Appcues vs. Pendo.io

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Appcues
Score 7.4 out of 10
N/A
Appcues is online software for creating in-product experiences such as user onboarding, feature announcements, etc. without writing any code. (The vendor believes it's the non-technical people who oftentimes have the best information about a software user's needs and desires.) The goal of using Appcues is to improve product engagement within the user's own customer base.
$299
per month/billed monthly
Pendo.io
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Pendo.io is a product engagement platform with features for in-app analytics, surveys and feedback, and guidance.N/A
Pricing
AppcuesPendo.io
Editions & Modules
Essentials
$299
per month/billed monthly
Growth
$879
per month/billed annually
Enterprise
Contact sales team
*Free
Free
Base
Contact sales team
Core
Contact sales team
Pulse
Contact sales team
Ultimate
Contact sales team
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
AppcuesPendo.io
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
AppcuesPendo.io
Considered Both Products
Appcues
Chose Appcues
One of the things we really loved about Appcues that ultimately led us to go with them is that it has a two-way integration with Heap Analytics. We are big fans of Heap, so being able to create user segments in Heap and push them over to Appcues to show modals to was a huge …
Chose Appcues
Appcues is much more affordable than WalkMe and Pendo from our research. We were previously using Intercom, however Intercom was designed more for purely in-app messaging rather than actually providing flows and cues guiding users throughout an app. We also received lots of …
Pendo.io
Chose Pendo.io
I prefer Pendo strongly to all the above competitors. We came from WalkMe and it was a nightmare of a tool, slow, horrible analytics, no real SFDC integration, and an unintuitive guide builder. I found Pendo's analytics much easier to understand than Appcues and Totango isn't …
Chose Pendo.io
I found Pendo.io to be more robust and easier to use....but more expensive.
Chose Pendo.io
We used WalkMe for a couple of years, but because we are a single page application we had difficulty with the implementation crashing our site. WalkMe also uses cookies to track users, so every time one of our customers cleared his or her cache, they would receive announcements …
Chose Pendo.io
Easy to implement and set up. Strong track record of success (arguably market leader), including validation through case studies, and through G2Crowd and TrustRadius reviews. The Zendesk integration is great -- users won't have to hop out of the app to access knowledgebase …
Chose Pendo.io
This option was cheaper, but it showed. We selected Pendo for their wide range of diverse features and their superior understanding of the data that drives ROI. In addition, we love that the Pendo team holds frequent webinars that help to train end users and add value to the …
Best Alternatives
AppcuesPendo.io
Small Businesses
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Score 8.7 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
ChurnZero
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Score 8.7 out of 10
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Score 8.7 out of 10
Enterprises
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Score 7.5 out of 10
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Score 7.5 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
AppcuesPendo.io
Likelihood to Recommend
7.7
(7 ratings)
8.5
(130 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(6 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
7.9
(43 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(5 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(2 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
AppcuesPendo.io
Likelihood to Recommend
Appcues
It is well suited for SaaS products or services that have a highly complex user interface. Through Appcues, you can ensure that people discover all the existing and new features and make them understand the value of your product as soon as possible to address the evergreen issue of churn. But if your user interface is really messed up, you should change the product itself instead of using a tool like Appcues to explain everything on the screen.
Read full review
Pendo.io
Pendo.io is useful in generating great dashboards that present user analytics in the best possible view that could be used for analysis & derive key insights on what could be done if there's a feature that's not being recognized by end users or if there are any pain points where users are struggling more around a workflow which is technically not that difficult. Pendo.io also can be used to create impactful guides where intercatoin of a user with the Guide can be created in less steps & have relevant information about that workflow that the user is completing. Pendo.io's resource center can act as a one stop hub to present any sidewide updates which could be information of Prod releases, New KB Articles, Register to any event, & much more. Segments can be created in as many variation as one can. In fact, Segments are the ruling property or feature that works so handy, which reduces a lot of iterative work.
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Pros
Appcues
  • As a whole, Appcues is very easy to use.
  • You can build templates to easily style future modal windows and tooltips.
  • They have great customer service! Any time I've had a question our support rep always gets back to me with solutions.
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Pendo.io
  • NPS Surveys
  • Feature usage insights
  • Identifying user behaviors using Replay feature
  • Clearly segmenting users in a way we want it to be
  • Identifying time spent on a feature/product to better understand what customers actually use
  • Documentation, in-app guides and help section
Read full review
Cons
Appcues
  • We were extremely surprised that there are not any Appcues used in Appcues. The app is pretty easy to use, once you figure out how to use it. There were not any type of tutorials when we logged in that quickly walked through how to setup a flow.
  • Appcues has lots of support articles, however they are almost so numerous that it was hard to find simple onboarding documentation that we found useful.
  • The different tooltips and product actions are great, but being able to customize the different cues a little bit more by changing sizes and aspect ratios could be an improvement.
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Pendo.io
  • Dashboard is sometimes very slow to load
  • Preview is problematic if the Pendo.io user doesn't have access to the target environment or application where the guide is going to display
  • It would be ideal to have a gallery of thumbnail images of previously used guides to select from, either to pull a screen capture or to use as a template. It's cumbersome to go to the guides, find the one you want, click on Preview, etc.
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Likelihood to Renew
Appcues
No answers on this topic
Pendo.io
We have had an excellent experience with Pendo. When we've had questions or concerns, Pendo is very quick to respond and communicate with us. We have experienced top-notch customer support and customer engagement. We have actually modeled some of our implementation and product processes after Pendo's examples.
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Usability
Appcues
No answers on this topic
Pendo.io
It is intuitive for core tasks like tracking feature usage, building Guides, and viewing dashboards. The interface is clean and well structured, making it easy for product managers and operational teams to get value quickly without heavy technical support. However, there is a noticeable learning curve when setting up advanced custom events, reports, or integrations, which can take some time and internal knowledge-sharing to master.
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Reliability and Availability
Appcues
No answers on this topic
Pendo.io
Every time I have logged into Pendo, the service has been available for me to use. The page has never been down when I am trying to get info from there.
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Performance
Appcues
No answers on this topic
Pendo.io
Everything loads fairly quickly and it's not slow. I don't use an integration, I log in straight in the webpage.
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Support Rating
Appcues
No answers on this topic
Pendo.io
They've been great anytime that we have needed help with something. They also have some really great help articles. We're able to figure most things out through their articles, but when we've had to call in they've been very helpful and we haven't had any problems. I'd highly recommend working with them.
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Online Training
Appcues
No answers on this topic
Pendo.io
The training schedule was well thought out and tailored to meet our needs. Chantelle stayed with us through the whole implementation and made sure that we were good to go.
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Implementation Rating
Appcues
No answers on this topic
Pendo.io
Use Segment to install and cut developers out of the work cycle!
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Alternatives Considered
Appcues
It has a much, much better user interface, better customer care, and of course better pricing. This along with the fact that they were very accommodating for our use case ensured we went ahead with Appcues.
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Pendo.io
I have just very superficial experience with Google Analytics but I do believe that Pendo.io is a much much better tool in pretty much all aspects of it. It has a ton more features and capabilities and even for the capabilities where there is overlap, Pendo seems to come out ahead easily. There are aspects that Pendo could improve for sure such as what metadata it captures from the users; an example of this is screen resolution which Google Analytics captures but Pendo does not.
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Scalability
Appcues
No answers on this topic
Pendo.io
The system is pretty flexible and scalable, I have used it in different browsers and devices without issues.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Appcues
  • Appcues has allowed us to quickly deploy user help features that target specific users, audiences, even customers with very little effort.
  • Appcues has helped gain user traction by providing helpful tooltips, tours, and other rich content, reducing the first-time user learning curve.
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Pendo.io
  • Reducing development time with in-app guides and resource center, with product management being able to agilely create guides in real time, this could be as much as 1 full time developer in savings.
  • Reducing business time scoping "rock fetches" than are proven to be invaluable based on analytics, each time 1 single piece of analtical data saves around ~20 hours across multiple resources.
  • Increasing user satisfaction with in-app guides and resource center
  • Increasing usage of key features through targetted messaging, those key features either drive costs ou of our business or add value to customers business.
Read full review
ScreenShots