Today's B2B buyers are more skeptical than ever and their expectations have never been higher. They've come to expect the same personalized, dynamic experiences they get as consumers in their B2B purchasing journeys.
Because of this, winning deals has become harder, as buyers expect tangible proof of value that your product does what you say it can do.
Interactive demos have emerged as a powerful solution for providing SaaS demos, enabling GTM teams to give buyers a more immersive product experience, whether through a product-led growth motion or complex sales cycles.
These demos support a range of GTM motions, allow companies to showcase their software’s value at every stage, improve the buying experience, and drive engagement and trust across the buyer journey.
What is interactive demo software?
Interactive demo software is a broad category with various tools for different use cases and goals.
While “demo” typically refers to live product and software demo presentations given by sales teams, some tools in this category are actually designed for top-of-funnel product tours, while others are designed to make more engaging videos or deliver functional proof of concepts.
To help you align the right tool with your goals and go-to-market strategy, we’ve divided interactive demo software into four subcategories:
- Video demo software
- Product tour software
- Live demo software
- Proof-of-concept software (aka sandbox software)
Also provided is each subcategory's use cases, the funnel stage and roles they're designed for, and the best vendors in each.
Video demo software
Video demo software is much more robust than using a tool like Loom to record yourself. Video demo software helps teams make more engaging and insightful videos by offering features and capabilities like:
- Using natural language processing to let buyers search for specific things in the video
- Tailoring videos to buyers based on how they answer questions in a pre-video questionnaire
- Embedding text, images, charts, and other graphics into videos
- Providing real-time data and user engagement metrics
Popular tools that fall under video demo software are Consensus and Arcade.
Use video demo software to:
- Provide self-service assets at the top of the funnel and on your website
- Engage new buyers and stakeholders in a sales process
Where it's best used:
Roles it's designed for:
- Business Development Reps
- Account Executives
- Solutions Engineers
- Customer Success
Best video demo solutions:
Consensus
Consensus is one of the more unique tools on this list. With it, teams can create interactive video demos for prospects and leads, stitching different videos together based on how a prospect answers a series of questions.
You can start the demo with a question about the buyer's role, then serve different videos based on the option they choose. After that video, you can ask another question about the features they're interested in and show them only videos related to those specific features.
An additional standout feature for Consensus is their “Buyer Board,” which allows your champion at the prospect’s company to see which of their colleagues have viewed the demo and how they've interacted with it.
Arcade
Arcade is a video demo tool that lets you record your face and your screen to walk prospective customers through your product. Then, you can use its embed feature to attach the recording to an email follow-up or add it to your website so visitors can get a sneak peek of your tool.
While Arcade is not the most feature-rich interactive demo tool, it is the lowest-cost option, which makes it good for teams on a tight budget who need to prove the value of investing in demo software before purchasing a more fully featured tool with a higher price tag.
Product tour software
Product tours are such a large subcategory of interactive demo software that we created a separate list of the best product tour software, but we’ve provided an overview below.
Product tour tools work by using a browser extension to capture your product's front-end HTML and CSS code. This makes your captures more dynamic than a traditional screenshot because it allows you to do things like:
- Add or change text, and blur sensitive information
- Customize elements without needing to recapture screens
- Add interactive elements like tooltips and CTAs
- Integrate with CRMs and analytics tools
Product tours can also be a great supplement to product and landing page copy, giving prospects a more in-depth look at your product before they commit to starting a trial or requesting a demo.
Popular tools in this subcategory include Navattic, Walnut, Storylane, Vivun, and Reprise.
Use product tour software to:
- Engage demo-averse prospects and fill the pipeline with qualified leads.
- Show a tailored product experience in a controlled manner.
- Allow buyers to get an ungated sneak peek of your product.
Where it's best used:
Roles it's designed for:
- Marketers
- Business Development Reps
Best product tour tools:
Navattic
Navattic captures screengrabs of your product's front-end code with a browser extension and then links them together using a no-code editor to create product walkthroughs.
Navattic tours can be gated or ungated, so teams can use them to capture lead contact info or move leads further down the purchasing funnel before asking for an email address. Analytics let you measure the impact of your product tours, such as tour completion and drop-off rates.
Price is really the big differentiator between Navattic and many of the other product tour tools on this list. It's one of the most affordable product tour tools in the space.
Related Reading: The Best Navattic Competitors and Alternatives
Walnut
Similar to Navattic, Walnut works by capturing your product's front-end code, which makes your captures more dynamic than a traditional screenshot because it allows you to do things like add hyperlinks and change copy.
Once you have your screengrabs, you tie them together using Walnut's no-code editor, adding tooltips, steps, and callouts that guide prospects through a tour of your product.
Walnut is unique among product tour tools because of its AI features. Writing all of the copy for a product tour can take a while, but Walnut helps speed that up with AI features that can assist you in creating content for your tours.
Related Reading: The Best Walnut.io Alternatives and Competitors
Reprise
Reprise is unique on this list because it offers multiple tools that each cater to different aspects of the purchasing journey. Replay is Reprise’s product tour solution that operates like Walnut and Navattic.
Reprise Replay is unique in that in addition to letting you capture screengrabs of your product one screen at a time, you can also use its application capture feature to grab all of the screens you need in one go.
Reprise also offers two additional products, Replicate, which creates a clone of your product that can be used as a leave-behind, and Reveal, which is a data overlay solution for live demo environments.
Related Reading: The Best Reprise Competitors and Alternatives
Storylane
Storylane is another no-code product tour tool, similar to Walnut and Navattic. And while it's priced similarly to Navattic on the lower-cost end of the product tour subscription costs scale, it has a couple of features that make it a more compelling choice.
First, Storylane uses application capture to collect the screens you'll use to build your tour. Instead of collecting screens one by one, you can start the capture and click through your product naturally, and Storylane will collect all of the screens you viewed into its editor. This makes it faster to build new product tours.
Additionally, Storylane has collaboration features that let multiple teams and individuals collaborate on building tours at the same time.
Live demonstration software
Live demonstration software lets AEs and SEs showcase live, data-preconfigured versions of their products during sales demos. These sales demo environments can be rinsed and reused to always be clean and ready for the next demonstration.
Tools in this subcategory are ideal for mid-market and enterprise companies that spend heavy employee hours managing demo environments for different industries and personas.
Popular tools in this subcategory include TestBox, Saleo, and Olto.
Use live demo software to:
- Automate early-to-mid stage demos for AEs (and BDRs)
- Provide demo experiences tailored by segment or persona
- Demonstrate new features to existing customers
- Reduce burden on SE teams
Where it's best used:
Roles it's designed for:
- Account Executives
- Solutions Engineers
- Customer Success
Best live demo software:
TestBox
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TestBox lets you synthetically recreate your best customer account to share with prospects. TestBox takes a unique approach to live demo experiences by using AI to generate highly realistic PII-free data and then ingesting that data into your product. Because the data is fully integrated into your product, it operates exactly as a real customer account would, meaning you can demonstrate the full breadth of your product’s features and functionality — even showcasing third-party integrations and AI.
Because the data lives within your live product, the instance always reflects your latest product and UI updates, no extra maintenance required. Additionally, if you sell to different personas, industries, or verticals, you can develop custom datasets that speak to each segment.
It’s also worth noting that TestBox also has the functionality to let you share the demo environment as a POC with a buyer. More details in the next section.
Want to learn more? Schedule a demo to see how TestBox can create fully functional, data-filled, automated demo environments to show the power of your product.
Saleo
Saleo was built for live demo personalization. It works via a browser extension that you turn on while viewing your existing demo environment to personalize the data leads see in your product while you demo to them.
Within the Saleo application, you can create custom datasets for as many use cases and verticals as you need. Then, you turn on the browser extension, select the dataset you want to display, and Saleo shows that data in your demo environment.
While you're demoing with the Saleo extension, you can change any of the data shown without impacting the core dataset, so AEs and sales engineers no longer have to go into the demo environment to clean it up before a demo call.
Related Reading: The Best Saleo Competitors and Alternatives
Demostack
While best known for its cloning capabilities (see below), Demostack also has a product for live sales demos. Demostack Live operates similarly to Saleo in that it allows you to overlay customized data on top of your existing product for live demos. This feature lets you tailor the demo shown to each buyer by editing elements such as text, images, and data.
Related Reading: The Best Demostack Competitors and Alternatives
Proof of concept (also known as sandbox) software
Software in this category is used to create a sales POC and functional sandboxes that can be sent to leads to let them get hands-on with a product. These tools use either a live version of your product or a clone of it to allow prospects to test-drive products before purchasing them.
This subcategory is extremely powerful for mid-market and enterprise companies with complex product sets, personas, and demo environments, and it is very flexible for companies where evaluations are a heavy part of their sales cycles.
Popular tools in this subcategory include TestBox and Demostack.
Use sandbox or POC software to:
- Prequalify leads before they engage with sales
- Get insights into buyer interest during active evaluation
- Showcase product differentiation
- Engage multiple stakeholders
- Support product training and adoption
- Let existing customers test new features without compromising their instance
Where it's best used:
Roles it's designed for:
- Account Executives
- Solutions Engineers
- Customer Success
Best Sandbox/POC software:
TestBox
Sales reps can also use TestBox to quickly create sales POCs directly from the demo environment to let prospects get hands-on with your product. Like the demo environments, TestBox's POCs are preconfigured with highly realistic data and functional integrations, so leads don't have to enter any of their own data or connect to critical company systems to fully experience your product.
TestBox POCs make it easy for prospects to navigate to your top features, letting them get to the features they care about testing the most, and guided walkthroughs explain what each feature does and how to use it. This saves your team time and eliminates the need for sales reps to hand-hold leads as they test and evaluate your product.
Finally, using TestBox's analytics, reps can see which stakeholders accessed the POC instance, what features they tested, and how long they spent testing overall and on which individual features. This helps them prioritize which deals to follow up on and gives them the information they need to create personalized follow-up communications.
Want to learn more? Schedule a demo to see how TestBox can help you create one-click, automated POCs to let buyers experience your product firsthand.
Demostack
Demostack is best known as a sandbox/POC tool that can be used to create interactive demos of your product. Unlike product tour tools, Demostack's cloning bot captures your product's front- and back-end code, meaning elements like reports, filters, and drop-downs are functional.
This makes Demostack a bit more useful for the sales use case than the product tour tools that are more catered to marketing. Sales teams can clone their existing demo environment, personalize it, and then send the clone to leads as a leave-behind after a live sales demo.
Related Reading: The Best Demostack Competitors and Alternatives
Choosing the right interactive demo software for your team
The most important thing you can do to ensure you're choosing the right interactive demo platform for your team is to get very clear on what you’re trying to accomplish — and better yet, what your buyer expects from you.
Interactive demo tools can be used across the entire buyer journey, so our goal with this primer is to help you identify which tools you need based on your team’s needs.
If you’re selling a complex or expensive tool in a competitive space, chances are buyers aren’t going to purchase on seeing a product tour or video demo alone. Additionally, it's important to understand the long-term effort that's required to use each of these tools. Most of the tools on this list require rework and/or maintenance after your product changes, so if your product is updated frequently, managing your demos and tours can quickly become someone's full-time job.
Make sure you're asking the right questions of any vendor you're evaluating to make sure that the product you ultimately purchase is going to meet your long-term needs.
How Interactive Demo Tools Can Work Together
Interactive demo tools can complement each other by supporting different stages of the buyer journey. For instance, many companies pair live demo environments with product tour or video tools. The live demo solution offers a functional product instance that can be used for recording or capturing product tours or videos and ensure consistent messaging and storytelling across the buyer’s journey.
