The best onboarding tool depends on the work your customer needs to complete. A team coordinating a three-month implementation needs something different from a product team helping a new user connect an integration in five minutes.
Start with the outcome, identify where users get stuck, then test the same real workflow in your shortlisted tools. Compare the experience your customer gets and the work your team will own after launch.
This guide is published by Candu. We explain where Candu fits, alongside other approaches worth evaluating.
First, choose the kind of onboarding you need
“Customer onboarding software” covers several categories. A shared implementation plan coordinates people and deadlines. An in-app checklist helps someone finish setup. Product analytics shows where users drop off. An assistant answers questions or helps with a task. Your company may need more than one.
Coordinate an implementation across customer and internal teams
- What to evaluate: Implementation project management and customer portals
- Question to ask in a demo: Can both sides see owners, dependencies, deadlines and blockers?
Help a new user complete a workflow in your app
- What to evaluate: In-app guidance, tours and onboarding checklists
- Question to ask in a demo: Can the guidance respond to the user’s actual progress?
Build a personalized getting-started page or replace an empty state
- What to evaluate: Embedded content and interface builders
- Question to ask in a demo: Can we build the complete layout we need and show different next steps by account or role?
Understand activation and retention across the product
- What to evaluate: Product analytics, with guidance if you want a combined platform
- Question to ask in a demo: Can we measure the activation event and compare the right cohorts?
Answer questions or help users complete tasks in context
- What to evaluate: Customer-facing assistants and action integrations
- Question to ask in a demo: What can the assistant actually do, with which permissions and confirmations?
If you already use product analytics, include that in your brief. You may want guidance that works with your existing events and segments, rather than another analytics platform to maintain.
Define activation before comparing features
Write down one useful result a new user should reach. For a support platform, that could be connecting a support channel and handling the first conversation. For a reporting product, it could be connecting a data source and sharing the first report.
Then identify the steps, data and permissions that result requires. An invitation email, a completed tour and a checked box are useful signals, but they do not establish that the customer has received value.
A practical evaluation brief is: “Help a new workspace administrator connect the right integration, skip steps already completed and reach the first useful result. Show us how you would measure it.” Give each vendor the same brief.
Compare the complete workflow
1. Installation and ongoing engineering work
Ask what your engineers must install and what data you need to send. Distinguish the initial setup from day-to-day content changes. Test your authentication, single-page navigation, relevant frameworks and supported devices.
Have the person who will own onboarding make an edit during the trial. Record where they need engineering help, including after the underlying product changes.
2. The right format for the job
A short tour can explain an unfamiliar control. A checklist can organize several setup tasks. An embedded getting-started page can keep the next useful action visible. Use the format that helps the customer finish the work.
Test the actual layout, not just a screenshot. Check spacing, typography, keyboard use, phone behavior and what happens when content grows.
Embedded content is a shared capability across several vendors. Appcues documents inline Embeds, and Pendo offers embedded guides. A useful comparison tests the layouts, data and publishing workflow you need, rather than assuming either product supports overlays alone.
3. Targeting and trustworthy completion
Test at least two roles or account types. Can a user on one plan see a different next step? Does someone who has already connected an integration skip that task? Can your onboarding update when a relevant event arrives?
For a checklist, distinguish opening a step from completing the underlying task. Ask how completion is stored, whether it survives a return visit, and what happens when progress belongs to an account rather than one person.
4. Review, publishing and maintenance
Build and preview with test users before release. Ask who can edit, approve and publish, how changes are reviewed, and how to restore a previous version.
Change a button label or move the target element in your test app. Check whether the guidance continues to work, flags the problem or fails silently. Make the ongoing owner and maintenance process part of the purchase decision.
5. Outcome measurement
Measure whether eligible users reach the activation event, how long it takes and where they stop. Keep views, clicks and tour completion as supporting measures.
If you run an experiment, define the audience, comparison group and time window before launch. Compare like-for-like cohorts and account for other product or pricing changes. A higher activation rate after launch is a useful observation; attributing it to onboarding needs stronger evidence.
A practical shortlist by buying situation
Use these starting points to organize a trial. They are examples of different approaches, rather than an independent ranking or a claim that one vendor is best for every company.
You need tours, checklists and contextual in-app guidance
- Examples to inspect:Appcues, Userflow, Userpilot, Candu
- What should decide the trial: Build speed, targeting, design fit, actual completion behavior and maintenance
You want product analytics and guidance in one platform
- Examples to inspect:Pendo, Userpilot
- What should decide the trial: The depth of analytics you need, data migration and overlap with your current stack
You want personalized content embedded inside an existing product
- Examples to inspect:Candu; compare the relevant Appcues Embeds and Pendo embedded-guide workflows too
- What should decide the trial: The exact layout, data, responsive behavior and review process your team needs
You want guidance inside an assistant you already have
- Examples to inspect:Frigade Assist API, alongside integrations supported by your current assistant
- What should decide the trial: Keep-or-replace requirements, implementation work, live context and action permissions
Your team wants AI help building and improving guidance
- Examples to inspect:Chameleon Copilot, Userpilot AI, and each shortlisted vendor’s supported creation workflow
- What should decide the trial: What can be drafted, edited, previewed and published today, and where a person must approve
Choose an implementation platform instead if your main problem is coordinating project owners, dependencies and go-live dates across companies. Choose a developer-owned approach if your engineers need to own the interface and behavior directly. A guidance tool is one part of either setup.
Where Candu fits
Candu helps B2B SaaS teams create personalized onboarding, guidance and embedded product experiences. It supports tours and modals as well as embedded content such as checklists, homepages and empty states. The relevant formats depend on your plan.
Include Candu in a trial when your product or growth team wants to shape the in-product experience and show different next steps to different users. Evaluate it against your own layout, targeting and measurement requirements. It does not replace an implementation project-management system or every part of a product analytics stack.
See onboarding checklists, the editor and current plans.
What useful customer evidence looks like
In Candu’s published Gorgias customer story, the team describes a personalized homepage for customers without a dedicated customer success manager. It used Segment data to show relevant integration and getting-started prompts.
The story reports a 17% increase in integration activations. It does not document the measurement dates, sample size, comparison group or whether that figure represents a relative increase. Treat it as a reported customer result, rather than a forecast for your own trial.
Ask every vendor for evidence close to your use case and for the measurement behind it. Then define the result your own evaluation must establish.
Compare total cost at your expected usage
Ask each vendor what it counts as an active user, what happens at higher usage and which features require a different plan. Include implementation, integrations, analytics overlap, team access and maintenance in the comparison.
Candu includes unlimited editors and prices end-user usage by monthly active users. That does not mean unlimited end users. Use the current pricing page for plan inclusions and a usage estimate, rather than relying on an older comparison table.
Bring these questions to your trial
- Can the intended owner build and edit our real onboarding experience?
- Does it use the right user and account data, including completed steps?
- Does it work in our app on the devices our customers use?
- Can we preview, review, publish and restore changes with clear ownership?
- Can we measure the activation outcome using our existing stack?
- What breaks when the product changes, and who fixes it?
- What will it cost at today’s usage and at the next realistic stage of growth?
For AI features, add one more question: “Is this assistant helping our team build onboarding, helping customers use the product, or both?” Ask for the exact workflow to be demonstrated, including approvals, limitations and the final saved or published state.
Frequently asked questions
Can we build onboarding without engineering?
Many tools support ongoing content changes by product, growth or customer teams. Initial installation, identity, events and integration work may still need engineering. Test both parts before buying.
Do we need to replace our analytics?
That depends on the tool and your requirements. If your current analytics already measures activation well, evaluate whether guidance can use its events and segments. If you want a combined platform, include migration effort and reporting needs in the trial.
Are embedded pages better than tours?
They solve different problems. Embedded pages can make next steps available where users work; a tour can guide an unfamiliar sequence. Test the format against the task and the user’s context.
What should count as onboarding success?
Define the useful result the customer should reach, then measure completion of that result and time to reach it. Use checklist and tour engagement to explain progress, rather than making engagement the entire goal.
Test one real onboarding job with Candu
Bring the setup task your users struggle with, the data you already have and the result you want to measure. Book a demo to see how Candu would approach it.
