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You built a great product. But users sign up and never come back. Sound familiar?
Most free user onboarding tools solve this problem without breaking your budget. You don't need expensive enterprise software to guide new users through your app.
Bad onboarding kills SaaS businesses. Studies show 40-60% of users who sign up for free trials use the product once and never return.
You lose them in the first five minutes. They can't find the value you promised.
Good onboarding tools share three traits:
Skip tools that require developers for basic changes. You need to update onboarding flows quickly as you learn.
Sunboard gives you product tours, knowledge base management, and onboarding checklists. The free tier handles 50 users per month.
Setup takes 10 minutes. Add their script to your app. Create your first tour using their visual editor.
Best for: Solo founders and small teams who want all onboarding features in one tool.
Product Fruits offers a forever-free plan with basic features. You get simple tooltips and tours for small user bases.
The free version limits customization options. But it works well for testing onboarding concepts. After that their plans start at $96/month.
Best for: Bootstrapped startups testing their first onboarding flow.
While not permanently free, Appcues offers a generous trial period. Use it to validate your onboarding strategy before committing to paid tools.
After the trial, prices start at $299/month. Most small businesses can't justify this cost.
Best for: Testing enterprise features before choosing a long-term solution.
Many "open source" onboarding libraries require commercial licenses. Intro.js costs $299 for commercial use. Shepherd.js has similar restrictions.
Always check the license before building with open source tools. GPL and similar licenses often restrict commercial use.
MIT and Apache licenses usually allow free commercial use. Read the fine print.
New users have limited patience. Show them value in 3-5 steps maximum.
Example: Slack gets users chatting within 2 minutes. They skip everything else until later.
Different users need different paths. A developer using your API needs different guidance than a marketing manager.
Create separate flows based on user type. Ask one question during signup to segment them.
First-day onboarding isn't enough. Users need help discovering advanced features over time.
Send targeted emails based on feature usage. Show in-app tips when users are ready for more.
Sometimes the simplest solution works best. Build basic onboarding with free tools:
This approach takes more time but costs nothing. Many successful products started this way.
Ask yourself these questions:
Most solo founders start with Sunboard's free tier. It handles everything without code and scales to 50 users.
Teams with developers might build custom solutions. You trade development time for full control.
ConvertKit reduced churn by 15% with interactive tours. They guided users to send their first email within minutes.
Canva increased activation by 10% using onboarding checklists. New users knew exactly which features to try first.
These companies started small. They focused on user success before scaling.
Pick one approach and implement it this week:
Option 1: Use Sunboard's free tier for quick results
Option 2: Build simple CSS tooltips for basic guidance
Option 3: Try Product Fruits' free plan for testing
Start with a simple 3-step tour:
Measure completion rates. Improve the steps where users drop off.
Truly free onboarding tools are rare. Most have hidden costs or strict limitations.
But you don't need perfection to start. Even basic tooltips beat no guidance at all.
Choose the simplest solution that solves your problem today. Upgrade when growth demands it.
Your users are waiting for help. Give it to them before they give up on your product.