Small business or enterprise, every SaaS company needs an effective solution for onboarding.
From the CEO to customers, there is an adoption phase for everyone.
Even when the customer base is small and manageable by manual onboarding, you can’t turn a blind eye to your employee onboarding. Especially given that user experience starts way before the actual onboarding flow, both for employees and customers.
When you are in that tough spot, YesElf is a good option for onboarding. But is it really the right fit for you?
Let’s find out as I go through:
- What YesElf is and why you might want to give alternatives a try instead,
- What alternatives are out there and what’s to be expected using them,
- A comparison of alternatives and YesElf,
- Reviews for each alternative from platforms like G2, Capterra, and Product Hunt,
- Why a certain alternative is better for you and use cases
What is YesElf?
YesElf is an AI-powered digital adoption tool that was funded by European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program in 2020.
Though YesElf seemingly has a really tiny team (no more than 20 according to their LinkedIn page) these people seem to be working hard as the tool is quite a handy one.
YesElf offers users onboarding UX patterns and templates, AI-driven tool features like confusion detection, and good customer support, something you can’t find in enterprise-level digital tools.
YesElf Pricing
YesEl’s pricing list is unavailable on their website, however, on Microsoft Azure Marketplace it is purchasable for:
- YesElf for Office 365 (1000) – $793,00/month
- YesElf for Office 365 (10000) – $1.525,00/month
- YesElf Monthly Subscription (1000) – $1.586,00/month
- YesElf Monthly Subscription (10000) – $3.050,00/month
YesElf Reviews
👍 Pros:
👎 Cons:
“Despite we are still in the evaluation phase YesElf persuaded me it can provide efficient training without personal sessions which is very important in today’s COVID times.”
“Setup took us like 2 weeks, but I guess it is normal.”
Why you need a YesElf Alternative
That hideous green 😬
All jokes aside, though YesElf seems to be a great all-in-one product adoption platform, it has its shortcomings like any other SaaS tool.
While YesElf provides effective user onboarding processes for some, for others who go for the tool without knowing much about it, it can be just another record in the already high training costs.
Here are some reasons why you might want to go for another user/customer onboarding software.
1- Too much focus on employee onboarding
Essentially, YesElf’s main focus is employee onboarding. In fact, the primal pain points they claim to be solving are all company insights and employee training centered.
That’s why if you are looking for a solution you can use as a client onboarding platform, YesElf might not be the optimal choice.
2- Designed for comprehensive use
YesElf has some seriously promising and customizable features to it from AI-powered analytics to automation tools.
Features that add to the total price.
Features that will only be extra expenses if not used to their full extent.
Though the all-in-one product adoption platform does not provide a pricing list on their website, the MS Azure Marketplace prices are pretty expensive. And it’s clear to see that with all those features to use if you want to make worth of your money, YesElf is not really for small businesses.
3- Hard to set up
It’s all fun and games when SaaS tools try and provide their service on all browsers. Until it’s time for set up.
While offering a Chrome extension on Google Chrome, setting up the tool won’t be nearly as easy for users who wish to access it on a different browser like Microsoft Firefox.
Top YesElf Alternatives
You think you got a problem with the way YesElf works? Maybe it’s not the solution you’re looking for? Well, that’s alright because we’ve got a whole list of alternatives better fit for different use cases.
Here are the top 5 alternatives to YesElf:
- UserGuiding
- Product Fruits
- Whatfix
- Shepherd.js
- Userlane
Let’s now go over each tool, what their pros and cons are, the pricing and reviews, and the use cases they all are best for, starting with:
1- UserGuiding – No-code Interactive User Onboarding
UserGuiding is a leading user onboarding solution that offers advanced features and ease of use while requiring no coding skills whatsoever.
With the shackles of having to code an entire onboarding flow gone, UserGuiding helps you prepare an onboarding flow for customers or employees in a matter of minutes.
Moreover, many of its features have been used to achieve customer acquisition and customer retention according to UserGuiding’s success stories.
Among the main features of UserGuiding are:
- Interactive guides and checklists,
- Hotspots, tooltips, and other modal templates,
- Resource centers,
- Feedback collection and NPS surveys,
- Powerful analytics and customization,
- User segmentation and targeting, and more.
What makes UserGuiding better than YesElf?
👉 While there have been reviews about various styling problems and YesElf’s dashboard being clustered, UserGuiding makes sure to keep it clean and easy on the eye for a good user experience.
👉 Though YesElf offers almost all patterns of onboarding UX, UserGuiding does it one better by offering resource centers, a type of in-app directory where confused users can access app content, customer service, or revisit old guides, even interactive ones.
👉 Most of YesElf’s customers appear to be from mid-market (501-1000 employees) to enterprise-level companies 1000+ employees) whereas UserGuiding serves all company types and sizes, from startup to enterprise.
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
UserGuiding Reviews
👍 Pros:
👎 Cons:
“The Predefined templates and texts that we could already publish without changing a thing. Undying help from the Support team and how they give insights into what works best and share best practices. How the product is always improving and bringing new features to meet your use cases and platform compatible enhancements.”
“There is nothing that I find bad. However, the analysis options for the guides could be a bit better. However, the software is constantly growing and more and more functions are added.”
UserGuiding vs YesElf
UserGuiding
- Highly customizable in-app UX patterns and templates ✅
- Easy to use, user-friendly UI ✅
- In-app resource center ✅
- Setup in minutes ✅
YesElf
- Many UX patterns called “widgets” ✅
- Somewhat clunky UI ❌
- No in-app resource center ❌
- Long and painful setup for browsers other than Chrome ❌
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 $89/month.
Create tours, tooltips, and surveys without coding
2- Product Fruits
Product Fruits is a fairly new tool in digital adoption, but it is one that improves every day.
Now, if you had enough of YesElf’s big company feel and the pricing that goes with it, Product Fruits might be your humble but evergrowing solution.
It has all the basic features like product tours, in-app announcements, feedback and NPS surveys, and an in-app help center widget.
Product Fruits Pricing
- Core Plan: $59/month for up to 1500 MAU, $259/month for 10000 MAU
- Boost Plan: $109/month for up to 1500 MAU, $379/month for 10000 MAU
- Enterprise Plan: Custom quote for more than 50,000 MAU
Product Fruits Reviews
👍 Pros:
👎 Cons:
“Easy to set a simple product onboarding tour Easy integration No-code tours & hints builder Amazing support & help with custom use cases Customizability“
“The setup for us has taken a while due to the information that needs to be sent to Productfruits via the integration available to make the guided tours work in the way we expected.“
3- Whatfix
Whatfix is among the top performers in the onboarding market and is a great fit for tech-savvy enterprises.
Whatfix also focuses mainly on employee training; add the need for technical knowledge and enterprise-level pricing, it’s a lot like YesElf in a sense.
Apart from one difference: it is easier to set up and use.
Though Whatfix is hard to set up and use in comparison to other tools, it gets to be easier when compared to YesElf, since the latter tries for a simpler experience and fails.
Whatfix Pricing
- Whatfix does not provide a fixed list for pricing and offers custom plans for each customer varying according to the size of your product, the number of your monthly users, etc.
Whatfix Reviews
👍 Pros:
👎 Cons:
“Our Whatfix Customer Success Manager Kritika has been amazingly responsive to our questions and creative in finding solutions.”
“It is lack of analytical features. Some features is not easy to configure.”
4- Shepherd.js
Shepherd.js is an open-source, free-to-use library maintained by a community of volunteering developers.
If you have a handy developer to spare and the time to wait for a custom-made onboarding flow for your users or employees, Shepherd.js can be the alternative you are looking for.
And it’s free of charge too.
Moreover, it is technically more secure than a third-party tool if you have confidential information in your employee onboarding flow.
Shepherd.js Pricing
Shepherd is open-source and completely free of charge, it can be used for personal or commercial reasons.
Shepherd.js Reviews
👍 Pros:
👎 Cons:
“(…) great library, it does everything I want and it’s pretty easy to use.”
“It is not possible to scroll with touch on the highlighted area or on the modal.”
5- Userlane
Userlane is another user onboarding solution that is focused primarily on employee onboarding and is a high performer in the digital adoption market.
While features and customization are limited in Userlane, it makes up for it in analytics and customer service.
So if you need an alternative to YesElf that has all the basic features and a good way of reporting your employees’ onboarding behavior, Userlane is the one.
Userlane Pricing
Userlane does not provide a fixed pricing list and offers custom pricing for each user. They also have a pay-for-what-you-need policy, so it is unlikely that you will have to pay too much for way too advanced features like in YesElf.
Userlane Reviews
👍 Pros:
👎 Cons:
“For us, Userlane helped us to make user onboarding and education after updates very easy.”
“Although I can fully recommend Userlane, I would appreciate an autosave function to avoid the loss of unsaved userlanes.”
Conclusion
YesElf is really a great tool. But as I said above, it can be cumbersome if it’s not fit for your specific use case.
So, to wrap it up, let’s take a look at the use cases for each alternative.
- UserGuiding is for when you want an affordable option that’s very easy to use and set up while having a powerful set of features.
- Product Fruits is for when you need a budget YesElf that won’t confuse you with too advanced features.
- Whatfix is for when you want to focus on employee training at an enterprise level with similar pricing but with more tech-savvy UX and less scattered UI.
- Shepherd.js is for when you have security concerns, a developer with lots of free time, and no money to spare.
- Userlane is for when you need powerful analytics instead of complicated features and clunky UI.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who should use YesElf?
YesElf is a digital adoption platform that was essentially designed for mid-market and enterprise-level businesses. Though it doesn’t require you to have thousands of users, YesElf can be comparatively expensive, and thus it is not recommended for small businesses.
How much does YesElf cost?
Although the actual cost of the product is unknown since YesElf provides no public list for pricing, it might not be affordable for smaller businesses knowing it is was designed with enterprise-level companies in mind.
What are the top alternatives to YesElf?
UserGuiding, Product Fruits, Whatfix, and many other digital adoption tools can be mentioned when talking about alternatives to YesElf. However, choosing a good alternative depends on the type of companies and their use cases with the tool.
