Pendo Session Replay: A Detailed Review (+Better Alternative)

Pendo is a great solution. But is it the best session replay tool for your SaaS? And more importantly, does it offer the best value for money?

This article will help you decide.

I review the Pendo session replay feature – covering what it does, its key features, and where it may fall short. I will also show you how Userpilot session recordings compare to Pendo’s to give you an alternative to consider.

What is the Pendo session replay feature?

Pendo session replay is a UX analytics feature. It allows you to watch user interactions with your web apps, helping you visualize how users navigate the product.

How does it work?

Once you install it on your app, Pendo tracks every user action inside the product. When you replay the recording, it stitches all events together and imposes them onto screenshots of the UI captured during the session, which makes it look like a screen recording.

The aim? To give SaaS teams a granular understanding of individual user behavior while using the product and help them identify pain points in user experience.

Which user behaviors can you track with Pendo session replays?

Pendo, like most other session replay tools, captures basic user interactions with the app to illustrate their behavior:

• Mouse movements: Track where users move their cursor to see navigation patterns.
• Clicks: Monitor where users click to identify areas of interest or confusion.
• Scrolls: See how far users scroll, which shows engagement with content.
• Form submissions: Observe how users interact with forms, including text input or where they drop off.

Why should you monitor user sessions from the Pendo platform?

Monitoring user sessions on the Pendo platform can help your teams achieve a range of objectives.

Here are some of the key use cases:

• Identify friction points: Use it to spot frustration signals, like dead or rage clicks, that suggest usability problems.
• Optimize feature adoption: You can use it to track how users engage with new features and identify parts of the user journey where engagement may decrease.
• Validate product changes: After making updates, watch session replays to see if the changes are helping users accomplish tasks more smoothly.
• Support troubleshooting: Customer support teams can use session replays to better understand customer complaints or reported bugs.
• Enhance UX design: UX researchers and designers can see exactly how users interact with certain elements, helping inform UI improvements.

Looking for a Pendo Session Replay Alternative? Try Userpilot

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Key features of Pendo session replay

Pendo session replay has several features designed to improve your understanding of user interactions.

Here’s a breakdown of the main ones.

Segmentation and filtering

Segmentation and filtering options let you select sessions to view based on user attributes like their company, role, session duration, and specific user behaviors, such as completed events and frustration signals. This enables you to zero in on specific aspects of user experience.

For instance, by applying the filters below, you will only see the sessions of users who viewed an onboarding guide and engaged with a feature.

User session viewing controls

Pendo’s viewing controls let you customize the playback experience.

You can skip idle time, rewind and fast-forward, adjust playback speed, or pick a specific user action to watch.

This makes it easier to find relevant insights without having to sit through every second of a session. This is helpful when you have dozens of sessions to analyze, as watching them all in real time is impractical.

Frustration indicators and trends

Pendo detects frustration indicators like rage clicks, which point to potential UX issues. Finding them would be very difficult using traditional analytics tools.

For example, below, you can see a rage-click incident flagged up while the user was interacting with the dashboard. Clicking on the event in the side panel takes you to the exact moment when it occurred.

AI-suggested replays

When you go to the replay library, the first thing you see is Suggested replays.

What are they? Pendo uses AI to analyze product usage data and extracts the top 3 insights about rage clicks, usage trending down, and usage trending up.

For each insight, it recommends 3-5 sessions that illustrate the insight.

Thanks to these suggestions, you can quickly identify the most pressing issues to address.

Privacy settings

To help you protect user privacy, Pendo offers three privacy levels:

• Maximum privacy: All page content is masked.
• Inputs only: The page content is visible, but Pendo masks all the data that the user enters.
• Minimum privacy: Pendo replaces only the most sensitive data, like passwords, with asterisks.

You have to choose these when you enable session replays; they get applied on the client side and can’t be changed retrospectively. In addition, you can add granular privacy rules to mask specific information or UI elements.

How much does Pendo’s session recording feature cost?

Pendo session replay is a premium feature and it’s available only in the Core, Pulse, and Ultimate plans.

This means you won’t get it in the Free plan, and customers on the Base plan can purchase access as an add-on.

How much does it cost?

The price isn’t available on the website, so you must request a custom quote. The Pendo pricing structure has changed a lot, and there are a lot of inconsistent reports on the internet.

Its Starter plan, the equivalent of the current Base plan, used to cost $7,000 a year for 2,000 MAUs, but Pendo has increased its pricing since then.

Pros of Pendo session replay

There’s no doubt that Pendo session replays are a powerful feature that allows you to extract valuable insights. Its main advantages include:

• Integration with other Pendo analytics features: You can access the session recordings from other reports, such as funnels. This gives teams comprehensive insights into user behavior.
• Granular filtering: Thanks to detailed segmentation and filtering, you can zero in on specific user interactions.
• Privacy settings: Granular privacy configuration helps protect sensitive information and ensure compliance with privacy regulations.

Cons of Pendo session replay

Pendo session replays have three main downsides:

• Limited to web apps: The feature doesn’t work on mobile apps, canvas elements, or extension apps, so you can’t use it for multi-platform products.
• Complexity for new users: Pendo’s setup can be challenging, and users face a steep learning curve.
• Expensive for small teams: Pendo comes with a hefty price tag, which is prohibitive for smaller organizations.

Userpilot: A better alternative to Pendo session replay

If you’re not quite satisfied with the Pendo offering or concerned about its pricing, Userpilot is an alternative worth looking at.

Here’s a quick overview of the two tools.

Key features of Userpilot session recording

Just like Pendo session replays, Userpilot’s session recording allows you to track all user actions: every click, hover, mouse move, or keystroke.

With Userpilot, you can filter your sessions using user and company attributes, like their demographics, the devices they use to access your app, or their company role, to name just a few examples.

On top of that, you can select sessions based on the events completed by the users to gain insights into specific user interactions.

The filters allow you to access recordings for specific users. This is useful when you want to investigate issues brought up by a particular person.

Now, imagine a situation where you use a bunch of super-detailed filters. Userpilot allows you to save all sessions that meet the criteria as a playlist so that you don’t have to reset them every time you want to review them. This is a huge time-saver!

In addition, Userpilot users can annotate session recordings with comments and share them with their teammates for better cross-functional collaboration and alignment.

Userpilot fully adheres to HIPAA, GDPR, and SOC 2 Type II regulations, ensuring the highest standards of data privacy and security. It automatically masks sensitive information such as passwords, financial details, and personal addresses in session replays.

Finally, let’s not forget about other analytics features, like funnels, paths, heatmaps, and custom dashboards, which make Userpilot a comprehensive analytics solution.

How much do Userpilot session recordings cost?

Userpilot offers three pricing plans, but the session recording feature isn’t available in the Starter plan. The Growth plan starts at $799 and offers unlimited replays. So does the Enterprise plan, which comes with custom pricing.

Conclusion

Pendo is a powerful analytics solution, and its session replay feature allows teams to gather comprehensive insights into user behavior inside digital products. This is vital for creating a positive user experience and increasing the product value.

However, other tools offer similar capabilities at a lower price range.

Userpilot is a solid alternative to Pendo, offering robust analytics, feedback, and onboarding features with more competitive pricing.

Want to learn more about Userpilot? Book a demo!

Looking for a Pendo Session Replay Alternative to Drive Your UX? Try Userpilot

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