WalkMe Competitors: Top 7 of All Time [In-Depth Comparison]

WalkMe Competitors – an overview: 

• WalkMe is a cloud-based digital adoption platform aimed at enterprises. Typically, it is used as an employee training tool – for onboarding employees on third-party applications such as Salesforce, Hubspot, Xero, etc. Additionally, it can be used for onboarding new SaaS users.
• Depending on your use case, you may want to consider the following  WalkMe competitors: Userpilot, Pendo, Whatfix, Gainsight, Userlane, Userflow, and UserGuiding.
• Pendo offers robust analytics and in-app guidance to improve product experience and customer retention.
• Whatfix provides interactive guides and self-help solutions to enhance user onboarding and training.
• Gainsight focuses on customer success and product analytics to reduce churn and drive growth.
• Userlane delivers on-screen guides and automation to streamline user onboarding and support.
• Userflow allows quick creation and deployment of user onboarding flows with minimal technical expertise.
• UserGuiding offers easy-to-use onboarding tools like walkthroughs and checklists for small to mid-sized teams.
• Userpilot is by far the best WalkMe alternative. It is an all-in-one solution that offers engagement, analytics, feedback, and self-service features – and all that with an attractive pricing. Book a demo to learn more.

What is WalkMe?

WalkMe was one of the early pioneers when it came to digital adoption. It’s a cloud-based digital adoption platform that provides product and customer success managers with the tools they need to drive product adoption through their app or product.

WalkMe dashboard[/caption]

WalkMe was one of the first to the party, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re the life of it.
In other words, WalkMe’s digital transformation and adoption platform:

• Focuses primarily on employee onboarding and digital adoption of third-party tools such as Salesforce, Hubspot, etc.
• It’s an on-premise solution that requires a lot of development time to set up and maintain.
• It’s very expensive – $10,000 annually for 10,000 monthly active users, compared to e.g., only $249 per month with Userpilot.
• That’s probably why you’re here looking at WalkMe competitors, right?

That being said, WalkMe does have strong features. Let’s have a quick look at them.

What are WalkMe’s top features?

Here are some of the key features that WalkMe offers:

WalkMe walkthroughs

One of the first-used methods of product onboarding was the user walkthrough. This is where a user is guided through a product step-by-step to ensure they understand how key aspects work.

Sure WalkMe is great when it comes to user walkthroughs, but sometimes user walkthroughs aren’t the best approach when it comes to onboarding and adoption. If you need more features, like contextual triggers, then WalkMe might not be the best tool for the job.

WalkMe analytics

WalkMe’s powerful reporting capabilities enable you to easily see all of your data and analytics, and dive deep into your user onboarding. This is a crucial aspect of any product adoption software.

WalkMe’s self-service support

WalkMe provides self-service customer support and tools that enable users to solve their own problems without the need for external support. This feature includes searchable knowledge bases, FAQs, and other support resources.

WalkMe’s automation and integration features

WalkMe offers automation and integration features that enable small businesses to streamline their processes and workflows. This feature includes the ability to automate repetitive tasks, integrate with other software applications, and more.

Pros of WalkMe

Here are the pros of using WalkMe:

• Multiple in-app engagements: Offers a bunch of in-app engagement options, including product tours, tooltips, help widgets, onboarding checklists, and more. Using them well can help you engage your customers.
• User-friendliness: The platform is quite user-friendly in terms of creating in-app engagements. And while it does have a moderate learning curve as a whole, it becomes easy to use once you get the hang of it.
• Lots of analytics: WalkMe provides in-depth analytics on a range of things like in-app engagements and forms to help you understand the impact that they’re creating. This helps you optimize your strategies for better results.
• Workflow automation: Workflow automation features like onboarding automation stand out as they enable you to automate a series of steps and processes like clicking buttons to make your customer experience better.
• Community: WalkMe offers a strong community of experts and partners who can help you whenever you get stuck.

Cons of WalkMe

While WalkMe has a bunch of good things to offer that make it one of the leading digital adoption platforms out there, it does have a few drawbacks that prevent you from unlocking its full potential. Let’s take a look at some of the cons of this platform:

• Coding knowledge: Even though WalkMe is no-code/low-code for most of its functions, you’ll need to know HTML or CSS to make the most out of the platform.
• Challenging on complex sites: The process of implementing WalkMe on your website depends on the complexity of your site. You might find it challenging to ensure that your content behaves the way it should if you’ve got a complicated website.
• Focused on employees: WalkMe’s primary use case lies in digital adoption for employees, even though it has a specific plan for customers. However, this makes it slightly weaker compared to other platforms, like Userpilot, that have been dedicatedly built for customers.

WalkMe pricing

WalkMe’s pricing isn’t transparent, but it’s fully customizable based on your requirements. It offers a bunch of useful features like analytics, a self-serve content creation engine, in-app engagement creation, and more.

However, you need to get in touch with their team to find pricing details for both the customer and employee versions. Considering the platform is specifically built for enterprises, you can expect the cost to be on the higher end. You could end up spending anywhere between $9000 to $50,000 per year if you choose to use WalkMe.

Why should you look for WalkMe competitors?

WalkMe ticks a lot of the right boxes if you’re looking for a digital adoption platform that’s intuitive and scalable. However, business requirements can vary and that could mean that WalkMe might not be the right fit for you. Here are three reasons why you may need to opt for a WalkMe alternative:

• You have a low budget: WalkMe is purpose-built for enterprises and it shows in its pricing. You can expect the cost to go into thousands of dollars annually. If your business doesn’t have a huge budget, it might be better to opt for another platform.
• You want to get started quickly: If you want a platform that offers near-plug-and-play functionality, you’re better off choosing another digital adoption platform as WalkMe has a moderate learning curve.
• You don’t want to work with CSS/HTML: Even though WalkMe is marketed as a no-code/low-code platform, there are some aspects where you’ll need CSS/HTML knowledge for customizations. If you want a fully no-code solution, you’re better off opting for an alternative.

Let’s explore some of the best WalkMe alternatives that businesses can consider for their digital adoption needs.

WalkMe alternative # 1: Userpilot

Userpilot is a leading product growth tool that lets you create effective user onboarding experiences, collect and analyze customer feedback, track user progress toward achieving their goals, and a lot more.

If you’re short on time, the following image explains how Userpilot competes with WalkMe.

Userpilot features

Here are some of Userpilot’s user engagement, analytics, and feedback features that you may find helpful:

• 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.

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

• Staging environment: You can easily test all your content – flows, surveys, and everything else – in a staging environment. This way, you can ensure everything clicks before it reaches your users.

• Product analytics: Userpilot lets you create trend reports to track adoption over time by feature or segment, funnel reports that show you which steps of the process most users get stuck on, paths to monitor user navigation, etc., and integrations with third-party analytics providers so you can sync data between tools.

• Analytics dashboards: They collect all your key metrics automatically without you having to set anything up. You can even customize these dashboards however you prefer.

• Feature engagement: Userpilot’s click-to-track feature tagger lets you see how often a feature is used and by how many people. You’ll also be able to see the top 20 events for a certain period or create custom events that group multiple features for tracking user progress i.e. onboarding, making payments, etc.

• Feedback collection: Userpilot has a no-code survey builder with 14 templates to choose from. You’ll be able to collect quantitative data like CSAT, CES, or NPS ratings and qualitative feedback on the strongest/weakest parts of your product straight from your users.

Userpilot 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, 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).

WalkMe vs Userpilot summary

Userpilot is the best WalkMe competitor for SaaS product teams that want to grow their product adoption metrics and improve the onboarding process. You get up and running in a matter of minutes, with no technical knowledge required. You can then use a wide range of UI elements to build highly personalized onboarding flows for your users.

Unlike WalkMe’s insistence on custom pricing plans, Userpilot operates on a set pricing model. On the flip side: Userpilot does not run on third-party web apps or offer employee onboarding.

WalkMe alternative # 2: Pendo

The next WalkMe competitor is Pendo. They offer some of the same onboarding features as WalkMe (e.g. guides and checklists), but they also offer some great extras that Userpilot also has, like user feedback forms and NPS scores.

Again, you’ll be able to combine customer feedback insights with your user onboarding, creating a product that you know your users want, and that they’ll enjoy using.

But perhaps the biggest strength is that Pendo enables you to delve deep into the data you collect with a range of reports and analytic tools.

PMs can see where your users are getting stuck or confused, and discover which areas of your product receive the most engagement. These insights are crucial when it comes to understanding your users better and making improvements in the user interface.

However, when it comes to user onboarding, Pendo falls a little short. It lacks the variety of UI elements and customizability options that WalkMe or Userpilot might have for building great product experiences.

Pendo pricing

Pendo offers valuable product experience solutions, pricing transparency seems to be a recurring point of concern. Based on user reviews, Pendo uses a tiered pricing model based on features and number of monthly active users (MAUs). Costs for Pendo can potentially range from $25,800 to $132,400 annually.

Here’s an overview of Pendo pricing plans:

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

WalkMe vs Pendo summary

Here is a brief summary of the differences between the two:

• Pricing: WalkMe is primarily designed for enterprise-level organizations and can be expensive, while Pendo offers more flexible pricing options and is suitable for businesses of all sizes.
• Features: WalkMe offers a wide range of features, including contextual guidance, onboarding and training tools, self-service support, automation and integration capabilities, analytics, and insights. Pendo, on the other hand, focuses on product analytics, user feedback, and in-app guidance.
• Integrations: WalkMe offers a broad range of integrations, while Pendo is more limited in terms of its integrations.

WalkMe alternative # 3: Whatfix

Whatfix is very similar to WalkMe in terms of the functionality it offers. It is a learning management system that is targeted at enterprise companies and offers a range of different tools to help you create a better in-app experience.

You can create targeted in-app walkthroughs and training content and provide self-serve help in-person training 24/7.

Perhaps where Whatfix improves on WalkMe is in the ease of use. WalkMe is on-premise. That means it requires a great deal of technical know-how and time in order to get it up and running. Whatfix, however, is a SaaS product, and implementation is quicker and easier.

This makes it more suited for fast-moving SaaS companies who need the products they use to move equally as fast as they do.

Whatfix pricing

Whatfix doesn’t have public pricing listed on its website. It also charges separately for its product analytics solution but we won’t be going over those plans since we’re focusing on the digital adoption platform.

Here’s an overview of the three plans available for Whatfix web:

• Standard: This includes core features like in-app guidance, contextual guidance, a multi-media knowledge base, and content aggregation capabilities. It also includes access to pre-built surveys and up to two integrations.
• Premium: This includes additional features such as automatic content localization, automated flow testing, unlimited integrations, and single sign-on (SSO). You’ll also be able to build custom surveys while on the Premium plan.
• Enterprise: This includes the features from previous plans as well as enterprise-exclusive options such as self-hosting. This plan is targeted towards customer-facing applications with a million or more users.

WalkMe vs Whatfix summary

Whatfix offers all of the functionality that WalkMe provides, but it has the edge when it comes to ease of use and implementation. It offers analytical functionality as well. We think it definitely deserves a place on our list of WalkMe alternatives.

WalkMe alternative # 4: Gainsight

Gainsight is widely regarded as a big player in the customer success industry. Their primary offering is a CS platform that enables you to measure your customer’s health score and track product usage.

They also have another product called GainsightPX, which is more focused on adoption and onboarding. This product offers a lot of the functionality that WalkMe provides, as well as extra features, such as the ability to create automated email workflows.

Where Gainsight really shines, however, is on the customer success side of the product. It gives you insights into how your users engage with your product and measures customer health scores.

WalkMe is focused exclusively on user onboarding, whereas Gainsight merges product experience insights with customer success software, making it a great tool for CSMs.

Gainsight pricing

Pricing details for GainsightPX aren’t readily available. Instead, you have to request them by filling out a form. The final pricing of the platform will depend on your requirements.

That said, you can get a 30-day free trial of the platform with ease. You could also request a free demo of the platform.

WalkMe vs Gainsight summary

WalkMe focuses on user onboarding, and that isn’t a bad thing in itself. Gainsight, however, offers a broader functionality due to all of the customer success capabilities it offers. It may be a better WalkMe alternative for your CS team.

WalkMe alternative # 5: Userlane

Onboarding isn’t just for your customers. Your employees need to know their way around your product as well. This is especially important when it comes to teaching your CSMs or sales staff how to use your product. After all, they are the ones who will ultimately be showing it to your customers.

This is where Userlane comes in. They offer both employee and customer onboarding with their product. While their onboarding offerings are fairly streamlined, the fact that you can use them to onboard your employees makes it one of the great WalkMe alternatives.

The streamlined nature of Userlane also means it’s a great fit for startups with its fairly low cost and fairly simple implementation.

Userlane pricing

Userlane’s pricing plan is structured in a customizable pattern. This means you need to get a custom quote to know the plan that fits your brand’s purpose based on the level of your SaaS and the number of acquired customers.

WalkMe vs Userlane summary

Userlane is the most basic in terms of functionality of all WalkMe competitors. However, its ease of use and low cost make this a tempting prospect for startups. Where Userlane really stands apart, however, is with its employee onboarding functionality.

If you want to onboard your own employees instead of just your users, then perhaps Userlane is the right choice for you. They claim that you can cut employee training costs by 90% if you use their platform. That could be invaluable for certain companies.

WalkMe alternative # 6: 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.

Here are its top features:

• In-app flows: Userflow’s in-app flows can drive adoption by teaching users how to use specific features. Flows can be made from steps like speech bubbles, tooltips, and modals. You can also trigger flows based on the elements users interact with, how long ago they joined, and more.
• Onboarding checklists: They streamline the early stages of product adoption by telling users which features they need to try out first. Userflow lets you trigger the checklist when certain conditions are met, add unlimited tasks, and lock the task order if needed.

• Event tracking: Userflow has a no-code event tracking feature that lets you see which elements users have interacted with, their completed checklist tasks, and more. Unfortunately, you’ll need to upgrade to the Pro plan which starts at $680/month if you want to use this feature.

Userflow pricing

Userflow has three paid plans — Startup, Pro, and Enterprise — that start at $240 and increase in price as your MAUs grow. For example, the Startup plan costs over $1,000/month once you reach 50,000 MAUs which could make it difficult for products with thousands of freemium users to scale.

Here’s a closer look at each of Userflow’s plans:

• Startup: Userflow’s entry-level Startup plan starts at $240/month for 3,000 MAUs. Due to the survey and team size limitations of the Starter plan, you’ll likely need to upgrade to Pro at some point or purchase additional seats for $20/month each.
• Pro: Userflow’s Pro plan costs almost three times as much at $680/month for 10,000 MAUs. It contains essential features like localization, advanced integrations, event tracking, and unlimited surveys so you’ll probably need to upgrade to this tier eventually to continue growing.
• Enterprise: Userflow’s Enterprise tier is priced on a quote basis and can accommodate a custom number of MAUs. It comes with benefits like concierge support, security questionnaires, custom contracts, and single sign-on (SSO) features.

WalkMe vs Userflow summary

WalkMe is ideal for larger organizations looking for extensive customization and integration capabilities. On the other hand, Userflow excels with its ease of use and quick implementation, making it a preferred choice for smaller SaaS teams that need to create and deploy user onboarding flows swiftly.

WalkMe alternative # 7: 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.

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.

UserGuiding pricing

UserGuiding has three plans to choose from, targeted towards a range of business sizes from startup to enterprise.

Here are UserGuiding’s specific pricing details:

• Basic: Costing $129/month, the Basic plan is targeted towards startups and SMBs. The Basic plan is quite limited as it caps your account at one active survey, two active checklists, and no more than 2,500 MAUs.
• Professional: The Professional plan costs almost 4x as much as the Basic tier at $499/month. That said, it significantly increases capacity to 20,000 MAUs and improves the quality of customer support you’ll receive.
• Corporate: Subscriptions on the Corporate plan start at $999/month. Of course, this higher price does come with its fair share of enterprise perks.

All monthly plans are marked down by 30% when customers choose to bill annually.

WalkMe vs UserGuiding summary

WalkMe offers advanced in-app guidance, extensive customization, and detailed analytics. On the other hand, UserGuiding provides essential onboarding tools like walkthroughs and checklists with a user-friendly interface.

Another major difference is the cost. WalkMe is typically more expensive due to its advanced features. UserGuiding is more affordable and budget-friendly for smaller teams.

Userpilot: The best WalkMe alternative

Userpilot is a comprehensive digital adoption platform that helps teams track product usage and user behavior. WalkMe offers similar features but is purpose-built for enterprises. So let’s figure out why Userpilot is better than it:

• Affordability: Userpilot’s pricing plans start as low as $249/month. It also offers an Enterprise plan that’s fully customizable based on your requirements. This makes Userpilot more affordable than WalkMe, which can set you back by a few thousand dollars annually.
• Ease of use: While WalkMe might be easy to use and get started, Userpilot is much simpler to implement. With Userpilot, you don’t need to have any technical knowledge to customize your in-app experiences. This isn’t the case with WalkMe.
• Numerous UI elements: Unlike WalkMe, Userpilot gives you the option to create loads of UI elements like modals, tooltips, progress bars, product tours, and walkthroughs, among others. This is more than what WalkMe has to offer in terms of UI elements.
• Surveys: Userpilot offers numerous advanced options for surveys like behavior-based triggers and translation. Such features aren’t available on WalkMe.

Here’s what an ex-WalkMe customer (and present Userpilot customer) has to say about her experience with the tool:

Conclusion

If you’ve decided that Userpilot is the best choice for your SaaS digital adoption, then why not chat with us and start improving your product experience immediately? Book a demo to see it in action.