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Last month, I shared my database of 50+ SaaS company user invite emails, and people found it very useful!
One piece of feedback I received was that I should expand the invite emails to full-fledged onboarding emails for Growth Teams.
So I did it again.
This time, I reviewed over 50+ onboarding email sequences to see how great products utilize them to educate, guide, and drive activation.
In this FREE asset, you’ll find
50+ B2B and B2C SaaS companies’ email flows from signup to paid trials
300+ screenshots
Sticky notes with my observations and guidance
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In case you missed it, Kate Syuma recently gave away her 400+ screenshot teardown of 10 UX Onboarding PLG companies. With Kate showing you the in-app UX side, I am here to show you the email UX side. Both are critical in increasing Activation rate!
Below you get:
Stats on the top 10 themes of strong PLG onboarding emails
Access to the FREE Miro database of 50+ PLG email sequences
10 things great onboarding emails do differently
Onboarding emails often get overlooked in activation work. Most focus goes to product UX and in-app experiences, and for good reason.
BUT these emails are an extension of your product.
They orchestrate your experience, and when done well, can lift activation by 20–30% by providing context your product can't, celebrating early wins, and keeping users engaged when they step away from your app.
They’re your lifeline to users outside of your product who might otherwise drop off. And they’re one of the simplest ways to reinforce and extend your in-app onboarding.
After reviewing 50+ sequences from product-led companies of all shapes and sizes, here are the patterns that kept showing up:
1. Emails timed around the activation journey
Good sequences zoomed out, supported, and aligned with the whole customer journey using a combination of time and behavior-based triggers to align your emails with critical moments.
Most sent emails daily for days 1-7 to keep momentum. Products with trials (7, 14, 30 days) are spaced out more after the first week.
But they also corresponded to pivotal points like:
Right after sign-up
Before trial expiration
First value achievement to celebrate the win (your video was viewed!)
Known drop-off moments (set up, connect your data, verify account reminders)
Progress towards milestones
Figma’s nudge to create at known drop-off point
2. Set expectations for what’s ahead
These aren’t purely marketing or transactional emails. These emails are your chance to provide context to the activation journey as users explore your product.
The best examples in the database let users know what to expect from the product, the emails, and the journey ahead:
How long setup should take
The exact steps they should be taking after signing up
What to do during the trial
How often they’ll hear from you
What they’ll lose out of if they don’t upgrade
These emails supplement the onboarding experience and are your chance to fill in any blanks, remove confusion, and provide all the details you can’t in-app.
Clay’s welcome email sets expectations for what is to come and frames emails as a checklist series you’ll learn from.
3. Drove users to core value, fast
Great emails drove key core actions an individual would need to take in the product to experience value, not just premium features (team invites, automation, etc.).
To do this, they employed learning design principles.
They didn’t drop you into a feature. They taught you why you needed it, the outcome you’ll achieve using it, and then taught you how to use it.
Patterns I saw again and again:
Told users what action would unlock value in the very first welcome email (e.g. create a board, record a video, connect your data)
Promoted quick-start pathways like templates, AI, or integrations to make that first step easier and get them a quick win
Focused each email on a single, meaningful feature or task
Made the purpose of the email obvious within the first few seconds, through strong subject lines, headers, and a clear visual hierarchy
Layered value progressively across the sequence
Linked directly into the product to drive action
Delayed upgrade prompts until users had experienced value and understood the basics
It doesn’t need to be complex. One action per day. That’s how you build feature awareness and habits that stick.
Asana’s use of progressive disclosure to drive value + action + long-term success.
4. Taught, guided, and empowered (not sold)
Emails that felt the most engaging and valuable didn’t disguise their purpose; they communicated they were there to help. My favorite straight-up told you they were your onboarding emails, designed to teach you how to use the product. I didn’t feel like I was being sold.
These emails:
Used words like "learn," "lesson," and "guide" to set expectations
Broke down real use cases and explained when and why you'd use a feature
Provided step-by-step guidance and clear next actions
Utilized checklists to keep targeted focus
Leveraged FAQs to get ahead of potential sticking points or confusion early on unearth valuable features and other use cases in a natural way
Surfaced educational content, tutorials, templates, and community links
Reinforced key learning objectives through a mix of formats (videos, in-app walkthroughs, help docs, live chat, webinars, etc.)
This is your chance to help users avoid common mistakes or confusion
This builds confidence and excitement, helps naturally surface new use cases, and empowers users.
Zapier’s “Learn Zapier in 14 days” onboarding sequence.
5. Made support options obvious and accessible
Onboard users not just into the product, but into your support ecosystem. Show them how to reach you, how to get help, and what support channels are best for what.
The best examples didn’t bury this in the email footer. They surfaced it early and often to help users feel supported and encouraged while they are getting started.
This included:
CTAs to live chat
Live webinar invitations
Office hours invite
Entire emails dedicated to support options
Sales-assist options
Orgs often take for granted how their support can be seen as a valuable feature. It should be treated as one!
They used social proof strategically to reinforce the specific action or feature they were promoting. This adds context, builds confidence, and helps users understand the value behind a feature.
This could be things like:
Usage stats - “4,370 marketers use this template”, template ratings
Flag use cases - “best templates for marketers”
Short snippets of use cases that show what’s possible when someone uses a feature and their actual result.
7. Used product UI and visuals to build familiarity
This kind of imagery not only helps balance content and descriptions but can help speed up time to value by familiarizing users with components and features before they use them.
They include things like:
UI elements from your product
GIFs showing functionality
Branded elements to reinforce product experience
Screenshots of product
Screengrabs from video content
Miro uses product UI as design elements, building familiarity + reinforcing functionality in app.
8. Personalized with onboarding data and behavior
Honestly, many products I reviewed aren’t doing this yet. But it’s making this list because I think this is probably why onboarding emails in activation are often downplayed. After all, we’re missing a big opportunity to properly connect with our users.
Emails are spammy if users don’t see value in them
This doesn’t need to be overly complex with overengineered flows, beautifully designed emails, and 7-day personalized content for each role/use case.
Just intentional and timely personalization:
Swap in dynamic content based on role, use case, etc.
Highlight the key action they haven’t taken yet (connect data, sharing)
Reframe value props based on what they have already done (your first video was viewed!)
Use language that matches where they are in the journey…not where you wish they were
Loom is personalized to product management use case pulled from onboarding flow data.
9. Made the product feel personal and human
This is your direct line to your users and your chance to humanize your product.
Products did this by:
Having emails come from a real team member with photos and signatures
Share a message from the CEO or founder
Provide direct stories from team members on how they use the product
Consistent use of the same team member guiding through the sequence or featuring the same team member in all videos or learning content
Use a conversational and sometimes even storytelling tone throughout
Having fun and showing their organization’s personality
Beehiiv’s welcome email from CEO.
10. Introduced monetization gradually
Most products switched from activation mode to monetization around day 11 or 3 days before a trial ended. I believe that onboarding to monetization and upgrade pathways is an important part of this process, which is why I’ve included many upgrade emails (and a few win-back emails) in the database.
Even if a product didn’t have natural upgrade moments tied to a trial, they started to shift towards onboarding to premium features and functionality towards the end of the first week after giving users time to experience value.
Good emails did this in a way that still felt natural:
Establishing product value before discussing pricing (save it for emails later in the sequence)
Using time-based urgency to signpost where users are in the trial
Highlighted what users lose out on by not upgrading - tied to value, not just features
Walked me through my plan options
Provided sales-assist option if I needed
Communicated what I still had access to on the free plan
Offered trial extension at end of email sequence
Asked for feedback if users didn’t upgrade
Pipedrive’s Day 11 trial onboarding email.
See all 10 principles at work in the database
If you're rethinking your onboarding, this is a good place to start.
See how different companies tackle similar challenges, borrow ideas that fit your product, and learn from what’s working across industries and company stages.
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Thanks for reading!
-Drew
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