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 13 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 can't create new guides, NPS surveys or segments until you upgrade, and the plan above free carries no published price. So the cap isn't a gentle nudge toward a bigger invoice: it's 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's double Pendo's free ceiling, every feature is on every plan, and the number is on the pricing page. What HelpHero doesn't do is the analytics half of Pendo, and that difference runs through the rest of this page.
Choose HelpHero if…
You've outgrown, or expect to outgrow, 500 monthly active users, you want tours and checklists rather than an analytics platform, and you'd rather read a price than request one.
Product analytics is a main reason you're 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.
What customers rate us on the review sites
4.9/5 on G2.com
4.7/5 on Capterra
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.
App is great, customer service even better
Michael Vinal - Co-Founder & CTO, WebPrez
01Overlap
Where the two meet
Set the analytics aside and there's 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 once you pass the limit you can't create new guides, NPS surveys or segments until you upgrade. Guidance that's already live keeps running, but building stops. The next plan up has no published price, so the moment you cross that line you're 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 right there on the pricing page.
Product analytics
Pendo
Pendo includes product analytics on every plan, free one included, and that's 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're 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 don't 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
Pendo pricing: 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's no starting figure for any of them.
That's a normal way to sell enterprise software and it isn't a criticism. It does change what you can work out before committing time, though, because the interesting question for a growing product isn't what free costs but what the tier above it costs. Search for Pendo pricing and you'll find annual figures on comparison blogs; they disagree with each other, none of them come from Pendo, and we're 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 won't 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 your 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'll pay and Pendo doesn't.
The first question here isn't a technical one. Pendo does two jobs in the same product, in-app guides and product analytics, and HelpHero does the first of them. So it's worth settling which one you're actually replacing before you plan anything, because the answer changes the size of the job completely.
If it's the guides, the move is small. HelpHero installs as a JavaScript snippet or through the Chrome extension, in the same way you added Google Analytics or Intercom, so getting it running takes minutes. There's no import tool, so guides get rebuilt rather than migrated. That's less work than it sounds, because the editor is code-free and you build against your live app by pointing at the elements you want a step attached to.
Write down what Pendo is doing for you. Guides only, or guides plus the analytics, replay and roadmaps that live alongside them.
Install the snippet. One script on your app, or the Chrome extension if you would rather not touch a deploy yet.
Rebuild your main onboarding flow first. Usually the one new users hit in their first session, so you learn the editor on the guide that matters most.
Move the rest in order of traffic, then turn the old ones off. Our support team will help you plan the order if there are several.
Most teams who arrive on this page arrive for the same reason: they crossed 500 monthly active users and the free plan stopped letting them publish new guides. If that's you, the useful detail is that our trial runs 14 days with no credit card, so you can rebuild a guide and see it working before you pay anything, and seats are unlimited on every plan, so nobody needs a licence bought for them first.
The verdict
If product analytics is a real part of why you're on Pendo, be honest with yourself about it. HelpHero replaces the guides and expects your analytics to live in your own tool, and we would rather say that now than have you discover it halfway through.
04Trade-offs
Where each one is the stronger choice
These two aren't the same size of product, and Pendo's list here is the longer one. That's 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're buying product analytics and want the guides to sit in the same system, Pendo is built for that and HelpHero isn't. 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've got a preference about which one to buy, but not about which of those two problems you have.
HelpHero is really easy to use and the analytics are clear and easy to read. We have only just started using HelpHero but already feel like it is a tool that we will be using for a long time!
Maija Forsell - Head of Customer Engagement, Fibresonline
05Questions
Common questions about Pendo alternatives
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 don't agree with one another. None of them come from Pendo, we've no way to check them, so we don't 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 won't be able to create new guides, NPS surveys or segments until you upgrade. Guidance you've already published keeps running, so it isn't 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's 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 isn't ticked for Free, so it's self-serve. For a product under 500 monthly active users it's a genuinely good offer.
What does Pendo do that HelpHero doesn't?
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 isn't 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's outgrown the free 500 MAU plan and doesn't want a quote just to keep building.
How hard is it to move guides from Pendo to HelpHero?
There's no import tool, so tours get rebuilt rather than migrated. In practice that's 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're moving several flows at once.
