Userpilot vs Appcues: Which is Better for User Analysis?

Is Userpilot or Appcues the best tool for user analytics? And is there a better software that would better fit your needs?

With so many alternatives on review sites, it’s a bit tricky to really choose one.

You need to consider your priorities and what functionality you’ll need from the tool to get the job done. Then there’s also the price that needs to match your budget. Right?

In this post, we’ll discuss exactly that – what the perfect tool for performing user analysis should deliver and which will be the best choice for your company’s needs.

Let’s dive in!

TL;DR

• Let’s explore how Userpilot and Appcues compare when it comes to performing user analysis.
  • 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.
  • Appcues is a robust product adoption and user onboarding platform for web and mobile apps. It enables product teams to create, implement, and test personalized in-app onboarding experiences. The platform also helps you announce new product features and collect customer feedback.
• As one of the first product adoption platforms in the market, Appcues comes with a robust set of features. However, Userpilot takes the lead in the following areas:
  • Ease of use: Both Appcues and Userpilot offer intuitive, user-friendly interfaces. But Userpilot keeps things simple with a single dashboard to create, implement, and track in-app experiences. In comparison, Appcues requires you to constantly switch between Appcues Builder and Appcues Studio.
  • Advanced analytics: Unlike Appcues, Userpilot provides in-depth product analytics (funnels, trends, paths, retention analysis) without a third-party tool.
  • Efficient element detection: Userpilot’s algorithm does a better job at detecting complex UI elements. That, in turn, helps you create more detailed and personalized user journeys.
  • Prompt customer support: Userpilot offers multi-channel support via email, phone, and live chat. The presence of live chat support enables you to get your queries addressed and resolved in real time. This key feature is absent in Appcues.
  • Better value for money: Userpilot packs more features, user licenses, and audience segments than Appcues at a comparable price tag. These include a comprehensive library of survey templates, a full set of UI patterns, detailed built-in analytics, and multilingual support, starting at $249/mo.
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What is user analysis?

User analytics is the process of capturing and analyzing user behavior within your product. This helps to understand how different segments act in-app, identify friction and drop-off points, and make data-driven decisions.

Must have features for user analytics tools

Choosing the right user analytics tool is important for understanding your customers’ behavior and optimizing their journey. Here’s what you should look for:

• Event tracking: The chosen tool should come with the ability to set up events for monitoring in-app behavior. It should be capable of tracking both client and server-side events so you can have a better understanding of how users interact with your product.
• Analytics dashboards: These include no-code reports and dashboards that you can easily build to draw meaningful insights from collected data. It’s also highly recommended that these dashboards have advanced segmentation filters so you can filter data for a better understanding of specific user groups.
• Surveys: In addition to behavioral data, it’s also necessary that the chosen tool is capable of collecting and analyzing feedback. Such direct data from customers can help you understand customer expectations and work on improving your product.

Userpilot for user analytics

User analytics lets you track and analyze the behavior of users within your product. Userpilot lets you filter through customers from a unified dashboard, extract insights from specific segments or time periods, and create custom segments for all users who meet certain conditions. Here’s an overview of Userpilot’s analytics features:

• Users dashboard: Userpilot’s users dashboard gives you an overview of all user data in one place. You’ll be able to filter by segments, which companies users are from, or when they were last seen active. You can also export data in bulk as a CSV or perform actions on individual users.

• User and company profiles: Here you can view data related to a certain user/company to gain insights into their behavior i.e. Top events, Top pages, Sessions, Sentiment – user’s feedback (NPS & Survey), etc. With such granular insights, you can go one step further with your personalization efforts.

User profile with top event data.

• Audience insights: Much like the overview dashboard, the Insights section lets you filter metrics by segment, company, and time period. You’ll be able to choose between a daily, weekly, or monthly view and then compare data between the current and previous time periods.

• Conditional segmentation: Practical use cases for user analytics include creating segments for all users that meet certain conditions. For instance, you could reach out to companies in a certain country when creating a new flow or target customers who have tried certain features.

• Saved reports: With Userpilot, you can create funnels, trends, retention tables, and path reports. The saved reports dashboard lets you view, edit, duplicate, or delete any trend and funnel reports you’ve created. You’ll also be able to sort by report type, filter by the teammate who created the report, or export in bulk if you need a CSV of your user analytics.

• Dashboards: Once you log in to Userpilot, you will see a collection of dashboards that collects all your key product metrics like product usage, user activation, feature engagement, etc. These dashboards are automatically available without you having to set anything up.

Types of analytics dashboards available in Userpilot currently.

In-app events in Userpilot

Tracking and analyzing event data gives you a better understanding of user behavior so you can capitalize on opportunities to improve the in-app experience.

Here are the ways you can use Userpilot as an event-tracking tool:

• Event tracking: The Userpilot flow builder lets you track custom events by tagging individual features (Feature Tag), by API (called Tracked Events) or by setting them up using a combination of feature tags and tracked events (Custom Events).

• Feature tags: Userpilot’s no-code feature tagger lets you track important features/elements based on different interaction types (clicks, hovers, and text inputs). You can then display the engagement and performance of different features through heatmaps.

• Data integrations: Userpilot has native integrations with popular analytics tools like Amplitude, Mixpanel, Google Analytics, and more. This makes it possible to sync your event data across multiple tools within your tech stack.

In-app surveys in Userpilot

In-app surveys are an effective way to collect direct feedback from users without being at the whim of their email inboxes. Userpilot’s built-in functionality lets you create surveys, translate them, and track granular survey analytics that offer additional user insights.

Here are the Userpilot features you can use when building in-app surveys:

• Survey templates: Userpilot’s no-code survey builder has 14 templates to choose from. These include NPS, CSAT, and CES surveys among others for collecting quantitative and qualitative feedback from users. You can add a series of questions to gather valuable insights.

• Survey translation: Userpilot’s AI localization feature lets you translate surveys in a matter of minutes. All you need to do is add the desired locale and leave the rest to Userpilot. You can also make manual tweaks to translations if needed.

• Advanced analytics: Userpilot has detailed analytics that shows what percentage of users chose a specific option, summarizes the most popular choices, and lets you browse through open-ended responses to extract insights from qualitative feedback.

Appcues for user analytics

Appcues offers a glimpse into how users interact with in-app product tutorials, walkthroughs, and other onboarding flows. That, in turn, can help you understand and monitor user engagement and identify elements that might drive users away.

The features that come in handy include:

• Click-to-track lets you set up and monitor user actions within your product. You can use it to monitor how users navigate a page and interact with different features.
• User segmentation helps you divide your audience into different groups based on in-app behavior, demographics, etc. You can use these segments to filter event data and understand how different user groups respond to specific in-app flows, messages, and features.
• Events Explorer lets you visualize event data in the form of charts. You can even filter the results by date range or for different segments.
• You can publish NPS surveys to collect user feedback and assess customer satisfaction. Similarly, you can trigger in-app messages to re-engage detractors.
• It’s worth noting that Appcues only offers basic user behavioral data and analytics. For advanced analytics, you’ll have to connect it to an external tool like Amplitude or Google Analytics (which means more costs). In comparison, Userpilot offers more in-depth user data and analytics.

In-app events in Appcues

Tracking events is an excellent way to evaluate user behavior and product adoption. With Appcues, you can set up and track in-app events without any coding knowledge.

When it comes to in-app events, Appcues offers the following features:

• Appcues Builder lets you define and track various events (user actions), such as when a user interacts with a UI pattern or visits a specific destination. You can use these events to trigger specific in-app experiences and messages. The Essentials plan allows you to track up to 10 events, you’ll need to upgrade to Growth if you need more ($879/mo paid annually).
• Events Explorer in Appcues Studio lets you monitor, measure, and visualize data from each event. You can even filter the data for custom date ranges and user segments.
• With Appcues’s broad spectrum of integrations, you can export event data to other tools. Doing so can help automate various tasks, including marketing.

In-app surveys in Appcues

Appcues only lets you create NPS surveys to collect feedback from customers. You can use a workaround and add a microsurvey to a modal, but this won’t be collecting any analytics and analysis responses will be difficult.

If NPS surveys are enough for you, here’s what Appcues offers:

• NPS: The most commonly used survey option is NPS, which lets you identify loyal users and detractors.

• Survey analytics: You can track, analyze, and visualize NPS survey results. It’s also possible to export the results into a PDF file.
• Target and trigger your NPS survey to specific audiences.

Pros and cons of Userpilot

While Userpilot’s versatile feature set and relatively affordable entry-level plan make it an attractive option for most SaaS companies, there are bound to be certain scenarios where it simply isn’t the right tool for the job.

Here are a few scenarios where you should look for a different tool other than Userpilot:

• Tight budgets: Userpilot is the best option for mid-market SaaS companies who want to get the most bang for their buck with plans including unlimited feature usage, fully interactive walkthroughs, advanced analytics, integrations, and a wide array of feedback collection mechanisms — all starting at $249/month. However, early-stage startups with sub-$100 budgets may want to look into options like Intercom, UserGuiding, and Product Fruits.
• Employee onboarding: Userpilot’s Chrome extension and no-code flow builder only works with your product, meaning it can’t be used to onboard employees to third-party apps. For onboarding internal teams, WalkMe is a viable solution that you should consider.
• Mobile apps: Userpilot is only compatible with responsive web apps as a narrow focus is essential to providing the best functionality needed to onboard users. As such, those looking to onboard users to mobile apps should check out platforms like Appcues and Pendo.

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.

Pros and cons of Appcues

Are you wondering if Appcues is the right fit for your user onboarding needs or if you should check out other options?

Here are a few reasons why using an Appcues alternative makes sense:

• You want more customizability: Customization options on Appcues are limited to color, size, and style. Advanced customization will require you to work with CSS code. It can be a roadblock when your team members lack technical expertise, leaving you dependent on developers.
• You’re on a budget: With Appcues, you’ll have to pay more to access advanced features like custom CSS, localization or even simple checklists. If you’re a startup or small business with a limited budget, you might benefit from using a tool like Userpilot that offers more value for money.
• You want to collect detailed customer feedback: Appcues offers limited functionality in terms of surveys. If you want to explore other survey and feedback collection formats apart from NPS, Appcues may not be an ideal choice.

Pros of Appcues

As a first-comer in the no-code product adoption landscape, Appcues offers several valuable features. It’s suitable for mid-market SaaS businesses looking for a simple, easy-to-use tool that enhances user onboarding, retention, and the overall customer experience.

Let’s take a closer look at the benefits of Appcues:

• Intuitive UI and UX: Appcues offers a straightforward interface that’s easy to navigate and use. Users with non-technical backgrounds can design captivating in-app flows and onboarding journeys with its simple drag-and-drop builder. You can tailor user journeys with various UI patterns, from modals and hotspots to tooltips, slideouts, and banners.
• Simple setup: You can get started with Appcues in minutes by adding the SDK to your app’s source code or integrating Appcues with Segment or Google Tag Manager. Then, add a Chrome extension to launch the Appcues Builder in a few quick clicks and start creating in-app flows.
• Feedback options: Create Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys to collect actionable user feedback. You can even check and analyze NPS analytics on your Appcues dashboard.
• Mobile onboarding: Besides web apps, you can use Appcues to create end-to-end experiences for mobile apps. It supports various mobile environments, including Native Android, Native iOS, React Native, Flutter, and Iconic.
• Extensive integrations: Appcues integrates with 20+ email automation, CRM, and analytics tools, including Heap, Zapier, HubSpot, Google Analytics, and Google Tag Manager. Many of these include two-way integrations.

Cons of Appcues

Appcues comes with a ton of useful features you’d expect from a leading product adoption platform, but it does have a few shortcomings.

Let’s look at a few drawbacks of Appcues:

• Poor element detection: The Appcues algorithm occasionally struggles to detect in-app elements, unlike some of its competitors like Userpilot. It’s particularly limiting when you want to add tooltips to individual options in a dropdown menu.
• Limited customization capabilities: While Appcues lets you customize pre-designed templates, you’re limited to basic options like font style, size, color, and padding. Advanced customization requires working with CSS code, which can be challenging for non-technical teams.
• Basic analytics: Appcues provides insights into product usage and customer behavior. However, you can’t access in-depth analytics without connecting to a third-party tool like Amplitude or Google Analytics.
• Limited survey options: Appcues lacks variety in feedback collection and survey options and doesn’t offer integrations with other platforms like Google Forms and Typeform. You can only build NPS surveys. This is in contrast to some of its competitors, like Userpilot, which offers an extensive library of customizable survey templates.
• Higher pricing: Starting at $249 per month, the Appcues Essential tier has several constraints, such as limited UI patterns and no custom CSS support. Moreover, localization support is only available in the Enterprise tier. If your app is multilingual, you’ll have to shell out a ton of money to make the most of Appcues.
• No live chat: While Appcues offers educational resources and a help center (Help Docs), customer support is limited to email and phone.

Userpilot vs Appcues: Which one fits your budget?

Understanding the cost implications is paramount when selecting the right solution for user analysis, so here’s a detailed pricing comparison of Userpilot and Appcues.

Pricing of Userpilot

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, NPS feedback, and customization.
• Growth: The Growth plan starts at $749/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).

Pricing of Appcues

Pricing for Appcues starts at $249 per month, with the platform offering three distinct tiers – Essentials, Growth, and Enterprise.

The total cost can vary depending on the number of monthly active users (MAU). For instance, the Essential plan starts at $249 per month for 2500 MAU but jumps to $299 for 5000 MAU.

Here’s a detailed glimpse of the different pricing tiers:

• Essentials: It’s the basic tier that starts at $249 per month. It includes 3 user licenses and lets you add up to 5 audience segments. Some UI patterns, such as checklists, launchpads, and custom CSS support, aren’t available. Customer support is only available through email.
• Growth: This tier starts at $879 per month (for 2500 monthly active users) and includes 10 user licenses. You can target unlimited audience segments and use the full spectrum of UI patterns. Additionally, you can access the Premium Integrations package, which includes integrations with Slack, Salesforce, Marketo, and Zendesk.
• Enterprise: This is the most feature-packed tier and includes robust security controls like role-based access and activity logs. It’s also the only tier that comes with multi-account and localization support. Besides email and phone support, you also get a dedicated Customer Success Manager and Technical Implementation Manager. Pricing is available on request.

All three plans come with a 14-day free trial, where you can test unlimited flows and track up to 5 events. You can extend the trial by another 14 days by installing the Appcues SDK in your app. Additionally, you don’t need a credit card to sign up for the free trial.

Keep in mind that the above pricing plans are applicable to web apps. Pricing for Appcues Mobile is available on request.

It’s also worth noting that Appcues is pricier than some of the other product adoption tools available in the market, including Userpilot. For instance, Userpilot’s basic tier (Starter) lets you add up to 10 audience segments and includes the complete set of UI patterns.

Userpilot vs Appcues – Why Userpilot might be a better choice?

As one of the first product adoption platforms in the market, Appcues comes with a robust set of features.

However, Userpilot takes the lead in the following areas:

• Ease of use: Both Appcues and Userpilot offer intuitive, user-friendly interfaces. But Userpilot keeps things simple with a single dashboard to create, implement, and track in-app experiences. In comparison, Appcues requires you to constantly switch between Appcues Builder and Appcues Studio.
• Advanced analytics: Unlike Appcues, Userpilot provides in-depth product analytics (funnels, trends, paths, retention analysis) without a third-party tool.
• Efficient element detection: Userpilot’s algorithm does a better job at detecting complex UI elements. That, in turn, helps you create more detailed and personalized user journeys.
• Prompt customer support: Userpilot offers multi-channel support via email, phone, and live chat. The presence of live chat support enables you to get your queries addressed and resolved in real time. This key feature is absent in Appcues.
• Better value for money: Userpilot packs more features, user licenses, and audience segments than Appcues at a comparable price tag. These include a comprehensive library of survey templates, a full set of UI patterns, detailed built-in analytics, and multilingual support, starting at $249/mo.

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.

Conclusion

This is the end of our thorough comparison between Userpilot and Appcues. You should be able to make a confident decision by now. If you’re looking for a solid tool for user analytics that promises great value for money, give Userpilot a go. Book a demo today.

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