Stonly for Onboarding Automation: Features, Pricing, and Review
Looking for an effective onboarding automation tool and wondering if Stonly is the best option for your SaaS company?
With numerous Stonly alternatives, it can be challenging to make a final decision.
In this article, we’ll delve into precisely that – helping you determine whether Stonly is the ideal choice for your onboarding automation needs. We’ll explore its features, pricing, and offer a comprehensive review to aid in your decision-making process.
Let’s get started!
TL;DR
- Stonly is a good choice for onboarding automation and it comes with features such as user segmentation, onboarding checklist, self service support, and user journey mapping.
- There are a few clear scenarios where Stonly wouldn’t be the best solution to use. If you’re in any of these scenarios then considering an alternative platform would probably be best:
- Feature Mismatch: If user onboarding or product adoption are your main goals, then Stonly’s feature set may not align with that use case. Its ability to build in-app guides or survey customers is limited by the platform’s coding requirements and pricing structure.
- Budgetary Constraints: Companies who are operating on a tight budget should steer clear of Stonly due to the extra charges that occur if your guides get more than 4,000 views per month. If guide views reach 30,000 then you’ll be paying an additional $500 on your plan each month.
- Existing Knowledge Bases: Building knowledge bases is the primary use case for Stonly’s feature set. If you already have an existing knowledge base, then you’d be better off with an alternative like Userflow that integrates with Freshdesk, HubSpot, and Zendesk knowledge bases.
- If you’re looking for a better option for onboarding automation, Userpilot exceeds both functionality and value for money compared to Stonly. Ready to see Userpilot in action? Schedule a demo today to explore its powerful onboarding automation capabilities firsthand.
Looking for a Better Alternative for Onboarding Automation? Try Userpilot
What is Stonly?
Stonly positions itself as a cheaper alternative to some of the pricier product adoption solutions on the market. In reality, it’s more of a customer service tool that can be used to build knowledge bases rather than an actual onboarding or adoption platform.
As a result, the tour builder on Stonly feels more like an add-on to its knowledge base functionality rather than a product of its own.
This also means that its in-app engagement features will be rather limited (especially in the no-code regard) compared to alternatives like Userpilot or Appcues.
Must have features of onboarding automation tools
There are many onboarding automation tools available, so you may be confused about which one to choose.
Though the right tool will depend on your business goals and needs, here are the must-have features for any onboarding automation tool.
- Make sure the tool you choose isn’t limited to just product tours. Pick a tool that provides various UI patterns (modals, slideouts, banners, checklists, hotspots) to create beautiful welcome screens, and interactive walkthroughs to guide new customers and delight them from the very beginning.
- Look into getting decent segmentation capabilities based on in-app behavior and in-app experience engagement so you can trigger onboarding flows properly.
- An in-app help center is another feature that you should be looking for in an onboarding automation tool. With this, you can collect all your documentation files, tutorials, and videos in one place and offer on-demand support.
- Integration with 3rd party apps and tools so you can gain more insights and collect them in one place.
There you have it. These are the basic features that any solid onboarding automation tool should cover. Do your own research before buying a tool and make sure it’s aligned with your business goals.
Stonly features for onboarding automation
Seeing as Stonly is a knowledge base builder first and onboarding/adoption solution second, it has quite a few features that are missing, too basic, or difficult to use for user onboarding.
Some workarounds like interface triggers, guides that help you personalize content, and flow reports that show you which stage of the journey customers are getting stuck on could still be used:
- UI Triggers: Stonly lets you add triggers like pills (icons at the bottom of your screen), banners (bars on the top of your page), hotspots, icons next to an element, or hidden conditions. Note that triggers are only available on paid plans, so Basic users won’t have access to them.
- Guides: Stonly lets you build in-app guides through its visual editor. You’ll be able to add steps, links, surveys, contact forms, checklists, automation, and live chat embeds into these guides with little to no coding. Features like UI triggers or guide variables are limited to paid plans.
- Flow Reports: Stonly’s flow reports can help you identify which stages or steps of the onboarding journey most of your users are getting stuck on. However, this data is only updated every 15 minutes so you won’t be able to view real-time user path metrics with Stonly.
Stonly’s user segmentation
User segmentation is incredibly important for analyzing user data, tracking customer trends, and triggering in-app guidance at the most contextual moments. Stonly helps you collect user data, create custom properties, and set up targeted triggers for your guides.
Here’s an overview of Stonly’s user segmentation and targeting capabilities:
- User Data: By default, the Stonly widget is able to track standard data points. These make it possible to sort users based on which country they’re from, what language they speak, which device/browser they’re using, and when they were first/last seen.
- Custom Properties: If the standard data points that Stonly collects aren’t enough, you can add new properties such as which plan a customer is on. You can also use the Segment integration to add a data source for user attributes and events if needed.
- Targeted Triggers: Stonly lets you add UI triggers that launch in-app content such as guides or multi-step tours. You can add targeting conditions to these UI triggers so that they launch guides based on which user properties are met or which checklist tasks have been completed.
Note: UI triggers are only available on Stonly’s paid plans so users on the Basic version of the platform won’t be able to use them.
Stonly’s onboarding checklist
Stonly lets you build onboarding checklists from scratch, use its provided template, set task completion conditions, and monitor analytics for all checklists.
Here’s how Stonly helps you build user onboarding checklists:
- Visual Editor: Stonly’s visual editor lets you build checklists that sit inside of guides, add tasks, edit content, and tweak settings without writing a single line of code. You’ll also be able to toggle between languages by clicking on the “EN” icon or revert changes using the builder’s file versioning tab.
- Completion Conditions: Stonly checklists have multiple options for marking tasks as completed. You can have tasks that are pre-checked by default, make users check tasks off manually, or trigger completion when certain conditions are met (such as finished guides or URL opens).
- Checklist Analytics: Stonly offers granular insights for every checklist you create. These analytics dashboards show you how many unique visitors have interacted with the checklist and how many skipped/completed it. You can also see completion rates for each individual task.
Stonly’s self service support
Stonly’s core knowledge base functionality and additional onboarding capabilities can help you build self-serve infrastructure for your users.
Here’s how you can use Stonly to build a self-service customer experience:
- Knowledge Bases: Stonly is primarily a knowledge base builder with onboarding/adoption features added on. As such, it lets you build modular knowledge bases in multiple languages and integrate live chats for Intercom or Freshchat when users need additional help.
- In-App Guides: Build in-app guides that trigger when users click on a UI element or land on a certain page. Furthermore, users have the ability to report issues with any guide or knowledge base module so you can improve the self-service resources.
Note: UI triggers are only available on Stonly’s paid plans so users on the Basic version of the platform won’t be able to use them.
- Third-Party Integrations: Stonly has integrations with customer support platforms like Zendesk, Freshdesk, Intercom, and more. For instance, you could integrate your Stonly knowledge base with Intercom so that representatives and users both have access to the same resources.
Stonly’s user journey mapping
Stonly’s user journey mapping capabilities are limited by its lack of product analytics but it does have flow reports that track the user journey.
Here’s how you can use Stonly to analyze the customer journey:
- Flows Dashboard: Stonly’s Flows reports help you track the percentage of users that make it from one step to the next so you can identify any roadblocks. You can also zoom in/out on the report or sort data by content type, language, and date range to extract actionable insights.
- Color Coding: Stonly’s flow reports are color-coded to help you measure drop-offs at a glance. If 70% or more of sessions move to the next step it’s labeled green, 69% to 25% is labeled yellow, and 24% or lower is marked in red. This helps you quickly spot funnel leaks and drop-off areas.
- Data Limitations: Because Stonly’s analytics are limited to the guides, checklists, surveys, and knowledge base modules you create within the platform, it can’t use product usage data to map the user journey. Flow data is only refreshed once every 15 minutes which further limits it.
What are the pros and cons of Stonly?
Stonly’s pros
While Stonly isn’t as capable as full-on digital adoption solutions like Userpilot, Pendo, or Appcues, it does have a few benefits:
- Self-Service Support: Because building knowledge bases is the primary use case for Stonly (and arguably its core product), it has advanced self-service support features that could outperform other adoption solutions, such as abundant live chat integrations.
- Analytics Dashboard: Stonly has a unified analytics dashboard that can show you global insights across all your guides. This makes it easier to track content engagement and monitor your key performance indicators (KPIs).
- Guide Builder: While other Stonly features such as event tracking, user targeting, data streaming, and styling require coding, the guide builder uses an intuitively designed visual interface to let you add, edit, or delete steps.
Stonly’s cons
Unfortunately, there are quite a few drawbacks to using Stonly that stem from its lopsided features, no-code capabilities (or lack thereof), and view-based pricing model:
- Feature Set: Seeing as Stonly is a knowledge base builder first and onboarding/adoption solution second, it has quite a few features that are missing, too basic, or difficult to use. If user onboarding and product adoption are your main use cases, consider alternatives.
- Coding Requirements: Unlike most of its competitors, Stonly doesn’t advertise itself as a no-code onboarding/adoption platform. This means you’ll need coding knowledge to track events, target users, stream data, and style your content.
- Pay-as-You-Go Pricing: Stonly’s pricing charges additional fees based on the number of views that guides get. Customers who don’t exceed 4,000 guide views per month won’t be charged extra, but those who do will pay an additional $250 to $500 monthly depending on volume.
What do users say about Stonly?
Despite Stonly’s limitations, there are some aspects of the platform that garner praise from users, such as the ease of publishing:
The ease of creating and embedding a guide in my website. It’s super easy to move from written doc to live guide that is also accessible from my website, which is a live saver.
Of course, there are also plenty of criticisms stemming from Stonly being positioned as an interactive guide solution when it’s more of a knowledge base builder:
“It is very easy to get lost when creating guides and steps in Stonly. because everything is extremely granular and fragmented by design, it is possible to accidentally create the same information in multiple places (instead of ‘linking’ to relevant, already created steps. The real danger here is that should one version of the information be updated, and the other not, you end up with conflicting information in your system, which leads to poor customer experience. It would be nice if there was some way to get a birds-eye view of a knowledge base, including relevant links between steps and guides to minimize this issue.
Another missing element that would be highly desired is a functional “draft/approve” process. We currently use a folder outside of the main KB for new draft articles, however, should one of our lower-level team members be tasked with drafting an update to an existing guide, it is very hard to obtain a clear list of what guides have been edited, where and what has changed, and then as an admin, be able to review, approve and publish. Ideally I would desire some sort of list where the guide edit page is not opened, but rather a list of changes, when you click one you get a pop-up of before/after comparison, and then you can approve and publish without a page load.
The report issues function could do with a link in the resulting email to take you to the edit page for the doc. Currently we need to copy/paste the guide name from the email to the editor portal to find the guide. This has on more than one occasion led to the incorrect guide being edited (sometimes related to the topic in paragraph one of these notes)
When first loading the customer-facing site, the search field shows up, you can start typing, but then the search is cleared and you end up with part of your search term missing and have to start again (minor frustration, however, customers will experience this as a touchpoint of our product, not Stonly, wo it looks bad on our part)
For the tours, you have element selectors for ID and CSS selector. XPATH support would be highly desirable for some of the elements in our app.”
Stonly’s pricing
Stonly offers two paid plans. In addition to the base subscription cost, customers will also be charged additional fees if their guides get more than 4,000 views per month.
Here’s an overview of Stonly’s two subscription tiers:
- Small Business: Stonly’s Business tier is the entry-level paid plan that starts at $249/month but offers a 20% discount if you bill annually. It includes five team seats, unlimited guides, multi-language support, guide variables, and integrations. You’ll be billed extra if you exceed 4,000 guide views.
- Enterprise: The Enterprise version of Stonly uses quote-based pricing and includes all the features of the Business tier. It has additional features like surveys, automatic guide translation, advanced permissions, additional integrations, priority support, and single sign-on (SSO).
3 Reasons why you might need a Stonly alternative
There are a few clear scenarios where Stonly wouldn’t be the best solution to use. If you’re in any of these scenarios then considering an alternative platform would probably be best:
- Feature Mismatch: If user onboarding or product adoption are your main goals, then Stonly’s feature set may not align with that use case. Its ability to build in-app guides or survey customers is limited by the platform’s coding requirements and pricing structure.
- Budgetary Constraints: Companies who are operating on a tight budget should steer clear of Stonly due to the extra charges that occur if your guides get more than 4,000 views per month. If guide views reach 30,000 then you’ll be paying an additional $500 on your plan each month.
- Existing Knowledge Bases: Building knowledge bases is the primary use case for Stonly’s feature set. If you already have an existing knowledge base, then you’d be better off with an alternative like Userflow that integrates with Freshdesk, HubSpot, and Zendesk knowledge bases.
Userpilot – A better alternative for onboarding automation
User onboarding is a crucial part of the customer journey as it speeds up the adoption process and increases retention rates. Onboarding is one of Userpilot’s core use cases along with product growth analytics and user feedback, so it has plenty of features that you can utilize.
Here are some Userpilot features you can use when onboarding new users:
- No-code builder: Creating flows with Userpilot is as simple as installing the Chrome extension, selecting the UI patterns you’d like to use, and then editing the content/settings to suit your use case. You can also use templates to create modals, slideouts, tooltips, and driven actions.
- Native tooltips: Userpilot lets you create native tooltips that show up when users hover over an element or click on an information badge. Since these native tooltips attach to the element itself, they aren’t page-dependent and will show up on any screen where that element is visible.
- Funnel analytics: Userpilot’s advanced analytics lets you create funnel reports that track the onboarding journey. You can also add filters (like name, user ID, signup date, operating system, country, etc.) and monitor the total conversion rate from the first step of the funnel to the last.
- User segmentation: Userpilot lets you segment users based on the device they’re using, where they’re located, their engagement data, or which NPS rating they selected on the latest survey. You can then filter your analytics dashboards to see which segments struggle with onboarding.
Userpilot’s user segmentation
User segmentation is essential for creating a personalized and contextual onboarding experience. Userpilot can segment users based on demographics, product usage data, NPS scores, and more. You can then trigger flows or filter analytics based on segments.
Here’s an overview of Userpilot’s customer segmentation capabilities:
- Segment conditions: Userpilot lets you form segments by adding different conditions like user data, company data, features and events, etc. You can then use these segments as analytics filters or flow triggers later on.
- Analytics filters: Userpilot’s product analytics and user insights dashboards can be filtered to only display data from specific segments (or companies). This will help you extract insights from certain cohorts and compare how adoption or activation varies from one segment to the next.
- Flow triggers: Userpilot’s audience settings let you trigger flows for specific segments or target users that meet certain conditions. You can combine this with page-specific or event-occurrence triggers to show relevant flows to the right users at the most contextual moments.
- External data: Userpilot integrates with tools like Amplitude, Google Analytics, Mixpanel, and Segment using a one-way integration. This means you can use the data inside Userpilot to build advanced segmentation and trigger contextual experiences. For more advanced use cases, the two-way integration with Hubspot lets you send and receive data, unlocking a full set of use cases.
Userpilot’s onboarding checklist
Onboarding checklists help new users learn about a product and reduce their time-to-value (TTV). Userpilot checklists can be created using the no-code builder, used to trigger specific actions, and tracked using the analytics dashboard to gauge overall engagement.
Here’s how you can use Userpilot to create an advanced onboarding checklist:
- No-code builder: Userpilot’s checklist creator lets you edit the content of checklists, add tasks, style icons, and configure the triggers for when your checklist should appear. You’ll also be able to choose from five widget icons (or upload your own) and recolor the widget to match your UI.
- Smart tasks: Checklist tasks can be set to trigger specific actions upon being completed, such as redirecting a user to a different page, launching an in-app flow, or running a custom JavaScript function. You can also set the conditions for when a task and action will be marked as complete.
- Checklist analytics: The Checklists dashboard shows you all relevant metrics. These include the number of live checklists you have, how many views they’ve gotten, and how many have been completed. You can also sort these analytics by segment or time period to identify trends.
Userpilot’s self service support
Self-service support helps users solve problems themselves instead of having to reach out to a representative. Userpilot’s no-code resource center makes onboarding guides and product documentation easily accessible to users from within your product.
Here’s how you can use Userpilot to create a self-service customer experience:
- No-code builder: Userpilot’s no-code resource center lets you add modules without writing a single line of code. Module options include links, videos, flows, custom JavaScript functions, and checklists. You can also group modules into sections to help users navigate the resource center.
- Module segmentation: Userpilot’s segmentation settings let you hide or show specific modules within your resource center based on audience settings. This makes it possible to create modules for different user segments and hide resources that aren’t relevant to other users.
- Analytics dashboard: The dedicated analytics dashboard helps you see how many unique visitors your resource center gets, how many modules have been clicked, and the overall click rate across your user base. This will make it easier to gauge resource center performance.
Userpilot’s user journey mapping
User journey mapping helps you visualize all the interactions between users and your product as they try to achieve a particular goal. Userpilot’s detailed user analytics and funnel/trend reports help you track customers as they progress through different stages of their journey.
Here are the Userpilot features you can use for user journey mapping:
- User analytics: The Users dashboard provides detailed analytics of your entire customer base. You’ll be able to sort by segment, company, or time period and add multiple filters to help you narrow results. You can also perform bulk actions and export user data in a CSV format.
- Funnel reports: These reports help you visualize the user journey map by showing which stage, page, or action most users get stuck on. You’ll also be able to view breakdowns so you can see how the user journey changes depending on which OS, browser, or device type a user is on.
- Trend reports: Userpilot’s trend reports offer behavioral insights such as how often users perform a specific action, the number of unique users who take that action, and where in the user journey these actions occur. You can also create custom metrics and build your own charts.
What are the pros and cons of Userpilot?
Userpilot pros
As a full-suite digital adoption platform, Userpilot has all the features you need to onboard users, track analytics, and gather feedback from customers without writing a single line of code. Here are a few pros of using Userpilot as your product growth solution:
- No-code builder: Userpilot’s Chrome extension lets you build flows, add UI elements, and tag features without writing a single line of code.
- UI patterns: There are plenty of UI patterns to choose from when using Userpilot, such as hotspots, tooltips, banners, slideouts, modals, and more!
- Startup-friendly: Userpilot’s entry-level plan gives you access to all available UI patterns so you can hit the ground running.
- Walkthroughs and flows: Build engaging interactive walkthroughs and personalized onboarding flows that target specific segments of your user base.
- Self-service support: Build an in-app resource center to help users solve problems, customize its appearance to align it with your brand, and insert various types of content (videos, flows, or chatbots) to keep your customers satisfied.
- A/B testing: Userpilot’s built-in A/B testing capabilities will help you split-test flows, iterate on the best-performing variants, and continually optimize based on user behavior.
- Feedback collection: Userpilot has built-in NPS surveys with its own unified analytics dashboard and response tagging to help you retarget users. There are other survey types to choose from and you can even create your own custom survey.
- Survey templates: There are 14 survey templates to choose from so you can gather feedback on specific features or run customer satisfaction benchmarking surveys like CSAT and CES.
- Advanced analytics: Userpilot lets you analyze product usage data, monitor engagement on all in-app flows, and use the data to create user segments that are based on behaviors instead of demographics.
- Event tracking: Userpilot’s no-code event tracking lets you tag UI interactions (hovers, clicks, or form fills) and group them into a custom event that reflects feature usage.
- Third-party integrations: Userpilot has built-in integrations with tools like Amplitude, Mixpanel, Kissmetrics, Segment, Heap, HubSpot, Intercom, Google Analytics, and Google Tag Manager so you can share data between all the solutions in your tech stack.
Userpilot’s cons
Of course, no tool is perfect and there are a few cons to consider before choosing Userpilot as your user onboarding or product growth solution:
- Employee onboarding: Currently, Userpilot only supports in-app customer onboarding.
- Mobile apps: Userpilot doesn’t have any mobile compatibility which could make it difficult for developers with cross-platform applications to create a consistent user experience for both versions of their product.
- Freemium plan: There’s no freemium Userpilot plan so those bootstrapping their startup and need sub-$100 solutions should consider more affordable onboarding platforms like UserGuiding or Product Fruits.
What do users say about Userpilot?
Most users laud Userpilot for its versatile feature set, ease of use, and responsive support team:
I recently had the pleasure of using Userpilot, and I must say it exceeded all my expectations. As a product manager, I’m always on the lookout for tools that can enhance user onboarding and improve overall user experience. Userpilot not only delivered on these fronts but also went above and beyond with its impressive new features, unparalleled ease of use, and truly exceptional customer support.
What truly sets Userpilot apart is its outstanding customer support. Throughout my journey with Userpilot, the support team has been responsive, knowledgeable, and genuinely dedicated to helping me succeed. Whenever I had a question or encountered an issue, their support team was always there to assist promptly, going above and beyond to ensure my concerns were addressed effectively.
Source: G2.
Of course, other users are also kind enough to share constructive criticism regarding specific features like event tracking filters:
“The filtration while analyzing specific events is a little confusing. Understanding of custom properties and data management configuration could have been more organised.”
Source: G2.
Userpilot’s pricing
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, user feedback, and customization.
- Growth: The Growth plan starts at $499/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).
Conclusion
There you have it.
It should be easier now to make an informed decision whether Stonly is your go-to option for onboarding automation. Ultimately, the best choice will depend on your product and current needs.
If you’re looking for a better alternative to Stonly for onboarding automation, book a Userpilot demo today to experience firsthand how it can enhance your user experience and drive product growth!
Looking for a Better Alternative for Onboarding Automation? Try Userpilot
