Guide
The Value Proposition Canvas: matching a customer profile with a value map
The Value Proposition Canvas is a tool for checking whether what you offer fits what a specific customer needs. It was developed by Alexander Osterwalder and colleagues as a companion to the Business Model Canvas, and it has two halves. The customer profile describes the customer, and the value map describes your offer. The point is to lay them side by side and see where they match and where they do not.
The two halves
The customer profile has three parts. Jobs are what the customer is trying to get done. Pains are what annoys, costs or frightens them while doing it. Gains are the results and benefits they want. The value map also has three parts. Products and services are what you offer. Pain relievers say how you remove or reduce pains. Gain creators say how you produce gains. A good value proposition focuses on the few jobs, pains and gains that matter most to one segment.
How the board is arranged
The board uses four columns. The left two hold the value map, and the right two the customer profile, with three rows. The top row pairs gain creators with customer gains, the middle row pairs products and services with customer jobs, and the bottom row pairs pain relievers with customer pains. Because rows line up, you can read across and see whether each need has an answer. The preview, the PNG and the landscape PDF share this arrangement, and on phones the boxes stack.
What you enter
Give the business or product name, a date and the customer segment the canvas is about. Then fill the profile boxes, one point per line: jobs, pains and gains. Fill the value map: products and services, pain relievers and gain creators. Work on the customer side first, using what you have learned from real customers, and then design the value map to answer it.
The fit check
A note under the board counts your lines: “3 pains and 3 pain relievers; 3 gains and 3 gain creators”. It also reminds you that a pain or gain with no matching reliever or creator is a gap, and a reliever with no pain behind it may be a feature nobody needs. The count does not judge whether the items really match, so read across each row.
A worked example
The sample is FreshBox Meals for professionals aged 25 to 40 who work long hours, dated 10 November 2026. Jobs are to eat a healthy dinner on weekdays, avoid a daily shopping trip and stay within a food budget. Pains are being too tired to plan meals, food that spoils before it is used, and takeaway that is expensive and unhealthy. Gains are feeling in control of what they eat, saving time on weekday evenings and impressing guests. The offer is weekly subscription meal kits and an app to choose, skip and pause meals, with pain relievers of recipes planned for you and ready in 20 minutes, pre-portioned ingredients that do not go to waste, and flexible skip and pause. Gain creators are restaurant-style recipes at home, dinner in 20 minutes and health-labelled meals.
Testing the canvas
Treat each item as an assumption. Interview customers and ask them to rank the jobs, pains and gains. Remove what they do not care about, and add what you missed. Then check whether they would pay for the relievers and creators you list.
Limits
The canvas organises what you know or believe. It does not prove that customers want your offer or will pay for it. The fit check counts lines and cannot judge quality. The board is drawn in your browser, and nothing you type is uploaded.
Related tools
- Business Model Canvas Maker places this fit within the whole business model.
- Buyer Persona & Empathy Map Maker builds a fuller portrait of the customer on the right-hand side.
- Lean Canvas Maker captures problem and solution on one page for a new idea.
- Startup Idea Validator scores how strong the evidence behind the idea is.
Checked against the current version of the Value Proposition Canvas Builder on .