Pendo is free to 500 monthly active users, then quoted on request. HelpHero covers 1,000 for $55 a month, on a price you can read today.
Last updated 6 August 2026
Pendo gives a lot away. Its free plan includes product analytics and in-app guides for up to 500 monthly active users, which is a real offer rather than a trial in disguise.
The question this page is about is what happens next. Pendo's own pricing page says that once you pass 500 MAU you cannot create new guides, NPS surveys or segments until you upgrade, and the plan above free carries no published price. So the cap is not a gentle nudge toward a bigger invoice: it is the point where building stops and a sales conversation starts.
HelpHero's first paid tier covers 1,000 monthly active users for $55 a month. That is double Pendo's free ceiling, every feature is on every plan, and the number is on the pricing page. What HelpHero does not do is the analytics half of Pendo, and that difference runs through the rest of this page.
Choose HelpHero if…
You have outgrown, or expect to outgrow, 500 monthly active users, you want tours and checklists rather than an analytics platform, and you would rather read a price than request one.
Product analytics is a main reason you are buying, you want session replay, roadmaps and NPS in the same system, or your product is small enough that the free plan covers it comfortably.
HelpHero vs Pendo at a glance
Feature
HelpHero
Pendo
Product tours, checklists & hotspots
Yes
Yes
Published price above the free plan
Every tier on our pricing page
Base, Core and Ultimate quoted on request
Free plan
14 day trial instead
Up to 500 MAU
Build guides past 500 MAU without a quote
From $55 / month
Free plan blocks new guides at the cap
Support on the entry plan
Email and chat on every plan
Free is self-serve
Unlimited tours & team members
Every plan
Not published above Free
Product analytics across your app
Via your own analytics tool
On every plan, including Free
Session replay
No
Core and Ultimate only
Built-in NPS & surveys
Embed your own survey tool
Pendo-branded on Free
Roadmaps & product discovery
No
Pendo-branded roadmaps on Free
No vendor branding on what users see
Every plan
Free plan brands roadmaps and NPS
Starting price
$55 / month
Free to 500 MAU, then quoted
Pendo details are quoted from pendo.io as checked on 6 August 2026 and may have changed since. Verify current details on their own site.
01Overlap
Where the two meet
Set the analytics aside and there is a real patch of shared ground: the in-app guidance itself. On that patch the two products want the same things.
In-app product tours, walkthroughs and guides
Onboarding checklists to structure the first session
Tooltips and hotspots that point at real elements
A code-free editor anyone on the team can use
Audience targeting and segmentation rules
Theming so guidance matches your product
Analytics on how the guidance you publish performs
Installs into an existing web app without rebuilding it
Outside that patch the two diverge, and the differences are more about scope and about what you can find out before committing than about the quality of the tours.
What happens at 500 users
HelpHero
Pendo's free plan covers 500 monthly active users, and its own pricing page says that exceeding the limit means you cannot create new guides, NPS surveys or segments until you upgrade. The guidance already live keeps running, but building stops. The next plan up has no published price, so the moment you cross that line you are in a quote conversation. HelpHero's first paid tier covers 1,000 MAU for $55 a month, which is double the free cap, and the figure is on the pricing page.
Product analytics
Pendo
Pendo includes product analytics on every plan, free one included, and that is the reason most teams buy it. It tracks what people do across your whole product rather than only inside the guidance you publish, and Core and Ultimate add session replay on top. HelpHero reports on your tours: how many users start them, how many finish, and where in a tour people drop out. For anything wider it expects you to send events to the analytics tool you already run.
Knowing what it costs
HelpHero
Pendo publishes one number: free, up to 500 MAU. Base, Core, Ultimate all read "Custom pricing" against a custom MAU volume. Comparison sites fill the gap with annual figures that disagree with each other, and none of them come from Pendo. HelpHero publishes every tier, so you can work out your bill in about thirty seconds and start without speaking to anyone.
How much platform you are buying
Pendo
Pendo is a product experience platform: analytics, guides, session replay, roadmaps, NPS and journey orchestration, sold as one system. If you want those things together, buying them separately is worse in every way that matters. HelpHero does the guidance part and nothing else, which is the right trade only if the rest is something you already have or do not need.
The verdict
Pendo is the broader product. HelpHero covers the guidance part of it, for a price you can check before you commit.
02Pricing
One published price, then a quote
500 MAU
is where Pendo's free plan stops letting you create new guides, NPS surveys or segments. The plan above it carries no published price, so crossing that line means requesting a quote. HelpHero covers 1,000 MAU for $55 a month, published.
Pendo lists four plans, and Free is the only one carrying a number and a limit: up to 500 monthly active users, with product analytics and in-app guides included, and Pendo branding on roadmaps and NPS surveys. Base, Core, Ultimate all read Custom pricing against a custom MAU volume. There is no starting figure for any of them.
That is a normal way to sell enterprise software and it is not a criticism. It does change what you can work out before committing time, though, because the interesting question for a growing product is not what free costs but what the tier above it costs. You will find annual figures for Pendo on comparison blogs; they disagree with each other, none of them come from Pendo, and we are not going to repeat them here.
The limit is worth reading carefully, because it behaves differently from a usage overage. Pendo states that exceeding the MAU cap means you will not be able to create new guides, NPS surveys or segments until you upgrade. Published guidance keeps running, so nothing breaks for the users who already have it, but the team stops being able to ship anything new.
Swipe the table sideways to compare →
HelpHeroevery plan, every feature
Pendofree tier only, then quoted
Guidance at 1,000 monthly active users
$55 / month, or $550 / year
Above the free cap, quoted on request
Guidance at 500 monthly active users
$55 / month
Free, with Pendo branding on roadmaps and NPS
Support on the entry plan
Email, chat and conference call, every plan
Free is self-serve
How you find out the price above free
Read the pricing page
Contact sales for a custom quote
How you start
Sign up and start a 14 day trial, no credit card
Free plan, or a 30 day trial of the full platform
Features held back for higher plans
None
Session replay, Sentiment, Orchestrate
Pendo details are quoted from pendo.io/pricing on 6 August 2026, which published a price for the Free plan only and listed Base, Core, Ultimate as custom pricing as at that date. HelpHero prices are per monthly active users; see the full pricing page for every tier.
The verdict
Below 500 MAU, Pendo free is hard to argue with. Above it, HelpHero publishes what you will pay and Pendo does not.
03Trade-offs
Where each one is the stronger choice
These two are not the same size of product, and Pendo's list here is the longer one. That is fair: it does a great deal that HelpHero has never attempted.
Pendo is stronger at
Product analytics on every plan, free one included
Session replay on Core and Ultimate
Roadmaps, product discovery and journey orchestration
Built-in NPS and sentiment, no third-party tool needed
A genuinely free plan for small products under 500 MAU
A 30 day trial of the whole platform
HelpHero is stronger at
A published price for every tier, with no quote to request
Every feature on every plan, with unlimited tours and team members
No vendor branding on anything your users see
Room for 1,000 MAU at $55 a month, double Pendo's free cap
Live in an afternoon from a JavaScript snippet or Chrome extension
If you are buying product analytics and want the guides to sit in the same system, Pendo is built for that and HelpHero is not. If you already have analytics, or the guidance is the whole job, then HelpHero does that part thoroughly, on a price you can read before you commit. We have a preference about which one to buy, but not about which of those two problems you have.
HelpHero is the only tool on the market that has reasonable, sane pricing for small business / budgets.
Chris O., Strategy & Sales
04Questions
Common questions
How much does Pendo cost?
Pendo publishes one price: free, for up to 500 monthly active users. Its three paid plans, Base, Core, Ultimate, all read "Custom pricing" against a custom MAU volume on pendo.io/pricing. Comparison sites publish annual figures for Pendo and they do not agree with one another. None of them come from Pendo, we have no way to check them, so we do not repeat them here.
What happens when you hit Pendo's free plan limit?
Pendo's pricing page states that exceeding the 500 MAU limit means you will not be able to create new guides, NPS surveys or segments until you upgrade. Guidance you have already published keeps running, so it is not a shutdown, but you stop being able to build. Since the next plan has no published price, crossing the cap means starting a sales conversation. HelpHero's entry tier covers 1,000 MAU for $55 a month with nothing held back.
Is Pendo's free plan really free?
Yes, and it is more generous than most free tiers in this category: product analytics and in-app guides are both included, not just a trial of them. Three limits are worth knowing before you build on it. Roadmaps and NPS surveys carry Pendo branding, the 500 MAU ceiling stops new guides rather than degrading quietly, and the Support row in the plan table is not ticked for Free, so it is self-serve. For a product under 500 monthly active users it is a genuinely good offer.
What does Pendo do that HelpHero does not?
Quite a lot of the platform, starting with product analytics on every plan, which tracks behaviour across your whole product rather than only inside your guides, and session replay on Core and Ultimate. It has roadmaps, product discovery, built-in NPS and sentiment, and journey orchestration. HelpHero builds product tours, checklists and hotspots for web apps, reports on how those perform, and leaves the rest to the tools you already run.
Is HelpHero a genuine Pendo alternative?
It depends on which half of Pendo you were buying. If you were there for the analytics suite, HelpHero is not a replacement and Pendo is the better product. If you were there for the in-app guides, and the analytics is something you already get from another tool, then HelpHero covers that part on a published price with every feature on every plan. The clearest case is a team that has outgrown the free 500 MAU plan and does not want a quote to keep building.
How hard is it to move guides from Pendo to HelpHero?
There is no import tool, so tours are rebuilt rather than migrated. In practice that is less work than it sounds, because the editor is code-free and you build against your live app by pointing at elements on the page. Most teams rebuild their main onboarding flow in an afternoon. Our support team will help you plan the order if you are moving several flows at once.
