Pendo vs UserGuiding 2024 Comparison – Which tool better suits your needs?

The Product-Led B2B tool Pendo has become a brand that every SaaS business knows – and there is a solid reason why.

Actually, there are two reasons:

  1. Pendo is a great tool with a strong set of features,
  2. And they are experts about sales and marketing.

But no one can deny that it is not made for small or medium-sized companies. At least, the pricing is not.

And even though Pendo provides data and guidance simultaneously, their analytics is much stronger than most other digital adoption platforms.

As for UserGuiding, it is many things that Pendo is not:

  • It is affordable,
  • It is shockingly easy to use,
  • It has astonishing engagement and guidance capabilities,

But it isn’t the strongest data collection tool among competitors.

And today, we are diving deep into this comparison to see which tool has the perfect set of features that you are looking for.

Without further ado:

TL;DR – Side-By-Side Comparison Table



Starting Price$8000-12000/year$89/month
G2 Rating4.64.7
Interactive Walkthroughs
Tooltips
Hotspots
Onboarding Checklists
Announcement Modals/Banners
NPS Surveys
In-Product Surveys
In-App Resource Center
Avg. Deployment Time≈ 1 Week15 Minutes
User Segmentation
User Analytics
Multi-Language Support
Easy Localization
User Tracking
Knowledge Base Integration
Product Analytics
Custom Dashboards
Learning Curve😟 Steep🙂 Smooth

UserGuiding also offers free migration services for your in-app content created using other software to minimize your switching costs.

Schedule a demo with one of our experts or start your free trial now:

Don’t Pay a Fortune for Other Tools!

Don’t Pay a Fortune for Other Tools!

UserGuiding starts from only $89/month.
Create tours, tooltips, and surveys without coding

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What is Pendo?

Pendo is a robust product analytics and user engagement platform businesses use to build better products.

what is pendo

You can onboard users, introduce new features, survey users, gather feedback, and prepare a product roadmap with Pendo.

While Pendo Enterprise is out-of-reach for most companies, Pendo’s discount pack, “Pendo for startups” is more affordable – yet still not even close to the market average.

And Pendo also offers a free plan for up to 1000 monthly active users.

Although it is a great product that solves multiple problems at once, Pendo users usually complain that it takes them more than a few days to figure out how they can use it.

It is definitely an amazing tool to add to your toolkit, but you might still have to find different solutions to provide engagement features, such as resource centers.

Pros 🤩 Pendo is good for:

✅ The best feature Pendo provides is its in-depth analytics; meanwhile, its user segmentation truly makes a significant change in the way users consume onboarding material.

✅ Pendo puts together different solutions like user experience, user onboarding, and highly sophisticated data collection and analytics under one tool to guarantee customer success and easier customer engagement tracking for digital product teams.

✅ Founded in 2013, Pendo is among the first comers of digital adoption; it has a strong background and customer portfolio.

✅ Though Pendo is quite expensive, it offers a free trial and a freemium, something other platforms of its caliber rarely do.

Cons 😮‍💨 Pendo isn’t good for:

❌ Though Pendo represents itself as a digital adoption solution, its onboarding UX elements are pretty limited to the very basics, leaving out checklists, hotspots, and more.

❌ Being a highly sophisticated tool with a complex UI, it might be hard to set up and use if not used by an experienced user.

❌ Likewise, Pendo’s features tend to be complex and use case-specific, so it might be hard to leverage all features and possibilities without a fully established game plan dedicated to Pendo.

❌ Though Pendo does not publicly share its pricing, it is very well known that Pendo is more expensive than the market average.

❌ Yet another enterprise-level tool, Pendo’s customer service might not be as responsive as smaller products’ customer service teams.

Pendo Pricing

Pendo has a free plan called “Pendo Free“ for up to 1,000 monthly active users, one web and one mobile app.

For bigger plans, Pendo doesn’t have a set pricing.

Instead, you can get a custom plan for your business by contacting their sales team.

However, a former Pendo user claimed that they are a medium-sized business that paid $12,000/year for the standard package of Pendo, while another user upped this number to $20,000. Additionally, there is a Pendo customer that claims to pay $2000/year just for the “Guides” feature of the product – which is included in the free plan for up to 1,000 MAU

Pendo’s pricing is feature and usage-based, and it possibly scales with how many users you have, like other analytics tools.

What is UserGuiding?

UserGuiding is a product adoption platform that doubles down on customer and user onboarding with powerful in-app elements.

what is userguiding
This adorable guide for Genially was created with UserGuiding.

It is a “no-code” product that everyone, regardless of their technical background, can set up and start using immediately.

Also, UserGuiding costs below the average of similar products but provides the same value – if not more.

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UserGuiding can also help you create guides for tools other than you product!

Here is what you can create with UserGuiding:

  • Interactive Product Tours,
  • Tooltips and Hotspots,
  • In-app messages
  • User Onboarding Checklists,
  • Resource Centers,
  • NPS Surveys and in-app surveys,
  • Easy localization,
  • In-Depth Analytics and activity details page,
  • And custom user segments.

Pros 🤩 UserGuiding is good for:

✅ The #1 strength of UserGuiding is the value it provides for the price it costs. UserGuiding offers a full set of no-code engagement and adoption elements for as little as $89/month.

✅ Unlike Pendo, UserGuiding’s interface is very user-friendly so that even first-time users can set up and publish their own product engagement sequences.

✅ UserGuiding is also very customizable. You can play with your engagement elements’ shape, color, positioning, and much more.

✅ UserGuiding provides 24/7 customer support. This means that customers can get help quickly – no matter which time they you are in – and solve their problems without friction.

✅ In terms of UserOnboarding, UserGuiding provides a full stack of features so that you won’t have to adopt multiple tools for different features.

Cons 😮‍💨 UserGuiding isn’t good for:

❌ Since UserGuiding’s main focus is onboarding, the analytics features it provides might not be enough for some companies. However, the tool provides various integration options with most analytics tools.

❌ Although you can use UserGuiding for employee training as well as user adoption, the features for employee engagement might be a bit simpler than you expect.

UserGuiding Pricing

  • 14-day free trial (no credit card required)
  • Basic Plan: $89/month when billed annually for up to 2500 MAU
  • Professional Plan: $389/month when billed annually for up to 20000 MAU with unlimited guides
  • Custom Quotation Available for Larger Companies

Pendo vs. UserGuiding

Features
UserGuiding’s user onboarding features are much more extensive and significantly more affordable.Onboarding
⬅️🤩
Pendo mainly focuses on data and feedback collection, so it doesn’t have a complete set of onboarding features.
Although UserGuiding does provide in-app analytics, since it is not the tool’s main focus, you might need an integration to handle the analytics.Analytics
🤩➡️
As a digital adoption tool, Pendo rocks it when it comes to analytics. If you can afford the bigger plans, Pendo definitely gets this one.
UserGuiding provides various types of survey question types that can be mixed and matched to achieve the perfect survey.Surveying
⬅️🤩
Pendo provides a full stack of surveys that can be customized, but the price tag that comes with this feature isn’t worth it.
Pricing
UserGuiding’s pricing starts from $89/month for 2,500 MAU and all features (except for UserGuiding Now)⬅️🤩Although Pendo does have a freemium price, it is very limited and insufficient. The actual pricing starts from $1000/month, without most features.
Ease Of Use
UserGuiding is fully no code, has a very user-friendly UI, and a 24/7 support team. It takes only five minutes to set up your very first interactive onboarding sequence and go live – without a single line of code⬅️🤩Pendo is a mostly no-code tool, but it still takes lots of technical knowledge to integrate the tool and customize it to your liking. The tool has a steep learning curve and will only take an employee dedicated to Pendo.
Customer Support
UserGuiding provides Customer Support to all users worldwide, no matter which time zone you are in. The Support team is very understanding, responsive, and solution-oriented.⬅️🤩Pendo’s customer support to enterprise customers is said to be exquisite. However, for all other businesses, it can take up to a whole day to get a response from their support team.
Simple, Affordable, and Powerful User Onboarding & Survey Software.

Simple, Affordable, and Powerful User Onboarding & Survey Software.

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Ready to Boost Product Adoption, Without any Coding

Ready to Boost Product Adoption, Without any Coding

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Hilal Çökeli

Hilal Çökeli

I’m UserGuiding’s growth-obsessed product marketer. I like to research and write about product, onboarding, and inbound marketing. If you feel like we could exchange ideas, feel free to reach out via LinkedIn or email! P.S. If I don’t respond, please know that I’m on a road trip with my camera and motorbike.