Markus Kellermann Founder & CEO
Real-Time Sales Coaching Software: Who Actually Coaches Live in 2026
Markus Kellermann Founder & CEO
Real-time sales coaching software splits into three camps that don't overlap. This map shows who really coaches live on which calls, with verified 2026 pricing.
TL;DR: Real-Time Sales Coaching Software in 2026
- Real-time sales coaching software is a small category wearing a big label. Most tools sold under the term analyze calls after they end. The ones that actually help live split into three different camps: meeting copilots, dialer coaches, and contact-center assist.
- The test that sorts the category is simple. Does the tool read the conversation, or does it match keywords you scripted in advance? Cards that fire on keywords help with the objections you predicted. Reading the call helps with the ones you didn't.
- Convo leads the meeting-copilot camp. It helps you win more deals by providing live support during calls, identifying buying signals, and asking the right questions during the meeting. From $22.49 a month, published.
- The loudest tool in the category is Cluely. It built its name on cheating, then leaked data from 83,000 users, and its help still lags seconds behind the conversation. The serious buy for each segment is below, with published prices where they exist. Try Convo free.
The Loudest Tool in the Category
The most well-known real-time coaching tool right now is Cluely, and it earned that fame the wrong way. It launched on the tagline "cheat on everything," built by students who had just been suspended for an exam-cheating tool, and it sells an "undetectability" tier for $149.99 a month. Then it got breached. A detailed report documents how admin credentials left in a public GitHub repository exposed data from more than 83,000 users, including transcripts and screenshots captured from live sales calls and confidential meetings. In our own testing, its suggestions arrived 4 to 7 seconds after the moment they were needed, which on a live call means they arrived late.
I bring this up first because Cluely is what many buyers meet before anything else in this category, and it teaches them the wrong lesson. The lesson buyers take away is that live AI help is a gimmick for people who want to fake competence. The truth is more useful. Help that arrives during the conversation is the single biggest thing software can still do for a sales team, and there is now a real market of tools that do it seriously.
I run one of those tools. What follows is the map I wish existed when we started, including the two segments where Convo is clearly the wrong buy.
Want the short answer?
Convo is the serious version of what the noisy tools promise. It reads your live call and shows the right response while the prospect the moment it matters. Dialer teams should look at Trellus, contact centers at Balto.
The Test That Sorts the Category
Real-time sales coaching software listens to a live sales conversation and helps the rep while it is still happening, with responses, prompts, or corrections delivered on screen during the call rather than in a review afterward. That is the definition. The category problem is that tools from three very different traditions all claim it and a buyer who does not know the split ends up demoing a contact-center compliance product for a 6-person Zoom-call sales team.
Two questions cut through almost every vendor page in this space.
First, does the tool read the conversation or match keywords? Scripted-card systems let you build a library in advance, then fire a card when a trigger word lands. That is real help within its limits. A card library is a printed route map, useful right up until the prospect takes the first unplanned turn. A copilot that reads the call is the GPS that notices you missed the exit and reroutes while you are still driving.
Second, where do you actually sell? A rep closing deals on Zoom demos, an SDR hammering a dialer, and a licensed agent on a recorded compliance line have almost nothing in common at the moment of need. Each camp has its own tools, and none of them transplant well.
The Map
| Segment | Tools | Built for | Pricing reality |
|---|---|---|---|
| Meeting copilots | Convo, Avoma Answer Cards, Clari Copilot, Cluely | Video calls where deals close | $22.49 to ~$160/user/mo |
| Dialer coaching | Trellus, Dialpad Ai | High-volume outbound phone work | Dialer plans published, coaching tiers mostly custom |
| Contact-center assist | Balto, Cresta | 50 to 100+ agents, compliance-heavy | Quote-only, platform fees, six figures at scale |
| Not actually live | Gong, Chorus, roleplay sims | Post-call analysis and practice reps | $1,200+/user/yr for the platforms |
Meeting Copilots: Help on the Calls Where Deals Close
Convo
Convo listens locally on your machine, reads the conversation every few seconds, and decides what would help right now. Your prospect mentions they are also evaluating a cheaper tool, and the differentiator that matters to this specific buyer is on your screen with its proof point while they are still finishing the thought. Your BANT, SPICED, or MEDDPICC playbook fills itself in as the answers surface in conversation. Ask Anything pulls from the live transcript, your uploaded documents, and every past call with the account, so when someone references a promise from six weeks ago, you have the exact wording without leaving the call.
The part that changes team economics is the manager layer. Every call produces per-rep talk-to-listen ratios and feedback anchored to the verbatim moment it refers to. A manager writes a note on Monday's lost deal, ask about the decision process before you demo, and Save-as-Cue turns it into an on-screen prompt on that rep's Tuesday discovery call. Coaching reaches the calls nobody has time to review, which is most of them. Gong's own research group, from 7.1 million analyzed opportunities, measured 77% more revenue per rep on teams using AI deeply, and that lift lives in moments like these, not in dashboards.
No bot joins your meetings. Audio is captured locally, the overlay stays hidden from screen sharing, and the prospect experiences nothing but a rep who seems unusually well prepared. Pricing is published, $22.49 a month for Starter and $52.49 for Professional, and setup is a download, not a rollout. Try it free for 7 days and it is working on your next call.
Avoma Answer Cards
Avoma's live layer is an add-on to its all-in-one meeting platform, and it is honest scripted-card work. Cards you built in advance appear when a configured keyword or phrase lands and stay on screen for 20 seconds, while framework checklists tick off MEDDIC or BANT topics as they come up. The real price for a sales team is about $53 per user per month once the Conversation Intelligence add-on joins the base plan, and everything arrives through the Avoma bot that joined your meeting. Within the scripted-card limits it works, and the platform around it bundles scheduling, notes, and CRM sync a small team may want anyway. The full head-to-head is in our Convo vs Avoma comparison.
Clari Copilot
Clari Copilot, the former Wingman, is the enterprise version of the cue-card model. Its live battlecards fire on keywords and topics during active calls, and Clari's own page is refreshingly direct that this happens while the call is happening, not after it is over. Buyers report roughly $120 to $160 per user per month standalone, quote-gated, and the product's gravity pulls toward the full Clari revenue platform. For a 50-rep org already forecasting in Clari, it is the natural cue-card choice. For a small team it is a procurement process in exchange for a card library.
Cluely
Covered above, and the facts have not improved on closer inspection. Real-time overlay, yes. But the response latency we measured makes the help arrive after the moment, the breach exposed exactly the kind of confidential call content a sales team cannot afford to leak, and the product's identity is built around not being noticed rather than being useful. If what attracted you to Cluely is the idea, an AI that helps live and invisibly, that idea executed like a business tool is exactly what Convo is.
Dialer Coaching: Live Help for Outbound Volume
Cold-call coaching is a different sport. Calls last 90 seconds, the objections repeat, and the rep is on their fortieth dial of the morning. The tools here live inside the dialer, not the meeting.
Trellus layers real-time coaching onto the dialers SDR teams already use, Salesloft, Outreach, Apollo, HubSpot and others, through a browser extension. Its self-serve dialer plans are published at $34.99 a month, but note the fine print we hit when verifying this in August 2026. The real-time coaching itself sits in the custom-priced Business tier, so the transparent sticker gets you the dialer, and the coaching is a sales conversation.
Dialpad bundles live coach cards into its telephony platform, with suggested responses and battlecard prompts appearing during calls made through Dialpad's own phone system. It is the right shape for teams that live in Dialpad already. Its AI products have moved toward credit-based, usage-metered pricing, so the real cost depends on your bundle and volume rather than a public rate card.
The honest limit of this whole segment is that it coaches phone scripts, not deal conversations. When your revenue moves through 45-minute discovery calls and demos, dialer coaching has nothing to say. That is meeting-copilot territory.
Contact-Center Assist: A Different Product Wearing the Same Words
Balto and Cresta show up in every real-time coaching search, and neither is built for a sales team in the way this page's readers usually mean it.
Balto describes its own job as dynamic prompts, compliance checklists, and coaching alerts during customer interactions, aimed at high-volume repeatable calls in regulated industries, insurance, banking, collections, healthcare. Reviewers report pricing around $100 per agent per month, demo-gated, and the product makes sense at 50-plus agents where script adherence is a legal matter rather than a style preference. Cresta plays the same game at larger scale. It is built for contact centers of 100-plus agents, with buyers reporting $100 to $200 per agent per month plus platform fees, and public marketplace listings anchoring annual contracts around $150,000.
If you run that world, these are serious products and Convo is not your tool. If you run a 10-person team closing deals on video calls, the reverse is true, and a demo with either will cost you two weeks of procurement theater to learn it.
The Tools People Shop by Mistake
Gong and Chorus dominate every sales-AI conversation, and neither coaches live. They record, transcribe, and analyze after the call, feeding scorecards and forecasts that are genuinely valuable to the manager reviewing Tuesday's calls on Wednesday. The rep alone with a hard question mid-call gets nothing until the deal has already moved. We compare the models properly in Convo vs Gong, and if post-call analytics is what you actually need, our Gong alternatives page covers that field honestly.
Roleplay simulators are the other frequent mix-up, AI personas that let reps practice objections before the real call. Practice tools improve the rep. Live tools improve the call. They are different modes with different budgets, and our sales coaching software guide maps all three modes if the mode question is still open for you.
Published Prices vs Book-a-Demo
| Tool | Live mechanism | Price | Published? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Convo | Reads the conversation | $22.49 / $52.49 per month | Yes |
| Cluely | Reads the conversation, 4-7s lag | $19.99 / $149.99 per month | Yes |
| Avoma + CI add-on | Keyword-triggered cards | ~$53/user/mo | Yes |
| Trellus | Dialer coaching | $34.99 dialer, coaching tier custom | Partly |
| Dialpad Ai | Cards in telephony bundles | Credit-based, varies | Partly |
| Clari Copilot | Keyword-triggered battlecards | ~$120-160/user/mo reported | No |
| Balto | Compliance prompts | ~$100/agent/mo reported | No |
| Cresta | Agent assist at scale | ~$150k/yr contracts reported | No |
The Right Buy, Team by Team
| Your situation | Buy | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Closing deals on Zoom, Meet, or Teams calls | Convo | Reads the call, remembers the account, coaches every rep live, published pricing |
| Founder or small team doing its own sales | Convo | Working in minutes, no procurement, help on the next call |
| Manager who cannot review every recording | Convo | Ratios, verbatim-anchored feedback, cues that land mid-call |
| SDR floor running hundreds of dials | Trellus or Dialpad | Coaching inside the dialer where the volume is |
| 50-100+ agents on compliance-bound phone lines | Balto or Cresta | Script adherence at scale, priced accordingly |
| Enterprise org already running Clari for forecasting | Clari Copilot | Cue cards native to the platform you own |
| What you really want is post-call analytics | Gong or its field | Different job, see our comparison |
Where This Leaves You
The label real-time sales coaching software will keep getting stretched, because every vendor knows the live moment is where buyers now understand the value to be. The category's loudest brand got there through notoriety, most of its biggest brands got there by relabeling post-call products, and the compliance tools got there by accident of vocabulary.
The way through is the two questions. Does it read the conversation or match your script, and does it live where your selling actually happens. For teams that win and lose revenue on live video calls, Convo is the answer to both questions, at a price you can see without booking a demo. A rep using it walks into every call with the account's history loaded, gets the hard question answered on screen while it is being asked, and gets coached by every call they take, not the 3% a manager has time to review.
Try Convo free for 7 days and judge it the only way that matters, on your own next call. If the help does not arrive while the moment is still open, you will know within a week, and it will have cost you nothing to find out.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is real-time sales coaching software? Real-time sales coaching software helps a rep during a live sales conversation instead of after it, surfacing responses, prompts, next questions, or corrections on screen while the prospect is still talking. The genuine field splits into meeting copilots for video calls (Convo, Avoma's Answer Cards, Clari Copilot), dialer coaching for outbound phone teams (Trellus, Dialpad), and contact-center agent assist for compliance-heavy floors (Balto, Cresta). Tools like Gong and Chorus are often shopped in this category but work after the call ends.
What sales coaching software gives reps real-time call feedback? For teams selling on video calls, Convo gives reps live feedback while the call runs, the right response when an objection lands, the question they have not asked yet, talk-ratio nudges when they monologue, and context from past calls with the account. Avoma and Clari Copilot show pre-scripted cards when configured keywords fire. On the phone side, Trellus and Dialpad coach inside the dialer, and Balto prompts contact-center agents on compliance lines.
Can AI flag objections during a live sales call? Yes, and the mechanism matters. Keyword systems flag an objection when a trigger word you scripted appears, which fails when prospects phrase things sideways. Conversation-reading tools like Convo detect the objection from meaning, so when a prospect says the timing feels wrong or their CFO is nervous, the handling framework is on screen even though no scripted keyword ever fired.
How do managers coach reps without reviewing every call? By moving the coaching into the calls themselves. Convo gives managers per-rep talk-to-listen ratios and feedback anchored to verbatim moments, and Save-as-Cue turns a written note into an on-screen prompt on that rep's next relevant call. The correction reaches the rep mid-conversation, on every call, including the ones nobody will ever have time to replay. Review-based platforms cover the handful of calls a manager can watch, which for most teams is a low single-digit share.
Is there a real-time alternative to Gong? Gong has no live coaching layer, so the alternative is a different category, the real-time AI sales assistant, rather than a rival feature. Convo covers the live moment, response suggestions, buying signals, playbook fill-in, and manager cues during the call, and plenty of teams run it alongside or instead of post-call platforms. The full trade-off sits in our Convo vs Gong breakdown, and the wider post-call field is in Gong alternatives.
Do real-time coaching tools work for cold calling? The meeting copilots are the wrong shape for it, and that includes Convo, which is built for the longer conversations where deals close. Cold-call coaching belongs to the dialer tools. Trellus layers live coaching onto Salesloft, Outreach, Apollo, and HubSpot dialers, and Dialpad surfaces coach cards on calls through its own phone system. If your revenue runs through booked meetings rather than dials, flip that recommendation.
Is Cluely safe to use for sales calls? The record says no. A breach exposed data from more than 83,000 Cluely users, including transcripts and screenshots captured from live sales and business calls, after admin credentials were left in a public GitHub repository. Its real-world response lag of several seconds also means help tends to arrive after the moment has passed. For the same live-help idea built with local capture and without the baggage, see our Cluely alternatives breakdown.
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Markus is the founder of Convo, building an AI meeting assistant that automates everything after the call. Years of experience building AI products. Believes technology should help people in the moment, not just analyze the past.