A lot of people pick a pre-production tool by counting features, and I understand why, because all four of these have the same list on the homepage. Call sheets. Shot lists. Storyboards. A stripboard. A breakdown. So the list tells you nothing. What I usually like to do is pick on the shape of the production instead, because a one-day commercial and a twelve-day feature lose things in completely different places, and each of these four tools is built around one of those shapes.
A quick disclaimer: CineLog is our tool. I’m not going to pretend it isn’t, so read the CineLog column knowing that, and check the other three against their own pricing pages the way I did. Where one of them is the better pick for a shape, I say so, because a comparison that always ends at the author’s product isn’t a comparison. It’s a brochure.
One more thing before we start. Everything in here, the features and the prices, was checked on September 24, 2026, against each tool’s own pages. All four ship changes every month, so read every number and every yes and no as correct on that date, and check the pricing pages again before you decide.
The quick answer
StudioBinder is the pick for short unscripted work of one to ten days, where the call sheet is most of the job and one producer runs it from a laptop. Yamdu is the pick once a production runs for months and has an office behind it, because it keeps the paperwork and the budget in the same place as the schedule. Celtx is the pick when the person writing the script is the person shooting it and they want to stay in the writing app. And CineLog is the newest of the four, and it shows in the interface. It’s clean, it’s modern, and it doesn’t carry ten years of features you’ll never open. It’s built to keep working offline, and the whole crew edits the same project in real time without a paid seat for each person. So it’s the pick for scripted productions of two to twenty days, where the crew is spread across phones, tablets and laptops and the signal on location is bad.
That paragraph is the article. Everything below is the reason for it.
Let’s put a real production on the table
So we’re not talking in the abstract, let’s invent one. Let’s call it Harbor. It’s a scripted feature, about 90 pages, twelve shooting days, a crew of 25. Four locations, and two of them are out of town where phones drop to one bar. Six people need to change things in the plan. That’s the director, the first AD, the DP, the producer, the script supervisor and the production designer. The other nineteen need to get a call sheet every night and open it in the morning. We’ll come back to Harbor in every section, because the numbers only mean something on a real crew.
Pick on production shape
| Production shape | Pick | Because |
|---|---|---|
| A one-day shoot, crew under ten | CineLog Free or StudioBinder Free | Both prep a call sheet on the free plan. Take CineLog if anyone will be without signal on the day. |
| Unscripted, two to ten days, agency style | StudioBinder | The call sheet with open tracking is the strongest in the category, and tasks and calendars sit next to it. |
| Scripted, two to twenty days, like Harbor | CineLog | Script, breakdown, strips and call sheets are one chain, the whole crew joins without seats, and it keeps working offline. |
| A crew that lives on phones and tablets on set | CineLog | Native apps on iOS and Android with a local copy of the project, so the shot list opens in the basement too. |
| A months-long series or feature with a production office | Yamdu | It models cast, crew, locations, documents, budget and post together, and the office reports come off the same schedule. |
| A writer who also directs, a few shoots a year | Celtx | You keep writing where you already write, and the production tools sit behind the same login. |
Head to head
Prices are month to month in US dollars as of September 2026. Every one of the four is cheaper on an annual plan.
| Yamdu | CineLog | StudioBinder | Celtx | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Script editor | No, import only | Yes | Yes, Indie and up | Yes, it’s the core |
| Script import | .fdx, PDF | .fdx, Fountain, PDF, RTF, text, with a diff on re-import | .fdx, Fountain, PDF, text | .fdx, Fountain |
| Locked pages and revision colors | No | Yes, scene and page lock, A-pages, omitted scenes, revised-pages-only export | Yes | Revision mode on Writer Pro, no page lock |
| Breakdown | Yes | Yes, tagged from the script text | Yes | Team plan |
| Stripboard | Yes, with a day out of days report | Yes, with a boneyard and a board PDF, no day out of days report yet | Yes, with a day out of days report | Team plan, with a day out of days report |
| Shot list | Yes | Yes, linear and per day, custom columns | Yes | Writer Pro and up |
| Storyboards | From shot images | Yes, several frames per shot, no drawing tool | Yes, with annotation tools | Writer Pro and up |
| Call sheets | Yes, read in the Notifier app | Yes, email, delivery and confirmation tracking | Yes, email and text, open and confirm tracking | Team plan |
| AV script | Not listed | Yes, with a client review link | Yes | Yes |
| Contacts | Yes | Yes, CSV in and out | Yes | Team plan |
| Budget | Yes | No | A spreadsheet template | Team plan |
| Paperwork status | Yes, documents and tasks with a status | No | Documents | Production reports |
| Tasks and calendar | Yes | No | Yes | Not listed |
| Works offline | No stated offline mode | Yes, up to seven days | No | No, offline mode ended in 2023 |
| Native apps | Browser, plus the Notifier app on phones | macOS, Windows, iOS, Android, plus the browser | Browser only | Browser, plus a mobile app |
| Who pays | $22 per extra user and $45 per extra project | One subscription, collaborators are free | Per seat, $25 for each extra | Per seat |
| First paid plan | $45 | $15 | $42 | About $15, production tools from about $51 |
| Free plan | 14-day trial only | 1 project, every tool, 2 collaborators | 1 project | 1 project, editor only |
Six things I compare, in order
There are six things I compare when I look at tools like these, and those are the script and its revisions, the breakdown and the schedule, the shot list and the storyboards, the call sheet, where you can actually use the thing, and who pays. I go in that order because that’s the order a scripted production moves in. Everybody weighs these differently, so if the call sheet is 80% of your job, skip to that section and come back.
The script and its revisions
The first thing is the script, because on a scripted production the script is where every other document starts. If the tool can’t hold the script, somebody is going to re-type scene numbers into it by hand, and that’s where the first errors come from.
Celtx is a writing app first. The editor is the product, revision mode comes with Writer Pro, and it imports .fdx and Fountain. StudioBinder has a screenplay editor on the Indie plan and up, with the standard revision colors and a title page designer, and it imports .fdx, Fountain, PDF and plain text. So you can write there or bring a draft in. Yamdu doesn’t write. It imports the script, .fdx and PDF, and builds everything downstream from it, which is fine for a production office that gets pages from a writers’ room and never touches them. CineLog has a full editor too, and it imports .fdx, Fountain, PDF, RTF and plain text. The part I lean on is what happens on the second import, because a scripted production gets new pages every week. CineLog shows the new draft as a diff against what you already have, scene by scene, and you accept what changed. It doesn’t wipe your breakdown and your shot list to make room for the new file.
On revisions, StudioBinder and CineLog are the two that do the real thing. Both lock the script, both turn on the standard revision colors, both put the asterisks in the margin. CineLog also locks pages, so a new scene between 12 and 13 becomes 12A, a new page after 16 becomes 16A, and a cut scene prints as OMITTED and keeps its number for good. And when you export, you can print only the revised pages on their revision color, because that’s what goes out to the crew on a Tuesday night. Yamdu and Celtx don’t lock pages. Celtx tracks changes in revision mode, but that’s a writing feature, not a production one.
So for Harbor, where the script gets locked about two weeks before day one and then revised every few days, that’s StudioBinder or CineLog. Yamdu would take the new pages and re-import them, and Celtx would keep the writing pleasant, but neither one hands the AD the pink pages.
The breakdown and the schedule
Now that the script is in, the next thing is the breakdown, and the key here is whether the breakdown is tied to the script or typed next to it.
All four tie it. Yamdu breaks the imported script down with the whole team and pushes it straight to the stripboard. Celtx derives the breakdown from the script on the Team plan, and it stays tied to it. StudioBinder tags elements in the script and prints breakdown reports. CineLog does it by selecting text in the script and picking a category, twelve of the standard ones plus your own, and it marks the page with the underline, the circle, the asterisk and the box that people know from paper breakdowns. The thing I like most is what happens with cast. When you tag a character in CineLog, that character becomes a cast slot in Cast and Crew, shows up in the shot list, sits on the strip, and lands in the cast grid on the call sheet. You tag once. It shows up everywhere.
The schedule is where the four split on paper. All four have a stripboard you drag scenes around on, and all four print it. StudioBinder, Yamdu and Celtx also print a day out of days report from the same schedule, the grid with a row per actor and a column per shoot day that says who starts, who works, who holds and who finishes, and on a long production that’s the report the line producer lives by. StudioBinder’s stripboard is solid and it sorts for you. Yamdu’s feeds the rest of its office reports. Celtx’s comes with Team. CineLog’s stripboard has day breaks, a boneyard for the scenes you haven’t placed yet, the standard strip colors for interior, exterior, day and night, and it lets you split a scene across two days, because that’s how real days go. Every strip carries its cast numbers, a finished day flows straight into that day’s call sheet, and the board exports as a PDF with the cast, pages, start and estimate on each strip. What CineLog doesn’t print yet is the day out of days report itself, so if you need one, you’re building it in a spreadsheet from the strips.
For Harbor, twelve days and 25 people, the chain from breakdown to strips matters more than the day out of days report, and I’d take it in CineLog or Celtx. If Harbor were a six-month series, I’d want the day out of days report every week, and I’d want Yamdu’s office around it.
Shot lists and storyboards
Now that the days are laid out, the next thing is the shot list, and this is where the four start to feel different in the hand.
StudioBinder’s shot list is good, and the storyboards on top of it have annotation tools, so a director can mark up a frame. Unlimited of both on Indie and up. Yamdu adds shots to breakdown scenes with size, type and movement, and when you upload an image to a shot you get a shot-based storyboard out of it, with a PDF export. Celtx has shot lists and storyboards in the story development tools on Writer Pro. CineLog runs two shot lists off the same shots, a linear one in script order and one per production day, with seventeen default columns, your own columns on top, and your own dropdown values for shot type, angle, lens and movement. You can populate the first pass of the list from the script and then reorder by drag, whole scenes at a time. Each shot holds several storyboard frames, and the shot list PDF prints the frames next to the rows, portrait or landscape. What CineLog doesn’t have is a drawing tool. You bring the frames in as images, from a sketch, a photo or a previs render, and you don’t draw them inside the app.
For Harbor, the DP wants the shot list on an iPad at the location scout, and the location scout has no signal. That’s the CineLog pick, and I’ll get to why in a minute.
Call sheets
The next thing is the call sheet, and this is the document the whole crew judges the tool by, because it’s the only part of the tool nineteen of our 25 people will ever see.
CineLog’s call sheet pulls the day from the stripboard and the shot list, so the schedule block is a live copy of the day and not a re-typed one. It fills the weather and the sunrise and sunset from the location and the date, it carries the nearest hospital on each location, and it autocompletes the addresses. It sends a personal PDF to each person by email, and it tracks delivery and confirmation. And the night before day five, the sheet for day five starts from what day four already knew, because most productions shoot the same place several days in a row, and re-typing the parking notes every night is the part that wears an AD down by week two. StudioBinder’s call sheet is the strongest in the category and I’m not going to argue with that. It sends by email and text, and it tracks who opened it and who confirmed, with a timestamp. That’s the reason a lot of people pick StudioBinder, and it’s a good reason. Yamdu’s call sheets go out with movement orders, and the crew can read them in the Yamdu Notifier app on their phone. Celtx’s call sheets come with the Team plan.
So on call sheets alone, CineLog and StudioBinder are close. CineLog builds the sheet from the schedule instead of next to it. StudioBinder sends by text and CineLog doesn’t.
Where you can actually use it
Now that we’ve gone through the documents, the next thing is where you can open them, and this is the one people skip until day three.
Celtx runs in a browser, and it used to have an offline mode, but they ended it in September 2023, so if you write on a plane you write in something else now. StudioBinder runs in a browser too. There’s no desktop app and no phone app, and their own support page says so. The crew can open a call sheet on a phone because the recipient page is mobile-friendly, but for building a shot list or a breakdown they tell you to sit at a computer. Yamdu runs in a browser as well. Its phone app, Yamdu Notifier, gives the crew the latest call sheets, announcements and calendar on the way to set, which is a good idea, and the full product stays on the laptop. CineLog is a native app on macOS, Windows, iOS and Android, and it also runs in a browser at app.cinelog.com. Every device keeps a local copy of the project, so the shot list, the script and the call sheets open with no signal at all. You can work offline for up to seven days after you’ve signed in, and when the connection comes back, your changes and everyone else’s merge in the background.
For me, for example, this is the one that decides it, because I’ve never been on a location where the signal was good in every room. On Harbor, two of the four locations are out of town. The DP scouts them with the shot list open. The AD walks the stone-walled house with the schedule open. With a browser-only tool, that’s a PDF you printed the night before, and PDFs don’t update.
Pricing, and who pays for the crew
And the last thing is the money, and the key here isn’t the first number on the pricing page. It’s what the number becomes once you put the real crew on it. It’s all about who pays for the person.
Here’s what each one costs month to month, in US dollars, as of September 2026.
Yamdu has no free plan, just a 14-day trial. Flex is $45 a month for one user and one project, and then $22 a month for each extra user and $45 a month for each extra project. Core is $265 a month for up to 20 users and unlimited projects. Crew who only receive call sheets are external contacts, and those are unlimited on every plan.
CineLog has a free plan with one project, every tool, offline mode, and two collaborators. Filmmaker is $15 a month with three projects and twenty collaborators. Production Company is $40 with ten projects and fifty collaborators. Studio is $90 with thirty projects and a hundred collaborators. There are no seats. The people you invite make a free account and get view or edit rights on the project, based on what you give them, and one subscription unlocks the app on every platform.
StudioBinder has a free plan with one project. Paid is Starter at $42 a month with two seats, Indie at $49 with two seats and 25 projects, and Professional at $127 with four seats. Every extra seat is $25 a month on any plan. People who only receive call sheets don’t need a seat. On Starter and Indie, collaborators without a seat can view and comment. Editing without a seat is a Professional feature.
Celtx has a free plan with one project and the editor. Writer is about $15 a month with three projects, Writer Pro is about $25 with unlimited projects and the story development tools, and Team is about $51 a month for three seats. The production tools, breakdown, schedule, budget, call sheets and reports, are included on Team. On Writer Pro they’re an add-on, and Celtx doesn’t publish what the add-on costs. You find out at checkout.
So let’s put Harbor on it. Six editors, nineteen readers, one project.
| Tool | Plan for Harbor | Month to month |
|---|---|---|
| Yamdu | Flex, one user included, five extra users at $22 | $155 |
| CineLog | Production Company, all 25 on the project | $40 |
| StudioBinder | Indie, two seats included, four extra seats at $25 | $149 |
| Celtx | Team, three seats included, three more seats at the per-seat rate | About $51 plus three seats, priced at checkout |
That’s not a small difference, and it’s not because CineLog is cheap. It’s because the other three charge for the person, and CineLog charges for the production. A crew changes every week. A production doesn’t.
This may sound like I’m stacking the deck, but the per-seat model is the honest reason people end up sharing one login on set, and one shared login is how a shot list gets overwritten at six in the morning.
Tool by tool
Yamdu
Yamdu is the production office in a browser. It imports the script, breaks it down with the team, builds the stripboard, prints the day out of days, and then keeps going into the parts the other three don’t touch. Documents and tasks with a status, and a log of who viewed, edited or received each file. A budget. Movement orders. Transport and accommodation. Daily production reports. A post-production schedule. External contacts are unlimited, so the crew gets call sheets without being users, and the Notifier app puts the latest sheet on their phone.
Where it gets in the way is the entry. There’s no free plan, Flex is $45 for one user and one project, and every extra project is another $45, so a company running three shorts at once is at $135 before the second user. It doesn’t write, it doesn’t lock pages, and there’s no offline mode.
Pick it for a series or a feature that runs for months, with an office that tracks paperwork and money, where the $265 Core plan for 20 users is a rounding error on the budget.
CineLog
CineLog is built around one chain: the script, the breakdown, the shot list, the strips, the call sheet, with cast and crew running through all of it. You import .fdx, Fountain, PDF, RTF or text, or write in the editor. You lock scenes, lock pages, and revise in the standard colors, with A-pages and omitted scenes, and you print only the revised pages. You tag the breakdown by selecting text, and the cast you tag flows into the shot list, the strips and the call sheet. The shot list runs linear and per production day with your own columns. The call sheet builds itself from the day, fills the weather and the hospital, sends a personal PDF to each person, and tracks confirmations. And it does all of that as a native app on macOS, Windows, iOS and Android, plus the browser, with a local copy of the project on every device, so it works with no signal for up to seven days.
The other thing is the money. Collaborators are free. The plan is priced on projects and storage, not on people, so Harbor’s 25 people cost $40 a month on Production Company, and a student’s short costs nothing on Free.
Where it gets in the way is the office side. There’s no budget. The board prints as a PDF, but there’s no day out of days report yet. There’s no document status, no tasks and no calendar. The call sheet goes out by email, not by text. Storyboards are frames you bring in, not frames you draw. And comments live on the AV script, not on the shot list. If you need those, you’ll run a spreadsheet or Yamdu next to it.
Pick it for scripted productions of two to twenty days, for crews that live on phones and tablets, for locations with no signal, and for any crew where more than two people need to edit.
StudioBinder
StudioBinder is the one most people have heard of, and it earned that. The call sheet is the best in the category. It goes out by email and text, and you can see who opened it and who confirmed, with the time. The shot lists, the storyboards, the stripboard with its day out of days report, and the breakdown all sit in one project, and the screenwriting tool on Indie and up does real revision colors. Tasks and calendars are in there too, which matters if you run an agency where three people approve everything.
Where it gets in the way is the shape of the crew. It’s browser only, so the set is a PDF. Seats are $25 each, so a six-editor crew on Indie is $149 a month, and editing without a seat only exists on Professional at $127. The free plan holds one project. And the budget is a spreadsheet template on their blog, not a feature.
Pick it for one to ten days of unscripted work run by one producer from a laptop, and for agency work where the approval trail matters as much as the sheet.
Celtx
Celtx is a writing app that grew production tools, and that’s still the right way to think about it. The editor is good, it does screenplay, multi-column AV and stageplay, and the free plan lets one person write one project. Writer Pro adds revision mode, beat sheets, storyboards and shot lists. Team adds the breakdown, the schedule with its day out of days report, the budget, the call sheets and the production reports, all derived from the script, so nothing gets re-typed.
Where it gets in the way is the split between writing and producing. The production tools are only included on Team at about $51 for three seats. On Writer Pro they’re an add-on with no published price. Offline mode ended in September 2023, the mobile app reviews are mixed, and there’s no page lock, so the AD still doesn’t get pink pages.
Pick it when the writer is the director and there are a few shoots a year, because you keep writing where you already write.
What none of the four do
A quick word on what all four leave out, because it’s the reason every production I’ve been on still had a spreadsheet open.
The budget, properly. Yamdu and Celtx have a budget section. StudioBinder has a template. CineLog has nothing. None of them replaces the budgeting tool a production accountant uses, with account codes and fringes, and none of them pretends to.
Post. All four stop at wrap. Review, approval and delivery are a separate tool and a separate bill.
The set itself, with no signal. Three of the four are browsers. That’s the one I’d put at the top, because the plan is only worth what you can see when you’re standing in the room.
A quick exercise before you pick
So here’s a quick exercise before you move on to a trial.
First, count the shoot days and write the number down. Under three, the free plans are enough. Three to twenty, look at CineLog and StudioBinder. Past twenty, or past three months, look at Yamdu.
Second, figure out who will change the plan, and leave out the people who only read it, and list the changers by name. Then multiply that number by $25 and add it to the StudioBinder price, and by $22 and add it to the Yamdu price. That’s your real monthly number.
Third, check the signal at each location before you sign up for anything. Stand in the room where you’ll shoot, open a web page on your phone, and see what happens. If it doesn’t load, a browser tool is a printout on that day.
The bottom line
StudioBinder for short unscripted work run by one producer, because the call sheet is the best there is. Celtx for the writer who shoots, because the script stays where it was written. Yamdu for the long production with an office, because it tracks the paperwork and the money. CineLog for the scripted shoot with a real crew, because the chain from script to call sheet is one thing, the whole crew is on it for one price, and it works in the basement.
Questions people ask
Is CineLog an alternative to StudioBinder?
For a scripted shoot, yes. The chain from script to breakdown to strips to call sheet is the same job, and CineLog adds locked pages, native apps and offline work.
Which one is cheapest for a crew of 25?
CineLog, at $40 a month on Production Company with everyone on the project. StudioBinder with six editors on Indie is $149. Yamdu Flex with six users is $155. Celtx Team is about $51 for three seats before you add the rest.
Which one works offline on set?
Only CineLog. StudioBinder, Yamdu and Celtx run in a browser. Celtx ended its offline mode in September 2023.
Which one has the best call sheets?
StudioBinder or CineLog. StudioBinder sends by email and text and tracks opens and confirmations. CineLog builds the sheet from the schedule, fills the weather and the hospital, starts the next day from the one before, and tracks delivery and confirmations too.
Can I bring my script in from .fdx or Fountain?
CineLog, StudioBinder and Celtx take both. Yamdu takes .fdx and PDF. CineLog also takes RTF and shows re-imports as a diff so your breakdown survives the new draft.
Which one handles colored revision pages?
CineLog and StudioBinder. CineLog also locks pages, so you get A-pages, omitted scenes and a revised-pages-only export.
Do any of them do budgets?
Yamdu has a budget section, and Celtx has one on Team. StudioBinder gives you a spreadsheet template. CineLog has no budget tool. None of them replaces a production accountant’s budget.
Do my collaborators need to pay?
On CineLog, no. On StudioBinder, anyone who edits needs a $25 seat unless you’re on Professional. On Yamdu, every user is $22. On Celtx, every editor is a seat. Call sheet recipients are free on all four.
Which one runs as a real app on a phone or tablet?
CineLog is native on iOS and Android with the whole project on the device. Yamdu Notifier shows the crew the latest sheets on the go. Celtx has a mobile app for writing. StudioBinder has none.
Do I need any of them for a one-day shoot?
Probably not. CineLog Free and StudioBinder Free both prep a call sheet with one project, and that’s usually enough. The tools earn their money on the second day, when the plan changes.
Which one is best for a months-long series?
Yamdu, because it tracks documents, budget, transport and post alongside the schedule, and the reports come off the same data.
I’m a writer first. Which one?
Celtx, because the editor is the product and the production tools sit behind the same login. CineLog’s editor does the production side of writing well, the locking and the revisions, and it’s free for one project if you want to compare.
To recap
To recap, in this article we talked about picking on production shape instead of feature count, we walked six things in order, the script and its revisions, the breakdown and the schedule, the shot list and the storyboards, the call sheet, where you can use it, and who pays, and we put a twelve-day, 25-person feature on each price list. Celtx won the writer, Yamdu won the office, StudioBinder won the call sheet, and CineLog won the scripted shoot with a crew on it.
If you want to see the CineLog chain for yourself, the Free plan is one project with every tool, and you make the account inside the app after you download it. So put your own Harbor on it, and then move on to the part that matters, which is the shoot.