Onboarding Tours - How to Create Them & 4 Examples

Most guides to onboarding tours are written by companies that sell a tour builder, so they skip the first decision: whether to code the tour yourself, use an open-source library or pay for a no-code tool. This guide puts the three routes side by side, with entry prices read in October 2026 and what G2 reviewers praise and complain about in six tools, after four first-run tours worth studying.

What are onboarding tours?

Onboarding tours are in-product sequences that guide first-time users to the value of a product and its core features, so they complete key actions as quickly as possible. An onboarding tour usually strings several parts together: a welcome modal, a question or two to personalise what comes next, tooltips and hotspots, and a checklist.

A product tour is one part of that sequence: a single walkthrough of the interface. This guide is about the whole first-run sequence and how to build it; the product tour guide covers how long a single tour should be, when to fire it and what skipping should do.

A successful onboarding tour gets users to their "aha!" moment and shows them the product's core benefit and how to get it.

Why do you need onboarding tours?

Onboarding tours teach the product inside the product, where users will actually use it, instead of in an email or a help article. That does three things.

• Reinforce touchpoints. Many people sign up and forget about it. An activation email in the first week isn't enough on its own; in-product guidance catches users while they're there and reduces their need for outside help.
• Speed up product adoption. The goal is to get users to their activation moment, when they see how the product solves their problem. If that takes too long, their attention moves elsewhere, often to a competitor. Keep the tour short, cover the fundamentals, use plain language, and let your data show whether it works.
• Offer step-by-step guidance. For a complex tool, one linear sequence isn't enough. Segmenting users lets you show each group only what's relevant, and a "skip" or "remind me later" button lets everyone learn at their own pace.

4 onboarding tour examples

The four tours below were captured in 2022; each product may show something different today. Each orders the same parts differently.

1- Slack

Slack's first-run sequence, at the time of these screenshots, started with a short setup ("Name your Slack") and then moved into the product, where Slackbot ran the tour as a conversation.

Inside the app, a tooltip pointed at Direct Messages with one sentence of explanation, while Slackbot asked the user to "Type something to get started" and then offered to "show you a couple things about Slack". A "Skip the tutorial" link sat under the welcome message. Presenting the core value, messaging, through a chatbot let users experience the product while learning it.

The sequence stood out because it didn't exhaust users with an overcrowded guide: it introduced a few prominent features and let users build momentum in their own workspace.

2- Canva

Canva started by asking "What will you be using Canva for?" with six options, from small business to student to large company, and said why: "We'll use this to recommend designs and templates especially for you." Small business owners and team members were then directed to invite teammates.

That first question was required; the next step had a "Maybe Later" button. Forcing users through steps that don't match their needs hurts retention, so only the step that shapes the rest of the experience should be mandatory.

Creating a team took a few clicks, and inviting members could be done later. Then Canva asked to keep in touch by email, with a "Not now" option.

That last step gives Canva a way to reach the user outside the product, which matters for users who don't come back on their own.

3- Duolingo

Duolingo's onboarding tour is a choose-your-own-adventure. It asks first whether you're learning a language for the first time or already know some, and sends each group down a different path.

Users who already know some of the language can take a placement test that "takes about 5 minutes, and adapts to your level by getting harder (or easier)". Beginners go straight to a first lesson. Either way, the first real interaction is the core product, a lesson, not a tour of the interface.

Instead of a fixed linear sequence, Duolingo gets users to take meaningful actions that prove the app's value within minutes, and a progress bar shows how far they've come. That visible progress is what pulls users on to the next lesson.

4- Pinterest

Pinterest's onboarding tour focused on delivering value from the first step. A five-step modal greeted the user by name and explained: "Your answers to the next few questions will help us find the right ideas for you." The questions covered language, country and region, and other details such as gender.

Users then picked at least five interests, which shaped the home feed they saw at the end of the tour.

Every question changed what the user saw next, so none felt like paperwork. The last step offered the mobile app through a QR code, which removes the friction of searching an app store.

How do you create an onboarding tour: code, library or no-code tool?

You can build an onboarding tour three ways: write it in your own code, use an open-source tour library, or use a no-code tool. The deciding question is who will edit the tours, and how often.

1- In-house development

In-house development means your own developers build every onboarding element, from the visual design to the copy and the segment logic, with no outside tool. You control the task list and the whole process.

The advantage is familiarity: the team already knows the product and the company, so there's no extra vendor in the loop, and you get full control of design and transitions. The cost is that every change to the tour is a development task, and tours can break when the interface they point at changes.

2- Low-code: open-source libraries

Open-source tour libraries give developers ready-made components (tooltips, highlights, step sequences) to drop into the product. They save building the UI from scratch and let you reuse components across tours, so teams under delivery pressure can ship a tour quickly.

The trade-off is the same as with in-house code: tour content lives in the codebase, so non-developers can't change it without a release. Our guide to building onboarding flows with open-source libraries walks through the options.

3- No-code tools

No-code tools let you build tours in a visual editor that sits on top of your product, without writing code. You install a snippet once; after that, people outside engineering can create, target and change tours. According to Zapier, 90% of no-code users believe their company has been able to grow faster after adopting no-code tools.

No-code tools also make segmentation easier, since the targeting rules live in the same builder as the tours. Here is how six tools that build onboarding tours compare, with prices and ratings as read on their pricing pages and G2 on 19 October 2026:

"No-code" doesn't mean no friction. Builder or browser-extension friction is one of the top three complaints for Pendo (73 of 300 G2 reviews we read), Chameleon (53 of 300) and UserGuiding (42 of 299), though not for Appcues, Userflow or Userpilot. Test the builder on your own product during a trial before you commit.

What has changed since this guide was first written: as of October 2026, most of these tools offer AI that drafts a tour or guide from a plain-language description. Per their review pages, Appcues and Userflow list it on every plan, Chameleon from its Pro plan, Userpilot from Growth, Pendo through its Leo assistant, and UserGuiding's Lighthouse AI drafts segments and content.

The Appcues screenshot shows a typical no-code builder: a block palette for text, images, video and buttons, and an event panel that records when users interact with an element.

The UserGuiding image shows the result side: a tooltip inside the product, pointing at the element the user needs to click next.

Which route should you choose?

Choose by who edits the tours. If only developers will touch them and they rarely change, in-house code or an open-source library adds no subscription cost. If product, marketing or support people need to change tours without waiting for a release, or you want built-in analytics and targeting, that's what a no-code tool's subscription buys.

Whichever route you take, test the tour with real users and collect feedback, then adjust it to what they actually do.