Pendo

What is pendo

Pendo is a product experience platform that combines product analytics, in‑app guidance, and user feedback to help software teams understand and improve how customers use their applications. It is used by product managers, UX designers, customer success teams, and growth teams to measure behavioral data, create contextual help, and prioritize product work based on actual usage.

The platform collects event and page data through lightweight SDKs for web, iOS, and Android and surfaces that data through dashboards, funnels, retention reports, and user segments. Built‑in tools for creating walkthroughs, tooltips, surveys, and NPS let teams deliver contextual messages without shipping new code.

Pendo also includes user feedback channels and roadmap prioritization features so product teams can tie customer requests to usage metrics. This combination of analytics, guidance, and feedback makes it a single place to monitor adoption, onboard users, and validate the impact of product changes.

Pendo features

Pendo groups its capabilities into three core areas: analytics, in‑app guidance, and feedback. The analytics suite provides page and feature usage metrics, event tracking, funnels, retention cohorts, and product health dashboards. These reports are built around product‑level metrics rather than just marketing or session data, and are oriented to answer questions like which features drive retention and where users get stuck.

The in‑app guidance tools let teams design and deploy tooltips, banners, walkthroughs, and announcement modals without code. These guides can be targeted by segment (for example new users, churn risk, or trial accounts) and can be scheduled, A/B tested, and tracked for engagement. The visual composer and rule engine are intended to let non‑engineering roles iterate on onboarding flows quickly.

On the feedback side, Pendo supports in‑app surveys, NPS collection, and feature voting boards. Feedback items can be linked back to usage data and prioritized in a product roadmap. Additional features include third‑party integrations for CRM and support systems, multi‑workspace support for large orgs, role‑based access controls, and exportable reports for stakeholders.

What does pendo do?

Pendo captures user interactions inside digital products and translates those interactions into actionable metrics. It tracks page views and clicks, maps feature adoption across segments, and surfaces usage anomalies so teams can see where adoption lags or where a UX change had measurable impact.

Beyond measurement, Pendo enables teams to create contextual in‑product experiences: onboarding flows, feature announcements, and help content that appear at the moment of need. Those guides reduce friction by providing the right information in the right place and allow teams to iterate on messaging without code deployments.

Finally, Pendo centralizes customer input by collecting survey responses, NPS scores, and feature requests alongside behavioral data. This linkage helps teams validate feature ideas, prioritize roadmap items, and demonstrate ROI by showing how requested features affect engagement and retention.

Pendo pricing

Pendo offers these pricing plans:

• Free Plan: $0/month for limited analytics and basic guides (typically available for small teams or evaluation)
• Starter: $0–$999/month depending on monthly active users and feature set (entry paid tier that expands event tracking and guide capabilities)
• Professional: $1,000+/month scaled by product MAUs and additional modules like advanced analytics and premium support
• Enterprise: Custom pricing starting higher for large-scale deployments with enterprise security, single sign‑on, and dedicated success resources

Pricing for Pendo is usage‑based and commonly tied to monthly active users (MAU), number of tracked features/events, and optional modules (such as advanced analytics or product feedback). Many customers move from the Free Plan to a paid Starter or Professional tier as their user base grows or when they require SSO, higher data retention, or service level agreements.

Check Pendo's current pricing for the latest rates and enterprise options.

How much is pendo per month

Pendo commonly starts at $0/month for the Free Plan for evaluation and very small teams. Paid starting tiers are typically priced based on MAU and can range into the low‑to‑mid hundreds per month for small products, scaling to $1,000+/month for mid‑sized products that need advanced analytics and guidance features.

Exact monthly cost depends on the number of monthly active users, desired feature modules (analytics, guides, feedback), and support/contract terms. Many organizations negotiate annual contracts that affect effective monthly billing.

To get a precise monthly quote that matches your product usage, request a customized estimate from Pendo's sales team via their pricing page: view Pendo's pricing tiers.

How much is pendo per year

Pendo often costs $0/year for the Free Plan. For paid tiers, annual contracts are common; a small professional account will typically be priced at several thousand dollars per year, while mid‑market and enterprise contracts run into the tens of thousands annually depending on MAU and add‑ons.

Annual billing usually reduces the effective monthly rate and is standard for Enterprise deals that include onboarding, premium support, and higher data retention. Enterprise agreements also commonly include implementation assistance and service credits.

For current yearly pricing and contract options, check Pendo's pricing page or contact sales for an enterprise quote.

How much is pendo in general

Pendo pricing ranges from $0 (free) to $1,000+/month and higher depending on scale and modules. The primary driver of cost is product MAU and the set of features (analytics, guides, feedback) a team chooses. Add‑ons like extended data retention, SSO, or dedicated account management increase the price.

As a rule of thumb, very small teams can evaluate with the Free Plan, growth‑stage products typically budget several thousand dollars per year for the Starter/Professional tiers, and large SaaS vendors plan for five‑figure annual contracts for Enterprise functionality and high‑volume telemetry.

Get an estimate matched to your usage by reviewing Pendo's licensing model and enterprise options.

What is pendo used for

Pendo is used to measure product usage, onboard users faster, reduce support load, and gather customer feedback directly inside the product. Product managers use Pendo to identify which features drive retention and which are underused; designers use it to validate UX changes; customer success teams use it to spot adoption issues and prioritize outreach.

Teams also use Pendo to run targeted in‑app campaigns—such as announcements of new capabilities, contextual help for complex features, and step‑by‑step walkthroughs for onboarding. These campaigns can be targeted to cohorts defined by behavior, account attributes, or custom metadata.

Finally, Pendo is commonly used as a single source of truth for product decisions by combining telemetry, qualitative feedback (surveys and NPS), and a lightweight roadmap that links requests to real usage data. This helps prioritize work toward features that will most improve retention and customer satisfaction.

Pros and cons of Pendo

Pros:

• Pendo centralizes product analytics, in‑app guidance, and feedback in one platform, reducing tool fragmentation.
• The visual guide composer allows non‑developers to publish in‑product experiences quickly.
• Strong segmentation and behavioral analytics help teams measure feature adoption and run experiments.

Cons:

• Pricing scales with MAU, which can be costly for high‑traffic products that need comprehensive telemetry.
• Some advanced analytics and integrations may require paid tiers or custom setup.
• Large organizations may need professional services for complex implementations and governance of many workspaces.

Operational considerations include planning for event naming conventions, ensuring SDKs are installed correctly across platforms, and setting governance for who can publish in‑app messages to avoid message fatigue.

Pendo free trial

Pendo typically offers a Free Plan and time‑limited trials of paid tiers so teams can evaluate analytics and guides on live traffic. The Free Plan usually provides core analytics and basic guides sufficient to validate the platform on a small set of users or product areas.

Trial accounts for paid features often unlock advanced segmentation, longer data retention, and integrations to let teams validate how Pendo fits into their stack. Trials provide an opportunity to test targeted onboarding, measure funnel improvements, and see how feedback flows into roadmap planning.

If you plan a trial, prepare a short list of success metrics such as increased activation rate, reduced time‑to‑first‑value, or NPS lift. That makes post‑trial assessment objective and helps when negotiating a production contract.

Is pendo free

Yes, Pendo offers a Free Plan for basic analytics and limited in‑app guidance intended for evaluation or very small teams. The Free Plan is useful to validate SDK installation, basic event tracking, and simple guides before committing to a paid tier.

For production usage at scale—longer data retention, advanced analytics, SSO, and enterprise support—teams generally upgrade to Starter, Professional, or Enterprise plans that are priced based on usage and feature needs.

Check Pendo's Free Plan and trial options to see current feature limits and eligibility.

Pendo API

Pendo provides REST APIs and SDKs for web, iOS, and Android that allow teams to send user and account metadata, track events, and pull aggregated analytics. The APIs support creating and managing guides, exporting analytics data, and automating targeted segments or campaigns.

Common uses of the API include bulk user updates from an identity provider, exporting event datasets to a data warehouse, automating onboarding workflows, and integrating Pendo segments with CRM or support tools to drive outreach and personalization. Pendo also offers webhooks to notify external systems when key events occur, such as survey responses or guide completions.

For integration with engineering and analytics workflows, Pendo supports server‑side event ingestion patterns and provides SDK instrumentation guidelines to ensure reliable data. Detailed developer documentation and SDK references are available in Pendo's developer portal: view Pendo's developer documentation and API reference.

10 Pendo alternatives

When evaluating Pendo, teams frequently compare it to analytics, in‑app messaging, and user feedback tools. Below are ten alternatives that cover similar capabilities across different price points and focus areas:

• Amplitude — Product analytics with strong behavioral cohorts and funnel analysis, often used for deep behavioral analysis and experimentation.
• Mixpanel — Event‑driven analytics focused on user flows, retention, and A/B testing at scale.
• Heap — Autocapture analytics that records user interactions without manual event instrumentation.
• Appcues — In‑app onboarding and guide creation that competes directly with Pendo’s guidance features.
• WalkMe — Digital adoption platform geared to enterprise onboarding and complex workflows.
• Intercom — Messaging platform that includes product tours and targeted in‑app messages combined with support/chat.
• FullStory — Session replay and experience analytics used to diagnose UX issues and improve conversion.
• Userpilot — Product adoption platform focused on in‑app experiences for onboarding and feature adoption.
• Hotjar — Heatmaps, session recordings, and feedback tools for qualitative UX insights.
• Segment — Customer data foundation that routes product events to analytics and other tools, often used in combination with product platforms.

Paid alternatives to Pendo

• Amplitude: Advanced behavioral analytics and experimentation with enterprise options for data governance and privacy. Useful when you need PB-scale event analysis.
• Mixpanel: Paid plans include sophisticated funnels, retention, and A/B testing; suitable for teams that prioritize event analytics over in‑app messaging.
• Appcues: Focused paid tiers for creating in‑product onboarding flows and checklists with team collaboration features.
• WalkMe: Enterprise digital adoption platform with professional services for complex deployments and compliance needs.
• FullStory: Paid plans that add session replay and advanced search for UX troubleshooting at scale.

Each paid alternative focuses on a subset of Pendo’s combined capabilities — some excel at analytics, others at in‑product messaging or session replay. Choosing between them depends on whether your priority is measurement, messaging, or qualitative debugging.

Open source alternatives to Pendo

• PostHog: Self‑hosted product analytics and feature flagging with event capture and dashboards; good for teams that want control over data.
• Matomo: Open source analytics platform that can be deployed on‑premise for data privacy and compliance needs.
• Countly: Analytics and product engagement platform with enterprise and self‑hosted editions focused on mobile and web apps.
• Sentry (for session context): While primarily an error monitoring tool, Sentry provides session and release context that can complement open product analytics.
• RudderStack (as instrumentation): Open source CDP that can send events to analytics backends and allow building custom product analytics pipelines.

Open source options typically require more engineering investment to match the packaged experience of Pendo but offer greater control over data, retention, and customization.

Frequently asked questions about Pendo

What is Pendo used for?

Pendo is used for product analytics, in‑app guidance, and customer feedback. Teams use it to measure feature adoption, build contextual onboarding, run in‑product surveys, and prioritize features based on actual usage data. It helps link qualitative feedback to quantitative metrics so product decisions are evidence‑based.

Does Pendo integrate with Salesforce?

Yes, Pendo integrates with Salesforce. The integration syncs account and contact metadata so customer success and sales teams can see product usage within CRM records and trigger outreach based on adoption signals.

Can Pendo collect NPS and survey responses?

Yes, Pendo supports in‑app surveys including NPS. You can present survey prompts to specific segments, capture responses, and tie them back to user behavior and account attributes for more informed follow‑up.

Is Pendo suitable for mobile apps?

Yes, Pendo supports mobile SDKs for iOS and Android. Mobile teams can track events, create in‑app guides for native apps, and measure retention and engagement across platforms, though some advanced guide types may vary in capability compared to web.

How secure is Pendo?

Pendo offers enterprise security controls and compliance options. Features typically include SSO support, role‑based access controls, and options for data residency and SOC/ISO compliance on enterprise plans; confirm specifics and certifications on Pendo’s security pages.

Does Pendo offer a free version?

Yes, Pendo provides a Free Plan for basic analytics and limited guides. The free tier is intended for evaluation and small teams; production use at scale generally requires a paid plan for extended retention and advanced features.

Can Pendo be used for A/B testing?

Pendo supports A/B testing of in‑app guides and messages. For product experiments that change underlying code or UI, teams often pair Pendo with a feature‑flagging or experimentation platform to manage variants and metric tracking.

How do I instrument events in Pendo?

Pendo uses SDKs for instrumentation and also supports autocapture for many events. Best practice is to define an event naming convention, implement SDKs in web or mobile, and validate events in the Pendo dashboard to ensure consistent analytics.

Can I export Pendo data to a data warehouse?

Yes, Pendo supports data export and integrations for warehousing. Teams typically export event data, segmentation metadata, and survey results to their analytics warehouse or BI tools for long‑term storage and cross‑tool analysis.

Does Pendo offer role‑based access and multi‑workspace support?

Yes, Pendo includes role‑based access controls and multi‑workspace capabilities on paid tiers. Larger organizations use these controls to separate product lines, enforce governance, and give appropriate access to stakeholders across business units.

pendo careers

Pendo hires across product, engineering, design, sales, and customer success disciplines. Typical roles include product managers experienced in analytics and UX, software engineers for SDK and backend work, and customer success managers who specialize in onboarding and adoption strategy.

Company career pages and job boards list openings with location and remote flexibility; Pendo often posts roles on their corporate site and on major recruiting platforms. For up‑to‑date openings and role descriptions see Pendo’s careers page: view Pendo careers and openings.

pendo affiliate

Pendo runs partner and integration programs that include technology partners, consulting firms, and resellers. The partner programs provide co‑selling resources, implementation training, and joint marketing opportunities for agencies and systems integrators that help customers deploy Pendo at scale.

If you are an agency or solutions provider interested in referrals or implementation partnerships, Pendo maintains partner enrollment information and benefits within their partnerships portal. Check Pendo partnerships for program details.

Where to find pendo reviews

Customer reviews and independent evaluations of Pendo can be found on software review sites like G2, Capterra, and TrustRadius, where users rate analytics, ease of use, and support. Look for review entries that describe sample use cases, implementation time, and long‑term ROI to get realistic expectations.

For vendor‑provided case studies and customer stories, browse Pendo’s customer pages to see how similar companies measure value and outcomes with the platform: read Pendo customer case studies.