Userpilot is an amazing product. It is basically a user onboarding software that helps you with both customer onboarding and employee onboarding.
But just like all other onboarding tools, it’s not perfect, and it’s not for everyone. And that price is definitely not for small businesses…
In this article, I will go over the top 6 alternatives of Userpilot.
I will:
- Briefly describe each of the 7 tools and our experience with them,
- Show you how they compare to Userpilot,
- Highlight Userpilot reviews for each tool from platforms such as Capterra, G2, Product Hunt,
- Suggest specific use cases for each of the Userpilot competitors.
So, if for any reason you think this tool is not your jam, read along to find the best Userpilot alternative that suits your needs.
I would like to first explain what Userpilot is, and go over their pricing, and list a few challenges that the users experience. If you want to skip directly to the alternatives, click here.
Or click here to go straight to the Userpilot Alternatives Comparison Table.
What is Userpilot?
Userpilot is a SaaS product that helps you create in-product experiences for your customers.
With key features such as interactive walkthroughs, tooltips, checklists, resource centers, and NPS; Userpilot gives you the necessary tools to improve user activation and increase feature adoption, all while enabling you to track the performance of what you’ve created with a simple analytics feature.
But the tool also has downsides. Userpilot can be a challenge for non-technical people, and most users agree that it doesn’t offer the visuality and customization most of its competitors offer.
Also, while there are even free Userpilot alternatives such as Shepherd and Intro.js, and even better products for a more affordable price such as UserGuiding, Userpilot becomes more and more overpriced by the day.
Userpilot Pricing
Userpilot has three separate pricing plans:
- 14-day free trial (no credit card required)
- Traction Plan: $249/month when billed annually for up to 2500 MAU
- Growth Plan: $599/month when billed annually for up to 20,000 MAU
- Enterprise Plan: Starting from $1,000/month when billed annually.
Userpilot Reviews
👍 Pros:
“It is excellent for rolling out and demonstrating new features. The settings for determining when a user sees the experiences and how often is very helpful.”
👎 Cons:
“It took a long time for us to get to a production ready state with Userpilot, because we often encountered bugs that blocked our work.”
Why you need a Userpilot Alternative
There might be a number of reasons for your search of an alternative to Userpilot.
From what we’ve experienced, and from the reviews we’ve found online about Userpilot, we have a few theories:
1- Difficult Implementation
For non-technical people, Userpilot’s integration and setup can be extremely confusing, and most users experience numerous bugs during setup as seen in the reviews above. For the implementation of the product into your own platform, Userpilot requires additional help from a developer for you to smoothly progress into the production stage.
2- Limited Customization
Compared to more affordable and more stable alternatives, Userpilot’s customization and design feels simpler.
For small businesses that don’t really mind simplicity, Userpilot gets the job done. But if you want to fully integrate it into your product, you’ll need something bigger.
It gets the job done, but at what cost?
3- High Pricing
Userpilot charges more for the same value than its competitors.
This can especially be challenging for Startups and businesses that want to try the product for a while. In addition, the MAU limit on their plans doesn’t extend as you upgrade to a superior package, for which you will need to pay extra.
Top Userpilot Alternatives
Here are the top 6 alternatives to Userpilot:
- UserGuiding
- Appcues
- Intro.js
- Intercom
- Wyzowl
- Shepherd.js
Now that you know what Userpilot is, what it’s used for, and main challenges you encounter when using it; we can dive straight into the alternatives.
We’ll go over each tool, how it compares to Userpilot, and in which cases they should be preferred. Without further ado, let’s start with our first product:
1- Userpilot vs. UserGuiding – No-code Interactive User Onboarding
UserGuiding is a no-code digital adoption product that helps you provide better in-app experiences.
With UserGuiding, you can create:
- Interactive Product Tours,
- Tooltips and Hotspots,
- User Onboarding Checklists,
- Resource Centers,
- NPS Surveys,
- And custom user segments.
Compared to Userpilot, UserGuiding is an easier and much more capable method for creating user onboarding experiences and improving product and feature adoption.
Built-in Analytics help you track the performance of your content and understand the user journey, while the segmentation feature allows you to create personalized user onboarding experiences.
Overall, UserGuiding offers a wonderful experience for the best value/money ratio.
UserGuiding Pricing
- 14-day free trial (no credit card required)
- Basic Plan: $69/month when billed annually for up to 2500 MAU
- Professional Plan: $299/month when billed annually for up to 20000 MAU with unlimited user guides
- Custom Quotation Available for Larger Companies
UserGuiding Reviews
👍 Pros:
“I’m so impressed with how there is zero coding or technical skills required to setup a sophisticated onboarding flow. All I had to do was install a Chrome extension and the tool worked on my website.”
👎 Cons:
“The analytics part is probably enough for most teams. We needed a little more control over data, which led us to use another product for it.”
UserGuiding vs Userpilot
 |  | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting Price | $69/month | $249/month |
| G2 Rating | 4.7⭐ | 4.6⭐ |
| Interactive Walkthroughs | ✅ | ✅ |
| Tooltips | ✅ | ✅ |
| Hotspots | ✅ | ✅ |
| Onboarding Checklists | ✅ | ✅ |
| Announcement Modals/Banners | ✅ | ✅ |
| NPS Surveys | ✅ | ✅ |
| In-Product Surveys | ✅ | ✅ |
| In-App Resource Center | ✅ | ✅ |
| Avg. Deployment Time | 15 Minutes | 1-2 hours |
| User Segmentation | ✅ | ✅ |
| User Analytics | ✅ | ✅ |
| Multi-Language Support | ✅ | ✅ |
| User Tracking | ✅ | ✅ |
| Knowledge Base Integration | ✅ | ✅ |
| Learning Curve | 😄 Smooth | 😟 Steep |
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!
UserGuiding starts from only $69/month.
Create tours, tooltips, and surveys without coding
2- Userpilot vs Appcues – Interactive User Onboarding
Founded in 2013, Appcues is a digital adoption platform and also a pioneer of the industry.
Compared to Userpilot and other alternatives, Appcues is much more advanced in its range of features and more capable. With Appcues, you can create checklists, interactive user guides and walkthroughs, and Appcues NPS surveys, as well as tooltips to improve your in-app UX.
However, compared to its competitors, Appcues has 2 significant downsides:
- Appcues, according to user reviews, is not non-technical friendly, meaning you will need a developer to set the product up properly.
- And Appcues has the same starting price as Userpilot, which makes it over-priced when compared to more affordable products such as UserGuiding.
Appcues Pricing
- 14-day free trial (no credit card required)
- Essentials Plan: $249/month when billed annually for up to 2500 MAU
- Growth Plan: $879/month when billed annually for up to 2500 MAU
- Custom Quotation Available for Enterprises
Appcues Reviews
👍 Pros:
“It’s been a fun app to learn, and the access it allows to our users is amazing.”
👎 Cons:
“The installation is difficult/impossible without the intervention of a developer. It seems to be a very ‘American’ business in that there’s an assumption that creating experiences in English is enough for most people, support for multilingual flows/checklists/NPS is an enterprise feature – which I find bizarre.”
3- Userpilot vs. Intro.js – Open Source Userpilot Alternative
Intro.js is an open source Userpilot alternative that is used to create product tours.
Intro.js is a lightweight library for creating step-by-step product walkthroughs in your product. To integrate Intro.js into your product, you will definitely need a developer who will spend at least a couple of days to create something significant.
There are a number of reasons businesses might choose Intro.js over Userpilot:
- Intro.js is More Affordable: Intro.js is an open-source library that is free to use unless you’re using it for a commercial product. Businesses with extra developer time might find Intro.js much more affordable than Userpilot because they will not have to pay monthly.
- Intro.js is More Secure: Businesses choose Intro.js over Userpilot, UserGuiding, and Appcues because in theory, Intro.js poses no security threat while 3rd-party tools do.
- Intro.js is More Customizable: If you have the necessary resources, such as extra designer and developer time, you can customize every bit of what you can create with Intro.js.
Again, Intro.js is a solid alternative to Userpilot and other products on the list if you have spare developer time.
Intro.js Pricing
For non-commercial products:
- Completely free for non-commercial use,
For commercial products:
- Starter license without any official support for $9.99,
- Business license with a month of official support and code review for $49.99,
- Premium license with a year of official support, code review, and unlimited projects for $299.99.
Intro.js Reviews
👍 Pros:
“I really like the Intro.js plugin because documentation is straightforward and easy to understand. This can work on almost any webpage using jQuery as an included library.”
👎 Cons:
“The library is definitely open source and free software, but at the same time if I want to use it for commercial use it seems I need to pay a license fee. Why is this required if the code is open source?”
4- Userpilot vs Intercom – Email Onboarding, Support, Product Tours
Intercom is one of the most widely used customer service and support tools that also offer a product tours function, with which you can onboard users.
Intercom is a customer relationship management dream for any given business with a web product.
With Intercom, you can offer support solutions, engage in conversations with customers, automate onboarding emails; and with their latest addition to the stack “Product Tours”, you can now create product tours for your users.
Intercom Product Tours is a solid digital adoption solution you should use if you want to keep everything in one place. However, if you’re looking for a more cost-effective and capable solution, you should steer away from Intercom’s Product Tours.
Because:
- Intercom’s Product Tour add-on is a bit overpriced: The tool offers simple tooltips, yet, charges more than competitors such as UserGuiding for less value.
- Intercom’s Product Tour add-on is limited in features: Intercom’s Product Tours offer whatever the name suggests, nothing more. For most businesses, a product tour alone is not enough to provide users with a complete user onboarding experience, especially without checklists and tooltips.
Intro.js is also a free intercom alternative along with userpilot if you don’t want to pay the prices below for a simple add-on.
Intercom Pricing
If you want to use Intercom with Product Tours add-on:
- Start Plan: $74/month for Intercom subscription (2 seats) plus $199/month for Product Tours add-on = $273/month Total
- Support Package: Custom quote on request
Intercom Reviews
👍 Pros:
“I liked how easy Intercom was to install, without needing Engineering help beyond the time it took to insert the widget. I can update the user experience to A/B test all through the application.”
👎 Cons:
`Missing more in-depth analytics and editing an existing tour could be easier.”
Userpilot vs Intercom
Compared to Intercom, Userpilot offers more advanced user onboarding elements and further customization. However, if you’re already using Intercom as your customer service solution, using Intercom to create in-app experiences becomes much more affordable; due to Userpilot’s above average pricing.
5- Userpilot vs. Wyzowl – Video Onboarding
Wyzowl is an animated video agency that also specializes in onboarding users with demo videos and explainer videos.
I get it, you’re thinking “Why did we go from interactive elements to explainer videos, isn’t interactivity better?”
You’re partly right. For most businesses, interactive content works better, but it depends more on your needs. If your product needs more showing than doing, you can utilize onboarding videos as well.
Wyzowl creates customized videos based on your needs, whether it is an animated video, explainer video, or just a walkthrough video. You can use these videos on Youtube, your homepage, and in your product to better communicate with your users.
Wyzowl Pricing
Wyzowl doesn’t have a clear pricing at the moment. To get a custom quote for your business and your requests, you’ll have to contact them.
6- Userpilot vs Shepherd.js – Free Userpilot Alternative
Shepherd is a completely free alternative to Userpilot and other products on this list.
Shepherd is a JavaScript library for guiding users through your app. With Shepherd, you can collaborate with your developers and designers to create your own interactive user onboarding and in-app events that are highly customizable and less risky compared to 3rd party tools.
As I’ve said, it requires additional design and development input, unlike 3rd party tools.
Also, there is no built-in analytics or segmentation, so you’ll pretty much be shooting blind without segments of users. For small businesses without a budget, Shepherd can be a solid solution.
Userpilot Alternatives Comparison Table
Conclusion
As you see, there are numerous alternatives to Userpilot, and the one you’ll choose really is based on your business’ needs:
- If you want a better experience than Userpilot for a better price, try UserGuiding.
- If you are a technical person and looking for a better experience with similar pricing, try Appcues.
- If you’re eager to sacrifice a complete user onboarding with a good cost for keeping everything in one place, try Intercom’s Product Tours.
- If you have a low budget but an ample amount of spare developer time at hand, try Intro.js or Shepherd.
- If your product needs more showing than doing, ditch interactivity and try Wyzowl‘s explainer videos.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who should use Userpilot?
Product teams, growth managers, customer success teams, and product managers can use Userpilot and its alternatives such as UserGuiding to effectively onboard new users and improve product adoption or user adoption.
How much does Userpilot cost?
Userpilot’s Growth plan starts at $249/month with 2500 MAU while its Enterprise Plan is $599/month, with 20,000 MAU.
What are the top alternatives to Userpilot?
The top 6 Userpilot alternatives are UserGuiding, Appcues, Intro.js, Intercom, Wyzowl, and Shepherd.
How does the Userpilot Chrome Extension work?
the userpilot chrome extension is overall similar to the USerGuiding chrome extension. Once you download the Chrome Extension for Userpilot, you can create customizable product tours and other interactive elements, and publish them by going back to the dashboard.
