Rep vs Saleo: A Founder's Honest Comparison of Live Demo Tools

If you're searching for a Saleo alternative, you're probably frustrated. Maybe your demo overlays break every time engineering ships an update. Maybe the 3-month implementation is killing you. Or maybe you need demos happening at 2am when your SEs are asleep.

Here's the thing most comparison articles won't tell you: Rep and Saleo aren't really competitors. They solve different problems. Saleo helps humans give better live demos. Rep is an AI that gives demos autonomously. Comparing them is like comparing a teleprompter to an anchor—both involve delivering content, but that's where the similarity ends.

I'm Nadeem, founder of Rep. I've spent years building sales automation tools, first at GoCustomer.ai (exited 2024) and now at Rep. I have obvious bias here. But I also have genuine respect for what Saleo does well—and I'll tell you when Saleo is the better choice.

What exactly does Saleo do?

Saleo is a live demo overlay platform that injects custom data into your actual product during sales calls. Your SE runs the demo while Saleo makes the data look perfect—the right company name, realistic metrics, industry-specific examples. No more "Jane Doe" placeholders or scrambling to explain test data.

Think of it as a real-time data layer that sits on top of your production environment. The SE still drives everything. Saleo just ensures the data looks exactly right for whoever they're demoing to.

This works through a Chrome extension that modifies what's visible on screen. Your product stays unchanged. Saleo manipulates the DOM (the HTML/CSS) to show what you want prospects to see.

Key Insight: Saleo's approach means demos inherit your production environment's actual behavior—both the good (real functionality) and the bad (any bugs, loading delays, or UI quirks your product currently has).

The platform has earned strong user satisfaction. According to G2's January 2026 data, Saleo holds a 4.8/5 rating with 93% of reviews giving five stars. That support quality rating of 9.8/10 is particularly notable.

What does Rep do differently?

Rep takes a fundamentally different approach. Instead of enhancing human-led demos, Rep conducts demos autonomously using an AI voice agent.

When a prospect clicks your demo link, Rep joins as an AI participant in a video room. It shares its screen, navigates your actual product, and walks prospects through features—conversing naturally the entire time. It answers questions using your knowledge base and learns from every interaction.

The core difference isn't just technology. It's who's doing the demo.

Why does this matter? Because 61% of B2B buyers now prefer a rep-free buying experience, according to Gartner's June 2025 survey. And 78% prefer self-service purchasing journeys, per Allego's 2025 research.

Buyers want to explore on their own schedule. They don't want to wait three days for a calendar slot.

How much does Saleo actually cost?

Saleo doesn't publish pricing. You have to request a demo and get a custom quote. No free trial available.

Based on multiple third-party sources, here's what we've found:

So you're looking at a minimum $30K annual commitment, likely higher for larger teams. And that's before the implementation investment.

Rep uses transparent SaaS pricing based on usage. Plans start around $350/month for standard needs, scaling to roughly $2,000/month for high-volume inbound teams. You can see actual pricing without talking to sales.

The Data:Responding within 1 minute increases conversions by 391%, according to Chili Piper's 2025 research. Yet 80% of customers expect a response within 10 minutes. If your current setup can't hit those windows, that's revenue leaking every day.

The maintenance problem nobody talks about

Here's what frustrates Saleo users most, based on G2 reviews and competitor analysis from TestBox:

Saleo works by mapping your product's data points to custom data inside Saleo. When your product changes—new UI, updated fields, modified components—those mappings can break. You wait for Saleo's engineering team to re-map everything before your demo environment works again.

What we learned building Rep: When we built Rep's autonomous demo capability, we specifically architected around this problem. Rep navigates your live product using AI-powered browser automation. No field mapping to break. When your product changes, Rep adapts—just like a human would click through the new UI.

The numbers back up this pain point. According to the 2024 Presales Landscape Report, 79% of SEs spend at least one hour per week maintaining demo environments. And 16% spend 3-10 hours weekly—that's up to 21 days per year spent on maintenance alone.

That's not time spent selling. That's time spent fighting tools.

Implementation: 3 months vs. same day

Saleo's implementation timeline is substantial. Multiple sources confirm 2-3 months for full setup and mapping, sometimes longer for complex products. Storylane's analysis and Supademo's research both cite 3+ month implementations.

Rep deploys differently. Install a script. Train the AI by either recording a demo session, uploading existing recordings, or providing documentation. The AI generates playbooks from your training content. You can have demos running the same day.

Is Rep's AI as polished as a veteran SE on day one? No. But it's answering prospects at 2am while your team sleeps. It's handling the initial "show me what you do" requests that eat SDR time. Every week you delay is pipeline you won't recover.

When Saleo is the right choice

I'll be direct: Saleo is the better tool for certain scenarios.

Choose Saleo if:

Your SEs conduct high-stakes demos where data customization directly impacts close rates. If showing a prospect their exact industry vertical, their competitor's metrics, their company name throughout the interface—if that personalization is what seals $50K+ deals, Saleo delivers.

Your product is relatively stable. If engineering ships weekly updates that change the UI, you'll fight constant mapping breaks. But if your product's demo-relevant surfaces stay consistent month-to-month, Saleo's maintenance burden stays manageable.

You have dedicated presales resources. Saleo is a power tool for SEs. If you don't have SEs, if your AEs do their own demos, the ROI equation changes.

Seismic achieved a 60% reduction in demo prep time with Saleo. That's real value for teams with heavy demo prep workloads.

My recommendation: If your bottleneck is "our SEs spend too much time preparing demo data," Saleo solves that. If your bottleneck is "we don't have enough humans to demo to everyone who wants one," Saleo doesn't help—you need more humans or an autonomous solution.

When Rep is the right choice

Choose Rep if:

You're drowning in inbound demo requests. Your SDRs are booking meetings they can't all service. Prospects wait days for a slot. Rep handles the overflow—instant demos, any time zone, no calendar Tetris.

You need after-hours coverage. Your target market is in APAC but your team is in New York. Prospects hit your site at 3am EST. Rep's there. Always.

Your initial demos are repetitive. If your first demo is basically the same walkthrough every time—here's our dashboard, here's how reports work, here's the integration—Rep can handle that at scale. Save your humans for the conversations that need humans.

Luminous, an ERP software company, booked over 24 demos immediately after deploying Rep. That's pipeline that would have leaked without instant response.

Speed matters more than you think. When prospects are ready to see your product, they're often evaluating competitors simultaneously. Three days to book a demo? They've already seen two alternatives.

The best Saleo alternatives (beyond Rep)

Not every team needs autonomous AI demos. If you're looking for Saleo alternatives that are closer to Saleo's model, here are the main options:

1. Demostack — Creates full product clones (sandboxes) instead of overlays. Your demos never break mid-call because they're isolated from production. Pricing around $50K-$75K+/year.
2. Reprise — Enterprise platform offering guided tours, sandboxes, and live overlays. Three products for different needs. $38K-$130K+ annually.
3. Consensus — Video-based demos with buyer intent tracking ("Demolytics"). Strong for asynchronous demos where prospects watch on their own time. $7K-$100K+/year.
4. Navattic — HTML capture for interactive product tours. Transparent pricing at $500/month. Fast 2-week implementation. Best for marketing teams embedding demos on landing pages.
5. Storylane — Multi-format support (HTML, video, screenshot). Free tier available, paid plans from $40/month. 4.8/5 on G2 with 1,132 reviews.

Each solves a different slice of the demo problem. The market conflates these categories, which makes buying harder than it should be.

Can you use both Rep and Saleo?

Yes. And for some teams, that's the right answer.

Think about your buyer journey:

• Awareness/Interest (TOFU): Prospect clicks "See Demo" on your site. Rep handles this instantly—24/7, no scheduling, immediate engagement.
• Evaluation (MOFU): Prospect wants a deeper dive. Rep can handle standard questions, but complex technical queries get routed to a human.
• Decision (BOFU): Prospect is comparing final vendors. Your SE runs a customized demo with Saleo, showing their exact use case with perfect data.

Using both isn't double-spending. It's covering different stages. Rep qualifies and engages; Saleo closes.

Key Insight: The question isn't "Rep vs Saleo"—it's "where in my pipeline am I losing deals?" If it's top-of-funnel response time, Rep helps. If it's demo quality in late-stage calls, Saleo helps.

Demo tools are finally maturing past the "one size fits all" era. The question isn't which tool is best. It's which tool fits where you're actually losing deals.

If prospects are waiting days for a demo slot, or abandoning your site at 2am, Rep closes that gap. If your SEs are showing placeholder data in six-figure conversations, Saleo fixes that.

My bet is that within two years, most serious B2B teams will use multiple demo tools—autonomous AI for coverage and speed, human-enhanced tools for high-stakes personalization.

Want to see how Rep handles autonomous demos? Book a demo—or let Rep show you itself. It's available right now.