In order to effectively sell software to someone, they have to first understand what it does.
Screenshots and descriptions work to a point, but they often leave something to be desired. Free trials are great if your product is simple, but if it's too feature-rich or complex for prospects to understand it easily, they might never make it to that "aha" moment.
Getting a prospect into a trial or on a monthly contract is only the beginning of the battle. Even if someone purchases your product, if they’re not able to accomplish what they want with it, chances are you’ll struggle with retention.
One great solution in the market to overcome these challenges is product tour software.
What is product tour software?
Product tour software is a type of no-code application that makes it easy to build walkthroughs that help leads and customers better understand your product.
Product tour software can be used by marketers to give site visitors access to interactive product tours, by sales teams to demo their products and create POCs, and by product managers to create onboarding tours that improve the onboarding experience for new users.
The 19 best product tour software platforms
Each of the different use cases of product tour software — marketing, sales, and product management — has its own set of tools within the space that caters to the way they need to use the software. So below, we've split the tools into lists for marketers, sales, and product to help you better understand which specific tools are right for your team's needs.
Best for sales teams
Product tour software for sales teams is often referred to as demo automation software. It's used by sales teams either as a custom demo environment for running live demos or as a way to create product POCs quickly and easily.
Here are the five best product tour tools for SaaS sales teams.
1. TestBox
TestBox sits on top of a real, live instance of your product, so it not only includes 100% of your product's features and functionality, but it also always reflects the most up-to-date version of your product. That means that when your product changes, there's no work for your team to do to get new features to show up in your TestBox sandboxes.
Each TestBox sandbox is preconfigured with sample data and functional integrations, so leads don't have to enter PII or connect critical company systems to fully experience your product — it feels as though they've already been using it for months.
Additionally, a quick links menu lists your top features, enabling leads to quickly navigate 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 navigate your product.
AEs can run live demos using TestBox sandboxes. Unique sandboxes can be generated instantly and infused with data that's specific to a prospect's industry. Additionally, AEs can enable and hide specific features in the quick links menu to keep sales demos focused on what leads care about most.
After a live demo, AEs can send unique POCs to leads as leave-behinds instead of static sales enablement slides and PDFs. Then, using TestBox's advanced analytics, they can see which stakeholders accessed the playground, what features they tested, and how long they spent testing overall and on individual features to follow up with hyper-personalized communications.
Want to learn more? Schedule a demo to see how TestBox can help you create on-demand, personalized demo environments and POCs for every lead.
2. Demostack
Demostack has two different plan options: One lets you do an overlay of your existing demo environment to show different leads custom data during live demos. The other lets you create a clone of your product to send to leads as a POC.
Demostack offers a number of interesting features like the ability to create demo templates, which can save your sales team time when building demos. They also offer a presenter mode so sales folks can include notes in their demos, ensuring they hit all the most important talking points throughout their pitch.
Related Reading: The Best Demostack Competitors and Alternatives
3. Consensus
Consensus is kind of like a choose-your-own-adventure video demo tool. Essentially what you do is create demo videos of different features of your product and upload them to the Consensus platform, and then their software lets prospects select which features they want to learn about, effectively letting them create their own demo path.
You get access to performance analytics which show where people drop off in a demo or which CTAs are converting best to help presales folks further optimize demos. They also have a few integrations that allow you to easily share links with prospects.
4. Reprise Replicate
Reprise Replicate lets you create a clone of your software to give prospects an in-depth look at your product’s functionality. You’re able to customize the data in the clone per prospect to make it as relevant as possible. There’s also the option to create templates for different verticals, which gives reps a great starting point and saves a lot of time.
Another standout feature is the ability to clone your product quickly at any time. That way you can always have the most up-to-date version ready for leads. You also get access to analytics that show what’s working with your demos and the areas you can improve.
Related Reading: The Best Reprise Competitors and Alternatives
5. Saleo
Saleo helps teams deliver more streamlined and personalized guided product demonstrations with its browser extension that lets sales reps overwrite the data displayed in an existing demo environment.
Teams can create one or more overlays inside of Saleo to show more personalized information while demoing. None of these overlays change the data in the actual demo environment; instead, they're just masks over the underlying data created by Saleo's browser extension.
If AEs make changes to the data while demoing, those changes are abandoned after the browser extension is turned off, ensuring that all sales reps have clean demo environments to work out of every time they start a new demo call.
Related Reading: The Best Saleo Competitors and Alternatives
Best for marketing teams
Product tour software for marketing teams, often referred to as interactive demo software, are screengrab-based tools that allow marketers to embed step-by-step walkthroughs of the products on their websites to turn more site visitors into trials or sales leads. These code-free tools let marketers build tours with a Chrome extension or another browser add-on.
Here are the five best product tour tools for marketing teams at SaaS companies.
6. Storylane
With Storylane you’re able to quickly create product tours with no coding knowledge. Their tool records you going through a process, then automatically stitches the different steps together to create the walkthrough. You can also build multiple flows within a product tour to give viewers the option to go through the tours for features that are most relevant to them.
You can further personalize the experience using Storylane’s integrations which allow you to send specific demos based on a person’s job and market segment. You can also include custom forms from a number of marketing automation tools like HubSpot to capture prospect information during their intro to your product.
7. Navattic
Navattic is another no-code tool that allows you to create product tours. It also uses screengrab technology, but it doesn’t automatically stitch together the steps. This can give you some more control over the flow, but it also means a little longer initial setup time in most cases. You grab screens of key features and then stitch the screens together using tooltips and modals.
They also offer a good amount of design tools to help your product walkthrough match the look and feel of your website.
Further, you can view performance analytics to understand what product tours are most compelling or where people drop off, and you can even connect it to other marketing tools like Salesforce to better understand how your product tours affect prospects at different points in your sales funnel.
Related Reading: The Best Navattic Competitors and Alternatives
8. Arcade
Arcade offers marketing teams the ability to make incredibly dynamic interactive guides that show off your user experience. Instead of having static pages, you can do things like pan across a page and zoom in on a certain point to make the demo feel more interactive. You can also create hotspots on a page to draw attention to a certain feature and show viewers where to click.
Another standout feature is the ability to break product tours into chapters. This way you can segment out the tour and even include CTAs at different points to encourage conversions. Last, Arcade has a synthetic voice feature that allows you to create voice-overs on demand in multiple languages.
9. Reprise Replay
If you want to make sure your product tours are pixel-perfect, Reprise Replay is a good one to consider. They offer a robust design toolset that lets you make your interactive walkthroughs look just as good as any of your other digital properties. You’re also able to do things like create pulsing elements in the walkthrough to draw viewers’ attention to a specific spot.
Another great feature is the ability to use clips — which are elements you can add to mimic the functionality of your product — to make your interactive tour more dynamic. You also get access to advanced performance metrics to better understand the impact of your walkthroughs.
10. Walnut
If you create a high volume of product walkthroughs for a number of prospects, you’ll want to check out Walnut. With it, you’re able to create walkthrough templates that team members can then personalize further for specific folks. You’re also able to do things like set expiration dates or add access codes for walkthroughs to ensure only the right people have access.
Another standout feature of Walnut is its AI integration that can help you write text quickly and efficiently for guided tours. You’re also able to collaborate with teammates in real-time to help make the best walkthrough possible.
Finally, you’re able to collect viewers' comments directly in your demos to get their feedback and respond right away to any questions or concerns they may have.
Related Reading: The Best Walnut.io Alternatives and Competitors
Best for product teams
Product tour software for product managers is often referred to as digital adoption platforms or user onboarding software. It's used to help new customers get onboarded with a product quickly by showing them around the product, helping them find the features they need, teaching them how to use those features, improving product adoption and user retention, and decreasing churn.
Here are the nine best digital adoption tools for SaaS product managers.
11. Pendo
Pendo is a tool that lets teams create effective product tours and engaging in-app guides. It’s great for the new customer onboarding process and can help with feature adoption and activation, decreasing the amount of time your customer success team needs to spend getting new customers up to speed.
Recently they added an AI product that lets you automate making guides. The AI also gives insights into what’s working well with your current user journey and offers suggestions to optimize the product experience further. With Pendo you also get access to analytics to better understand how customers are using your product and areas where they might be struggling.
12. Whatfix
Whatfix offers two distinct products. Their first product is a digital onboarding widget that lets you add in-app messages to help guide customers. It’s similar in functionality to others on the list but does include some interesting features like auto-translation for content you create in their app.
You can also export content and flows you build in their app to use in knowledge base FAQs or learning management systems.
Their other product is an analysis tool. It tracks customers’ actions when they’re using your site or product to gather insights about the customer journey and help you better understand how they are using and navigating your product. You can view high-level analytics or segment cohorts to dive deeper into results, helping you get laser-focused with your efforts.
13. Userpilot
Userpilot is one of the better-known names in the digital onboarding space. With their product, you can create a variety of in-app messages to help with customer onboarding. You’re also able to create messages to help with account expansion and automate them for certain points to help the message land and increase user adoption for key features.
One unique feature is the ability to A/B test messages to see what works best. You can also localize content so viewers see messages in their local language. You’re also able to customize the design of the in-app messages through custom CSS, which helps keep all your experiences on brand.
14. Intercom
Intercom, primarily a customer support tool, is a little different than some of the others on the list. Instead of using in-app messages that function like pop-up reminders, it lets you interact through pop-up CTA windows. You can send messages based on actions, and it gives customers the opportunity to ask questions if they’re stuck.
You can also create microsurveys and NPS surveys, showing them to customers through Intercom’s in-app widget to gather customer satisfaction data.
If you want to get really in-depth with your onboarding, Intercom’s Series product lets you do that. You can create custom onboarding flows with conditional logic to contact customers through a variety of channels and at a variety of points. It’s incredibly useful to help you keep things moving forward, reduce the learning curve, and curate specific experiences.
15. Appcues
If you’re looking for something that’s quick to set up and easy to use, Appcues might be worth checking out. They have a visual builder that makes creating in-app messages quick and easy. You also get access to a number of different design tools to create a cohesive experience.
Some other features of note are the ability to create segments with conditional logic to have custom flows that align with user behavior. You can also collect customer feedback through surveys to measure customer satisfaction and continually iterate and improve your onboarding flows.
16. UserGuiding
If you’re a smaller team with a tighter budget, UserGuiding could be a great product for you. They have one of the most cost-effective plans available — good for startups — and you get a lot of functionality for the price. You can create onboarding checklists, add dynamic in-app messaging to guide customers, create a resource center, and even have custom user segments.
You also get access to engagement analytics as well as the ability to identify and track specific users. On their higher-cost plans, you also get access to additional product tour features like content localization and material scheduling, which allows you to show content within a specific time frame you set.
17. Userflow
Userflow is similar to Intercom in the sense that it primarily uses chat-like window pop-ups to interact with customers. You can create workflows to engage customers and encourage them to complete different tasks. These come in a few different forms like messages and checklists.
They also have an AI bot tool you can train on your documentation and website data to respond to customer requests. It’s offered on all their plans and could be a great way to further engage customers. They also have no-code event tracking, which empowers non-technical teams to create events and limits reliance on developers.
18. Chameleon
Chameleon is a highly customizable option for teams who want to get more granular with segmentation. You can create custom audiences and trigger certain events based on the group someone falls in. They also offer dynamic personalization, which means you can have different content or styles based on the account or user viewing the page.
Chameleon also offers the ability to A/B different flows to see which performs best and a variety of on-page triggers like hovering, clicking, keyboard inputs, and more. They also have a scheduling feature that allows you to pre-set when experiences start and end, which can be useful for sales or other promotional efforts.
19. Walkme
Walkme is unique among the options on this list because it offers solutions for both employee onboarding and customer experiences. Both have similar functionality, like pre-built templates for different application processes, to help your team get started quickly. Both also offer user recording analysis so you can see what steps users are taking and what roadblocks they face.
Both let you create on-screen tips and suggestions to build tutorials that educate and encourage users. They also offer a tool called Action Bot, which can provide answers to questions and even set up automation for the user with one click. If you need a tool for both internal and external adoption, Walkme is one to look at.
Another newer feature in Walkme is the ability to identify who your active users are in the products your company pays for. This can help teams save a lot of money by knowing which users in user-based pricing subscriptions are inactive and should be removed.
Choosing the right product tour software for your team
Product tour software is an important tool to show customers what your tool is capable of and to further support them once they sign up. The truth of the matter is no one will buy your product if they don’t know what it does, and even if they do buy, they won’t stick around long if they can’t figure out how to do what they want with it.
Having a clear understanding of what you want to accomplish with your product tour software and who will use it most is a good place to start when looking for options. Create a list of non-negotiables to help weed out options, and focus on the solutions that are best suited to your — and your potential customers’ — needs.
