Almost every vendor in this category runs a free plan, and almost every one of them is capped at a single published demo. That is a deliberate number: one demo is enough to fall in love with the editor and not nearly enough to find out whether the format works on your buyers. Here is what each free tier actually gives you.
Every free plan, side by side
| Tool | Seats | Published limit | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Navattic | 1 seat | 1 demo (HTML or media) | The only free tier in the category that includes real HTML capture |
| Storylane | 1 seat | 1 published demo | Screenshot and video capture. Unlimited views, basic analytics, lead capture |
| Arcade | 1 user | 1 demo + 1 video | Video and uploaded media. 200 AI credits a month, watermarked |
| Supademo | 1 creator | 5 guided demos | Screenshot capture. Plus 50 video recordings at 4K |
| Tango | Up to 10 users | 5 shared workflows | Screenshot-based written guides, not demos |
| Scribe | Unlimited seats | Not capped | Screenshot-based written guides. Web capture only, no branding |
| Stepshots | No seat billing | 1 hosted demo | Screenshot capture. Guided tours carry a Stepshots badge |
| Walnut | — | — | No free plan published |
| Peutly | — | — | No free plan. 7-day trial, +7 days on first publish |
| HowdyGo | — | — | No free plan. 14-day trial |
Supademo Free is the only one you can genuinely work in
Five guided interactive demos and fifty 4K video recordings, for one creator, indefinitely. That is enough to build a demo for your homepage, one for your pricing page, one for onboarding and still have two spare. No other free plan in this category comes close, and if you want to test whether interactive demos move your numbers before spending anything, this is where to do it.
The limits that matter are elsewhere: branching and analytics start on Scale at $50 a creator, and anything resembling an enterprise requirement is several tiers up.
The one-demo tier: Storylane, Navattic, Arcade, Stepshots
All four cap publishing at a single demo. The differences are in what surrounds it.
- Storylane Free: 1 seat, 1 published demo, but it includes unlimited demo views, basic analytics and lead capture. The most complete of the four.
- Navattic Starter: 1 seat, 1 demo, HTML or media. Clean, and a genuine on-ramp to a product whose paid pricing is not published.
- Arcade Free: 1 user, 1 published demo and 1 published video, plus 200 AI credits a month and one brand kit. Demos carry a watermark until you reach Growth.
- Stepshots Free: 1 hosted demo, with a Stepshots badge on guided tours. Their €29 one-off unbranded demo is the interesting adjacent option if you need exactly one.
The free documentation tools: Tango and Scribe
Tango Free supports up to ten users and five shared workflows. Scribe Basic is free with unlimited seats, limited to web capture and without custom branding. Both are far more generous than anything in the demo category, for a reason: they produce written step-by-step guides rather than interactive replays of your product.
If what you need is an internal how-to guide, stop reading and use one of these. They are free, they are good, and no demo platform on this list does that job better. If you need something a prospect clicks through and leaves an email in, neither will do.
The three with no free plan: Walnut, HowdyGo and Peutly
Walnut publishes no free tier; its entry plan is $575 a month billed annually. HowdyGo runs a 14-day trial and no free plan. Peutly runs a 7-day trial with another 7 days added once you publish your first demo, which lands at the same fortnight by a more convoluted route. All three trials end.
We are on this list, so the disclosure belongs here: if a permanent free plan is a requirement for you, Peutly does not have one and Supademo has the best one.
How to use a free tier properly
- 1Build the demo you would actually send to a buyer, not the template. The fourth screen of your own product is where tools start behaving differently.
- 2Check what happens when your UI changes. Capture a flow, change a label in your app, and see how much work it takes to fix the demo. This is the cost you will pay every month forever.
- 3Find the watermark and the branding rules before you publish anything customer-facing.
- 4Work out which of your hard requirements is not in the free tier, then price that tier rather than the one you are using.
