Pendo Pricing Guide (2025): Plans, Costs, and Value Analysis

What is Pendo?

Pendo is a Software Experience Management (SXM) platform that offers tools and features to make your software product smoother and easier to use. It helps you ease user frustration and confusion through in-app guidance and support. 

Pendo’s offerings include:

• Product tours, in-app guides, and tooltips
• Product and user engagement analytics 
• Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys and other in-app surveys/ polls
• Session replay
• Pendo AI
• Orchestrate (user journey maps)
• Pendo Listen (user feedback analytics, idea validation, and product roadmaps)

What is Pendo used for?

Pendo offers a variety of powerful features, which means that different customers use it for different needs and goals. However, broadly speaking, SaaS companies turn to Pendo for 4 key reasons: product adoption, user feedback, customer experience, and product analytics.

👇🏻  And here are Pendo’s more specific use cases:

• Onboarding new users: Use in-app guides, tooltips, and onboarding modules to walk users through the product.
• Personalizing user flows and content: Segment onboarding materials and in-app messages to target specific audiences.
• Collecting user feedback and insights: Collect NPS scores through in-app and email surveys.
• Conducting user research: Leverage Pendo Listen for idea validation and AI-powered feedback analysis.
• Understanding user behavior: Track user events and session replays to get the full picture of your users’ experience.
  Monitoring feature engagement: Analyze funnels, workflows, and paths with detailed dashboards and reports.
• Enhancing mobile app experiences: Use guides and NPS surveys on mobile and track engagement separately with mobile analytics.
• Providing in-app support: Offer help articles and onboarding materials in the in-app resource center.

How much is Pendo?

Well… No one really knows.

I mean, we know that it’s on the high end of the pricing spectrum thanks to Pendo’s old customers and their reviews on platforms like G2 and Reddit. However, in order to learn the actual current numbers, you need to arrange a demo with their sales team. 

In short, Pendo doesn’t reveal its pricing to the public. 

Yet, we are not totally in the dark. 

According to Vendr’s data, the median Pendo customer pays $46,987/year.

However, high costs aren’t the only issue with Pendo’s opaque pricing. Without a clear breakdown of plans, add-ons, and feature limitations, users are left wondering: 

Am I overpaying? What exactly am I getting for my money? 

Is someone else getting a better deal? 

This lack of transparency can create doubt and frustration.

Based on (former) customer insights on the Vendr community, other problems, and concerns about Pendo’s opaque pricing are:

• “Forced” volunteering for multi-year contracts: Many Pendo customers state that in order to escape from fluctuating price increases (changing between 5% to 20%), they needed to sign multi-year contracts and lock lower auto-renewal caps.

• Inconsistent pricing between customers: Since Pendo’s pricing is unclear, customers may pay different amounts for similar plans and features. Many Pendo users share stories of successfully negotiating discounts, which could frustrate those who aren’t as skilled at bargaining.

• Endless meetings with the sales team: All these features and MAU-based calculations and bargaining, of course, take time and require setting up multiple meetings with Pendo teams, which can become pretty tiring. 

Some Pendo customers describe the contract negotiation process as if it's a court settlement!

• ‍Delayed value realization: Pendo has a learning curve, and it also requires some technical setup (especially for event tracking and tagging). So, using the platform to its fullest potential and getting value for what you pay for takes some time. 

And considering how much money you pay for it, you need to track lots of events, create tens of materials, and conduct several feedback surveys to get that value. One Pendo customer says this might even take a few years!

What are Pendo’s pricing tiers?

Pendo has 5 plans: Free, Base, Core, Pulse, and Ultimate. 

Let’s first compare the “real” plans Pendo highlights on its pricing page:

➡️ Pendo Base Plan: For small businesses. 

• Custom MAU
• Included features: analytics, in-app guides, surveys & polls, 1 resource center, roadmaps
• Included capabilities: 1 integration 

➡️ Pendo Core Plan: For mid-size businesses.

• Custom MAU
• Included features: analytics, in-app guides, surveys & polls, 1 resource center, roadmaps, session replays 
• Included capabilities: 1 integration 

➡️ Pendo Pulse Plan: For scaling businesses and mid-to-large enterprises.

• Custom MAU
• Included features: analytics, in-app guides, surveys & polls, 1 resource center, roadmaps, session replays, NPS, idea validation & prioritization, customer portal, Jira integration, feedback insights & summaries 
• Included capabilities: 1 integration 

➡️ Pendo Ultimate Plan: For large enterprises. 

• Custom MAU
• Included features: analytics, in-app guides (Pro edition), surveys & polls, unlimited resource centers, roadmaps, session replays, NPS, idea validation & prioritization, customer portal, Jira integration, feedback insights & summaries, journey orchestration   
• Included capabilities: 1 integration, data synchronization 

Many of Pendo’s features and capabilities are gated. 

Unless you’re on the most expensive tier –which still does not guarantee unlimited access to everything–, you need to buy the features and capabilities as add-ons. 

Some of these capabilities are vital parts of features, without which you basically have no use for the main feature… For example, guide experiments, guide logic, guide edit history, and theme copying!

Other add-ons include:

• Certain AI guide capabilities (included in the Ultimate)
• NPS (included in the Pulse and Ultimate)
• Product discovery (included in the Pulse and Ultimate)
• Journey orchestration (included in the Ultimate)
• Localization (included in the Ultimate)
• Data synchronization (included in the Ultimate)
• API access

↩️ Now, back to Pendo Free.

We saved Pendo’s free tier for last because its value is quite limited, given the included features. It offers:

• 500 MAUs
• Basic analytics, guides, surveys/polls, roadmaps, and Pendo-branded NPS
• Self-serve only customer support
• No option to purchase additional features as add-ons

If you’re a brand-new startup with a very small user base and need basic in-app guidance for free, Pendo Free might be an option. However, it’s not a sustainable or long-term freemium plan.

What impacts Pendo’s pricing tiers?

We understand that all these feature bundles and add-ons can be intimidating and confusing. Let’s highlight the key differences between the plans and list what potentially drives up Pendo’s pricing 👇🏻

• Number of monthly active users (MAUs)
• Number of apps tracked
• Level of analytics or guide usage
• Access to premium features (like resource center, NPS, session replays, etc.)
• Access to advanced capabilities (like localization, automation, data sync, etc.)
• Number of required/ used integrations 
• Access to Pendo API
• Account and data management preferences 
• Contract length and negotiation 

Is Pendo Worth the Cost? (Pros & Cons)

Everything in life is a trade-off between the pros and cons of a product or decision. With Pendo, you pay a premium, but you also gain powerful capabilities. On the flip side, those capabilities come with a steep learning curve and a complex setup.

Yin Yang ️

Let’s see if Pendo’s pros outweigh the cons for you.

Pros of Pendo

First, the advantages and the powerful features of the platform 👇🏻

• Personalized Communication Based on User Behavior: As a Software Experience Management Platform (SXM), Pendo has strong segmentation and personalization capabilities you can use with guides, tooltips, and onboarding modals. 

When you use the segmentation feature with the insights you get from the platform’s event tracking, session recording, and engagement analytics, you can trigger the right and relevant messaging/ prompts for your users at the right time and place.

• User Feedback:  Though the cheaper pricing plans’ feedback capabilities are limited, with the right add-ons and/or higher plans, Pendo enables you to conduct user research and analyze the user feedback with AI-powered sentiment analytics.

• Comprehensive Analytics for Starters: Pendo’s analytics are often praised as comprehensive, powerful, and advanced, with its funnel, user path, retention, and workflow reports.

If you're new to tracking user engagement, its detailed quantitative analytics and dashboards can feel visually appealing and easy to follow.

⚠️ However, keep in mind that while many people appreciate Pendo’s analytics, just as many find them misleading and superficial (a point we’ll dive into in the cons section in a minute.)

• AI Capabilities: Many of Pendo’s AI capabilities, especially those for in-app guidance, need to be bought separately as add-ons. However, if you decide to buy them, they are powerful and useful. Some of these capabilities include AI guide creation, AI writing assistant, and AI localization.

Product analytics-related AI capabilities, on the other hand, come with all the paid plans. Some of them include AI-powered behavioral insights, user journey insights, and tagging intelligence. 

There are many other AI capabilities that come with other add-on bundles like session replays, product discovery, or NPS.

• Customer Service: Pendo’s customer service is a hot topic. Some users say the support team is hard to reach, and the self-serve articles feel outdated and unhelpful. But on the flip side, plenty of Pendo users find the customer support and success teams incredibly supportive.

Since Pendo takes some effort and technical know-how to set up, there’s definitely a learning curve. Until you get the hang of it, you might need a bit of hand-holding —or even a 1:1 live onboarding session. 

While the time and extra support required for setup might be a dealbreaker for some, it’s nice that many users who do reach out for help seem pretty happy with the assistance they get.

Cons of Pendo

Now, the weak features and aspects of the platform Pendo’s customers hate 👇🏻

• Overly Complex Features: As we’ve mentioned, Pendo comes with a steep learning curve and a lengthy onboarding process, which can leave many users feeling frustrated and confused. Some even feel like they’re missing out on key features —not because they don’t exist, but because they struggle to set them up properly.

And on top of that, you’re paying a ton of money, so you feel the pressure to justify the cost, both to yourself and your team, by making sure you’re using the tool effectively.

Honestly? That’s just way too much anxiety…

• Low-quality Data:  One of Pendo’s biggest selling points is its detailed product and user engagement analytics. While many users rely on Pendo for its analytics capabilities, just as many raise concerns about data accuracy.

In fact, based on 1,489 customer reviews on G2, “Data Inaccuracy” ranked among the top five most common complaints about Pendo. 

Additionally, the platform lacks qualitative analytics, focusing heavily on quantitative metrics. This can lead to important user behaviors, especially from smaller but highly valuable user segments, being overlooked or misrepresented.

• Slow and Glitchy UI: Many Pendo users report that Pendo’s UI feels slow and glitchy, especially when navigating dashboards or setting up guides. Lag, bugs, and unresponsive elements can make the experience frustrating, adding to the already steep learning curve.

• Limited Compatibility with Complex Web Structures: Pendo works well on simple, single-domain pages, but things get tricky when multiple domains, dynamic content, or iFrames come into play (even though iFrames are technically supported). Pendo users report that onboarding modules and guides often break or fail to function properly in these cases.

On paper, Pendo’s support for mobile apps and iFrames is a big differentiator from its competitors. But if they don’t actually work the way you need them to? Well… 😬

• Fragmented User Experience and Feature Gaps: Pendo’s platform sometimes feels disjointed, with certain features not well connected or integrated. US and EU customers report discrepancies in the features available to them, with EU users, in particular, lacking many AI capabilities. 

Additionally, Pendo doesn't offer much control over data or the ability to import historical data, which can be frustrating for users who need access to past insights.

• Limited Customization: Whether it’s customizing analytics reports, the resource center, or dashboard widgets, different Pendo users feel the pinch when it comes to customization options. 

No matter how highly a customer rates Pendo (some even giving 4 to 4.5 stars out of 5 on G2) almost everyone feels there’s something missing in terms of customization.

A better alternative to Pendo: UserGuiding

Pendo is a good solution, but there’s even a better one –UserGuiding!

UserGuiding is a no-code, all-in-one product adoption platform that offers the same must-have in-app communication, guidance, and feature adoption features/ capabilities Pendo offers with more cost-effective plans. 

Also, as a comprehensive adoption solution, UserGuiding offers additional features Pendo lacks, such as Product Updates, Knowledge Bases, and AI Assistant.

Now, let’s compare both tools’ offerings and capabilities 🔎 

• (In-app) Communication: Pendo’s in-app announcement modals are highly limited. There are no pop-up modals, no banners, or slideouts. You can only use the onboarding modals, tooltips, and announcement modules within the resource center to communicate your message. 

So, are there ways to go around the lacking features? Yes. 

Is it annoying and limiting? YES!

UserGuiding, on the other hand, offers a lot of in-app announcement modals: banners, slideouts, popups, side notifications, modals with 2-3 columns… 

You can create pretty much anything from scratch, too, but the available templates are pretty impressive (and extensive).

Plus, there’s also the standalone Product Updates page you can use to communicate your new feature releases or policy updates. And UserGuiding allows you to collect customer feedback right there to ensure healthy, two-way communication with your users, too.

• User Feedback: Pendo’s in-app survey/ poll options are just as limited as its in-app announcement options. Plus, you need to pay extra even to reach those limited NPS capabilities… Feedback analytics? Behind an additional paywall, as well. 

Meanwhile, UserGuiding’s in-app survey capabilities, complete with various templates and survey engagement dashboards, are included in all plans. Here are UserGuiding’s in-app survey templates you can use to save time while collecting customer feedback:

So you can create surveys with a variety of question options, customize them further, and don’t need to pay for an add-on plan. 

Seems like a no-brainer, right?  

• Platform Usability and Customer Experience: Unlike Pendo’s steep learning curve and heavy setup process, UserGuiding has little to no learning curve and requires no technical knowledge or background to set up the tool. 

But it’s not just us claiming that; many of UserGuiding’s customers talk about the easy setup and intuitive UI. So much so that out of 606 reviews on G2, ease of use, intuitiveness, and easy setup are mentioned more than 400 times in total! 

Like this one here 👇🏻

• Customer Services and Support: Pendo’s customer service teams provide in-person support and education when a customer asks for it. However, this might be tricky depending on their availability and workload at the time. Also yours, of course. 

And their self-serve knowledge base… Well, we’re not saying anything, but Pendo’s own customers find it outdated and not useful enough. 

Aside from the standalone knowledge base and in-app resource center (which are offered by Pendo, as well), UserGuiding offers automated AI support within the platform through its AI agent, which is linked to the knowledge base. 

You want to read articles and find the solution to your problem yourself? You can. Wanna do it within the product? You can. Want to explain yourself to a human (through email or live chat)? You can. Want to explain your problem with a conversational tone but not really talk to a human support agent? You can talk to the AI agent.

So Pendo may really have a caring customer service team. 

However, UserGuiding not only has caring human support agents but also a well-structured and linked automated, self-serve support system. 

How much does UserGuiding cost?

UserGuiding is a cost-effective solution that is drastically cheaper than Pendo. But before talking about the numbers, let’s first understand the pricing structure.

UserGuiding has 3 pricing plans: Starter, Growth, and Enterprise. 

The cost of these plans changes based on the number of monthly active users (MAU). Contrary to Pendo’s opaque MAU calculations, UserGuiding has an MAU-based price calculator on its pricing page.

So, for example, for up to 2,000 MAU;

• Starter costs $174/mo (billed yearly)
• Growth costs $349/mo (billed yearly)

From 2,000 to 5,000 MAU:

• Starter costs $209/mo (billed yearly)
• Growth costs $419/mo (billed yearly)

So on and so forth. 

Again, contrary to Pendo, which allows for yearly contracts only, UserGuiding allows for monthly subscriptions as well. Of course, yearly subscriptions allow you to save more —up to 30%— but you at least have the option.

If you’re wondering what these plans include and whether there will be any surprise costs or fees, you can relax. UserGuiding offers transparent pricing with no surprises.

• Starter Plan: To get started with product adoption. 
  
  • Starting from $174/mo (billed yearly)
  • Included features: guides, hotspots, checklists, in-app surveys and NPS, resource center, AI assistant*, product updates, knowledge base, analytics.
  • Included capabilities: segmentation, dynamic material personalization, customization, integrations. 
• Growth Plan: To scale your product experiences with deeper customization.
  
  • Starting from $349/mo (billed yearly)
  • Included features: guides, hotspots, checklists, in-app surveys and NPS, resource center, AI assistant*, product updates, knowledge base, analytics, A/B testing, goal tracking, impact reports.
  • Included capabilities: segmentation, dynamic material personalization, customization, integrations, custom CSS, localization. 
• Enterprise Plan: To meet advanced security, compliance, and support needs.
  
  • Included features: guides, hotspots, checklists, in-app surveys and NPS, resource center, AI assistant*, product updates, knowledge base, analytics, A/B testing, goal tracking, impact reports.
  • Included capabilities: segmentation, dynamic material personalization, customization, integrations, custom CSS, localization.  
  • Other offerings: Single Sign On – SAML 2.0 SSO, migration support, personalized coaching, priority support. 

⚠️ The AI assistant is billed monthly for realized resolutions ($0.69 per resolution). 

Final Thoughts: Choosing the Right Plan or Pendo Alternative

When subscribing to a product, you naturally want to get the best value for your money. You need a tool that fits your current needs while still allowing room for growth. 

A platform that lacks half the features you need for adoption isn’t worth a cent, but at the same time, you don’t want to spend thousands on features you’ll never use —or simply can’t use due to complexity or technicality…

In this case, you have 2 paths: 

👉🏻 You can consider Pendo and try to find the right plan + add-on combo;

• If you’re an early-stage startup and Pendo’s free plan catches your eye. But it comes with very limited features and no option to expand via add-ons. So, it's not ideal if you’re planning to grow anytime soon.
• If you’re looking for detailed analytics and reporting, especially with event tracking and session recording capabilities to see the whole picture. But again, Pendo’s analytics are heavily focused on quantitative data and might easily mislead you if you do not also monitor individual power user activities. 
• If you have mobile apps or need a product that supports iFrames. Not many product adoption or user onboarding platforms support mobile apps and even fewer support iFrames. So Pendo offering both might steal your heart. 

👉🏻 Or… you could go with UserGuiding 🚀;

• If you’re looking for an easier-to-use solution that has an intuitive UI, requires no hand-holding during its setup process, and doesn’t overcomplicate things.
• If you need both in-app and standalone features to improve your feature adoption, user communication, and customer support. 
• If you want to customize your onboarding and engagement flows without dealing with complex settings or feeling restricted.
• If you want to have access to 24/7 automated self-serve support. 
• If you don’t want to spend thousands of dollars just to end up questioning whether or not you’ve got yourself a fair deal. Or If you’d rather spend time improving your product than negotiating contracts and figuring out pricing loopholes…

So, if you're looking for a simpler, more affordable, and less stressful way to support product adoption and user engagement, UserGuiding just makes more sense. ✅