Whatfix vs HelpScout vs Userpilot: Which is Best for Your SaaS?

Seems like you’re pitting Whatfix vs HelpScout vs Userpilot. Choosing the right product growth platform for your SaaS is a real challenge.

Review sites don’t always help – so we decided to provide you with a more in-depth comparison of the three tools, going into details about features, use cases, and the main pros & cons. Whether you’re looking mainly to improve your user onboarding or product analytics, collect user feedback, or NPS – you’ll find the answer if Whatfix, HelpScout, or Userpilot is the best fit for you here!

Let’s dive straight in!

TL;DR

• Whatfix is an intuitive digital adoption platform that helps streamline user onboarding and software adoption. It offers interactive walkthroughs and task automation. However, some users have mentioned limitations in analytics and customization options
• HelpScout is a user-friendly customer support platform with a collaborative inbox, knowledge base, and chat features. While its reporting capabilities may be limited, it offers effective communication channels for businesses.
• Userpilot is a powerful product adoption and user onboarding platform. It helps product teams create personalized user experiences through product tours, onboarding checklists, and feature announcements. Userpilot’s code-free solution enables easy implementation, allowing businesses to engage and guide their users effectively. Book a demo to learn more!

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What is Whatfix?

Whatfix is one of the top digital adoption platforms around and a driver of innovation in this space.

Whatfix offers a well-made product that allows you to create user flows, knowledge bases, and task lists to get new users engaged and learning. On top of this, their analytics platform is easy to understand and helps you keep track of behavior analytics, guidance analytics, and user feedback all in one place.

What is Whatfix best for?

Typically, SaaS Product Managers consider Whatfix for the following reasons: they want to improve their user onboarding, they need product adoption, and would also be able to measure their user feedback. How does Whatfix perform when it comes to these top-three use cases? Let’s examine it all, and then compare to the other tools we’re discussing in this post.

Whatfix for user onboarding

Whatfix’s digital adoption platform makes your user onboarding easier. The tool helps you create personalized walkthroughs by adopting the learning-by-doing technique.

Whatfix for user onboarding

Here are the benefits you can gain if you choose Whatfix:

• Create interactive product walkthroughs and flows code-free with native integration options
• Incorporate different onboarding elements to your flows, including modals, checklists, tooltips, beacons
• With its user-level segmentation, you can set up basic contextual onboarding to differentiate user experience.

However, Whatfix targets mostly large enterprise companies and might not be the right choice for SMBs or startups. If this is the case, you should be looking for alternative tools to power up your user onboarding.

Whatfix for product adoption

To drive product and user adoption, you need to provide continuous value to your users and provide contextual help across all stages of the customer journey.

Whatfix helps your enterprise company achieve that by unlocking the full potential of user segmentation and in-app guidance.

Whatfix for product adoption

Here is what you will get with Whatfix product adoption functionality.

• Create contextual in-app guides to make users get the maximum value of your product.
• Provide omnichannel support without skyrocketing your customer support goals.
• Powerful analytics to try new ideas based on real-time data and find ways to optimize the customer experience.

Whatfix for user feedback

If you want to collect user feedback on specific interactions, Whatfix is a good tool to build micro surveys for that.

Whatfix for user feedback

Here’s how you can collect user feedback with Whatfix:

• With user surveys, you can collect feedback on the onboarding tours and training flows, so you can continuously improve your product support.
• Whatfix’s in-app feedback surveys make it easy to gather feedback and insights from users in real-time.
• Add a follow-up question to enable open-minded feedback.
• Send push reminders to customers so they don’t forget about providing feedback.

However, if you want to build traditional NPS surveys with response tagging capabilities, then segment customers based on their feedback, Whatfix might not be the best fit for you. This is something that Userpilot offers.

There is a better tool for your SaaS than Whatfix!

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What is HelpScout?

HelpScout is a help desk designed to support businesses in their customer service efforts, offering a variety of tools for customer interactions.

These tools include a knowledge base, contextual help through beacons, live chat and in-app messaging, and reporting.

By using HelpScout, businesses can efficiently manage customer interactions and monitor and resolve any issues.

If you need to improve your email support, provide Help Center resources for customers, or engage with them through live chat, HelpScout is a great option. It offers pricing plans that are based on the number of users, starting from $20 per user per month when billed annually. However, if you want to drive adoption and improve your onboarding efforts, this tool might not be the best choice for you.

What is HelpScout best for?

Similar to Whatfix, HelpScout is typically considered for user onboarding, product adoption, and user feedback. Let’s examine HelpScout for these use cases before we compare it to Userpilot.

HelpScout for user onboarding

While HelpScout does offer some basic features for user onboarding and adoption, such as knowledge bases and customer communication tools like live chat and basic feedback collection, it is not specifically designed to provide a comprehensive solution for user onboarding.

If your business is primarily focused on user onboarding and adoption, you may need to look for a specialized user onboarding tool like Userpilot or a customer success platform that provides more comprehensive solutions for user onboarding, adoption, and engagement.

HelpScout for user onboarding

HelpScout for product adoption

While HelpScout is primarily focused on customer support and communication, it does offer some features that can support product adoption to a certain extent.

For example, HelpScout’s knowledge base feature can be used to provide self-service support options to customers, which can help them learn more about your product and increase their usage and adoption.

In addition, HelpScout’s customer feedback features, such as customer satisfaction ratings and NPS surveys, can help businesses gain insights into areas where they can improve their product and increase adoption.

However, HelpScout is not specifically designed to provide a comprehensive solution for product adoption. If your business is primarily focused on optimizing product adoption, you may need to look for a specialized tool like Userpilot or a customer success platform that provides more advanced features for user onboarding, adoption, engagement, and retention.

HelpScout for user feedback

HelpScout offers several features that enable businesses to collect and analyze user feedback.

For example, HelpScout’s customer satisfaction survey allows customers to rate the quality of their support experience. HelpScout also offers Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys, which can help businesses measure customer loyalty and identify areas for improvement.

In addition, HelpScout’s reporting and analytics features allow businesses to track and analyze customer feedback data over time, helping them to identify trends and patterns in customer feedback and make data-driven decisions to improve their products and customer support.

While HelpScout provides some user feedback features, it is not specifically designed to be a comprehensive user feedback tool. Businesses looking for a more specialized in-app user feedback tool may need to look at other options such as Userpilot.

HelpScout for user feedback

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What is Userpilot?

Userpilot is a comprehensive digital adoption platform (DAP). It enables product teams to track product usage and user behavior to guide product development and optimize the user experience.

In addition, it allows them to gather user feedback and design personalized onboarding experiences to drive product adoption. All of this is possible without coding.

What is Userpilot best for?

Userpilot is used for similar use cases as HelpScout and Whatfix. Let’s see how Userpilot compares to the tools we discussed before it comes to user onboarding, product adoption, and user feedback.

Userpilot for user onboarding

Userpilot was built specifically for SaaS product teams that want to improve their user onboarding experience and boost user activation.

You can build a huge variety of user onboarding experiences and in-app guidance flows without needing to code.

Userpilot for user onboarding

Here’s what you’ll get when you start using Userpilot:

• Forget about coding in-app experiences: Userpilot is a no-code solution and only requires your dev to install a line of javascript inside your app and for you to download a Chrome extension that opens up the visual builder.
• Build in-app flows using the largest range of UI patterns (modals, slideouts, tooltips, hotspots, banners) and in-app onboarding experiences (checklists, micro surveys, NPS surveys, in-app resource center).
• Get access to a built-in NPS tool for collecting and analyzing user sentiment so you can improve your onboarding process based on real data.
• Create and track combinations of in-app events like clicks, hovers, and form fills, and then analyze all these interactions under your own custom events, which can be built without code or API calls.
• Use advanced product analytics and in-app flows analytics to identify where users need help and create granular user segments to trigger in-app experiences contextually (segment based on user identification data, in-app engagement, custom events, clicks, hovers, form fills, user feedback responses, NPS scores and more).
• Enhance the onboarding experience with in-app help by launching a Resource Center directly inside your app. Add in-app guides, and video tutorials, and give users access to search the knowledge base or reach out to support. Self-service has never been easier.

The best user onboarding is contextual and it happens right where the users need it, inside your app. There isn’t a better user onboarding tool out there that offers more value for the money than Userpilot.

Schedule a demo with our team and get ready to build the best onboarding experiences your users have seen.

Userpilot for product adoption

Product adoption describes the process of getting users to the point where they are experiencing value from your product.

Userpilot is a powerful product adoption platform that enables you to quickly build personalized and contextual in-app experiences targeted to different user experiences – all without writing a line of code.

It’s a great option for enterprise users too since it’s SOC 2 Type II certified and offers robust features for large-scale usage.

Userpilot for product adoption

Here are some of Userpilot’s product adoption features that you may find helpful:

• A broad range of UI patterns to build fully customizable, contextual, and interactive in-app flows: modals, slideouts, tooltips, hotspots, driven actions, banners, and more. And – most importantly – you are not limited by plan when it comes to how many UI patterns or designs you can build.
• Advanced in-app checklists with built-in gamification elements like progress bars or ”automatically marked complete” tasks: checklists also come with analytics so you can track who is interacting with them and how.
• Fully interactive walkthroughs walk users through engaging and adopting specific features of your app.
• The self-service in-app resource center lets users search your knowledge base directly inside the app, access chat, and support but also launch guides and tutorials when they get stuck.
• User feedback tools allow you to collect insights to improve the product and the user experience, thus leading to a higher product adoption rate. You can also collect NPS data and tag responses to uncover patterns into what makes users stick, or build micro surveys for more granular data. Then you can use all the feedback collected to build user segments based on the answers and personalize the path to higher product adoption for each segment.

Want to see Userpilot in action? Get a demo and improve product adoption with contextual and personalized in-app flows that actually help users.

Userpilot for user feedback

In short, with Userpilot, you can:

• Collect and track (NPS) in-app with a built-in NPS widget that allows you to fully customize the survey look and feel, and set the trigger frequency and specific targeting.
• Analyze NPS scores, tag responses, and use the data to create specific user segments.
• Build and trigger in-app micro surveys like the classic PMF survey, or similar ones and mix multi-choice and open-ended types of questions to collect specific insights.
• Be in charge of who gets which survey type and when with advanced segmentation capabilities, and of course, you can use the answers to segment your audience.

Userpilot for user feedback.

The advantage of using Userpilot for collecting feedback over other survey tools is that you can better control who sees the surveys but also you can instantly use the data collected to segment your user base and trigger the right experience for them.

For instance, if your users give you a low NPS score because they think you’re missing a critical feature (that you actually have already), you can push an interactive walkthrough guiding them to find and explore this feature.

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Which tool should you choose?

As you can see, both Whatfix, HelpScout, and Userpilot cater to most of the use cases Product Managers typically look for in their SaaS companies. There are some differences between the tools when it comes to how those use cases are executed in each, of course. So if you’re still on the fence – there are two more factors that can make a difference for you – the tools’ pricing, and its reviews. Let’s have a look at both below!

Whatfix pricing

Whatfix pricing

Whatfix doesn’t have any pricing plans on its website. Instead, you’ll need to speak with one of their team members to get a custom quote tailored to your needs and organization.

Otherwise, you can request a free trial to see if Whatfix works for you.

HelpScout pricing

HelpScout pricing

HelpScout offers three pricing plans, each with different features and capabilities:

• Standard: The Standard plan is priced at $20 per user per month when billed annually, or $25 per user per month when billed monthly. This plan has some limitations to it such as 2 mailboxes, 1 docs site, and a limit of 25 users. It also comes with in-app messaging with separate pricing if you have more than 2000 unique viewers.
• Plus: The Plus plan is priced at $40 per user per month when billed annually, or $50 per user per month when billed monthly. This plan includes all the features of the Standard plan, plus advanced reporting, automation workflows, and integrations with popular apps like Salesforce and Jira. Add-ons are available
• Company: The Company plan is designed for larger businesses and is billed only annually at $65 per user. This plan includes all the features of the Plus plan, plus personalized onboarding, a dedicated account manager, and enterprise-level security and compliance.

Additionally, HelpScout offers a 15-day free trial, so businesses can test out the platform before committing to a paid plan.

Userpilot pricing

Userpilot offers great value for money compared to other similar tools on the market. Even its entry-level plan (Traction) provides all the necessary features without any usage limit.

The price-to-feature ratio is the best for Userpilot. Other cheaper tools in the market would definitely not fulfill your needs, and others like Pendo would be out of budget. Userpilot sits in that sweet spot. – Saurav S.

The pricing differentiation happens mostly on the service level (e.g. custom domain hosting, dedicated Customer Success Manager, SLA) and is based on the number of Monthly Active Users (MAUs) your company has.

Here’s the detailed Userpilot pricing:

What users say about Whatfix, HelpScout & Userpilot

Now let’s consider user reviews for a better understanding of how these products meet customer needs and exceed their expectations.

Whatfix reviews

Whatfix review

Whatfix review

HelpScout reviews

HelpScout review

HelpScout review

Userpilot reviews

Userpilot review

Userpilot review

Pros & Cons of Whatfix, HelpScout, and Userpilot

Whatfix pros

There are many advantages when it comes to choosing Whatfix. Here are its pros.

• Easy to create flows, even for non-technical team members.
• Allows you to develop knowledge bases for self-help solutions.
• Ideal for both customer and employee onboarding.

Whatfix cons

But at the same time, Whatfix has some cons so it’s better to get an overview if you’re thinking of buying it:

• User experience issues, including bugs and sometimes spotty customer service.
• Fewer analytical features and views than you might like.
• Lacks in-depth style customizations.
• It’s difficult to integrate some of the scripted code in the admin integration sections without the help of a Whatfix support team member.
• No free trial option despite it being stated on the homepage.
• It’s targeted at enterprise accounts so small companies might get ignored.

HelpScout pros

HelpScout’s various tools and features make it easy to provide excellent customer support, while its affordable pricing plans make it accessible to businesses of all sizes. Here are some of the pros of using HelpScout:

• Easy to use and user-friendly interface: HelpScout’s layout and design make it simple to manage and organize customer interactions, which can save you time and reduce confusion.
• Affordable pricing plans, with user-based options: HelpScout offers pricing plans that are based on the number of users, starting from $20 per user per month when billed annually. This makes it a cost-effective option for businesses that need to keep their expenses under control.
• Seamless integrations with popular tools: HelpScout integrates seamlessly with 50+ popular tools. This means businesses can use HelpScout alongside their existing tools and workflows, making it easy to integrate into their existing infrastructure.

HelpScout cons

While HelpScout has many pros, like any software platform, there are also some potential drawbacks to consider. Here are some cons to using HelpScout:

• Lacks the straightforward ticketing feature that most alternatives offer.
• The reporting can be limited to what your needs as a growing company may be. Trying to get the reports emailed and importing information to other services can be a challenge. You may need to use several means of documenting and collecting data for your customers based on what they want to hear about and see the data for.
• Merging tickets can also be a bit confusing as it will sometimes change the profile name but the previous email addresses will remain so when you send, things can go to the wrong party.

Userpilot pros

Userpilot has a number of advantages, especially for mid-market SaaS companies looking for a robust but at the same time very easy-to-use, no-code tool for user onboarding, product adoption, and simplified product analytics. Let’s have a look at the pros of using Userpilot:

• No-code builder – Userpilot comes with an easy-to-use Chrome Extension builder.
• Multiple UI patterns – choose from a range of options to build customized flows: modals, slideouts, banners, tooltips, hotspots, and checklists are all at your disposal
• UI patterns are not limited by plan – you get access to all of them on every single plan, meaning you get value even with the Traction plan (this is the entry-level one).
• Engaging walkthroughs and onboarding flows- build interactive walkthroughs targeted to distinct user segments.
• In-app help – build a resource center offering self-service support to your users, customize it with your branding, and select from a range of help options to boost user satisfaction (i.e. videos, in-app flows, chat, and more).
• Experimentation – built-in A/B testing for flows lets you explore and quickly iterate based on direct user behavior.
• Powerful feedback options- integrated NPS surveys with analytics and response tagging unlock insight into how your users feel.
• Advanced analytics and segmentation- analyze product usage and in-app flow engagement and build user segments using the data.
• Event tracking and feature tags- tag UI engagement (clicks, form fills, hovers) and group them into one custom event to track what really matters.
• More value with integrations- unlock value faster with built-in integrations with popular tools like Segment, Amplitude, Mixpanel, Kissmetrics, Intercom, Heap, and more.

Userpilot cons

There are, however, some downsides to Userpilot as well:

• Browser/web app only – Userpilot won’t run on mobile devices/applications.
• Doesn’t support employee onboarding- The tool is better suited for customer onboarding than for employee onboarding as you can’t build in-app guides on third-party tools.
• Missing integrations – doesn’t have built-in integrations with some tools, but it has webhooks, and Hubspot and Zapier are coming soon.
• Not appropriate for small startups on a shoestring budget (<$100)- Userpilot is a powerful, mid-market to enterprise-level tool. So $249 a month might be too expensive for really small startups.

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Conclusion

In this post, we’ve discussed how Whatfix, HelpScout, and Userpilot compare when it comes to user onboarding, product adoption, and user feedback. We’ve discussed their features for each use case, pricing, and reviews, as well as the pros and cons. Hopefully, you’ve found these detailed descriptions helpful. Obviously, we’re a little biased, but we think that Userpilot offers the best value for money, and is unrivaled especially when it comes to user onboarding. Hopefully, you’d like to give Userpilot a chance – see you in the demo soon!