Top 4 App Walkthrough Software You Should Try

When looking for new tools to try out, up to 88% of people walk away when asked to sign up for a free trial or to book a demo in order to see how the software works.

Signing up may not seem like a big deal, but if you have to repeat the process multiple times to compare tools, it quickly becomes time-consuming and requires a certain level of commitment. On the other hand, screenshots and homepage copy can rarely make a long-lasting impression since users miss out on the experience of seeing it in action.

What if you could eliminate friction and increase sign-ups by 1.7x by allowing your clients to experience your product directly on your homepage?

That's where interactive walkthroughs step in!

Interactive walkthroughs are personalized product tours for clients to experience the product firsthand without having to sign up for a free trial or be on a demo call.

Unlike static screenshots or a screen recording of your tool, interactive walkthroughs guide users through the app by engaging them with clicks, annotations, lead capture forms and zoom-ins. Your interactive demo highlights the most important features and hidden gems that users often miss if left to explore the app on their own without step-by-step guidance.

It's important to distinguish interactive product tools from user onboarding tools designed to help users after purchasing the product. Interactive walkthroughs are focused on showcasing the product's value upfront to prospects who have an initial interest and want to decide if the tool is worth further investment.

Keep reading to discover app walkthrough software that can help you create interactive product tours.

Top four app walkthrough software

1. HowdyGo

HowdyGo is an interactive demo recording software specialized in creating product walkthroughs that help you increase conversion and engage up to 90% of prospects viewing your website.

The founders created HowdyGo based on extensive experience and insights gained from creating thousands of demos and meticulously analyzing their results. This data-driven approach ensures that your walkthroughs are engaging and optimized for maximum impact.

“HowdyGo founders are not just solution providers; they are extra members of my GTM team that help us strategize, enable best practices and continue to push us to innovate how we can showcase our solutions better,” says Andrew Lingley, the marketing manager at Ansarada.

Now, here's how to create a great interactive product demo using HowdyGo:

1. Register for free and install our Chrome extension.
2. Open the app or website you want to create a product tour of and click “Start Recording."

3. Navigate through your app as you normally would, the extension will capture an HTML recording for each click you make, and create a step out of it.
4. When you finish, click “Stop Recording” and wait until the recording is uploaded. After that, the app will automatically take you to the Editor where you can edit and customize your app walkthroughs.

5. In the Editor, you can:
   • Add, remove or reorder steps
   • Add text and annotations
   • Animate steps
   • Add chapters
   • Personalize for prospects and accounts
   • Customize branding, colors and fonts

6. When you're done editing, it's time to share the app walkthrough with your audience by:
   • Embedding it to your website (no coding skills required)
   • Creating a sharable link to send to your prospect
   • Creating a demo center to share or embed multiple demos on your website

If you want to see HowdyGo in action, check out these interactive product demo examples built by our customers.

Features

• Unlimited HTML interactive demos: HowdyGo goes beyond simple product demo video production. Our tool captures pixel-perfect interactive demos in HTML while you're simply navigating through your app. It caches HTML, CSS, fonts and media, creating a perfect copy of your tool. Even our cheapest plan comes with the option to create unlimited product tours and demos and an unlimited number of user seats, so your whole team can participate in building an extensive demo library.
• Advanced customization: You have complete flexibility in editing. Modify your recordings and screenshots by adding text and annotations, blurring sensitive data, reordering, deleting and adding new steps using our intuitive drag-and-drop editor. Customize your product tours by adding your branding, colors and fonts.
• Personalization: Personalize your product tours for each prospect by adding details such as their name or their company logo, which can significantly increase conversion rates. Do all this by simply adding variables and we'll automatically personalize the whole demo for them.
• Lead capture forms: HowdyGo allows you to strategically incorporate lead capture forms at the beginning, end or between sections of your demo to transform visitors into qualified leads. Synchronize lead information and view analytics directly in your CRM system.
• Integrations: HowdyGo integrates with marketing automation, analytics and CRM tools, such as HubSpot, Zapier, Salesforce and Google Analytics 

Use cases

• Website embed: Embed your app walkthroughs directly to your website or landing page so that visitors can get a firsthand experience of your product right away.
• Social media videos: Create and optimize quick demos for social media, showcasing a particular feature or sharing little-known hacks to increase your reach.
• Product GIFs: Capture engaging GIFs for your marketing campaigns, email newsletter or social media.
• Sales demonstration: Interactive product walkthroughs replace regular sales demos, saving you time while prospects get hands-on experience and turn into qualified leads.

Pros

• Hands-on support from the founders who have extensive experience in creating interactive app walkthroughs
• Unlimited number of demos and user seats, even on the cheapest plan
• Optimized video exports for multiple channels like email and social media embeds
• Free trial

Pricing

• Demonstrate: $79 per month when billed annually or $99 per month when billed monthly
• Analyze: $319 per month when billed annually or $399 per month when billed monthly
• Scale: $799 per month when billed annually or $999 per month when billed monthly

*Use our 14-day free trial to make interactive demos with HowdyGo.

User ratings

Apart from the ease of use and extensive customization, most users highlight the excellent customer support and tips they’ve received from the founders and the team.

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2. Demostack

Demostack is an enterprise-level SaaS product demo tool that allows you to create product tours and demos for marketing and sales. It can be used both for mobile and web apps, but it's pricier than other product tour tools on our list.  Their sandbox environment is great for your sales team to give reliable, live demos of your product.

Demostack captures individual app screens and manually links them together, unlike alternatives with a one-click capture.

To create a product walkthrough using Demostack, you have to copy and paste your URL into their demo editor, allowing them to record your live app. You get a recording which you can personalize using their overlay feature to add or blur text and add your prospect's name, photo or logo.

You can save that demo and use it as a template for future product tours to ensure consistent branding.

Features

• Demo templates: You can create your own templates to ensure uniform branding and appearance across all demos. This feature makes Demostack a good option for enterprise customers who need to create dozens of demos efficiently.
• Advanced personalization: Overlay allows you to customize and personalize a demo for each customer with only a few clicks, without recording it multiple times. For example, you can add their images or logo as a profile picture so they can feel like they're actually using your software.
• Sandbox: After a sales call, you can send your prospects a link to the sandbox. This feature provides a trial-like environment where they can explore and test the features independently.
• Analytics:  Demostack provides both asset- and organization-level analytics. Asset-level analytics provide detailed activities and engagement metrics related to individual demos, while organization-level analytics give a holistic insight into your demo's overall performance.
• Integrations: Demostack integrates with Salesforce, HubSpot and Slack.

Use cases

• Interactive product tours: Share self-paced product tours on your website and convert website visitors into users.
• Sales enablement: Create customized environments based on use cases and personas to tell a unique product story and showcase hand-picked benefits for a particular user.
• Customer success: Educational demos help the customer success team resolve support issues much faster, increasing the number of self-serve resolutions.
• Micro demos: Create short demos to showcase a new feature, share some tips or post on social media to grow your audience.

Pros

• Great personalization
• Advanced analytics
• Templates

Pricing

Their annual pricing starts at $55,000, but the custom price depends on your needs. You can get a personalized quote by filling out the form on their website. For more affordable interactive demo software, check out these Demostack alternatives.

User ratings

Corporate users liked being able to create demo templates for multiple buyer personas, and automatically adjust the demo for different target audiences.

3. Navattic

Navattic is a B2B product walkthrough software that comes with built-in customization tools. You can download interactive demos for offline usage, making it a great option for showing your product at conferences and tradeshows.

Navattic offers unlimited HTML videos, useful integrations, comprehensive editing options and in-chat support.

As with Demostack, clone your app by pasting its URL in the in-app editor. After you've captured a few screens, you can edit and customize them. Go to the Storyboard to create your story by adding text, a demo checklist or prospect info.

You can embed the demo on your website, add a "Try a demo" button or get custom sharing links.

Features

• Pixel-perfect HTML: Capture any web app precisely, preserving hover states, scrolls, animations and dynamic interactions, even if you're navigating the interface quickly when recording.
• Drag-and-drop editor: Once recorded, it's easy to customize and edit your product tour in Navattic's drag-and-drop editor. You can add text, images, videos and highlights to create custom solutions.
• Customization: Customize every element, from colors, fonts and branding, to details like buttons and lead capture forms.
• Custom triggers: Add custom triggers that will activate annotations, call-to-actions or lead capture forms when a prospect clicks on a particular element.
• Real-time alerts: Be notified whenever a high-value lead views your product tour, so your sales team can timely reach out to them and close sales. Enable alerts in Slack, for the fastest response time.
• Integrations: Navattic comes with native integrations such as Salesforce, HubSpot, Marketo, Slack, Segment, Mutiny and more.

Use cases

• Product marketing: Detailed analytics allows you to adjust your marketing strategies by understanding how users engage with your demos and optimizing them for more conversions.
• ABM strategies: Identify the most active and engaged users so that you can prioritize their accounts.
• SDR outreach: Send product tours to educate and warm up your prospects before your sales team contacts them.
• Conference presentations: Use offline demos to showcase your product’s features at conferences and tradeshows in real time.

Pros

• Short learning curve & intuitive AI
• Smooth old demo updates
• CRM integrations

Pricing

• Base plan: $600 per month, billed quarterly (great for companies with 100 employees or less)
• Growth plan: $1,200 per month, billed quarterly (great for larger companies)
• Startup plan: a special discounted plan available for startups in the seed and pre-seed stage
• Enterprise plan: custom price available upon request

*If you opt for annual billing, you can get a 20% discount.

If you need demo coaching or more affordable tools, check out Navattic alternatives.

User ratings

Navattic is particularly popular among sales teams who like its real-time alerts whenever someone watches a demo so they can reach out to them on time.

4. Tourial

Tourial is a screenshot demo software with a high level of customization that allows your prospects to self-select and build their own custom demo, based on a questionnaire. 

However, it’s limited to screenshots, and it doesn’t capture interactive HTML like Tourial alternatives. This makes it a good option for simple how-to guides but it lacks interactivity.

Tourial comes with a Chrome extension for recording app walkthroughs. Install it and click  “Start,” and it'll automatically capture screenshots as you navigate through the workflow.

After you've captured your workflow, click the "Save details" button and again on the extension to save and complete it. You'll now go to the Tourial project to review and edit all workflow pages and if you're satisfied, click “Complete”.

Using their no-code tool, you can share your demo through a link, build a landing page or a  Demo Center on your website.

Features

• Tailor-made demos: This tool takes demo customization to the next level. Before watching a demo, your prospects will complete a quick survey about their industry, goals and features they're interested in, and Tourial will build a custom demo tailored to them.
• Demo center/website builder: Tourial's no-code editor allows you to create a professional demo center with multiple pages and menus. There are many layouts and templates provided.
• Engagement data: Tourial's product analytics provide detailed user behavior data across various verticals and segments. It has some useful features that can help with lead scoring and creating targeted ads.
• Workflow creation: The tool captures every process you do and creates detailed workflows that can be used to improve user onboarding and employee training.
• Integrations: Tourial integrates with third-party tools like Salesforce, HubSpot, Pardot, Zapier and more.

Use cases

• Website embed: Embed product tours to your landing page to showcase the product and increase the conversion rate.
• Knowledge base: If you have a lot of demos and how-to guides, use a drag-and-drop editor to create a demo center that will serve as a self-paced knowledge base for your prospects and clients.
• Outbound sales emails: Share a link to your demos when doing outreach and sending sales emails.
• User onboarding program: To help users who have already purchased your tool get the most out of it, create an efficient onboarding program.

Pros

• Self-customization
• Code-free website builder
• Beautiful design

Pricing

The pricing starts at $600 per month, but it's possible to get discounts and flexible billing options as a startup or smaller company with fewer than 100 employees.

User ratings

Users appreciated the self-customization that allowed them to record only one longer and more detailed demo at once that could later automatically be broken down into multiple shorter demos based on the user’s preferences.

7 best practices when making an app walkthrough

Here are our top 7 tips for better interactive product demos:

• Keep your target audience in mind: When capturing a user journey through your app, you should always keep your target users in mind and create multiple versions, if necessary. You'd use one approach for people familiar with your product showcasing its most advanced features and another for people new to it that need the basics.
• Personalize your walkthroughs: Choose walkthrough software that allows advanced user segmentation and personalize tours for each individual user by adding their name, company logo, and other details.
• Implement easy navigation: Your product tours should be simple, concise and focused on your product's key features. If you want to go into more detail and include more steps, remember to divide your product tour into chapters, making it easier for users to skip steps they're not interested in and move ahead quickly.
• Shift the focus from features to benefits: Yes, it's important to showcase features, but it's even more important to emphasize how these features benefit users and help them solve their problems. You can do this by providing real-life examples and tips on how to get the most out of your product.
• Add interactive elements: The best way to increase user engagement is to add clickable interactive elements when creating product tours.
• Keep your product tours updated: As you improve your product and add new features, remember to update your product tours so that they reflect the latest version of the product. You should also collect user feedback and address common questions in your walkthroughs.
• Optimize conversion rates: You can do this by strategically placing lead-capture forms and CTAs throughout your tours rather than only at the end. Also, you can address common concerns and objections that prevent people from purchasing your product. To learn more about conversion rate optimization, check out these 8 examples to increase SaaS landing page conversion rates.

Bonus tip: If you want to take your marketing to the next level, check out these 8 inbound marketing software for SaaS companies.

Conclusion

With various product tour software tools, it's important to pick the one that fits your needs, desired features and budget.

HowdyGo is a no code tool that allows you to create interactive product tours without any technical skills or expertise. All you have to do is press the Record button, and it does the rest.

Of course, you can then customize and personalize your product tour as much as you want. With our flexible packages, unlimited HTML videos and user seats, HowdyGo is suitable for startups, small and mid-sized businesses and enterprises.

Try HowdyGo for free and see how you can increase engagement and conversions with our interactive walkthroughs!

FAQs

What is an app walkthrough?

An app walkthrough is an interactive guide that leads prospects through your app or software, showing them how to use your tool without having to sign up. They're also sometimes called interactive product tours.

What is a walkthrough in software?

Software walkthrough means guiding a potential user or client through software step-by-step, showing them how to use it, and focusing on its features and benefits.

How to create a product walkthrough?

The best and quickest way to create walkthroughs is by using interactive product tour tools such as HowdyGo. All you have to do is press the record button and HowdyGo will automatically capture all steps that you can later edit and customize.

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