InVision Review, Pricing & Features

What is InVision?

InVision is a design and prototyping software used by a wide range of businesses to collaborate on interactive prototypes and designs. Over seven million users have used InVision for their design needs. Its standout feature is its design tool kit.

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Table of Contents

• What is InVision?
• InVision Review Summary
• InVision Pricing & Cost
• InVision Features
  • Designs
  • Tool Kit
  • Collaboration
  • Cloud Storage
• InVision Integrations
• InVision Customer Service
• InVision Alternatives & Competitors
• Is InVision Right For You?

InVision Review Summary

InVision was founded in 2011 by Clark Valberg and Ben Nadel. Since then, around 1,000 full time employees have served over seven million users from InVision’s New York City headquarters.

InVision’s features are tailored more for user experience designers and prototypers. This means that it does not include the user-friendly photo creation and editing features of Canva and Adobe Photoshop. Its strongest features are its tool kit and user interface.

InVision’s pricing starts at $9.95 per user per month. Its pricing is generally between its two closest competitors, Adobe XD and Sketch. InVision also offers a free plan.

Overall, InVision is a decent prototype software that can be successfully leveraged by designers to build interactive designs and wireframes. However, Figma’s free plan offers far more functionality in regards to collaboration and cloud storage. We highly recommend you look into alternative tools before making your purchase decision.

InVision Pricing & Cost

InVision pricing starts at $9.95 per user per month. Its paid plan supports 15 active users, as well as unlimited documents.

InVision also provides a free plan for up to 10 active users.

InVision Features

Let’s discuss the major features that InVision offers and how they can help your design needs. Product screenshots are included to add context and demonstrate the user interface.

Designs

InVision is best for prototyping and wireframing. In this regard, it is very robust. However, we recommend alternatives like Canva or Visme if creating ready-made, well designed images and banners for your social media or small business is more important for you.

Design Types

InVision, like Sketch and Figma, is built primarily for prototyping. This means that it’s best for creating mockups and interactive demos. Contrast this with Canva and Visme, which are best suited for social media posts, business cards, and presentations.

Prototyping in InVision is accomplished through its proprietary app, InVision Studio.

InVision works with vector graphics. These are scalable graphics you can create and export as SVG files. Because of this, it can be used to design logos similarly to Adobe Illustrator. However, note that Illustrator is a print-friendly software that offers more features centered around this model.

Templates

InVision does not come with as many templates as Figma. However, it offers a number of interactive tutorials and examples that are more helpful than the limited templates Sketch comes with. InVision comes with the following:

Tool Kit

InVision’s tool kit is built for prototypes and designers. You can customize your interface to include the exact tools and guides needed. In addition to its tools, InVision also allows you to create interactive demos of your prototypes. This means if you’re designing a website or mobile app, you can preview the user experience before moving forward.

User Interface

InVision’s user interface is sleek and customizable. It is very similar to both Figma and Sketch. An example of an uncustomized user interface is seen below.

Although InVision’s basic user interface is comprehensive, you can add a number of additional tweaks to modify your interface to your liking. These include:

Artboards

InVision offers a large number of tool types to choose from. Each tool is designed to make prototyping simultaneously efficient and powerful.

The fundamental tool most users will start with is the Artboards. Artboards in InVision have the same function as Artboards in Sketch. They are canvases that house your prototypes and designs. InVision comes with a number of Artboard templates including:

Once you’ve selected your Frame, you’re free to insert text and images. InVision does not come pre-installed with random generation features such as avatars, names, world cities, and images. These must be installed as free plug-ins from InVision’s app store.

Prototyping

Prototyping can be accomplished in InVision through its "Interactions" tool. Interactions in InVision are similar to Links and Hotspots in Sketch. They are essentially redirects that you can create from one Artboard to another. This allows you to simulate the actual experience of using the end product you’re prototyping.

As you can see above, we’ve set up different elements with their connections. You can also add additional animations to fine tune your prototype. For example, if we hover over one element, we will fade into the next Artboard.

InVision’s array of animations and connection types rival those of Sketch and Figma. You can also fine tune transitions to a level not seen in other alternative tools. This is crucial for immersion with test users and developers. It ensures your prototype can be as accurate as possible for both users and developers.

Components

Another important feature InVision offers is components. Components in InVision are the equivalent of Sketch’s Symbols. Components can help you substantially streamline your workflow by applying any changes you make across your entire file.

The main use case for this is if you are using the same element multiple times across your file, such as an icon. You can mark any graphic, image, and text in InVision as a Component.

Now, anytime you make a change to that Component’s shape, size, or color, these changes will be made across your entire project. This means that you do not have to go through your entire project and individually make the same changes multiple times.

Photo Editing

Photo editing in InVision is limited when compared to Adobe Photoshop. It’s also rather barebones in comparison to other wireframing tools like Sketch and Figma.

You cannot make color adjustments to your images. Contrast this with Sketch and Figma where you can make basic changes such as saturation and brightness.

You can, however, add borders and shadows to your images if necessary.

Collaboration

Collaboration in InVision is its biggest weakness. Collaboration does not take place in a centralized software like Figma, where collaborators can edit in real time and place comments on the same document. Instead, these steps are broken apart in both InVision’s prototyping software and its web version.

This break in cohesion adds unnecessary steps and ultimately limits collaboration.

If you want collaborators to test out your prototypes or leave comments, you must upload them to InVision’s web app. If they want to make any edits of their own, they must download the file and reupload their new version.

Contrast this process with Figma. In Figma, users can invite team members to join their file and edit in real time. This process eliminates any miscommunication that might occur with individually editing the same file in InVision.

Despite its shortcomings, InVision does come with some unique collaboration features. Its “Free Hand” mode allows you to import prototypes, add sticky notes, and draw any sketches or notes. Although this feature is unique, it is not worth the previously mentioned trade offs.

Cloud Storage

InVision is not fully cloud-based like Figma. This means that you’ll often need to save your own projects before uploading them to the cloud, which takes up space on your harddrive. Ultimately, consider Figma if you feel you and your team will be handling a vast amount of projects and files for your business.

InVision is currently working on implementing cloud features to integrate its web app with InVision Studio. InVision Cloud is set to release later this year.

Unfortunately, InVision does not support version control. This is a severe limitation if you’re working with large files or files that go through many changes.

InVision Integrations

InVision integrates primarily with prototyping, document management, and collaboration software. Here are some popular integrations InVision supports:

InVision Customer Service

InVision’s customer support team is quick to respond and attentive, but only available through email.

InVision’s secondary resources include a blog and best practice guide. These are effective ways to get industry news, updates on InVision, and software guides for both new and experienced users.

InVision Alternatives & Competitors

InVision has a number of competitors. Its most comparable alternatives are Adobe XD and Sketch.

Here’s a full list of InVision competitors:

Is InVision Right For You?

Overall, InVision is a decent prototype software that can be successfully leveraged by designers to build interactive designs and wireframes. However, Figma’s free plan offers far more functionality in regards to collaboration and cloud storage. We highly recommend you look into alternative tools before making your purchase decision.

If you're interested, you can try InVision today.