Breaking Down Popular SaaS Onboarding Screen Designs And Examples

Working on a solution that helps companies build better product experiences (including onboarding), I’ve seen what works, what doesn’t, and what falls somewhere in between.

That said, I still spend a lot of time signing up for SaaS products out of curiosity just to see how popular tools approach their onboarding. This list is a curated set of onboarding experiences from products I’ve personally tried.

Before diving in, I should say this upfront: these aren’t necessarily the “best” onboarding screens out there. Nevertheless, each of them does something worth paying attention to, and I’ll break down exactly what that is.

What is an onboarding screen?

An onboarding screen is an introductory screen a new user sees when they open a mobile or web app for the first time. Onboarding screens typically consist of quick walkthroughs, tooltips, or other UI elements to guide users through the product.

What are the key onboarding screens in a welcome flow?

That said, onboarding screens don’t live in isolation. They’re usually part of a whole flow that includes other screens and contextual content.

This means there’s no such thing as a “better screen” than others. What truly matters is how you use each element within its context. Is this tooltip appearing when the user is stuck? Are you sending a survey when the user is prepared to respond?

Here’s our repertoire of onboarding screens that are most commonly used:

• Welcome survey (segmentation questions): Right after signup, these surveys ask users 2-3 questions about their job title, team size, primary use case, or goal. These are useful for providing personalized experiences.
• Teammate invitation: For collaborative or team-based products, teammate invitations ask users to bring coworkers before they get too deep into setup.
• Welcome screen or short video: A brief modal that orients new users, sets expectations, and reinforces why their motivation. Think of a short looping video or a one-liner like “Here’s what you’ll accomplish in the next 2 minutes” rather than a wall of text.
• Account or workspace setup: Screens that ask users to name their workspace, upload a logo, or connect an essential integration.
• Interactive walkthrough or guided first action: Instead of a “click-next” product tour, interactive walkthroughs prompt users to complete key retention-correlated actions to learn the product.
• Onboarding checklist: A persistent checklist that keeps users moving through activation steps at their own pace. Elements like progress bars or pre-checked tasks encourage users to engage with it.
• Empty state guidance: This helps new users who reach a blank dashboard or a feature they haven’t set up yet. It shows sample outputs, templates, or clear next steps to remove the friction of starting from zero.

Onboarding screen examples from popular products and what works

So far, you’ve seen the strategies for making effective onboarding screens. But real-life examples from brands that are killing it will provide another level of inspiration.

Below are several examples.

Airtable

After signing up, Airtable’s onboarding starts with an AI-assistant that helps you create a personalized workspace based on a prompt and a welcome survey (for info like business name, industry, and team).

Although AI-assisted personalization isn’t new to me, Airtable’s version is very unique in how it lets you mold the app via prompting. You can go back and forth with it to further refine it, as well as fix the details manually as you need to.

However, I believe this is only applicable to malleable tools like Airtable. It’s not an idea you can replicate in the majority of B2B SaaS businesses.

Attio

In Attio’s case, the onboarding screen is more linear and conventional for its market. It asks for your basic info (name, business name, lets you link your Google account, asks you about your use case, and invites you to add team members to your workspace.

What I like about this onboarding is that it makes it easy for new users to complete key tasks right away (such as inviting team members and importing data). Plus, once you’re inside the product, it shows an onboarding checklist for tasks like syncing your account, installing the extension, creating a workflow, etc.

My only gripe with Attio’s process is that there’s no introduction of the core features until the second half of the checklist. The signup screens are so generic that it’s easy to forget that Attio is supposed to be a CRM.

Monday

Unlike Attio, Monday’s onboarding flow is more focused on building your workspace right away rather than just importing data. After asking about basic info (i.e., business name, team size, department, etc.), it starts prompting you to add the name of your workspace, define its fields, choose the view, and list your first projects.

At the end of the screens, you get a workspace with the basic configurations to start doing real work. This reduces the time-to-value dramatically, and with a short product tour introducing you to more valuable functions (like adding subitems, customizing status labels, etc.).

Supademo

Supademo is an example of a company that practices what it preaches. Since Supademo is a tool for creating interactive demos with a single recording, its onboarding flow involves just that. An interactive demo.

But beyond the demos, a less obvious aspect is the fact that the onboarding isn’t generic at all. It starts by asking what you plan to do with Supademo (demos for onboarding, sales, training, etc.), as well as letting you choose whether to jump straight into the demos, learn by yourself, or receive a 1-on-1 live walkthrough.

After that, the walkthrough will adjust to your needs and handhold you into creating your first demo using tooltips. It makes it a prime example of what a truly interactive walkthrough can do compared to static product tours.

Loom

Since Loom’s product is pretty simple to use (just hit record on the Chrome Extension before recording), so is its onboarding screen.

I like the fact that it helps users provide information for personalization (use case and team), connect their calendar, set up the basic settings, and install the Chrome extension. It’s a linear signup process where you mostly check boxes and hit next.

However, I believe the process was lacking guidance. It missed the opportunity to guide you into recording your first video, and despite collecting data about your preferences, I didn’t see any personalization.

Miro

Miro is an excellent example of a personalized onboarding process, without being too long.

After signing up with your email or Google account, Miro shows a short questionnaire that asks you about your role, your experience with the app, the purpose of the tool (work, personal, education), and so on. And then, it will instantly ask you to use Sidekick (their AI tool) to generate your first board, showing you personalized options based on the short welcome screen.

For me, Miro’s onboarding is tight and effective. Each piece of data you provide ends up making the experience more relevant, and with the tool sending you right into creating a board reduces the time-to-value to mere minutes.

Notion

The signup process in Notion is simple, yet personalized to your needs.

After signing up and naming your workspace, Notion asks you to select whether you’re going to use the platform for work, personal use, or education. And then, asks you to choose your main use cases (e.g., project management, planning, brainstorming, etc.).

In the end, Notion brings you to the main dashboard, where you can see that it actually pre-generated pages based on your choices. And although it’s a nice touch, I think very few people would end up using them since they’re still very generic. I’d rather see Notion introduce you to its flexible features and help you build a page by yourself.

Clay

The onboarding screens in Clay are pretty linear. It asks you about your role, the CRM/database you use (e.g., Salesforce, Hubspot, Snowflake, etc.), other tools you use (like Google Sheets or Slack), and your main use case, which could be enriching prospects or building ad audiences. Finally, you arrive inside the tool with a personalized file based on your use case.

Now, despite the smooth process, Clay lacks guidance for new users. The product is not simple, and not everyone with CRM experience will find it intuitive. This means you’d need to rely on external resources or dedicated support to learn how to use the platform.

Grammarly

Grammarly’s onboarding screen is very simple. It only consists of a single modal asking you about whether you’ll use it for work or school, as well as your role. Then, it prompts you to install the Chrome extension if you don’t have it.

This modal is very user-friendly, but the lack of guidance for its core feature (editing documents) makes it feel very incomplete. Plus, there’s no evident personalization based on the information given in the first steps.

Attention Insights

One of my favorite onboarding strategies comes from our client, Attention Insight.

Since Attention Insight’s goal was to activate more users, its strategy was to combine several in-app experiences across different parts of the product.

So instead of dragging users through multiple screens after signup, Attention Insight’s onboarding starts after the user has already logged into the product. This way, they can show many different types of in-app guidance without overwhelming the user, including:

1. An interactive flow (walkthrough) that guides new users through their core feature (heatmap analysis) one step at a time.
2. The onboarding checklist that helps users learn more about the product’s core features and realize its value.
3. Hotspots for drawing attention to less visible UI elements.
4. Slideouts that congratulate users for creating their first heatmap or tagging an Area of Interest.

Such onboarding structure brings results as well. Within 6 months of implementing Userpilot to build a more structured onboarding experience for their trial users, Attention Insight was able to improve their new user activation rates by over 47%.

Strava

On the B2C side, Strava is a famous app among cyclists and runners with a straightforward slideout for onboarding.

I like how it collects relevant data from the user (e.g., gender, favorite sports, birthdate) and helps set up the account by following friends, allowing notifications, and starting a free trial.

On the other hand, there’s a missed opportunity to introduce more aspects of the app. The app only shows a modal letting you choose to track activity with an external device (or just your phone), but there’s no guidance for the main feature (the activity recording).

That said, it can be somewhat understandable for Strava to go for such an onboarding approach. It’s already a popular app among users, and they don’t really need more guidance to get it running.

Duolingo

Duolingo is the most popular example of gamification done right, even during onboarding.

When starting with Duolingo, Duo will ask you questions about what language you want to learn, why you want to learn, your current level, and your learning goals. Then, it will help set up your account by activating notifications, choosing a plan, and testing your current level.

Finally, you’ll go over a gamified test (or a mini game if you chose to start from zero), which is excellent because it immediately shows you how to learn a language with the app. The gamification elements (such as the XP, streak, and leaderboard) make language learning a lot more engaging.

Bump

As an app for staying connected with your friends and hanging out, Bump heavily incentivizes you to add friends during its onboarding process. This, to me, is the most interesting part to learn from.

When you look at how the product actually works, this makes a lot of sense. Bump is fundamentally a real-time location-sharing app, it shows where your friends are, what they’re doing, and helps you meet up in real life. Without friends, the app is essentially empty.

That’s why the onboarding doesn’t try to “educate” you about features first. Instead, it pushes you toward adding friends as early as possible because that’s the only way you can unlock the core experience. Even key features like seeing locations or activity depend on mutual friend connections.

And although the welcome sequence is short and simple, the design/animations make it very fun to use, and it manages to gamify your social life. In fact, it challenges you to visit as many places as possible, with a leaderboard that makes you compete with friends.

What are the most common onboarding mistakes that drive users away?

I have studied hundreds of onboarding flows. I see the same errors repeated constantly. These easily fixable mistakes cost companies thousands of dollars in lost revenue.

The “too many steps” trap

If you ask a user for their full name, job title, company size, phone number, and their grandmother’s maiden name before they even see your dashboard, you will lose them.

Every extra field in your signup flow introduces friction points. Eliminate any question that is not strictly necessary. Get users to their first win as fast as possible.

The wall of text problem

If your onboarding flow looks like a textbook, users will skip it. They do not want to read paragraphs of text.

Rely on microcopy UX. Use visual storytelling, quick tooltips, and short, punchy sentences. If you can cut a word out, always cut it out. Break up your instructions so they feel natural and effortless.

The no escape room

Product managers often feel tempted to force users to understand every single feature before letting them use the app. They trap users in a 12-step product tour.

Give users an escape hatch. Include a “Skip” button on every onboarding screen. Some users prefer to explore on their own. Forcing them through a rigid tutorial creates frustration. The best flows feel like a helpful guide, not a prison.

What makes an onboarding screen great?

As I mentioned earlier, a “good” onboarding screen depends more on its context than its visual design.

This is because what truly matters is to move users from point A (signup) to point B (activation). And to achieve this, here’s what I often work:

• Having one clear onboarding goal you can break down into smaller steps (rather than touring users over features they won’t use). That’s why I always tell my customers to make great use of checklists. This is simply because you can build a feature-specific walkthrough into each step that users can trigger on demand, instead of being forced through everything upfront.

• Focus on helping users set up their accounts early on so they don’t face that friction later.
• Show onboarding screens in different parts of your product once users are in (rather than bombarding them with a long product tour).
• Use gamification and UX psychology to maximize engagement. This can range from adding checklists with progress bars/animations to implementing levels/leaderboards like Duolingo.
• Using progressive disclosure to introduce secondary features to the UI as users start adopting the product.
• Segmenting users based on jobs-to-be-done to personalize their onboarding experience.

• A/B test different onboarding flows to see what strategies work better for your audience. One of our customers, Smoobu, for instance, used it to increase its conversion rates by 17%.

“I’d definitely recommend Userpilot. It allows us the flexibility to move fast, experiment, and really understand what users need. It’s helped us speed up processes and create a smoother user experience.”
– Dasha Frantz, Product Designer at Smoobu

Where can you find more onboarding screen examples?

If you’re looking for more onboarding screen inspiration beyond the examples in this article, here are some go-to resources worth bookmarking:

• Mobbin: One of the best libraries for real onboarding screens captured from live apps.
• Dribbble: Great for design inspiration from other designers’ mockup projects.
• Page Flows: A curated collection of real user flows from top SaaS and mobile products, recorded as videos.
• UX Archive: Another library of real mobile app flows organized by user action (like onboarding, sign-up, and first-run experiences).
• ReallyGoodUX: Focuses on in-app UX patterns from real products, including onboarding screens, tooltips, modals, and checklists.

Turn onboarding screens into interactive experiences with Userpilot!

In my opinion, great onboarding is all about helping them reach value as quickly and smoothly as possible. And that static onboarding screens can only do so much for presenting information, they don’t adapt, guide, or respond to user behavior.

With Userpilot, you can turn those static screens into interactive experiences.

Instead of walking every user through the same generic flow, you can break onboarding into meaningful steps, trigger contextual walkthroughs, and let users engage with features when they’re ready. From checklists and modals to fully interactive in-app guidance, everything is designed to drive activation without overwhelming your users.

If you’re looking to build onboarding that converts, it starts with making it interactive.

👉 Book a demo and see how you can build high-converting onboarding experiences with Userpilot!