Notion vs. Confluence vs. Google Docs for Product Marketing

"Let's move everything to Notion. It'll be way better organized."

I said this with complete confidence. We'd been using Google Docs for product marketing documentation, and it was chaos. Notion would fix everything.

Six months later, I was saying: "Let's move everything to Confluence. Notion doesn't integrate well with our Atlassian stack."

Six months after that: "Let's move back to Notion. Confluence is too complicated."

Eighteen months. Three migrations. Hundreds of hours. Same problem the entire time: disorganized documentation that nobody could find.

The tool wasn't the problem. Our documentation strategy was.

I'd spent 18 months optimizing the container while ignoring what was inside it. Great documentation tools executing a mediocre documentation strategy delivered mediocre results.

Here's what I learned after migrating PMM docs three times in 18 months.

The Google Docs Chaos

Before Notion, our product marketing documentation lived in Google Drive.

The structure (generous word for it):

• "Product Marketing" folder (247 files)
• "Launches" folder (83 files, unclear which were current)
• "Messaging" folder (41 files, multiple versions of everything)
• "Competitive" folder (109 files, half outdated)
• "Sales Enablement" folder (156 files)
• Random docs shared via email (lost after 30 days)
• Important docs in individual drives (left with employees who quit)

Finding anything required:

1. Search Google Drive for keywords
2. Review 15-20 results
3. Open 5-6 docs to find the current version
4. Ask in Slack: "Which messaging doc is current?"
5. Wait for response
6. Use the version someone sends you (which may or may not be current)

New hires spent weeks learning where things were. Cross-functional partners gave up and just asked us directly.

During one product launch, I found 6 different versions of the positioning doc. Five were outdated. One was current. They all looked identical until you read them carefully.

The breaking point: Our Head of Product asked for our messaging framework. I sent him a link. He responded: "This doc hasn't been updated in 18 months. Is this really current?"

It wasn't. The current version was in someone's personal drive. The shared version was outdated.

I told my boss: "We need better documentation tools. Google Docs doesn't work at this scale."

She agreed. I started evaluating Notion and Confluence.

Migration 1: Google Docs → Notion

Notion's demo looked perfect.

What they showed:

• Beautiful hierarchical organization (workspaces, pages, sub-pages)
• Linked databases (tag once, reference everywhere)
• Templates (standardize how we create docs)
• Powerful search
• Clean, modern interface

This would solve our Google Docs chaos.

I spent 40 hours migrating:

• Created workspace structure (Messaging, Launches, Competitive, Enablement)
• Built database for each category
• Migrated 300+ docs from Google Drive
• Created templates for common doc types
• Set up permissions
• Trained the team

It looked beautiful. Everything was organized. The hierarchy made sense.

For about 6 weeks.

Then reality set in.

Month 2 with Notion: The Cracks Appear

Problem 1: Nobody could find anything

The hierarchical organization made sense to me (I'd built it). But nobody else understood it.

"Where's the Q3 launch messaging?" someone asked.

"In the Launches workspace, Q3 database, Messaging page," I said.

"I don't see a Q3 database. I see Launch Archive, Active Launches, and Planning."

"Active Launches. Q3 is active."

"But we're in Q4 now. Is Q3 still active?"

"It's active until the launch retrospective is complete."

"When is that?"

This conversation happened 10+ times per week. My organizational logic wasn't other people's organizational logic.

Problem 2: Information got duplicated

Notion made it easy to create pages. Too easy.

Someone would start creating launch messaging and think: "Should this go in Launches > Active > Product X, or Messaging > Product Lines > Product X?"

They'd pick one. Someone else would pick the other. Now we had two sources of truth.

Notion's linking features should have prevented this. But they required people to know other pages existed and remember to link them.

Nobody did.

Problem 3: Templates created bloat

I'd created templates for messaging docs, launch plans, competitive briefs, and enablement materials.

Great idea in theory. In practice, people filled out every field in the template whether it was relevant or not.

A simple competitive update became a 6-page document because the template had 6 sections. Nobody read 6-page competitive updates, so the information got lost.

Problem 4: Integration gaps

Our engineering team used Confluence. Our sales team used Salesforce. Our design team used Figma.

Notion didn't integrate with any of them well. So we had:

• Product specs in Confluence
• PMM specs in Notion
• Sales enablement in Salesforce
• Design assets in Figma

Nobody wanted to check 4 different tools, so they just asked us directly.

Month 6 with Notion: Engineering Wants Confluence

Our VP Engineering made a request: "Can you put product marketing docs in Confluence? Nobody on the engineering team wants to context-switch to Notion."

Valid point. Engineering lived in Jira and Confluence. Product lived in Confluence. Design reviewed docs in Confluence.

PMM was the only team using Notion.

I evaluated the tradeoff:

• Stay in Notion: PMM has beautiful docs, but nobody else uses them
• Move to Confluence: Docs are where cross-functional partners already work

The decision was obvious. I announced we were migrating to Confluence.

Migration 2: Notion → Confluence

I spent 35 hours migrating:

• Rebuilt workspace structure in Confluence (spaces, pages, child pages)
• Exported from Notion, imported to Confluence (formatting broke constantly)
• Fixed formatting manually for key docs
• Rebuilt templates in Confluence syntax
• Trained the team (again)

Month 1 with Confluence: Great! Engineering team started referencing PMM docs directly. Cross-functional collaboration improved.

Month 3 with Confluence: Why is this so complicated?

Confluence is designed for engineering documentation. It's powerful but complex.

Problem 1: Editing was clunky

Notion's editor is clean and intuitive. Confluence's editor is powerful but requires learning Confluence-specific syntax and shortcuts.

Simple tasks (adding a table, embedding an image, creating a section) took longer in Confluence.

Problem 2: Organization was rigid

Notion's flexibility is a weakness (too many ways to organize). Confluence's structure is a strength (clear hierarchy).

But that rigidity created problems when we needed to reference the same content in multiple places. We ended up duplicating pages or creating complex linking structures.

Problem 3: Sales and marketing teams hated it

Engineering loved Confluence. Sales and marketing teams thought it was overcomplicated.

"Why can't you just use Google Docs?" our VP Sales asked. "Confluence is a pain to navigate."

Problem 4: Templates were harder to maintain

Confluence templates are powerful but require macro knowledge to build well. Every template update required careful testing to ensure macros still worked.

I was spending 2-3 hours per month maintaining templates instead of creating content.

Month 9: Migrating Back to Notion

After 9 months in Confluence, we'd solved the engineering integration problem but created new problems for sales and marketing.

I talked to my boss: "Engineering uses our docs occasionally. Sales and marketing use them daily. Should we optimize for the occasional user or the daily user?"

We decided to move back to Notion and solve the engineering integration differently (automated sync of key docs to Confluence).

I spent another 30 hours migrating back.

Total migration time over 18 months: 105 hours on moving docs between tools.

And at the end, we still had the same core problems:

• People couldn't find docs
• Duplicate versions existed
• Docs got outdated
• Cross-functional partners bypassed docs and asked directly

The tool wasn't the problem. Our documentation strategy was.

What I Learned: Tools Don't Fix Strategy

After three migrations, I realized something embarrassing:

I'd spent 105 hours migrating docs between tools. I'd spent maybe 10 hours thinking about documentation strategy.

What is our documentation strategy? I couldn't answer.

Our implicit strategy was: "Create docs for everything, organize them somehow, hope people find them."

That strategy fails regardless of tool.

The fundamental issue: We had too many docs, unclear hierarchy, no ownership model, and no maintenance process.

Notion vs. Confluence vs. Google Docs didn't matter. All three tools could execute a good strategy or a bad strategy. We had a bad strategy.

Building an Actual Documentation Strategy

I stopped thinking about tools and started thinking about strategy.

Question 1: What documentation do we actually need?

I audited our 400+ docs. Categories:

• Currently used and maintained: 45 docs
• Outdated but still referenced: 80 docs
• Completely unused (nobody accessed in 6+ months): 275 docs

68% of our docs were unused. We'd been migrating 275 docs nobody read.

Decision: Delete unused docs. Archive outdated docs. Maintain only the 45 current docs.

Question 2: How should docs be organized?

I asked 10 people: "How do you think about finding PMM docs?"

Their mental models:

• "By product" (50% of responses)
• "By what I'm trying to do" (30%)
• "By recent launches" (20%)

My organizational hierarchy (by PMM function: messaging, competitive, enablement) matched none of these.

Decision: Reorganize by product and workflow (launch, enablement, competitive) instead of PMM function.

Question 3: Who owns maintaining docs?

Before: Unclear. Docs got created, never maintained, became outdated.

Decision: Every doc has an owner. Owner reviews quarterly. Outdated docs get archived.

Question 4: What's our update process?

Before: When someone remembered to update a doc, they'd update it. Maybe.

Decision: Launch messaging updates during launch. Competitive docs update when competitors change (tracked in competitive intelligence system). Enablement updates when sales requests.

This wasn't a tool problem. This was a process problem.

The Consolidated Platform Alternative

After defining our documentation strategy, I realized something else:

Most of our docs were generated from other sources:

• Messaging docs came from messaging frameworks
• Launch docs came from launch plans
• Competitive docs came from competitive intelligence
• Enablement docs came from sales needs

We were maintaining docs in Notion/Confluence/Google Docs that were derivatives of content in other tools.

Example flow:

1. Build messaging framework (in separate tool or doc)
2. Create messaging doc (in Notion/Confluence)
3. Build launch plan (in Asana)
4. Create launch summary doc (in Notion/Confluence)
5. Update competitive intelligence (in Klue)
6. Create competitive brief (in Notion/Confluence)

Every step required manual transfer and maintenance.

What if documentation was auto-generated from source instead of manually maintained?

I started researching consolidated platforms that generate documentation from source content.

For teams facing similar documentation overhead, platforms like Segment8 demonstrate an alternative approach:

• Build messaging frameworks → auto-generate messaging docs
• Create launch plans → auto-generate launch summaries
• Update competitive intelligence → auto-generate competitive briefs

Instead of maintaining 45 separate docs, this approach maintains 10 source frameworks that generate 45 docs automatically.

When source updates, docs update automatically.

No migration between tools. No duplicate versions. No outdated docs.

How the Consolidated Approach Works

The workflow typically looks like this:

Setup phase:

• Build messaging frameworks for products (~4 hours)
• Create launch templates (~1 hour)
• Import competitive intelligence (~2 hours)

Documentation generation:

• Messaging docs generate from frameworks (~5 minutes)
• Launch summaries generate from launch plans (~5 minutes)
• Competitive briefs generate from intelligence (~5 minutes)

Instead of manually creating and maintaining separate docs, the platform generates them from source.

The update advantage:

• Update messaging framework for one product (~20 minutes)
• In Notion: Would require manually updating 6 separate docs (~2 hours)
• In consolidated platform: All 6 docs regenerate automatically (0 additional time)

Cross-functional delivery:

• Engineering needs product specs: Auto-generated from messaging frameworks
• Sales needs battle cards: Auto-generated from competitive intelligence
• Marketing needs launch summaries: Auto-generated from launch plans

Instead of maintaining separate docs for each audience, one source generates multiple outputs.

The Real Cost of Documentation Tools

After testing the consolidated approach, I calculated total cost:

Google Docs:

• Tool cost: $12/user/month × 5 PMM team = $720/year
• Time maintaining docs: 8 hours/week × 50 weeks × $80/hour = $32,000/year
• Time finding docs: 2 hours/week × 15 cross-functional partners × $80/hour × 50 weeks = $120,000/year
• Total: $152,720/year

Notion:

• Tool cost: $8/user/month × 5 PMM team = $480/year
• Time maintaining docs: 7 hours/week × 50 weeks × $80/hour = $28,000/year
• Time finding docs: 1.5 hours/week × 15 partners × $80/hour × 50 weeks = $90,000/year
• Migration time: 75 hours × $80/hour = $6,000 (one-time)
• Total: $124,480/year

Confluence:

• Tool cost: $5.50/user/month × 50 users (entire company needs access) = $3,300/year
• Time maintaining docs: 9 hours/week × 50 weeks × $80/hour = $36,000/year
• Time finding docs: 1.8 hours/week × 15 partners × $80/hour × 50 weeks = $108,000/year
• Total: $147,300/year

Consolidated platform (auto-generated docs):

• Tool cost: $2,400/year (includes messaging, competitive, launches, enablement, docs)
• Time maintaining source content: 3 hours/week × 50 weeks × $80/hour = $12,000/year
• Time finding docs: 0.5 hours/week × 15 partners × $80/hour × 50 weeks = $30,000/year
• Total: $44,400/year

The consolidated approach saved $80,000+ annually vs. Notion—not because it was a better documentation tool, but because it eliminated documentation as separate work.

Do You Need Notion or Confluence?

Here's the test:

You might need dedicated documentation tools if:

• Documentation is your primary deliverable (technical writing teams)
• You have dedicated resources to maintain docs
• Your docs are standalone content, not derivatives of other work
• You need advanced documentation features (versioning, permissions, publishing workflows)

You probably don't if:

• Your docs are summaries of work in other tools
• You're spending more time maintaining docs than creating content
• Docs get outdated faster than you can update them
• People bypass docs and ask you directly anyway

Most PMM teams fall into the second category.

For them, documentation tools solve the wrong problem:

Problem: Docs get outdated and disorganized Tool solution: Better organization and search Real solution: Auto-generate docs from source so they can't get outdated

Problem: People can't find docs Tool solution: Better navigation and hierarchy Real solution: Fewer docs, clearer organization, contextual delivery

Problem: Too much time maintaining docs Tool solution: Better templates and workflows Real solution: Stop maintaining derivative docs, maintain source content

What I Do Now

I'm back in Notion (after 18 months of migrations). But I use it completely differently:

Before: 400+ manually maintained docs Now: 12 key documents that link to auto-generated content in consolidated platform

The 12 docs in Notion:

• Team charter and processes (Notion is good for this)
• Meeting notes (Notion's database works well)
• Strategic planning docs (Notion's collaboration features)

Everything else (messaging, competitive, launches, enablement) lives in the consolidated platform and auto-generates documentation.

Result:

• 90% fewer docs to maintain
• Zero outdated docs (auto-generated from current source)
• Cross-functional partners find what they need (contextual delivery)
• My time on documentation: 8 hours/week → 2 hours/week

The lesson: Tool choice matters less than documentation strategy.

Notion vs. Confluence vs. Google Docs is the wrong debate. The right questions:

• Do we need this many docs?
• Should docs be manually maintained or auto-generated?
• Are we optimizing for creation or findability?

Answer those first. Then pick the tool.

I spent 18 months and 105 hours learning that lesson. You don't have to.

Before you migrate to Notion or Confluence or anything else, ask:

• What's our documentation strategy?
• Could we auto-generate instead of manually maintain?
• Are we solving a tool problem or a strategy problem?

Most PMM teams have a strategy problem. Better tools won't fix it.

Better strategy will. And better strategy might mean not maintaining documentation at all—just auto-generating it from source.

That saved me 6 hours per week and $80,000 per year.

Your documentation tool doesn't matter. Your documentation strategy does.