JourneyLab vs Smaply
Purpose-built journey mapping with personas and stakeholder maps.
Free tier, paid from €390/editor/year
Smaply is a thoughtful mapping tool with an emotion layer worth learning from. JourneyLab is for teams who want the map to also answer what to fix and what it is worth.
What Smaply does well
- Purpose-built journey mapping with personas, stakeholder maps and a clean interface.
- A service-design pedigree with emotion charts, touchpoints and pain points that suit CX and UX teams.
- Clear, approachable per-editor pricing for small teams.
Where Smaply leads
The service-design layer: emotion charts, pain points and opportunity notes that capture how customers feel. JourneyLab does not yet have an emotion row.
Where JourneyLab leads
The money layer. Smaply maps the experience; JourneyLab adds cost, conversion and profit so the map drives decisions, and its node graph can grow far more complex than a flat 2D journey stage.
Capability by capability
Green is included, amber is partial or in beta, and grey is not present.
| Capability | Smaply | JourneyLab |
|---|---|---|
| Map, analytics and economics in one graph | Missing | Included |
| Unit economics on the journey map | Missing | Partial |
| Stage conversion tracking | Missing | Included |
| CAC, LTV and LTV:CAC | Missing | Included |
| Payback period | Missing | Included |
| Per-node CapEx and OpEx | Missing | Included |
| Multi-touch marketing attribution | Missing | Included |
| Dated history and backdating | Missing | Partial |
| API and export | Partial | Partial |
| Transparent pricing | Included | Included |
| Self-serve signup | Included | Included |
The bottom line
Smaply is a well-regarded cx journey mapping tool, and it is genuinely good at what it was built for. The service-design layer: emotion charts, pain points and opportunity notes that capture how customers feel. JourneyLab does not yet have an emotion row. Where they differ: The money layer. Smaply maps the experience; JourneyLab adds cost, conversion and profit so the map drives decisions, and its node graph can grow far more complex than a flat 2D journey stage. If you already have your stack in place and only need that one job, Smaply is excellent at it. If you want one system that sketches the whole machine, measures it and prices it with the same math, JourneyLab is the fit.