Value Proposition Canvas
The tool that zooms into the two most important blocks of your business model — who the customer is and why they'd buy — and forces them to fit.
No email required · Free forever · Print-ready A4 landscape
What is the Value Proposition Canvas?
Created by Alexander Osterwalder as a companion to the Business Model Canvas, the Value Proposition Canvas expands two of its nine blocks — Customer Segments and Value Propositions — into a structured side-by-side comparison. On the right, a profile of your customer: their jobs, pains, and gains. On the left, a map of your offer: products, pain relievers, and gain creators.
The point is fit: when your pain relievers address the customer's severest pains and your gain creators produce the gains they care most about, you have a value proposition worth building. When they don't line up, the canvas shows you exactly where the mismatch is — before you've written code.
Customer Profile
Customer Jobs
What is your customer trying to get done?
Functional jobs (complete a task), social jobs (look good, gain status), and emotional jobs (feel secure, reduce anxiety). Rank them by how important they are to the customer — not to you.
Pains
What annoys them before, during, and after?
Frustrations with current solutions, risks they fear, obstacles that stop them from starting. Severity matters: a mild annoyance won't drive a purchase; a burning pain will.
Gains
What outcomes do they want?
Required gains (table stakes), expected gains, desired gains, and unexpected gains that would delight them. The best value propositions deliver on gains customers can't yet articulate.
Value Map
Products & Services
What do you offer?
The list of what your value proposition is built around — the products and services that help your customer complete their jobs.
Pain Relievers
Which pains do you eliminate?
Explicitly how your offer alleviates specific customer pains. Great pain relievers focus intensely on the few pains that matter most rather than lightly touching all of them.
Gain Creators
Which gains do you create?
How your offer produces the outcomes your customer expects or desires. Like pain relievers, concentrate on the gains with the highest relevance.
How to Use the Value Proposition Canvas
Profile the Customer First
Fill the right side from evidence — customer interviews, not assumptions — and rank jobs, pains, and gains
Map Your Value
Fill the left side honestly — which pains and gains does your product actually address today?
Check the Fit
Do your relievers hit the top-ranked pains? If not, change the product — or the customer segment
Get Your Free Value Proposition Canvas
One page, six blocks, and the honest question at the center of every startup: does what you're building fit what they actually need?
No email required · Free forever · Adapted from strategyzer.com