Onboarding videos for SaaS products
Show a new user their first task with a narrated video filmed from your live app, captioned, and re-shot with Refresh when the interface changes.
The problem
An onboarding video has one job: get a new user from sign-up to the first thing that makes the product worth keeping. It is also the video that goes stale first, because onboarding screens are the ones a product team changes most. One renamed button or one new step, and the video shows a path that no longer exists.
Recording it by hand means a demo account, a clean screen, a careful take and an edit — and then all of it again after the next redesign. So it gets re-recorded late or not at all, and new users learn from a video that disagrees with the screen in front of them.
How Demofy makes it
It films the screens a new user really sees. Save a signed-in session once — through a live browser you drive yourself, so two-factor and single sign-on work — and every onboarding demo records inside your product. Recording behind a login
One line of intent is the whole brief. Demofy plans the clicks, writes a line of narration for each step, films them in a real browser and adds the zooms, the cursor and the captions. The URL and the intent line
When the flow changes, press Refresh. Demofy explores the app again with the same URL and intent and films a new version beside the old one. If a recorded step stops matching the page, the failed capture is re-shot once without anybody asking. The kinds of job
A link already in your welcome email keeps playing the video it pointed at. To send people the new cut, share the new version and revoke the old link — two deliberate actions, so nothing changes under a message you already sent. Version history
Mobile onboarding gets a mobile video. A mobile capture sizes the browser to a phone, so your app serves its phone layout, delivered as a portrait 9:16 file. Desktop and mobile capture
Make one
- 1
Paste the URL of the screen where the task starts. A signed-in screen needs a saved session first.
- 2
Write one line of intent. For this job, for example:
Show a new user creating their first project and inviting a teammate
- 3
Follow the build log while Demofy plans the steps, films them and renders the video, then change any line in the script editor.
Try it here: paste the URL and one line of intent below. A guest needs no account and no card.
Filming it yourself instead? How to make a product demo video walks through the plan, the recording, the finish and what to do when the product changes.
Where it falls short
- Nothing is re-filmed on a timer. A re-shoot happens when somebody presses Refresh, or when a capture breaks on a step that moved — so after a release, somebody still has to press the button.
- It is a video, not an in-app tour. Checklists and tooltips a user clicks through inside your product are a different kind of tool.
- It films web products only — what a browser can open. A desktop application or a native mobile app needs a screen recorder.
Questions people ask
How long should an onboarding video be?
Long enough to reach one result the new user cares about, and no longer. Show one task from start to finish; if the video needs a second task to make sense, make a second video.
Can Demofy record the screens behind our login?
Yes. Save a connection once — by signing in through a live browser that runs on Demofy’s side, or by exporting a Playwright storage state — and pick it in the composer. Planning and filming both run signed in as that session.
Does the video update itself when our onboarding changes?
Not on a schedule. Press Refresh after a change and Demofy films a new version; if a step stops matching the page during filming, that capture is re-shot once automatically. Nothing visits your app on a timer.
Where should an onboarding video go?
Wherever the new user is on day one: a share link in the welcome email, an embed on an empty state or a help page, or the downloaded file anywhere else. A narrated video also ships a caption track (not if you replace its soundtrack) and a written guide to the same steps.
After the first task, new users go looking for how to do the next one. A how-to video beside each help article answers that, with captions and a written guide: How-to videos for help centers.
New to the category? What an AI product demo video generator is sets Demofy beside screen recorders and avatar videos, and the comparisons take the named tools one at a time. What each plan includes is on the pricing page.