If you’re in SaaS sales, you know the sales tool treadmill—demo platforms, onboarding tools, “interactive experience” promises. Most sound great. Few deliver. This guide is for sales leaders and ops folks who want a real look at Arcade and how it really stacks up against other B2B GTM (go-to-market) software tools. No fluff, no hype. Just the straight dope on what works, what doesn’t, and where Arcade fits in your stack.
What Is Arcade—and Why Does It Matter?
Arcade bills itself as a platform for building “interactive product demos” that help sales and marketing teams show off their software. The aim: Make it dead simple for prospects to click around, get what your product does, and (hopefully) book a meeting or sign up.
If you’ve tried to build demo environments, you know the pain: - Sandboxes break. - Prospects get lost. - Sales reps waste time doing the same walkthroughs.
Arcade promises to fix that with embeddable, guided product tours. The big question: Does it actually help SaaS sales teams close more deals—or is it just a shinier way to do what you’re already doing?
Key Features: Where Arcade Shines and Where It’s Meh
Let’s cut through the marketing blur and look at what Arcade actually does—and doesn’t—bring to the table.
What Works
- Interactive Demos: You can create click-through product tours that live on your website, in sales emails, or as leave-behinds. These are slick, easy to embed, and don’t require engineering help.
- No-Code Builder: The interface is drag-and-drop. You record your screen, add steps, and layer on callouts or tooltips. It’s genuinely easy—no secret “demo engineer” skills required.
- Analytics: See who viewed your demo, where they dropped off, and what they clicked. It’s not enterprise-grade analytics, but it’s enough to see what’s resonating (or not).
- Integrations: Basic integrations with HubSpot, Salesforce, and a few others. Not as deep as some platforms, but setup is quick.
- Easy Sharing: Drop a link, embed in a site, or stick it in an email. No weird logins for the viewer.
What’s Just Okay
- Customization: You can tweak branding and colors, but if you want a totally bespoke look, you’ll hit limits fast.
- Mobile Experience: Works, but not mind-blowing. These demos are still best on desktop.
- Team Collaboration: You can share demos within your team, but there’s no fancy approval workflows or versioning.
What to Ignore
- AI Features: There’s some AI-generated callout suggestions and step descriptions. Not bad, but nothing you couldn’t do faster yourself.
- “Gamification” Options: A few cute touches (badges, confetti), but they don’t move the needle for B2B buyers.
How Arcade Compares to Other B2B GTM Demo Tools
You’ve got options. Let’s stack up Arcade against the usual suspects: Reprise, Walnut, Demostack, and the old-school DIY approach.
1. Arcade vs. Reprise
- Reprise is the heavyweight: more customizable, deeper integrations, and can handle “live” demo environments (not just screen tours).
- Arcade is faster to set up, less technical, and way cheaper. If you want interactive walkthroughs without a six-month onboarding, Arcade wins.
- Who Should Pick Arcade: Smaller teams, marketing-driven demos, or when you don’t want to wrangle IT.
- Who Should Pick Reprise: Enterprise sales teams with custom demo scripts and dedicated demo engineers.
2. Arcade vs. Walnut
- Walnut lets you build interactive demos with more custom logic (branching paths, role-based tours). It’s slick, but pricier and takes more time.
- Arcade is simpler—what you see is what you get.
- Who Should Pick Arcade: You want “good enough” fast, not perfect later.
- Who Should Pick Walnut: You have complex products, long sales cycles, and want to personalize demos per customer.
3. Arcade vs. Demostack
- Demostack is all about live demo environments. It spins up actual instances of your app, so prospects can poke around for real.
- Arcade is “demo-as-a-video-game”—it feels real, but it’s canned.
- Who Should Pick Arcade: If you want zero risk of a broken demo and don’t need full product access.
- Who Should Pick Demostack: If your prospects must try out real features and you can handle the technical setup.
4. Arcade vs. DIY (Loom videos, custom sandboxes)
- DIY: Record a Loom, build a sandbox, or make slides. It’s free, but you burn time and lose analytics.
- Arcade: You trade a small monthly fee for speed, polish, and viewer insights.
- When to DIY: You’re pre-product-market fit, or your demo changes every week.
- When to Pick Arcade: You want repeatable, trackable, self-serve demos.
Quick Comparison Table
| Feature | Arcade | Reprise | Walnut | Demostack | DIY | |------------------------|---------------|---------------|----------------|----------------|------------------| | Setup Difficulty | Easy | Hard | Medium | Hard | Easy | | Price | $-$$ | $$$$ | $$$ | $$$$ | Free | | Interactivity | Guided clicks | High | High | Full product | Low (video) | | Analytics | Basic | Advanced | Good | Good | None | | Customization | Limited | Advanced | Advanced | Advanced | Unlimited* | | Best For | SMB, SaaS | Enterprise | Complex SaaS | Enterprise | Startups, lean |
*DIY gives you freedom, but also all the headaches.
Real-World Uses: What SaaS Sales Teams Actually Do with Arcade
Arcade isn’t a silver bullet, but it does solve a handful of real, annoying problems for SaaS sales teams.
- Website Product Tours: Replace boring explainer videos with interactive “click here, try this” tours. Prospects get a feel for your app without a sales call.
- Outbound Sales: Drop a personalized demo link in your cold emails. It’s more engaging than a PDF.
- Enablement Leave-Behinds: After a demo call, send a self-serve tour for champions to share internally.
- Onboarding: Use Arcade tours for new users or even internal sales training.
- Trade Shows & Events: Quick, no-login demos on a tablet or kiosk.
Pro tip: Arcade works best as a “teaser” or supplement—not a full replacement for live demos, especially if your product is complex or highly customizable.
Where Arcade Falls Short
- Complex Products: If your product has a lot of branching logic or needs real data, Arcade will feel limiting.
- Enterprise Needs: No SSO, audit logs, or deep security controls. If you’re selling to banks or Fortune 500, this probably won’t fly.
- ‘Real’ Product Experience: Prospects can’t actually use your software—just click through a simulation.
- Reporting: The analytics are decent, but you’ll outgrow them if you want multi-touch attribution or pipeline influence.
Pricing: Worth It or Not?
Arcade’s pricing is pretty simple—typically a monthly fee per creator, with a basic free tier and paid plans for more features. It’s a fraction of what you’d pay for Walnut or Reprise.
Is it worth it?
- If you’re spending hours each week building demo assets, it pays for itself.
- If you need deep customization or buyer-specific demos, you’ll be frustrated.
- If you don’t have a process for updating demos as your product evolves, any tool (including Arcade) will become stale, fast.
No “ROI calculator” needed—just ask: Will this save my sales team real time and help us look more professional?
Setup: What’s Actually Involved?
- Sign up.
- Record a flow: Use Arcade’s Chrome extension to capture a product walkthrough.
- Add steps, callouts, and tooltips.
- Publish and share the link or embed.
- Check analytics to see who’s engaging.
You can build a decent first demo in under an hour. That’s not marketing hype; it’s actually true. The main time sink is figuring out which flows are worth demoing—don’t try to show everything.
Final Take: Should You Use Arcade?
If you’re a SaaS sales or marketing team that needs fast, repeatable product tours, Arcade is a solid, no-nonsense pick. It’s not magic, but it does what it promises: clean, interactive demos with no technical headaches.
Don’t overthink it. Start small, see if prospects engage, and tweak based on what works. If you outgrow Arcade, great—by then you’ll know what features you actually need.
Keep it simple, focus on what helps your buyers, and don’t get distracted by shiny demo tools. The best demo is the one that gets used.