In 2022, every online business is aware of the fact that online product experiences are more important than ever.
Whatfix is a fantastic product in the field that provides effective training with contextual guidance – but obviously, it has it’s flaws.
And I am here to decode those flaws so that you can find the best customer onboarding solution that perfectly fits your needs.
You can also go directly to the first alternative by clicking here
TL;DR
- Whatfix is a good tool that offers both cloud and on-premise onboarding solutions with enough capabilities for small businesses, but for the pricing of an enterprise tool.
- UserGuiding is the best alternative to Whatfix since it provides more and better features, is easier to use, and costs much less.
- For bigger enterprise applications and compalies, WalkMe is a decent solution with customized features, but beware that the implementation will take months.
- Appcues is a similar tool to Whatfix with fewer analytics capabilities, but better onboarding solutions.
- Pendo is another enterprise-oriented user onboarding software with very strong user behavior tracking and analytics capabilities for companies that put data above everything
- Userlane is a linear product that only offers interactive product walkthroughs for an affordable price.
- Intro.js isn’t a tool, but an open-source library. It could be. a good alternative if you need something simple and affordable, and have a spare developer to handle the coding.
What is Whatfix used for?
Whatfix is a digital adoption platform that provides user guides to improve user productivity and employee productivity with interactive user manuals.
Whatfix improves product adoption with in-app help tools and the onboarding features that I’ll mention below.
What makes Whatfix unique is that they don’t only offer cloud-based interactive guides, but also on-premise in-app experiences.
But I have to let you know that compared to similar products that are in the same price range, Whatfix doesn’t really provide a full set of features.
Usually preferred by enterprises, Whatfix falls behind in providing these enterprise users with one thing they need, systematic quality analytics.
Due to the limited analytics, or the fact that it is far too complicated for your small startup, you could need a better in-app training software application.
Whatfix Pricing
Whatfix doesn’t provide us with fixed pricing models, they offer each customer a customized plan. The pricing can vary according to the size of your product, the number of your monthly users, etc
You can contact Whatfix to learn their custom price for your product.
Whatfix Reviews
👍 Pros:
“Their team really helped us during a project we were doing, and I think they would be great for any company looking for help. This is a must to onboard customers and drive retention.”
👎 Cons:
“The only negative I have to say is that whatfix is not catered well for bigger web apps which present the users with multiple options to complete the task they set out to do.”
4 Reasons Why You Might Need a Whatfix Alternative
1- It is enterprise-focused 🗂
Whatfix is a digital adoption software that focuses on providing each customer a tailored customer experience – which means that there is only so many people they can actually focus on. That’s why the tool leans on developing for enterprise customers.
2- It lacks advanced analytics 📉
Even though Whatfix positions itself as a tool for enterprises, their analytics feature is far from being good. If you are a constantly growing company that relies on data, you will have to adopt another product along with Whatfix.
3- It requires lots of technical knowledge 🧑💻
Whatfix is easy to use for technical people. I don’t know much about code, and there isn’t much for me to do with Whatfix. If you are in a similar position – or if you don’t have product managers that are ready to take on this job, you will have trouble fully benefiting from the tool.
Top Alternatives and Competitors of Whatfix
- UserGuiding
- WalkMe
- Appcues
- Userlane
- Pendo
- Intro.js
So, you’ve decided on using another tool than Whatfix to meet your user onboarding and product analytics needs. Alright, let’s start with the first tool on our list:
1- UserGuiding vs Whatfix – easier and more extensive user onboarding
UserGuiding is a no-code product adoption platform that doubles down on customer and user onboarding with powerful in-app elements such as interactive step-by-step walkthroughs.
It also offers features such as NPS surveying, feedback gathering, and checklists.
The number one reason why UserGuiding is a strong Whatfix alternative is it’s easy to manage and use the Analytics feature. UserGuiding keeps track of every guide you create and offer valuable insights about their performance.
With UserGuiding, customer support is always there for you, collecting and sending feedback to the product team so that they can act on it to improve.
The tool is also extremely simple. No technical knowledge and little technical setup is required to create guides and implement them to your web product.
You can choose to host your UserGuiding account on a US-based server or an EU-based server that maximizes accessibility.
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 guides
- Custom Quotation Available for Larger Companies
UserGuiding Reviews
👍 Pros:
“UserGuiding is a fantastic alternative to more “big-budget” solutions; and the good news is: that it does the same. After one month of searching for a tool and a few weeks of using UserGuiding, I’m honestly still asking myself what it does less (than the 5 times higher-priced competitors)…”
👎 Cons:
“Sometimes there are inconsistencies in terms of where the guide appears or does not appear. But the support team (Shout out to Gabriel, very helpful!) walked me through why I was seeing these things.”
Userguiding vs. Whatfix
 |  | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting Price | $69/month for 2500 MAU | Unknown |
| G2 Rating | 4.7⭐ | 4.6⭐ |
| On-Screen Slide Modals | ✅ | ✅ |
| In-App Resource Centers | ✅ | ✅ |
| Knowledge Base Integration | ✅ | ✅ |
| Announcement Modals/Banners | ✅ | ✅ |
| Interactive Walkthroughs | ✅ | ✅ |
| Tooltips | ✅ | ✅ |
| Hotspots | ✅ | ❌ |
| Onboarding Checklists | ✅ | ✅ |
| In-Product Surveys | ✅ | ✅ |
| Avg. Deployment Time | 15 Minutes | 2-3 Days |
| User Segmentation | ✅ | ✅ |
| User Analytics | ✅ | ✅ |
| 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- Whatfix vs WalkMe – similar features with more enterprise capabilities
WalkMe is an enterprise-oriented digital transformation and software adoption platform that provides customized end-user training.
If your budget for user adoption is much higher than average, and you need a specialized solution, WalkMe could be the one that you need.
The tool has over ten years of experience as a good digital adoption platform. It guarantees to enhance user experience through in-app guidance.
Most of the key features of WalkMe are similar to Whatfix, but as for perfection and pricing, WalkMe takes the lead.
However, if you are a small startup yet, it would be better if you stood away from WalkMe. It requires quite a bit of technical knowledge, and might not be affordable for your business. Also, WalkMe’s customer service has a bad reputation among small-medium-sized businesses.
And again, WalkMe is definitely not a code-free tool, and it will late a lot of time and effort to get the tool up and running.
WalkMe Pricing
WalkMe doesn’t have public pricing, but most of its users agree on pricing plans that vastly change in the 5-figure range. The average pricing for the small teams seems to be around $10,000/year, but since WalkMe is an enterprise solution that specializes as a DAP for large organizations, you might have to multiply the alleged numbers.
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.”
3- Appcues vs Whatfix – less analytics, more onboarding
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.
Compared to Whatfix, Appcues is still easier to use, but it doesn’t compensate for what you sacrifice by choosing Appcues over Whatfix.
Appcues Pricing
- The Essentials Package of Appcues starts at $249/month when billed annually with 2500 MAU.
- The Growth Package of Appcues starts at $879/month when billed annually, again at 2500 MAU.
- The Enterprise Package of Appcues doesn’t have public pricing, so you need to get a custom quotation.
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).“
4- Whatfix vs Userlane – simpler analytics, capable employee training
With a focus on employee training, Userlane provides interactive UX elements that guide users through any web software.
Compared to Whatfix, Userlane is too simple.
It has almost all the features that Whatfix does, but with fewer capabilities.
Although the customization and the features are limited, nothing changes the fact that Userlane has most of the core elements of the average user onboarding experience. So if you require simplicity, Userlane could be a good fit for you.
Userlane Pricing
Userlane doesn’t provide us with a fixed price; they offer each customer a customized plan. The pricing can vary according to the size of your product, the number of your monthly users, etc.
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.”
5- Whatfix vs Pendo – more advanced analytics solution
Pendo is not only a digital adoption solution, but also a product experiences platform with advanced analytical features and an enterprise software.
The foremost offering of Pendo is its Product Cloud. The principal aim is to gather 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, using it can also be confusing since Pendo has many different features for different use cases.
Also, the pricing of Pendo is above the market average.
Pendo Pricing
Pendo’s pricing is feature and usage-based, and it possibly scales with how many users you have like other analytics platforms.
Pendo has a free plan called “Pendo Free“. Pendo free allows up to 1,000 monthly active users for one web and one mobile app. For bigger plans, Pendo doesn’t have a set pricing.
However, various Pendo users revealed the details of Pendo’s pricing. One user claimed that they are a medium-sized business that pays $12,000/year for the standard package of Pendo while another user upped this number to $20,000. Additionally, a Pendo customer claims to pay $2000/year just for the “Guides” feature of the product; so, you get the picture.
Pendo Reviews
👍 Pros:
“As a CSM, I utilize this monthly to check on my clients and how often they’re accessing our website. Also great for seeing what features they’re not even trying.”
👎 Cons:
“The only downfall to having access to this kind of information is when clients ask for this information to see whether their reps are using it as much as they hoped they would.”
6- Whatfix vs Intro.js – more coding for less money
Used by many iconic companies such as Amazon and Nestle, Intro.js is an open-source library that helps you onboard users with product tours and feature highlights.
Although the product is popular and widely-preferred, it has many flaws too. First off, the onboarding elements are limited to two features and there aren’t many options regarding customizations.
Also, since it is an open-source library, it will need to be used by your development team, who could be improving your actual product.
Intro.js Pricing
Intro.js is a free library for non-commercial products. If it for a commercial product however, you need to purchase a license, prices of which are shown below:
- Starter pack without any official support for $9.99,
- Business pack with a month of official support and code review for $49.99,
- Premium package 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 in 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?”
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Whatfix?
Whatfix is a SaaS digital adoption platform software that provides user guides to improve user productivity and employee productivity with interactive user manuals to add to your tech stack.
How much does Whatfix cost?
Whatfix doesn’t have a fixed price at the moment, they provide each customer with a custom package that costs according to their company size.
What are the best Whatfix competitors?
The top 6 Whatfix alternatives are UserGuiding, Walkme, Appcues, Userlane, Pendo, and Intro.js.
