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VWO Review: Is it Worth it in 2024?
Explore our VWO review for 2024 to find out if it fits the experimentation needs of your business.
You’re probably familiar with VWO and their general feature offering but want an answer to a critical question:
Is it the right experimentation platform for my business?
In this blog post, we’ll take a deep dive into VWO’s offerings. We’ll look at the pros and cons and let you know who should use VWO and who should stay away from it.
In this VWO review, we’ll go over:
An overview of VWO as an experimentation platform
Key offerings and pricing
Pros and cons
Who might find it helpful (and who might not)
A TL;DR list of VWO alternatives
Let’s begin.
What is VWO?
VWO (formerly Visual Website Optimizer) is an experimentation and marketing platform with a history rooted in A/B testing. Started in 2009 as a tool for marketers to compare website versions, it has grown into a comprehensive platform for conversion rate optimization and other marketing analytics.
Today, it serves businesses of all sizes, helping them understand visitor behavior, test ideas, and make data-driven decisions to improve website and app performance.
These are some of VWO’s key offerings:
VWO features
A/B testing and multivariate testing: VWO's foundation lies in these testing capabilities. Whether a company wants to test simple changes like button colors or run complex experiments with multiple variations, VWO provides the tools to do so.
Personalization: VWO enables businesses to create personalized experiences for different visitor segments. This means tailoring content, offers, or even entire page layouts based on simple, defined rules (e.g. using user data, demographics, behavior, or any other relevant criteria).
Customer journey analysis: VWO add-on products allow businesses to visualize and analyze how users move through their website or app. It can pinpoint drop-off points, bottlenecks, and opportunities for improvement.
Heatmaps and session recordings: Another add-on product, these visual tools provide insights into how visitors interact with a site. Heatmaps show where they click, move their mouse, and how far they scroll, while session recordings let you watch their actual interactions.
Surveys and feedback: VWO lets businesses collect direct feedback from their visitors through surveys and polls. This can help gather valuable insights into their preferences, pain points, and expectations.
Marketing analytics and reporting: VWO offers a wide array of analytics tools to track website performance, monitor KPIs, and measure the impact of experiments.
Server-side testing and feature flags: For more technical users, VWO provides basic server-side testing capabilities, allowing experimentation without incurring the page load cost of a client-side javascript snippet.
VWO pricing
VWO’s pricing structure can seem a little overwhelming at first. Here’s a more easily digestible breakdown:
Free plan: For smaller websites with limited traffic, the free plan provides a taste of VWO's basic features.
VWO testing: Starting at $314/month (billed annually), this plan is for businesses focused primarily on A/B and multivariate testing. Pricing quickly increases with the number of visitors you have.
VWO insights: Starting at $159/month (billed annually), this plan unlocks heatmaps, session recordings, and other tools for understanding user behavior.
VWO personalize: From $295/month (billed annually), this plan is for businesses that want to create personalized experiences for their visitors.
VWO rollouts: From $113/month (billed annually), this plan is for managing feature releases and gradually rolling out changes to your website or app.
It's important to note that VWO's pricing is based on the number of monthly tracked users (MTUs), meaning the more visitors your site gets, the higher the cost.
Additionally, many of VWO's features are add-ons, so your final price will depend on the specific tools you choose. To get a precise quote tailored to your business, it's recommended to contact VWO directly.
VWO pros
VWO has earned its place in the market for several compelling reasons:
Established player: VWO's longevity in the A/B testing and experimentation space means they've stood the test of time and are likely to stick around for a long while still — unlike already-deprecated platforms like Google Optimize.
Breadth of features: While it may not be the deepest tool in every category, VWO offers a wide array of features under one roof, making it appealing to businesses who prefer an all-in-one solution.
Marketing-centric: VWO is designed with marketers in mind, prioritizing ease of use and catering to common marketing needs like A/B testing landing pages or personalizing website experiences.
Dedicated support: VWO is known for offering strong customer support, including a dedicated India-based team that can help businesses plan and execute their optimization strategies.
VWO cons
While VWO has its strengths, it's important to be aware of its drawbacks:
Pricing complexity: VWO's pricing structure, based on monthly tracked users, can be a bit difficult to understand and predict. It can also become quite expensive for businesses with high traffic volumes.
Hidden costs: While the base plans might seem attractive, be aware that many advanced features are locked behind add-ons, which can quickly drive up the total cost.
Learning curve: Although VWO aims for user-friendliness, some users have found that certain features, especially in more technical environments, require a learning curve.
Data concerns: Some users have reported issues with VWO's data tracking and calculations, which could potentially undermine trust in the platform's results.
Limited advanced features: While VWO offers a wide range of tools, some individual features lack the depth and customization options found in more specialized solutions.
Is VWO right for you?
To determine if VWO is the right fit for your business, it's crucial to assess its strengths and limitations and see how well they align with your specific needs.
Here's a quick summary to help you make an informed decision:
Who VWO is good for
Marketing teams with limited dedicated resources: If your marketing team is lean, VWO's off-the-shelf features like multivariate testing and personalization can be a good starting point.
Businesses seeking feature-heavy platforms: If you want to consolidate your marketing tools, VWO's comprehensive suite could be appealing. It offers everything from A/B testing and personalization to heatmaps and surveys, all in a single platform.
Who should consider alternatives
Larger businesses with high traffic: VWO's pricing, which is based on monthly tracked users, can become quite costly for websites or apps with significant traffic volumes.
Teams lacking technical expertise: While VWO strives for user-friendliness, some of its advanced features, particularly those related to server-side testing and integrations, might pose a challenge for less technical teams.
Companies requiring rigorous data tracking: Some users have found VWO’s data tracking and calculations unreliable. If meticulous data analysis is crucial for your decision-making, you might want to explore platforms with better analytics capabilities.
VWO alternatives
Here’s a quick list of VWO alternatives you should consider:
Eppo: The overall best alternative. Great for data-driven teams who prioritize experimentation and need reliable results.
Optimizely: A platform suitable for large enterprises with bigger budgets.
LaunchDarkly: Best for teams focused on feature flagging and management.
Next steps
If, after our VWO review, you feel it doesn’t quite hit the mark, Eppo is worth a closer look.
Eppo is a powerful platform for experimentation and feature management, designed to help businesses test and validate ideas with confidence.
It's particularly well-suited for companies dealing with large datasets who need a platform that delivers statistically sound results.
Here's why you’d want to go with Eppo:
Trustworthy data: Eppo is warehouse-native. This means it pulls information directly from your data warehouse, ensuring you're basing decisions on the most reliable data available.
Advanced analytics: Eppo uses cutting-edge statistical analysis (CUPED++) to accelerate experimentation without compromising on accuracy. This allows for faster, more efficient testing cycles.
Frictionless integration: Eppo is designed for easy integration, providing a faster path to generating value. This is especially true for non-tech-savvy teams who still want to run rigorous experiments.
Explore our VWO review for 2024 to find out if it fits the experimentation needs of your business.
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