ProSocial vs VirtualSpeech (2026): a coach for your real conversations, or a catalog of courses and scenarios
Both let a manager rehearse a tough conversation out loud with a counterpart who pushes back, and both give feedback afterward. VirtualSpeech pairs its scenarios with accredited courses for leaders and optional VR. With membership, ProSocial pairs manager role-plays such as Giving a Performance Review with a coach who prepares you for the real conversation and debriefs with you after it.
The short answer
VirtualSpeech’s individual plan is $45 a month billed monthly, or $399 billed yearly. It includes CPD-accredited courses such as Difficult Conversations for Leaders, AI role-plays that run in your browser, with VR as an option, and a debrief with its AI coach. A free Lite version has four AI role-plays. ProSocial membership is $47 a month, or $470 a year, and you can start free with no card.
Dale is ProSocial’s AI people-skills coach, so you can rehearse at 10 p.m. the night before the review, repeat the hardest moment as many times as you need, and never wait for an appointment. With membership, start from the manager role-play closest to your situation, such as Giving a Performance Review or Coaching an Underperformer, and Dale sets it up with your situation: who it is with, what you need, and what you are worried about. After the real conversation, you debrief with Dale.
Pick VirtualSpeech if you want to practice in a VR headset, need a CPD-accredited certificate, or want to pay once a year for a lower total.
Pick ProSocial if you need to get better at the tough conversations with your own team: a review where a good performer needs to hear what to change, a report who is missing expectations, or a dispute between two people, with a coach who helps before and after each one.
ProSocial vs VirtualSpeech at a glance
| ProSocial | VirtualSpeech | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Membership: $47 a month, or $470 a year. Or $47 once for one program you keep | $45 a month billed monthly, or $399 billed yearly (about $33 a month) |
| Free plan | Free to sign up, no card: your first situation with Dale, calendar and email feedback, and two free programs | Free Lite version: four AI role-plays with limited feedback; no saved sessions or progress tracking |
| Role-plays for managers | Giving a Performance Review, Coaching an Underperformer, Delegating a High-Stakes Task, Mediating a Team Dispute, Addressing Office Gossip, Announcing Team or Policy Changes, and Onboarding a New Hire, with membership | Ready-made scenarios such as Employee Poor Performance, Missed Targets, and Delivering Lay-off News |
| Courses and programs | Programs such as Speak With Authority, $47 once each, or all of them with membership; How to Calm Someone Down is free | CPD-accredited courses with certificates, such as Difficult Conversations for Leaders and How to Give Feedback |
| After a role-play | Scored on the People Skills Index skills it’s tagged with, from your transcript and audio, then a debrief with Dale | Scores and a debrief with an AI coach after every session |
| Voice analysis | Pace, pauses, pitch, energy, filler words, and how steady you sound under pushback | Pace, filler words and hesitations, and listenability |
| Body language | Cue Mirror live camera check of your face and hands, plus video expression analysis (both with membership; Cue Mirror is also in High-Impact Communication) | Eye-contact scoring with virtual avatars |
| VR practice | No | Optional. Practice runs in the browser; its help center lists VR and mixed-reality exercises, on Meta Quest and other headsets, in its paid plan |
| Around the session | With membership, Dale prepares you for the real conversation and for meetings on your Google or Outlook calendar, and debriefs with you after it. Email Audit of emails you sent is free once you connect email | Its courses and scenario catalog; enterprise plans add custom role-plays |
| For teams | Organization plans that measure people-skills progress across your team | Enterprise and education plans with custom role-plays and skills analytics |
The real difference is not the feature list
Both have a set of manager role-plays, and both end a session with an AI debrief: you pick a situation, talk out loud, the other side pushes back, and you get scored feedback.
The difference is what happens around the session. VirtualSpeech pairs its scenarios with courses and a certificate. With membership, ProSocial pairs them with a coach for your actual conversation. A calendar entry cannot tell anyone that your strongest engineer goes quiet in meetings and that you need them to start taking the lead, so you tell Dale: who it is with, what you need from the conversation, and what you are worried about. Dale gets you ready, you rehearse the hardest moment in Giving a Performance Review as many times as you need, and after the real review you debrief with Dale. Your next practice comes from what happened and from your People Skills Index.
What VirtualSpeech is genuinely better at
- Practice in VR, if you want it. VirtualSpeech runs in the browser, and its help center lists VR and mixed-reality exercises on Meta Quest and other headsets, with 15+ virtual settings from a small office to a conference stage. ProSocial has no VR.
- Accredited courses for leaders. Courses such as Difficult Conversations for Leaders and How to Give Feedback are CPD-accredited, with a certificate you can add to LinkedIn. ProSocial’s programs are not written for managers; for a manager, the value is in the role-plays and in Dale.
- Annual price. $399 billed yearly, about $33 a month, against $470 a year for ProSocial membership.
What ProSocial is genuinely better at
- Your real conversations. With membership, Dale prepares you for the actual review or 1:1, rehearses the hard part with you out loud, and debriefs with you afterward. Connect Google or Outlook, and Dale helps you prepare for the meetings on your calendar. Role-plays, drills, and programs also work without connecting anything, if you would rather keep your work accounts separate.
- Manager role-plays scored on named skills. Giving a Performance Review, Coaching an Underperformer, Delegating a High-Stakes Task, Mediating a Team Dispute, and the rest are each scored on the People Skills Index skills they are tagged with, then you debrief with Dale.
- Your voice and your body language, without a headset. ProSocial hears whether your voice stays steady when the other person pushes back. With membership, Cue Mirror shows your face and hands live on camera, and video expression analysis reads your expressions in a recorded conversation.
- Knowing what to work on. The People Skills Index is a roughly 30-minute assessment of how you respond to realistic video situations across seven trainable social skills, including Emotional Regulation and Diplomatic Assertiveness. Dale coaches you from your results.
- The follow-up in writing. Email Audit, free once you connect email, shows where you hedge or bury your point in emails you sent, such as the recap after a review.
Example debrief · Giving a Performance Review
- Adaptive Agility66/100
- Diplomatic Assertiveness62/100
- Emotional Regulation75/100
Dale“You recognized Alex’s strong work before the growth area, which kept the conversation open. “Speak up more” was too vague to act on. Name one meeting where Alex’s view was needed, and agree on one thing to try before the next review.”
- What worked
- Balanced recognition with a clear growth area, and stayed steady when Alex got quiet.
- Try next
- Turn the feedback into one observable behavior and a next step.
An example of the debrief format. Your scores and notes come from your own role-play.
What you practice and how it’s scored
For a performance review, start with “Giving a Performance Review,” which comes with membership. It is scored on the People Skills Index skills it’s tagged with, then you debrief with Dale; see the example debrief on this page for what comes back after a run.
- Scene: Alex’s end-of-quarter performance review, over video. Alex, your direct report, is technically strong and reliable, but tends to stay quiet in meetings and rarely takes initiative unless asked.
- Goal: “Deliver balanced feedback that recognizes Alex’s strong work while giving specific, actionable guidance for growth.”
- Focus cues: “Be concrete: name behaviors, examples, and the impact of speaking up or taking more ownership.” “Keep feedback developmental rather than personal, especially if Alex becomes sensitive or defensive.” “Agree on next steps Alex can actually practice before the next review cycle.”
- Skills it is tagged with: Adaptive Agility, Diplomatic Assertiveness, and Emotional Regulation.
Other manager role-plays in the library include “Coaching an Underperformer” (“Set expectations, provide resources, and secure commitment to improve”), “Delegating a High-Stakes Task,” “Mediating a Team Dispute,” “Addressing Office Gossip,” “Announcing Team or Policy Changes,” and “Onboarding a New Hire.” With membership, start from the closest one, and Dale sets it up with your situation: who it is with, what you need, and what you are worried about.
A note on price
Billed monthly, the two cost about the same: $45 for VirtualSpeech and $47 for ProSocial. Billed yearly, VirtualSpeech is $399, about $33 a month, and ProSocial is $470, two months free versus monthly. VirtualSpeech’s free Lite version has four AI role-plays and does not save your sessions. ProSocial has three levels:
- Free, no card needed: your first realistic situation, which Dale presents, and Dale’s feedback on it; connecting your calendar and email for feedback, including Email Audit of emails you’ve sent; and two free programs, the Conversation Archetype Quiz and How to Calm Someone Down, which has two voice role-plays.
- $47 a month or $470 a year (two months free), cancel anytime: membership. Full coaching with Dale on your own meetings and messages, which means rehearsing your situations in any of the 171 library role-plays, preparing for meetings on your calendar, and debriefing afterward. It also includes every program and all 171 role-plays. That includes every manager role-play above, and progress tracking. If you manage people, this is the one to buy: the manager role-plays come with membership.
- $47 once: one program, which you keep. You get everything in that program, with Dale coaching you through it; in programs with role-plays, Dale sets them up with your situation. The programs teach skills such as assertiveness and staying steady under pressure, but none is written for managers or includes the manager role-plays.
If you want your leads trained too, see ProSocial for organizations. Organization pricing is quoted for your team.
Questions
Does ProSocial help managers with tough conversations?
Yes. With membership, the library includes manager role-plays such as Giving a Performance Review, Coaching an Underperformer, Delegating a High-Stakes Task, Mediating a Team Dispute, and Announcing Team or Policy Changes, each scored on the skills it builds. Dale helps you prepare for the actual conversation and debriefs with you afterward.
Can I rehearse the conversation with my own direct report?
Yes, with membership. Start from the role-play closest to your situation, such as Giving a Performance Review, and Dale sets it up with your situation: who it is with, what you need, and what you are worried about. After the real conversation, you debrief together.
Does ProSocial work in VR?
No. You practice with Dale in your browser by text or voice, and Cue Mirror uses your camera to check your face and hands. VirtualSpeech also runs in the browser and offers VR as an option, if practicing in a headset matters to you.
How much does VirtualSpeech cost?
VirtualSpeech’s individual plan is $45 a month billed monthly, or $399 billed yearly. Its free Lite version has four AI role-plays with limited feedback and no saved progress. Enterprise and education plans are priced on request.
Can I try ProSocial for free?
Yes, and no card is needed. A free account includes your first realistic situation, which Dale presents, and Dale’s feedback on it; connecting your calendar and email for feedback, including Email Audit of emails you’ve sent; and two free programs, the Conversation Archetype Quiz and How to Calm Someone Down, which has two voice role-plays. One program is $47 once: you get everything in that program, with Dale coaching you through it, and you keep it. Programs with role-plays have Dale set them up with your situation. Membership is $47 a month or $470 a year (two months free), cancel anytime: full coaching with Dale on your own meetings and messages, which means rehearsing your situations in any of the 171 library role-plays, preparing for meetings on your calendar, and debriefing afterward, plus every program and all 171 role-plays. The manager role-plays come with membership.
I checked VirtualSpeech’s pricing, courses, role-plays, free Lite version, and VR support in October 2026 on its website and help center. Competitors ship fast, so verify current details before you buy either one.
More comparisons
All trademarks belong to their owners and are used here for comparison only.
