Top Customer Onboarding Tools for Smooth Product Adoption and Faster Time-to-Value

They say you have only seven seconds to make a first impression when meeting new people. But it's also very much true for new users getting to know your product or clients starting to work with your business.

Offering smooth customer onboarding doesn’t just help you make a good first impression, it also helps your customers adopt your platform and start seeing value faster. As a result, they will be more likely to stay with you longer and lead to renewals in the future.

In this post, we’ll explore the leading customer onboarding software solutions in 2025 for maximizing user engagement and retention (as well as some tips to choose the best client onboarding tool for your specific requirements). So, let’s get to it!

Why do you need onboarding software in the first place?

Proper customer onboarding is crucial to help new clients get quick, tangible value from your product. If handled well, it will facilitate the renewal, leading to higher recurring revenue and customer retention. 

Using client onboarding software allows you to manage each step of this process by automating key touchpoints, monitoring progress, and customizing the customer experience to meet their expectations.

The result? Clients don’t just feel supported and empowered from day one, but they’re also set up for ongoing success. So, by investing in customer onboarding software, you’re not just creating a smoother start for clients — you’re building the foundation for lasting partnerships and future growth.

Top customer onboarding software for maximizing user engagement and retention

From helpful in-app guides to shared action plans and full-fledged client portals, there are a ton of tools to make onboarding smoother for everyone involved. In this section, we’ll walk through the different types of customer onboarding software out there — and which ones are actually worth your time.

In-product onboarding tools

In-product onboarding is the most direct and effective way to give your users a smooth start. These tools guide the users through a step-by-step onboarding process, so there is no confusion when using your product for the first time. The result? Fewer support tickets and better customer retention. 

Here are some of the best customer onboarding software solutions to use in-product.

1. Userlane

Userlane’s Digital Adoption Platform gives users smooth directions in your application. Userlane uses interactive walkthroughs right inside your interface and guides users through real-time tasks. This lowers the training and documentation burdens on your team and reduces time to value for your customers. Userlane also provides statistics on users’ progress and detects whether they have difficulties completing certain tasks, so you can jump in and help them out when needed.

Feature highlights:

• Context-sensitive help — Aside from the in-product tooltips, you can add media-rich pop-ups to suggest useful content based on user activity.
• HEART framework-based analytics — Based on the parameters like happiness, engagement, adoption, retention, and task success, assess product adoption and spot areas for improvement.
• Advanced user segmentation — Create tailored onboarding experiences by segmenting users based on behavior, type, or other metrics, ensuring relevant and timely guidance.

2. UserGuiding

UserGuiding is another self-serve onboarding tool offering in-app product walkthroughs and user guides. Its key selling point is that you can design onboarding flows without involving developers, all by using their Chrome Extension. You can also customize your product tours to adjust them to the user’s activity, add progress bars and checklists to keep them engaged and on track to adopt your product.

Feature highlights:

• In-app self-service help — Create a knowledge base to gather all support resources in one hub and use it to train your AI assistant for in-app self-service help.
• Customer insights — Collect usage analytics and gather customer feedback with in-app surveys to create a data-driven product strategy.‍
• Product changelog — Communicate your product updates effectively with in-app release notes to increase visibility and instantly get valuable feedback.

3. Userflow

Userflow is a rather simple tool for building product tours and onboarding flows with a drag-and-drop interface editor. You can then customize the experience to create fully branded onboarding journeys or break the users into segments and provide specific instructions with conditional actions depending on their actions. Userflow integrates with the popular CRMs and customer collaboration tools as well as external analytics solutions, making it possible to continuously track how users interact with the product.

Feature highlights:

• Drag-and-drop interface — Create seamless onboarding flows with a kanban-style builder and proprietary element selection algorithm.
• A/B testing — Automatically assign users into groups and run experiments using different versions of your onboarding flow and identify the most effective one.
• Localization — Detect the user’s language and translate effortlessly to make their experience even more personal.

Project management tools

Onboarding and implementation can involve multiple stakeholders or even teams, so project management tools help keep everyone aligned and accountable. They help you track every step of the onboarding (along with the due dates and assigned responsibilities) to nothing is omitted and every contributor is informed.

Although we’d strongly recommend using dedicated tools, here are some of the popular solutions teams are using to organize and track their onboarding projects.

4. Process Street

Process Street is an AI-powered process management tool that helps teams share their core processes and transform them into powerful no-code workflows. You can create templates for the standard activities linked to customer acquisition. The tool’s automation capabilities allow you to trigger specific actions based on task completion. In the same way, Process Street enables team cooperation by tracking tasks with no task slipping through the cracks.

Feature highlights:

• Approvals and permissions — Improve compliance and protect your sensitive information by controlling who sees what.
• Unified space — Manage all your existing projects, processes, and tasks in one place.‍
• Process AI — Provide simple instructions and get your process drafted by AI Workflow Generator in seconds.

5. ClickUp

ClickUp is a powerful project management tool that can be used to coordinate and track customer onboarding processes. It allows teams to organize tasks, timelines, and responsibilities in a centralized workspace, helping improve visibility and consistency across onboarding projects. By standardizing workflows and providing tools for collaboration, ClickUp supports teams in delivering a more structured onboarding experience.

Feature highlights:

• Customizable templates – Build and reuse onboarding workflows tailored to different customer segments or product tiers.
• Automations – Eliminate repetitive tasks with automated triggers for task creation, status updates, and reminders.‍
• Client-friendly views – Use shared timelines, dashboards, or forms to keep clients in the loop without giving them access to internal clutter.

6. Asana

Asana is a work management tool often used to organize and monitor customer onboarding workflows. It helps teams break down onboarding into structured tasks, assign ownership, and track progress over time. With a strong focus on simplicity and clarity, Asana is particularly suited for teams looking for a clean, visual way to manage timelines and collaboration across multiple stakeholders.

Feature highlights:

• Timeline view (Gantt-style) – Offer a visual way to map out onboarding milestones and dependencies, making it easier to spot bottlenecks.
• Task dependencies – Ensure that key onboarding steps are completed in the right order, improving coordination between teams.
• Collaborator comments & updates – Streamline communication directly within tasks, helping reduce scattered emails or Slack messages.

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Info collection & sharing tools

A huge part of any onboarding process is collecting customer information and sharing different types of content and resources. To make it easier, onboarding teams rely on a number of tools, from default Google Workspace options to dedicated solutions. Let’s talk about some of the tools that streamline the process of collecting and sharing information during customer onboarding.

7. Content Snare

Content Snare helps you collect the necessary info from your customers easily and manage it in one place. The platform makes it easy for you and your customers to share information in any format, set reminders, and get approvals. It has an intuitive drag-and-drop form editor and a comprehensive dashboard with folders and filters for easy management.

Feature highlights:

• Discussions — Collaborate with your customers in real time to answer any questions they might have.
• Automated reminders — Use built-in templates or create your own emails & schedules to nudge customers when needed.‍
• Data export — Download or sync your data to any other systems you use.

8. Jotform

Jotform is an online form builder with 10,000+ ready-made templates, 200+ integrations, and advanced design features to customize your forms. It can also turn your forms into flows for effortless execution, progress tracking, and task assignments. You can use Jotform to collect your customers' data and integrate your other tools to collect online payments and generate reports.

Feature highlights:

• Customizable form templates – Choose from a wide variety of templates tailored to onboarding, including intake forms, questionnaires, and checklists.
• Conditional logic – Have forms adapt based on user responses, personalizing the experience and collecting only relevant data.
• Integration with other tools – Connect with CRMs, project management platforms, and cloud storage tools to automatically sync submitted data.

9. Docsend

Docsend is a Dropbox tool that helps you securely share and control the content that drives your business forward. Instead of long email threads and multiple attachments, you can simply share your content as a link, get instant feedback, update the documents without sending the new version every time, keep them safe from unauthorized copies, and get engagement insights. Docsend also has an eSignature feature and allows you to create NDAs in just one click.

Feature highlights:

• Real-time document analytics – Tracks how recipients engage with documents, including time spent per page and whether the file is shared further.
• Access control & link permissions – Enables features like email verification, view-only access, expiration dates, and domain restrictions.‍
• Virtual data rooms – Organize multiple documents in a single branded space with consistent access and engagement tracking across materials.

Mutual Action Plan software

Since onboarding typically requires extensive collaboration, mutual action planning is vital for keeping the project and every involved party on track. MAP software helps you align on the objectives (milestones) and expectations (outcomes) both within your team and the customer stakeholders during the implementation. These tools ensure the involved parties are fully aware of expectations in job assignments and their time frame.

10. Notion

Notion is a flexible workspace tool that can be adapted to create and manage mutual action plans (MAPs) during the onboarding process. It enables teams to collaborate with customers in a shared, structured environment that outlines key milestones, responsibilities, and timelines. By combining documentation, task tracking, and embedded content, Notion helps keep both sides aligned and informed throughout the onboarding journey.

Feature highlights:

• Collaborative pages – Create shared pages for internal teams and customers to view and update onboarding plans in real-time.
• Customizable templates – Build standardized MAPs with pre-set sections for goals, timelines, deliverables, and owners.‍
• Embedded content & databases – Notion supports rich media (videos, forms, checklists) and linked databases to help you centralize relevant onboarding resources.

11. Coda

Coda is a flexible document platform that combines text, tables, and app-like functionality in one interface. It’s often used to build mutual action plans that guide the onboarding process by aligning internal teams and customers around shared goals, timelines, and deliverables. With its interactive components and real-time collaboration, Coda allows onboarding plans to become dynamic, living documents rather than static checklists.

Feature highlights:

• Interactive tables & checklists – Embed action items, assign ownership, and track status updates directly within the MAP document.
• Customizable templates with logic – Build reusable MAP frameworks that include automations, reminders, and conditional formatting to guide progress.
• Cross-doc & integrations – Connect onboarding plans to other Coda docs or external tools (e.g., CRMs) for a unified view of customer progress and status.

All-in-one CS platforms

Using multiple tools for every stage of your onboarding process might be challenging (and expensive) at times, especially if you’re already using a separate platform to manage your customer relationships. Luckily, some of the all-in-one CS tools offer features that can help you manage your onboarding processes right within them.

12. Client Success

ClientSuccess is a customer success platform designed to help teams manage the full post-sale lifecycle, including onboarding. It provides a centralized view of customer accounts and onboarding progress, allowing teams to coordinate tasks, track milestones, and ensure alignment across stakeholders.

Feature highlights:

• SuccessCycles – Build predefined onboarding workflows that guide teams through consistent, repeatable processes tailored to each customer segment.
• Timeline & milestone tracking – Stay on top of onboarding progress, key dates, and completed steps across accounts.
• Customer health scores & alerts – Get early visibility into onboarding risk with configurable health metrics and automatic alerts based on engagement or activity levels.

13. Catalyst

Catalyst is a customer success platform that helps teams manage onboarding and other key lifecycle stages by consolidating customer data, tasks, and playbooks into a single interface. It enables customer-facing teams to stay proactive and organized, ensuring a smooth transition from sales to post-sale through clear accountability and visibility.

Feature highlights:

• Onboarding playbooks – Create structured, repeatable workflows that map out onboarding steps, timelines, and responsible team members.
• Task & timeline management – Assign and track onboarding tasks within accounts, with the ability to view progress and upcoming milestones at a glance.‍
• Customer data integrations – Pull in data from tools like Salesforce, product analytics, and support platforms to contextualize onboarding and flag potential issues early.

14. Planhat

Planhat is a customer success platform designed to manage the full customer lifecycle, with onboarding as a key use case. It provides teams with tools to structure onboarding workflows, track progress across accounts, and align internal and external stakeholders. With a focus on flexibility and data integration, Planhat supports both standardized and complex onboarding processes.

Feature highlights:

• Custom Journeys – Visual, configurable workflows that guide teams and customers through tailored onboarding steps based on account type or segment.
• Task & timeline tracking – Track onboarding milestones, assign responsibilities, and monitor progress within each account.
• 360° customer view – Consolidates data from CRM, product usage, support, and billing systems to give teams full context during onboarding and beyond.

Flowla: The only client onboarding software you’ll need

Now, if all those tools sound a bit scattered — that’s because they are. Most teams end up cobbling together a mix of onboarding checklists, project management software, shared docs, emails, and the occasional calendar reminder just to get a customer live. It works… until it doesn’t. Things slip through the cracks. Clients feel lost. And your team wastes time chasing updates instead of adding value.

Flowla flips that script. It gives you a single, shareable place to guide each client through onboarding — while automating all the boring admin that usually eats up your day. From kickoff to go-live, every step is mapped out, personalized, and automated where it counts. Instead of sending a dozen follow-ups, Flowla handles nudges, pulls in the right content, tracks engagement, and makes sure nothing stalls. It’s like your onboarding playbook, project tracker, and client portal — rolled into one smart workspace.

📌 What makes Flowla different? 

• Unified client experience. Share one live link with your customer — everything they need is there: next steps, timelines, documents, videos, contacts.
• Built-in automation. Trigger reminders, next-step messages, and task updates automatically, based on timeline, behavior, or deal stage.
• No-code workflows. Build tailored onboarding flows for each product, segment, or region without needing help from dev or ops.
• Content + collaboration in one place. Embed Looms, PDFs, links, frms, calendars—whatever your team uses — directly into the onboarding journey.
• Clear visibility for everyone. No more “Did they get that?” or “Where are we at?”—you and your clients can track progress in real-time.
• Plays nice with your stack. Integrates with your CRM, LMS, helpdesk, and more to keep things in sync behind the scenes.

So instead of duct-taping five tools together and hoping for the best, you can use Flowla to run onboarding the way it should be — streamlined, scalable, and actually enjoyable for your clients. Whether you're onboarding 10 or 1,000 customers a month, Flowla keeps the experience consistent and the process under control.

Key features to look for in onboarding tools

An onboarding tool will significantly improve your onboarding process, making it smoother, more efficient, and more engaging. But you need to find the right one. There are the main features that you should look for in an onboarding tool that you will select and use.

• Content sharing (and info collection): You must share many documents with your customers during onboarding. So, you should look for a tool that includes content sharing and information collection to efficiently distribute necessary guides and training materials. This will help everyone be on the same page and quickly access the needed documents.
• Task management: An effective onboarding process has a multistep process that includes input from your team and customer. Task management contributes to task clarification to address who should perform what and when to deliver it, facilitating inter-group cooperation. It assists teams in managing the work among their members without feeling that the work may slip from any team member’s sight.
• Progress tracking and dashboards: You need to see the big picture. Visibility on the onboarding journey can help you do this. Identify potential roadblocks early, understand the bottlenecks, and check engagement levels. Based on this big picture, you must make proactive adjustments for a smooth onboarding process.
• Automation: We have repetitive tasks to eliminate, such as sending welcome emails and notifications, collecting documents, notifying stakeholders to complete their assignments, etc. Automation should be your priority to streamline the process and save you time by eliminating manual, repetitive work.
• Templates: After a certain number of customers, creating the documents from scratch can be challenging in terms of time and consistency. So, having pre-built templates (or ones you can edit and save) will standardize your process and save you time. They also come in handy when you have several onboarding processes depending on the customer type or product level.
• Integrations: Even if it is everybody’s dream, we don’t use only one tool; we have multiple to deal with daily. And if you try to sync them manually, it will be a disaster. So, your onboarding tool should do the manual labour for you. It should connect your existing tech stacks, such as CRM, helpdesk, and project management tools, to have all customer information in one place.

Now, with the growing need for efficiency, businesses start leveraging AI-driven onboarding software to enhance client experiences. In 2025, technologies like agentic AI are helping companies move beyond basic task automation. These systems can adapt to client behavior, triggering next steps, surfacing relevant content, and keeping the process moving without constant manual input. 

Client onboarding platforms like Flowla offer the best integration with AI technologies for seamless user experiences in 2025. They incorporate these capabilities to reduce friction, minimize delays, and ensure that both teams and clients stay aligned from day one. With its agentic workflows, Flowla doesn’t just automate tasks — it proactively guides each onboarding journey, triggering the right steps based on client behavior and progress. 

From sending follow-up reminders to surfacing the right content at the right time, AI handles the repetitive admin, so your team can focus on building relationships. The result? A smoother experience for clients and less operational overhead for your team.

How to choose the right onboarding tool

Choosing an onboarding tool is a strategic investment. We’ve understood its importance, key features to consider, and example tools. But are they enough? No, every company has different needs, and you do, too. So, evaluating your options based on your current and future needs is crucial. Here are the four main considerations on how to choose the right onboarding tool:

• Define your onboarding goals: What is your priority? What will you focus on during your onboarding? You should start by defining your goals for the process. You need to think about whether your goal is to minimize routine and perform repetitive tasks, introduce more interaction among colleagues, or track each client’s progress. It is beneficial to define these goals to understand what tools are available regarding the goals you are trying to achieve.
• Consider scalability: Everyone aims for a bigger, right? So, your tools should also follow your lead. When you expand, it should grow, too. While selecting the right onboarding tool, search for the ability to handle an increased customer base, support more complex workflows, and give advanced reporting as you onboard more customers.
• Look at ease of use: An onboarding tool has to be smooth and easy to use. You should consider the interface, the onboarding process, and ease of use. It should have a user-friendly interface so that a newcomer can easily understand the product, and you should easily use it to manage your onboarding process. Don’t forget that a steep learning curve can discourage the customer and limit the effectiveness of your product.
• Check for integrations: The data is the most important thing to ensure continuity and understand what happens during onboarding. Ensure your new onboarding tool is integrated with your CRM, project management software, mail, and any other tool you use. It is important that the tool has lots of integrations, but the most important thing is that it has integration with YOUR tools.

Now, you are ready to rock and roll! Go out there, select your new onboarding tool, and implement it today for smooth product adoption and faster time-to-value.