Have you ever downloaded a new app, and excitedly opened it up, only to realize that you have no idea how to use it?
Unfortunately, this is a common experience for many software users. Needless to say, adoption rates for apps without instruction are basement-level bad.
This is where product tours enter the chat.
The reality is, that even if you have the best software product in the world, it’s all for naught if you can’t get users to stick around and use it.
Product tours are a great way to get your users up to speed. An effective product tour can streamline the onboarding process, take the headache out of learning a new system, and keep users around for good.
Designing an effective product tour can be a tricky process. Luckily, there are many software tools out there that can help make the process easier for you.
This article explores the best product tour software tools out there. Keep reading for a full overview and to learn how to get your users up to speed and keep them onboard for good.
What are the Best Product Tour Software Tools?
Product tours should provide your users with a simple and straightforward way to learn the product. The key goals for a product tour should be:
- simplify the user experience
- personalize the user experience
- drive meaningful actions
- increase engagement and user adoption
In order to achieve these key goals, product tour software should:
- have a consistent design
- provide user-triggered prompts
- capture user data for future improvements
- provide user segmentation for personalization
- provide task automation
- support cross-platform integrations
- provide diverse UI patterns (pop-ups, walkthroughs, videos, hot spots etc.)
In short, the best product tour software should be highly customizable so it can meet your product’s unique needs.
1. Userflow
Overview
User flow is a sleek drag and drop product tour generator with fast and easy integration with web apps. They market themselves as the product tour generator that’s perfect for when your developer is busy because it can be used by anyone.
Highlights
- user friendly drag and drop editor
- lightweight code for seamless app integrations
- sophisticated onboarding flows with theme customization
- event tracking with simple setup
- Analytics with data export options to select platforms
- custom segmentation for creating personalized product tours
Pricing
Userflow offers a 14 day trial with no credit card required.
- Startup Plan: $250 / month
- Pro Plan: $750 / month
- Enterprise Plan: Custom Pricing
Bottom Line
Userflow is great for the small software company that needs a quick and easy solution to onboard new users. With such straightforward integrations, you don’t need to mess around with code to get a nice looking product tour going.
With a 14-day free trial without credit card needed, it shows that Userflow is confident you will like their product because they don’t need to trick you into a commitment you may not want. All-in-all Userflow is a solid option for getting your product tours up and running.
2. Intercom
Overview
Intercom is your all-in-one product tour solution. It specializes in live chat functionality, but also supports multi-channel integrations including messaging, email, mobile push, SMS and more. Intercom product tours can be built without coding and offer clean and attractive user experiences for maximum engagement.
Highlights
- automated and personalized chat bots for pinpoint customer segmentation
- in-message placements for guiding new users with custom tours
- cross-channel functionality for creating a seamless customer experience
- Code-free builder
- Audience targeting
- Sleek looking templates
- analytics and reporting features for full viability on user journey
Pricing
Intercom requires a monthly subscription to use their products that has custom pricing. Once you have the Intercom subscription, you can get the product tour add-on for an additional monthly fee.
- $199 / month for product tour add-on
Bottom Line
Intercom product tours are a part of a wider stable of software solutions. Therefore, one of the main features of using intercom product tours is it’s ability to integrate with other intercom products. This is no knock on the platform, as it is a solid choice for reliable customer onboarding in any case. However, those who already use part of the intercom suite may stand to benefit most from using the product tour portion.
3. Chameleon
Overview
Chameleon is a customization champion in the product tour space. This platform utilizes intuitive javascript coding to integrate on websites or apps. It features a highly customizable product tour experience for the perfectionists at heart, as well as some impressive data collection and analytics benefits on the backend.
Highlights
- creates intuitive product tours
- highly customizable code builder
- smooth integration with multiple frameworks including Angular, React, Node, Ember, etc.
- serves dynamic content to users based on segmentation data
- user experience personalization
- built-in SSL security
- desktop and mobile friendly responsive design
- micro survey functionality collects qualitative user data in the context of the user journey
- A/B testing
- Analytics that integrates with other analytics platforms
Pricing
- Startup Plan: $279 / month
- Growth Plan: $849 / month
- Enterprise Plan: Custom Pricing
Bottom Line
Chameleon is a more in-depth product tour solution. It’s built for those that value customization over simplicity. The plus is that the team at Chameleon will help you write the code should you choose to go with them. The downside is an inevitable back and forth involved in getting things “just right”. However, in exchange for the simplicity that some crave, your end result will surely be a product tour solution that does exactly what you want.
4. Userpilot
Overview
Userpilot is a product tour software focused on in-app marketing for increased growth. They feature a code-free builder that helps you make interactive tours that continuously optimize over time.
Highlights
- intuitive user segmentation features for highly specialized user experience
- code free builder for easy setup
- A/B testing surrounding metrics like trial conversions and upsells
- Self-service help features for reduced number of support tickets
- Highly targeted in-product messages
- analytics and in-app feedback for understanding user patterns
- unobtrusive user surveying for qualitative feedback
Pricing
- Traction Plan: $249 / month
- Growth Plan: $499 / month
- Enterprise Plan: $1000 / month
Bottom Line
Userpilot is a great product tour solution for desktop applications. It really shines in the data-collection and its continuous improvement functionality. Code-free building and in-app marketing are obvious focuses for Userpilot which make it a quick and easy solution for boosting adoption rates.
5. UserGuiding
Overview
UserGuiding is a product tour and user onboarding software that focuses on simplicity and customer support. They boast an extremely intuitive and code-free integration with your product, and claim that supporting you is their #1 priority.
Highlights
- in-app resource centre to aggregate useful information for the user
- user-data analytics for continuous optimization
- personalization and user segmentation features
- in-app user feedback surveys for collecting qualitative insights
- goal tracking, user checklists, and gamification for increasing full-product adoption
- look-and-feel theme customization
- code free product tour builder
Pricing
- Basic Plan: $69 / month
- Professional Plan: $299 / month
- Corporate Plan: $499+ / month
Bottom Line
UserGuiding is another solid option for those seeking a quick and easy solution. It has a lot of the same features built into other software but without the feature bloat. Because of it’s ease of use and focus on customer support, you can have confidence that you’ll have a minimum viable product tour up and running in no time.
6. Appcues
Overview
Appcues is a highly functional user onboarding software. It has all the features your could want in a product tour software and then some. While the company made a good effort to keep it simple, you definitely wouldn’t reach for this software as the quickest and easiest solution. What it lacks in up-and-go functionality, it makes up for in customization, segmentation, and beautifully designed user onboarding flows.
Highlights
- in-depth user tracking and analytics
- vast user support information and customer success features
- highly customizable themes and branding options
- diverse integrations with sales and marketing software
- in app messaging and surveys
- user segmentation for personalized onboarding tours
Pricing
- Essentials Plan: $249 / month
- Growth Plan: $879 / month
- Enterprise Plan: Custom Pricing
Bottom Line
Appcues is a mainstay in the product tour software world. They have clearly spent time designing a software that does what their customers want. New startups to developed companies could reap the benefits from using the software for user onboarding.
7. Stonly
Overview
Stonly is your adaptive user onboarding and product tour solution. The adaptive segmentation features on this software make personalized user experiences easy to setup. One of the main selling features of this software is it’s highly functional knowledge base setup where users can easily find personalized information based on their unique needs.
Highlights
- user segmentation and custom onboarding flows
- Knowledge base functionality
- personalization features
- Easy integration with existing data and support software
- interactive self-serve guides
- powerful user behaviour insights and data analytics
- no code integration
- multi language support
- net promoter score survey functionality
Pricing
- Starter Plan: $99/month
- Business Plan: $199/month
- Enterprise Plan: Custom Pricing
Bottom Line
Stonly is a little less than some of the other product tour options out there. This is a light-weight, straightforward software that has the fundamentals built in right out of the box. Stonly boasts their highly personalized user experiences and knowledge base which allows users to self-serve at a high level. If you’re looking to reduce the number of support tickets and provide clear and unique user support experiences, Stonly is your pick.
8. Upscope
Overview
Upscope is a little different than other product tour software on this list – its a remote screen share application focusing on user onboarding. Their main selling point is it’s ability to seamlessly access a user’s browser without them downloading anything. Further integration with other user onboarding software gives you the ability to build out your product tour experience with in-depth user support.
Highlights
- no-download co-browsing feature for helping users along remotely during the onboarding process
- integration with other live chat, product tour, and saas software solutions such as Intercom, Salesforce, and LiveChat
- Chat, type, and draw on functionality
- Full secure control of users browser
- Full access to code for endless user experience customization
- robust security considerations including distributed regional servers, scheduled data wipes, routine internal and external audits and testing, and compliance with HIPAA and GDPR
Pricing
- Upscope Plan: $30 / agent / month
- Enterprise Plan: Custom Pricing
Bottom Line
Upscope is perfect for augmenting product tours that are a little more complex. Their product tour focused approach to screen sharing makes it easy to walk user’s along when the self serve options are not getting the job done. If you’re in the finance, health, saas, or insurance niches, Upscope could be an huge asset to your user onboarding process.
9. Whatfix
Overview
The Whatfix value proposition is an automatable product tour software that focuses on employee onboarding. The setup and integration with software is straight forward and the user experience is well designed. The multichannel integrations give Whatfix the ability to operate across multiple software seamlessly and collect user behaviour data all the while.
Highlights
- segmented user experiences and custom onboarding flows
- diverse customization and user experience options
- user behaviour analytics and feedback on user experience
- omnichannel content formats for integrating user flows across applications
- Task automations to reduce time spent on repeatable tasks
- In-app surveys, messaging and on-demand user guidance features
- Employee onboarding focus
Pricing
Custom Pricing
Bottom Line
Whatfix is a competitive product in the product tour space. They offer a solid product in terms of giving companies a powerful solution that specializes in employee onboarding. While this is their foucus, it also does much more than just employee onboarding – you can comendeer the platform to bring new users into diverse software with slick automations and customizable walkthroughs.
10. Walkme
Overview
Walkme is a mainstay in the product tour software lineup. They were one of the first digital adoption platforms to start making custom product tours. Therefore, many enterprise level companies use them for employee onbaording and customer onboarding solutions.
Highlights
- customer and employee onboarding experiences
- in-depth segmentation for building unique product tours
- User behaviour analytics
- Code-free builder
- diverse product experience tools including product training modules
- well supported integrations with other business software solutions
Pricing
Custom Pricing
Bottom Line
Walkme offers a robust and well-supported product tour solution. They built out their software with both customer onboarding and employee engagement options. Because of this, you can expect a breadth of functionality instead of depth on either one. However, because of their longstanding reputation in the software world, many large companies trust them for all their product tour needs. Walkme is a great option for larger enterprise level companies looking for a well supported software solution that can do it all.
11. Pendo
Overview
Pendo is a high level product tour software with great user behaviour analytics and segmentation. Enterprise level companies love this software because of its ability to map out the customer onboarding tour while measuring behaviour every step along the way.
Highlights
- user behaviour analytics and in-app feedback
- in-depth support in the form of digital workshops, resources hub, and Pendo customer support
- diverse integrations with other popular software solutions
- product roadmapping
- Mobile and web functionality
- Appealing product experience options including banners, lightboxes and tooltips
- user segmentation and custom product tours for different user groups
Pricing
Custom Pricing
Bottom Line
This product tour software is built with analytics in mind. Pendo is focused on giving you the data you need to continuously improve the user experience. The downside is maybe an overemphasis on the data collection where primary user experience options are sort of lacking. However, the segmentation options in line with the analytics give you the ability to produce highly customized product tours that are sure to boost product adoption rates overtime.
What is Product Tour Software?
Product tour software helps onboard new users. The product tour solution integrates with your software product to produce an interactive user experience and teach new users about the product.
The main benefit of product tours is to onboard new users quickly and effectively so that they can get benefit from the product right away which leads to higher user adoption rates.
Product tours typically include many interactive features such as pop-ups, tooltips, FAQ boxes, and automated chat bots.
Summary
While there are many options to choose from in the product tour software lineup, you only need one. Luckily, each software has its unique strengths and weaknesses. Hopefully this article has illuminated these strengths and weaknesses so you can make a solid decision on which software is right for you.
