Intercom Onboarding Tool: The Ultimate Guide + Alternatives

Intercom onboarding tool is the most popular tool for creating product tours, onboarding emails and in-app messages. It’s easy to use and affordable, compared to its competitors. Here are some of the main features of Intercom Product Tours and a list of alternatives to Intercom that you can check out if you’re looking for something more sophisticated, and at the same time – more scalable and affordable in the long run – to build your product tours with.

TL;DR

• Intercom Product Tours is an easy plug-and-play Intercom add-on that allows you to build a single, liner, non-interactive product tour based on one template on top of your app.
• It is a simple product that is most suitable for small companies that are already using Intercom for live-chat support, ticketing and knowledge base.
• Intercom’s startup plan sounds cheap – costing $65 for up to 500 MAUs, but the price goes up very steeply (up to $1200!) if you go over that.
• If you’re looking for more sophisticated product adoption tools and better value for money over time – check out Userpilot or Appcues.
• Userpilot is currently the tool with the best value for money.

What Is the Intercom Onboarding Tool?

Intercom Product Tours is an easy plug-and-play Intercom add-on that allows you to build a single, liner, non-interactive product tour based on one template on top of your app. It’s an absolute MVP and not a fully-fledged onboarding (let alone product adoption) solution. It is really a product discovery tool that aims at converting new users from one-time visitors into engaged, paying customers.

With the intercom onboarding tool you can create guided tours of your product with a single click without writing any code or modifying your app’s UI/UX. You can customize it by changing fonts, colors, images, background, and title and add descriptions to explain what each screen does in a few words as well as build tours for multiple products (they are all interactive).

Interactive, personalized and relevant onboarding

Intercom has been a leading provider of onboarding since the early 1990’s and provides the most advanced onboarding technology. Our new product tour is designed to help increase your retention. It was our goal to make your customer experience more interactive. Product tour are surprisingly simple solutions. 3. This tool lets users create an interactive guide for incoming signups to their steps in the process.

Features of Intercom Onboarding Tool

Intercom Product Tours literally offers one product tour template, with extremely limited customization, and extremely basic analytics. If you want more flexibility or in-depth analytics, then you’ll need a dedicated tool that’s made specifically for onboarding. That said, there are many alternatives that can be used instead of Intercom’s onboarding tool – we’ll take a look at what they offer in a moment.

Intercom Product Tours Pricing

Intercom Product Tours is very cheap in the startup plan, costing $65 for up to 500 MAUs, but the price goes up very steeply (up to $1200!) if you go over that.

You have plenty of other options, though.

Userpilot offers a really robust suite of product adoption tools (unlimited interactive product tours, product analytics, in-app surveys) from only $299 per month, while Appcues offers very similar features from $749 per month (when you look at the unlimited plans.)

Intercom Onboarding Tool Pros

Intercom for customer support/ livechat/knowledge base and documentation it will be easier to add Product Tours on top. You could be one of very few companies who will have a better support in product tours – when you have documentation it will make it easy to explain your features with product tours – there is no need of building separate product tour if you’re already using Intercom.

Cons of Intercom Product Tours

Intercom tours product offers very limited functionality in terms of building interactive walkthroughs, surveys, and analytics.

Integrations aren’t a strong point either. You can currently integrate with only two tools – Slack and Zapier – both are limited (especially Zapier).

If you’re already using Intercom onboarding tool on your website or mobile app, consider alternative ways to help users learn how your app works quickly and effectively. Consider team chat integration, guided tours on YouTube or even creating an interactive FAQ page that answers common questions about your app upfront. Interactive tutorials do not have to be dull anymore!

Best alternatives to the Intercom Onboarding Tool for SaaS

If you need more sophisticated product adoption use cases, consider Userpilot or Appcues. Both products allow you to build your own custom onboarding flows from scratch, allowing you to map user journeys based on user behaviors, goals and traits. You can then measure and optimize each step of your onboarding process through a combination of behavioral analytics and actionable insights. This allows you get greater return on investment (ROI) from your product adoption initiatives than simply adding a few extra messages in Intercom.

Here are our top 3 Intercom Product Tours alternatives:

Intercom onboarding tool Alternative #1: Userpilot for Personalized Onboarding

A list of Intercom onboarding tool alternatives wouldn’t be complete without our own product.

With Userpilot, you can create a perfect product experience for your users.

Using it, you can onboard your users easier and improve your adoption rate.

Onboarding elements such as walkthroughs, tooltips, checklists and more can be added.

In addition, we offer an on-demand help widget, in-app survey, and native tooltips to boost your reactive onboarding.

You can then customize those elements without writing a single line of code.
Userpilot excels at creating contextual onboarding experiences. When a user performs a certain action, these experiences are triggered.

Why should you choose Userpilot over the Intercom Onboarding Tool?

One of the key selling points of Userpilot is that it can be used to create contextual onboarding experiences.

In other words, you can show the right message to the right user at the right time.

When, for instance, your user can only benefit from Feature B after setting up Feature A, onboarding Feature B first makes no sense.

Userpilot lets you set up Feature B’s onboarding flow to be triggered when the user sets up Feature A.

When it comes to fostering user adoption, context-based onboarding is significantly more effective.

What we call “driven actions” may be the best feature of our user onboarding tool. There is no comparable feature in the Intercom onboarding tool.

Basically, it means you can create onboarding experiences across multiple URLs, even dynamic URLs (URLs that change with every user). Onboarding becomes even more interactive.

In addition, Userpilot can also be a good choice if you want complete control over your onboarding process.

Other onboarding tools either do not offer customization or require you to edit the styling with CSS.

Userpilot lets you customize the look of the app in-app without coding.

In addition to that, Userpilot offers a variety of other useful tools as part of its product growth suite:

• Checklists for onboarding:

• resource center:
• Detailed segmentation options:
• Comprehensive NPS surveys:
• Slideouts that are perfect for introducing new features:

The list goes on! Try Userpilot for free now!

Why shouldn’t you choose Userpilot?

If you have a mobile app, Userpilot might not be the best choice for you. Recently, Intercom released native mobile carousels.

Currently, Userpilot does not support mobile apps (though we are working on it).

As of now, you’ll have to look elsewhere for onboarding elements in your mobile app.

What is the cost of Userpilot?

Userpilot’s transparent pricing ranges from $249/month on the entry-level end to an Enterprise tier for larger companies.

Furthermore, Userpilot’s entry-level plan includes access to all UI patterns and should include everything that most mid-market SaaS businesses need to get started.

Userpilot has three paid plans to choose from:

• Starter: The entry-level Starter plan starts at $249/month and includes features like segmentation, product analytics, reporting, user engagement, NPS feedback, and customization.
• Growth: The Growth plan starts at $749/month and includes features like resource centers, advanced event-based triggers, unlimited feature tagging, AI-powered content localization, EU hosting options, and a dedicated customer success manager.
• Enterprise: The Enterprise plan uses custom pricing and includes all the features from Starter + Growth plus custom roles/permissions, access to premium integrations, priority support, custom contract, SLA, SAML SSO, activity logs, security audit, and compliance (SOC 2/GDPR).

Comparison of Userpilot and Intercom Onboarding Tool

Compared to Intercom’s linear Product Tours, Userpilot offers a more comprehensive onboarding tool for SaaS.

You can select from a wide range of UI elements, you can customize your onboarding’s look without writing code, and you can provide contextual onboarding.

When you want an onboarding tool without all the extra functionality (and cost) of Intercom, Userpilot is a great option.

What’s stopping you from giving it a try?

Chameleon is an alternative to Intercom Product Tours #2

Most of the Intercom Product Tours alternatives offer a degree of in-app UI customization, and then CSS coding on top.

Chameleon offers something a little more advanced when it comes to customization. They will custom code your UI elements for you.

This means you can achieve exactly the look you want with no effort on your part.

Chameleon also offers a wide range of onboarding elements including checklists and modals.

It provides limited trigger functionality, and basic segmentation.

What are the benefits of Chameleon?

Chameleon’s main strength is its advanced coding customization.

Companies who want to completely customize the look of their onboarding, but lack the coding skills to do it themselves, can make use of this service.

As part of their onboarding process, Chameleon will take care of the custom coding for you.

Onboarding features are also available in Chameleon. The Chameleon launcher is one of them. You can provide self-service onboarding menus or product announcements.

What are the reasons not to choose Chameleon?

As a result of Chameleon’s custom coding approach, you will have to pay more, and you will also have to wait for them to complete the work.

Userpilot, for example, is another Intercom Product Tours alternative that allows detailed customization without coding. Fast-moving, scalable SaaS companies should consider this solution.

In addition, Chameleon is a bit tricky to use. The user interface is more complicated, and it takes some getting used to. You’ll have a harder time understanding it.

Chameleon provides basic triggers for your onboarding flows, but it’s not as customizable as other onboarding platforms.

Furthermore, you can’t segment your users, which is particularly useful when you want to personalize your onboarding process.

What is the cost of Chameleon?

Buying Chameleon for $279 is the best deal. It includes 2000 active monthly users.

As you add more MAUs or launchers (the basic plan comes with 3) the price rises quickly.

If you want to A/B test your onboarding, you need to upgrade to their “Growth Plan”.

This plan’s price is determined on a case-by-case basis.

Can Chameleon be used as an alternative to Intercom Product Tours?

It’s both true and false.

Intercom Onboarding Tool pales in comparison to Chameleon’s onboarding capabilities.

You can also customize it if you know how to code.

Chameleon isn’t as easy to get up and running as Intercom, and it takes some time to get used to it.

On top of that, it lacks a lot of important onboarding features that other Product Tours alternatives have.

Intercom Product Tours Alternative #3: Appcues

In the early days of onboarding, Appcues was a major player. This paved the way for Intercom Product Tours and Userpilot.

Onboarding flows can be built using modals, slideouts, and tooltips, among other elements.

Multi-level segmentation and limited customizability are available.

Appcues lets you conduct A/B tests on your onboarding flow to ensure you’re providing the best possible experience.

What makes Appcues a good choice?

In the world of onboarding, Appcues is a trusted name.

Consequently, they have been able to steadily add more and more features to the product, resulting in a robust onboarding platform.

They have a huge selection of UI elements. They let you design the exact onboarding process you want.

In addition, Appcues offers a great deal of useful information. Aside from sharing best practices on their blog, they also showcase great UX on their Really Good UX site.

You will definitely find this information helpful when you create your own onboarding flows.

What are the reasons not to choose Appcues?

The robustness of Appcues can be seen as a positive, but it can also be viewed as a downside.

Despite adding more features over time, Appcues’ product has become increasingly difficult to use.

Setting up your onboarding flow often requires going from one page to another and back again.

Additionally, Appcues limits your customization options. It offers a limited selection of custom options in-app, but if you want more detail, you’ll have to use CSS coding.

As a final note, Appcues doesn’t support non-linear onboarding. In other words, the user must go through each step of the onboarding process, whether it is relevant to them or not.

As a result, your onboarding will be less effective, and your adoption will be lower.

Appcues pricing

A year’s subscription to Appcues’ cheapest plan costs $249.

The package includes 1000 monthly active users and 3 team seats. In addition, your customization options are limited, as are the integrations you can use.

The “Growth Plan”, which starts at $879 a month, offers most of their best features.

Is Appcues a good alternative to Intercom Product Tours?

In terms of onboarding, Appcues definitely beats Intercom Product Tours if you’re willing to spend a lot more money.

Onboarding flows can be crafted with a variety of UI elements.

That being said, other alternatives are not only more cost effective, but also offer added functionality that Appcues doesn’t. Userpilot vs. the Intercom Onboarding Tool

Userpilot is a fully-fledged product growth suite with product experience builder, user surveys, in app resource center, NPS and many other options that

will allow you to build truly customizable user experiences for each persona. With an impressive array of powerful, enterprise-grade features, Userpilot is a formidable competitor of Intercom Product Tours in any market. One area where it differentiates itself from Userpilot from the intercom onboarding tool is in-app user onboarding. To deliver great value to your customers, you’ll need a robust way to educate them about your product—even before they sign up.

Intercom onboarding tool reviews

Intercom product tours have 4.7 out of 5 stars on G2. This is mostly because Intercom’s onboarding tool is very simple to use, and can be easily deployed even by a small team (especially one that is already using Intercom for support). Again – it doesn’t offer the sophisticated product adoption options that Userpilot and Appcues or Pendo (and its onboarding solution) have to offer.

Conclusion

At its core, Intercom Onboarding Tool is a very simple MVP product. It combines a company’s messaging, tour marketing tools, and CRM. Because of all of these features, it should be a great option for any startup looking to onboard users quickly and easily. However, not all features are perfect (in fact they have some room for improvement), so review some more scalable alternatives such as Userpilot in order to choose what would work best for your business.