Whatfix vs WalkMe: Which is Better for Interactive User Guides?
Is Whatfix or WalkMe the best tool for interactive user guides? Is there a better in-app onboarding software that would better fit your needs?
With so many alternatives on review sites, it’s a bit tricky to choose one.
You need to consider your priorities and what functionality you’ll need from the tool to get the job done. Then there’s also the price that needs to match your budget. Right?
In this post, we’ll discuss exactly that – what the perfect tool for creating interactive user guides should deliver and which will be the best choice for your company’s needs.
Let’s dive in!
TL;DR
- Let’s explore how Whatfix and WalkMe compare when it comes to creating interactive user guides.
- Interactive user guides — whether in the form of linear product tours or interactive walkthroughs — can streamline the product adoption process for new users. Whatfix lets you build interactive user guides with task lists and smart tips on multiple platforms.
- WalkMe offers various features to help you design and implement interactive user guides. These include: Smart Walk-Thrus, SmartTips and ShoutOuts, WalkMe Menu, and User segmentation.
- If you’re looking for a better option for creating interactive user guides, Userpilot exceeds both functionality and value for money compared to other tools on the list.
- Userpilot is a product growth platform that drives user activation, feature adoption, and expansion revenue. It also helps product teams collect user feedback, streamline onboarding, and gather actionable insights from analytics. Get a Userpilot demo and drive your product growth code-free.
Userpilot – A Better Alternative for Building Interactive User Guides
What is an interactive user guide?
An interactive user guide is a set of UI patterns designed to work together and help customers understand how to use your product.
There are two main types of user guides: full product tours (which tend to be more detailed and time-consuming), and interactive manuals (using tooltips and real-time guidance to provide more contextual help to your customers).
Interactive user manuals are an excellent way of engaging and educating your users, helping them to get the most out of your product, and improving user onboarding and feature adoption.
Must have features for interactive user guide tools
Not all tools are built the same. Some offer different advantages over others while some will simply get you basic functionality but at a low price. It depends on your budget and needs which will be the best tool to build interactive user guides.
Here’s what to look for as the main functionalities when picking a tool to build in-app guides:
- Good range of UI patterns to use for building your guides.
- Ability to customize each interactive guide to fit your brand and style.
- Segmentation so you could trigger the guides to the right audience at the right time. A one-size-fits-all approach won’t bring you the desired results.
- The ability to trigger the user guides when specific in-app events happen is nice to have and will help you build more contextual in-app experiences.
- Minimum product usage analytics, to be able to track how users engage with the product, and where they get stuck so you can build relevant user guides to help them.
The above list is not exhaustive but it’s a starting point. Depending on your product, you might also need automated localization, A/B testing capabilities, advanced analytics or security, and more.
Whatfix for creating interactive user guides
Interactive user guides — whether in the form of linear product tours or interactive walkthroughs — can streamline the product adoption process for new users. Whatfix lets you build interactive user guides with task lists and smart tips on multiple platforms.
Here’s an overview of Whatfix’s interactive guide capabilities:
- Task Lists: Task lists are Whatfix’s version of an onboarding checklist. This feature will display a targeted list to give new users a clear view of what their next steps should be. You can also set the task list to always display on-screen until every task is complete.
- Smart Tips: Whatfix’s smart tip functionality lets you embed contextual guidance within the UI of an application. These could consist of tooltips that expand when interacted with or input validation for information entered on text fields.
- Mobile Guides: Whatfix Mobile lets you build interactive flows for customers or employees who are using applications on a mobile device. This ensures that users get the same Whatfix onboarding experience regardless of which platform they’re on.
No-code product tours in Whatfix
Whatfix’s digital adoption platform may be separate from its product analytics solution. Still, it does offer a well-rounded feature set for building no-code product tours, task lists, and smart tips that help new customers/employees learn about a product.
- Product Tour: Whatfix lets you use custom pop-ups that greet customers, brief employees, and lead into an interactive tour of the product’s core functionality. You’ll also be able to embed multimedia — such as microvideos — that help with onboarding and adoption.
- Task List: Whatfix’s task lists (essentially onboarding checklists) give each customer or employee a tailored list of in-app flows that they should complete before proceeding. You can even tweak the settings to keep the task list visible until all tasks have been completed.
- Smart Tips: The smart tips feature shows contextual guidance within the UI of a particular product. For instance, this could be a tooltip that expands when customers use a specific feature. These smart tips can also be used to validate text field inputs from users.
In-app messaging in Whatfix
In-app messaging helps you keep users engaged and provides an opportunity for sharing important updates. Whatfix uses in-app flows, contextual help embeds, and a self-help widget to help you share key messages with your users.
- In-App Guidance: Whatfix’s no-code flows and product tours are the primary means of communicating with employees or customers using an application. Whatfix lets you create pop-ups, task lists, and various UI patterns for guiding users through the adoption process.
- Contextual Help: Whatfix contextual help embeds let you insert guidance within the UI of a product to ensure users have easy access to key information when they need it most. These could include tooltips that expand when users interact with them.
- Self-Help: The self-help widget is always present on the right side of your users’ screens. This lets every customer or employee easily search for product documentation or other resources that they might need while using a specific application.
WalkMe for creating interactive user guides
User guides are crucial to maximizing feature adoption and product usage. They can also empower users with self-service support and reduce ticket volume.
WalkMe offers various features to help you design and implement interactive user guides. These include:
- Smart Walk-Thrus – You can use these to provide users with step-by-step instructions on how to navigate your product or use a particular feature.
- SmartTips and ShoutOuts – These UI patterns come in handy when you want to provide more detailed on-screen guidance.
- WalkMe Menu – You can use this widget to give users one-click access to various guides. You can also create a checklist of steps they have to complete for a particular task.
- User segmentation – With this feature, you can segment users into different groups based on their behavior and preferences. Then, you can create personalized user guides for each segment.
No-code product tours in WalkMe
Product tours are one of the most common functionalities you’d expect from a digital adoption platform. WalkMe lets you build interactive and personalized product walkthroughs with the Smart Walk-Thrus feature.
Here’s how you can build remarkable product tours with Smart Walk-Thrus:
- Provide step-by-step instructions to guide new users as they navigate your product. Each step uses tip balloons to highlight specific features or UI elements and explain how to use them or the next steps a user should take.
- Create personalized journeys by controlling the flow of product tours based on user behavior and action.
- Use ShoutOuts to communicate crucial information about different features or highlight CTAs within a product tour.
However, you’ll need some coding knowledge to create and implement Smart Walk-Thrus. If you’re looking for a platform that delivers on the promise of a no-code builder, Userpilot would be a better choice.
In-app messaging in WalkMe
Besides product tours and user guides, WalkMe lets you create a wide array of in-app messages to educate, inform, and delight users. You can even compel them to take the desired action and follow a series of steps with such messages. The feature that facilitates in-app messaging is ShoutOuts.
Here are the various applications for in-app messages with ShoutOuts:
- Make important announcements about layout changes, new features, scheduled maintenance, and membership updates. Pre-designed templates in the ShoutOut Theme Gallery can be particularly helpful here.
- Define events (user actions) that trigger specific ShoutOuts, and set the frequency of each announcement to avoid overwhelming users.
- Add CTA buttons and links to videos, knowledge base articles, blog posts, etc., to prompt users to take action.
- Monitor the ShoutOut dashboard to track various metrics, such as how many times a ShoutOut was played or how often users clicked the CTA button. These insights can help you understand how users interact with different in-app messages. The analytics are fairly basic, though.
Pros and cons of Whatfix
Whatfix is priced lower than its closest competitor (WalkMe) while letting you onboard both customers and employees to software applications. That said, there are a few clear scenarios where you might want to look for alternative solutions:
- If you’re the type of customer who wants to “try before they buy”, then Whatfix isn’t going to be the right fit. The trial request form on their website is buggy, you’ll need to wait a month to hear back on your request, and you might end up with a demo instead of a trial.
- Many customers have complained about the subpar support that Whatfix offers. There are multiple reviews on websites like G2 citing slow resolution times, high success manager turnover, and an overall lack of technical assistance from the Whatfix team.
- Despite claiming to be built for enterprise organizations, Whatfix’s analytics capabilities leave much to be desired. If you’re looking for advanced analytics capabilities, then find alternatives like WalkMe, Userpilot, or Appcues.
Pros of Whatfix
Whatfix may not be as popular or widely adopted as competitors like WalkMe but it does have its fair share of benefits:
- Pricing: While Whatfix does not publish the exact cost of its plans publicly, numerous reports from customers suggest an average entry point of $1,000/month. This is significantly cheaper than its closest competitor, WalkMe, which reportedly starts at closer to $10,000/month.
- Automation: Whatfix Flows helps you automate repetitive tasks to save time. The Whatfix Flows dashboard also lets you analyze your existing flows and then use them to create entirely new automation in a single click.
- Integrations: Whatfix’s third-party integration options make it easy to incorporate the solution into the rest of your tech stack. It integrates with Salesforce, Amplitude, Google Analytics, Slack, and more — providing a good selection of the top CRM, analytics, and communication tools.
Cons of Whatfix
Whatfix offers a more affordable employee onboarding solution than its closest competitors but is limited by its lackluster analytics and support — along with its high-friction trial signup process for prospective customers.
Here are the key drawbacks of using Whatfix:
- Whatfix is quite lacking in the analytics department — both in comparison to direct competitors like WalkMe as well as other onboarding solutions like Userpilot, Appcues, or Pendo. If detailed user data matters to you, you’ll want to consider alternatives.
- Technical assistance (or the lack thereof) is arguably one of Whatfix’s largest weaknesses. While all plans promise to give you a customer success manager, most Whatfix users complain about the subpar support they provide.
- While Whatfix has a trial request page on its website, this form is buggy and inconsistent. You can reach out to support to request a trial directly but resolution times can be upwards of a month — and, in the end, you may even be redirected to a demo call instead of a trial account.
Userpilot – A Better Alternative for Building Interactive User Guides
Pros and cons of WalkMe
WalkMe ticks a lot of the right boxes if you’re looking for a digital adoption platform that’s intuitive and scalable. However, business requirements can vary and that could mean that WalkMe might not be the right fit for you. Here are three reasons why you may need to opt for a WalkMe alternative:
- You have a low budget: WalkMe is purpose-built for enterprises and it shows in its pricing. You can expect the cost to go into thousands of dollars annually. If your business doesn’t have a huge budget, it might be better to opt for another platform.
- You want to get started quickly: If you want a platform that offers near-plug-and-play functionality, you’re better off choosing another digital adoption platform as WalkMe has a moderate learning curve.
- You don’t want to work with CSS/HTML: Even though WalkMe is marketed as a no-code/low-code platform, there are some aspects where you’ll need CSS/HTML knowledge for customizations. If you want a fully no-code solution, you’re better off opting for an alternative.
Pros of WalkMe
WalkMe is among the most popular platforms out there for digital adoption, especially for enterprises. It’s got a range of useful features that businesses can leverage to create in-app engagements, track user behavior, and retain customers, among other things. Here are the pros of using WalkMe:
- Multiple in-app engagements: Offers a bunch of in-app engagement options, including product tours, tooltips, help widgets, onboarding checklists, and more. Using them well can help you engage your customers.
- User-friendliness: The platform is quite user-friendly in terms of creating in-app engagements. And while it does have a moderate learning curve as a whole, it becomes easy to use once you get the hang of it.
- Lots of analytics: WalkMe provides in-depth analytics on a range of things like in-app engagements and forms to help you understand the impact that they’re creating. This helps you optimize your strategies for better results.
- Workflow automation: Workflow automation features like onboarding automation stand out as they enable you to automate a series of steps and processes like clicking buttons to make your customer experience better.
- Community: WalkMe offers a strong community of experts and partners who can help you whenever you get stuck.
Cons of WalkMe
While WalkMe has a bunch of good things to offer that make it one of the leading digital adoption platforms out there, it does have a few drawbacks that prevent you from unlocking its full potential. Let’s take a look at some of the cons of this platform:
- Coding knowledge: Even though WalkMe is no-code/low-code for most of its functions, you’ll need to know HTML or CSS to make the most out of the platform.
- Challenging on complex sites: The process of implementing WalkMe on your website depends on the complexity of your site. You might find it challenging to ensure that your content behaves the way it should if you’ve got a complicated website.
- Focused on employees: WalkMe’s primary use case lies in digital adoption for employees, even though it has a specific plan for customers. However, this makes it slightly weaker compared to other platforms that have been dedicatedly built for customers.
Whatfix vs WalkMe: Which one fits your budget?
Understanding the cost implications is paramount when selecting the right solution for creating interactive user guides, so here’s a detailed pricing comparison of Whatfix and WalkMe.
Pricing of Whatfix
Whatfix doesn’t have public pricing listed on its website. It also charges separately for its product analytics solution but we won’t be going over those plans since we’re focusing on the digital adoption platform.
Here’s an overview of the three plans available for Whatfix web:
- Standard: This includes core features like in-app guidance, contextual guidance, a multi-media knowledge base, and content aggregation capabilities. It also includes access to pre-built surveys and up to two integrations.
- Premium: This includes additional features such as automatic content localization, automated flow testing, unlimited integrations, and single sign-on (SSO). You’ll also be able to build custom surveys while on the Premium plan.
- Pro: This includes the features from previous plans as well as enterprise-exclusive options such as self-hosting. This plan is targeted towards customer-facing applications with a million or more users.
Pricing of WalkMe
WalkMe’s pricing isn’t transparent, but it’s fully customizable based on your requirements. It offers a bunch of useful features like analytics, a self-serve content creation engine, in-app engagement creation, and more.
However, you need to get in touch with their team to find pricing details for both the customer and employee versions. Considering the platform is specifically built for enterprises, you can expect the cost to be on the higher end. You could end up spending anywhere between $9000 to $50,000 per year if you choose to use WalkMe.
Userpilot – A better alternative for building interactive user guides
Userpilot is a product growth platform that drives user activation, feature adoption, and expansion revenue. It also helps product teams collect user feedback, streamline onboarding, and gather actionable insights from analytics.
With Userpilot, you’ll be able to track both product usage and user behavior to get a holistic view of how customers use your product — which will guide future development, improve the user experience, and inform your growth efforts.
No-code product tours in Userpilot
Product tours are an effective way to show new users what a product can do and reduce the time-to-value (TTV) for them. Userpilot lets you build advanced product tours, set contextual triggers, and target specific audiences, all without writing a single line of code.
Here are the Userpilot features that you can use to build a product tour for your users:
- Flow builder: Userpilot’s no-code flow builder has a variety of UI patterns to choose from, such as modals, slideouts, tooltips, and driven actions. All UI patterns are available for use regardless of which Userpilot plan you’re on. All you need to do is install the Chrome extension.
- Contextual triggers: Userpilot lets you set triggers for your flows to ensure that they appear at the most contextual moments. Flows could be triggered when users land on a specific page or when a tracked event occurs. There are also manual triggering options that you can tinker with.
- Audience targeting: Userpilot’s audience targeting setting lets you set the conditions needed for a flow to show up for a specific user. You can use these settings to create flows that target a specific segment or exclude certain users from seeing a flow if certain conditions are met.
In-app messaging in Userpilot
In-app messaging enables communication within your product to onboard new users or drive feature adoption among existing customers.
Here are a few ways you can send in-app messages using Userpilot:
- Modals: Userpilot lets you use modals to send unmissable in-app messages to your users. Simply choose from one of the six templates or create a new modal from scratch. You’ll be able to use text, emojis, images, and videos to help your modals get the message across to users.
- Banners: Userpilot banners can be used to send in-app messages that are urgent but don’t need to take up the entire screen. You can also add blocks with text, emojis, images, videos, forms, custom JavaScript functions, and more to style banners to your liking.
- Tooltips: They are the least intrusive form of in-app messaging as they only show up when users hover over an element or click on an info icon. You’ll be able to adjust the height, shape, color, and placement of tooltips to make them native-like.
Pricing of Userpilot
Userpilot’s transparent pricing ranges from $249/month on the entry-level end to an Enterprise tier for larger companies.
Furthermore, Userpilot’s entry-level plan includes access to all UI patterns and should include everything that most mid-market SaaS businesses need to get started.
Userpilot has three paid plans to choose from:
- Starter: The entry-level Starter plan starts at $249/month and includes features like segmentation, product analytics, reporting, user engagement, NPS feedback, and customization.
- Growth: The Growth plan starts at $749/month and includes features like resource centers, advanced event-based triggers, unlimited feature tagging, AI-powered content localization, EU hosting options, and a dedicated customer success manager.
- Enterprise: The Enterprise plan uses custom pricing and includes all the features from Starter + Growth plus custom roles/permissions, access to premium integrations, priority support, custom contract, SLA, SAML SSO, activity logs, security audit, and compliance (SOC 2/GDPR).
What do users say about Userpilot?
Most users laud Userpilot for its versatile feature set, ease of use, and responsive support team:
I recently had the pleasure of using Userpilot, and I must say it exceeded all my expectations. As a product manager, I’m always on the lookout for tools that can enhance user onboarding and improve overall user experience. Userpilot not only delivered on these fronts but also went above and beyond with its impressive new features, unparalleled ease of use, and truly exceptional customer support.
What truly sets Userpilot apart is its outstanding customer support. Throughout my journey with Userpilot, the support team has been responsive, knowledgeable, and genuinely dedicated to helping me succeed. Whenever I had a question or encountered an issue, their support team was always there to assist promptly, going above and beyond to ensure my concerns were addressed effectively.
Source: G2.
Of course, other users are also kind enough to share constructive criticism regarding specific features like event tracking filters:
“The filtration while analyzing specific events is a little confusing. Understanding of custom properties and data management configuration could have been more organised.”
Source: G2.
Conclusion
This is the end of our thorough comparison between Whatfix and WalkMe. You should be able to make a confident decision by now. If you’re looking for a solid tool for building interactive user guides that promises great value for money, give Userpilot a go. Book a demo today.
Userpilot – A Better Alternative for Building Interactive User Guides
