WalkMe is the pioneer of digital adoption and user onboarding tools.
It is a solid platform for any sort of user and employee training and engagement, but it has its downsides too.
And that’s why you clicked on this article; you need a tool that does the same thing as WalkMe but perhaps more affordable or simpler.
And that’s why we’ve listed the top 7 alternatives to WalkMe in this article, each of them better than WalkMe in one way or another.
You can click here to go straight to the first WalkMe alternative, or read along to see what WalkMe does and why you might need another tool.
What does WalkMe do?
WalkMe is a cloud-based digital adoption platform that helps businesses improve their employee and user onboarding, as well as user training of any kind.
Whether you’re looking to create user onboarding flows for your new customers or interactive tutorials as part of your internal employee training program, WalkMe has you covered.
Their tool is capable, comprehensive, and secure with a huge background in the digital adoption game; which are probably the main reasons why WalkMe is trusted by the giants such as IBM, Microsoft, and Adobe.
And that’s probably why WalkMe might not be the tool that will meet your needs.
Most of WalkMe’s customers are enterprises who have spare developers to help them out with the platform and use every function of the tool, getting their money’s worth. And that’s the audience WalkMe further develops their platform for.
So if you’re a small or a medium-sized business, heck maybe even a large business that doesn’t have the necessary resources, WalkMe is definitely not your tool.
You’ll get why I’m saying that once we dive deeper into the details:
WalkMe Pricing
Unfortunately, WalkMe haven’t ever shared any details about their pricing publicly. However, what we know is that they work on Annual Contracts that go way beyond $10,000, and some claim that the average deal is $9000/month.
To get an exact pricing for your business, you have to get a demo from the WalkMe team.
WalkMe Reviews
🙂 Pros:
“In theory, the idea of the product is wonderful. And they are responsive and stay on top of your project. The product is feature-rich and for what they do, they do it well.”
😟 Cons:
“This company is as bad as AOL or Time Warner: they will not let you out of your multi-year contract no matter how unhappy you are with the product.”
5 Reasons Why you might need a WalkMe Alternative
As I’ve said, you might have various reasons for wanting to switch WalkMe with an alternative.
Here are the 5 reasons most WalkMe customers walk out the door:
1- You might straight-up dislike their business model
Annual contracts that you can’t back out on?
Especially when SaaS is thriving?
I know that most enterprises prefer to work with Annual contracts, but I am also a strong believer that these practices are outdated and are subject to change.
The way WalkMe provides services is probably inconvenient for most small and medium-sized companies, so this might be a huge reason for you to look for an alternative.
2- You might be nowhere near affording WalkMe
For the companies that use it to its full extent, WalkMe might be worth every penny. But what if you don’t have the same amount of pennies?
There are alternatives to WalkMe that charge way less and fully meet your needs. So it’s natural that you might be looking for something more affordable.
And in addition to actually spending thousands of dollars you might not have, it will probably be extremely hard to get buy-in from the stakeholders for annual contracts of these sizes.
3- You might not have an extra developer hanging around
As I’ve mentioned above, if you don’t have a spare developer or a technical person that will just adopt WalkMe for you, you need an alternative.
WalkMe is comprehensive, but this comprehensiveness brings complexity that makes it much harder to use and benefit from for non-technical people. Some reviews even mentioned that it was impossible to use for non-technical people.
So if you don’t want to burden your developers with the adoption of WalkMe too, it’s not the right platform for you.
4- You might need a quick(er) solution
Days, even weeks of implementation process sounds like forever, doesn’t it?
It does to me, considering some of WalkMe’s alternatives on this list can be implemented and start working in less than an hour.
Simpler and more non-technical friendly WalkMe alternatives like UserGuiding actually do tasks that would normally take weeks with WalkMe in a matter of days.
5- You might be looking for a better support experience
Nobody likes it when it takes the support team to respond to your questions/request too long, or when they’re just too cold and don’t feel genuine.
Customer support for WalkMe is usually described by reviews of the platform as “slow” and “unattentive“, and that’s a solid reason for wanting to work with another business.
And without further ado, here are the 7 alternatives to WalkMe that might actually be a better fit to your business:
Top Alternatives and Competitors to WalkMe
- UserGuiding
- Pendo
- Appcues
- Whatfix
- Userlane
- Enable Now
- Intro.js
Each of these tools are way better than WalkMe in different areas, so I am certain you’ll find what you need by the end of this list.
Let’s start from the tool I know the most about:
1- UserGuiding – Simple and Affordable WalkMe Alternative
UserGuiding is a simple, powerful, and affordable digital adoption platform that is perfect for small and medium-sized businesses.
Just like WalkMe, UserGuiding can be utilized for the user and employee onboarding as well as user training of any sort. It helps you activate your users and boost digital adoption for any platform, without any coding.
With UserGuiding’s strong Segmentation 👥 feature, you can group users into different segments and push personalized content.
And with its In-depth Analytics 📈 and many integrations, you can track the performance of your content and track users across their onboarding experience.
With UserGuiding, you can easily create:
✅ Interactive Internal Training for your Tech Stack,
✅ Personalized Onboarding Flows for your Customers and Users
✅ In-app Messages, Tooltips, Hotspots, Notifications
✅ Resource Centers that Integrate with your Knowledge Base
✅ NPS Surveys and more!
UserGuiding Pricing
UserGuiding has 3 pricing plans at the moment:
- 14-day free trial (no credit card required)
- Basic Plan: $82/month when billed annually for up to 2500 MAU
- Professional Plan: $333/month when billed annually for up to 20000 MAU with unlimited guides
- Custom Quotation Available for Larger Companies
UserGuiding Reviews
🙂 Pros:
“Very simple to use, a total plug-and-play product. No technical knowledge is needed.“
😟 Cons:
“It works quite smoothly with web apps but it requires some development with desktop apps.“
UserGuiding vs WalkMe
- Capable Digital Adoption and Onboarding Elements ✅
- Advanced Customization ✅
- In-depth Analytics ✅
- Affordable Pricing ✅
- 15-min Setup ✅
- Easy-to-use ✅
- Convenient Business Model ✅
- Capable Digital Adoption and Onboarding Elements ✅
- Advanced Customization ✅
- In-depth Analytics ✅
- Often considered over-priced ❌
- Days of Setup with a Developer ❌
- Rocket Science for Non-technical People ❌
- Outdated Business Model ❌
Hey, you don’t have to take my word for it. Unlike WalkMe and other similar tools, UserGuiding is completely free to try 👇
Don't Pay a Fortune for Other Tools
UserGuiding starts from only $99/month. Create tours, tooltips and surveys without coding
2- Pendo
Pendo can do a lot of things.
It is an effective solution in terms of product experience and this effect has been recognized by many SaaS businesses, making Pendo a popular tool.
The foremost offering of Pendo is its Product Cloud. The principal aim is to gather up user onboarding, product analytics, and user feedback together in one platform.
When it comes to product analytics and user segmentation Pendo is a great solution. Plus, some big names such as Zendesk, BMC, and Sprinklr chose Pendo to understand and guide their users.
However, there are limited onboarding elements and there is not a great variety of styling options. So, it restricts you from creating a smooth onboarding experience. Sometimes, it also can be confusing to use it since Pendo has many different features for different use cases.
Also, the pricing of Pendo is above the market average.
Pendo Pricing
Pendo currently does not provide us with a specific price. It offers custom prices for their customers according to their products.
Pendo Reviews
🙂 Pros:
“We are a SaaS company and Pendo is giving our Product, Analytics, Customer Success and Onboarding Teams insights that were not previously possible. We leverage Pendo for user engagement, onboarding (tooltips, guides, popups, etc.) and analytics. It is a smooth platform with great support and it works great. I couldn’t recommend it more. “
😟 Cons:
“If you have some questionable code, you may have a tricky time getting the rules and feature tagging completed exactly as you’d like. It helps if you have a knowledge of HTML and CSS to get around any of these pitfalls, otherwise, you’ll have to work with your Dev teams to get your internal code issues sorted out so that Pendo can work properly.“
WalkMe vs Pendo
If we compare WalkMe versus Pendo, we’ll see that they have vastly different strong suits than each other and are not directly competing. First off, Pendo is a product that is proud of its analytics platform while having capable digital adoption features that complete the product. WalkMe on the other hand is a product that goes all out on its digital adoption side, with the analytics suite acting as the sidekick to their primary use case.
If you want to choose one product between Pendo and WalkMe, since they have an obvious overlap in terms of functions, it’s better to evaluate if your business is looking for better analytics or better digital adoption.
3- Appcues
Appcues is a pioneer of “no-code” onboarding tools on the market.
They have introduced various onboarding elements for the first time while offering great fundamental solutions to their customers.
With a strong focus on user onboarding to web apps and digital products, Appcues can solve all your digital adoption needs regarding your customers and help you become a product-led business.
However, their “no-code” approach doesn’t reflect the technical knowledge required by the tool.
Creating, managing, and implementing guides in Appcues is more complex than the other competitors on the list. Also, it’s best to note that they charge over the market average.
Appcues Pricing
Appcues prices start at $249/month with the Essentials package. For the Growth package, they charge $879/month.
Appcues Reviews
🙂 Pros:
“Appcues is pretty easy to learn and use and very flexible and powerful. It’s easy to customize for our tool and brand and provides a way to onboard our users in a scalable way without taking up precious developer time.”
😟 Cons:
“It can be a little tricky to use, especially when we get into more complicated use cases. There are occasional bugs (although they are typically fixed quickly).“
WalkMe vs Appcues
When comparing Appcues versus WalkMe, the deciding points for making the choice are simple. Appcues is great for improving your customer experience and UX with the capability to create amazing user onboarding flows. WalkMe is a bit more comprehensive compared to Appcues as it helps with digital adoption of any sort, whether it is for your customers, users of your platform, or your employees.
Appcues is simpler compared to WalkMe, they have a set pricing that you can see and a free trial that you can use to see whether your business would benefit from it or not.
4- Whatfix
Whatfix is another digital adoption platform that has very similar features to WalkMe.
With a strong focus on employee onboarding and training, Whatfix helps your team adopt various technologies and tools.
However, the same issues as WalkMe seem to be present with Whatfix too. Although simpler than WalkMe, Whatfix is still a pain in the neck for non-technical people and might be unaffordable for small and medium-sized companies.
Whatfix Pricing
Whatfix doesn’t have set pricing, so you’ll have to get a custom quote for your business through a demo for your business. Still, their prices are known to be above market average, with allegedly over $200/month starting price.
Whatfix Reviews
🙂 Pros:
“Whatfix is highly versatile and flexible, empowering us to build very bespoke content for our user communities and internal teams.“
😟 Cons:
“The tool itself is challenging for the less technical people to use the tool, as you need to know the CSS classes to show flows and steps quickly).“
WalkMe vs Whatfix
The comparison of WalkMe versus Whatfix can be very complicated since both of the tools are very similar. Whatfix is more affordable than WalkMe and is probably worth a shot for small and medium-sized companies. But still, it has the complexity a product such as WalkMe has, and it can still be very difficult for non-technical people to adopt Whatfix too.
Whatfix supports Android apps while WalkMe doesn’t, which is not a huge difference since it is not a popular platform for the DAP industry.
And also, Whatfix doesn’t have the integrations and compatibility WalkMe has with other products that might be the cornerstones of your tech stack.
5- SAP Enable Now
If you are strongly focused on internal training, and not really a fan of complex methods of employee training, SAP’s Enable Now can actually be a solid option for you.
It doesn’t require that much technical input, and can easily be adopted by a non-technical person. It helps you author internal training content, creates simple interactive tours for when you need to show, and easily manage the education.
As I’ve said, it is a simple alternative to WalkMe and other tools on this list that might actually be what you’re looking for.
SAP Enable Now Pricing
Enable Now charges €9.17 per user/month which might seem like a reasonable price, but as your user base grows the price gets unreasonably expensive. (€917/month for 100 users).
For comparison, UserGuiding charges $99/month for unlimited content for 2500 monthly active users.
SAP Enable Now Reviews
🙂 Pros:
“Creating and managing e-learning content is simple and very intuitive. One of the best features is the reuse of content in several training scenarios.“
😟 Cons:
“The only downside is the price of the licenses. It’s quite high. We haven’t been able to license all of our people.”
WalkMe vs SAP Enable Now
SAP Enable Now, compared to WalkMe, is a much more basic and simple solution for internal training and team education management. If you’re not in it for the fancy elements and in-depth analytics or customer/user onboarding, Enable Now might be the product you need. However, you need to keep in mind that Enable Now might end up costing the same as WalkMe at the end of the day.
6- Userlane
Userlane is also one of the solid digital adoption platforms that are suitable for creating employee and user onboarding experiences.
With a focus on employee training, Userlane provides interactive UX elements that guide users through any web software.
Although the customization and the features are limited, Userlane has all the core elements of the average user onboarding experience.
You can try the other tools on the list like UserGuiding if you’re looking for something more advanced than basic.
Userlane Pricing
Userlane offers custom pricing based on your needs and the size of your company, so you’ll need to get a demo to get a quote and give the product a try.
Userlane Reviews
🙂 Pros:
“We are especially enthusiastic about the focus on supporting start-ups in their founding phase. We are benefiting from the idea to help young companies that have not the resources and opportunities to fully support their new customers yet.os.“
😟 Cons:
” The implementation was at the first time challenging us a bit but not more than the first use of any other tool. After a while, you get used to it and learn how to get the best overview of all functions and possibilities.”
7- Introjs – Open-source and free WalkMe alternative
Intro.js is a javascript-based free product tour creation library that might be the perfect fit for your business if you don’t have the budget, at all.
It allows you to create step-by-step onboarding guides. You can find all the features and necessary information you need on their website and a copy of this library on GitHub.
As you may guess you need to have a remarkable level of technical knowledge for free implementation, but we’re sure it’s not something a dedicated startup founder can’t handle 😅
Top WalkMe Alternatives – Comparison Chart
Frequently Asked Questions
Who should use WalkMe?
Product managers and customer success managers should use WalkMe to improve their user onboarding.
How much does WalkMe cost?
WalkMe currently doesn’t have a fixed price, they create customized plans with custom prices for each customer.
What are the top alternatives to WalkMe?
The top 6 WalkMe alternatives are UserGuiding, Pendo, Appcues, Gainsight PX, Intercom Product Tours, and Intro.js.
What is WalkMe used for?
WalkMe has various use cases but they could all be summarized under employee onboarding, user onboarding, and digital adoption.
Where was WalkMe founded?
WalkMe was founded in San Fransisco, California in 2011.
