassian Confluence and ClickUp. Height is listed as an emerging player.
Does Living Spec have an API?
No public API is recorded for Living Spec.