If you work on SaaS onboarding and are drowning in spreadsheets, emails, and “just checking in” calls, you’re not alone. B2B onboarding is supposed to be about helping customers get value—not chasing tasks or herding cats. There’s a crop of tools promising to fix this, but most just add another dashboard to your life. This review is for SaaS onboarding managers, CSMs, and founders who’ve heard about Arrows and want the real story—what works, what’s fluff, and what actually moves the needle.
What’s Arrows, and What Problem Does It Really Solve?
Arrows bills itself as a B2B onboarding and implementation workspace. The core idea: give you and your customers a shared, action-oriented plan, with built-in accountability. Instead of onboarding living in random emails and Google Docs, you get a clear checklist, linked to your CRM, that everyone can see and update.
The main pain points Arrows claims to solve:
- Scattered onboarding steps: No more tracking tasks in six places.
- Customers ghosting: Supposedly, visibility and reminders mean fewer black holes.
- Unclear “definition of done”: Everyone knows what’s next and who owns what.
Does it nail these? Mostly, yes. But let’s break it down.
Core Features: What You Get (and What’s Missing)
1. Shared Onboarding Plans
- Templates: Build reusable plans for your most common onboarding flows. No more copy-paste.
- Assignees: Assign tasks to internal team members or customers.
- Deadlines and reminders: Set due dates; Arrows nudges folks if things slip.
- Progress tracking: Both sides see what’s done and what’s left.
Reality check: This hits the basics. For most SaaS onboarding teams, this is a big step up from spreadsheets or Trello boards. It’s not magic, but it’s practical.
2. CRM Integration (Especially HubSpot)
- Two-way sync: Tasks and statuses update in both Arrows and your CRM.
- Trigger automations: Use completions to fire off emails or move deals along.
Reality check: If you’re a HubSpot shop, this is smooth. For others (Salesforce, Pipedrive, etc.), it’s more limited—expect some manual work or Zapier hacks.
3. Customer Experience
- No-login option: Customers can use plans without yet another password.
- Personalization: Show/hide steps, drop in videos or docs, tailor instructions.
Reality check: The no-login thing is huge for adoption. But don’t expect full white-labeling—your customers will know they’re in Arrows.
4. Reporting
- Basic analytics: See plan completion rates, bottlenecks, overdue tasks.
- Export options: Get your data out if you need to analyze elsewhere.
Reality check: Reporting is fine for tracking onboarding throughput, but it won’t replace your BI tool. You’ll probably still need spreadsheets for deeper analysis.
What’s Missing
- Complex automations: If you need branching workflows or heavy logic, look elsewhere.
- Deep integrations: Outside HubSpot, most connections are surface-level.
- Native in-app product tours: Arrows is about external plans, not in-product onboarding.
If you’re hoping for an all-in-one customer journey tool, this isn’t it. But for onboarding project management, it covers the basics well.
Setup and Daily Use: How Painful Is It?
Getting Started
- Plan templates: Easy to create; you can clone and tweak them.
- CRM integration: HubSpot setup is straightforward. Others take more fiddling.
- User onboarding: Most teams are running live plans within a day or two.
Pro tip: Don’t overthink your first template. Start simple, add complexity as you learn what your customers actually struggle with.
What It’s Like Day-to-Day
- Assign plans when a deal closes: Either manually or automated (if your CRM supports it).
- Track progress: See which customers are on track, stuck, or MIA.
- Communicate in context: Comment on tasks, send reminders—no more “where’s that doc?” emails.
What slows you down: If you’re juggling multiple onboarding paths (e.g., by segment or product), you’ll spend time tweaking templates. Also, if your customers aren’t used to structured onboarding, there’s some hand-holding at first.
Honest Pros and Cons
Where Arrows Shines
- Simplicity: It’s focused. You won’t get lost in a maze of features.
- Customer accountability: Shared plans and reminders actually do cut down on ghosting—if your customers buy in.
- HubSpot integration: Best-in-class for this use case.
- No-login for customers: Lowers friction, increases completion rates.
- Support: Small team, but responsive and genuinely helpful.
Where It Falls Short
- Price: Not cheap, especially for small teams (starts around $500/month as of mid-2024). No free tier.
- Limited integrations: If you’re not on HubSpot, you’ll hit walls.
- Reporting depth: Good for “who’s behind?” but not for slicing and dicing custom metrics.
- No built-in product guides: Doesn’t help with in-app onboarding—just external plans.
- Customization limits: Branding is there, but still “Arrows” under the hood.
How Arrows Compares to Other Onboarding Tools
A tool is only as good as the pain it actually solves for you. Here’s how Arrows stacks up against the main alternatives:
Arrows vs. Project Management Tools (Asana, Trello, ClickUp)
- PM tools: Tons of flexibility, but your customers aren’t logging in. Tasks get lost, and there’s no clean “customer view.”
- Arrows: Built for onboarding, not every workflow under the sun. Customer experience is cleaner, but less customizable.
Verdict: If you just need checklists for your internal team, PM tools are fine. For real customer-facing onboarding, Arrows is less janky.
Arrows vs. Customer Success Platforms (Gainsight, ChurnZero)
- CS platforms: Huge feature sets—health scores, playbooks, QBRs, the works. But onboarding is often just a bolt-on.
- Arrows: Does onboarding and nothing else. Faster setup, less bloat.
Verdict: If onboarding is your main pain, Arrows is less overwhelming. If you want soup-to-nuts post-sale management, look elsewhere.
Arrows vs. Dedicated Onboarding Apps (GuideCX, Rocketlane)
- GuideCX/Rocketlane: More robust for complex projects—multiple phases, dependencies, full-blown project Gantt charts.
- Arrows: Simpler, fewer moving parts, but less flexibility for gnarly implementations.
Verdict: For straightforward SaaS onboarding, Arrows is easier to roll out. For multi-month, multi-team implementations, the others win.
Arrows vs. DIY (Spreadsheets, Docs, Notion)
- DIY: Free, flexible, but manual, error-prone, and hard to scale.
- Arrows: Costs money, but gives you structure and accountability.
Verdict: Once you hit more than a handful of customers, DIY breaks down fast. Arrows pays off if you value process over hacking things together.
What Actually Moves the Needle (And What Doesn’t)
Worth Your Time
- Standardizing onboarding: Reusable templates give you a real process.
- Visibility: Both you and your customer see what’s next, so less chasing.
- Accountability: Deadlines and reminders make it less awkward to nudge customers.
Don’t Expect Miracles
- Customer engagement: If your customers don’t care about onboarding, no tool will fix that.
- Automating everything: Arrows is simple by design. You’ll still need humans for complex stuff.
- Replacing your CRM: It’s not trying to be a database of record.
Should You Buy It?
If you’re onboarding more than a handful of customers each month, and your process is scattered, Arrows is worth a serious look—especially if you’re a HubSpot-first team. It won’t solve every onboarding headache, but it does make the basics easier and keeps everyone honest. If you’re looking for deep integrations, complex workflows, or a full customer success platform, keep shopping.
Pro tip: Try it with one segment or pilot customer first. See if your team and customers actually use it. Don’t get sold on a demo—get your hands dirty.
Bottom Line
There’s no perfect tool, and Arrows isn’t trying to be one. It’s good at what it does: making SaaS onboarding more visible, accountable, and less scattered. Don’t let tool FOMO slow you down. Pick something simple, roll it out, and iterate as you learn what actually helps your customers succeed.