Decide what the video is for
Before you capture a single screen, write down where the video will play and who will watch it. A video at the top of your landing page is watched by strangers who are deciding whether to keep reading. A video in a sales follow-up is watched by someone who already had a call with you. A video in a feed is watched by someone who was scrolling past and has no idea what your product is.
Each of those viewers needs something different. The stranger needs the outcome in the first few seconds. The prospect needs to see the workflow they asked about. The scroller needs a reason to stop. Trying to serve all three in one video is the most common reason demos come out long and vague. Pick one viewer and one job, and make other cuts later.
A useful test is to finish this sentence: "After watching, the viewer should ___." Sign up for a trial, book a call, understand the one feature that sets you apart. If you cannot finish the sentence, the video is not ready to be made.
Pick three to six moments
A demo is not a tour of every menu. Choose the few moments where your product visibly does something useful: the report that builds itself, the invoice that goes out in one click, the chart that shows what used to take a spreadsheet. Those are the moments people remember and repeat to colleagues.
Order them the way a new user would meet them, not the way your navigation lists them. Usually that means starting with the result (the dashboard with real-looking numbers), then showing how you get there, then ending on the thing that makes people want to try it themselves.
Three moments fit comfortably in a one-minute video. Six is about the limit for ninety seconds. If you have more, you have material for a second video.
Capture clean screens
Most of the polish in a product video comes from the screens themselves, before any editing happens.
- Use believable sample data. Empty states look broken, and "Test User 1" looks unfinished. Create a demo account with realistic names, amounts and dates.
- Remove anything personal. Real customer names, email addresses and API keys have a way of appearing in screenshots. Check every corner, including browser tabs and bookmarks.
- Hide the noise. Close notifications, chat widgets, cookie banners and extensions that add icons to the page.
- Keep one look. Use the same theme, browser width and zoom level for every screen, so the video does not jump between styles. A window around 1440 pixels wide gives crisp text in a 1080p video.
- For mobile apps, use real device screenshots rather than a desktop browser squeezed narrow.
Still screenshots have a practical advantage over a live recording here: you can fix each one until it is right, and nothing moves while you capture it.
Write the script before you touch video
The script decides the length, the order and the pace, so write it first. Give every screen one spoken line that says what the viewer gets, not which button you are pressing. "Your weekly report writes itself" beats "Here we click Reports and then Generate".
A voice reads about 150 words a minute, so a sixty-second video holds roughly 150 words, including a short opening line and a closing call to action. That is less than most people expect, and it is why each line has to earn its place. Read the whole script aloud with a timer before you record or render anything. Our guide to writing a product demo video script goes through this in detail, with a template.
Choose how you will make it
There are three common routes, and each suits a different team.
Record your screen and edit. A screen recorder captures you using the product, and an editor adds zooms, cuts, music and captions. It shows real interaction, including typing and hover states, but it takes practice to get a clean take, and every interface change means recording again.
Hire someone. A freelancer or an agency writes, records and animates the video for you. It can be excellent and it is the right choice for a brand film, but it costs thousands of dollars and takes weeks; our cost guide has the published price ranges.
Build it from screenshots. Tools such as ShotDemo take still screenshots, or your website address, and add the movement, voice and captions. The camera pushes toward the part of each screen a line talks about, so the result feels directed without a recording. It cannot show live typing or a real mouse path, but updating it when your interface changes means swapping a screenshot, not reshooting.
Whichever route you choose, the earlier steps stay the same, and they matter more than the tool.
Add a voice, music and captions
The voice carries the story. Your own voice is authentic but needs a quiet room and a decent microphone. A synthetic voice is consistent and easy to change line by line; if you use one, make sure its licence covers commercial use, because a demo on your website is commercial.
Music should sit well under the voice and never compete with it. It should also be licensed for everywhere the video will go, which is more places than people expect. Our guide to music for product videos covers the licence traps.
Captions are not optional. Feeds and many landing pages start videos muted, so for a large share of viewers the captions are the whole message at first. Our guide to captions for product videos explains burned-in captions and subtitle files.
Export every shape you need
A single wide video is no longer enough. YouTube and your website want 16:9, Reels, Shorts and TikTok want 9:16, and LinkedIn and Instagram feeds do best with 1:1 or 4:5. A tall version made by cropping the wide one usually cuts off half your interface, so each shape needs its own layout. The video sizes guide lists the exact sizes for each platform.
It is also worth making a short cut, about fifteen seconds, from the same material. It is the version that runs as an ad, sits in a social post and loads fast on a phone.
Put it where people will see it
- Landing page: near the top, with a poster frame that already shows your product rather than a black box. If it autoplays, it must be muted, which is one more reason for captions.
- Sales emails: most email apps will not play video, so use a thumbnail image with a play button that links to the video.
- Product Hunt, YouTube and app stores: each has its own rules; Product Hunt, for example, only accepts YouTube links. See the Product Hunt launch video guide.
- Your own social profiles: pin the short cut, and reuse it in your onboarding emails.
Keep it current
Software changes every month, and a demo that shows last year's interface quietly tells visitors the product is standing still. Put a reminder in your calendar to check the video after every major release. If your video is built from screenshots and a script, keep them together in one place so an update is an hour's work, not a new project.
A short checklist
- One viewer, one job, one call to action.
- Three to six moments, in the order a new user meets them.
- Clean screens with realistic sample data and nothing personal.
- A script read aloud and timed before production.
- A licensed voice and music, and captions on every version.
- Every shape you plan to post, plus a fifteen-second cut.
- A date to check it again.