Appcues vs WalkMe

Appcues is a product adoption platform from a Boston-based company founded in 2013, and one of the tools that defined the in-app onboarding category. Product and growth teams use it to build onboarding flows, tooltips, modals, checklists, banners, launchpads and NPS surveys on top of a web or mobile app without asking engineers to ship each change.

Experiences are created in a Chrome-based builder for web and through SDKs for iOS, Android, React Native and Flutter on mobile. Targeting uses user properties and tracked events, goals measure whether a flow actually moved people to the next step, and integrations with Segment, HubSpot, Salesforce, Amplitude and Mixpanel push and pull data both ways. Newer workflow features add email and push so one journey can reach users inside and outside the product. Pricing is annual and scales with monthly active users; there is no free plan, and the Start tier covers web flows while multichannel, surveys and deeper integrations sit on Grow and Enterprise.

Appcues fits growth-stage SaaS companies that have an activation problem, a budget for tooling and a mobile app to cover. Early-stage teams usually find it expensive: UserGuiding and Product Fruits cover web onboarding for far less, Userpilot adds stronger built-in analytics, and Pendo bundles adoption with full product analytics for larger organizations. Design customization also has limits that teams with strict brand systems sometimes hit.

WalkMe is a digital adoption platform (DAP) that places guidance, automation and analytics on top of web and desktop applications. It was founded in 2011 in Tel Aviv, Israel, by Dan Adika, Rafael Sweary and Eyal Cohen and was acquired by SAP for an equity value of about $1.5 billion in a deal completed in September 2024. Its core job is helping employees and customers finish tasks in complex software such as Salesforce, Workday, SAP SuccessFactors, ServiceNow and Microsoft Dynamics 365 without formal training.

The no-code WalkMe Editor builds walk-throughs, tooltips, launchers and surveys. Analytics cover feature and workflow adoption, form drop-off, which apps employees actually use (Discovery) and unused licenses. WalkMe AI adds pinned, proactive and on-demand assistance. Pricing is quote-only and sold as two packages: one for employees with Discovery, workflow automation and SAP GUI support, and one for customer-facing apps and websites.

WalkMe fits large enterprises rolling out ERP, CRM or HR systems to thousands of employees, especially SAP customers. It is expensive, and implementation usually needs dedicated builders or services. Whatfix is the closest enterprise rival, Pendo pairs in-app guides with stronger product analytics, and Appcues or UserGuiding are far cheaper for product onboarding.

As an SAP company WalkMe now pitches itself as the layer that makes enterprise AI work, with a new agentic experience where admins ask for adoption insights in plain language. Ask for a pilot scoped to one or two apps.