A UserTesting alternative for when you need answers today, not a panel

What is the difference between UserTesting and Jenna?

UserTesting puts your site or prototype in front of real people and records them; Jenna is the visitor herself. Both show you your site through someone else's eyes and where it fails, but the source is opposite.

When UserTesting is the better choice

Choose UserTesting, or another panel-based research tool, when you need to hear from real people. Their pages list what that gives you:

• Real people from a recruited panel, filtered by demographics and screener questions, or your own customers invited to a test.
• Opinions and feelings. Their free test asks questions such as "What 3 words would you use to describe how this makes you feel?"
• Moderated live interviews ("Moderated, Live Conversation").
• Prototype and Figma testing, with a "UserTesting for Figma plugin" and "Secure prototype hosting".
• Card sorting, tree testing and surveys.
• Messaging and creative tests: "Get fast feedback on messaging, creative, and landing pages before launch".
• Mobile testing, listed as a use case.
• Integrations "with Slack, Teams, Jira, Figma, FigJam, Miro".

Jenna is not a person and has no panel: she does not tell you how a page makes anyone feel, and she runs no interviews, card sorts, tree tests or surveys. She uses websites in a browser and has no integrations beyond her REST API and machine-readable guide.

When an AI agent is the better fit

An AI agent fits when the question is "does this journey work, and where does it block?" rather than "what do people think of it?". That is the idea behind an AI UX audit:

• You need an answer today, on your live site. A first run takes a few minutes to a quarter of an hour depending on the journey; a full exploration of a store takes about thirty minutes.
• You have no research budget and no annual contract. Jenna's prices are public, and packs never expire.
• You want to re-check the same journey after each release. A successful run can be replayed without the AI model: the recorded path runs again, faster and cheaper than the first run. On the Autopilot subscription you can also schedule runs. See how to re-check a journey after every release.
• The journey goes through a sign-up, a form or a cart. She signs up with e-mail verification, fills in forms, and on a store goes as far as the payment step without placing a real order. Test your store's checkout, or use her for pre-launch testing for agencies.
• Nothing can be installed on the site. No script, no module, no back-office or hosting access. One exception: if the site's bot protection refuses her first request, the run reports that as a block on our side, not as a finding about your site.

What each completed run gives you:

• a video of her session, narrated in her voice unless you turn narration off (it is the agent's session, not a person's);
• a step-by-step log with a screenshot at each step;
• an honest verdict: reached, blocked or failed, and where;
• in audit mode, a difficulty note, the problem found and the recommended fix at each step, plus a UX score out of 100.

A public share link opens all of it without an account, and reports and videos can be printed and downloaded.

Can I get an alert when my site changes?

Yes. Each project has a Monitoring switch. When it is on, Jenna rechecks the project's pages on a schedule and e-mails you when they change. The check and the alert use no minutes. On Autopilot, a detected change can also trigger an automatic rerun, which does use minutes.

UserTesting vs Jenna at a glance

120 free minutes at sign-up, no card, about one full audit.

UserTesting pricing, as their site shows it

UserTesting does not publish a price. Every tier on its plans page (Advanced, Ultimate, Ultimate+) says "Request pricing", and its FAQ says "the price for each plan varies depending on the number of users, types, and features". What the site does show, as read on 12 October 2026:

• Two plan types. "Test-based Consumption" ("Pay based on test usage across your team") and "Team-based Unlimited" ("Unlimited tests within a defined enterprise scope").
• An annual subscription. The plans page invites you to request a trial "before committing to an annual subscription."
• Session Units. On Test-based Consumption, usage is counted in Session Units (SU). A think-out-loud test of up to 20 minutes with a participant from their network counts 10 SU; their own example is a Quick Answers test with six participants from their network: 60 SU. The price of one Session Unit is not shown on the pages we read.
• A free test. One prewritten first-impression test, which the site calls "your one-time test".

Jenna publishes her prices (see pricing): packs that never expire, shared across projects, excluding VAT: 120 minutes for €5, 500 minutes for €15, 2,000 minutes for €49. Autopilot is €29/month with 725 minutes each billing cycle, plus scheduled routines and encrypted credentials for journeys behind a login; cancel any time. Only browser time is billed: a full UX audit of a site uses about 120 minutes, so about €5, and a simple journey a few minutes.

Using both

You don't have to choose. Run Jenna on every release to check that your sign-up, forms and checkout still work; run a panel study when you need opinions from real customers. If you also record real visitors, see our Hotjar alternative page.

FAQ

How much does UserTesting cost?

UserTesting does not publish its prices: every plan says "Request pricing" and is quoted by their account team. As read on 12 October 2026, it is an annual subscription, and the Test-based Consumption plan counts usage in Session Units whose price is not shown on its site.

Is there a free UserTesting alternative?

UserTesting itself offers one free, prewritten first-impression test. Jenna gives you 120 free minutes at sign-up, with no card, which is about one full audit of your site.

What is the best alternative to UserTesting?

There is no single best one: it depends on what you need to learn. If you need real people's opinions, feelings or demographics, use a panel-based research tool. If you need to know whether a journey works and where it blocks, an AI agent like Jenna answers that the same day, without a panel or a contract.

Can AI replace user testing with real people?

Not for opinions, feelings or demographics: an AI agent is not a customer. Jenna's personas (Novice, Expert, Administrator) are ways of browsing, not people. For "does this journey work, and where does it block?", an AI agent like Jenna is a fast, low-cost check that you can repeat after every change; this is sometimes called user testing without users.

Can AI test my website?

Yes. Jenna is an AI agent that uses your website in a real browser on your behalf. Give her an address and a goal, and she returns the narrated video, the step-by-step log and the verdict. There are no human participants, so she does not replace interviews with your customers. See the AI UX audit.

Do I need to install anything on my site?

No. Nothing is installed: no script, no module, no back-office or hosting access. The one exception is a site whose bot protection refuses her first request; it cannot be audited, and the run reports that as a block on our side.

Does Jenna pay testers?

No. Jenna is an AI agent, not a panel of people, so there are no testers to pay.