User onboarding

You worked hard to get new customers in the door—don’t blow it with a sub-par onboarding experience.

We tapped our network of PLG experts and stuffed this page full of actionable resources to make your job easier: easy-to-follow templates, user onboarding videos (with cats🐱), and IRL examples from expert interviews.

"Delightful idea. Genius, too. A new user onboarding checklist where completing the steps gets you extra days added to your free trial. 🤌 (Props to Deputy for the cool UX and shoutout to Appcues for including this example in their Product Adoption Academy course, User Onboarding 101.)"

Meagan Campbell

Content Lead, Idea Factory

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Get schooled (and certified) in user onboarding with a course

Becoming a pro at user onboarding starts with a solid grasp of the fundamentals. Learn from our instructional courses and videos—designed to be comprehensive and actionable.

User Onboarding 101

This comprehensive course is perfect for newbies getting the lay of the land and experienced folks alike. Whether you’re starting from scratch or revising existing work, you’ll walk away feeling prepared and energized to give your new users the welcome they deserve.

Free-to-Paid Conversion

Learn a proven framework to turn more of your free users into paying customers. After taking this course, you’ll know how to build a well-designed upgrade path to engage and convert free users. We’ll also provide benchmarks, real examples, actionable tips, and best practices.

Value-First Onboarding

In this course, we’ll clear up misconceptions about what user engagement, explain why it’s so crucial to your product’s success, and walk through our best practices for improving user engagement.

Andrew Capland

Former Head of Growth at Postscript & Wistia

Watch (and learn) bite-sized user onboarding lessons

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What is user onboarding? 🤔

A great user onboarding experience can make or break your product's success! In this video, you'll learn what user onboarding is, how it differs from product tours and app walkthroughs, and why it's so important to habit formation and product adoption.

How to find your product's "Aha!" moment in 3 steps

8 user onboarding metrics you should be measuring

6 user onboarding best practices to boost your activation and retention

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Hear firsthand stories from experts who've been in your shoes

Can't get buy-in? Have limited resources? 🫠 Get the inside scoop straight from the experts on how they overcame challenges to build click-worthy product experiences.

Mural's playful onboarding: the art of education and delight

Mural’s VP of Product Growth walks through their user onboarding process, how they infuse play into their product experience, and how they worked backward from retention to define success.

How Thinkific nailed their user onboarding with jobs-to-be-done checklists

An in-depth look at how Thinkific used insights from early successful customers to define their JTBD and streamline their onboarding experience.

Here's what the experts have to say about user onboarding

Mastering the Art of SaaS Onboarding: Overcoming Challenges and Driving Success!

🔑🌐 Online Signup: Simplify the user experience by implementing an easy and intuitive online signup process. Make it a breeze for users to get started and eliminate any unnecessary friction.

⚡️🤖 Automate Provision: Manual setups can be time-consuming and prone to errors. Streamline the process by automating the provisioning of your product. This will save time and ensure a seamless onboarding experience.

🚀🔍 In-App Navigation Guides: Guide your users through the product's features and functionalities with in-app navigation guides. Highlight the key areas and provide step-by-step instructions to help them get up and running smoothly. 📚....

Dave Rigotti

Co-Founder & Growth/Marketing Inflection

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51.6% of new users who start our trial just want to explore.

After launching our new trial intent-based experience 2 weeks ago, we have learned:
- Some want to get a tour based on their specific use case.
- Some want to start building an experience.
- Some want to install on their product.

But the majority just want to take a look around. On their own terms. At their own pace.

So how do you support folks who don’t want to follow a predefined path?...

Meg Gowell

Former Growth Marketing, Appcues

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New user onboarding is one of the most powerful pieces of product-led growth. But, most people don't know how to fix it.

The best way to improve your product's onboarding experience? Get closer to your users.

When I led the growth team at Wistia, we spent tons of time on the new user onboarding flow. We ran dozens of experiments inside the product to improve our activation rate. But we always felt it could be better. After a while, we weren't sure how.

Then, we started a team ritual that changed everything...FullStory Friday’s.

Every Friday we would order lunch, hop in a conference room, and watch 20 real people use the product for the first time....

Andrew Capland

PLG Advisor, Former Head of Growth at Wistia and Postscript

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A HUGE onboarding mistake I see too often—having one journey for new users that tries to be everything for everyone!

It's like going to a grocery store, and someone just starts pointing out every item in every aisle to you...A better approach?

Ask what they're in the store for today! If they want milk, bring them to the dairy section. If they want burgers, point them to the frozen aisle.

This way, guests get to what they want quicker.

Similarly, asking new users their goals upfront can help show them value quicker...

Ramli John

Author of Product-Led Onboarding

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Activation rates below the SaaS average (25 - 33%)? Here are proven methods from customers and PLG experts (that aren’t just re-do your onboarding experience)

⭐️ Show value earlier in the buyer journey

Don’t wait until users are in app to show them your product aha moments. Use videos, interactive demos, or gifs on your website so users know what they are signing up for. Our data shows 1 in every 4 people will interact with ungated product experiences on your website.

⭐️ Make sure you are measuring the right activation rate

The easiest way to not see success is to measure the wrong goal. Make sure your activation metric accurately reflects healthy users...

Natalie Marcotullio

Head of Growth and Operations, Navattic

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User onboarding is one of the most critical elements of any product-led business.

To craft an effortless experience, you need to make it:
- Effortless to signup
- Effortless to experience value
- Effortless to upgrade

But how on earth do you do that?

One of the easiest ways to craft an effortless experience is to deploy the Blowing Alley Framework

The Bowling Alley Framework was created to help you onboard users faster. Yet, what most people don’t know is that it’s one of the best frameworks out there to craft effortless experiences for your users...

Wes Bush

CEO & Founder, ProductLed

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Get started with our easy-to-follow templates and tools 🛠️

Time to put those lessons into practice. Save yourself some time and effort by using one of our ready-to-use templates or tools.

User onboarding flow audit template

An outline of the necessary steps new users must take to reach each milestone in their journey toward becoming regular users.

User onboarding checklist

A 17-point user onboarding checklist to take stock of your current onboarding experience.

Customer onboarding template

Everything you need to get your onboarding process off the ground, including images, examples, and expert advice.

user onboarding cost calculator

Building a user onboarding solution in-house is doable, but at what cost?

Use our calculator to find out (arguably more fun than that TI-83 you used in high school.)