Demoing a Feature That Not Every Plan Includes
August 19, 2026
Your best-looking feature is often on your most expensive plan. Demoing it is tempting, and doing so carelessly produces a specific, avoidable failure: someone signs up, cannot find the thing they saw, and feels misled.
That is worse than not having demoed it, because the disappointment lands after they have given you their email.
Say which plan it is on, in the demo
One short caption is enough: "Included on Growth and above". It costs a line, removes the entire problem, and buyers do not resent it -- they resent finding out later.
Do this on the step showing the feature, not in a disclaimer at the end. Nobody reads the end of a demo looking for caveats.
Better: make it an upgrade argument
A feature clearly labelled as premium, shown doing something obviously useful, is an advertisement for the higher plan rather than a trap. That is a legitimate and effective use of a demo.
It works because the viewer is deciding between your plans rather than discovering a limit. Same information, entirely different feeling.
Beta features need a different treatment
- Say it is in beta, on the step, in the same way you would flag a plan.
- Do not lead with it. A demo whose main flow depends on something unreleased ages badly and has to be re-recorded when it changes.
- Never demo something unbuilt. A demo of a mockup is not a demo, and the trust cost when someone finds out is far higher than the deal it wins.
Role-restricted views
If what you are showing is only visible to an owner or admin, say so. A viewer who will be a standard user needs to know the screen you are showing is not the screen they will see.
This is especially worth doing for products sold to a team but used by individuals -- the buyer and the user are different people with different screens, and a demo aimed at one can mislead the other.
The simplest rule
Would this viewer feel the demo was honest if they signed up for your cheapest paid plan tomorrow? If not, add the caption. It is one line and it is the difference between a demo that sells and a demo that produces refund requests.
Frequently asked questions
- Should I demo features that are only on higher plans?
- Yes, provided you label which plan on the step where it appears. Labelled clearly, a premium feature doing something useful is an upgrade argument. Unlabelled, it becomes a discovery of a limit after signup, which reads as misleading.
- Can I demo a beta feature?
- Flag it as beta on the step, and do not build the main flow around it, since it will change and force a re-record. Never demo something that does not exist yet -- the trust cost when someone finds out exceeds any deal it wins.
- What if the demo shows an admin-only screen?
- Say so. For products bought by a manager but used by a team, the buyer and the user see different screens, and a demo aimed at one can mislead the other without meaning to.
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