Build Feature Tours and Onboarding Slideshows for Your SaaS Product

Your SaaS product just shipped a major feature. Now you need to tell users about it. The product marketing team wants a showcase on the website. Customer success wants an onboarding walkthrough. The growth team wants a self-serve demo for trial users. Sales wants a video they can send to prospects.

Each request goes to a different team. The website showcase requires a developer. The in-app onboarding requires an engineering sprint. The video requires a screen recording and editing. The self-serve demo requires... well, nobody is sure who owns that.

PaneFlow lets you build one animated feature tour and export it as a React, Vue, or Svelte component for your app, publish to CDN for your website, and export as video for sales and marketing. One project serves every team's request.

#Why SaaS Product Communication Is a Bottleneck

SaaS companies ship features constantly but struggle to communicate those features effectively. The production pipeline for product showcases and onboarding content is slower than the development pipeline for the product itself.

Onboarding is an engineering project. Building in-app onboarding flows, product tours, and feature walkthroughs requires engineering resources. Most teams use tools like Intercom Tours, Appcues, or Chameleon - which inject JavaScript into your production app, add runtime dependencies, and require configuration that often falls to engineering anyway.

Demo videos decay instantly. Screen recordings of your product are outdated the moment the UI changes. And the UI changes constantly in a SaaS product. Recording, editing, and publishing a new video for every feature update is not sustainable.

Website and app are separate worlds. The marketing site and the product app are usually separate codebases maintained by separate teams. Getting the same content onto both surfaces means building it twice - once as a website embed and once as an in-app component.

Feature announcements are text-heavy. Most feature announcements are blog posts with static screenshots. The feature itself is animated and interactive, but the announcement reduces it to text and images. The gap between the feature experience and the announcement experience undermines the impact.

#How PaneFlow Works for SaaS Teams

PaneFlow creates animated product showcases that export as framework components, web embeds, or video. Build once, deploy everywhere your users are.

#Export as React, Vue, or Svelte Components

This is the key feature for SaaS teams. Export your slideshow as a framework component - a .tsx, .vue, or .svelte file - and import it into your app. The component includes the lightweight PaneFlow runtime and all your content. No external scripts, no CDN dependency, no iframe.

This means your onboarding flow, feature tour, or in-app demo is a standard component that your team deploys alongside your product code.

#3D Device Mockups for Product Demos

Show your product inside 3D device mockups - iPhone, MacBook, iPad, Samsung Galaxy. This is especially useful for SaaS products with mobile apps or responsive web experiences. The device context makes screenshots feel like real product demos.

#Animated Step-by-Step Walkthroughs

Build feature tours where each step reveals with animation. A screenshot fades in, an annotation callout pops up, a description drifts into view. You control the pacing so users process each step before seeing the next.

#CDN Publishing for Marketing Site

Publish to CDN and embed on your marketing site via iframe or native Webflow/Framer plugin. The same content that lives in your app as a component also lives on your marketing site as an embed. One source of truth.

#Video Export for Sales and Announcements

Export as MP4 video for sales enablement emails, feature announcement posts, YouTube demos, and social media. The animated tour you built for the app becomes a video with one click.

#Shareable Links for Self-Serve Demos

Publish to CDN and the link itself becomes a self-serve product demo. Share it in trial signup emails, help center articles, and sales outreach. Anyone with the link sees the animated product showcase in their browser.

#Example: Building an In-App Onboarding Slideshow

An onboarding flow for new users that walks them through the product.

1. 1Create a pane for each onboarding step with annotated product screenshots
2. 2Add welcome text, step descriptions, and action callouts
3. 3Use "fade" animations for screenshots and "pop" for callout annotations
4. 4Configure manual navigation so users advance at their own pace
5. 5Export as a React component (or Vue/Svelte for your stack)
6. 6Import the component into your app onboarding flow and render it for new users

#Example: Creating a Self-Serve Product Demo

A demo that trial users or prospects can experience without scheduling a sales call.

1. 1Design panes showing the core product workflow from start to finish
2. 2Add 3D device mockups to present the product in a realistic context
3. 3Include feature highlights with animated entrance effects
4. 4Set auto-advance timing for a hands-free demo experience
5. 5Publish to CDN and share the link in trial signup emails and on the pricing page

#Example: Making a Feature Announcement Showcase

A new feature just shipped and you need to announce it across every channel.

1. 1Create panes showing the new feature: what it does, how it works, why it matters
2. 2Add before/after or old-way/new-way comparisons for impact
3. 3Use "drift-y" animations for progressive reveals of each benefit
4. 4Export as React component for an in-app announcement banner or modal
5. 5Publish to CDN for the marketing site feature page
6. 6Export as video for the announcement blog post and social media

#What You Need vs What PaneFlow Delivers

#How PaneFlow Compares to SaaS Product Tour Tools

#vs Loom

Loom records your screen. It is great for quick async walkthroughs and internal communication. But Loom output is a raw screen recording - you cannot control pacing, add animations, or embed it as an interactive component in your app. PaneFlow creates designed, animated presentations that export as video and as framework components. Loom is for quick demos; PaneFlow is for polished product showcases.

#vs Intercom Tours / Appcues / Chameleon

These tools create in-app product tours by injecting JavaScript that overlays UI elements on your live product. They are powerful for contextual guidance tied to specific UI elements. The tradeoff: they add runtime dependencies to your production app, require ongoing maintenance as the UI changes, and only work inside the app (not on your marketing site or in emails). PaneFlow takes a different approach - it creates standalone animated content that you embed as a component. No runtime injection, no dependency on your live UI, and the same content works everywhere.

#vs Gamma

Gamma generates presentations from prompts using AI. It is fast for first drafts and internal decks. But Gamma does not export framework components, does not publish to CDN with auto-updating embeds, and does not include 3D device mockups. For customer-facing SaaS content that needs to be embedded in your app and on your website, PaneFlow is purpose-built.

#vs Screen Recording + Video Editing

The traditional approach: record your screen with Loom or OBS, edit in Premiere or Final Cut, export video. This works but is slow, produces video only (not embeddable interactive content), and requires re-recording every time the UI changes. PaneFlow produces both video and interactive content from one project, and updates are as simple as swapping screenshots.

#Frequently Asked Questions

Can I embed a PaneFlow slideshow inside my SaaS app?

Yes. Export as a React, Vue, or Svelte component and import it directly into your app. The component includes the PaneFlow runtime and all your content. Alternatively, publish to CDN and embed via iframe.

Does PaneFlow export React components?

Yes. PaneFlow exports slideshows as ready-to-use React, Vue, and Svelte component files. Import them into your app like any other component. The exported code works with Next.js, Nuxt, SvelteKit, and any framework setup.

Can I use PaneFlow for customer onboarding flows?

Yes. Build an onboarding slideshow in PaneFlow with product screenshots, step-by-step annotations, and animations. Export as a framework component and embed it in your app onboarding flow, or publish to CDN and link from your welcome email.

How do I update the tour when my product UI changes?

Open the project in PaneFlow, replace the screenshots, adjust annotations, and re-export or republish. If you published to CDN, every embed updates automatically. If you exported as a component, re-export and redeploy.

Is PaneFlow lighter than tools like Intercom Tours or Appcues?

PaneFlow takes a different approach. Intercom Tours and Appcues are runtime tools that overlay on your live UI. PaneFlow creates standalone animated content - a slideshow or video - that you embed or export. There is no ongoing runtime dependency or script injection into your app.

#Related

• PaneFlow for Developers - framework component export details
• PaneFlow for Product Managers - feature walkthroughs and demos
• PaneFlow for Startups - pitch decks and launch slideshows
• PaneFlow vs Gamma - detailed comparison
• Browse all PaneFlow use cases