Summary This paper deals with the design of the robust feedforward compensator for improving the tracking performance of control systems with gain and phase specifications. The feedforward compensator is designed for single‐input–single‐output continuous‐time linear systems with constrained input and model uncertainty. The design objective is to make the transfer characteristic from command to output be one in the presence of the input saturation and the model uncertainty. To do that, the design of the feedforward compensator is formulated as a new gain‐phase optimization problem with both the gain and phase specifications. Then, the design procedures are proposed by using frequency‐matching method based on the closed‐loop frequency response. The proposed method provides a good trade‐off between system performance and control input to overcome performance reduction due to input saturation, and guarantees the robustness of the overall system in the presence of the model uncertainty. Two design examples illustrate that the frequency characteristics and the transient response of the control system are improved by the proposed method.