Candu

Candu is a tool for building onboarding, upgrade prompts and announcements inside a product. It best suits growth product managers, designers and developers who need to shape and measure product guidance. Its range of formats and editing controls is useful, but inline experiences start at Growth and launching requires a JavaScript snippet in the product header.

Overview

Candu supports both brief prompts and structured guidance, including tours, checklists, announcements and other in-product experiences. Teams can tailor these to user segments, reuse components and adjust styling with CSS controls. Responsive design and real-time publishing give teams room to refine experiences as their product changes; the required JavaScript snippet means a developer must still be involved in setup.

Its AI can generate in-product UI from a prompt, screenshot or design, and users can review and edit the result before publishing. That makes it a starting point for creation, with a review step before changes go live. Candu also measures user and content engagement. A/B testing is available on Enterprise.

Key features

• Experience formats: Candu supports inline and overlay checklists, homepages, banners, empty states, modals, forms and hotspots, as well as product tours and walkthroughs. This breadth suits teams managing several kinds of guidance, though inline formats require Growth.
• Editing and targeting: Reusable components, segmentation, responsive design, CSS styling controls and real-time publishing help teams adapt content to users and product design. These controls offer flexibility, but the JavaScript setup still calls for developer involvement.
• Analytics and integrations: User and content analytics measure engagement, and Candu connects with analytics providers. Starter includes integrations and webhooks; goal tracking is part of Growth.
• Reliability and data protection: Candu states a 99.9% SLA and says its SDK fails open if its service is unreachable. It uses TLS 1.3 in transit and AES-256 encryption at rest, with a SOC 2 Type II audit covering December 2023 through November 2024. Customer data is stored in AWS eu-west-1 by default; Candu says it does not require or actively collect PII and deletes data within 30 days after contract termination.

Pricing

Candu has a Free plan, paid plans billed annually and a 14-day trial. The Free and Starter plans include email and chat support; Growth adds a dedicated customer success manager and Slack channel.

• Free — free: Includes unlimited user licenses, three live experiences and overlays only. It is a low-commitment way to try a small set of overlay guidance, but the three-experience cap and lack of inline formats limit its use for a broader program.
• Starter — $199 a month (billed annually): Adds unlimited modals, hotspots and tours, segmentation, analytics, integrations and webhooks, while remaining overlay-only. It suits teams expanding overlay guidance and measuring engagement, but teams needing banners, checklists, forms, empty states or homepages must move to Growth.
• Growth — $799 a month (billed annually): Includes inline and overlay experiences, banners, checklists, forms, empty states and homepages, plus unlimited workspaces, goal tracking, a dedicated customer success manager and Slack support. It fits teams coordinating richer experiences across workspaces; the price is a substantial step up from Starter for teams that mainly need overlays.
• Enterprise — custom pricing: Adds A/B testing, a CMS, SSO, a custom contract and SLAs, 10 service hours per quarter, premium support and volume discounts. It is aimed at organizations that need these enterprise provisions; the price is custom.

Platforms

Candu is available as an extension and on the web. It does not support mobile apps, which rules it out for teams whose in-product guidance must reach users in native mobile applications.

Who it's for

Candu is a strong fit for growth product managers, designers and developers working on onboarding, product adoption and product-led growth in web products. The Free plan can support a small overlay-only start, while Starter is more suitable for teams that need segmentation and analytics across a larger set of overlays. Teams that need inline experiences, goal tracking or dedicated customer support will need Growth. The JavaScript snippet requirement makes it less suited to teams unable to involve a developer in implementation.

Pros and cons

• Pro: A wide mix of inline and overlay formats lets teams handle prompts, tours and more structured guidance in one product.
• Pro: Segmentation, analytics, reusable components and CSS controls support tailored experiences that can be measured and matched to product design.
• Pro: Growth includes inline formats, unlimited workspaces, goal tracking and dedicated support for teams running a broader adoption program.
• Con: Free and Starter are overlay-only, so inline guidance requires the $799 a month Growth plan billed annually.
• Con: Free is capped at three live experiences, limiting how many active prompts a team can run without upgrading.
• Con: Setup requires adding a JavaScript snippet to the product header, and there is no mobile app support.

Alternatives

For a wider comparison, browse User Onboarding Software, Digital Adoption Platforms and Product Adoption Software.

• Wakeline is worth considering for teams that want Android and iOS support alongside web and extension access. Its Free plan includes three flows, 1,000 monthly active users, one teammate and community support; Pro is $41 a month billed annually.
• Driver.js suits teams seeking a free option with unlimited projects and personal and commercial use, without an attribution requirement. It supports Android, iOS and web.
• Clew offers a free self-hosted and web option for a small tour program: one site, one team seat, up to three published tours, tours and tooltips, one month of analytics history and docs support. Its Pro plan is $14.99 a month.
• Guidez may suit teams looking for an API and extension alongside web access. Its Hobby plan is free and includes 100 MAU per month, one team member, one environment and community support; Pro is $79 a month.
• Tour Kit offers a free development, evaluation, testing, CI and preview-deploy plan; production use requires a license key. It supports web.
• Guida.js is a free web option with an MIT license, a roughly 4.8 kB minified and gzipped size, and no external dependencies.
• Guide.js is another free option for web.
• GuideMark is worth considering for teams that want selectable monthly active user volumes and a 14-day grace period when they exceed their MAU limit. Its Pro plan is €19 a month, with annual billing saving 21%.

Verdict

Choose Candu if your team needs to create and measure branded onboarding or adoption experiences in a web product, and can work within the plan that matches its formats. Its strongest case is the combination of varied experience types, targeting, styling controls and engagement analytics. Look elsewhere if you need native mobile support, cannot add the JavaScript snippet, or need inline experiences at a lower price than Growth.