Userpilot vs Pendo: Which is Better for User Analysis?

Is Userpilot or Pendo 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 Pendo 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.
• Pendo is a product adoption platform that lets teams monitor product usage, analyze user behavior, and publish in-app guides. The no-code solution focuses on increasing user engagement and driving feature discovery.
• Userpilot is a no-code digital adoption platform that has a few clear advantages over Pendo, such as:
  • In-App Engagement: Userpilot has UI elements that are more customizable, the capacity to include videos/GIFs, Calendly embeds, an advanced resource center, and a user-friendly flow builder — along with standalone onboarding checklists with their own analytics.
  • Product Experimentation: Userpilot has a plethora of product experimentation and A/B testing features, while Pendo locks even the most basic guide experimentation capabilities behind its Portfolio plan.
  • Real-Time Analytics: Userpilot updates analytics dashboards in real-time while Pendo only refreshes data once per hour (and can even take an additional 15 minutes to finish updating the data during high-volume periods).
• Get a Userpilot demo and drive your product growth code-free.

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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.

Pendo for user analytics

The Pendo product adoption platform has a complete set of native analytics capabilities that help you track metrics for both mobile and web apps. It’s worth noting that some analytics features such as the product engagement score (PES) or data explorer are locked to the Growth plan or higher.

A few Pendo analytics features worth highlighting include:

• Dashboard Widgets: There are 26 different analytics widgets that you can add to your Pendo dashboard. These widgets can track feature adoption, guide engagement, user sentiment, and cohort data like which operating system is being used.
• Saved Reports: Pendo lets you view all the user behavior reports you’ve created from a single screen. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to create reports using the data explorer feature unless you upgrade to the Growth or Portfolio plan.
• Cohort Retention: The retention analytics dashboard on Pendo helps you visualize the churn rate for each cohort on a weekly or monthly timescale. You can also switch between viewing visitors/accounts, highlight segments, and adjust the date range as needed.

• Data Explorer: Pendo’s data explorer lets you create event groups that can combine data from multiple apps, events, or guides. The data explorer also comes pre-loaded with formulas for sums, ratios, and relative percentages to speed up the data analysis process. Note: The data explorer feature is only available on the Growth and Portfolio plans.

In-app events in Pendo

In-app events are the actions that users take after signing up for an account or installing an application. These could include completing tutorials, making purchases, interacting with features, and more.

Here are a few handy features you can use to track events with Pendo:

• No-Code Core Events: Pendo lets you create core events to easily track the features, pages, or user actions that account for most of your product growth. Pendo users with admin permissions can select any tagged feature/page/event and designate up to 10 core events per product.
• Event Segmentation: Pendo makes it possible to build segments based on tracked events. For instance, you could have a custom segment for all users who have seen a certain event five or more times, then target them with in-app messaging or guides.
• Mobile Events: Because Pendo is compatible with mobile apps, you’ll be able to track user actions on both Android and iOS platforms. These could include actions like tapping on a particular button, leaving an app store review, or total time spent within the mobile app.

In-app surveys in Pendo

In-app surveys yield higher response rates than email surveys and offer more accurate feedback because they give users the opportunity to share their thoughts as they’re actively using the product. However, Pendo’s polling features may not be as expansive as other survey tools.

Here are some of the benefits you could reap by using Pendo polls:

• Segmentation: You can target individual segments with Pendo polls to ensure that you get responses from the most suitable customers. For instance, you could poll new users on how their onboarding experience went or power users on which features they like the most.
• Analytics: Pendo’s analytics dashboard shows you the response rate for all your polls as well as which options got the most votes (for multiple-choice polls). You’ll also be able to add poll analytics to your Pendo homepage in the form of a widget.
• NPS: Pendo has a separate feature for NPS surveys that offers more advanced customization and analytics options than its standard polls. You’ll be able to choose how the survey is delivered, what follow-up question to ask, and what success message to display.

Note: All NPS surveys include Pendo branding that can only be removed by upgrading to the $7,000/year Starter plan.

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 Pendo

There are a few obvious instances where you’ll likely need an alternative solution to Pendo — such as these use cases:

• Over 500 MAUs: If your product has more than 500 MAUs then you’ll need to subscribe to a premium Pendo plan (which tends to be significantly more expensive than other competitors on the market).
• Real-Time Analytics Needs: Companies that operate in fast-paced work sprints will likely opt for product adoption solutions with real-time analytics since Pendo’s one-hour data lag can data-driven decision-making difficult.
• Expensive Pricing Model: Pendo is more expensive than most solutions on the market and the subscription cost rises rapidly as your MAUs grow. Even if you’re on the Starter plan, you could be paying $35,000 annually once you reach 10,000 MAUs — which makes it harder to scale.

Pros of Pendo

Let’s take a look at some of the benefits of using Pendo:

• No-Code: Pendo lets you create surveys, in-app guides, and track metrics without needing to write your own code, which saves a lot of time (while making product experiments or split-testing a lot easier).
• Custom Themes: Pendo’s themes let you create multiple palettes and ensure that any in-app materials published align with your existing brand palette (however, you can only create/customize themes after you’ve installed the Pendo snippet).
• 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.
• 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.

• Multi-Platform Analytics: Because Pendo is compatible with mobile applications, you’ll be able to track product analytics for both web apps and mobile apps. This gives you a more holistic view of how users (or specific segments) use your product on different platforms. Note: You’ll need to upgrade to Pendo Portfolio to add more than one product to your account.

Cons of Pendo

While Pendo certainly has quite a few benefits that make it an appealing solution, there are also a few notable drawbacks that you should be aware of before you choose the platform as your product adoption tool:

• Pricing Jumps: While Pendo does offer a free version, it has a limit of 500 MAUs. Upon reaching the MAU limit, you’ll need to upgrade to continue using most of Pendo’s features (and paid plans tend to cost thousands of dollars per month).
• Locked Features: Key features like the data explorer, resource center, and product engagement score are locked behind the Growth or Portfolio plan.
• 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.

Userpilot vs Pendo: 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 Pendo.

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 Pendo

Pricing for paid Pendo plans is only provided on a quote basis and there are no listed price ranges on the solution’s website. That said, certain reviews have stated that prices start at upwards of $20,000 per year for a single product and more than twice that for higher plans.

Pendo has two paid plans and one free version that is limited to 500 MAUs which makes it accessible to startups but difficult to scale in the long run.

Here are the differences between each Pendo plan:

• Pendo Free: The free version of Pendo can accommodate 500 MAUs and has features like native analytics dashboards, feature tagging, event tracking, segmentation, NPS surveys (with Pendo branding), analytics reports, and in-app guides.

• Growth: Pendo’s Growth plan is designed to be used for a single web or mobile app but can accommodate a custom number of MAUs. It includes features like native analytics dashboards, in-app guides, NPS surveys and response tracking, and customer support.
• Portfolio: Pendo’s Portfolio plan is targeted towards customers who want to use the tool for multiple web and/or mobile apps. Features include guide experiment capabilities, cross-app executive dashboards, cross-app journey reporting, and access to product engagement scores.

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

Userpilot is a no-code digital adoption platform that has a few clear advantages over Pendo, such as:

• In-App Engagement: Userpilot has UI elements that are more customizable, the capacity to include videos/GIFs, Calendly embeds, an advanced resource center, and a user-friendly flow builder — along with standalone onboarding checklists with their own analytics.
• Product Experimentation: Userpilot has a plethora of product experimentation and A/B testing features, while Pendo locks even the most basic guide experimentation capabilities behind its Portfolio plan.
• Real-Time Analytics: Userpilot updates analytics dashboards in real-time while Pendo only refreshes data once per hour (and can even take an additional 15 minutes to finish updating the data during high-volume periods).

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 Pendo. 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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