WalkMe vs Userlane – Which Is Better for Interactive User Guides?

Which tool is superior for creating interactive user guides – WalkMe or Userlane? Alternatively, is there another onboarding software that can accomplish the task more smoothly?

Choosing the appropriate software can be a difficult decision with so many options available. Before deciding on a tool, it is essential to consider your priorities and the necessary features needed to achieve your goals. 

This article will compare the features, strengths, weaknesses, reviews, and pricing of each tool, enabling you to confidently decide which one is the best fit for your business needs.

Let’s begin.

TL;DR

• Interactive user guides utilize diverse UX patterns to educate customers on how to use your product more efficiently. These guides can be categorized into two types: product tours and interactive manuals.
• The benefits of developing interactive user guides are numerous, including shorter time-to-value, greater product adoption, and lower customer success and support costs.
• Using a tool for interactive user guides is crucial since it reduces reliance on developers and enables you to trigger user guides contextually.
• A quality tool should be truly no-code, provide a range of UX patterns, allow user segmentation, and enable tracking of product analytics.
• WalkMe is a digital adoption platform that facilitates employee and customer onboarding. WalkMe allows you to generate onboarding checklists and walkthroughs, and trigger tooltips to increase adoption.
• The key benefit of utilizing WalkMe is the level of customization it provides. However, the tool has a challenging learning process and is typically expensive to implement.
• Userlane is another no-code tool that allows users to create interactive user guides. These guides, referred to as ‘lanes’, are simple to create, and you can include gamification elements to enhance their appeal.
• However, Userlane has limitations in terms of integrations and the available UI patterns are less advanced compared to other competing tools.
• If you’re searching for an alternative to WalkMe and Userlane, Userpilot is a viable option worth considering. It’s a comprehensive product adoption platform that provides exceptional UX patterns, in-app checklists, advanced segmentation, and in-app resource centers.
• One of the most significant benefits of Userpilot is that it delivers excellent value for money and is easy to set up. However, it’s not suited for mobile applications and employee onboarding.
• If you want to discover what Userpilot can do for your business, schedule a demo today.

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What is interactive user guides?

An interactive user guide is a set of UI patterns designed to work together and help customers understand how to use your product.

There are two main types of user guides: full product tours (which tend to be more detailed and time-consuming), and interactive manuals (using tooltips and real-time guidance to provide more contextual help to your customers).

Interactive user manuals are an excellent way of engaging and educating your users, helping them to get the most out of your product, and improving user onboarding and feature adoption.

Why should you care about interactive user guides?

All product managers want to delight and engage their customers. A big part of that is making sure your users know how to get the most from your application (and in the modern world, that means more than creating a support documentation page).

Fail in that mission, and you risk damaging customer loyalty. Here’s why building interactive user guides is important:

• Interactive user guides improve user onboarding and drive product adoption. How? By helping real users get value from your product through engaging with interactive content relevant to them.
• Contextual and personalized interactive guides will shorten the time to value and reduce friction in the adoption of your product.
• In-app guides are part of a self-serve onboarding strategy and they reduce support and customer success cost while increasing customer satisfaction. Users just get access to help, when they need it.

All in all, interactive user guides are the backbone of a successful onboarding strategy and should be a must for your user experience,

Why do you need tools for building interactive user guides?

Wondering why you even need a tool to create interactive user guides? There are several reasons why you may need one:

For most software companies, creating interactive manuals from scratch is the wrong approach. Why?

Rather than reinventing the wheel, your developers should prioritize their efforts around enhancing your software – making it faster or more visually appealing – and regularly shipping updates that delight your customers.

Here’s how using a tool can help:

• With the low technical barrier to entry, anyone – from operations to customer success managers – can quickly create an interactive tour, which means you can reduce reliance on software developers.
• Rather than a “one size fits all” approach, you can trigger user guides contextually – so based on the specific actions the customer has taken, targeted support is triggered to help them navigate and use the product more effectively.
• There are dozens of variables you might want to adjust, from small changes to copy to tweaking the design. In a custom-built tool, this represents a significant amount of work – in a no-code tool, it’s incredibly simple.
• Customer adoption tools make it easy to see which version of an interactive user guide performs more effectively with A/B testing (and adapt your approach accordingly).

You shouldn’t question the necessity for a tool to build interactive user guides, but you need to understand what functionality you should look for in a tool and which tools are the best.

Must-have features for building no-code interactive user guides?

Not all tools are built the same. Some offer different advantages over others while some will simply get you basic functionality but at a low price. It depends on your budget and needs which will be the best tool to build interactive user guides.

Here’s what to look for as the main functionalities when picking a tool to build in-app guides:

• Good range of UI patterns to use for building your guides.
• Ability to customize each interactive guide to fit your brand and style.
• Segmentation so you could trigger the guides to the right audience at the right time. A one-size-fits-all approach won’t bring you the desired results.
• The ability to trigger the user guides when specific in-app events happen is nice to have and will help you build more contextual in-app experiences.
• Minimum product usage analytics, to be able to track how users engage with the product, and where they get stuck so you can build relevant user guides to help them.

The above list is not exhaustive but it’s a starting point. Depending on your product, you might also need automated localization, A/B testing capabilities, advanced analytics or security, and more.

WalkMe for interactive user guides

WalkMe is one of the pioneers in the market of adoption tools. It is a cloud-based software that allows you to create product tours and in-app experiences to drive adoption faster.

WalkMe is best for enterprise companies as they are focused on employee onboarding rather than user onboarding.

WalkMe platform is a cloud-based digital adoption software catering to enterprise businesses mostly. Typically, it’s 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 and driving product adoption.

Let’s see what you can do with WalkMe to drive product adoption:

• Create onboarding checklists and take new customers through all the important steps they need to get through to get started.
• Create interactive walkthroughs, called WalkThrus to introduce customers to the main functionality of your product and prompt them to take action.
• Use SmartTips (tooltips) to offer contextual hints to customers that will help reduce friction across the journey and drive product adoption.
• Although you can build different UI patterns and drive adoption, WalkMe is not the best tool for the job and it never will be, since it’s not their priority. But if you are in need of a tool that allows you to drive employee onboarding across your tool stack and product adoption of your tool, then this will be a good option for you.

Pros of WalkMe?

WalkMe has its fair share of advantages that make it a solid tool. So what are WalkMe’s pros?

Here are our top three:

• Offers a high level of customization and works on both your own tool and 3rd party tools.
• Allows you to create in-app quizzes to test user or employee knowledge after completing a flow.
• Get access to a vast list of integrations that simply enhance your data collection or allow you to connect multiple tools in your stack.

Cons of WalkMe?

WalkMe is an established tool on the market but it does have its own share of cons too.

Here are the main ones you should consider:

• There’s a steep learning curve and a fair amount of technical knowledge required to create WalkMe user guides and get them implemented the way they’re intended.
• WalkMe is designed for enterprise organizations, and its pricing reflects that.
• You could end up spending anything from $9,000 to $50,000 a year on WalkMe. That’s a lot of money for startups and SMEs.

What users say about WalkMe?

Users are mostly happy with WalkMe’s features: on-screen guidance, interactive walkthroughs, customizable UI patterns, and journey segmentation are highly used and appreciated by customers.

Here are some reviews from real users.

“The most valuable thing WalkMe provides is time. WalkMe provides the user with on-screen guidance to get them to where they need to be without weighing down support teams on training for every function. The automated steps can remove multiple clicks and quickly send the user to what they need to see. The ability to view user activity and search terms allows mapping new build requirements properly.”

“WalkMe is very user-friendly and easy to learn! There are so many different features of WalkMe to provide a customizable and creative experience for all of our users. I love creating smart walkthroughs and building flows charts, which is the most fun part of my day-to-day tasks!”

But Walkme is not a perfect solution, most complaints are about hard implementation and annual contract pricing.

Here are some words from real Walkme users:

We never had time to implement the product. It takes a huge time investment and isn’t designed for the full documentation. Rather than maintain two sets of documentation, we removed Walkme from our product. This company is as bad as AOL or TimeWarner: they will not let you out of your multi-year contract no matter how unhappy you are with the product.

The tool is not very intuitive and has countless challenges using and technical difficulties.

Is WalkMe the right fit for your business?

Is WalkMe all you need or are there better alternatives that can provide more value at a much lower price? Here are the main reasons you should look for an alternative:

1. WalkMe offers only yearly pricing contracts which start at $9,000 so if you want to onboard new customers or provide in-app guidance then there are better solutions that won’t lock you in.
2. WalkMe is known for its hard implementation so it’s not recommended for non-technical people. Generally, it can take weeks or even months. For better comparison, Userpilot can be set up in just a few minutes as it’s completely code-free.
3. Bad and outdated UX design is another thing that might disappoint you and make you search for alternatives.

WalkMe pricing

WalkMe works on a custom pricing plan that requires you to request a quote from their sales team (could be spending from $9,000 to $50,000 a year).

Their main two plans are:

• WalkMe for employee onboarding experience: engagement tools and analytics
• WalkMe for customer experience: engagement tools and analytics
• Add-ons: Session Streams, TeachMe, AI analytics through UI intelligence

There is a better tool for your SaaS than Walkme!

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Userlane for interactive user guides

Userlane is a code-free digital adoption platform that allows you to create in-app interactive content to guide new users and increase product adoption.

Userlane brands itself as a digital adoption platform so no surprise that it comes with powerful features to drive product adoption.

Now let’s see how you can benefit from Userlane’s product adoption functionality:

• Create interactive walkthroughs, the so-called “lanes” to provide guidance to both new customers and employees.
• Track user behavior and make content decisions based on that data.
• Integrate with other tools to make the onboarding process more effective.
• Provide intuitive on-demand assistance, improve customer experience, and ensure long-term retention.

These make Userlane a great option to provide in-app guidance to your customers to shorten the learning curve and adopt your product entirely. However, you’re limited to only interactive walkthroughs with little customization offered.

Pros of Userlane?

Userlane is a popular digital adoption tool and comes with many benefits. Here are its pros:

• Lanes are easy to set up and implement.
• Easy to add gamification elements to your onboarding.
• Includes real-time analytics so you can identify behavior trends and act on them.
• Doesn’t require technical knowledge as it’s mostly code-free.

Cons of Userlane?

However, this tool has some flaws so it’s better to get an overview of its cons if you’re thinking of buying it:

• Not that many integration options. As of now, it has integrations with Confluence, Zendesk, and KnowledgeOwl.
• Some of the UI patterns, like hotspots and tooltips, aren’t as functional as users might like.
• Offers only interactive walkthroughs, known as lanes.
• Works only in the dashboard and can’t be launched in a Chrome extension as most of its competitors, like Userpilot does.

What users say about Userlane?

When it comes to reviews, customers are mostly enjoying a positive experience with Userlane. Here is what they say:

What I find most helpful about Userlane is its simplicity. In that I mean, it’s just easy to start using it out of the box and they continue to add great features all the time.

The tool is really intuitive to use and self-explanatory. Even multi-language support can be handled easily with hardly any effort. I also like the analytical options provided. Last but not least the service team is very supportive not only with technical questions but also in learning how to make the most out of the tool for our specific use cases.

We are using Userlane since almost two years and are always happy to implement the newest features. Big kudos to the Customer Support and Customer Success Team. If you need help, they help you almost instantly and provide easy-understandable solutions. I seldom worked with such a nice organization.

But at the same time, some customers are complaining about the lack of user-friendliness and steep learning curve for complete novices.

Here is what they say:

Sometimes it is quite complicated to build a guide within our software. But I think this depends on the structure of our software with so many iframes within iframes…

In general, Userlane offers far more advantages than disadvantages.
However, if there should be improvements from our point of view, then the analytics could be further expanded. They currently reflect a good status of the use of guided tours, but could be a little more detailed at one point or another.

The only thing that for me is frustrating at times, is that the actions bar is now located vertically on the screen, versus its previous location across the base of the screen.
This is not user friendly where needed to scroll up or down the page, which was possible previously, but not so easy now. Also the actions bar covers some of the page content, so have to regularly move the actions bar from left to right and vice versa

Is Userlane the right fit for your business?

Userlane is a good tool but it’s not perfect and might not be the right tool for everyone. Here is why you might think about exploring an alternative tool:

1. You can only create interactive walkthroughs to guide your new customers and everything is done in the native dashboard and not using a Chrome extension builder.
2. It doesn’t offer an in-app help center and there is no capability to provide self-service support.
3. Can create user surveys but with limited functionality and no analytics included.
4. Pricing is high as it mainly targets enterprise accounts with more than 500 employees.

Userlane pricing

Userlane’s pricing is not public and you should reach out to their sales team to get a quote.

But keep in mind that it is based on two things: the number of guided users and the product features you want access to.

There is a better tool for your SaaS than Userlane!

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Is there a better alternative for interactive user guides?

WalkMe and Userlane are good tools for interactive user guides. We’ve seen how they compare to each other and what you can achieve with them. Call us biased, but if you’re looking for something better, Userpilot offers more value for your money than these tools.

Userpilot for interactive user guides

Userpilot is a powerful product adoption platform that enables you to quickly build personalized, flexible, contextually relevant in-app experiences targeted to different user segments – all without writing a line of code.

Product adoption describes the process of getting users to the point where they are experiencing value from your product.

Userpilot is a powerful product adoption platform that enables you to quickly build personalized and contextual in-app experiences targeted to different user experiences – all without writing a line of code.

It’s a great option for enterprise users too since it’s SOC 2 Type II certified and offers robust features for large-scale usage.

Here are some of Userpilot’s product adoption features that you may find helpful:

• A broad range of UI patterns to build fully customizable, contextual, and interactive in-app flows: modals, slideouts, tooltips, hotspots, driven actions, banners, and more. And – most importantly – you are not limited by plan when it comes to how many UI patterns or designs you can build.
• Advanced in-app checklists with built-in gamification elements like progress bars or ”automatically marked complete” tasks: checklists also come with analytics so you can track who is interacting with them and how.
• Fully interactive walkthroughs walk users through engaging and adopting specific features of your app.
• The self-service in-app resource center lets users search your knowledge base directly inside the app, access chat, and support but also launch guides and tutorials when they get stuck.
• User feedback tools allow you to collect insights to improve the product and the user experience, thus leading to a higher product adoption rate. You can also collect NPS data and tag responses to uncover patterns into what makes users stick, or build micro surveys for more granular data. Then you can use all the feedback collected to build user segments based on the answers and personalize the path to higher product adoption for each segment.

Want to see Userpilot in action? Get a demo and improve product adoption with contextual and personalized in-app flows that actually help users.

Pros of Userpilot?

Userpilot has a number of advantages, especially for mid-market SaaS companies looking for a robust but at the same time very easy-to-use, no-code tool for user onboarding, product adoption, and simplified product analytics. Let’s have a look at the pros of using Userpilot:

• No-code builder – Userpilot comes with an easy-to-use Chrome Extension builder.
• Multiple UI patterns – choose from a range of options to build customized flows: modals, slideouts, banners, tooltips, hotspots, and checklists are all at your disposal.
• UI patterns are not limited by plan – you get access to all of them on every single plan, meaning you get value even with the Traction plan (this is the entry-level one).
• Engaging walkthroughs and onboarding flows – build interactive walkthroughs targeted to distinct user segments.
• In-app help – build a resource center offering self-service support to your users, customize it with your branding, and select from a range of help options to boost user satisfaction (i.e., videos, in-app flows, chat, and more).
• Experimentation – built-in A/B testing for flows lets you explore and quickly iterate based on direct user behavior.
• Powerful feedback options – integrated NPS surveys with analytics and response tagging unlock insight into how your users feel.
• Advanced analytics and segmentation – analyze product usage and in-app flow engagement and build user segments using the data.
• Event tracking and feature tags – tag UI engagement (clicks, form fills, hovers) and group them into one custom event to track what really matters.
• More value with integrations – unlock value faster with built-in integrations with popular tools like Segment, Amplitude, Mixpanel, Kissmetrics, Intercom, Heap, and more.

Cons of Userpilot?

There are, however, some downsides to Userpilot as well:

• Browser/web app only – Userpilot won’t run on mobile devices/applications.
• Doesn’t support employee onboarding – The tool is better suited for customer onboarding than for employee onboarding as you can’t build in-app guides on third-party tools.
• Missing integrations – doesn’t have built-in integrations with some tools, but it has webhooks, and HubSpot and Zapier are coming soon.
• Not appropriate for small startups on a shoestring budget (<$100) – Userpilot is a powerful, mid-market to enterprise-level tool. So $249 a month might be too expensive for really small startups.

What users say about Userpilot?

Let’s check what real users like about Userpilot.

Userpilot is an incredible, user-friendly software that allows us to create unforgettable experiences for our clients! From basic to complex experiences, we have been able to do them all with ease! I would highly recommend this software to anyone who wants to provide their clients or users with the best product tour experience. The possibilities of what you can create are endless! – Tayla G.

Userpilot is simple to set up, use, and does not require any dev – which means instant publishing. This is critical for us as a SaaS company that releases new features frequently; we need the ability to inform our customers of changes quickly, and doing this in our platform through Userpilot allows us to reach the right audience, at the right time, in the right place. There have been many awesome extra features we’ve discovered since coming on board, and it’s been great to see new features released frequently. The tool itself is intuitive and reliable. Having used similar products previously that were clunky and buggy this has really made us happy with our decision to move to Userpilot. – Melina K.

Get more value for your money with Userpilot!

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Userpilot pricing

Userpilot offers great value for money compared to other similar tools on the market. Even its entry-level plan (Traction) provides all the necessary features without any usage limit.

The price-to-feature ratio is the best for Userpilot. Other cheaper tools in the market would definitely not fulfill your needs, and others like Pendo would be out of budget. Userpilot sits in that sweet spot. – Saurav S.

The pricing differentiation happens mostly on the service level (e.g., custom domain hosting, dedicated Customer Success Manager, SLA) and is based on the number of Monthly Active Users (MAUs) your company has.

Here’s the detailed Userpilot pricing:

• Traction: For up to 2500 users, this plan is $249/ mo.
• Growth: For up to 10,000 users, this plan is $499/ mo.
• Enterprise: For large-scale businesses, these plans begin from $1,000/ mo.

Conclusion

Making a decision between WalkMe and Userlane has now become simpler. However, it’s important to note that each tool has its strengths and weaknesses, and choosing the right one depends largely on your specific product needs, and budgets.

For exceptional value and affordability, it’s worth exploring Userpilot. To see how Userpilot can help you in creating engaging interactive user guides, schedule a demo now.

There is no better tool for your SaaS than Userpilot!

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