Orchidea

Orchidea is an innovation and idea-management platform for organizations that want employees, customers or partners to contribute and develop proposals. It best suits teams able to run structured campaigns and keep ideas moving through review. Its collection and evaluation options span several workflows, but facilitator-based paid plans can make expansion expensive.

Overview

Orchidea gives organizations three ways to gather ideas: time-limited challenges focused on a topic, ongoing channels for a team or area of work, and AI-boosted workshops that guide participants from brainstorming to selection. This range can support both a targeted campaign and a continuing improvement process. It is less compelling for teams seeking only a lightweight suggestion box, since the platform’s breadth is most useful when people are ready to facilitate and evaluate contributions.

Ideas can be discussed in a social-style feed using comments, reactions, @mentions and hashtags. Evaluation workflows, scoring, voting, custom fields and duplicate detection add structure to review. Analytics and reports are intended to help organizations understand their innovation process, while their usefulness will depend on teams maintaining that process consistently.

Key features

Collection, collaboration and review

Challenges focus participation on a defined subject for a limited time and can involve employees, customers or other stakeholders. Channels keep collection open for a team, site, product or service, with processes suited to each channel. Workshops add a guided route from idea sharing to development and selection. Together, these formats provide useful flexibility, although organizations should choose the format that matches their capacity to manage participation rather than opening more routes than they can sustain.

The discussion feed lets contributors build on proposals, while scoring and voting help teams compare them. Custom fields and duplicate detection can support more orderly intake. These tools address different stages of idea management; they do not remove the need for people to decide which proposals deserve action.

Mobile, identity and security

Native Android and iOS apps let users create and comment on proposals, take pictures and save drafts. Single sign-on supports ADFS, Entra ID, Google identity provider, Okta and custom providers. SCIM can synchronize user profiles and status with Entra ID, Okta or a custom identity provider, making Enterprise more relevant to organizations that need managed provisioning.

Orchidea says it commissions annual third-party security audits, encrypts data at rest and in transit, and maintains real-time backups with 30-day retention. Customer content is hosted in the EU, with a US hosting option for Enterprise. The company also says its AI providers are prohibited from using customer data to train AI models.

Pricing

The Free plan costs nothing, requires no credit card and includes up to 15 members, unlimited open and public channels, challenges and workshops, 5,000 AI credits per member, unlimited visitors and self-serve support. It is a meaningful way to try several workflows with a small group, but its member cap makes it a limited foundation for larger internal programs.

Challenge costs $695 a month, includes five facilitators and unlimited members, and charges +$22/month per additional facilitator. It is limited to innovation challenges, requires a minimum subscription of three months and includes SSO (SAML 2.0). This is the paid entry point for organizations that need large participation in campaigns but do not need channels or workshops; the facilitator allowance and minimum term matter for smaller or occasional projects.

Professional costs $1,065 a month, includes 15 facilitators and charges +$30/month per additional facilitator. It has an annual billing cycle and adds channels and workshops, full AI features, idea management automation and invention disclosure management. It is aimed at organizations running a broader, ongoing program; the annual commitment and higher price are a substantial step up from Challenge.

Enterprise has custom pricing. It adds real-time AI translations, multiple workspaces and languages, SCIM, on-premise and private cloud hosting, priority support, and a designated account and customer success team. It suits organizations with those deployment, language or support needs, but is not a price-transparent option.

Platforms

Orchidea is available on the web and as native Android and iOS apps. The mobile apps cover proposal creation and comments, photo capture and draft saving, while web access supports the broader platform.

Who it's for

Orchidea is a strong fit for organizations involving employees, customers or partners in innovation and able to assign facilitators to campaigns, workshops or ongoing channels. Free can suit a small group exploring structured idea management; Challenge fits campaign-led programs, while Professional is better aligned with teams needing channels, workshops and automation. Organizations that need managed user provisioning, multiple workspaces or private hosting should consider Enterprise. Teams that only want a simple, low-cost collection tool may find the paid facilitator model and structured workflows excessive.

Pros and cons

• Pros: Challenges, channels and guided workshops cover time-limited campaigns as well as ongoing collection.
• Pros: Discussion, evaluation workflows, scoring, voting, custom fields and duplicate detection support collaboration and structured review.
• Pros: The Free plan includes all three collection formats, up to 15 members and unlimited visitors without requiring a credit card.
• Pros: Enterprise offers SCIM, multiple workspaces and language support, and on-premise or private cloud hosting.
• Cons: Challenge is restricted to campaigns and has a three-month minimum, so it is not a flexible paid route to all workflows.
• Cons: Professional requires annual billing and costs $1,065 a month before additional facilitator charges.
• Cons: Free is capped at 15 members, and its 5,000 AI credits are allocated per member.

Alternatives

For a broader comparison, browse Idea Management Software. Choose Innovation Cloud instead if a free plan capped at 15 users and 100 ideas, or its $27 a month PRO 20 plan with unlimited ideas for 20 users, better matches your needs. Ideanote is another freemium option; its free plan is described as supporting up to 10 users and 250 ideas, with a conflicting description of up to 100 ideas, so check the applicable cap before choosing it.

Viima may suit a smaller start: its free plan allows up to 10 users and one board, and it also offers a free trial. Brightidea is worth considering for its paid Memo Team Site plan at $99 a month, which includes unlimited memo creation with an AI writing tool and unlimited contributors and evaluators. GI2MO is a free alternative for readers considering a free, self-hosted option.

ITONICS Ideation is another option, with a Core plan including 10 full users and unlimited viewing users. KaiNexus offers a Fundamentals version positioned for smaller teams and single sites. Planview AdaptiveWork is a paid alternative for readers willing to contact an account executive for pricing.

Verdict

Choose Orchidea if your organization needs more than idea intake and can put facilitators behind campaigns, workshops or continuous channels. Its strongest case is the combination of collection formats with tools for collaboration and evaluation, plus a free plan that allows a small team to begin without a card. Look elsewhere if you need broad workflows at a modest paid price, cannot commit annually to Professional, or do not need a facilitator-led innovation process.