5 Best User Persona Tools for UX Professionals

User personas are a go-to tool in the UX world to make sense of who you're designing for so you can make design choices that reflect their needs.

But not every persona tool works the same way. Some focus on speed and visuals, others are built for collaboration, and a few are built to connect directly with research data.

This post walks through 5 of the most relevant user persona tools we’ve found and tried out. We’ll highlight what each one does well, and where they might fall short depending on your workflow.

1. Personas by UserBit

TL; DR 

$5 / month for unlimited personas and team members

What you’d actually pay:
Individual	Team of 5	Team of 20+
$5 / month	$5 / month	$5 / month

Full disclosure: UserBit is our company’s tool. But hear us out, as we’ve built it to solve the exact research-to-persona headaches we kept running into ourselves.

Overview

Personas by UserBit is built for UX teams who care about connecting research to strategy. Instead of relying on guesswork or generic templates, you can build personas directly from your qualitative research, pulling in user quotes, pain points, goals, and more.

✅ Pros

• It connects personas to actual research findings

• It offers a drag-and-drop editor with custom fields

• Built-in image and name generator

• Export your personas as PDF and PNG

• Share personas with stakeholders via the dedicated Client Portal

• Access to a host of other UX tools

🔴 Cons

• Doesn’t integrate directly with tools like Figma or Miro

• No import option for external persona formats (yet)

Why UXers like it

UserBit’s persona tool has a fully customizable layout, making it easy to adapt to different teams or clients. It’s also simple to export personas and share them with stakeholders in a format they’ll understand.

2. UXPressia

TL; DR 

Pro plan starts at $36 / month per user

What you’d actually pay:
Individual	Team of 5	Team of 20
$36 / month	$180 / month	$720 / month

Overview

UXPressia is designed for teams that want visually polished personas without needing to design them from scratch. But for teams that want to go deeper into the research side, it may feel a little surface-level. 

✅ Pros

• Integrates with Figma, Miro, Google Sheets, and more

• AI-powered persona generation (text + image)

• Real-time collaboration with comments and version tracking

• Can export to PNG, PDF, CSV, or even PowerPoint

• Can embed rich media: videos, documents, charts

🔴 Cons

• Pricing adds up quickly for teams (charged per user)

• No shared repository or team workspace in Pro plan

3. Miro

TL; DR 

Paid plans start at $8 / user / month

What you’d actually pay:
Individual	Team of 5	Team of 20
$8 / month	$40 / month	$160 / month

Overview

Miro is a great choice if you want something fast, visual, and collaborative for early-stage work. It doesn’t offer data syncing or research integration, so it’s not ideal for teams looking to build research-backed personas. The free plan also has limits on private boards and exporting, which could be a drawback for more formal deliverables.

✅ Pros

• Huge template library including persona, journey map, and empathy map templates

• Infinite canvas with drag-and-drop layout

• Real-time collaboration with live cursor tracking and comments

• Easy sharing via links (can set passwords)

• Supports embedding videos, images, spreadsheets, and data

• Integrates with Figma, Jira, Slack, and 100+ other tools

🔴 Cons

• Not purpose-built for personas — lacks structure or research linkage

• Templates can feel cluttered or unintuitive for new users

• Overwhelming for simple use cases

• Doesn’t offer insights, tagging, quote linking, or persona grouping by research segment

• Pricing scales per user, so it can get expensive quickly for medium/large teams.

4. Figma (FigJam)

TL; DR 

Paid plans start at $5 / user / month (billed annually)

What you’d actually pay:
Individual	Team of 5	Team of 20
$5 / month	$20 / month	$100 / month

Overview

FigJam, Figma’s whiteboard tool, offers persona templates through the community template library. These templates are useful for quick sketches or early design sessions and are easy to collaborate on with teams.  

However, you’ll need to manually input and organize all persona content, and keep in mind that there’s no logic layer or insight management — it’s purely a visual layout.

✅ Pros

• Persona templates available (including empathy maps and journey maps)

• Smooth drag-and-drop interface with real-time collaboration

• Easy to customize visually (colors, layout, icons, etc.)

• Built-in commenting, version history, and file sharing

• Works well with the broader Figma ecosystem

🔴 Cons

• Not tailored for research-based personas

• Lacks tagging, filtering, or insight integration

• Can feel too open-ended for structured UX workflows

• Some templates aren’t beginner-friendly

• FigJam and Figma are split tools — can be confusing for new users

5. Smaply

TL; DR 

Paid plans start at $34 / month (billed annually) for unlimited personas

What you’d actually pay:
Individual	Team of 5	Team of 20
$34 / month	$170 / month	$680 / month

Overview

Smaply is a well-built tool clearly aimed at enterprise teams and service design professionals. The free tier is limited to one project and three personas, which might not be enough for teams juggling multiple clients or products. 

Smaply shines when you need structure, documentation, and alignment across departments, but it feels heavier than what most UX freelancers or small teams might need for lightweight persona creation.

✅ Pros

• Built specifically for service design workflows

• Personas link directly to journey maps and service blueprints

• Clean editor with customizable sections

• Supports tagging, grouping, and journey stage connections

• Strong export options (PDF, visual maps)

🔴 Cons

• No AI or image/name generation Collaboration features (like viewer seats) are locked behind higher-tier plans

• No free-form visual editing or media embedding

• Pricing starts high ($399 / year per editor), which may not suit small teams

• Lacks integration with most mainstream design tools

Final thoughts

At the end of the day, picking a persona tool comes down to how you like to work. Some teams want something fast and visual, while others need a way to tie everything back to actual user research. There's no one-size-fits-all, so it's worth exploring a few options and seeing what fits best with your style and process.

Tip: If you’re curious about how to build a persona from your research insights, check out our definitive guide on making user personas. The guide walks through the process step by step, from raw data to a fully formed, research-backed persona.