14+ SaaS Onboarding Best Practices to Drive Conversions and MRR Growth

Emily Thompson
Emily Thompson
January, 29 2025
SaaS Onboarding Best Practices

Table of Content

A great product deserves a seamless and effective onboarding process. Without it, nearly 75% of users abandon your product within the first week.

An unstructured onboarding experience can leave prospective customers struggling to understand the value of your SaaS product, resulting in missed opportunities and revenue loss. In short, failing to onboard users effectively is a significant revenue killer for your SaaS business.

This is where you need to shift your focus to enhancing SaaS onboarding. 

An intense SaaS onboarding process helps you:

  • Attract new users, reduce customer acquisition costs
  • Retain existing customers, improve customer lifetime value
  • Drive sustainable MRR and ARR growth

This blog will provide a comprehensive checklist of SaaS onboarding best practices and key saas strategies to help you achieve the above goals. 

Before we discuss that, let’s first understand what SaaS onboarding exactly is and why it matters. 

What is SaaS Onboarding?

SaaS onboarding means giving new users a guided tour of your product. This strategic approach focuses on onboarding new users to the platform or service, facilitating their navigation through its features and functionalities. It guarantees a seamless and practical initial experience with the product.  

For SaaS businesses, it's more than just a welcoming mat that onboard new users. It also ensures that target customers quickly experience that " AHA!" moment and clearly understand the product's benefits. When customer onboarding is done right, it can turn first-time users into loyal, long-lasting customers eager to engage and explore further. 

7 Key Stages of the SaaS Customer Onboarding Journey

A successful onboarding journey helps new users understand and feel confident using your product. Understanding the key phases of this journey is essential for creating a smooth and positive onboarding experience. Here’s a breakdown of each stage's role in driving user success.

7 Key Stages of the SaaS Customer Onboarding Journey

1. Signup process

The signup process is the first stage that serves as the gateway to your product. It sets the tone for the entire onboarding experience. A smooth and intuitive signup process instills confidence and encourages users to proceed with the onboarding without hesitation.

2. Welcome message

A personalized welcome message creates a lasting first impression. As soon as your users sign up, sending them a warm, welcoming message and introducing them to your product's value and resources increases customer retention. 

In this stage, you can lay the strong foundation for a long-term relationship and build trust with your product, encouraging users to take further steps.

3. First user login

The first customer login is when users interact with your product and take an interest in your product's world. This critical product interaction defines how easily they can navigate and understand your platform. 

At this stage, you can provide assistance and resources to encourage them to explore product features and benefits. 

4. Initial product setup

The initial product setup allows users to configure your platform to meet their needs. This pivotal stage in the customer onboarding journey helps users understand how your product aligns with their desired outcomes and pain points.

For SaaS businesses, providing an onboarding experience is essential for fostering early engagement and building customer trust.

5. Product and features exploration

During this stage, users delve deeper into product exploration and experience the platform’s features and capabilities. SaaS users focus on unveiling hidden value, encouraging long-term usage, and helping users discover the product's full capability. 

To improve engagement during this phase, offer guided tours, in-app tooltips, and interactive tutorials highlighting key features. 

6. Achieve the first AHA! moment

The “Aha! Moment” occurs when users experience your product's tangible value. Achieving this onboarding milestone cements their belief in your product and lays a foundation for customer satisfaction, brand loyalty, and future SaaS growth. 

To encourage this worthy moment, you can help users through scenarios that demonstrate real-world value and help them reach their AHA moment faster. 

7. Regular check-ins

When your SaaS users check in regularly, they consistently find value in your product. This also nurtures relationships and engagement. By keeping them connected, satisfied, and engaged, you can promote their ongoing engagement and long-term commitment. 

This phase allows you to collect feedback, resolve pain points, and unveil new features. This helps ensure that users continue to find value in your product as they progress through their customer journey.

Enhance Your Onboarding to Drive Engagement

Let’s design your onboarding journey that boosts engagement and turns more users into loyal, paying customers.

Key SaaS Onboarding Best Practices for Your Business

Successful SaaS onboarding doesn’t just happen—it results from thoughtful planning, strategic execution, and continuous optimization. Here’s a SaaS onboarding checklist that can transform your onboarding process into an impactful customer journey:

1. Use ChatGPT for product onboarding

Onboarding starts when the customer signs up or creates an account with your brand, but it doesn't end there. The process should seamlessly continue after the initial registration, guiding the user toward exploring the product and its core features. 

However, due to complex features and potentially time-consuming settings, it may take some time for new users to reach the "AHA" moment.

If the learning curve is too steep, users may feel overwhelmed, leading to frustration and early customer churn. In this case, ChatGPT can help you onboard users with your product by providing relevant content and enhancing the SaaS customer onboarding experience.

For example, ChatGPT can send personalized welcome emails right after sign-up, welcoming new users and guiding them to the next onboarding steps. It can also be integrated within the app or your platform to deliver contextual guidance during setup or provide suggestions for completing the setup. 

In this way, ChatGPT can be a valuable tool, helping your SaaS business streamline the onboarding process and ensure that new customers feel supported. 

2. Reduce friction with fully integrated teams

Onboarding friction refers to the challenges users face when interacting with your product. It can appear as a lengthy, complicated sign-up process that discourages users or unclear messaging about the product's value, leaving them unsure why they should care about it. 

Such friction points can be a significant reason for your SaaS's high customer churn rate and low retention rate. Reducing friction is key to improving the overall user experience and encouraging users to complete the onboarding. 

One effective way to achieve this is to ensure that your sales, marketing, and product teams are fully integrated. 

For instance, the sales team can pass valuable insights about customer needs and expectations to the product and support teams. It ensures that the user’s journey is tailored to their specific use case, reducing confusion and accelerating the time it takes to reach their "AHA" moment. 

Similarly, the marketing team can refine its pitch based on customer insights from other teams, ensuring that users receive relevant information and value from the product. 

3.  Eliminate bottlenecks and simplify the process

Eliminating bottlenecks in the onboarding process requires identifying the points where users churn or slow down. You can start by visualizing the onboarding flow, from sign-up to activation, and noting those critical touchpoints where users typically drop off.

Users often get stuck in the sign-up process when too many fields are required to complete their profiles. This bottleneck can be eliminated by only asking for essential details like an email ID, first name, and last name. You can ask them to complete their profiles once they've tried and engaged with the product.

Slow loading times and technical glitches can also be bottlenecks in user onboarding. It can negatively impact the onboarding experiences and erode user trust. Ensure your platform runs smoothly with minimal loading times and no technical bugs.

Example:

A great example to consider here is Canva. This go-to-design app offers a streamlined SaaS user onboarding process. Once engaged users have created a few designs, it introduces new customers to advanced features, such as team collaboration, premium templates, or brand kits.

Canva Onboarding

4. Keep your onboarding team aligned

User onboarding experience is affected when your sales, marketing, product, and support teams are not on the same page. To keep your user onboarding flow smooth, you must align your teams and ensure they work harmoniously.

It is one of the best practices for onboarding, minimizing confusion, reducing errors, and creating a unified process that meets user expectations.

But how can you ensure all your teams are on the same page?

Here are a few strategies to implement:

  • Establish clear communication between teams. You can use centralized tools like Slack to help everyone stay informed about updates, share documents, and remain informed about customers. 
  • Team members should be clear about their roles and responsibilities within the user onboarding process to avoid overlapping. 
  • Encourage sales and marketing team members to share relevant user information gathered, like user behavior, pain points, and preferences. 
  • Use project management tools (e.g., Trello, Monday.com) to assign tasks, track deadlines, and monitor onboarding progress.

5. Automate repetitive and low-value tasks

During the customer onboarding, your customer success team focuses on repetitive tasks like sending welcome messages and delivering helpful resources. When you automate such repetitive tasks, your customer success team lets you focus on high-impact activities that drive user engagement and boost customer retention.

Here’s how to do it:

  • Automate welcome emails: You can set up automated welcome email sequences that trigger when a user signs up. This will eliminate the need to send personalized emails and follow-ups to your team manually.
  • Automate user setup and profile completion: Reminding onboard users to complete their profiles or set up requires time and effort. Integrating automation tools allows you to easily send reminders to complete their profiles or set up necessary integrations after sign-up. 
  • Automate resource recommendations: When your user is on the customer onboarding journey, recommend helpful resources (such as blog posts, videos, or guides) to help them achieve their first-time value. These resources can be personalized and sent through automated workflows or in-app prompts.

Once you automate your repetitive and low-value tasks, you can reduce manual effort and free up time for your team. Also, you can focus on high-impact activities, such as solving complex user issues or improving the overall product experience.

6. Upskill your onboarding teams for better engagement

Investing in upskilling SaaS onboarding teams is a powerful strategy for retaining high-value customers and top-tier talent. Company leaders must prioritize equipping their onboarding staff with the knowledge, skills, and tools. It can help your SaaS company deliver meaningful conversations and desired outcomes.

Here are ways to upskill your onboarding teams:

  • Provide ongoing training: You can enroll your team in regular workshops, courses, or certifications that enhance technical knowledge and soft skills.
  • Develop empathy and communication skills: To strengthen client relationships, equip your teams with training in active listening, emotional intelligence, and conflict resolution.
  • Use role-playing and simulations: Make upskilling an exciting process by providing your team with exercises that mimic real-life onboarding scenarios. It will improve their problem-solving and communication skills.
  • Offer mentorship and coaching: Pair new onboarding team members with experienced mentors for guidance, support, and knowledge sharing.
  • Promote cross-functional collaboration: Ensure onboarding teams work closely with sales, support, and product teams to build a holistic understanding of the client journey.

7. Use AI Chatbots for user onboarding

Your SaaS has seen a drop in customer retention and the number of active users. This may be due to your new users not completing their onboarding tasks.

Integrating AI chatbots is a highly effective customer support strategy for enhancing onboarding experiences and offering personalized assistance to users. 

AI Chatbot

Here are some practical ways to utilize AI chatbots and streamline the customer onboarding process:

  • Create interactive onboarding flows: AI chatbots can guide users through the product setup and provide video tutorials, guides, or infographics for the smooth user’s progress. 
  • Real-time feedback and assistance: Chatbots can prompt users to take specific actions within the app and answer any questions in real-time to minimize user frustration.
  • Instant answers to common questions: Embed chatbots within your product to provide immediate support, answering frequently asked questions and offering help with specific features without the user leaving the interface.
  • Troubleshooting guidance: If users encounter an error or become confused, the chatbot can diagnose common issues, offer solutions, and suggest relevant resources.
  • Available 24/7 customer assistance: Chatbots provide 24/7 customer support, allowing users to learn at their own pace and access information whenever needed. 
  • Multilingual chat assistance: AI chatbots can offer language-specific training materials, making onboarding accessible for international users.

8. Incorporate native tooltips 

SaaS onboarding depends on the user experience with your product or platform. During product exploration, customers may feel unsatisfied and frustrated with the navigation and user experience. This poor onboarding experience can lead to poor product adoption and engagement. 

This problem can be solved using an overlooked onboarding strategy: Native Tooltips. These lightweight, context-sensitive messages can be integrated directly into your product’s UI. 

Unlike popups or guided walkthroughs, native tooltips remain hidden until users hover over a button or text. This can reduce user frustration and churn and improve feature adoption, customer satisfaction, and business growth for SaaS teams.

Example:

Calendly provides instructions on how to set up your first event with them. You can see the hidden text when you click on the Check Box on the right side.

Calendly

9. Adopt self-serve client onboarding

When you run a SaaS startup with a few customers, onboarding each user one-on-one is easy. However, as your customer base, you need to move toward a self-serve customer onboarding model, also known as low-touch onboarding.

This self-serve approach eliminates the need for one-on-one walkthroughs with every new user. Instead, it provides tools and resources that enable customers to independently achieve your product’s value as quickly as possible.

You can guide users through tutorials, email drip campaigns, and in-app walkthroughs. Additionally, you can enhance their experience by offering resources such as knowledge bases, FAQs, and community forums. 

This will empower customers to navigate the onboarding journey at their own pace while still focusing on helping them achieve your product's core value.

Note: 

Transitioning to a low-touch or self-serve model doesn’t mean eliminating all human interactions. It’s essential to keep communication channels open and ensure users can easily reach your team when needed. Neglecting this balance could lead to frustrated customers, poor activation rates, and higher churn.

10. Offer multiple customer onboarding pathways

Using the same onboarding model for all customer segments limits your ability to address their unique needs effectively. In the diverse SaaS industry, a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work. Every customer has specific pain points, goals, and levels of expertise that require a personalized touch.

To enhance the onboarding experience, offer multiple pathways tailored to new users' needs. Here are key onboarding pathways to provide your users based on the levels of guidance they need.

1. Guided onboarding practice: This allows SaaS companies to cater to customers who prefer hands-on help or have complex use cases. You can give them live demos or assign a dedicated account manager to provide personalized onboarding assistance.

2. Hybrid onboarding: You can combine self-serve onboarding with customer support for flexibility. This allows new users to reach the AHA moment as soon as possible with self-serve resources and experience efficiency with a personal touch. 

3. Role-specific pathways: You can customize the onboarding process based on user roles, such as end-user, developer, or marketer. Ensure your customers enjoy only relevant features and receive resources tailored to their responsibilities.

When you give your customers the flexibility to onboard, you will enhance their onboarding experience with your product, help retain potential customers, and improve overall customer satisfaction scores. 

11. Build great first-user experiences

The first user experience is a defining moment in your SaaS onboarding journey. Your opportunity to make a strong, lasting impression guides users toward discovering your product's value. Focusing on what truly matters allows you to create an intuitive, impactful onboarding experience that sets the stage for long-term success.

Focus on jobs, not features

New users aren’t interested in exploring every feature your product offers—they care about how it solves their problems. Highlight the specific tasks or "jobs" your product helps them accomplish. 

When you guide new customers through tutorials, personalized onboarding, or practical examples to help them achieve their goals, they quickly connect with your product and its value.

Onboard every user

Users should feel included and supported during onboarding, regardless of their role, expertise, or familiarity with similar tools. Use tailored onboarding pathways to address diverse needs, whether they are end-users, admins, or decision-makers. 

An inclusive and user-friendly onboarding experience ensures everyone can confidently navigate your product and contribute to its successful adoption.

Show them real outcomes

Rather than focusing on the process alone, emphasize the results users can expect to achieve. Use case studies, quick wins, or success metrics to demonstrate the tangible benefits of using your product. This outcome-driven approach motivates users to engage deeply and explore your product further.

Remove non-essential features or friction

Friction during onboarding can frustrate users and lead to early drop-offs. To ensure a smooth experience, simplify the initial steps by asking for only essential information, automating repetitive tasks, and offering self-serve tools. Avoid unnecessary complexity and make it easy for users to get started.

12. Identify and resolve onboarding problems early

A smooth onboarding experience is the first step towards better customer retention and revenue growth. However, even the most well-created onboarding journey can be the reason for a higher customer churn rate.

Identifying and addressing onboarding roadblocks early can save your users from getting churned and finding value faster. Here’s how to tackle onboarding issues proactively:

Monitor key SaaS metrics

To assess the performance of your onboarding process, track vital SaaS metrics like activation rates, drop-off points, and time-to-value. These metrics can reveal where users are struggling. 

For example, if 40% of users abandon the process after setting up an account, you need to simplify that step. 

Collect customer feedback

During onboarding, your users may face various challenges that prevent them from approaching your customer success manager. 

Gather insightful customer feedback through surveys, in-app feedback prompts, or email follow-ups to maintain good user onboarding. 

Conduct product usability testing

This testing allows you to experience your SaaS user onboarding process and see your product through your users' eyes. 

It also helps you understand how your SaaS users interact with the product and the reasons that create confusion or frustration during customer onboarding. 

Use analytical tools

Analytical tools, such as heat maps and session replays, can be used to track onboarding performance and gain deep insights into user behavior. 

For example, if a heatmap shows that users rarely click on a specific call-to-action during onboarding, it may need to be strategically placed or changed. 

Act and respond quickly

Your speed in responding to and resolving onboarding problems determines the quality of your SaaS onboarding journey. 

For example, if users frequently contact support because activation emails are missing, prioritize improving email delivery or adding a manual activation option. It will enable you to engage more customers and improve customer retention rates

13. Maintain and update user onboarding with A/B testing

When you constantly tweak your SaaS user onboarding process, it leads to happier users, faster activation, and better retention, which means your constant effort worked. Regularly updating and maintaining is the power of continuous improvement.

Another secret method that can help you improve your user onboarding flow is A/B testing.

A/B testing — a powerful strategy that involves creating two (or more) versions of a specific element in your onboarding process and presenting them to different customer segments simultaneously. To determine which version drives better outcomes, you can compare the results.

Explore a real-life example to understand how A/B testing can revolutionize your SaaS user onboarding process.

Suppose your SaaS marketing team tested two onboarding email templates. One emphasized quick tips for using the product, while the other shared a case study showing how teams benefited from your product. Email version A saw a 30% higher click-through rate, helping users engage faster with the product.

Using A/B testing for your platform can yield positive results. It can also determine the actionable steps needed throughout onboarding, ultimately increasing your product's activation rate.

14. Define your “Minimum Viable AHA!” moment

Your onboarding process has proved a positive and impactful experience when new users achieve the AHA moment early in the customer journey. AHA moment is the factor that determines whether your customer sticks with your platform or leaves after a short interaction with your product during the onboarding process.  

In the user onboarding, the “Minimum Viable AHA!” moment is when a new user first realizes the value of your product. It's the moment users realize,” This is exactly what I've been looking for."

When you focus on user onboarding, ensure your customers get to that AHA Moment as quickly as possible. Remember, the longer the Time To Value, the more likely people are to churn.

To deliver the minimal viable AHA moment, focus on quickly and efficiently guiding users to the product's core value. Simplify customer onboarding, eliminate distractions, and provide personalized guidance that promotes early customer success. 

Additional Onboarding Best Practices to Include in Your Checklist

1. Be strategic with every onboarding step

Every new user interaction in your customer onboarding process should have a clear purpose. Each element must help onboard users understand your product’s value, from sign-up processes to product tours and page layouts. 

If users can’t quickly see how your product solves their problem, they may abandon it before fully exploring it. Ensure that your onboarding flow strategically showcases what your product can do and leads users to achieve their desired actions and goals. 

2. Focus on users' actions and their desired outcomes

Your customer onboarding flow should empower users to achieve their goals from the very start. Understand what users want to accomplish with your product, and then design your onboarding experience to help them quickly achieve their desired outcome. 

You can provide clear, goal-oriented guidance to your users and make them feel confident about engaging with your product. You can also ensure that your onboarding users have a meaningful and effective onboarding experience that drives long-term satisfaction. 

3. Demonstrate value through clear CTAs

Your calls to action (CTAs) should show users why taking the next step benefits them. In follow-up emails or in-app prompts, avoid sounding pushy; highlight how your product helps achieve its goals. 

When users understand the value behind activating a feature, returning to the app, or upgrading their plan, they’ll feel motivated to act. Focus on their desired outcomes and tie your CTAs to those results. 

4. Celebrate user achievements or milestones

Acknowledging user achievements motivates them and builds trust. 

Congratulate users when they complete onboarding, hit key milestones, or discover advanced features. These small celebrations reinforce positive behavior and create an engaging, gamified experience that users enjoy.

A congratulatory email or an in-app message can make users feel valued, transforming the onboarding process into a rewarding journey. 

5. Regularly update onboarding materials

Regularly maintaining and updating onboarding materials ensures users access the correct information and tools. It signals your commitment to their success, builds confidence, and helps them achieve their desired outcomes while keeping the onboarding experience effective. 

Transform Your SaaS User Onboarding

Your SaaS user onboarding experience is necessary and crucial for driving business growth. An effective SaaS customer onboarding can significantly boost your customer acquisition and retention rate. For the first time, it's hard to crack the right onboarding strategy that will help you achieve SaaS growth. 

At LabsMedia, we offer a unique blend of SaaS marketing, content marketing, and SEO expertise that can transform your onboarding process.  Also, create content that allows new users to find value in your product and stay informed and motivated throughout their journey. 

Take action now and partner with Labsmedia to elevate your SaaS onboarding experience, improve user engagement, and achieve sustained brand growth.

Turn First-Time Users Into Loyal Fans

We optimize your SaaS onboarding with strategies that drive customer satisfaction, retention, and MRR growth. Let’s achieve success together.

FAQs

How much does SaaS onboarding cost?

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SaaS onboarding costs vary depending on the complexity of your product, team size, and the tools used. For some, it can range from a few hundred dollars for self-serve onboarding to several thousand for high-touch new user onboarding.

What are the 4 C's of effective onboarding?

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The four Cs of effective onboarding are Compliance, Clarification, Connection, and Culture. By combining them, you can encourage positive SaaS onboarding experiences and make users confidently complete the process.

What does an onboarding specialist do in SaaS?

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An onboarding specialist guides new users through the process of onboarding, ensuring they understand the product’s value, resolve issues, and achieve their goals. They provide personalized assistance, manage user adoption, and enhance long-term engagement with the SaaS platform.

What is the minimum viable onboarding?

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Minimum viable onboarding (MVO) is the most straightforward and efficient onboarding process. It helps new users quickly experience a product's core value. It eliminates unnecessary steps, focuses on essential actions, and guides users to their "AHA!" moment with minimal friction, ensuring a seamless and impactful first experience.

What is the completion rate of onboarding?

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The onboarding completion rate refers to the percentage of users who complete the entire process. A higher completion rate indicates effective onboarding. The typical completion rate varies depending on the complexity of the product and the onboarding process.

Emily Thompson

Emily Thompson

Digital Marketing Consultant

Emily Thompson is a seasoned professional in the digital marketing realm, currently lending her expertise at LabsMedia, a leading SaaS marketing agency. With a wealth of experience in crafting bespoke solutions for SaaS businesses, Emily specializes in navigating the ever-evolving landscape of online marketing. Her commitment to staying abreast of industry trends and delivering results-driven strategies makes her a trusted advisor in the SaaS sector. She has been featured on Forbes, Entrepreneur, and Social Media Today, showcasing her thought leadership and contributing valuable perspectives to the industry. As an accomplished author, she shares her insights through thought-provoking content, offering valuable perspectives to both peers and SaaS clients alike.