Tiny pixel critters that live inside your app — they walk to the right button, point it out, and explain it in their own voice. Onboarding people actually finish.
The interface didn't change. The vibe did. That's the whole pitch.
A blue rectangle floats over your face. There's an X. You hit X. The tour ends. You learn nothing.
A tiny friend hops in, waddles to the button, points, and explains. You smile. You click. You remember.
Pick the one that matches your product — or matches you. Each has their own walk, voice, and particle effects. Hover them and they hop.
Warm, encouraging, celebrates every small win. Perfect for portfolios, B2C, and anywhere you need a hug.
Fluttery and full of magic. Leaves a sparkle trail. Great for creative tools and Friday energy.
Never rushes. Walks you through edge cases without making you feel slow. Best for serious B2B SaaS.
Runs everywhere. Uses exclamation points like punctuation. For game-y, energetic apps.
Step one. Step two. Step three. No fluff, no filler — just the facts. The dev-tool dream.
Arrives in a puff of stars. Speaks in riddles, ultimately helpful. For premium UX moments.
The browser at the top is live, not a video. Each step shows the critter walking to the right element, the dialogue they speak, and the spotlight on the target — exactly as your users will see it.
Critter physically walks across your UI with a 2-frame leg cycle. They face the direction they're heading.
When they arrive, an arm extends toward the target element. The dashed spotlight ring orbits the target.
A speech bubble appears over the critter with their personality-specific voice. Mouth animates while speaking.
Don't see a personality that matches? Type a sentence and our AI synthesizes the sprite, palette, voice, and animation curves. Custom critters in seconds — no Photoshop, no pixel-pushing.
Hand our agent your product URL. It crawls your app, identifies the most important features, picks selectors, drafts dialogue, and builds the tour. You review, tweak, ship.
Paste one <script> tag, or npm i @critter/sdk. Works with React, Vue, Angular, vanilla.
Open your site in our visual builder. Click the elements your critter should explain. Selectors auto-captured.
Choose Pepper, Faye, Brixley, Flint, Chip or Mox — or generate your own from a one-line prompt.
Hit publish. Watch funnels fill up. A/B test critters and dialogue. See activation lift in real time.
Each demo runs live on this page. Hover them — they react.
Recruiters land on your portfolio. A fairy hops in, waves, walks them through your best work. They remember you.
Numbered steps, zero filler. Guides users to their first "aha" moment without a manual.
Just shipped something? Send Flint to users who haven't tried it. They'll click. He's contagious.
The product-tour space is crowded. None of them have characters, animation engines, or any personality. Here's the lay of the land:
| PRODUCT | PRICE | CHARACTERS | AI TOUR GEN | NO-CODE BUILDER | ANALYTICS | FREE TIER |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ✦ CRITTER | $29–$199 | ✓✓ FULL | ✓✓ FULL | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Appcues | $250+ | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ | ✓ | ✕ |
| Userflow | $240+ | ✕ | ~ partial | ✓ | ✓ | ✕ |
| Pendo | $299+ | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ | ✓✓ | ✕ |
| Userpilot | $299+ | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ | ✓ | ✕ |
| Shepherd.js | Free | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ |
| Intro.js | $10 | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ |
Start free. Scale when you're ready. No surprise overages. No "talk to sales" walls until you're enormous.
Drop in a script tag or npm install @critter/sdk. Works in any framework. Tiny bundle. No build step required.
<script src="https://cdn.critter.so/sdk.js" data-key="your-project-key" ></script> // Then, anywhere in your app: Critter.start('onboarding-v2');
import { CritterProvider, useCritter } from '@critter/react'; function App() { const { startTour } = useCritter(); return <button onClick={() => startTour('welcome')} >Take the tour</button>; }
A running log of features shipped, fixed, and dreamt up. Subscribe via RSS or Twitter.
Hand the agent a URL — it crawls, identifies key flows, drafts dialogue, builds a tour. Custom characters now generated from a single prompt.
Sixth base critter — premium, mysterious, perfect for high-ticket UX moments. Particle puff entrance. Riddle-style dialogue patterns.
Critters now persist across route changes. They re-position relative to the next target on the new page. Works with React Router, Next.js, Remix, Vue Router.
Split traffic between tour variants. Auto-determine winners by completion rate. Segment by plan tier, signup date, role, or custom traits via Critter.identify().
Critter launches publicly. Six base characters. Visual tour builder. JS SDK. React/Vue/Angular wrappers. Stripe billing. Welcome to the town.
Notes on building character-driven product experiences, pixel art, and the science of why tooltips are emotionally bankrupt.
Why Clippy failed, what we learned, and how characters can be helpful without being haunted. (Hint: opt-in > opt-out.)
Why a mascot drives retention better than any UI element ever could. The neuroscience of cartoon attachment.
Hierarchical bones, IK arm pointing, springy secondary motion — all rendered to a 22kb pixel-perfect canvas overlay. A deep dive.
Clippy was uncanny, intrusive, and always wrong. Critters are opt-in, only appear when you call them, and explain things they actually know about — because you built the tour. They're more like a friendly receptionist than a haunted paperclip.
~22kb gzipped. Lazy-loaded by default. It won't slow your site down — and characters only render once you actually start a tour.
Use data-critter-step attributes for steps that matter — they survive any refactor. Critter also supports CSS selectors and AI-resolved natural-language targets ("the blue Save button in the top right").
Re-color any of the six base critters, or describe a new one ("a cheerful astronaut cat with a red scarf") and we'll generate the sprite, palette, and voice automatically.
Yes — official wrappers for React, Vue, Angular, Svelte, Next.js and Remix. Or just drop the script tag into vanilla HTML. The SDK is framework-agnostic underneath.
Yes — Forest plan includes white-label SDK, SSO/SAML, on-prem deployment, and a dedicated success manager. Custom contracts available for 100k+ MAU.
Six critters. One drop-in SDK. Hours of saved support tickets. A product people quietly enjoy using.