Laravel Onboard Laravel Package

Product Decisions This Supports

• Feature Development: Accelerates implementation of structured onboarding flows for user activation, reducing time-to-market for new features requiring guided user journeys (e.g., SaaS onboarding, e-commerce account setup, or educational platforms).
• Roadmap Prioritization: Enables data-driven onboarding optimization by tracking step completion rates, drop-off points, and time-to-completion—critical for A/B testing and feature prioritization.
• Build vs. Buy: Eliminates custom development effort for core onboarding logic, allowing teams to focus on UI/UX customization and business-specific workflows (e.g., conditional steps, dynamic CTAs).
• Use Cases:
  • SaaS Platforms: Mandatory onboarding (e.g., "Connect your API key" → "Invite team members").
  • Marketplaces: Seller verification flows (e.g., "Upload logo" → "Set pricing").
  • Gamified Apps: Progressive achievement tracking (e.g., "Complete 3 tutorials" → "Unlock premium features").
  • Regulatory Compliance: Step-by-step data collection (e.g., KYC, privacy policy acknowledgment).

When to Consider This Package

• Adopt When:

  • Your Laravel app requires multi-step onboarding with clear progression tracking.
  • You need scalable, maintainable onboarding logic without reinventing the wheel.
  • Your team lacks bandwidth to build custom step-tracking from scratch.
  • You want to leverage analytics (e.g., drop-off rates) to improve conversion.
  • Your onboarding steps are user-model-dependent (e.g., "Profile complete" = User::profile->isComplete()).

• Look Elsewhere If:

  • Your onboarding is highly visual (e.g., complex animations, non-linear paths) → Consider a no-code tool like Userpilot or Appcues.
  • You need real-time collaboration (e.g., team onboarding) → Evaluate intercom-onboarding or custodian.
  • Your stack is non-Laravel → Use a frontend-first solution (e.g., React Hook Form + custom state).
  • You require advanced personalization (e.g., AI-driven step recommendations) → Explore custom ML models or segment-based triggers.
  • Your onboarding is one-off (e.g., a single form) → Use Laravel’s built-in session/validation.

How to Pitch It (Stakeholders)

For Executives: "This package lets us ship structured onboarding flows in days, not weeks, while giving us real-time data to optimize user activation. For example, if we’re launching a new SaaS feature requiring 5 setup steps, we can track completion rates per step and reduce drop-offs by 30%+—without hiring additional dev resources. It’s a low-risk, high-impact way to improve conversion and retention, with minimal ongoing maintenance."

For Engineering: *"Spatie’s laravel-onboard gives us a batteries-included solution for tracking user onboarding progress with minimal boilerplate. Key benefits:

• Decoupled steps: Define workflows in PHP (e.g., Onboard::addStep()) and render them anywhere in Blade.
• Flexible completion logic: Use closures to check model state (e.g., ->completeIf(fn(User $u) => $u->posts->count() > 0)).
• Analytics-ready: Built-in methods like inProgress(), steps(), and complete() integrate seamlessly with Laravel’s query builder.
• Zero dependencies: Lightweight (~500 LOC) and MIT-licensed—no vendor lock-in. Tradeoff: We’ll need to style the UI ourselves, but the core logic is production-tested by 800+ stars. Ideal for projects where onboarding is a critical path but not a differentiator."*

For Design/UX: *"This package handles the backend logic so we can focus on designing intuitive flows. We’ll own the visual hierarchy (e.g., progress bars, micro-interactions), but the package ensures we can:

• Dynamically update steps based on user actions (e.g., ‘Profile complete’ → hide step).
• A/B test step order without backend changes.
• Reuse the same flow across multiple user types (e.g., free vs. paid tiers). Example: For our marketplace onboarding, we’d style the steps as cards with checkmarks, but the package guarantees the ‘Create Listing’ step only appears if user->listings->count() === 0."*