There was a recent shakeup in sales enablement software land:
A private equity firm, Vector Capital, is acquiring Showpad and merging it with Bigtincan.
Showpad has always been one of the best-known sales enablement platforms—it's strong in sales training and content management—but if you're a current Showpad customer or evaluating adding it to your tool stack, you might be rethinking about hitching your wagon to a PE-led tool.
Why?
In most software mergers, the first priorities are consolidating products, teams, and roadmaps—not shipping net-new capabilities for customers—so you're unlikely to see the same product development velocity as other enablement tools.
Even with its growing AI feature set (like pitch practice, AI search, and content summaries), Showpad’s AI capabilities are bolted on to a legacy content management tool that was built to organize content rather than collaborate with customers or enable reps in real time.
So if you're comparing sales enablement tools and can’t afford a feature slowdown, use this guide to pressure-test the top Showpad alternatives—including one that was built for the AI era.
Where Showpad falls short
Showpad covers the traditional enablement pillars—content management, sales training, and analytics—and its AI features help sellers search for content faster, practice pitches, and summarize assets.
But its foundation is still seller-first, designed for internal readiness rather than real-time buyer engagement. But once you move beyond rep readiness into real buyer collaboration, the cracks start to show.
Here are the main areas where Showpad comes up short:
- Built for enablement, not buyer collaboration. Showpad is great at arming reps with content, but not so great at helping them share that content in a way that supports real, multi-threaded buying processes. Reps still need to use email or third-party collaboration tools, which creates confusion and leads to content getting lost.
- Limited digital sales room capacities. Its buyer-facing experience is limited to static content hubs with some messaging capabilities. There’s no way to guide deals with mutual action plans or real-time collaboration. You can integrate other tools, but with a piecemeal approach.
- AI bolted onto legacy workflows. While features like AI search and pitch practice are helpful, they’re built to speed up internal processes, not to transform how you engage customers across the whole journey.
- Search and share issues. Content isn’t always easy to find in Showpad’s nested folders system. External users also need to create an account or generate a one-time link every time they want to view shared content, which just adds friction to the sales process.
- Handoffs break context. Once a deal closes, there’s no built-in way to carry the buyer-facing space into onboarding or renewals without switching tools—meaning you lose history and momentum.
- Complex setup and enterprise pricing. Showpad’s flexibility comes with admin overhead. Many workflows require API configuration or custom apps, and pricing typically starts around $30K/year plus per-seat fees.
Regardless of your reasons for wanting to step away from Showpad, there are tons of awesome tools to consider. Here are a few great options.
1. Dock

What it is: Dock is an AI revenue enablement platform that brings together content management, buyer collaboration, and rep enablement in one system.
Dock combines an AI-powered content library, built-in sales playbooks, and interactive buyer workspaces—so Sales, Enablement, and Customer Success can work from the same playbook and deliver a seamless customer experience from first call to renewal.
How it compares to Showpad: Showpad’s AI speeds up internal workflows like searching for content, practicing pitches, and summarizing assets—but it stops short of transforming the buyer experience. Dock uses AI to power both the internal workflow and the buyer-facing experience.
With Dock, reps instantly find the right content, surface relevant assets in context, and get AI-generated summaries of deal activity.
On the buyer side, Dock replaces static hubs with fully collaborative deal rooms that include mutual action plans, live pricing, embedded videos, messaging threads, and timelines—all in a single, always-up-to-date link.
When a deal closes, that same workspace becomes the customer’s onboarding and renewal hub, keeping every document, conversation, and milestone in one place.
Dock’s AI-native CMS auto-tags, summarizes, and recommends assets based on persona, stage, and engagement, while built-in playbooks ensure reps always have the right guidance in the flow of work.
Key features:
- Personalized digital sales rooms: Create personalized, shareable workspaces that include all the content, context, and next steps a buyer needs to keep a deal moving. Tailor each room by persona, stage, or use case without duplicating work.
- Full-journey workspaces: Seamlessly transition deal rooms into onboarding and renewal hubs
- AI assistant: Instantly find files, answer reps’ product questions, and summarize deal activity from your content library, CRM, and call notes
- AI-native CMS: Auto-tagged, summarized, and searchable library with stage/persona-based recommendations
- Auto-update content at scale: When a new version of a document goes live, it’s automatically updated across every workspace that uses it—no manual re-sending or version confusion.
- AI-generated documents: Create proposals, business cases, QBRs, and onboarding plans from live data
- Internal playbooks: Equip salespeople with instant access to sales messaging, product guidance, and process checklists directly within the platform, so they can follow best practices in real time.
- Customer engagement insights: Gain real-time visibility into how buyers are engaging with your content. See who’s viewing what, when, and how often to inform follow-up strategy.
- Built-in pricing and order forms: Generate and share proposals and order forms directly in the workspace to make purchasing faster and reduce unnecessary back-and-forth.
- Rich integrations: Integrates fully with Salesforce, HubSpot, Gong, Slack, and more.
Pricing: Free for individuals and small teams (up to 50 live workspaces). Paid plans start at $350/month for five users. External collaborators are always free.
Who should use it: Enablement leaders who want an AI-first, deal-focused platform that connects the entire revenue team in a single platform, offers real-time enablement, and delivers modern, interactive client workspaces.
Other alternatives: Arrows (for Hubspot-loving teams), Qwilr (for proposal-only functionality)
2. Seismic

What it is: A traditional sales enablement platform built for enterprise teams. It’s a direct competitor to Showpad, offering a robust suite of tools for content management, training, and guided selling.
How it compares to Showpad: Seismic offers many of the same capabilities as Showpad, but with stronger content creation capabilities and more built-in sales communication tools. It’s still an expensive platform and requires a heavy lift to implement, but it does have a few key areas where it tends to outshine Showpad:
- More comprehensive built-in products and services
- More advanced customization and personalization options for sharing content with buyers
- Better analytics to track what’s actually getting used and impacting sales performance
- Granular versioning and approval workflows that support complex content operations
Key features:
- Digital sales rooms and sales playbooks
- Content engagement tracking
- Built-in sales training and coaching
- 150+ integrations, including Salesforce and Outreach
Pricing: Not publicly listed, but similar to Showpad. Expect a minimum annual commitment (~$30,000) plus per-seat pricing around $50-60.
Who should use it: Enterprise teams that want a more out-of-the-box solution with a strong content management and content creation system.
Other alternatives: Highspot, Mindtickle
3. Highspot

What it is: An enterprise, content-first sales enablement tool with natively-built training and coaching tools.
Who should use it: Teams that need a powerful enterprise CMS and LMS with all the bells and whistles already built in.
How it compares to Showpad: Highspot’s UX doesn’t match up to Showpad’s, but it does offer more out-of-the-box functionality. Its native approach to expanding functionality means connections work like they should—no DIY necessary.
Key features:
- Internal webpages instead of nested folders
- Cross-platform search to find content across your CRM, email, social media, and more
- Bulk content actions and edits for easy audits
- Integration with over 100 tools and apps
Pricing: Not publicly available, but similar to Showpad and Seismic.
Other alternatives: Seismic, Mindtickle
4. WorkRamp

What it is: A learning management system (LMS) designed for both internal enablement and external customer education.
How it compares to Showpad: While Showpad includes basic training tools, WormRamp is purpose-built for learning. It covers similar ground for internal sales readiness, but stands out with customer-facing education workflows—making it easier to onboard, train, and support external audiences at scale.
Key features:
- Built-in course creation and content editing tools
- Template library for faster program development
- Engagement analytics for both employees and customers
- Customer communities for peer-to-peer learning
Pricing: Not publicly listed.
Who should use it: Enablement teams that prioritize training and want a platform that supports both internal enablement and external education.
Other alternatives: Docebo
5. Guru

What it is: An AI-powered knowledge management platform designed to make finding and sharing internal information frictionless.
How it compares to Showpad: Unlike Showpad, Guru doesn’t try to be a full CMS or LMS. Instead, it complements your stack by surfacing the right content and answers inside the tools your team already uses—making it a flexible, lower-cost option for content distribution and knowledge sharing.
Key features:
- Private ChatGPT-powered assistant
- Slack, Teams, and Chrome integrations
- AI content suggestions and collaborative editing tools
Pricing: Starts at $15/user/month.
Who should use it: Enablement teams that need a more agile way to manage and deliver enablement content, without investing in a full enablement suite.
Other alternatives: Tettra, Confluence, Mediafly
6. Gong

What it is: A revenue intelligence platform that captures and analyzes sales conversations to improve team performance and forecast accuracy.
How it compares to Showpad: Showpad focuses on content and training—Gong focuses on insights and execution. It doesn’t replace your CMS or LMS but adds another layer by showing what’s working in your sales calls and why. Track what’s impacting sales performance and drive revenue growth.
Key features:
- Automated call recording and analysis
- AI-driven pipeline management and coaching
- Rep performance benchmarking
Pricing: Starts around $5,000 annually; pricing scales with team size.
Who should use it: Mid-to-large sales orgs that want visibility into rep performance and buyer behavior, and already have other tools for content and onboarding.
Other alternatives: Chorus.ai, Salesloft Conversations
7. Paperflite

What it is: A lightweight content management platform designed to make organizing and sharing sales content easier and more interactive.
How it compares to Showpad: If Showpad feels too bloated or complex, Paperflite is a simpler alternative. It’s not an all-in-one enablement platform, but it makes sharing and tracking content with buyers easy—and looks good doing it.
Key features:
- Branded, buyer-facing microsites
- CRM and marketing tool integrations
- Real-time engagement tracking
Pricing: Starts at $30/user/month.
Who should use it: Teams that want a nimble content-sharing tool that plugs into their current stack—without the overhead of a full LMS/CMS.
Other alternatives: DocSend, Enable.us
8. Salesloft

What it is: A revenue orchestration platform that uses AI to automate and optimize sales outreach, pipeline visibility, and team productivity.
How it compares to Showpad: Salesloft focuses less on enablement content and more on driving execution. It’s a good pairing with lighter CMS tools if you need automation and buyer engagement insights across the pipeline.
Key features:
- AI-powered workflows and real-time sales coaching
- Conversation intelligence
- Forecasting and deal inspection tools
Pricing: Not publicly available, but typically starts at $125/user/month plus setup.
Who should use it: Sales teams looking to automate workflows, improve rep performance, and increase pipeline visibility—especially when paired with a more flexible content tool.
Other alternatives: Outreach, Clari
Is Dock the right Showpad alternative for your team?
If you want more than a seller-readiness tool—and need an AI-first platform that connects Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success around the whole customer journey—Dock is worth a look.
Dock gives you one system to:
- Instantly find, share, and personalize content with AI-powered search and recommendations
- Collaborate with buyers in interactive deal rooms that go beyond static hubs
- Keep context intact from the first call through onboarding and renewal
- Reduce complexity, cost, and the number of tools your team has to juggle
If your goal is to enable buyers as much as sellers, Dock is built for you.
You can get started free today or book a personalized demo to see Dock in action.