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10 Best Digital Adoption Platforms To Explore In 2023

Digital Adoption Platform Shortlist

Here’s the list of the tools that I’ll cover in this article.

  1. 1. Apty — Discover pain points within your tech stack
  2. 2. Whatfix — Full-featured DAP
  3. 3. Appcues — DAP with user personalization features
  4. 4. WalkMe — DAP software to maximize investment value
  5. 5. Usetiful — DAP with tools for quickly implementing software help
  6. 6. Product Fruits — Product adoption tool with WYSIWYG editor
  7. 7. Minerva — AI-powered DAP
  8. 8. AppLearn — Tool with various modules to improve adoption
  9. 9. Inline Manual — DAP with easy-to-use visual tour builder
  10. 10. Stonly — Add product tours to your knowledge base

Even the easiest-to-use software can be tough for new users to get to grips with. Many businesses try to get around this with employee training and in-person onboarding programs, but these are costly to run and often ineffective.

A better option is to use digital adoption platforms (DAP) to provide help from within the app. This guides users through software features while they use them.

Companies use these tools for two distinct reasons. The first is to provide onboarding experiences for the various tools their employees use while at work. Using DAPs in this way ensures organizations make the most of the $700 billion spent annually on digital adoption. 

The second is that software companies use the tools to create teaching experiences for their customers. This increases the speed at which users find value, making them less likely to churn.

In this article, we'll look at ten of the best digital adoption platforms currently available for both use cases. We'll also highlight what makes each tool so special.

Comparison Criteria

What do I look for when I select the best digital adoption platform software solution? Here’s a summary of my evaluation criteria: 

  1. User Interface (UI): A clean user interface is important for both software users and the people creating the learning experiences.
  2. Usability: These tools have no-code features that make it easy for anyone to build useful content.
  3. Integrations: Digital adoption tools should integrate with the software you want to build experiences for. They may also integrate with general business tools.
  4. Value for $: These tools have high business value. Depending on how you use them, they either increase the value of your software investment or help you keep users for longer. But, you still need to choose one at a price point that makes sense for your business.

Digital Adoption Tool Key Features

Here are some of the key features I look for when choosing digital adoption software. 

  1. Product tours: Product tours guide users through your software features from within the app.
  2. Checklists: Checklists keep track of the tasks users need to do to complete onboarding of new technology.
  3. Analytics: Analytics features let you track how people use your app. Use this data to build learning experiences for pain points or track the impact of your efforts. 
  4. No-Code builders: No-code, visual builders make it easy for anyone in your team to create learning experiences for your app.

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Overviews Of The 10 Best Digital Adoption Platforms

Here’s a brief description of each digital adoption solution to showcase each tool’s best use case, some noteworthy features, and screenshots to give a snapshot of the user interface.

1

Apty

Discover pain points within your tech stack

Apty is digital adoption software that helps get your employees up to speed with new technologies. This ensures you get the most from your software investment.The tool has plenty of analytics features. Managers can see how employees use the software and which business processes work.

You can see technology adoption and how this changes over time. The tool will even highlight the specific points that are causing issues.When you spot a point of friction, it’s easy to create in-app help that guides people past these barriers. This improves employee onboarding, new product adoption, and how people use your existing tools.

The tool works with any web-based application, meaning you can use it across your tech stack.

The company doesn’t advertise pricing, but you can contact the team for a quote via the website.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.8 107

Pricing upon request

2

Whatfix

Full-featured DAP

Whatfix is a digital adoption platform that promises to streamline how people use your product. You can use it with both employees and customers. The software has several helpful features. Flows help you create product tours that are targeted toward specific user segments.

Use these alongside in-app task lists to get users up to speed with your tool. Beacons are another useful feature—these allow your product team to highlight specific features, for example, new releases or updates. Or you can use in-app pop ups with videos to communicate information to all users, while surveys allow you to collect customer opinions without dedicated customer feedback software.

The final feature is knowledge bases. You can build these directly into the app so that users can easily access all they need to use your product.

Thanks to the browser plugin that works with Chrome and Firefox, all these features are easy to use. And you can customize all the content so that it matches your branding.

Whatfix doesn’t advertise pricing, but you can contact the company for a quote.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.6 194

Free Trial

Pricing Upon Request

3

Appcues

DAP with user personalization features

Appcues is easy-to-use software that lets you build onboarding flows. It uses no-code tools so anyone can create workflows and publish them within a day.The tool has personalization features so you can build customized journeys. For example, you can create different onboarding workflows depending on the user’s role in the company.

You can show a designer the most relevant features, while leading a manager through the features someone in their role is most likely to use.The tool lets you create checklists with a progress bar that shows customers how far into the onboarding process they are. This automatically updates as they complete more tasks, so they can see exactly how far they have come on their journey with your product.

There are also features designed for introducing users to product updates and new functionality. For example, you can create introductions and product flows to quickly get people up to speed, then add further information via the announcement center.

Appcues starts at $299 per month for up to 2,500 monthly active users. You can get started for free on the website.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.7 173

From $249/month (billed annually)

4

WalkMe

DAP software to maximize investment value

WalkMe is a digital adoption tool with plenty of features to help you teach employees about your software.The biggest draw is that you can build on-screen experiences that guide users through each step in a process. This helps your team get up to speed with new software or features.

WalkMe also has powerful analytics and reporting. These tools show user behavior such as how long people use different tools and the places where they struggle. Use this to see underutilized apps and build help flows to increase engagement. The tool is easy to use—the no-code platform lets anyone in your team build learning experiences.

It also integrates with plenty of other tools to increase the data you collect. And you can use the tool with any app that uses Amazon Web Services.

The company doesn’t provide pricing, but you can request a quote via the website.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.5 129

Free demo

From $2-3000/annually

5

Usetiful

DAP with tools for quickly implementing software help

Usetiful is digital adoption software with plenty of features to help people get up to speed with your tools. It’s used for onboarding, customer self-service help, and feature adoption. The onboarding features help customers see the value of your tools faster. This can, in turn, lead to a reduction in churn. Create a product tour that guides them through the setup process and include a checklist so they get everything done.

You can also use these tours to guide people through new features and updates.The tool makes it easy to get started. You can begin with one-off smart tips to quickly provide help if you don’t have time to create a full onboarding sequence. Just use it to highlight essential information about your product’s most important features.

The product tours are easy to create using the Usetiful no-code tools. They use a visual interface, so it’s easy for anyone to create flows, and then you use the customization tools to match the tour with your branding. You can also easily review tours with the browser extension to make real-time improvements. Another helpful feature is the ability to create different product tours for user segments, device types, or pages.

This ensures everyone gets the most relevant help content. It’s easy to integrate your tours with your product by adding a code snippet. Pricing starts at $29 per month with a free trial. There’s also a completely free version that allows you to create a single product tour.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.8 25

Free trial

From $29 per month

6

Product Fruits

Product adoption tool with WYSIWYG editor

Product Fruits has plenty of tools to help increase product adoption. These features include product walkthroughs, tips and tricks, and the ability to deliver release notes for further context into updates. One feature I like is the ability to create onboarding checklists that work alongside your product tours.

Make a list of all the tasks you need customers to take, and then add a progress bar that fills in as they complete them. Both checklists and tours are easy to create using the what you see is what you get (WYSIWYG) editor. They also look great when complete, and you can add images, links, and text to help clarify your points.

Product Fruits pricing starts at $79 per month for up to 1,500 users. Grab a 14-day free trial on the website.

14 days free trial

From $79 per month

7

Minerva

AI-powered DAP

Minerva is a digital tool that uses AI to streamline the creation of product help. The key feature is the AI-powered knowledge base. It can create documents for you using the information it collects about common user paths through your product. There’s a browser extension that simplifies the process of creating interactive walkthroughs and guides. Install the plugin and run through the features you want to create a guide for.

The extension will then capture the exact steps you use. The tool also automatically generates help content like instructions and videos. This saves your help team the time it would otherwise take to create this content. If you want to change something, it’s easy to customize this content by editing the copy or removing sensitive information.

Minerva pricing starts at $124 per month. There’s also a free plan that individuals can use to create up to 50 guides.

From $124 per month

8

AppLearn

Tool with various modules to improve adoption

AppLearn is an adoption solution that helps you spot and fix areas where users struggle with software. Use this information to optimize workflows within your app. The tool has several modules that it uses to improve adoption. The analytics module helps you measure data about how people use apps. Use this to see how efficient your existing adoption content is, and then use this information to make improvements.

The tooltips feature allows you to add in-app explainers that show what elements on a page are for. You can group these tips to create sequences that guide users through complex processes. Smart pages is another feature. It lets you create more in-depth informational content that you can use to provide information about features.

This is particularly useful when welcoming a new user or when you release a product update that you need to introduce to users.Tooltips works with both desktop and web apps.

The company doesn’t provide pricing, but you can request a quote via the website.

9

Inline Manual

DAP with easy-to-use visual tour builder

Inline Manual is a digital adoption platform with features for creating in-app walkthroughs, tooltips, surveys, and support articles. Use this for staff training, onboarding, or teaching employees about new tools. In-app walkthroughs are the main feature. Create them with easy-to-use no-code tools—just point-and-click at elements on the screen to create each step.

The result is that it’s easy to build a new walkthrough whenever you identify an issue.The tool has plenty of analytics features. Use these to understand how people are using your software. This is especially useful during onboarding, a time when employees need to take on a lot of new information.

Inline Manual pricing starts at $158 per month for up to 250 monthly active users.

You can try the software for free before committing.

From $158 per month

10

Stonly

Add product tours to your knowledge base

Stonly helps you build interactive guides and tours to educate customers and employees about your app. Use it to help people find value, resolve issues, and succeed with your chosen tools.The digital adoption features include user onboarding and product tools. Create specific versions for different types of users, so everyone gets the help they need. You can also create checklists that help users see and track their progress.

Stonly stands out due to features that go beyond product tours. For example, the agent support tool lets you embed guides and templates within your CRM so agents can solve customer issues faster. And you can create interactive knowledge base articles to improve the self-service support options your customers have available.

You can suggest documents proactively as customers browse your tool or embed product guides within knowledge base articles.

Pricing starts at $124 per month for 2,500 guide views per month. You can test the software with a 14-day free trial.

14 days free trial.

From $99/month (billed annually)

The 10 Best Digital Adoption Platforms Summary

Tool Free Option Price
1
Apty

Discover pain points within your tech stack

Not available

Pricing upon request Visit Website
2
Whatfix

Full-featured DAP

Free Trial

Pricing Upon Request Visit Website
3
Appcues

DAP with user personalization features

Not available

From $249/month (billed annually) Visit Website
4
WalkMe

DAP software to maximize investment value

Free demo

From $2-3000/annually Visit Website
5
Usetiful

DAP with tools for quickly implementing software help

Free trial

From $29 per month Visit Website
6
Product Fruits

Product adoption tool with WYSIWYG editor

14 days free trial

From $79 per month Visit Website
7
Minerva

AI-powered DAP

Not available

From $124 per month Visit Website
8
AppLearn

Tool with various modules to improve adoption

Not available

Visit Website
9
Inline Manual

DAP with easy-to-use visual tour builder

Not available

From $158 per month Visit Website
10
Stonly

Add product tours to your knowledge base

14 days free trial.

From $99/month (billed annually) Visit Website

Need expert help selecting the right Product Management Software?

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It only takes a minute to submit your requirements and they will give you a quick call at no cost or commitment. Based on your needs you’ll receive customized software shortlists listing the best-fitting solutions from their team of software advisors (via phone or email). They can even connect you with your selected vendor choices along with community negotiated discounts. To get started, please complete the form below:

Digital Adoption Software

Here are a few more that didn’t make the top list.

  1. Userlane - Increase your product’s user adoption
  2. Walnut - Build personalized product demos to help with sales
  3. OnScreen - Enterprise digital adoption platform
  4. Baton - Manage software implementation and onboarding
  5. Intellum - Complete toolkit for creating educational experiences
  6. Lemon Learning - Digital adoption tool for users and employees
  7. Userflow - Easily create product onboarding workflows

What Is A Digital Adoption Platform?

A digital adoption platform is a tool with features that encourage people to use the software. It has two main use cases. 

The first is to increase the adoption of the software organizations use in their businesses. This ensures companies get maximum value from software investments and is an essential part of digital transformation. 

The second use case allows software companies to improve the adoption of their tools. It's especially useful for onboarding new customers or educating existing users about new products. Ultimately, it should lead to a better user experience.

You can use your digital adoption platform alongside product experience management software to improve how people use your tools. 

What Do You Think About This List?

This list includes ten of the best digital adoption platforms, plus a few more thrown in for good measure. 

When deciding on a tool, first choose your use case and look for products with the features you need. You can then take advantage of either free trials or demos to find out more.

For more information about product management, sign up for our newsletter. We send out insightful content every week. You can also check out our list of the best product management tools currently available. 

By Ben Aston

I’m Ben Aston, a digital project manager and founder of thedpm.com. I've been in the industry for more than 15 years working in the UK at London’s top digital agencies including Dare, Wunderman, Lowe and DDB. I’ve delivered everything from film to CMS', games to advertising and eCRM to eCommerce sites. I’ve been fortunate enough to work across a wide range of great clients; automotive brands including Land Rover, Volkswagen and Honda; Utility brands including BT, British Gas and Exxon, FMCG brands such as Unilever, and consumer electronics brands including Sony.

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