Standard advice around software expansion traps companies into spending large amounts of money developing new features while losing around 75% of their customers within the first 7 days of using the product. A simple welcome screen won't save you if your core product is broken.
You cannot mask a poor UX with a low-quality tooltip.
Most software leaders assume they need better marketing to be more successful. However, research indicates otherwise. Software companies are successful with an activation rate of around 37.5% on average.
In addition, self-service models typically have even lower success rates with only 25%-45% of customers completing their flow. Moreover, if users do not achieve any meaningful results within a 3-day timeframe, the likelihood of their leaving increases to 90%.
The goal then is not to increase the size of your sales funnel; instead, it is imperative to understand how to quickly and accurately guide users to value.
How to Successfully Activate Your Customers
To understand the underlying strategy behind successfully activating customers, it is necessary to first identify the exact problem in relation to the SaaS onboarding software being used.
Currently, in the marketplace onboarding is treated as a single process; it is not. A low-priced self-serve platform will require users to have immediate "no-code" instructions.
A high-end enterprise account will require many different elements to successfully activate a customer which may consist of complex success portals, data migration plans etc...
Many people select platforms that have limitations regarding the maximum number of active users (MAUs) allowed per month and fail to realize that if their traffic suddenly increases their costs may no longer reflect the initial cost of using the platform.
A $250 monthly subscription or tier, for example, may quickly become an expense of thousands of dollars if user traffic increases beyond the maximum limit of the initial price.
Here are some sobering statistics about the current state of the software industry today: On average, 37.5% of all software companies cannot effectively offer and successfully activate their customers.
The completion rates of users managing their own tasks are generally below 45%, which means that businesses are leaving a lot of money behind on the table when this happens.
In addition to establishing a more effective process for your users, you can achieve significant increases in task completion (50% increase) by reducing setup steps by 30% directly related to the fact that there is less complexity.
To successfully develop an ongoing pattern of activation for your users, you need to create a robust combination of features that incorporate in-app assistance, user portals, and comprehensive data analysis.
Now I want to begin a review of the leading 12 vendors, based on the latest pricing information and technical capabilities.
Best SaaS Onboarding Software for In-App Help
Many in-app assistance solutions focus heavily on speed. They are built to allow teams to create product tours, product checklists, and product announcements all without writing a single line of code.
The primary goal of the product tour is to achieve a time-to-value of less than five minutes.
1. Appcues
Appcues defined the no-code builder space. It enables non-technical teams to rapidly push updates and is most effective when users require the ability to quickly set up their products.
It helps them immediately realize their first value after reaching a certain threshold of success, which is often referred to as TTFV.
2. Userpilot
Userpilot is heavily dependent on user behaviour tracking. They provide product teams with accurate data on users who have stopped using their product after completing specific steps.
This makes it very easy for the product team to track where users are dropping off after completing the first five steps in an onboarding process.
At $299 per month for the starter tier (2,500 MAUs max.), Userpilot is a significant expense for any company using product-led growth as the primary driver for scaling their product.
3. Chameleon
The Chameleon solution excels at personalised onboarding experiences for new users. According to the Chameleon study, when using segmented onboarding flows, the average increase in first-week feature adoption can increase between 25% and 50%.
This is significantly higher than what most users experience when using generalised onboarding flows. Chameleon has an entry-level price of $279/month for access to approximately two thousand monthly tracked users (MTUs).
With Chameleon's unique styling engine, you won't get the cheap and disjointed look that negatively affects the trust of customers in those critical first runs.
This is crucial because those first-run experiences often have a huge effect on whether or not a customer will return.
4. Pendo
Pendo is an extensive enterprise-level platform that provides product analytics as well as in-app messaging capabilities. You do not buy Pendo for just a simple checklist; you buy it to provide full mapping of every user's complete journey on a single platform.
This scale of integration with the ability to tie revenue from millions of customers back to their activation rates reflects the enterprise-level pricing structure that Pendo has developed.
5. UserGuiding
UserGuiding is a great option for teams that are on budgets because it provides access to the standard set of product-led tools such as tours, checklists and modals at a more affordable initial cost point.
Although it will not provide the extreme edge-case triggers of Chameleon and Appcues, it is a very practical way for early-stage companies to get started quickly with their first formalized product-led processes.
6. Userflow
Userflow provides fast response times when working with the no-code builder. Userflow is built on a fast, light-weight script and will not slow down the core app.
For businesses that need to track strict performance metrics for the purpose of meeting their activation goals, Userflow is a quick and responsive tool that is designed to stay out of the way of the user.
7. WalkMe
WalkMe is built for large enterprise-level solutions that deal with complex data, large-scale employee training programs and add-on features that would be manual or cumbersome to go through manually.
If you have a solution that needs multi-step data imports and complex role-based permission levels, WalkMe has the integrations built in to guide users through that specific process.
Top SaaS Onboarding Software for High-Value Clients
In high-value sales, product-driven techniques (e.g., the use of a modal) will not work. For example, closing a deal valued at $50K would require more than just a modal window to do so.
By adding human representatives within a dedicated space (e.g., the sales force), the completion rate of sales-assisted deals are significantly higher (60-85%).
8. Dock
Dock combines multiple email threads into one single workspace for customers to track all items related to their implementation, including the success plan/implementation timeline and training materials.
It is free, but for all practical teams, the Standard or Premium are the only reasonably priced tiers ($350 per month or $1,000/year).
Dock should be a key component of an enterprise's effort to roll out (90-day rollout) standardized onboarding for new customers (typically enterprise accounts).
9. Arrows
Since Arrows was developed specifically for the HubSpot customer success ecosystem, if you use HubSpot or have a HubSpot sales team, this application will link the onboarding plan to the associated deal record.
This keeps the sales and customer success teams together, eliminating the communication barriers that create significant problems during the post-sale process.
10. Rocketlane
Rocketlane treats onboarding like a project management function, tracking time, milestones, document approvals, etc.
When companies developing a complex B2B product are required to complete technical setup and integrate third-party service providers, Rocketlane provides detailed visibility into the specific location of delays.
It clearly shows the specific team members responsible for those delays.
11. GUIDEcx
The mission of GUIDEcx is complete transparency. GUIDEcx allows both customers and customer success teams to view the complete critical path associated with onboarding a customer.
If a customer fails to send an essential API key to enable onboarding, GUIDEcx will flag to the customer and customer success that this is a cause of onboarding delays.
This ends the blame-game approach to slow enterprise software implementations.
New AI Tools for Setting Up Users
Modern teams are moving on from static solutions and are now experimenting with live AI agents and deep, detailed funnel-tracking that tracks the very last step of a dropped session.
12. Crescendo.ai
Crescendo.ai's new technology represents an important milestone in the evolution of live AI onboarding support technology.
Instead of requiring a user to read through a static help article, AI agents guide users through multi-step technical setups by answering specific questions about their products' edge cases as they happen.
This alleviates support burdens and catches frustrated users who may have canceled their trials before doing so.
How to Choose the Right Tool for Your Business
The last thing to mention is that you cannot fix a bad strategy by simply purchasing SaaS onboarding software.
Before investing money in a tool purchase, a sales strategy must be outlined first. If you're selling a low-cost product, you should consider investing a lot in using an in-app platform such as Appcues or Chameleon, and your focus should be on getting time-to-value to less than five minutes.
If you're selling high-value contracts, there is no room for pop-ups whatsoever. Instead, you should invest in purchasing a dedicated customer portal like Dock or Rocketlane, and force your team to outline an extensive 90-day success plan.
You should measure where users stall, cut out the excess steps from your process, and not allow your early churn losses to hurt your growth opportunities.
Frequently Asked Questions About Getting Users Started
What is the main reason for the highest dropout rates during a self-serve setup?
The primary cause of dropout from self-serve setups is complexity of setup. For instance, based on actual collected data, if a company reduces the number of onboarding steps by 30% they will see a 50% increase in completion rates.
Users stop using the product when they come to a dead-end, for example, they need to migrate data or to understand a confusing role-based permissions screen.
If a product is dependent on external resources for initial use, the self-serve flow of the product will completely collapse.
What is the financial effect of monthly active user caps on actual costs of SaaS onboarding software?
Most SaaS onboarding software vendors advertise low entry price points to attract new customers, but these entry-level packages will normally restrict monthly tracked users to 2,000.
If a marketing campaign generates significant amounts of traffic, the system will automatically move to a growth or enterprise level and create a jump in subscription cost by 2 to 3 times in a single month.
Therefore, it would be wise to estimate traffic volume before signing any contracts.
How and why do product-led motions fail with mid-market customers?
Mid-market customers have an entirely different risk profile than a product-led customer. The buyer buying a $30,000 system is not interested in a generic product tour.
The buyer wants a customized success plan, some assurances about data privacy and an exact timeline of when the product will be delivered.
Using simple in-app messages for a complex corporate rollout cheapens the relationship and erodes trust.
When should a business begin moving away from a low-touch process and toward dedicated success portals?
The transition occurs when the setup requires the approval of multiple people (buyers) within the customer organization.
If your product requires a security review, IT approval and customization of the CRM, in-app guides are not practical.
Buyers have no definitive source of truth regarding all related tasks, and their implementation effort will likely fail to be successful.
