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Questions

What is the difference between the two plans?

Storage, and nothing else. Both are the whole app — 4K at 120 frames per second, every preset, transcripts, no watermark and no limit on a take — and both export the same file. Buy the lifetime licence once for $29 and you keep 5 GB of shared recordings, each one kept for 3 months before it is removed, which is plenty if you make a video now and then. Pro is $9 a month with unlimited storage for as long as you are subscribed, which is the one to pick if you are sharing recordings for work every week. Storage only counts recordings you upload for a shareable link — what you export to your own Mac is never counted, never expires and has no limit.

Will the price go up?

It might. $9 a month and $29 once are what Prequel costs today, and we would rather say that plainly than dress it up with a countdown — there is no struck-out "regular" price to compare it against, and no claim that signing up today locks the rate in forever. If it rises, it rises, and the page will say the new number.

Is the lifetime licence really for life?

It is one payment for the app, with no renewal and nothing to cancel: recording, editing and export are yours for as long as you use Prequel. What it does not do is grow: the 5 GB allowance it comes with is fixed, not a starting point. If you outgrow that — which usually means you have started recording for work rather than occasionally — you can subscribe to Pro at $9 a month for unlimited storage, and stopping that subscription later puts you back on the 5 GB you already own rather than on nothing.

How long are shared recordings kept on the lifetime licence?

3 months from the day you upload each one, then it is removed and its link stops working. That applies only to a recording you have shared for a link, and only on the lifetime licence. An export to your own Mac never expires, and Pro keeps a shared recording for as long as the subscription is active rather than on a clock. Export a copy before the 3 months is up if you want to keep sharing it, or subscribe to Pro for storage with no clock on it.

Is there a free plan?

No. There is a 7-day free trial with the whole app in it, and after that Prequel is $9 a month or $29 once. We would rather charge one honest price than run a free tier that quietly withholds the part you actually needed.

What makes the video cinematic rather than just recorded?

A raw screen recording sits at one distance from the viewer for its whole length, with the thing that matters too small to see. Prequel watches where you click and type while it records, and opens the editor with the pass already made: pushes in on the work, a perspective tilt so the frame has a direction, focus falling away from whatever the zoom is aimed at, a camera framed afterwards over a background with a shadow under it. That is the part you would otherwise do by hand, and it is what the price is for.

What is in the trial?

All of it. The trial is the full app rather than a preview of it — 4K at 120 frames per second, every frame preset, transcripts, no length limit and no watermark. A video you export during the trial is yours, and it keeps working afterwards whether or not you pay.

Is there a yearly plan?

Not as such. Prequel is billed monthly at $9, and the alternative to paying monthly is the $29 lifetime licence rather than a discounted year — one payment instead of a cheaper cadence, so there is no renewal date to be surprised by.

Is the export watermarked?

No, on the trial or on either plan. The file is yours at full quality.

What do I need to run it?

An Apple Silicon Mac on macOS 14 or later, and the Screen Recording permission. Capture is built on ScreenCaptureKit, so there is no Intel build and no Windows build planned.

Does anything leave my machine?

Not to make a video. Recording, editing and export all happen locally, on your Mac's own media engine — there is no upload step and no cloud render. Uploading a finished export to get a shareable link is a thing you ask for, on a file you have already made, and it is the only thing storage counts.