Pendo vs. WalkMe: Which Platform Wins on Features and Value?19 min read

If you’re on the hunt for the ideal digital adoption solution, you’ve likely come across the two heavyweights in the space: Pendo and WalkMe. While both enable you to create and improve in-app onboarding experiences, each comes with a different set of features, strengths, and limitations.

So, Pendo vs Walkme, which one is right for your business?

To save you time (and a few headaches), I’ve taken a deep dive into both tools, testing them hands-on, analyzing their core features, and reviewing extensive feedback from real users. In this blog, I’ll walk you through a detailed, side-by-side comparison of Pendo and WalkMe: what they do well, where they fall short, and which use cases they best serve.

But I’m not stopping there.

I’ll also introduce you to a powerful alternative: Userpilot. Not only does it come at a more accessible price point, but it also offers robust features tailored specifically for product and customer success teams.

What is Pendo, and who is it for?

Pendo is an all-in-one product experience platform that helps teams build better digital products. With powerful tools for analytics, session replays, in-app guidance, and user feedback, it gives you a 360° view of how people use your product and how to improve it.

Pendo has a quite large base of user personas, from UX designers to product managers and customer success teams, it empowers cross-functional teams to drive user engagement, uncover friction points, and make data-driven decisions.

Pros of Pendo

• Flexible dashboards: Pendo has plenty of widgets that you can add to your dashboard, including feature adoption, net promoter score, poll results, guide engagement, product stickiness, and MAUs, so you always have your most important metrics within reach. Additionally, it offers a native Engagement Score dashboard that provides a quick snapshot of product health by combining adoption, stickiness, and growth into a single score.
• Integrations: Pendo has 50 different integrations to choose from, including popular tools like Intercom, Jira, Okta, and HubSpot. Unfortunately, only four of these, Salesforce, Segment, Workato, and Zendesk, are two-way integrations that can share data both ways.
• AI innovation: Pendo has incorporated AI into its different products, enabling users to streamline workflows and optimize their productivity. For example, you can use AI to analyze user behavior at a scale or automate in-app guide creation.

Cons of Pendo

• Expensive and complicated pricing: While Pendo pricing isn’t public and transparent, user reviews indicate that the Growth plan can start at around $20,000 annually, with enterprise-level plans reaching up to $100,000 or more per year. Quite expensive, right?

• Data lag: Pendo’s analytics dashboards only update once per hour. In some cases, this data lag could lead product teams to make the wrong decisions or draw false conclusions from outdated insights. But that’s not the worst part, data lag means that you won’t be able to create real-time in-app flows based on user behavior, making them less contextual and relevant.
• Limited engagement features: Pendo’s UI patterns aren’t the best. First, it lacks standalone checklists, they are only available as part of the resource center. Second, Pendo doesn’t offer slideouts like some other product adoption tools in the market do.

What is Walkme, and who is it for?

WalkMe has many of the same key features as Pendo, but while it does offer tools for customer-facing experiences, its larger focus is on employee onboarding.

It’s mostly used by Learning & Development (L&D) and HR teams for driving digital transformation and training employees on internal software. Although it has decent in-app training features, user onboarding is a secondary use case for most companies.

Let’s put it this way: Customer success teams can take advantage of this tool, which is bought by other cross-functional teams, and provide in-app support for users.

Pros of WalkMe

• Workflow automation: Workflow automation features like onboarding automation stand out as they enable you to automate a series of steps and processes, like clicking buttons, to save your time.
• Community: WalkMe offers a strong community of experts and partners who can help you whenever you get stuck.

Cons of WalkMe

• Complex setup: WalkMe’s implementation can be time-consuming and requires some technical expertise, especially when creating custom in-app guidance and workflows.

• Cost: WalkMe is a comprehensive enterprise tool, so its pricing can be too expensive for mid-size businesses that only want to use a few of its layers.

• Limited analytics: While WalkMe excels in user guidance and onboarding, its analytics capabilities are not as robust as those of platforms like Pendo or Userpilot. While it has basic guide analytics and standard reports like funnels, it lacks cohort analytics, which is a huge drawback if you are a SaaS company that prioritizes retention optimization.

Pendo vs WalkMe for user onboarding

Pendo and WalkMe have a bit of overlap in terms of their core features when it comes to this use case.

To start with, both will let you create effective user onboarding experiences that guide users across the user journey toward activation.

However, the different use cases of each tool mean there are key differences in the features they offer.

Pendo for user onboarding

There are a few ways you can use Pendo to improve your new user onboarding flows:

• Guide layouts: Pendo has layout templates for lightboxes, banners, and tooltips that you can use to build onboarding flows for new users.

• Flow triggers: Pendo lets you trigger an onboarding flow when new users land on a particular URL, use a specific device type, interact with a tagged element, or match the target segment.
• Localization settings: Because Pendo has no AI-powered localization features, you’ll need to upload language CSVs manually for this to work.

WalkMe for user onboarding

WalkMe has a bunch of features for user onboarding:

• Onboarding checklist: It’s possible to set different goals inside your checklist so users can keep checking them as they complete them. The Onboarding Tasks can include Smart Walk-Thrus, videos, and articles to guide your new users.
• WalkMe’s SmartTips: These serve as on-screen guidance and help reduce the learning curve for new users. Clicking on a SmartTip opens a pop-up that gives more information on the element.

• ShoutOuts: Draw your new user’s attention to specific announcements. They’re essentially banners that you can use to show users what they need to know when getting started. You can also get them to take action through ShoutOuts.

• Launchers for self-service: When users click on Launchers, a new action like a Smart Walk-Thru will get triggered. Users can click on each Launcher you create to learn more about your platform.

Pendo vs WalkMe for product usage analytics

Both Pendo and WalkMe give you access to product usage and onboarding analytics, but not to quite the same extent.

Pendo for product analytics

Pendo has no shortage of product analytics capabilities as both native features and third-party integrations. You’ll even be able to access the most important metrics like MAUs and feature use from the home dashboard itself.

Here’s a closer look at Pendo’s analytics features:

• Native analytics: Because Pendo is a product adoption platform, most of its adoption and engagement analytics are native to the solution. This means you’ll be able to track the number of views, clicks, and interactions that specific in-app guides or product areas get.
• Paths: The Paths section of your Pendo account shows you which paths users take when coming from a specific page or which path they took to get to a particular page. You’ll also be able to sort this data by segment, and date, or see the paths taken by individual visitor IDs.

• Retention: Pendo’s retention analytics dashboard lets you see cohort retention data from month to month. You’ll also be able to toggle between visitors versus accounts, switch between weekly or monthly views, and measure retention for specific segments.

• Funnels: Pendo’s funnel analytics can tell you how many unique visitors have seen your funnels, how many attempts have been made to get through the funnel, and the average time it takes to complete the funnel. You’ll also be able to see completion rates and sort by date or segment.

WalkMe for product analytics

WalkMe offers some advanced features for product analytics:

• The session playback feature can help you look into user sessions from the past year. By default, up to 1,000 session playbacks will be visible in your account at any given time. You can use them to analyze past user sessions and even ones happening in real time.

• You also get user funnel tracking capabilities on WalkMe. It enables you to create a custom funnel to track various events. You can then monitor various metrics like funnel completion rates and drop-off rates to see how users interact with your platform. WalkMe also lets you filter the data based on browser, date ranges, and more.
• It’s also possible to get analytics on your in-app experiences to determine which features are being used the most by your users.

Pendo vs WalkMe ease of use comparison

Now, before diving into this section it’s worthwhile to point out that the question we’ll answer isn’t really “Which is easier to use?” Both tools are not that user-friendly.

Rather, it’s more like, “Which is less difficult.”

We’ve already touched on this a bit, so let’s start with setup.

Setup and implementation

WalkMe is on-premise software, meaning you’ll need to install it locally. This is not as easy as double-clicking an executable file, and actually takes quite a bit of time, work, and technical knowledge.

WalkMe’s certified technicians can help you with this but don’t imagine that you’ll sign up for WalkMe and start building custom product walkthroughs all at once.

Pendo is simpler and faster to set up than WalkMe but still requires some technical ability.

Using the product

WalkMe offers highly customizable and sophisticated product walkthroughs – that is, provided you have the coding and technical skills necessary to get them working.

You can also pay for a certified expert to help with the technical aspects, but this just makes an already pricey product even more expensive.

Pendo, on the other hand, offers its Visual Design Studio as a way to reduce the need for coding. Unfortunately, this comes with two major downsides.

First, using the studio limits your ability to customize walkthroughs and UI elements. To do that, you’ll need to be able to write some CSS.

Second, the Visual Design Studio can be a bit clunky to use. You can preview your walkthroughs in the studio dashboard, but that’s separate from the web app where you actually create them.

This means that you have to constantly switch between applications just to get a sense of how your edits are taking effect. Further, you can’t test your walkthrough until the code has been installed via API.

Pendo vs WalkMe pricing comparison

Comparing prices between Pendo and WalkMe is tricky since neither makes its pricing information publicly available.

What we can say, though, is both options are rather expensive.

Pendo pricing

Based on user reviews, costs for Pendo can potentially range from $25,800 to $132,400 annually.

Here’s an overview of Pendo pricing plans:

• Free: Limited functionality for up to 500 monthly active users (MAUs). Includes basic product analytics, in-app guides, NPS surveys, and roadmaps.
• Base: This plan targets companies starting with product experience management. It includes custom MAU limits, product analytics, in-app guides, and one integration.
• Core: The core solution for driving business results, it includes everything in Base, plus session replay functionality.
• Pulse: Focuses on optimizing product investments, it includes everything in Core, plus NPS surveys to collect user feedback and product discovery functionalities.
• Ultimate: Most comprehensive plan, it includes everything in Pulse, plus advanced in-app guides (Pro edition) and data sync capabilities.

WalkMe pricing

WalkMe’s pricing isn’t transparent, but it’s fully customizable based on your requirements.

You need to get in touch with their team to find pricing details for both the customer and employee versions. Considering the platform is specifically built for enterprises, you can expect the cost to be on the higher end.

You could end up spending anywhere between $9,000 to $50,000 per year if you choose to use WalkMe.

Is Pendo better than WalkMe? The final verdict

If you’ve been keeping score, it’s pretty clear by now that Pendo has won in most categories.

To summarize, Pendo comes out ahead because of:

• Offers more advanced analytics features.
• Is simpler to implement.

At this point, you might be thinking that these products seem useful, but don’t quite meet the needs of your SaaS business or customer success goals.

If only there was a third option that’s easier to use, more focused on SaaS growth goals, and less expensive.

Fortunately, such an option does exist! Allow me to introduce a third contender: our very own software, Userpilot.

Before we dive deeper into details, here’s a quick summary of how Walkme compares to Pendo alongside Userpilot.

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Userpilot: A better alternative to Pendo and WalkMe for product teams

If you’re a mid-market or enterprise SaaS company with a product team, Userpilot might be just the digital adoption platform you need. It unifies multiple tools into one: session replays, product analytics, user feedback, and in-app messaging at the price of one. You’ll enjoy all the perks of Walkme and Pendo without having to pay a large sum!

Let’s run through some of Userpilot’s key features and see how they compare.

Userpilot for user onboarding

Here are some Userpilot features you can use when onboarding new users:

• No-code builder: Creating flows with Userpilot is simple. You just need to install the Chrome extension, select the UI patterns you’d like to use, and then customize it with a visual editor. You can also use templates to create modals, slideouts, tooltips, and drive actions to streamline your in-app messaging strategy.

• Advanced flow settings: With advanced condition settings, you can decide when, where, and who you’ll be triggering your onboarding flows. This helps you create contextual onboarding experiences that drive engagement and adoption.

• Onboarding engagement analytics: You can easily assess the impact of your onboarding flows, guidance, etc. by analyzing the completion rate of specific steps.

Userpilot for product analytics

Here are Userpilot’s top product analytics features:

• Autocapture: Userpilot automatically records everything your users do, like clicks and form inputs, so you don’t need to tag events or involve developers.

• Trends and funnels: Userpilot’s trends and funnels report lets you extract actionable insights from big data. You’ll be able to see which stage of an onboarding/conversion funnel most users drop out on and create trend reports with detailed breakdowns by user or period.

• Retention tables: This lets you gauge product performance to see how effective your product is at retaining users using cohort tables and retention curves.

• Paths: You can generate and access path reports directly within the reporting builder in Userpilot, alongside funnels, trends, and retention reports. With Userpilot Paths, you can have an overview of how users navigate your product features – offering invaluable insights into their interactions with your products.

• Session replays: You can watch real-time recordings of how users interact with your product and see exactly what they experience. For example, you can combine them with funnel analytics and watch the sessions of dropped of users to uncover the friction.
• Analytics dashboards: These dashboards enable you to keep track of your key product performance and user behavior metrics at a glance, without any technical setup required. You can either choose one of the popular dashboard templates or create customized dashboards with metrics that matter to your business.

Userpilot’s ease of use

You can get Userpilot set up and running in minutes with its Chrome extension and a copy/paste of one line of JavaScript code into your app.

Beyond the single line at installation, there is no coding necessary to access, implement, or test all the tools, features, and resources Userpilot offers.

Userpilot’s pricing

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

Here is a more detailed breakdown of its plans:

• 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 $799/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).

Userpilot vs Pendo

To put it simply, Userpilot and Pendo offer more or less the same features, but Userpilot comes at a much lower price.

Moreover, Userpilot offers extra features such as 15+ survey templates, while Pendo only has NPS.

Here’s a quick side-by-side comparison:

Cuvama, one of our clients, switched from Pendo for this exact reason: they were paying tons of money and not getting its value. After switching to Userpilot, Cuvama was able to streamline onboarding and get better value for their money, as Leyre, their CX lead mentions.

Userpilot vs Walkme

Userpilot and Walkme aren’t actually direct competitors, while Userpilot is a user onboarding platform, Walkme is an employee training platform that also has some user onboarding features.

If you need a user onboarding tool, it’s a brainer that Userpilot is the better choice. Userpilot is quick to set up, easier to us,e and has retention reports, a critical feature that Walkme lacks.

Here’s a detailed feature comparison between the 2 platforms.

Again, we have real people to back our words up: Rachel, the cofounder of TouchRight software, saw firsthand how intuitive Userpilot was and how even most non-technical team members were able to create in-app experiences within minutes, saving them valuable developer time.

Where should you put your money?

While at first glance it seems like both Pendo and Walkme are digital adoption platforms and thus direct competitors, at a closer introspection it’s clear they have different main use cases.

If you need a tool mainly for employee training, choose Walkme. If you need a main user onboarding or analytics tool, pick Pendo.

Or better yet, invest in Userpilot. It has all the features Pendo offers ( analytics reports, surveys, in-app guides, and session replays) at a fraction of the latter’s price, is much easier to use, and offers additional engagement features. Book a Userpilot demo and get started today!