Product-led growth (PLG) is a strategy that uses the product as the primary driver of business growth by delivering value directly to users through the product itself. Just as businesses adopt various strategies to drive growth through their product, they also need the right tools to implement and scale these strategies effectively. Whether you're a SaaS founder, product manager, or growth marketer, having the right tools in your arsenal is crucial for streamlining your PLG strategy and scaling efficiently.
In this guide, we will do a deep dive into the top 7 types of product-led growth tools that you can use to drive business growth. We’ve also included the names of some tools for each type to cut short your search.
What are PLG tools?
PLG tools are tools that are designed to support the framework of product-led growth by enabling seamless user onboarding, offering data-driven insights, tracking product usage, and improving overall customer experience.
By using these tools to the advantage of your business, you can prioritize value delivery through your product to drive growth.
💡 Related guide: What Is Product-Led Growth and How to Implement It
7 types of PLG tools to have
You're going to need different types of tools for different tasks or to solve your specific problems. Let's take a look at the kinds of tools you might need, along with some options you might use.
Product analytics tools
Advanced product analytics tools enable businesses to track and analyze user behavior within the product. These tools are vital when you're looking to understand how users engage with different features and make data-driven decisions on product enhancements.
Businesses should consider adopting product analytics tools once they have a steady user base and want to optimize features for retention and conversion. As your SaaS business scales, these tools become essential for fine-tuning your product strategy.
You can get tools with freemium plans for small businesses, while premium plans can range from $100 to $1,000+ per month, depending on the number of users and features.
User onboarding tools
Optimizing the onboarding process is crucial for ensuring that new users understand and get value from the product quickly. In-app guidance tools, such as interactive tutorials and walkthroughs, help users navigate the product smoothly, reducing friction during the initial experience.
Onboarding tools are most beneficial once your product is ready for use and you’re seeing new user sign-ups. These tools are particularly important as your SaaS product grows, especially if you're scaling rapidly or have a complex user flow.
Pricing starts from around $100/month, with enterprise plans reaching $2,000+ depending on the number of users and customization needed.
Example: Pendo, Appcues, Userflow
💡 Related guide: 10 Best User Onboarding Software for SaaS
Retention analysis tools
Retention analysis tools focus specifically on tracking user engagement over time. These tools help businesses understand how often users return, which features drive long-term retention, and where drop-offs occur.
They are ideal when you want to dive deeper into user behavior and improve customer loyalty. After your product has stabilized and you're focusing on user retention, these tools can help you track trends and optimize your product to prevent churn.
Costs typically start around $200/month for small businesses but can go up to $5,000+ per month for larger teams or more comprehensive analytics.
💡 Related guide: 10 Best Customer Segmentation Tools to Use in 2025
Communication and messaging tools
Communication tools help you keep users engaged by sending timely, relevant messages based on their actions. With these tools, businesses can automate interactions such as welcome messages, feature tips, and reminders, ensuring users receive the right information at the right time.
Most communication and messaging platforms offer behavioral triggers to send automated messages based on user actions. These tools help businesses engage users at critical moments, such as completing a key action or abandoning a task.
They are useful once your product starts to generate enough user activity to trigger automated campaigns.
Automated messaging tools are usually priced from $100/month, with more advanced plans or multi-channel options reaching upwards of $1,000/month, depending on the scale.
Example: Mailmodo
Feedback collection tools
User feedback is invaluable for refining a product to meet the needs of its users. Feedback collection tools help businesses understand pain points and areas of friction.
These tools are most useful once you have enough users to gather actionable insights, ideally after launching your MVP or beta version.
For small businesses, you can expect basic plans to start around $30/month, with more advanced plans and enterprise features reaching upwards of $1,000/month.
Example: Hotjar, SurveyMonkey
User behavior tracking tools
Tracking user behavior is essential for improving your product's interface and user flow. Tools that offer session replays and heatmaps help businesses pinpoint where users encounter difficulties, such as confusing UI elements or poor navigation.
These tools are best used when you’ve launched your product and need insights to enhance the user experience.
For small businesses, pricing starts at around $50/month for basic plans, with premium versions costing $500/month or more for larger-scale implementations.
Example: Microsoft Clarity
Success and tracking tools
Success and tracking tools focus on measuring the effectiveness of your PLG strategy and overall business growth. These tools track essential metrics such as feature adoption, user retention, and conversion rates, helping businesses assess the impact of their efforts.
Consider using these tools once you have implemented your product-led growth strategies and want to track their effectiveness.
The cost for these tools usually ranges from $100/month for basic plans to $1,000+/month for advanced analytics and enterprise-level features.
Example: Amplitude, Kissmetrics
These tools are critical for scaling your SaaS business efficiently while tracking and enhancing every stage of the user journey, from onboarding to retention. Each tool typically has pricing models that scale with your user base and feature requirements, so it's important to evaluate what works best for your stage of growth.
How to choose the right tool for yourself
With so many tools available, picking the right one can be confusing and the decision usually depends on your goals, budget, and team structure. Here are some things to consider when choosing the tool for yourself:
- What’s your objective?
- Will the tool support your needs as your business grows?
- Does your team need something plug-and-play, or do you have dev support?
- Will it connect seamlessly with your existing stack (CRM, analytics, ESP)?
- Is it cost-effective compared to the value it provides and can you afford it?
- Does it have good customer support and an active user community?
Takeaways
The right product-led growth tools are essential for driving user engagement, improving retention, and scaling your SaaS business. From enhancing user onboarding to tracking product performance, these tools play a critical role in delivering value and optimizing your overall PLG strategy.
For example, Mailmodo helps businesses set up email automations that can trigger emails or email sequences depending on user actions or time delays. You also get a host of integrations.
Additionally, with Mailmodo, you can create, personalize and send interactive emails within minutes so you can conduct surveys within emails and automated them. You can even optimize the timing of when they’re sent using its ‘send time optimization’ feature, ensuring your messages reach users at the most optimal time. A/B testing, dynamic segmentation and interactive widgets are a few other features that Mailmodo offers.
Create and send interactive emails without coding in minutes
