UserGuiding vs Userflow: Which is Best for Your SaaS?
Wondering whether UserGuiding or Userflow is the best option for your SaaS company?
This article is going to dive into the UserGuiding vs Userflow debate and try to answer a key question: Which is the better tool for user onboarding, as well as other use cases?
In the post below, we’ve covered all the common use cases and done an in-depth analysis of the key features of UserGuiding and Userflow – as well as compared it to an alternative solution that may be better in some situations.
Let’s get into it!
TL;DR
- Let’s explore how UserGuiding, and Userflow compare when it comes to user onboarding and other common use cases.
-
- UserGuiding is a no-code product adoption tool that lets users create in-app walkthroughs, guides, and checklists. The solution makes it possible for teams to onboard, engage, and retain users without needing coding skills to create these in-app experiences.
- Userflow is a user onboarding solution centered around building in-app flows and guides quickly and seamlessly. It helps product teams onboard new users, creates guides/checklists, and surveys customers to gather valuable feedback.
-
- If you’re looking for a better option for user onboarding, Userpilot exceeds both functionality and value for money compared to other tools on the list.
- Userpilot is a product growth platform that drives user activation, feature adoption, and expansion revenue. It also helps product teams collect user feedback, streamline onboarding, and gather actionable insights from analytics. Get a Userpilot demo for user onboarding and drive your product growth code-free.
Userpilot – A Better Alternative for Your SaaS
What is UserGuiding?
UserGuiding is a no-code product adoption tool that lets users create in-app walkthroughs, guides, and checklists. The solution makes it possible for teams to onboard, engage, and retain users without needing coding skills to create these in-app experiences.
All in all, UserGuiding is a pretty flexible solution that can improve the onboarding process, boost user engagement, and increase customer retention.
What is Userflow?
Userflow is a user onboarding solution centered around building in-app flows and guides quickly and seamlessly. It helps product teams onboard new users, creates guides/checklists, and surveys customers to gather valuable feedback.
Each flow has its own analytics that shows how many views each step of a funnel gets and what percentage of users end up seeing a particular stage. Lastly, the flow builder (Userflow’s main feature) also has versioning capabilities so you can restore your flows to a previous variant.
UserGuiding vs Userflow for user onboarding
In this section of the article, we’re really going to compare UserGuiding vs Userflow in terms of user onboarding. That way, we’ll be able to figure out which tool – UserGuiding or Userflow – is the best option depending on your use case.
UserGuiding for user onboarding
As a no-code onboarding tool, UserGuiding has numerous features that will help you create onboarding flows for your new customers and guide them throughout their journey.
Here’s what you’ll get when you start using UserGuiding:
- Create interactive product walkthroughs without disturbing your developers as it’s completely code-free.
- Build onboarding checklists and drive customers to the activation point by eliminating the guesswork on what the next step should be.
- Create interactive elements, such as product tours, tooltips, and pop-ups, to help keep users engaged and increase the likelihood that they’ll complete the onboarding process.
- Create a resource center to add different educational resources for your users.
Though UserGuiding is a great tool for startups that don’t have much money to invest in an onboarding tool, it has very strict limitations for the Basic plan.
You can only create a maximum of 20 guides and hotspots, 2 onboarding checklists, and 1 resource center. If you want to create unlimited guides with unlimited UI patterns, you should go for the Professional plan which can cost from $299 to $399.
The one drawback when using UserGuiding for onboarding is the fact that its analytics dashboard only encompasses the elements that you’ve created within the platform. In contrast, Userpilot is able to track all elements, events, and behaviors throughout the entire user journey.
Userflow for user onboarding
Userflow positions itself as a user onboarding tool, so most of its features are targeted towards that use case. Here are the Userflow features and functionalities that you can use to onboard new users to your product:
- Flows: In-app flows are the primary user onboarding feature that Userflow offers. You’ll be able to add steps like speech bubbles, tooltips, modals, or hidden steps used as triggers. You can also select whether a step is mandatory for flow completion and change the size or theme if needed.
- Targeting: You can create personalized and contextual onboarding flows with Userflow due to its auto-start settings. You can add trigger conditions like what page users are on, which segment they’re in, when they signed up, which elements they’ve clicked, and which flows they’ve seen.
- Checklists: Userflows lets you create checklists with an unlimited number of tasks, trigger them if certain targeting conditions are met, configure whether tasks need to be completed in a specific order, and prevent users from dismissing the checklist if needed.
UserGuiding vs Userflow for product adoption
In this section of the article, we’re really going to compare UserGuiding vs Userflow in terms of product adoption. That way, we’ll be able to figure out which tool – UserGuiding or Userflow – is the best option depending on your use case.
UserGuiding for product adoption
UserGuiding has multiple features that can promote product adoption early in the user journey (especially during the onboarding process).
Some features that you could deploy when using UserGuiding for your product adoption efforts include:
- Onboarding checklists: While the onboarding checklist is generally used for profile setups and introducing users to specific features, it can also be used to help users learn more about the product and various ways to begin getting value out of it.
- Surveys: Because qualitative feedback is a necessary part of guiding your digital adoption strategy, creating a survey with UserGuiding could help you gather the insights that you need to streamline the adoption journey for your users (but we’d suggest going for the Professional tier so you can have three different surveys active simultaneously).
- Guides: Guides created with UserGuiding can have either a single step or multiple steps which gives you the flexibility to test different combinations and see which setup reduces friction or increases digital adoption amongst users.
- Hotspots: Much like onboarding checklists, hotspots are primarily utilized to highlight a specific feature. However, you can use the UserGuiding dashboard to see the total number of hotspot clicks to gauge product adoption on a broader level (unfortunately it only displays interactions that occurred in the past seven days).
- Resource center: Customer education is a crucial part of driving product adoption so using UserGuiding to create a resource center is a handy way to teach new users how the product works.
Userflow for product adoption
Userflow positions itself as a user onboarding tool, so most of its features are targeted towards that use case. Here are the Userflow features and functionalities that you can use to onboard new users to your product:
- Flows: In-app flows are the primary user onboarding feature that Userflow offers. You’ll be able to add steps like speech bubbles, tooltips, modals, or hidden steps used as triggers. You can also select whether a step is mandatory for flow completion and change the size or theme if needed.
- Targeting: You can create personalized and contextual onboarding flows with Userflow due to its auto-start settings. You can add trigger conditions like what page users are on, which segment they’re in, when they signed up, which elements they’ve clicked, and which flows they’ve seen.
- Checklists: Userflows lets you create checklists with an unlimited number of tasks, trigger them if certain targeting conditions are met, configure whether tasks need to be completed in a specific order, and prevent users from dismissing the checklist if needed.
UserGuiding vs Userflow for customer experience
In this section of the article, we’re really going to compare UserGuiding vs Userflow in terms of customer experience. That way, we’ll be able to figure out which tool – UserGuiding or Userflow – is the best option depending on your use case.
UserGuiding for customer experience
Because UserGuiding was built with the goal of creating no-code onboarding flows, its features are better suited to the earlier stages of the user journey rather than the full course of the customer experience.
That said, there are still certain UserGuiding features that can be adapted for customer experience optimization:
- Surveys: Customer experience optimization (CXO) is heavily reliant on gathering feedback that can help improve and streamline user journeys. Collecting qualitative feedback with UserGuiding surveys can be the first step towards improving the customer experience.
- MAUs: While the MAU metric isn’t as granular as customer satisfaction metrics like NPS or CSAT scores, looking at trends in how many MAUs your product is getting from month to month can help you determine if the customer experience is getting better or worse.
- Activity feed: UserGuiding’s activity feed can show you which areas of the tool users have been engaging with the most. You can then use these insights to identify areas where the customer experience could be improved.
Userflow for customer experience
A good customer experience is imperative to lasting user retention. While Userflow’s lack of product analytics capabilities limits the customer experience insights it can offer, the software does let you add questions.
- Question blocks: Userflow lets you add question blocks to steps in the flow builder. Text-based questions are ideal for collecting qualitative feedback on the customer experience while scale or star ratings can be used to create CSAT or CES surveys within your no-code flows.
- NPS surveys: Userflow lets you create NPS surveys to see how satisfied users are with their customer experience and are loyal to your brand. Unfortunately, you’ll only be able to add two questions unless you upgrade to the Pro plan which starts at $680/month.
Note: Because Userflow has no unified analytics dashboard, you’ll need to go into the settings of each individual NPS survey to see data like total views, response rate, and the aggregate score from all respondents.
- Segmentation: Userflow lets you filter or target users by what language they speak, how much they spend on your product, how long ago they signed up, which features they’ve interacted with, and which segment they’re in so you can offer a personalized customer experience.
UserGuiding vs Userflow for user feedback
In this section of the article, we’re really going to compare UserGuiding vs Userflow in terms of user feedback. That way, we’ll be able to figure out which tool – UserGuiding or Userflow – is the best option depending on your use case.
UserGuiding for user feedback
With surveys being UserGuiding’s only feedback collection, the platform is better suited to user feedback than product feedback. After all, product feedback should be comprehensive and gathered from multiple sources such as customer interviews or support ticket analysis.
Here are some UserGuiding features you could consider using to collect product feedback:
- Surveys: Due to the limitations of the Basic plan, UserGuiding surveys could be more useful when collecting user feedback. Product feedback surveys usually focus on a specific area or feature which means you’ll need more than one active survey running concurrently.
- Net Promoter Score (NPS): While satisfaction metrics like Net Promoter Scores fall into the quantitative data category, looking at NPS trends both before and after a major product update can help you determine how users are responding to the latest set of changes.
- Checklists: Checklists are traditionally used to facilitate onboarding and feature discovery but you could conceivably add a step that prompts users to leave product feedback after completing their product tour.
Note: Because UserGuiding only lets users on the Basic plan have one survey active at a time, there’s a high likelihood that the volume of product feedback you’re able to collect will be bottlenecked at some point.
Userflow for user feedback
Product feedback can be used to identify pain points and high-friction areas during onboarding flows or later in the customer experience. Here are the product feedback features that Userflow offers:
- Question blocks: Every in-app flow can have a question block added to one of its steps which helps you collect actionable feedback within different product areas. You can also bind responses to user attributes to easily sort through customers or trigger follow-up flows.
- Targeted feedback: Since Userflow lets you set conditions for which elements users have interacted with or which flows they’ve seen/completed, you can collect targeted feedback from customers who have already tested specific features and then trigger flows based on their response.
- NPS surveys: Auto-start conditions let you create NPS surveys that only trigger after users have interacted with a specific feature or product area. By comparing their survey responses to the ratings of a control group segment, you can test the impact a feature has on the product.
UserGuiding vs Userflow: Which one you should choose?
To further simplify this selection process, let’s break down the strengths and limitations of each tool. Understanding the distinct advantages and potential drawbacks of UserGuiding and Userflow will provide you with a detailed roadmap for making a well-informed decision!
Pros and cons of UserGuiding
Pros of UserGuiding
UserGuiding has quite a few benefits as a product adoption solution, particularly for early-stage SaaS companies that need an easy-to-use starter tool for their small (but growing) team of product developers or marketers. Let’s look at some of the pros that UserGuiding has to offer:
- Chrome extension – UserGuiding utilizes a no-code Chrome extension.
- Survey template gallery – UserGuiding lets you choose from six survey templates or create your own survey from scratch.
- Analytics dashboard – users can see their monthly active users (MAUs) for the month, monitor the number of views their guides are getting, and see how many interactions checklists or resource centers have had in the past week from the UserGuiding homepage.
- Custom themes – granular theme customization and color selection.
- Easy onboarding – onboarding checklist walks you through key steps, such as how to get the UserGuiding Chrome extension and create your first guide.
Cons of UserGuiding
While there are quite a few benefits to using UserGuiding, there are three significant drawbacks to note:
- Dashboard customization – you can’t edit your home dashboard or choose which analytics you want to see.
- Pricing jumps – upgrading from Basic (2,500 MAUs) to Professional (20,000 MAUs) increases your subscription cost by more than 4x.
- Manual localization – UserGuiding doesn’t have AI-powered localization, so you’ll need to manually download, translate, and upload every CSV when attempting to localize content for your product.
- HubSpot integration – the UserGuiding-HubSpot integration is only a one-way integration which limits its functionality and prevents you from setting up two-way data synchronization between both platforms.
- Limited analytics – the analytics dashboard only shows you data for onboarding materials created with UserGuiding and even those analytics are quite limited as surveys only show you total responses rather than letting you select a date range.
- Survey limit – you can only have one active survey on the Basic plan which is disappointing considering UserGuiding costs over $1,000 annually (whereas Userpilot lets you create unlimited surveys and collect up to 250 responses per month on the cheapest plan).
Pros and cons of Userflow
Pros of Userflow
Userflow has multiple benefits but the most notable is how easy it is to create and edit flows within the software. Userflow’s ease-of-use makes it an attractive solution for product teams, marketers, and even solopreneurs.
Here are the pros of using Userflow:
- Flow builder: Userflow’s intuitive drag-and-drop flow builder makes it easy to add new steps, create links between steps, and reorder steps by moving them around. Speech bubbles, tooltips, and modals are the three primary UI elements that you can use when creating steps.
- AI assistant: Userflow lets you create in-app AI assistants that can respond to customers in their native language (but will default to English if unsure which language the customer is speaking). Do note that you’ll need to pay an additional $100/month if you exceed 100 monthly messages.
- Integrations: Userflow integrates with tools like Amplitude, Mixpanel, Segment, Salesforce, Heap, HubSpot, and more — which makes it easy to integrate Userflow with your existing tech stack so you can sync data between platforms.
Cons of Userflow
Of course, there are some limitations to Userflow since it’s one of the newer onboarding solutions on the market. Let’s take a look at some of the downsides of choosing Userflow as your onboarding tool:
- Analytics: This is undoubtedly Userflow’s biggest weakness. It doesn’t have a home dashboard for analytics which means you’ll need to manually go into every flow, checklist, launcher, or resource center to view the analytics for it.
Note: Competitors like Userpilot and Pendo include native analytics dashboards on their entry-level plans.
- Reordering: While reordering steps in a flow can be done in a drag-and-drop fashion, the links between steps aren’t automatically severed. This means you’ll need to manually remove cross-step links and reconnect the steps whenever you change their order which can be a hassle.
- Limitations: Userflow’s entry-level plan has restrictive limitations like only being able to include two questions in NPS surveys and needing to pay extra if you want to add more than three team members (while competitors on the market like Userpilot usually offer five seats or more).
Userpilot – A better alternative for your SaaS
Userpilot is a product growth platform that drives user activation, feature adoption, and expansion revenue. It also helps product teams collect user feedback, streamline onboarding, and gather actionable insights from analytics.
With Userpilot, you’ll be able to track both product usage and user behavior to get a holistic view of how customers use your product — which will guide future development, improve the user experience, and inform your growth efforts.
Pros of Userpilot
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.
Cons of Userpilot
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.
Conclusion
Hopefully, this post helped you decide whether UserGuiding or Userflow is more appropriate for your company. As you can see – both have many upsides and downsides.
Undeniably, Userpilot provides a better value for money and is a better choice for a mid-market SaaS, especially when it comes to user onboarding and user feedback.
If you’re interested in finding more, book a demo with our team here!
Try Userpilot – The best user onboarding solution for SaaS
