Software has a strange habit of selling you the future.
You sign up for a platform, and somewhere in the marketing — or the dashboard, or the feature list — you see the phrase “Coming Soon.” Sometimes it’s a small badge. Sometimes it’s a whole tab. Sometimes it’s an entire section of the product you’re paying for that doesn’t actually exist yet.
The phrase has become so common that most people stop seeing it. But it’s worth paying attention to — because the version of “Coming Soon” you’re being shown tells you something important about the company you’re handing your money to.
There are two completely different kinds of “Coming Soon” in software, and they’re not interchangeable.
The first kind is the dishonest version. It’s a feature listed in the marketing that doesn’t exist, won’t exist for nine months, and is being shown to you specifically so you’ll buy now and forget about it later. The company knows the feature isn’t ready. They’re hoping you don’t notice the gap between what was promised and what shipped.
The second kind is the honest version. It’s a feature that’s part of a clearly mapped roadmap — sometimes already in development, sometimes deliberately scheduled for later — and the company is telling you about it because they want you to know what’s coming, not because they want to inflate today’s offer.
The difference is intent. One uses “Coming Soon” as a sales tool. The other uses it as a transparency tool.
There’s a quick test for figuring out which one you’re looking at.
If a platform’s “Coming Soon” items would meaningfully change your decision to buy today — if you’re paying for what’s there now and the missing pieces aren’t critical — that’s usually the honest version. The current product stands on its own. The future additions will make it better, not finally make it functional.
If, on the other hand, the “Coming Soon” items are the entire reason you’re considering the platform — if you’re paying for a promise rather than a product — that’s the version to be skeptical of. You’re not buying software. You’re buying a roadmap. And roadmaps slip, change, and quietly disappear all the time.
The honest version of “Coming Soon” respects your time enough to tell you what’s not there yet. The dishonest version blurs the line so you don’t notice until after you’ve signed up.
This matters more than people realize, because it’s not really about the features. It’s about the company’s relationship with the truth.
A company that’s willing to put a clear “Coming Soon” label on something — that’s willing to say openly “we haven’t built this yet, and here’s when we will” — is a company that’s also going to tell you the truth about other things. About bugs. About limitations. About what works and what doesn’t.
A company that hides what’s not ready, that buries the labels, that treats the gap between marketing and reality as something to obscure — that’s a company you’re going to find out other things about, later, the hard way.
The most underrated feature in any software platform isn’t on the feature list. It’s the company’s willingness to show you what they haven’t built yet.
Pay attention to that one. It tells you everything.
