Whatfix vs Userlane vs Userpilot – Which is Best for Your SaaS?

Confused between Whatfix, Userlane, and Userpilot?

Choosing the right solution can be a daunting task, as relying solely on review sites may not always provide the comprehensive information you need. That’s why we’ve provided you with a detailed and in-depth comparison of these three tools. Whether your primary focus is improving user onboarding, increasing adoption, or collecting user feedback, you’ll find the answers you’re seeking right here.

Let’s dive in and help you make an informed decision.

TL;DR

  • Known for its expertise in digital adoption, Whatfix offers a powerful tool for creating onboarding flows and knowledge bases. Nevertheless, it is important to note that the platform occasionally experiences bugs, and its analytical capabilities are relatively limited.
  • Userlane is a no-code tool that makes it easy to gamify your onboarding experiences, increasing customer engagement as a result. However, Userlane doesn’t offer many integrations, so there is a risk of it not working with your current tech stack.
  • Another impressive product growth tool is Userpilot which offers onboarding, adoption, and feedback features all in one. It is easy to use and the customer support is impressive. However, it can’t be used for employee onboarding.
  • Interested in what Userpilot has to offer? Book a demo now to see it live.

Comparing Whatfix vs Userlane vs Userpilot? Try the best one!

Get a Userpilot demo

  • 14 Day Trial
  • No Credit Card Required

What is Whatfix?

Whatfix dashboard
Whatfix dashboard

Whatfix is one of the top digital adoption platforms around and a driver of innovation in this space.

Whatfix offers a well-made product that allows you to create user flows, knowledge bases, and task lists to get new users engaged and learning. On top of this, their analytics platform is easy to understand and helps you keep track of behavior analytics, guidance analytics, and user feedback all in one place.

What is Whatfix best for?

Typically, SaaS Product Managers consider Whatfix for the following reasons: they want to improve their user onboarding, they need product adoption and want to measure their user feedback. How does Whatfix perform when it comes to these top-three use cases? Let’s examine it all, and then compare it to the other tools we’re discussing in this post.

Whatfix for user onboarding

Whatfix for user onboarding
Whatfix for user onboarding

Whatfix’s digital adoption platform makes your user onboarding easier. The tool helps you create personalized walkthroughs by adopting the learning-by-doing technique.

Here are the benefits you can gain if you choose Whatfix:

  • Create interactive product walkthroughs and flows code-free with native integration options
  • Incorporate different onboarding elements into your flows, including modals, checklists, tooltips, and beacons
  • With its user-level segmentation, you can set up basic contextual onboarding to differentiate user experience.

However, Whatfix targets mostly large enterprise companies and might not be the right choice for SMBs or startups. If this is the case, you should be looking for alternative tools to power up your user onboarding.

Whatfix for product adoption

Whatfix for product adoption
Whatfix for product adoption

To drive product and user adoption, you need to provide continuous value to your users and provide contextual help across all stages of the customer journey.

Whatfix helps your enterprise company achieve that by unlocking the full potential of user segmentation and in-app guidance.

Here is what you will get with Whatfix product adoption functionality.

  • Create contextual in-app guides to make users get the maximum value of your product.
  • Provide omnichannel support without skyrocketing your customer support goals.
  • Powerful analytics to try new ideas based on real-time data and find ways to optimize the customer experience.

Whatfix for user feedback

Whatfix for user feedback
Whatfix for user feedback

If you want to collect user feedback on specific interactions, Whatfix is a good tool to build micro surveys for that.

Here’s how you can collect user feedback with Whatfix:

  • With user surveys, you can collect feedback on the onboarding tours and training flows, so you can continuously improve your product support.
  • Whatfix’s in-app feedback surveys make it easy to gather feedback and insights from users in real-time.
  • Add a follow-up question to enable open-minded feedback.
  • Send push reminders to customers so they don’t forget about providing feedback.

However, if you want to build traditional NPS surveys with response tagging capabilities, then segment customers based on their feedback, Whatfix might not be the best fit for you. This is something that Userpilot offers.

There is a better tool for your SaaS than Whatfix!

Get a Userpilot demo

  • 14 Day Trial
  • No Credit Card Required

What is Userlane?

Userlane dashboard
Userlane dashboard

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.

What is Userlane best for?

Similar to Whatfix, Userlane is typically considered for user onboarding, product adoption, and user feedback. Let’s examine Userlane for these use cases before we compare it to Userpilot.

Userlane for user onboarding

Userlane for onboarding
Userlane for onboarding

Userlane offers all the basic things you need to create interactive in-app guidance and nail your onboarding.

Here is what you can get with Userlane:

  • Create interactive in-app guides with modals, tooltips, and checklists to remove the guesswork and guide new customers step by step.
  • Target guides, hints, and announcements to the right people at the right time to maximize engagement.
  • You can also add videos, gifs, and links to enrich your in-app content.
  • With the code-free editor, you can record the tutorials and share them with your users. With multiple language support, make sure that your customers get the in-app experiences in their languages).
  • However, Userlane allows you to only build logic flows (lanes) directly in the tool’s dashboard. It doesn’t work in a Chrome extension by pointing and building UI patterns directly on top of your native UI.

Userlane for product adoption

Userlane for product adoption
Userlane for 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.

Userlane for user feedback

Userlane allows you to collect user feedback and improve your product experiences with basic survey functionality. Although they are more focused on interactive tours, you can collect feedback too. It’s just harder to analyze and use the data as this is not their main functionality.

Here is what you can do with Userlane’s user feedback:

  • Create and send out NPS surveys to measure customer loyalty.
  • Set up reminders for those who didn’t respond to the surveys.
  • Configure the date and time of sending surveys and create custom dates.
  • Create specific user segments and target the surveys to those segments.

Try a better tool for your SaaS than Userlane!

Get a Userpilot demo

  • 14 Day Trial
  • No Credit Card Required

Whatfix vs Userlane vs Userpilot – is Userpilot the best choice?

Userpilot Features & Events dashboard
Userpilot Features & Events dashboard

Userpilot is a comprehensive digital adoption platform (DAP). It enables product teams to track product usage and user behavior to guide product development and optimize the user experience.

In addition, it allows them to gather user feedback and design personalized onboarding experiences to drive product adoption. All of this is possible without coding.

What is Userpilot best for?

Userpilot is used for similar use cases as Userlane and Whatfix. Let’s see how Userpilot compares to the tools we discussed before it comes to user onboarding, product adoption, and user feedback.

Userpilot for user onboarding

Userpilot for onboarding
Userpilot for onboarding

Userpilot was built specifically for SaaS product teams that want to improve their user onboarding experience and boost user activation.

You can build a huge variety of user onboarding experiences and in-app guidance flows without needing to code.

Here’s what you’ll get when you start using Userpilot:

  • Forget about coding in-app experiences: Userpilot is a no-code solution and only requires your dev to install a line of javascript inside your app and for you to download a Chrome extension that opens up the visual builder.
  • Build in-app flows using the largest range of UI patterns (modals, slideouts, tooltips, hotspots, banners) and in-app onboarding experiences (checklists, micro surveys, NPS surveys, in-app resource center).
  • Get access to a built-in NPS tool for collecting and analyzing user sentiment so you can improve your onboarding process based on real data.
  • Create and track combinations of in-app events like clicks, hovers, and form fills, and then analyze all these interactions under your own custom events, which can be built without code or API calls.
  • Use advanced product analytics and in-app flows analytics to identify where users need help and create granular user segments to trigger in-app experiences contextually (segment based on user identification data, in-app engagement, custom events, clicks, hovers, form fills, user feedback responses, NPS scores and more).
  • Enhance the onboarding experience with in-app help by launching a Resource Center directly inside your app. Add in-app guides, and video tutorials, and give users access to search the knowledge base or reach out to support. Self-service has never been easier.

The best user onboarding is contextual and it happens right where the users need it, inside your app. There isn’t a better user onboarding tool out there that offers more value for the money than Userpilot.

Schedule a demo with our team and get ready to build the best onboarding experiences your users have seen.

Userpilot for product adoption

Userpilot for product adoption
Userpilot for product adoption

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.

Userpilot for user feedback

PMF survey in Userpilot
PMF survey in Userpilot

There are two types of feedback you should be focusing on collecting to better understand the health of your product and users.

First, you have user sentiment which looks at user satisfaction and effort scores or loyalty (using NPS surveys). Then you may also want to collect feedback on the functionality of the product or specific features.

You can do all these with Userpilot. In short, you can:

  • Collect and track (NPS) in-app with a built-in NPS widget that allows you to fully customize the survey look and feel, and set the trigger frequency and specific targeting.
  • Analyze NPS scores, tag responses, and use the data to create specific user segments.
  • Build and trigger in-app micro surveys like the classic PMF survey, or similar ones and mix multi-choice and open-ended types of questions to collect specific insights.
  • Be in charge of who gets which survey type and when with advanced segmentation capabilities, and of course, you can use the answers to segment your audience.

The advantage of using Userpilot for collecting feedback over other survey tools is that you can better control who sees the surveys but also you can instantly use the data collected to segment your user base and trigger the right experience for them.

For instance, if your users give you a low NPS score because they think you’re missing a critical feature (that you actually have already), you can push an interactive walkthrough guiding them to find and explore this feature.

Tired of bad Digital Adoption tools? Try Userpilot for your SaaS for free!

Get a demo

  • 14 Day Trial
  • No Credit Card Required

So Which tool should you choose – Whatfix, Userlane, or Userpilot?

As you can see, Whatfix, Userlane, and Userpilot cater to most of the use cases Product Managers typically look for in their SaaS companies. There are some differences between the tools when it comes to how those use cases are executed in each, of course. So if you’re still on the fence – there are two more factors that can make a difference for you – the tools’ pricing, and its reviews. Let’s have a look at both below!

Whatfix pricing

Whatfix pricing
Whatfix pricing

Whatfix doesn’t have any pricing plans on its website. Instead, you’ll need to speak with one of their team members to get a custom quote tailored to your needs and organization.

Otherwise, you can request a free trial to see if Whatfix works for you.

Userlane pricing

Userlane pricing
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.

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 pricing new april 2024
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 Whatfix vs Userlane vs Userpilot?

Whatfix reviews

Whatfix review
Whatfix review
Whatfix review
Whatfix review

Userlane reviews

Userlane review
Userlane review
Userlane reviews
Userlane reviews

Userpilot reviews

Userpilot review
Userpilot review
Userpilot review
Userpilot review

The final countdown: Pros & Cons of Whatfix, Userlane, and Userpilot

Whatfix pros

There are many advantages when it comes to choosing Whatfix. Here are its pros.

  • Easy to create flows, even for non-technical team members.
  • Allows you to develop knowledge bases for self-help solutions.
  • Ideal for both customer and employee onboarding.

Whatfix cons

But at the same time, Whatfix has some cons so it’s better to get an overview if you’re thinking of buying it:

  • User experience issues, including bugs and sometimes spotty customer service.
  • Fewer analytical features and views than you might like.
  • Lacks in-depth style customizations.
  • It’s difficult to integrate some of the scripted code in the admin integration sections without the help of a Whatfix support team member.
  • No free trial option despite it being stated on the homepage.
  • It’s targeted at enterprise accounts so small companies might get ignored.

Userlane pros

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.

Userlane cons

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.

Userpilot pros

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, HubSpot, and more.

Userpilot cons

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 Zapier is 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.

Try the best tool for user onboarding for FREE!

Get a Userpilot demo

  • 14 Day Trial
  • No Credit Card Required

Conclusion

This detailed comparison between Whatfix, Userlane, and Userpilot looked into how each tool performs in terms of onboarding, adoption, and feedback. Before you decide to invest in a tool, consider your feature requirements and budgets.

If you’re looking for an all-in-one platform that offers great value for money, consider using Userpilot. Want to see it in action? Book a demo now.

About the author
Sophie Grigoryan

Sophie Grigoryan

Content Project Manager

All posts Connect