Are Pendo Polls Worth It? (+ Better Alternatives)10 min read

Pendo is best known for its state-of-the-art analytics features. As a product adoption platform, it also offers survey functionality to collect customer feedback. How good are Pendo Polls, though?

That’s the main question we discuss in the article. To be more specific, we analyze the survey functionality, look at its strengths and limitations, share Pendo’s pricing, and explore alternative tools that might do a better job than Pendo Polls.

Let’s get right to it!

What are Pendo Polls?

Pendo surveys are called Polls and are available through Pendo Guides.

Basically, they’re in-app messages that allow you to collect feedback from users as they’re interacting with the product. You can then use the results for detailed analysis or to segment users.

Pendo Feedback vs. Pendo Polls

In contrast to Pendo Polls (surveys), which are available as part of the main Pendo platform, Pendo Feedback is a standalone product that requires a separate subscription.

Its main purpose is to enable product teams to collect customer requests, capture the voice of the customer, and turn it into actionable insights.

Pendo Polls, on the other hand, are used to collect feedback to track user sentiment, better understand their customer motivations and behavior, increase user satisfaction, and boost customer loyalty.

What functionality do Pendo Polls offer?

Pendo supports both web and online apps, so you can create surveys for both of them. What’s more, you can conduct them for your customers and employees alike because Pendo is not only for user onboarding but is an employee onboarding tool as well.

Create no-code surveys to collect user feedback

Creating surveys in Pendo requires no coding, and the process is pretty quick thanks to Pendo’s template library. However, to fully customize your Polls with advanced theming, custom animations, and other bespoke design elements, you’ll need some CSS and JavaScript knowledge.

What questions can you ask in Polls? There are 4 basic types:

• Multiple choice.
• Open text field.
• Yes/No.
• Number scale.
• Plus a separate built-in NPS survey.

As for the NPS surveys, they follow the standard format, which is a quantitative question with a 1-10 scale followed by a qualitative question. These could be delivered to users in-app or by email. You can schedule them to recur every 30, 60, 90, 180, or 365 days.

Once you create your poll, you can then trigger it to specific user segments. For example, you could target your power users or those who failed to advance from one stage of the funnel to the next.

Try Userpilot – A More Flexible and Intuitive Option for In-App Surveys!

Get a Demo

• 14 Day Trial
• No Credit Card Required

Analyze survey and poll responses in-app

Once the data starts coming in, Pendo updates the scores in real time.

Their NPS survey provides you with the overall score and the breakdown into detractors, passives, and promoters.

You can also cross-reference the data with product usage analytics and visualize the results. For example, the graph below shows the relationships between the NPS score and usage frequency.

Unfortunately, Pendo’s core Engage doesn’t allow you to tag or categorize qualitative answers in-app, unless you purchase the Pendo Listen add-on, so you’ll need to export the data to a third-party tool, like a spreadsheet, for deeper analysis.

Segment users based on survey responses to create targeted experiences

You can use the data collected through surveys to segment your users.

In this way, you can design personalized experiences that address the needs of various users.

For example, you could segment your users based on their NPS scores and analyze their product usage. Based on that, you could design in-app guides that address the pain points that each of them experiences.

How much does Pendo cost?

Pendo offers 4 plans, including a free one.

Pendo Free supports up to 500 monthly active users and includes product analytics, in-app guides, Pendo-branded roadmaps, and Pendo-branded NPS surveys.

The higher plans (Base, Core, Pulse, Ultimate) are custom-priced via sales; NPS (without Pendo branding) and advanced sentiment analytics live in the higher tiers (Pulse/Ultimate) or can be added on. If you’re interested in Pendo Feedback, it’s sold per seat.

The pros and cons of creating surveys in Pendo

✅ The surveys are easy to create.
✅ Segmentation based on survey responses and for targeted feedback collection.
✅ Robust analytics to triangulate the survey results.
✅ The data is updated in real-time.
✅ Works on mobile and web apps.

❌ Deep visual theming requires CSS/JS/HTML.
❌ Clumsy UX makes it difficult to analyze.
❌ Core Engage has limited qualitative analytics.
❌ High price tag.

What do users say about Pendo Polls?

Pendo has a solid G2 rating of 4.4. Its survey features, at least some of them, are valued by the reviewers.

For example, its NPS functionality gets very positive reviews:

I analyze results within Pendo frequently, at least a few times a week, and monitor the responses from our customers via NPS and an in-product survey. Pendo provides a comprehensive view of user behavior and feedback, making it easy to understand how customers interact with our product and what they value most.

However, there are some negative voices as well. For instance, some users find it impossible to import their historical NPS data into Pendo:

There’s no way to import your historical NPS, so you’ll lose all your historical data.

Are there better alternatives to Pendo Polls?

All things considered, you may be wondering if there are products offering more value for money and a better user experience. Well, there are!

Let’s check out two alternatives and see how they stack up against Pendo: Userpilot and Appcues.

Userpilot – Best for collecting in-app and mobile customer feedback

Userpilot is a digital adoption platform just like Pendo. Overall, it offers similar functionality: product analytics, engagement layer, and feedback features.

When it comes to feedback collection, you can use it to:

• Create in-app surveys code-free.
• Works on mobile and web apps.
• Target specific user segments.
• Collect both quantitative and qualitative data.
• Run and analyze NPS surveys.
• Collect passive feedback via the feedback widget.
• Use the data to segment users.

The kinds of questions you can ask are:

• Small input (specific kind of answer, e.g., an email address).
• Large input (open answer, great for qualitative feedback collection).
• Radio buttons (for multiple-choice questions).

Pros and cons of Userpilot surveys

The main differences between Pendo and Userpilot are that:

✅ It allows you to analyze qualitative NPS responses by tagging them and then using this data to segment users.
✅ Customization of the surveys is easier and requires no coding skills thanks to the WYSIWYG editor.
✅ It’s much more affordable.

❌ It doesn’t support email NPS surveys.

Userpilot pricing

How much more affordable? Considerably.

You get all feedback features and up to 2,000 MAUs in Userpilot’s Starter plan, which starts at $299/month (billed annually). The Growth plan begins at $799/month (billed annually) with custom MAUs, and Enterprise is quote-based: all plans work out way cheaper than Pendo’s higher plans.

Appcues – Best for mobile surveys

Appcues is another product growth platform on our list. While its analytics features are not as well developed as those of Pendo or Userpilot, its in-app guidance and feedback functionality is robust.

The feedback features allow you to:

• Use templates to create and customize surveys without coding.
• Collect and analyze NPS data.
• Use survey data for segmentation.
• Target specific user segments.
• Track product usage to gain a deeper understanding of segments’ behavior.

The surveys can consist of:

• Rating questions.
• Multiple choice questions.
• Free-form text input for qualitative answers.

Appcues pricing

How does Appcues pricing compare to others?

In short, it offers three plans: Start ($300/mo billed annually), Grow ($750/mo billed annually), and Enterprise (custom pricing). All plans include fully customizable in-app surveys, including NPS.

The Start plan supports up to 50 user segments and event-triggered deployment for contextual surveys. In addition, the Grow and Enterprise tiers include unlimited segmentation, advanced Insights reporting, and enterprise-grade integrations and SLAs.

Pros and cons of Appcues surveys

✅ Supports mobile apps.
✅ Good WYSIWYG editor for survey customization (still need CSS at times though).
✅ A collection of surveys created by its users for inspiration.

❌ No qualitative NPS tagging or analytics.
❌ No real-time data updates or event triggering for contextual surveys in the Essentials and Growth plans.

So, Pendo Polls or other alternatives?

Pendo Polls are not bad. Creating the polls and attaching them to Guides takes little effort, and you can collect different kinds of answers. It also allows you to track NPS scores, inside your web and mobile apps, as well as by email.

Combined with its powerful analytics, it offers you detailed insights into user behavior and sentiment.

However, it is let down by its cumbersome UX, which makes data analysis a challenge. Also, advanced customization is hard because it requires coding skills, and then there’s the price tag.

To see how Userpilot can help you collect actionable customer feedback, book the demo!

Userpilot strives to provide accurate information to help businesses determine the best solution for their particular needs. Due to the dynamic nature of the industry, the features offered by Userpilot and others often change over time. The statements made in this article are accurate to the best of Userpilot’s knowledge as of its publication/most recent update on May 9, 2025.

Try Userpilot – A More Flexible and Intuitive Option for In-App Surveys!

Get a Demo

• 14 Day Trial
• No Credit Card Required