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Looking for a FocuSee alternative?
FocuSee's lifetime licence is $199.99 and covers one version line. Prequel is $29 once, or $9 a month, and takes the pass further: zooms on what you type as well as where you click, a perspective tilt, focus falling away from the subject, and 4K at 120 fps.
No credit card required
FocuSee
Screen recording with automatic zoom, for Windows and Mac.
- Price
- $49.99 a year, up to $199.99 once
- Free
- A trial that exports one video
- Platforms
- macOS, Windows
Prequel
Cinematic screen recorder for Mac
- Price
- $9 a month, or $29 once
- Free
- 7-day trial, then paid
- Platforms
- macOS 14+, Apple Silicon
Checked on 22 October 2026 against FocuSee, FocuSee pricing.
What is FocuSee, and what is it good at?
FocuSee records your screen and zooms it for you. Clicks become push-ins, the cursor is smoothed and enlarged, the recording sits on a background with a radius and a shadow, and the result can be reframed for a vertical feed. It runs on Windows and Mac, which makes it one of the few auto-zoom recorders a mixed team can both use, and it comes from iMobie, a company with a catalogue of consumer apps behind it.
Standard is $49.99 a year or $19.99 a month. Advanced is $79.99 a year, $24.99 a month, or $199.99 once for a lifetime licence to the 2.x line.
Why do people look for a FocuSee alternative?
The lifetime licence is $199.99, and it is version-bound. It covers 2.x. A major version after that is a separate decision, and $199.99 is the dearest one-off price in this category by a distance.
The trial exports one video. You get a single 4K export to judge it by, and after that the watermark is the reminder.
Two platforms, one codebase. The Mac build is not a Mac app in the way ScreenCaptureKit and VideoToolbox make one, and it shows in export speed and in how the app sits on the system.
Is Prequel a good FocuSee alternative?
For the same job on a Mac, yes, at a seventh of the one-off price.
Prequel records the screen, the camera, the microphone and system audio as separate tracks and opens the editor with the pass already made: zooms on every click and every burst of typing, tilted, with focus falling away from whatever the push-in is aimed at. The camera is framed, shaped and cut out of the room behind you. Seventeen colour looks sit over the picture. The cursor is smoothed, blurred as it moves and hidden when it idles. Captions are transcribed on your Mac.
Export is one MP4 or HEVC file at up to 4K and 120 frames a second, encoded by the Mac's own media engine. It is $29 once, against $199.99, or $9 a month, and the seven-day trial exports as many videos as you like without a watermark.
What do you give up by switching?
Windows. FocuSee is the same app on both platforms and Prequel is macOS on Apple Silicon, so a team recording on PCs keeps FocuSee.
Also the AI editing features iMobie packages around it, which are a different product idea from a recorder that finishes the take.
How do the features compare?
| Feature | Prequel | FocuSee |
|---|---|---|
| Automatic zoom on clicks | Included | Included |
| Zoom on what you type | Included | Not included |
| Cursor smoothing and resizing | Included | Included |
| Camera overlay, shaped and placed after | Included | Included |
| Backgrounds, padding and shadow | Included | Included |
| Layouts for the screen and camera | Fourteen, per clip | Camera over the screen, or beside it |
| Camera cut out of its background | Included | Not included |
| Perspective tilt and focus falloff on zooms | Included | Not included |
| Captions transcribed on your Mac | Included | Generated in the app; where is not stated |
| Timeline editing | Included | Included |
| Separate audio tracks | Included | Not stated |
| System audio without a virtual driver | Included | Included |
| Reframe to vertical without cropping | Included | A vertical layout, cropped to follow the cursor |
| Magnifying-glass loupe over the work | Included | Not included |
| Colour looks and filters | Included | Not included |
| Microphone noise reduction | Included | Included |
| Import a video you already have | Included | Included |
| Records and exports without uploading | Included | Included |
| Shareable links | Included | Not included |
| Team workspace | Included | Not included |
| Records an iPhone or iPad | Not included | Not included |
| Maximum export | 4K, 120 fps | 4K |
| Download size | 104 MB | Not published |
| Platforms | macOS 14+, Apple Silicon | macOS, Windows |
| Licence | $9/month or $29 once, 7-day trial | $49.99/yr, or $199.99 once for 2.x |
What FocuSee is good at
One of the few automatic-zoom recorders that is the same product on Windows and on a Mac, from a company with a catalogue behind it.
What does each one cost?
FocuSee
- Standard$49.99 per year, or $19.99 a month
- Advanced$79.99 per year, or $24.99 a month
- Advanced, lifetime$199.99 one-off, for the 2.x line
Prequel
- Lifetime$29 once
- Pro$9 a month
Checked on 22 October 2026 against FocuSee, FocuSee pricing.
- Record your screen and cameraPick a display, a window or an area you drag out, with your camera, microphone and system audio each on their own track.
- Zooms and layout are applied automaticallyPrequel reads where you clicked and typed, then places the zooms, frames your camera and sets a background behind it.
- Edit, export and shareMove a zoom, trim a clip or fix a caption, then export one MP4 at up to 4K or send a link that plays anywhere.
Zoom and pan
Zooms that follow the action
Prequel automatically zooms in when you click or type, then softens the rest of the window so viewers know where to look. Every zoom is added to the timeline, so you can move, retime or delete it at any time.
Layouts
Switch layouts clip by clip
Choose from fourteen layouts for the same take: camera in the corner, beside the screen, split with it or hidden entirely. Use one layout for the whole video, or change it clip by clip.
Subtitles
Subtitles you can edit like text
Prequel transcribes every word on your Mac when the editor opens. Fix captions by typing in the transcript, choose a subtitle style or delete a sentence to remove it from the video.
Thisisthecheckoutweshippedlastweek
Thisisthecheckoutweshippedlastweek
Thisisthecheckoutweshippedlastweek
Thisisthecheckoutweshippedlastweek
Thisisthecheckoutweshippedlastweek
Thisisthecheckoutweshippedlastweek
Thanks so much for jumping on this call
Iwanttoshowyousomethingcool
[pause here]
we’ve been building for the past few months
Teleprompter
A teleprompter that follows your voice
Prequel hangs your script from the notch, just under the camera, and follows your voice — the word you're saying lights up as you say it. Wander off script and it waits for you; skip ahead or fall behind and it catches up within a couple of words.
Apple Silicon · macOS 14+
Native
Built for your Mac
Prequel is a native app for Apple Silicon. It records with the system’s own capture, encodes on the video hardware and draws every frame in Metal. Your recordings stay on your disk.
The editor
Everything you would have done by hand
It opens by itself when you stop recording, on the take you just made. Nothing to import, nothing to line up.
Guide attention automatically
Prequel zooms into the part of the screen that matters: the cursor, a region you draw, or whatever you are typing into. Set the level, the speed and how much the rest of the frame blurs.
Look present without taking over the video
Your camera stays framed and out of the way: circle, squircle, rounded, wide or portrait, in any corner and any size. It is never burned into the recording, so none of it is decided while you record.
Make recordings look designed
Add a background, padding and a shadow without editing any of it by hand. Your own wallpaper by default, seven bundled presets, gradients and solids.
Cut the parts nobody needs to see
Trim the pauses yourself, slice by slice, with a waveform under every clip. Layout, background and audio can all change mid-take.
Keep the pointer out of the way
Fifteen pointer styles, resized so the cursor survives a zoom. Smoothed while it travels, and hidden after a few seconds of stillness.
Export the frame you approved
The preview and the exporter draw the same plan, so the file matches what you signed off in the editor.
Quality
Videos stay sharp at 4K
Capture and export run on your Mac's own media engine. 1080p at 60 fps records without dropping frames, and 4K is a setting you pick.
- Resolution
- Up to 4K
- Frame rate
- Up to 120 fps
- Codecs
- H.264 · HEVC
- Encoding
- Hardware, VideoToolbox
- Compositing
- Metal
- Output
- Constant frame rate MP4
Formats
Export in any frame
Turn one recording into different formats without manually reframing every element. Switch from landscape to vertical and the layout stays intact.
- Landscape 16:9
- 4K
- Vertical 9:16
- Square 1:1
- Portrait 4:5
- YouTube
- Shorts
- TikTok
- Reels
- X
Record demos worth sharing
Free for 7 days. No watermark on anything you export.
No credit card required
Curious about the internals? Read the blog
FAQ
Zooms, exports and the rest
What is the best FocuSee alternative?
On a Mac, Prequel. It does the same job, automatic zooms on a screen recording, and adds the parts that make a take read as directed: zooms on what you type as well as where you click, a perspective tilt on the push-in, focus falling away from the subject, a camera cut out of the room behind you, and export at up to 4K and 120 frames a second. It is $29 once against $199.99.
How much does FocuSee cost?
Standard is $49.99 a year or $19.99 a month. Advanced is $79.99 a year, $24.99 a month, or $199.99 once for a lifetime licence to the 2.x line. The trial exports a single video. Checked on 22 October 2026.
Does FocuSee put a watermark on your video?
The trial exports one high-quality video and the licence is what removes the limit after that. Prequel's seven-day trial exports as many videos as you like, at every size and frame rate, with nothing drawn on top.
Is Prequel a good FocuSee alternative?
For a Mac, yes, and the pass is deeper: typing triggers a zoom as well as clicking, the push-in is tilted with focus falling away from it, the camera is cut out of the room by a model running on your Mac, and seventeen colour looks sit over the picture. FocuSee keeps Windows, which Prequel has no answer to.