In my Journey Alternatives blog post series, I’ve compared Journey to several other Digital Sales Room Software. 

I use the word “compared” in the best possible way. After all, I wouldn't compare Journey to those alternatives if I didn't find them awesome. 

For this very reason, I thought it would be pertinent to add them all into a single article about the best Digital Sales Room (DSR) software out there and see how they stack up against each other. 

Let's examine what each tool offers: Deal Rooms, Pods, Destinations, and Journeys.

But first, let’s examine the true definition and baseline requirements of DSRs—so that you don’t fall for tools that overpromise and underdeliver. 

What Are Digital Sales Rooms and How Do They Work?

Dealing with many decision-makers in B2B sales can be a royal pain. It’s hard to know who to focus on and what’s happening on the buyer's side, which often causes sales teams to miss their targets. DSRs seek to simplify this process, aiming to make B2B sales as straightforward as online shopping. 

With DSRs, sales reps can see exactly which content each stakeholder interacts with, how often they view it, and who they share it with. This allows for timely and accurate follow-ups. Sellers can (hopefully) quickly rebrand their content to meet the needs of all decision-makers in a buying committee – no matter how large.

The right DSRs should support the entire sales process, from initial outreach to post-demo to onboarding and customer retention. This makes them useful for several different roles beyond sales reps, including:

• Heads of Sales

• Account Executives

• Heads of Marketing

• SDRs/BDRs

• Content Marketing Managers

• Sales Enablement Managers

• Customer Success Teams

• Fundraisers

At minimum, any DSR worth its salt should…

• Give you an easily accessible link to easily share content with stakeholders

• Include at least one real-time communication feature (like live chatting, commenting, and video calls)

• Offer comprehensive, detailed analytics (including both personal-level and room-level insights)

• Be widely customizable and offer branding capabilities

• Offer seamless integration with commonly used tools like CRMs (e.g., Salesforce, HubSpot), Google Drive, Slack, etc.

• Provide strong security features to protect sensitive sales data and ensure privacy

• And, of course, offer scalable plans that grow with your business

Now, let’s jump into our options. 

The Best Digital Sales Room Software and How They Compare

The following comparisons will be divided as follows:

• An overview – based on how each DSR is defined throughout its marketing

• Some of the prominent available features (that don’t include the obvious)

• Pros & cons based on what users have reported (in reviews like G2, Capterra, etc.)

• Pricing! 

• Integrations (with a note that all DSRs allow embedding of a range of other tools besides workflow integration)

• And to wrap up, my personal experience and view of the tool (followed by an in-depth review for those of you who want to know more)

That said, if you’re strapped for time or simply don’t want to read all of it, here’s a breakdown of all the tools I’ll be mentioning today:

Journey

Overview

Journey.io leads the pack with its AI capabilities, which are currently unmatched by the other alternatives.

But what excites me about this tool is how it steers towards two things seldom mentioned throughout B2B sales cycles: storytelling and beauty. No wonder you’ll see an artistic motif across Journey’s marketing. 

What sets Journey apart is its sleek design and user-friendly interface. When you're presenting to prospects, you want to leave a lasting impression, and Journey helps you do just that. Plus, its handy templates make creating demos and pitches so much easier. Of course, you can track everything, from views to how much time prospects spend on each page.

"Journey is beautiful, simple to set up, and creates an unparalleled experience. Whether it's investor presentations, sales, partnerships, or more, it creates that extra wow experience that gets deals closed." Jeromy Sonne, Verified Journey user

Features

• AI capabilities (Image and text creation + Chatbot integration)

• Access Controls (such as Allow and Deny lists, passcodes and verification, and expiration dates)

• Clearbit-enriched insights

• Aggregated data tracking

• Mutual action plans

Pros & Cons

Pros:

✅ Answer prospect questions in real-time with AI chatbot integration

✅ Uncomplicated pricing

✅ Easily create content manually or with help from AI

✅ Quick and efficient journey creation, with the ability to reuse old blocks

✅ Responsive and supportive customer service 

✅ Flexible, uncluttered drag-and-drop builder

Cons:

❌ Limited ability to customize fonts as desired

❌ Limited ability to customize the table of contents, which may lead to unnecessary links

❌ The starting price for the paid plan might be steep for very early-stage startups

❌ Initial setup of the first journey may take time as users figure out their preferred workflow

Pricing

• Basic: Free per user/month

(Get up to 5 free Journeys per organization to try out)

• Pro: $29 per user/month

• Teams: Contact Journey

Integrations

• Slack

• Salesforce

• Segment

• Google Drive

• HubSpot

• Zapier (for sending Journey activity data)

• Gong (Enterprise plan only)

Personal experience

One of Journey’s best features is the AI-driven content creation and customization, which saves your team a lot of time and makes things look professional without much effort. The infinite scrolling and customization abilities are great for keeping prospects engaged. If your team cares about how great your DSRs can look, go for this option. 

The only caveat is that it would be great to have more font size options and a wider selection of fonts to nail the branding.

Moreover, the real time commenting and AI chatbot are handy for getting quick answers and finding information without digging through lots of content.

On the downside, Journey’s pricing can be a bit of a dealbreaker, especially for smaller teams, since some of the cooler features (like Clearbit-enriched insights) are locked behind the Pro plan. However, the free plan is a nice way to get started, and the pricing is very reasonable compared to what other DSR tools are charging.

GetAccept

Source

Overview

At its core, GetAccept's Digital Sales Room is a centralized hub where sellers and buyers collaborate and negotiate. Initially, it sounds like your typical DSR definition.

However, unlike other tools we’ll mention (which comprise a single DSR), this room consists of two key rooms: the Deal Room and the Contract Room. 

In the Deal Room, sellers can increase their win rates by making collaboration between buyers and sellers easier within a shared space. It’s where they can upload sales collateral, create mutual action plans, and chat with buyers in real time.

Moving into the Contract Room, sales reps can craft compelling proposals, contracts, and other sales materials. They can start from scratch using the in-app editor or use pre-made templates to generate interactive, branded materials.

If you want the full experience in a single space, you can purchase the Deal Room and the Sales Room simultaneously for a one-stop sales powerhouse. They call it the “Full Suite.”

"This is a way for you to control the narrative. To make sure your reps are sticking to the process, adopting the principles you’ve set, and helping your customers to experience value instead of just product pitching."  Remi Morken, Senior Vice President of Sales, Salesscreen

Features

• Contracts & proposals

• CPQ - Configure Price Quote

• Sales engagement

• Sales content management

• E-signature

• Mutual action plan

• Notifications & reminders

Pros & Cons

Pros:

✅ Great support and engagement from the GetAccept team

✅ Easy to keep track of deals and clients (especially with Contract Room data)

✅ Provides visibility into total deal value and hit rate (Contract Room)

✅ Digitalizes parts of the sales process and streamlines contract management

✅ Simple and scalable with trackable decision-making and contract processes

Cons:

❌ Pricing plans and the existence of two different “rooms” can be overwhelming 

❌ Limited customization options for templates with different logos, URLs, etc.

❌ Takes time to learn all features and functions, which can be confusing initially

❌ Lack of detailed flexibility in template creation

Pricing

• Contract Room: $49 per user/month

• Deal Room: $39 per user/month​​​​​​​

• The Complete Digital Sales Room: $79 per user/month

(All plans include a 14-day free trial.)

Integrations

• HubSpot

• Salesforce

• Pipedrive

• Copper

• Microsoft Dynamics

• Zoho

• Insightly

• SalesLoft

• Outreach

• Gmail (for email tracking)

• Outlook (for email tracking)

• LinkedIn (for document sharing and tracking)

• Google Drive

• Dropbox

• OneDrive

• DocuSign

• Stripe

• HelloSign

• Zapier (for additional integrations)

Personal experience

I thought it was great how comprehensive the tools are. They support the entire sales process and offer a lot of potential to increase close rates. The Contract Room analytics and insights are incredibly detailed, providing insights your typical DSR wouldn’t. 

However, I did find the platform a bit overwhelming at first. When I logged into the Contract Room, there were so many features that it took a while to figure out how to use everything.

Customization options are readily available, and while the ready-made templates are useful, starting from scratch could be tricky for first-time—and even second– and third–time—users. The templates are functional, but I felt they lacked a bit of the "wow" factor.

If you want a sales powerhouse that can do a good document creation job (although with limited customization) and also offer the sales analytics of tools like Hubspot, GetAccept is an excellent choice. 

Here’s a more in-depth review of GetAccept. 

Trumpet

Source

Overview

Trumpet makes managing your sales process easier by centralizing and personalizing every step. Everything your team and buyers need is in one place: A DSR, which they call a “Pod.”

(I'd love to add comments on Trumpet's AI capabilities, but it isn't currently available!)

Trumpet helps you fast-track enterprise deals by managing buying committees more effectively. Your prospects will love it because it makes the buying experience easy and helps everyone get up to speed without partaking in the B2B merry-go-round. 

It keeps buyers engaged and helps teams make better, more profitable decisions – thanks to modern trackable sales rooms. 

“Buyers are spending less and less time with AEs, so having a tool that can incorporate and equip prospects with everything they need to make a decision is a game changer. It has made a noticeable impact on my deals, and the positive feedback from prospects is endless! It's really helping differentiate myself in the sales cycle as well.” – Charlotte J.,  Sales Development 

Features

• Auto-branding

• CRM sync

• Notifications

• Mutual Action Plans

• Screen recording

• E-signature

• Proposals & quotes

• Content Library

Pros & Cons

Pros:

✅ Highly customizable and personalizable Pods

✅ Freemium version is great for trying out the tool

✅ Quick and responsive support team

✅ Combines video outreach capabilities (like Loom or Vidyard)

✅ Ability to create tabs for better organization and easier navigation

Cons:

❌ Initial learning curve can be challenging and time-consuming

❌ There could be a frequent need to ask questions due to small nuances in functionality

❌ Basic and not very intuitive e-sign tool for contracts/proposals

❌ Some integrations can be glitchy

❌ Free plan's 20 pods get used up quickly for outreach and follow-up.

Pricing

• Free: £0 per user/month
  (Use Trumpet for free and see the results with ten free Pods.)

• Pro: £29 per user/month

• Scale: £60 per user/month

• Enterprise: £100 per user/month

(All prices exclude local taxes. Payments available in EUR, USD, & GBP.)

Integrations

• Salesforce

• HubSpot

• Pipedrive

• LinkedIn Sales Navigator

• Gong

• G2

• Slack

• Drift

• Intercom

• Calendly

• Vidyard

• Clearbit

• Cognism

• Seamless.ai

• SalesLoft

Personal experience

Trumpet offers great customization options, letting you tweak fonts, colors, and themes, which I enjoyed. However, its UI can initially feel cluttered with stacked options.

Regarding analytics, Trumpet's Pro plan offers comprehensive insights into engagement metrics like total views, downloads, and stakeholder interactions. However, advanced features like live buying signals are available in higher-tier plans.

The upcoming Trumpet AI promises great improvements, although I’m still waiting to see its specifics.

Unfortunately, Workspaces, which are super helpful in better organization and collaboration within teams, are also limited to the Enterprise plan.

Here’s a more in-depth review of Trumpet. 

Emlen

Source

Overview

Emlen’s goal is to redefine the way sales teams operate in a buyer-led era. It’s always been about the buyers, but they currently hold more power than ever before. And they know it!

By bringing everyone involved in the selling and buying process inside a “Destination,” Emlen speeds up sales velocity by increasing customer engagement.

Everything you need happens in one collaborative space, removing time-consuming email clutter. Of course, you can track everyone’s engagement levels and make informed decisions, only getting hands-on when they're ready to buy. 

“Using a solution like Emlen is very professional. It's nicely built and extremely valuable. It pays into our branding, giving us a more premium positioning. People never want to be sold to; they want to buy. And if you have hundreds of documents flying around, it's just not the way to go. Having an Emlen collaborative space is just more professional and nicer, and it makes us stand out from the competition.” Dominic Blank, Co-founder and Managing Director at Hyrise.

Features

• Unlimited Collaborative Spaces

• Unlimited Content Upload

• Advanced Security Settings

• Internal & External Stakeholder Management

• Mutual Action Plans

Pros & Cons

Pros:

✅ Easy communication via chat and video calls

✅ Super fast integration with CRM systems

✅ Excellent customer service (if there are any issues, you can expect prompt replies)

✅ Analytics are already great, and there's anticipation for deeper insights with upcoming dashboard updates

Cons:

❌ Some users have reported a few bugs in the beginning (but the team quickly solved it)

❌ Some users expect more bold and innovative features in the future 

❌ More integrations, such as offer tools, are in the pipeline

❌ No free trial or freemium options available

Pricing

• Core: 70€/month

• Premium: 120€/month

• Enterprise: Contact Sales for pricing

(Fixed pricing – not per user. No free trial available.)

Integrations

• Slack (Premium plan only)

• HubSpot CRM

• Zoho CRM

• Pipedrive

• Salesforce.org Nonprofit Cloud

• SAP Marketing Cloud

• Google Drive (Premium plan only)

Personal Experience

The most discouraging aspect about Emlen is that it lacks a free plan or trial, which could be a drawback for those looking to test it out before committing. What’s more, I feel the customization options aren’t quite “there” for users seeking more creative freedom. There’s barely any mention of customization capabilities on their website. 

Also, it only accepts payment in EUR, potentially limiting accessibility for those accustomed to other currencies. Other currencies are not mentioned on their pricing page.

However, the UI looked different from any other DSR tool I’ve come across. It offers a side-clicking feature rather than infinite scrolling and a nice “business card-like” section with the creator’s information. 

Here’s a more in-depth review of Emlen. 

A Note on Integrations

Because each of these tools must fit into your existing workflow, here’s how the integration stack could be helpful (or unhelpful) for your team:

• GetAccept provides massive integration options, similar to Trumpet. It supports a range of CRMs, email tracking, document sharing, and e-signature tools (although their e-Signature solution is sold separately for $25 per user/month). 

• Trumpet stands out with an extensive list of integrations, covering various CRM systems, sales engagement tools, communication platforms, and prospecting tools. 

• Emlen offers essential CRM integrations but limits some important ones, like Slack and Google Drive, to its Premium plan. This might be restrictive for users on lower-tier plans, and frankly, people need these integrations. 

• Journey has a good range of integrations, particularly with major CRM systems and collaborative tools like Slack and Google Drive, even on the free plan. However, a Gong integration is only available in the free plan. 

Winner Per Category

If I had to give a medal to each based on their winning traits, here’s what the list would look like: 

🏅Best use of free plan: Trumpet

🏅 Best Creation/Customization features: Journey

🏅 Wider Range of Analytics: GetAccept

🏅 Most innovative UI: Emlen

There's No Such Thing as the "Best" DSR Software...

... But rather the best DSR software for your team. Regardless of how “flashy” a new tool may look, it’s essential to consider your team's specific needs, such as ease of use, customization options, the level of support, and other internal must-haves.

A platform that looks like everything you need on the surface could fall short in other crucial areas. It might lack key integrations, the pricing structure might not fit within your budget, especially if the most useful features are “hidden” behind premium plans. 

To which I say - I prefer tools that offer a Freemium plan or a free trial, at the very least. You want to get acquainted with every feature before committing to a paid plan.

I hope this comparison was helpful. Now, take your pick!