Trying ABA Software Before You Buy: What Each Platform Actually Requires
Reviewed 2026-08-10 · 9 min read · Coralia Compliance Guides
Of the fourteen ABA practice-management platforms checked on August 10, 2026, two let you into working software without speaking to anyone. Coralia opens a fully populated synthetic clinic at coralia.app/demo with no account and no form. Office Puzzle starts a free trial once you create an account and accept its terms and business associate agreement, with no credit card. The other twelve require a form, a booking, or both before you see the product. Three of them publish an address that reads like self-service and does not behave like one: alohaaba.com/signup returns a permanent redirect to its demo-booking page, ravenhealth.com/free-trial permanently redirects to its demo-scheduling page, and artemisaba.com/sign-up is a lead form with no password field, so nothing is created when you submit it. None of that is unusual or improper — enterprise software has sold this way for decades — but a buyer comparing six platforms deserves to know which doors open and which ring a bell, before spending six weeks of calendar on it.
What each platform requires, checked on one day
Every row below was verified by loading the vendor's own site on August 10, 2026 and following whatever the primary call to action does. Sales processes change without notice, so treat the date as part of the fact: this is what the category looked like on that day, not a permanent property of any vendor.
The distinction that matters is not open versus closed. It is what stands between a question and its answer — nothing, an account, or another human's calendar.
| Platform | What it takes to see the software | Access type |
|---|---|---|
| Coralia | Open coralia.app/demo and pick one of twelve staff or family logins | No account |
| Office Puzzle | Create an account with name, work email and phone; accept terms and BAA; no credit card | Free trial |
| Artemis ABA | Submit a form choosing your role and the screens you want shown; no account is created | Form |
| AlohaABA | Book a demo; the /signup address permanently redirects to that booking form | Booking |
| Raven Health | Schedule a demo; the /free-trial address permanently redirects to that scheduler | Booking |
| ABA Matrix | Give name, state and email to watch a two-minute video; the live demo is a calendar booking | Video, then booking |
| CentralReach | Schedule a consultation | Booking |
| RethinkBH | Request a demo | Form |
| Motivity | Request a personal demo, described for groups of 20+ learners, or join a scheduled group webinar | Booking or webinar |
| Theralytics | Book a demo through a shared calendar | Booking |
| Hi Rasmus | Open the demo request form from the site header | Form |
| Lumary ABA | Request a demo | Form |
| NPAWorks | Request a demo | Form |
| Ensora Health | Request a demo | Form |
A free trial and a populated demo answer different questions
It is tempting to rank these on openness alone, and that would be the wrong reading. A free trial and a demo populated with history are not the same product experience, and neither is strictly better — they answer different questions.
A trial hands you an empty tenant. That is genuinely useful for judging how a system feels to set up: how long onboarding takes, whether the forms match how your clinic actually works, whether your staff can find anything. What an empty tenant cannot show you is behavior, because practice-management software earns or loses its money on what happens once there is history in it. An authorization is only interesting when it is eighty percent consumed. A session note is only interesting when it is missing an element and something has to decide whether it can be billed. A denial is only interesting when it exists and someone has to rework it. On day one of a trial, none of those states exist, and creating them by hand is a week of work no evaluator does.
A guided sales demo has the opposite property. The data is there, but the path through it is chosen by the person selling. That is not deceit — it is the job — but it means the twenty minutes you spend are the twenty minutes the vendor rehearsed, and the question you actually came with may never get typed into the software.
A demo populated with realistic history that you drive yourself is the third case, and it is rare in this category because it is expensive to build and it forfeits the lead capture. It is also the only one of the three where you can go looking for the thing that worries you.
What to test once you are inside, on any platform
This list is vendor-neutral on purpose. Whether you get a trial, a demo call or an open environment, these are the seven checks that separate software that looks organized from software that holds up under a payer's review, and every one of them can be run in under an hour.
If you are on a guided call, hand the list to the person driving and ask them to do these instead of the tour. How a vendor reacts to that request is itself information.
- Take a session note that is missing a required element and try to bill it. The question is whether the system stops it before submission or reports it afterward — that difference is the difference between a correction and a recoupment.
- Find an authorization that is most of the way consumed, then go to the scheduler and see whether that fact appears where someone books the session, or only in a report nobody opens.
- Open a denied claim and count the clicks to a corrected resubmission. Denials are routine; the cost is the rework loop, not the denial.
- Ask for one technician's supervision percentage for last month, computed from the service records rather than typed in by a supervisor. If it cannot be produced on the spot, it cannot be produced for an auditor either.
- Log in as a caregiver and look at what a parent sees. Ask specifically what a parent can see that they should not.
- Find a date of service where the rendering provider's credential had expired, and see whether the system knew at the time or only knows now. Credentials are verified as of the date of service, not as of today.
- Add a scheduler and a biller to the account and watch what the price does. Per-seat pricing is where the quoted number and the invoice diverge.
What no demo can tell you
Four things decide whether a platform works for your agency and none of them are visible in any demo, trial or call, so they belong on a separate list you get answered in writing.
First, migration: who moves your client records, historical notes and open authorizations, how long it takes, what it costs, and what happens to data the new system has no field for. Second, support: not whether support exists, but the median time to a human answer on a billing question, and who pays when a defect causes a denial. Third, the contract: term length, notice period, annual escalator, and what leaving looks like — specifically, whether you can export your own clinical records in a readable format without paying for the privilege. Fourth, rate of change: ask when the last three features shipped, and to whom.
It is also worth being direct about the limits of the open-demo argument, including ours. An open demo proves that a vendor is willing to be looked at without a salesperson present. It does not prove the software fits your caseload, your payer mix, or your state's documentation rules, and it says nothing about the four questions above.
Where Coralia is not the answer
The same honesty applies to the platform publishing this page, and the demo will show these gaps rather than hide them, so they are worth stating up front.
Coralia does not do offline data collection — the Android app renders the live platform rather than caching it, so a technician without a connection cannot collect data. There is no pre-built VB-MAPP or ABLLS-R goal bank; analysts author every target, where Rethink and Motivity ship large libraries. Telehealth sessions are scheduled and billed but the video call is hosted elsewhere. Payroll hours export, but wage calculation happens in your payroll system. Visit capture is geolocated and gates billing, but transmission to state EVV aggregators such as Sandata and HHAeXchange is not built. Integrations are curated rather than open: there is no public API today.
If any of those is a requirement rather than a preference, the honest recommendation is a different platform, and that is a better outcome for both sides than finding out in month three.
How Coralia handles this
The demo referenced above is Coralia's own and is open at coralia.app/demo: a synthetic agency with months of scheduling, session, billing and supervision history, entered by choosing one of twelve staff and family logins rather than by creating an account. It contains no real patient data of any kind, which is why it can be published at all — a populated demo of a healthcare product is only possible if every record in it is manufactured.
Frequently asked questions
Can I try ABA software without talking to a salesperson?
On August 10, 2026, two of the fourteen platforms checked allowed it. Coralia publishes an open demo at coralia.app/demo that requires no account and no form: you choose one of twelve staff and family logins — four of them featured, including the agency owner, the clinical director, a behavior technician, and a parent in the family portal — and land in a fully populated synthetic clinic. Office Puzzle offers a free trial that requires creating an account and accepting its terms and business associate agreement, but no credit card and no call. Every other platform checked required a form, a booking, or both.
Is there a free trial for ABA practice-management software?
Office Puzzle was the only platform of the fourteen checked with a genuine self-service free trial on August 10, 2026. Two others publish addresses that suggest one and do not deliver it: alohaaba.com/signup issues a permanent redirect to its demo-booking page, and ravenhealth.com/free-trial issues a permanent redirect to its demo scheduler. A third, artemisaba.com/sign-up, is a lead form with no password field, so submitting it creates no account.
What is the difference between a free trial and a live demo?
A free trial gives you an empty system, which is the right way to judge setup effort and day-to-day feel. A populated demo gives you a system with history, which is the only way to judge behavior — an authorization near its limit, a note missing a required element, a denial that has to be reworked. Those states do not exist on day one of a trial and take about a week to create by hand, which is why most evaluations never test them. A guided sales demo has the data but not the steering wheel: the path through it is chosen by the vendor.
Why do most ABA software vendors require a demo call?
Mostly because their pricing is per user seat and quoted rather than published, so a conversation is how the vendor scopes the deal, and because a booking captures a qualified lead that an anonymous visit does not. It is a rational commercial choice rather than something to hold against a vendor. The cost lands on the buyer: evaluating six platforms at forty-five minutes each, plus scheduling, is most of a working week before anyone has typed a single query into the software.
What should I test in an ABA software demo?
Seven checks, all of which can be run in under an hour and none of which are part of a standard tour: try to bill a session note that is missing a required element and see whether the system stops it before submission or reports it afterward; find an authorization that is nearly consumed and see whether that appears in the scheduler; count the clicks from a denied claim to a corrected resubmission; ask for one technician's supervision percentage for last month computed from service records; log in as a caregiver and ask what a parent can see that they should not; find a date of service where the rendering provider's credential had expired and see whether the system knew at the time; and add two staff logins to see what the price does.
This guide is educational content, not legal or billing advice. Requirements vary by payer and state and change over time — always confirm against your payer contracts, your state Medicaid program, and current BACB publications.