Tools and APIs for Frictionless User Onboarding

A smooth and efficient onboarding process ensures users can access a product quickly and leaves a lasting impression that supports retention. It’s also one of the most important factors in customer growth. For developers, building this kind of experience requires balancing security, speed, and usability, which can quickly become a challenge without the right tools.

This article explores a few tools and APIs that can help create a frictionless, automated user onboarding experience. Each tool’s features, ease of use, APIs and SDKs, and pricing will also be reviewed.

Tools and APIs for Automating User Onboarding

Creating a seamless onboarding experience involves multiple touchpoints, from creating accounts and verifying identity to automating user workflow and providing support when required. Let’s see how to create a simple but strong user onboarding process. This will help with smooth communication, high user engagement, and useful data insights.

Frictionless Sign-Ups

Any onboarding flow starts with a sign-up. Even if it’s a business that has purchased your product, an individual will be signing up (for themselves or on behalf of a team), and they need to be validated. Streamlining the sign-up process is crucial for ensuring a positive first impression and reducing user churn while maintaining the safety and security of all parties involved.

Solutions like the Prove Pre-Fill® solution and single sign-on (SSO) integrations can help developers create fast, secure sign-up experiences.

Prove Pre-Fill

The Prove Pre-Fill® solution is a phone-centric digital identity and authentication solution that meets industry benchmarks for user onboarding. You can easily integrate it into your user onboarding process in minutes.

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The Prove Developer Portal is designed with a developer-first approach. The portal has everything—documentation, keys, sandboxes—in one place. From the moment a user signs up, the onboarding is fast and frictionless.

Developers get instant access to sandboxes and can test APIs without needing a credit card or prior approvals, which accelerates experimentation. With client and server-side SDKs, implementation is streamlined, and you can deploy core API functionalities with Prove sandbox environments in under five minutes.

A project-based architecture means everything related to a specific integration stays grouped and organized. Once in production, users can track detailed performance metrics like API call stats and authentication methods.

The Prove Pre-Fill® solution also delivers advanced identity verification that is compliant with Know Your Customer (KYC) regulations, which is better than traditional two-factor authentication (2FA) / multifactor authentication (MFA) solutions in terms of both security and efficiency. 2FA/MFA requires additional verification steps, which adds friction to the whole onboarding process. Since the Prove Pre-Fill solution utilizes the personal information associated with a user’s mobile number as a trusted identifier, these additional steps are eliminated without compromising security.

SSO with OAuth or SAML

Another app, another sign-up, another password—the onboarding process can often be overwhelming. Thankfully, SSO integrations can help.

SSO integrations using Open Authorization (OAuth) or Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) offer users a secure and familiar sign-in experience by connecting with trusted identity providers like Google, Okta, and others.

OAuth is ideal for token-based authentication in modern apps, while SAML caters to enterprise-grade authentication needs. These technologies are supported by APIs and libraries provided by major identity providers, such as Auth0, Okta, Oracle, and Google, allowing seamless implementation.

Pricing for SSO depends on the identity provider. Google OAuth is free, while Okta and other enterprise solutions offer tiered plans.

eSignatures and eID Verification

For industries like healthcare, insurance, and fintech, where compliance demands extensive identity verification, Dropbox Sign and Docusign offer efficient document signing and identity verification solutions. Minimizing redirections and extra information requests is key to maintaining a seamless user experience.

Docusign

Ranked among the Most Trustworthy Companies in America in 2024, Docusign is a secure, reliable, and scalable way to electronically sign agreements and other documents.

Docusign supports advanced analytics, integrates with over 900 cloud platforms, and offers additional eID verification for applications that need additional security. You can sign up for the developer account for free and use its Quickstart Wizard to quickly run code examples, build workflows, and test how Docusign works:

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In Docusign, each document container that you send for signature is called an envelope. It supports SDKs for Bash, C#, Java, Node.js, PHP, PowerShell, Python, and Ruby for creating workflows, retrieving documents, and managing users in a development environment of your choice.

Developer API plans start at $75 USD/month for forty envelopes per month. If you want to set the APIs with your app, a free developer account is all you need. Once you’re ready to take it live, you can upgrade to the paid plans.

Dropbox Sign

Dropbox Sign, formerly HelloSign, enables users to sign documents digitally while offering advanced features like customizable templates, audit trails, and embeddable signing widgets. Developers can easily integrate Dropbox Sign into their apps via its REST API, which supports operations like managing signature requests and retrieving document statuses. SDKs are available for six languages—Python, Ruby, PHP, Node.js, C#, .NET, and Java.

Dropbox Sign API Quickstart allows you to sign up for free and test its API across all endpoints via its own Try it console or your development environment using its code examples for all six SDKs.

Interactive Tooltips and Tours

Once a user signs in, they should be able to navigate the app effortlessly and easily access the features they need. Intuitive in-app tours and interactive tooltips provide guided support at crucial moments, enhancing user experience and driving adoption.

Interactive onboarding tools like Userflow and Appcues help you provide in-app contextual guides rather than leaving you to figure out the interface and flow on your own.

Userflow

Userflow provides developers with a powerful, no-code platform to design and implement fully customizable user journeys effortlessly. Its drag-and-drop editor allows for quick creation of walkthroughs, tooltips, and checklists that seamlessly integrate with your app:

Its lightweight architecture includes advanced features, such as user segmentation and an analytics dashboard to track engagement without impacting performance. You can use Userflow analytics to measure engagement, identify drop-offs, and optimize onboarding experiences. This helps refine the onboarding process to boost engagement and retention.

Userflow provides a RESTful API for programmatically managing user flows and a JavaScript SDK for embedding directly into web applications

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Give Users the Best Onboarding Experience

A flawless onboarding process is no longer optional—it’s a necessity. Using the onboarding tools and APIs discussed here, you can create an experience that’s fast, secure, user-friendly, and fully customized. From simplifying sign-ups to guiding users with interactive tours, the solutions discussed here are designed to reduce friction at every step.

People often say the first impression is the last—this holds true for online users. The Prove Pre-Fill solution can help you deliver a seamless experience right from the start. Its advanced technology auto-populates user information with unparalleled accuracy, reducing the time and effort required to complete forms. This instant convenience creates a positive, professional first interaction, setting the tone for trust and engagement.

Are you ready to see how Prove can begin transforming your onboarding workflows? Sign up for our Developer Portal today and start exploring.

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