{"id":82322,"date":"2024-07-23T16:11:01","date_gmt":"2024-07-23T15:11:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/?p=82322"},"modified":"2025-01-13T16:24:47","modified_gmt":"2025-01-13T16:24:47","slug":"9-best-user-onboarding-software-tools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/9-best-user-onboarding-software-tools\/","title":{"rendered":"9 Best User Onboarding Software Tools"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It\u2019s no secret that effectively onboarding your new users can make or break your product success. Getting that first experience right can make the difference between drop off and churn, versus acquisition and growth. So it\u2019s important to nail that new user onboarding. But what tools do you need in your arsenal to help you do this? Let\u2019s take a look at some of the user onboarding software options to choose from. 

One of the primary jobs these tools do is help you create and publish tours. Product tours, onboarding flows, product walkthroughs – whatever you call them – they\u2019re intended to guide users through that first experience in your product. Helping you users to understand how to use your product in the fastest and easiest way. 

Effective user onboarding flows are one of the best ways to nudge your users towards the wow moments<\/a> of your product and shorten the Time to Value (TTV)<\/a>. And using these user onboarding software tools is the fastest way to get these onboarding flows built and established for your new users. 

It\u2019s also worth remembering that it\u2019s not only that initial first use that these tools can be useful for. You can also use product tours to help you signpost new functionality and drive adoption of new features.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why use user onboarding software?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We don\u2019t need to tell you the importance of nailing your product onboarding<\/a>, right? If you don\u2019t help your first-time users quickly and easily understand your product – what it does, how to use it and why it will be valuable to them – they won\u2019t continue to use it, adopt it or pay for it. Your product will fail<\/a>. 

So we\u2019re agreed that it\u2019s crucial to guide your users through their first use of your product and give them a specific onboarding experience to ensure they come back for more. But why do you need to use a user onboarding software tool for this job? Why is it better to add a tool to your stack for this, rather than just building your own product tours and onboarding flows directly into your own product? 

There are a couple of pretty compelling reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You have full control<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Using user boarding software for your product tours and onboarding flows will give you, as a Product Manager, far greater control. These no-code solutions mean you can just jump into the tool and create your flows, add your copy and make all the tweaks you want to, when you want to, without having to beg, borrow or steal time from your developers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can move faster<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

You can also move a lot faster because you won\u2019t have to rely on any help from developers. 

If you choose to build your own onboarding flows and product tours directly into your product, you\u2019ll need to factor that into your development planning. That will likely mean you need to add that to your product roadmap<\/a> and prioritize the work amongst everything else. 

Whereas if you use a ready-made tool for this job, then you can just get on with it yourself and you won\u2019t need to disturb the product roadmap. You can get this initiative up and running concurrently to the other initiatives on your roadmap. 

So, you can move faster AND avoid impacting the rest of the product development you want to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is user boarding software?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Regardless of whether you use these tools in your own product yet or not, you will have experienced the work of these tools yourself when you\u2019ve first signed up for a new app. Those tool tips, modals, pop-ups and notifications that guide through and show you how to use the product – that\u2019s user onboarding software in action.  

User onboarding software is the behind-the-scenes toolkit that creates and powers these smooth, helpful experiences for new users.

These tools are typically SaaS products that provide you with a low to no-code way of creating these onboarding flows and integrating them into your product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What should you look for in user onboarding software?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There are a lot of user onboarding software tools on the market right now and it can be hard to work out which ones are worth evaluating. That\u2019s why we\u2019ve compiled this list – to give you a shortlist to pick. But what are the fundamental features and functionality you should expect from a user onboarding software tool? Let us walk you through the key things you should be looking for in a decent product tour tool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No-code necessary<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The beauty of using user onboarding software rather than building your product tours directly into your product is the ability it affords you as the Product Manager to crack on with it yourself. As we\u2019ve already said, it means you can get in-app tours up and running without having to plan it into your development sprints and patiently wait until it gets prioritized. 

All the tools we\u2019re recommending on this list allow you to build and publish your flows from their own UIs. All you\u2019ll need to do is add a one-time script to your product and then you can create, tweak and publish to your heart\u2019s content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Analytics to measure performance<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The whole point of creating these product tours is to guide as many new users as possible through certain activation tasks and valuable actions. So you need your user onboarding software to tell you how successfully that is being achieved. 

You need to use a product tour tool with a robust analytics suite that will allow you to see things like views and completion rates for complete flows, as well as individual steps. Ideally you would also be able to filter the analytics by different user segments so you can drill down further. 

Analytics for individual sessions can also be useful, providing details of the events and the timings so you can form a picture of how your users are moving through the flow step by step. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Customizable branding & design<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

You need to be able to customize the appearance of the pop-ups, tool tips and guidance notes that appear for your users so your tours are blended into the overall app experience and don\u2019t feel jarring. It\u2019s important that these tours feel part of a consistent experience and not a bolted-on addition. 

All of the tools on our list have robust out-of-the-box design customization that should allow you to pick your font, colors and more. Some of these user onboarding software tools also offer custom CSS so you can tweak the appearance of any of the tour elements even further, should you need to. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Integrations<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

You should consider the integrations you might need when it comes to your user onboarding software. You\u2019ll want to push data into your chosen tool to help improve the targeting of your product tours, and you\u2019ll likely want to push data out to communicate and measure results and to help inform other experiences across other channels. 

So, think about the rest of your tech stack – what integrations would you ideally need? And would you be happy with using something like Zapier to connect the apps, or would a native integration be better? 

Consider the following integrations when selecting your user boarding software:<\/p>\n\n\n\n