Top 10 Appcues Alternatives and Competitors Worth Exploring
Are you looking for a user onboarding software that offers everything Appcues does but comes without its drawbacks, such as complex pricing and limited analytics? Then you are in the right place, as we tested several Appcues alternatives and are ready to share our insights!
What is Appcues?
Appcues is one of the first digital adoption platforms to hit the market. It offers several useful features, including multiple UI patterns for creating onboarding flows, user segmentation, and surveys.
The platform works for both mobile and web apps and offers an extensive suite of third-party integrations.
4 reasons to consider Appcues alternatives
There is no denying that Appcues is a solid platform beloved by many product teams. However, like any tool, it comes with certain limitations, which we’ll explore in more detail below.
1. Appcues lacks robust product analytics capabilities
Appcues markets itself as a user onboarding tool rather than an all-in-one product adoption platform, so it’s not surprising its analytics features aren’t that great.
While you can set up events to track user behavior and analyze the engagement of your flows with basic dashboards, you can’t get deeper insights into the overall product performance. For example, you can create data visualization such as funnels, cohorts, and paths to interpret data.
You can connect Appcues to a tool like Amplitude or Heap for advanced analytics, but that’ll add to your costs.
2. Appcues doesn’t support bespoke user feedback surveys
Besides NPS surveys, you don’t get too many ready-to-use survey templates. While you can create custom surveys, you can’t use branching logic to modify the flow of questions based on responses. Also, these surveys can only be added to flows, meaning you can’t trigger surveys across all relevant points (e.g. after the user speaks to a customer support agent).
Survey analytics capabilities for quantitative data are limited, too. You can track and analyze responses, but you can’t use them to segment users to trigger personalized in-app flows.
It’s also worth mentioning here that Appcues only works for your own product. You can’t use the platform to create in-app experiences on third-party tools, making it less useful for employee onboarding.
3. Appcues customization options are limited
While Appcues lets you customize its pre-designed templates, you’re limited to some basic options like font style, size, color, and padding. Advanced customization requires working with CSS code, which can be challenging for non-technical teams and restricts its usage.
Additionally, Appcues doesn’t offer the if/then branching option, meaning you can’t customize the flows better for each user.
4. Appcues can get too expensive
Starting at $249 per month, Appcues’s pricing is on the higher side. The starter plan only offers 5 audience segments and lets you track up to 10 events.
Its pricing structure isn’t very flexible either. On the starter plan, you don’t get essential features like checklists and custom CSS. Even higher-tier plans don’t provide certain features like integrations and localization, which are only available as add-ons at an additional cost.
You also need to spend higher as your monthly active users increase, unlike other platforms where the pricing is based on features. The lack of analytics and feedback collection features means you have to spend more for those as well.
Top 10 Appcues alternatives and competitors
With so many product adoption platforms available in the market, which Appcues alternative should you choose? Take a look at our top picks and select the one that aligns with your product needs.
Appcues alternative #1: Userpilot
Userpilot is an all-in-one product growth platform that offers robust user engagement and product analytics capabilities. Whether you want to nudge users to key activation events or dig deeper into user sessions, Userpilot comes in handy.
Why is Userpilot a good Appcues alternative?
- Event auto-capture — Once you set up Userpilot for your product, the platform automatically records events like clicks, hovers, and text inputs, eliminating the need to manually tag each event.
- Analytics reports — Unlike Appcues, Userpilot offers details analytics like funnel analysis, trend analysis, and retention reports. These reports offer a complete picture of how users interact with your product and help eliminate friction from the user journey.
- Firmographic segmentation — Apart from demographics and psychographics, you can also do firmographic segmentation on Userpilot. This helps you segment users by company type, size, industry, and more, enabling B2B businesses to drive growth.
- Robust resource center — You can create comprehensive resource centers with multiple formats inside and advanced customization. Meanwhile, Appcues Launchpads (a substitute for the resource center) is limited to flows and links.
- Localization capabilities — Userpilot offers both automated and manual localization options. You can also update the translated flows without having to unpublish or duplicate them. In Appcues, you need to start over, as localized flows can’t be updated automatically.
- Survey features — Userpilot provides 15+ survey templates, branching logic, and contextual triggering — none of which is available on Appcues. Also, Userpilot allows you to tag open-ended NPS responses, allowing you to identify trends among detractors and promoters and prioritize product improvements.
- Driven actions — Userpilot offers a unique feature for creating cross-URL onboarding experiences, allowing you to guide users seamlessly across different pages within your application.
- Rule-based flows — Appcues has a very linear approach to flows, making them very rigid. Userpilot, on the other hand, offers if/then logic for flows. This means the flow would change depending on user actions, enabling you to truly personalize them.
- Ease-of-use — Userpilot’s interface is very intuitive, which allows even the most non-technical team members to get value from its features with ease.
I know it sounds like a not-so-humble brag, but we have thousands of satisfied customers who can back up our words:
Does Userpilot have any limitations, you may ask? The answer is yes. Unlike Appcues, Userpilot doesn’t work for mobile apps. Although this is something we are actively working on!
So, to sum this all up, here is an overview of these two tools:
Userpilot pricing
Userpilot offers a 14-day free trial to let users explore the platform’s features. Paid plans include:
- Starter — Starting at $249 per month (billed annually), it allows up to 2000 monthly active users. The plan includes in-app user engagement, segmentation, NPS surveys, and basic analytics.
- Growth — Pricing starts at $799 per month (billed annually) and includes in-depth analytics, event auto-capture, survey templates, content localization, and more.
- Enterprise — You get premium third-party integrations, priority support, custom contracts, and advanced security. Pricing is available on request.
Appcues alternative #2: Pendo
Pendo is a popular all-in-one digital experience platform. Initially launched as an analytics platform tailored for product teams, the company later introduced Pendo Guides, an in-app content editor designed to create user guidance directly within the same platform.
Since Pendo started off as an analytics platform, it’s not surprising it has robust capabilities in this area. In addition to the comprehensive dashboards and visualizations, you can also leverage session replays to see the specific actions users take on a page.
Pendo pricing
Pendo offers a free plan that includes retroactive product analytics, in-app guides, NPS surveys, and roadmaps. It offers four paid plans: Base, Core, Pulse, and Ultimate. However, the pricing isn’t transparent, and you’d have to request it by getting in touch with their team.
Appcues alternative #3: UserGuiding
UserGuiding is a no-code product adoption platform that offers several features to help businesses onboard new users and engage and retain existing users. It’s also one of the more affordable solutions available in the market.
Key features include:
Like Pendo, UserGuiding enables you to create NPS surveys to get an idea of user sentiment. It’s also possible to create microsurveys.
Additionally, it’s easy to use for even non-technical users with a drag-and-drop builder for creating UI patterns and complex customer onboarding flows. It’s equally straightforward to build an in-app resource center.
UserGuiding pricing
With UserGuiding, you get a 14-day free trial to test the platform’s features and functionalities. Pricing for paid plans is based on the number of monthly active users. The paid plans come in three tiers: Basic ($69/month), Professional ($199/month), and Corporate (custom).
Appcues alternative #4: Intercom
Intercom is an AI-powered customer service platform. It lets companies deliver frictionless customer experiences with omnichannel support, live chat widgets, AI chat agents, and a ticketing system.
While Intercom isn’t a full-fledged product adoption platform, the Product Tours add-on helps streaming user onboarding, activation, and adoption.
Key features include:
Intercom offers a code-free builder for creating walkthroughs, in-app guides, and more. You also get audience-targeting features that can help you personalize the user onboarding experience.
Unlike Pendo, Intercom packs AI-powered Resolution bots that can understand customer queries and solve them based on pre-defined workflows. You also get some onboarding analytics like completion rate, views, and other metrics.
Intercom pricing
Intercom has paid plans that follow user-based billing. All its pricing plans come with a free trial, and the pricing starts at $29/month per user.
Appcues competitor #5: Chameleon
Chameleon is a product adoption platform that lets product teams leverage real-time user data to create hyper-personalized in-app experiences. It offers a full suite of engagement and analytics capabilities that help handhold users at each stage of their journeys.
Key features include:
You get real-time analytics — a feature not many other Appcues alternatives offer. Additionally, its Launchers feature can be used to craft user onboarding flows through checklists and help widgets.
Chameleon also lets you create modals, tooltips, banners, and in-line embeddable cards. The addition of AI-summarized answers can help delight users even further. It also gives advanced customization capabilities, making it more flexible than Appcues. For instance, you can throttle how frequently users see in-app experiences to avoid overloading them — a feature that sets it apart from Pendo.
Finally, Chameleon integrates with loads of third-party tools like Amplitude, Figma, and Slack.
Chameleon pricing
Chameleon’s pricing is based on the number of monthly tracked users (MTUs). The basic Startup plan’s pricing begins from $279 per month and is the only plan that offers a free trial.
Additionally, Chameleon lets users add the HelpBar to their products for free, regardless of whether they sign up for a paid plan.
Appcues competitor #6: WalkMe
WalkMe is a digital adoption platform that was primarily designed for employee training and onboarding. Its features let you onboarding new employees to third-party tools like HubSpot and Salesforce. Since its launch, WalkMe has evolved and now offers customer onboarding capabilities, too.
Key features include:
WalkMe brings workflow automation features that can help you build automated workflows to streamline routine processes and steps. It minimizes empty clicks and ensures that users complete key tasks in one go.
It also lets you deliver in-app guidance to users through step-by-step product walkthroughs. Creating self-service support options like a searchable knowledge base, FAQs page, and other support resources is just as straightforward.
You also get employee-specific features in the form of a Workstation employee hub, which provides employees with all the guidance necessary to learn about a product. It works on desktop, mobile, and web apps.
WalkMe Insights gives you an in-depth look into your analytics, including survey results. That said, when it comes to WalkMe vs Appcues, the former is better for employee onboarding, while the latter serves user onboarding better.
WalkMe pricing
WalkMe offers custom pricing for both customer and employee experience. It’s worth mentioning here that the platform’s pricing is based on potential usage. You must have a clear idea of your future needs before signing the contract.
Also, several key features, such as enterprise analytics, customization, and collaboration, aren’t included in pricing. You’ll have to purchase these add-ons individually, and the final cost could exceed your budget.
Appcues alternative #7: Whatfix
Whatfix is a digital adoption platform that lets employees and customers build seamless onboarding experiences. It’s similar to WalkMe but offers greater integrations with third-party tools.
One of the standout features of Whatfix is that it can be used on desktop, mobile, and web apps, which isn’t the case with Appcues.
Along with basic in-app guidance features like user onboarding checklists, tooltips, and pop-ups, you also get branching in workflows that can help you personalize them further.
Besides tracking engagement of no-code in-app guidance flows, Whatfix also lets you set up custom events and dig deeper into user journeys. You also get robust reporting capabilities, including cohort analysis and trend analysis. The platform even uses AI algorithms to generate actionable insights from user behavior and product usage data.
Whatfix pricing
Whatfix offers different pricing for its Digital Adoption Platform and Product Analytics features. In either case, you can choose from 3 plans and request a quote. Pricing information isn’t available on the website.
Also, keep in mind that for mobile applications, the Digital Adoption Platform comes with only one paid plan. For Product Analytics, you still get to choose from 3 tiers. Like most product growth tools, Whatfix comes with a free trial, too.
Appcues alternative #8: UserIQ
UserIQ is a customer success platform that comes with a set of product adoption features. You can design beautiful onboarding flows, personalize the experience for different user segments, and collect user feedback. Also, you get in-depth customer health analytics that helps you keep a finger on the pulse of your user’s needs and pain points.
Key features include:
The platform has robust user onboarding capabilities, and you can create intuitive product tours and step-by-step in-app guides with it. It’s possible to customize the look and feel of in-app experiences to align them with your branding as well.
Segmentation features take the cake on UserIQ and enable you to personalize your in-app messaging better. Its customer health dashboard provides in-depth insights into user behavior and sentiment. It’s useful for identifying detractors and minimizing churn. The analytics features are powerful and make it a better option than Appcues if that’s what you need.
You can also launch VoC engagements, including NPS surveys, microsurveys, custom surveys, and ratings, to collect feedback from users.
UserIQ pricing
UserIQ’s pricing isn’t available to the public. Also, there’s no information about whether the platform offers a free plan or trial.
Appcues alternative #9: Scribe
Unlike Appcues and its alternatives listed so far, Scribe isn’t a full-scale digital adoption or user onboarding platform. Instead, it’s an AI-powered tool that lets you create step-by-step guides for any process and can be deployed in the user onboarding space.
Scribe lets you record your screen while performing a task. When you finish recording, it automatically identifies and lays down key steps, along with annotated screenshots, instructions, and click marks.
You can use Scribe to create tutorials for different product features and tools. That makes Scribe an excellent tool for building resources for your knowledge base and in-app help center.
Key features include:
The platform enables you to auto-capture processes on your apps (desktop, web, and mobile) and convert them into step-by-step guides. These guides can then be used to ensure smooth onboarding for your users, as they can access them at any time. It doesn’t create contextual user onboarding flows like Appcues though.
It also lacks the ability to create any in-app elements like modals, tooltips, and hotspots. Instead, you can add alerts, tips, and GIFs to your guides with Scribe to make them more engaging. It also provides analytics with metrics like completion rate, number of views, and individual viewer insights.
Scribe also lets users provide feedback in the form of comments. This way, you’ll know if your guides are outdated or confusing and need changing.
Scribe pricing
With Scribe, you get a forever-free plan (Basic) that includes auto-capture and basic customization and analytics. It works for web apps only. If you want to use Scribe for desktop and mobile apps, too, you need to choose one of the paid plans that start at $12/month per seat.
Appcues alternative #10: Shepherd.js
If you’re looking for a robust digital adoption platform that offers a high degree of customizability, Shepherd.js is a good fit.
Key features include:
Shepherd.js is an open-source JavaScript library that can be used to streamline user onboarding. You can use it to create custom product tours, in-app guides, and announcements.
It’s worth noting that with Shepherd.js, you don’t get no-code capabilities. While the open-source library minimizes the extent of coding, you still need some technical knowledge to design onboarding experiences.
And while Appcues does require some CSS knowledge, it’s still simpler when compared to Shepherd.js.
Shepherd.js pricing
Shepherd.js is an open-source library and is, therefore, available for free.
Conclusion
If you’re in the market for an Appcues alternative, you’ll be spoilt for choice. While some platforms offer more variety in terms of surveys, others bring sophisticated analytics to the table. Then, there are platforms with basic features that offer excellent value for money. You’ll also find solutions that come with both customer onboarding and user onboarding functionalities.
It’s up to you to understand your business goals and product needs and choose an Appcues alternative that meets these requirements.
Userpilot offers all the features you’d expect from a standard product growth platform and even more. Schedule a Userpilot demo to understand whether it’s the right fit for your product.
