Whatfix vs Spekit: Which is Better for Interactive User Guides?
Is Whatfix or Spekit the best tool for interactive user guides? Is there a better in-app onboarding software that would better fit your needs?
With so many alternatives on review sites, it’s a bit tricky to 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 creating interactive user guides should deliver and which will be the best choice for your company’s needs.
Let’s dive in!
TL;DR
- Let’s explore how Whatfix and Spekit compare when it comes to creating interactive user guides.
- Interactive user guides — whether in the form of linear product tours or interactive walkthroughs — can streamline the product adoption process for new users. Whatfix lets you build interactive user guides with task lists and smart tips on multiple platforms.
- Spekit is an employee onboarding solution. This means that, while it does let you create interactive user guides, they will only be visible to your internal team members. You cannot use Spekit to create customer-facing guides that are accessible to external users.
- If you’re looking for a better option for creating interactive user guides, Userpilot exceeds both functionality and value for money compared to other tools on the list.
- Userpilot is a product growth platform that drives user activation, feature adoption, and expansion revenue. It also helps product teams collect user feedback, streamline onboarding, and gather actionable insights from analytics. Get a Userpilot demo and drive your product growth code-free.
Userpilot – A Better Alternative for Building Interactive User Guides
What is an interactive user guide?
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.
Must have features for interactive user guide tools
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 can 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.
Whatfix for creating interactive user guides
Interactive user guides — whether in the form of linear product tours or interactive walkthroughs — can streamline the product adoption process for new users. Whatfix lets you build interactive user guides with task lists and smart tips on multiple platforms.
Here’s an overview of Whatfix’s interactive guide capabilities:
- Task Lists: Task lists are Whatfix’s version of an onboarding checklist. This feature will display a targeted list to give new users a clear view of what their next steps should be. You can also set the task list to always display on-screen until every task is complete.
- Smart Tips: Whatfix’s smart tip functionality lets you embed contextual guidance within the UI of an application. These could consist of tooltips that expand when interacted with or input validation for information entered on text fields.
- Mobile Guides: Whatfix Mobile lets you build interactive flows for customers or employees who are using applications on a mobile device. This ensures that users get the same Whatfix onboarding experience regardless of which platform they’re on.
No-code product tours in Whatfix
Whatfix’s digital adoption platform may be separate from its product analytics solution. Still, it does offer a well-rounded feature set for building no-code product tours, task lists, and smart tips that help new customers/employees learn about a product.
- Product Tour: Whatfix lets you use custom pop-ups that greet customers, brief employees, and lead into an interactive tour of the product’s core functionality. You’ll also be able to embed multimedia — such as micro-videos — that help with onboarding and adoption.
- Task List: Whatfix’s task lists (essentially onboarding checklists) give each customer or employee a tailored list of in-app flows that they should complete before proceeding. You can even tweak the settings to keep the task list visible until all tasks have been completed.
- Smart Tips: The smart tips feature shows contextual guidance within the UI of a particular product. For instance, this could be a tooltip that expands when customers use a specific feature. These smart tips can also be used to validate text field inputs from users.
In-app messaging in Whatfix
In-app messaging helps you keep users engaged and provides an opportunity for sharing important updates. Whatfix uses in-app flows, contextual help embeds, and a self-help widget to help you share key messages with your users.
- In-App Guidance: Whatfix’s no-code flows and product tours are the primary means of communicating with employees or customers using an application. Whatfix lets you create pop-ups, task lists, and various UI patterns for guiding users through the adoption process.
- Contextual Help: Whatfix contextual help embeds let you insert guidance within the UI of a product to ensure users have easy access to key information when they need it most. These could include tooltips that expand when users interact with them.
- Self-Help: The self-help widget is always present on the right side of your users’ screens. This lets every customer or employee easily search for product documentation or other resources that they might need while using a specific application.
Spekit for creating interactive user guides
Spekit is an employee onboarding solution. This means that, while it does let you create interactive user guides, they will only be visible to your internal team members. You cannot use Spekit to create customer-facing guides that are accessible to external users.
Spekit for interactive user guides.
Here’s an overview of how Spekit lets you create interactive guides for employees:
- Codeless guides: Spekit’s Chrome extension makes it possible to build interactive employee guides without writing any code. These flows are installed on the browser level rather than on the software itself so employees will need to have the extension installed to access them.
- Cross-product flows: Because Spekit isn’t installed on any one tool, you can use it to create employee onboarding flows that span multiple software platforms. Just ensure that employees can access the Chrome extension throughout each step.
- Guide limitations: Spekit’s flows are quite limited as you only have two UI patterns to choose from: tooltips and modals. Furthermore, adding a modal as the first step of a flow could cause a bug where the flow doesn’t appear to employees (because Spekit modals lack unique URLs).
No-code product tours in Spekit
Spekit for no-code product tours.
Spekit is an employee onboarding solution which means it can be used to build no-code product tours but these walkthroughs will only be accessible by internal team members. You cannot use Spekit to create customer-facing product tours for scenarios like onboarding new users.
Here’s an overview of Spekit’s product tour capabilities:
- Employee walkthroughs: Spekit lets you build code-less walkthroughs for new employees that teach them how to use third-party software in the company tool stack. Sadly, the only two UI patterns available for these tours are modals and tooltips which limits their usefulness.
- Cross-tool tour: Because Spekit isn’t installed on a software level, it’s possible to create a product tour that spans multiple tools. Just ensure that employees will be able to access the Spekit Chrome extension at all stages of the product tour (avoid redirecting to other browsers).
- Tour versions: Spekit’s versioning capabilities let you record product tours, edit them, and save drafts to be completed later on. You can also use Spekit to preview your tour, add/delete steps, and edit text or UI patterns.
In-app messaging in Spekit
Spekit cannot be used for conventional in-app messaging (i.e., between a company and users of its product). However, Spekit can be used to create notifications for your employees who have the Chrome extension installed.
Spekit for in-app messaging.
Spekit’s alert features are limited to members of your team but they can be helpful for announcing updates. These could include new software being added to the company tool stack, recently added walkthroughs, newly-created resources (Speks), and other relevant information you’d like to share.
Pros and cons of Whatfix
Whatfix is priced lower than its closest competitor (WalkMe) while letting you onboard both customers and employees to software applications. That said, there are a few clear scenarios where you might want to look for alternative solutions:
- If you’re the type of customer who wants to “try before they buy”, then Whatfix isn’t going to be the right fit. The trial request form on their website is buggy, you’ll need to wait a month to hear back on your request, and you might end up with a demo instead of a trial.
- Many customers have complained about the subpar support that Whatfix offers. There are multiple reviews on websites like G2 citing slow resolution times, high success manager turnover, and an overall lack of technical assistance from the Whatfix team.
- Despite claiming to be built for enterprise organizations, Whatfix’s analytics capabilities leave much to be desired. If you’re looking for advanced analytics capabilities, then find alternatives like WalkMe, Userpilot, or Appcues.
Pros of Whatfix
Whatfix may not be as popular or widely adopted as competitors like WalkMe but it does have its fair share of benefits:
- Pricing: While Whatfix does not publish the exact cost of its plans publicly, numerous reports from customers suggest an average entry point of $1,000/month. This is significantly cheaper than its closest competitor, WalkMe, which reportedly starts at closer to $10,000/month.
- Automation: Whatfix Flows helps you automate repetitive tasks to save time. The Whatfix Flows dashboard also lets you analyze your existing flows and then use them to create entirely new automation in a single click.
- Integrations: Whatfix’s third-party integration options make it easy to incorporate the solution into the rest of your tech stack. It integrates with Salesforce, Amplitude, Google Analytics, Slack, and more — providing a good selection of the top CRM, analytics, and communication tools.
Cons of Whatfix
Whatfix offers a more affordable employee onboarding solution than its closest competitors but is limited by its lackluster analytics and support — along with its high-friction trial signup process for prospective customers.
Here are the key drawbacks of using Whatfix:
- Whatfix is quite lacking in the analytics department — both in comparison to direct competitors like WalkMe as well as other onboarding solutions like Userpilot, Appcues, or Pendo. If detailed user data matters to you, you’ll want to consider alternatives.
- Technical assistance (or the lack thereof) is arguably one of Whatfix’s largest weaknesses. While all plans promise to give you a customer success manager, most Whatfix users complain about the subpar support they provide.
- While Whatfix has a trial request page on its website, this form is buggy and inconsistent. You can reach out to support to request a trial directly but resolution times can be upwards of a month — and, in the end, you may even be redirected to a demo call instead of a trial account.
Userpilot – A Better Alternative for Building Interactive User Guides
Pros and cons of Spekit
Spekit is perfectly viable as an employee onboarding tool but its usability is limited by the narrowly focused feature set.
Here are a few scenarios where you should consider using alternative solutions instead of Spekit:
- Onboarding Analytics: Despite Spekit focusing on (employee) onboarding it lacks the detailed analytics that you’d need to optimize your flows. You’ll likely need to use additional tools to collect and analyze data if you use Spekit as your primary onboarding platform.
- UI Navigation: While installing the Chrome extension is fairly straightforward, actually navigating through its interface can be more difficult due to the subpar layout and performance issues.
- Contextual Onboarding: If you want to create contextual onboarding flows for multiple segments then Spekit might not be the best tool. Its segmentation capabilities aren’t the best and there are plenty of other tools in the same space with better segment targeting features.
Pros of Spekit
Spekit is a handy solution for employee onboarding use cases.
Here are some of its main benefits:
- Chrome Extension: Spekit can be installed in any web-based application and then accessed through the Chrome extension.
- Knowledge Bases: You can build multiple knowledge bases with different formats for each respective team in your organization.
- Internal Access: Your new employees will be able to find all the resources they need in a single place instead of having to ask coworkers multiple questions per day.
Cons of Spekit
Spekit has notable limitations that could be a deal-breaker for certain companies or use cases:
- Onboarding Limitations: Tooltips and modals are the only UI patterns that you can use when building in-app flows with Spekit.
- Product Experience: Spekit’s software has numerous bugs and performance issues that you’ll need to reckon with when using the tool (along with subpar UI navigation).
- Analytics Shortcomings: Spekit lacks feedback collection and analytics reporting capabilities which makes it hard to identify areas that need improvement.
Whatfix vs Spekit: Which one fits your budget?
Understanding the cost implications is paramount when selecting the right solution for creating interactive user guides, so here’s a detailed pricing comparison of Whatfix and Spekit.
Pricing of Whatfix
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.
- Pro: 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.
Pricing of Spekit
While Spekit previously charged $20/month for each user, they have since updated their pricing model. The price will now vary based on the size of your organization and which use cases you’ll be deploying the product for.
Spekit doesn’t have a freemium plan nor does it offer a free trial.
This means that you’ll need to contact the Spekit sales team and pay for a proof-of-concept to get an idea of how the solution works. Features like seismic integration, knowledge checks, and knowledge check analytics are sold as add-ons that cost extra on top of your base subscription.
Userpilot – A better alternative for building interactive user guides
Userpilot is a product growth platform that drives user activation, feature adoption, and expansion revenue. It also helps product teams collect user feedback, streamline onboarding, and gather actionable insights from analytics.
With Userpilot, you’ll be able to track both product usage and user behavior to get a holistic view of how customers use your product — which will guide future development, improve the user experience, and inform your growth efforts.
No-code product tours in Userpilot
Product tours are an effective way to show new users what a product can do and reduce the time-to-value (TTV) for them. Userpilot lets you build advanced product tours, set contextual triggers, and target specific audiences, all without writing a single line of code.
Here are the Userpilot features that you can use to build a product tour for your users:
- Flow builder: Userpilot’s no-code flow builder has a variety of UI patterns to choose from, such as modals, slideouts, tooltips, and driven actions. All UI patterns are available for use regardless of which Userpilot plan you’re on. All you need to do is install the Chrome extension.
- Contextual triggers: Userpilot lets you set triggers for your flows to ensure that they appear at the most contextual moments. Flows could be triggered when users land on a specific page or when a tracked event occurs. There are also manual triggering options that you can tinker with.
- Audience targeting: Userpilot’s audience targeting setting lets you set the conditions needed for a flow to show up for a specific user. You can use these settings to create flows that target a specific segment or exclude certain users from seeing a flow if certain conditions are met.
In-app messaging in Userpilot
In-app messaging enables communication within your product to onboard new users or drive feature adoption among existing customers.
Here are a few ways you can send in-app messages using Userpilot:
- Modals: Userpilot lets you use modals to send unmissable in-app messages to your users. Simply choose from one of the six templates or create a new modal from scratch. You’ll be able to use text, emojis, images, and videos to help your modals get the message across to users.
- Banners: Userpilot banners can be used to send in-app messages that are urgent but don’t need to take up the entire screen. You can also add blocks with text, emojis, images, videos, forms, custom JavaScript functions, and more to style banners to your liking.
- Tooltips: They are the least intrusive form of in-app messaging as they only show up when users hover over an element or click on an info icon. You’ll be able to adjust the height, shape, color, and placement of tooltips to make them native-like.
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).
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 Whatfix and Spekit. You should be able to make a confident decision by now. If you’re looking for a solid tool for building interactive user guides that promises great value for money, give Userpilot a go. Book a demo today.
Userpilot – A Better Alternative for Building Interactive User Guides
