Looking for a Tella alternative?
Tella hosts your video and charges per seat, with no free plan. Prequel exports a file you own, on a Mac app you buy once.
Apple Silicon · macOS 14+ · one email when the first build is ready
Tella
Record and share video that looks professionally edited.
- Price
- $13–$19 per user/mo, no free plan
- Free
- No free tier
- Platforms
- macOS, Windows, web, Chrome
Prequel
Create cinematic screen recordings from Mac
- Price
- Free, or $39 once
- Free
- Free tier, no watermark
- Platforms
- macOS 14+, Apple Silicon
Checked on 21 August 2026 against Tella pricing, Tella plans.
What is Tella, and what is it good at?
Tella records polished video and then hosts it for you. Automatic zoom on clicks, backgrounds, borders, camera reframing, auto layouts, AI audio enhancement, transcript editing and filler-word removal — and then the finished video lands on a branded page with a custom domain, password protection, calls to action and per-viewer analytics.
That last part is the real product. Tella is the only tool on this page that closes the whole loop from recording to distribution to knowing who watched. It runs on macOS, Windows, a Chrome extension and in a browser, so it works for teams that are not all on Macs.
If the link and what happens after it matters as much as the video, Tella is a strong choice and there is no local recorder that replaces it.
Why do people look for a Tella alternative?
Two things, mostly.
There is no free plan. Tella's own help pages say so plainly: it is a paid product with no forever-free tier. There is a seven-day trial, and exporting your recordings requires a subscription. Pro is $13 per user per month, Premium is $19, and 60 fps export is Premium only. For a team that is a line item; for one person recording occasionally it is a subscription for something used a few times a month.
Everything is in the cloud. Every recording gets a hosted Tella page. That is the feature, and it is also the constraint — the video exists on their infrastructure, and per-seat pricing means paying for people whose only involvement is watching.
Is Prequel a good Tella alternative?
For producing the video, yes. For distributing it, no.
Prequel records screen, webcam, microphone and system audio as separate tracks, places zooms from where you click and what you type, frames the camera afterwards, applies a background, cleans up the cursor and exports one MP4 at up to 4K and 120 frames per second — against Tella's 4K 60, and with no Premium tier gating the frame rate.
All of it happens on your Mac. There is no upload, no render queue and no hosted page, because there is no server involved in making the file.
It is bought once rather than per seat, and the free tier is a tier rather than a trial — no watermark, limited on length and export format instead.
What do you give up by switching?
The distribution half, completely. No hosted pages, no custom domain, no password protection, no calls to action, no viewer analytics, no funnels. If you are using Tella to run outreach or measure engagement, Prequel replaces none of that — you would be exporting a file and putting it wherever you already put files.
Also Windows and the browser recorder. Tella works for a mixed team; Prequel is macOS on Apple Silicon.
How do the features compare?
| Feature | Prequel | Tella |
|---|---|---|
| Automatic zoom on clicks | Included | Included |
| Zoom on what you type | Included | Not included |
| Cursor smoothing and resizing | Included | Not included |
| Camera overlay, shaped and placed after | Included | Included |
| Backgrounds, padding and shadow | Included | Included |
| Timeline editing | Included | Included |
| Separate audio tracks | Included | Included |
| System audio without a virtual driver | Included | Included |
| Reframe to vertical without cropping | Included | Included |
| Records and exports without uploading | Included | No — recordings are hosted by Tella |
| Records an iPhone or iPad | Not included | Not included |
| Maximum export | 4K, 120 fps | 4K; 60 fps on Premium only |
| Platforms | macOS 14+, Apple Silicon | macOS, Windows, web, Chrome |
| Licence | Free tier · one-off purchase | Per-seat subscription, no free plan |
What Tella is good at
It closes the whole loop — record, auto-edit, host on a branded page with a custom domain, password protection and per-viewer analytics. Polish and distribution in one product.
What does each one cost?
Tella
- Pro$13 per user, per month
- Premium$19 per user, per month
Prequel
- Free$0 forever
- Personal$39 once · one Mac · a year of updates
- Team$19 per user, per month
Checked on 21 August 2026 against Tella pricing, Tella plans.
Automatic
It arrives already directed
A raw screen recording is flat — one distance from the viewer for the whole take, with the thing that matters too small to see. Prequel watches where you click and type while it records, and opens the editor with that pass already made.
- Zooms placedOn every click and every burst of typing
- Camera framedShaped, sized and set in a corner
- Background appliedPadding, radius, border and shadow
- Audio balancedMicrophone and system on separate gains
- Cursor cleaned upSmoothed, resized, hidden when it idles
The editor
Everything you would have done in post
It opens by itself when you stop recording, on the take you just made. Nothing to import, nothing to line up.
Zooms that follow the work
Push in on the cursor, a region or whatever you are typing into. Level, speed, tilt and yaw, with progressive blur falling away from the focus.
A camera you frame afterwards
Circle, squircle, rounded or wide, in any corner and any size. The webcam is never burned into the recording, so none of it is decided while you record.
Backgrounds worth shipping
Your own wallpaper by default, seven bundled presets, gradients and solids. Padding, radius, border and shadow on top.
Cuts on a real timeline
Trim the dead air, slice by slice, with a waveform under every clip and a playhead that scrubs. Layout, background and audio can all change mid-take.
A cursor that behaves
Four pointer styles, resized to survive a zoom, and gone from the frame after a few seconds of stillness rather than parked over your work.
What you see is what exports
The preview and the exporter draw the same plan, so the file is the frame you approved — not a close approximation of it.
Quality
Exports that hold up
A video that looks produced is worth nothing if the file is soft. Capture and export run on your Mac's own media engine — hardware H.264 or HEVC, composited in Metal — so 1080p60 records without dropping frames and 4K is a setting rather than a compromise.
- 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
One MP4, shaped for wherever it is going
Switch a recording from landscape to vertical and the look holds — the framing is stored in proportions, not pixels, so nothing slides off the frame on the way.
- Landscape 16:9
- 4K
- Vertical 9:16
- Square 1:1
- Portrait 4:5
- YouTube
- Shorts
- TikTok
- Reels
- X
Be there for the first build
Prequel is in development. Leave an address and we will send it the day it is worth installing.
Curious about the internals? Read the blog
FAQ
Zooms, exports and the rest
Does Tella have a free plan?
No. Tella's own help pages state it is a paid product with no forever-free plan — there is a seven-day trial, and exporting requires a subscription. Prequel has a free tier that is not time-limited.
How much does Tella cost?
Pro is $13 per user per month and Premium is $19, with Enterprise priced on request. 60 fps export is Premium only. Checked on 21 August 2026.
Is Tella better for anything?
Sharing. Hosted pages, custom domains, password protection, CTAs and viewer analytics are a distribution product we do not have, and it runs on Windows and in a browser. If the link matters more than the file, Tella is the stronger choice.
Where does Tella process my recordings?
In the cloud — every video gets a hosted Tella page. Prequel records and renders on your Mac's own media engine, so nothing is uploaded to produce the file.