Best Whatfix Competitors in 2023 – Compare Features, Pricing and Reviews

What are the best Whatfix Competitors?

If you’re asking yourself this question – you’re in the right place! Whether you’re already using Whatfix and are not happy with it, or you’re just looking for the right digital adoption for your use case (user vs. employee onboarding) – we have the right answer for you!

Whatfix is a digital adoption platform for both employee and user onboarding, aimed at larger enterprise companies. Let’s see how Whatfix compares to other software applications for user onboarding and on-screen guidance for employee training! To save you time: will compare only the top-3 alternatives and competitors for both of Whatfix’s main use cases – based on their features, pricing (and value for money) user-friendliness, and implementation costs. Let’s dive in!

What is Whatfix

Whatfix is a digital adoption platform for user onboarding, aimed at larger enterprise
companies. It does not have a free trial available, despite what it says on its website –
the trial is by discretionary request only, and emails from smaller companies are
usually left without a reply. Whatfix consist of “Whatfix Editor” (the Chrome extension)
and “Whatfix Dashboard” (the settings panel). You can create flows, tooltips and
beacons with it. It’s mostly used for employee onboarding on complex 3-rd party apps
like Salesforce or Hubspot. For SaaS new user onbarding – there are many better and
more cost-efficient tools.

Whatfix  Features

Whatfix has a range of features you’d expect in an advanced digital adoption platform:

• Self-Service Experience
• Knowledge BaseSearchable ArticlesCommunity ForumsPersonalization
• Self-Service Platform
• BrandingAutomationIntegrations
• Visitor Information
• Search Box
• User Analysis
• Survey Implementation
• Data Analysis
• User Support
• User Segmentation
• Multi-Language SupportBehavior-responsive Messaging
• Different walkthrough types
• Audio-visual WalkthroughsText Bubble Walkthroughs

Whatfix Pricing

The cost of Whatfix is higher than the industry average for digital transformation tools. Whatfix offers flexible plans to its customers, starting at $14,000.

Whatfix user-friendliness

As users say about Whatfix – it can be quite complicated and requires a learning curve: “With so many abilities comes complexity and understanding of the tool – which does require plenty of time and effort. That said, WhatFix is very user friendly, and their support is top-notch.

There are also some limitations of where and how WhatFix tools can be applied; some are issues with our own software, but others are in the process of being updated and improved.”

Whatfix  for user onboarding

Whatfix offers some good features for creating onboarding flows. It is possible to create product tours, checklists, and even contextual onboarding. There are, however, other Whatfix alternatives that offer more functionality.

Whatfix  for employee onboarding

Employee onboarding is an important use case for Whatfix.  Whatfix can help you create training content for third-party enterprise applications your team member are using. It can help you with digital transformation and improving employee productivity.

Whatfix for product analytics

The analytics in Whatfix are very basic compared to some Whatfix competitors like Pendo. If you want more in-depth analytics you’ll have to purchase another product and integrate them.

Whatfix – biggest pros

You can create onboarding flows with zero coding required. This saves you valuable dev time. Connecting different support channels together means you provide users with the exact help they need. Whatfix integrates with many different tools, including analytics, LMSs, and support tools. This helps Enterprise companies see the bigger picture.

Whatfix – biggest cons

If you want to fully customize your onboarding flows to match your branding, then you’ll need to have prior knowledge of CSS. If you don’t, then you’ll have to find someone who does. The analytics in Whatfix are very basic. If you want more in-depth analytics you’ll have to purchase another product and integrate them. Some Whatfix users claim that it doesn’t always recognize elements within their product. This might make it more difficult to add the onboarding.

Whatfix  Reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars on G2.

Whatfix Competitors

There are many Whatfix competitors listed on review sites such as G2 or Capterra, so you may feel overwhelmed by the choice. That’s why we decided to limit the list by category (SaaS user onboarding vs. employee onboarding on 3rd party apps) to spare you the hours of searching.

So – let’s got over it – the verdict is…

For the user onboarding use case in SaaS – choose Userpilot or Appcues.

One of the best Whatfix competitors for employee onboarding is Walkme.

Whatfix Alternatives for User Onboarding in SaaS

Whatfix is not the best digital adoption platform for the User onboarding use case, especially in smaller and medium-sized SaaS companies. This is because it’s very complicated and can be development-resource-heavy in implementation. But there are better options – Userpilot and Appcues (see the differences here) would be my top choice. In the following paragraphs, we’ll explain how the two are different (and better for user onboarding in general), and how they are different from each other (and which one you should choose in our humble opinion.)

Whatfix Competitors #1 – Userpilot

Customer success and product teams can use Userpilot to onboard users and increase product adoption through a cloud-based product experience platform. With its visual interface, you can create extensions on top of your native app. There is no coding required, and it is extremely user-friendly.

Additionally, Userpilot offers a resource center – a self-service help area inside your app, as well as user surveys (NPS).

This allows the users to look up resources and trigger product tours by keywords.

Userpilot is one of the leading products when it comes to SaaS user onboarding.

You can use Userpilot to add a product experience layer to your product. This layer essentially consists of various different onboarding elements that help deliver Aha! Moments and reduce time-to-value.

Userpilot lets you add checklists, tooltips, product tours, and driven actions. Userpilot’s last tool enables users to learn by doing.

All of the onboarding elements are fully customizable, so you can achieve exactly the design you want.

Userpilot really outperforms Whatfix alternatives in terms of contextual onboarding approach. It works by setting triggers, such as scroll % or clicking an element. These triggers, when fired, will activate relevant onboarding flows.

This enables users to explore the product on their own, receiving guidance at the right time for them. This personalized onboarding is far more effective than a blanket-approach.

In 2023, Userpilot will have the most advanced user analytics suite of all digital adoption platforms, including Pendo. All clicks, paths, and funnels will be tracked in real time.

Userpilot also offers NPS surveys which you can build in to your product.

You can collect valuable feedback in this way. Additionally, you can collect qualitative data through a feedback widget.

Pros of Userpilot:

• There is no coding. There is no need to type a single line of code to add any type of onboarding flow you need.
• A context-sensitive onboarding flow. Present the right message at the right time. User onboarding can be personalized for each user, driving activation and encouraging feature adoption.
• Quick installation. A Javascript snippet and a Chrome extension are all you need. You’re now ready to build your onboarding flows.

The cons of Userpilot are:

• Apps for mobile devices. At the moment, Userpilot doesn’t support native iOS/Android mobile apps. That will change soon, though!
• Analytical features. Despite Userpilot’s more in-depth analytics, there are other product analytics tools that give you more data than Whatfix.

Pricing for Userpilot:

Userpilot’s pricing starts at $249 per month (billed annually). This gives you access to up to 2,500 monthly active users. With that price, you have access to all of Userpilot’s features.

There are price plans for products with more users and bespoke plans for Enterprise companies, so companies of all sizes can find a price that matches their needs.

Is Userpilot the best Whatfix competitor for SaaS user onboarding?

It is hard to do better than Userpilot when it comes to SaaS user onboarding. The vast array of onboarding elements (including some that are unique to Userpilot) and the fact that it requires no coding skills make it a must-have.

The other Whatfix alternatives are better suited if you need a tool to onboard or train your employees.

Start a free trial of Userpilot »

What do Userpilot’s users say?

“Userpilot is a must-have for any SaaS business. It’s easy to use and have a clean UI. But more importantly, the features like personalized user onboarding, segmentation, checklists will definitely help any product increase their conversions and reduce their churn. Great customer support is also a plus!” — Waqar A.

The runner-up: Appcues – no 2 of Whatfix Competitors for User Onboarding

Appcues is another great Whatfix alternative for small and medium-sized SaaS looking for user onboarding software to onboard their users on a scale. It has one of the most popular products out there for user onboarding and product adoption. It’s simple to use and pre-loads a lot of information for you. That’s why it’s one of the top whatfix alternatives for smaller companies.

But is it the best Whatfix alternative?

But if you’re a more advanced user who wants to build more sophisticated flows while at the same time enjoying the freedom and flexibility of a code-free tool – you will miss a lot of critical features in Appcues that you can find in Userpilot.

Let’s take a look at Appcues’ pros:

• Appcues UI looks really polished, and their experiences are easy to build and mostly work as you’d expect.
• Appcues introduced a whole new realm of user onboarding to the SaaS market through its variety of UI elements. You can also use Appcues’ UI elements to customize the user onboarding process outside of walkthroughs. In addition, you can create checklists, modals, slideouts, tooltips, and hotspots. But there is a catch – some of them, like the checklist, aren’t included in the lower pricing plans.
• Users often take a non-linear journey through your product, exploring it on their own. – Users can create a variety of user flows and link them together. The user experience should follow the user wherever they go. If a user completes a flow, Appcues lets you trigger a subsequent flow and take them through a new experience (even if the subsequent flow’s targeting did not match the user’s).
• More than six years ago, Appcues was launched as a robust digital adoption platform for user experiences. Their product has a lot of great features. Onboarding processes can be customized for different segments of user personas based on tracking entire user journeys.
• It comes with some pre-defined user segments – (the flywheel segments you can see above) which can be a mixed blessing, in a way. It may be helpful to have some pre-defined scaffolding if you’re new to customer onboarding and have no idea where to start. But it can also drive you into a rut that prevents you from creating more sophisticated user segments that are right for your business. As a result, you might see what you want to see rather than what is truly happening.
• SaaS and Cloud-based companies can find an inexhaustible source of information at Appcues. There is a great blog with a lot of useful information. Appcues’ Onboarding Academy and reallygoodux.io content have benefitted the entire SaaS industry.

There are a few cons to Appcues:

• The application can be difficult to navigate since Appcues is such a robust platform. If, for example, you want to create a new experience, you must close the builder mode, go to navigation, pick up the element, and then go back to the builder mode. How would you navigate while simultaneously building? That seems a little tricky, doesn’t it?

• The element detection algorithm is poor – With Appcues, you can create different in-app experiences without writing any code. In some instances, Appcues does not detect in-app elements. Appcues cannot always recognize options inside dropdown menus, for example, when you want a tooltip on that option.

Each in-app experience can be customized and styled with Appcues. However, there are some limitations. Basic customization events are only available within the application. A text element, for instance, can only be changed in height, color, padding, or position. Changing anything else requires CSS coding. It is incredibly frustrating and potentially difficult if you bought a tool so you wouldn’t have to code.

• There is one major disadvantage with Appcues, which is that if you change anything about the styling of any of the templates you’re using, you won’t be able to publish the changes to all experiences that use those templates. To push the changes live, you’ll need to go to the builder and republish each experience. In contrast, Userpilot offers centralized changing of templates – so you can change the button color for all your live experiences using the given template at once from your dashboard, not from a Chrome extension.

In contrast to some of its competitors – including Userpilot, Appcues does not provide a resource center – all help docs, knowledge base articles, YouTube videos, and in-app experiences are offered via a single “help hub” inside the app, searchable on demand.

Maybe Appcues isn’t the best option for you if you want more freedom to build truly interactive walkthroughs.

Pricing for Appcues

Userpilot is a more affordable user onboarding tool than Appcues. On the surface, Appcues pricing seems to be the same – but Appcues’s pricing is based not only on Monthly Active Users, but also on features used. There are punishing features usage limits that are designed to push you to a higher plan very quickly. Userpilot does not restrict its plans by features (apart from the number of apps you can run it on, users you can add, and languages you can translate your content into).

In the “Essentials” plan, some features aren’t available at all. In this plan, you are limited to:

⛔ Five user segments isn’t a lot if you want to use your Product Adoption Platform not just for onboarding users, but also for product adoption and user analytics. Appcues’ pre-defined user segments (Evaluators, Beginners, Regulars, Champions) are very limited if you want to do some proper user analytics (e.g. see if the segment of your “power users” correlates with the segment of “promoters” from your NPS survey and if any of their usage patterns overlap.) – in that case, you will run out of these 5 user segments very soon.

⛔ Appcues allows only ten custom events and ten custom goals – again, this means that if you want to do any kind of user analytics, it simply won’t work. In the $249 Essentials plan, you will find yourself so short of custom events to track user actions that you may not even be able to take your users to the “activation” point if you have a more complex platform requiring more steps to onboard your users. If you only have 10 custom goals, you won’t be able to track enough metrics to move the needle

❌ The Essentials plan does not include checklists

❌ You will be limited in your customization options because there is no custom CSS.

❌ No localization (if your app is available in any language other than English, Appcues Essentials plan is useless and you’ll have to pay $879 per month, paid annually!)

❌ There is no launchpad, so your users will not be able to trigger Appcues’ experiences from a drop-down menu.

The following is the pricing breakdown for annual payments:

• 0 – 2500 MAU – $249/month
• 2500 – 10.000 MAU – $399/month
• 10.000 – 20.000 MAU – $649/month
• 20.000 – 50.000 MAU – $999/month

Whatfix Competitors for Employee Onboarding

Whatfix is great if you are a big enterprise want to onboard your employees on third party tools like e.g. Hubspot or Salesforce. It’s one of the leading digital adoption platforms for employee onboarding.

What is Walkme

Product managers and customer success professionals can use WalkMe’s cloud-based platform/ Manage in-app experiences and create product tours – either for their own products or for others’ – whether they are their own product or a third-party product. There is no question that WalkMe is among the pioneers of its kind. It’s a popular choice for large organizations in the digital adoption market when it comes to employee onboarding.

What is Walkme – Features

Walkme features include the following:

• Interactive walkthroughs
• Audiovisual walks
• Text bubble walks
• The self-service experience
  Searchable Knowledge Base
• Community Forums
• Personalization
• Self-Service Platform
• Marketing Automation Integrations
• Information About Visitors
• Search Box
• Information About Users
• Data Analysis Survey Implementation
• Customer Support
• Messaging that responds to user behaviorMultilingual support
• Multi-language support

Walkme  Pricing

This can be a big struggle for small and medium businesses with limited resources, especially since the pricing packages for WalkMe range from $9000 to over $50,000 per year.

Walkme – user friendliness

Walkme is not considered a very user friendly product adoption/ digital adoption platform. In fact, the thing Walkme users complain most about is it’s complicated UX and the fact that Walkme’s support is not that responsive.

Walkme for user onboarding

Walkme is one of the oldest solutions for user onboarding (dating back to the time when it was still an on-prem software!) so it’s still often considered a default choice. But the fact that it’s the first choice doesn’t make it the best choice. It might be good for larger enterprises with very complex onboarding flows – they can then see an overview of the whole “onboarding map” on one chart, but on the other hand – you can’t easily build the flow on top of your application.

Walkme for employee onboarding

WalkMe is suited for the employee training use case when you’re onboarding with a third-party tool like Salesforce and Workday.

Walkme for product analytics

Using WalkMe’s dashboard, you can easily see all your user onboarding data and analytics.

Walkme  – biggest pros

If you take a look at WalkMe’s reviews online, you will see a pattern – almost all the reviewers are working in companies with hundreds, even thousands of employees. Because of its strengths and powers, WalkMe is a great tool for big enterprises. But because of its pricing and complexity, it isn’t the best option for startups or small and medium businesses.

Walkme – biggest cons

WalkMe can help you to create great walkthroughs and user onboarding flows, but the implementation part can be difficult.
It’s also an on-premise solution, so you have to install it before using it. This can become a little bit messy, since installing WalkMe inside your system requires a lot of technical knowledge. You need to put a lot of effort just to get started with WalkMe.
It’s targeted at bigger enterprises, so pricing can be upwards of $9000 per year.

Conclusion – What is the best Whatfix competitor?

As with most important B2B software choices – the correct answer is “it depends”. If you’re looking for user onboarding software for medium-sized companies (SaaS) – Userpilot is the best whatfix alternative for you. If you’re looking for a learning management system for your employees in a large enterprise to learn e.g. how to use Salesforce internally – Walkme will be the best digital adoption platform for you and one of the best Whatfix alternatives for this use case.