Surfly

Surfly is a co-browsing tool for teams that need to guide customers through websites and apps together. It suits product, sales, and service teams that want browser-based sessions, with a choice of cloud or customer-hosted deployment.

Overview

Surfly adds a shared web session to a website, platform, or app, letting participants collaborate without installing plugins or software. That low-friction entry is useful for customer support and guided sales, where asking a customer to install a tool can interrupt the conversation.

It combines co-browsing with screen sharing, video calls, annotations, e-signatures, control switching, and masking for fields or page elements. This makes it more than a viewing tool: agents can guide a customer, hand over control, or keep selected information out of view. The trade-off is that the free plan is tightly capped, and starting a trial involves a demo and help from Surfly’s team.

Key features

Shared sessions and collaboration

Participants join from a browser on desktop, laptop, or mobile, without downloads. Video calls, annotations, and control switching support a guided exchange; masking gives teams a way to hide particular fields or page elements. Video recording is also supported. Native apps are supported through a WebView only, so teams building a native-app experience should account for that constraint.

Integration and deployment

Surfly offers JavaScript and REST APIs, an embed API, and webhooks, alongside integrations with Salesforce, Zendesk, Cisco Finesse, NICE CXone, and Amazon Connect. Those options suit teams embedding sessions into existing service workflows, though the implementation path will depend on their systems and engineering needs.

Deployment options include public cloud, private cloud, and on-premise, with on-premise sessions running on the customer’s infrastructure. Surfly says it uses TLS 1.3 and SHA-256 encryption in transit and does not store personal or session data on disk. It describes itself as AICPA SOC compliant, ISO/IEC 27001 certified, and HIPAA compliant—relevant considerations for regulated teams evaluating deployment and data handling.

Pricing

Surfly uses a freemium model, but the free tier is best treated as a small-scale way to assess the service rather than a sustained team plan.

Plan	Price	What it means
Free plan	free	Five sessions per month. Useful for occasional evaluation, but the cap is too low for routine customer-facing use.
Paid plans	Custom pricing	Unlimited sessions. A better fit for ongoing workflows, with cost requiring a request to Surfly.

Surfly offers a free trial described as 14 days, but its team helps customers start it after a demo. The trial and free plan restrict access to social media sites including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, so workflows centered on those sites should not assume unrestricted use. On the Basic plan, video chat is capped at 1,000 minutes per user per month; teams expecting heavier video use should confirm whether another plan fits before committing.

Platforms

Surfly supports web, Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, and Windows, as well as API and self-hosted deployments. It supports modern browsers on Windows, macOS, and Linux, recommends Chrome on Android and Safari on iOS, and allows mobile-browser participation. Native apps are supported through a WebView, not as a separate native-app session experience.

Who it's for

Surfly is aimed at product, sales, and service teams, including those in insurance, banking, healthcare, and enterprise e-commerce. It is strongest when a team needs to guide someone through a web journey, connect sessions to a service platform, or choose a deployment model that fits its infrastructure. It is less suitable for a team that needs substantial free usage, immediate self-service trial access, or native-app support beyond WebView.

Pros and cons

• Pro: Browser joining without downloads reduces setup friction for customers and agents.
• Pro: Co-browsing, screen sharing, video, annotations, masking, and control switching cover several stages of guided support in one session.
• Pro: Public cloud, private cloud, and on-premise options give organizations meaningful deployment choice.
• Con: Five monthly sessions on the free plan are a narrow allowance for regular use.
• Con: The 14-day trial starts with a demo and team assistance rather than direct sign-up.
• Con: Basic-plan video chat has a 1,000-minute monthly limit per user, and native-app support is through WebView only.

Alternatives

Video Customer Support Software is a useful category page for comparing options. Zoho Assist is worth considering when remote support across desktop platforms matters more than Surfly’s emphasis on shared web sessions; its free plan includes one technician and five devices. LiveCall may suit teams seeking service URLs and user accounts, with a free plan limited to one of each. Cardina is an alternative for teams that want a 14-day no-credit-card trial and a per-seat Pro plan at $69 a month.

Median offers a free-for-life starter plan with one-click screen sharing, privacy controls, phone mode, and Google SSO; choose it if those basics are a closer fit than Surfly’s broader collaboration set. Recursive Labs Visual Engagement Platform is another paid option with a free trial. ScreenMeet Remote Support may fit teams prioritizing native platform integrations and secure remote access and control. XMReality Remote Guidance has a Basic plan at $35 a month with yearly billing, or 42.00 USD with monthly billing, for up to five users. Blitzz Visual Remote Assistance offers a Concierge Professional plan at $175 a month billed annually, including the first five users and three participants per session.

Verdict

Choose Surfly if your team needs customers to join guided web sessions without downloads and you value the combination of co-browsing, collaboration tools, integrations, and flexible deployment. Its main strengths are a low-friction browser experience and deployment choice; the reasons to look elsewhere are the five-session free cap, demo-mediated trial start, and WebView-only native-app support. For regular use, confirm custom pricing and the Basic video limit against your expected session volume before selecting a plan.