Production software · compared
A StudioBinder alternative: KitSlate or StudioBinder?
StudioBinder is web software for pre-production, covering screenwriting, script breakdowns, stripboard scheduling, shot lists, storyboards and call sheets, sold as Free, Starter, Indie and Professional plans for small teams and Agency, Studio and Enterprise plans for larger ones.
KitSlate keeps one record per job that the gear list, the call sheet, the quote, the invoice and the releases all read from, from $19 a month. StudioBinder’s side of the table is from its own pages, read on 3 November 2026. “Not stated” means their pages did not say, not that they lack it.
KitSlate and StudioBinder
Where StudioBinder leadsStudioBinder leads on pre-production. It turns an imported script into a tagged breakdown, a drag and drop stripboard with auto scheduling, DOOD and one-liner reports, and shot lists and storyboards built by tagging lines of the script. Call sheets are generated from the schedule with weather, maps, parking and hospital details, sent by email and SMS, and tracked per person as viewed, confirmed or undeliverable. Around that it adds a screenplay and AV script editor, mood boards, production calendars with dependencies, task boards, a contacts database with pay rates, a media library and location management. It has a Free plan that never expires, and Enterprise adds single sign-on on request and white labelling.
Where KitSlate leadsKitSlate covers what comes after the schedule. Your own equipment inventory is priced into gear lists and packed by case, availability is checked across every job, the quote is priced from the gear list and the call sheet, the invoice takes cards through your own Stripe, receipts are read and billed with the receipts attached, talent and location releases are signed on a phone, and the Media Center sends rushes that play in the browser.
Side by side
| What | KitSlateProduction software | StudioBinderPre-production |
|---|---|---|
| The shoot day | ||
| Call sheets | Built on cards with the sheet previewed beneath, one sheet per day of a multi-day job. Each person gets their own email with their call time and start location at the top and the PDF attached. The forecast for the address and date goes on with one press, and a venue you have shot at before fills in its maps link, parking, hospital and urgent care. | Call sheets go out by email and SMS text, with a PDF to print or attach. They fill in weather, locations, parking notes, map links, schedules and contacts from the project, and can carry hospital details. On the Free plan you can only send a test to yourself, and texting is not available in every country.Call sheets are sent through SMS text message and emailCall sheet delivery options |
| Who has confirmed | Each email carries its own Confirm link. Sent, Opened and Confirmed come back per person, with times; Resend asks someone to confirm again. They confirm and read the sheet on a phone with nothing to install and no account. | After sending, a Confirmations page shows each recipient as viewed, confirmed or dropped, and admins get confirmation emails. Per person tracking of delivery, bounces and view counts is listed on the Indie plan and up.monitor if the call sheet has been sent, viewed, confirmed, or undeliverableTrack call sheet status |
| Schedule and calendar | A calendar that draws each booking across every day it occupies, with holds from Inquiry through 1st, 2nd and 3rd Hold to Confirmed, and drafts that hold space without blocking the date. The day's schedule is built on the call sheet. Google Calendar connects per company, and a feed sends bookings to your phone's calendar. | Import a script and every scene lands on a stripboard. Drag and drop or auto group by set, day or night and INT./EXT., compare schedules, and produce one-liners, DOOD reports and call sheets from the board. Production calendars track timelines and mark dependency conflicts in red. Multiple schedules and auto-populated call sheets are on Professional.Drag and drop or auto-schedule by scene criteria, compare schedulesDrag-And-Drop Film Scheduling |
| Script, shot list, storyboard | KitSlate has no script breakdown, shot lists, storyboards or stripboard. It starts from the job: dates, crew, gear and paperwork. | Import PDF, Final Draft or Fountain scripts and tag cast, props, wardrobe and more in standard breakdown colors, then run breakdown and element reports. Shot lists and storyboards are built by tagging lines in the script, with shot specs, camera setups, time estimates and custom PDFs.select any line of action or dialogue and a new shot is addedShot Tagger |
| People | ||
| Crew and contacts | Every operator, DP, sound recordist and assistant kept once with roles, rates, paperwork and dietary needs, and reused on every job. They can fill in their own details; a change waits for you to review. Crew come in from a CSV on every paid plan. | A contact database for the production with contact info, pay rates and roles, grouped by crew, talent, extras and clients or by custom lists. Message people by email, text or phone, and export to CSV. Free allows 10 contacts and paid plans are unlimited, with a shared inbox from Indie.with comprehensive contact info, pay rates, and designated rolesContact Database |
| Clients | A client book kept once and reused on every job. Clients need no account: they pay an invoice on its own hosted page and open what you send them as links. | Contacts are grouped by default into crew, talent, extras and clients. Outside people such as clients can be invited to view or comment on single pages without an account, and to edit on Professional. A client portal is not stated.Collaborators can only see pages to which you invite themFrequently Asked Questions |
| Equipment | ||
| Gear list for a job | Pick the kit out of your own inventory and price it at studio, location or rental rates with one switch. Sub-rented gear is tagged Outsourced and goes onto the quote. The list prints as a PDF for the client. | Not stated |
| Equipment inventory | Every camera, lens, light and cable with three day rates that cascade, kits and cases that know what is in them, and locations. One Import reads a spreadsheet, a PDF, a photo of a list or a pile of receipts. | Not stated |
| Packing and check-out | Mark each item packed, returned, missing or faulty on the gear list, grouped by case with a progress bar per case. Every mark writes back to what is available for the next job. No barcode or QR scanning. | Not stated |
| Availability and double-booking | Before a booking saves, its gear, kits and crew are checked against every other job on those dates and you are told. Gear marked in case stays out until it is marked returned. | Not stated |
| Money | ||
| Quotes | The quote pulls its equipment from the gear list and its crew from the call sheet, so it is priced from the job. Edit either side and the two are shown out of step, with the choice to keep them different. | Not stated |
| Invoices and payment | The invoice is a frozen copy of the approved quote with its own number and a version history. The client gets a hosted page; with card payment on, it carries a Stripe checkout that pays into your own Stripe account, and the PDF a Pay button and QR code. Wire, Zelle and Venmo are listed with what each costs you. | Not stated |
| Expenses and receipts | Drop PDFs and photos, or send crew a link to photograph theirs on the day. Each receipt is read, kept and checked by you before it goes on the job; the ones you bill become their own section of the invoice, with the receipts attached. Crew send their final invoice through the same link. | Not stated |
| Budgets | No separate budgeting sheet. The quote prices the job and what you expect the expenses to come to, the Expenses tab records what they actually came to, and the reports show the figures. | Their help centre says budgeting is not a built-in feature. They offer a free film budget template in Google Sheets instead.budgeting is not a built-in featureHow to use our film budget template |
| Paperwork and files | ||
| Releases and contracts | Talent releases, location releases, NDAs and your own agreements, with signers pulled from the call sheet and deal terms filled from the job. Each signer gets a private link and signs with a finger; the signed PDF is emailed to them and filed on the job with an audit trail. Signing is built in. | The Docs tool is a word processor for writing and sharing documents such as release forms inside a project, and they publish free deal memo and release form templates. Electronic signing is not stated.Write, organize, and share documents like release forms, production documents, and more.Docs |
| Sending video to clients | The Media Center sends up to 1 TB a transfer. The client gets a page that plays the clips, takes their notes at a timecode and shows you who downloaded what. | A built-in media and document library backs up and shares production files, including videos, with control over who can view or edit. Video playback, review comments or client approval of cuts are not stated.Securely backup and share production files, storyboards, scripts, videos, and more.File Storage |
| Access | ||
| On a phone | Crew confirm and read call sheets, signers sign and the calendar opens on its Day view in a phone's browser, with nothing to install. There is no iOS or Android app. | Their help centre says there is no dedicated iOS or Android app. Call sheets work on phones for recipients, shot list progress can be followed on a phone, and they recommend a computer for editing.StudioBinder does not currently offer a dedicated iOS or Android appIs there a mobile or tablet app available? |
| Connects to | Google Calendar connects per company. Stripe takes card payments on invoices. QuickBooks, Wave and Xero exchange invoices as files you import and export. Documents are emailed under your company's name, and replies come to you. | Scripts import as PDF, .fdx, .fountain or .sbx files, and the Free plan imports half a script. Schedules, breakdowns and contacts export to CSV and PDF. Movie Magic Scheduling files cannot be imported. An API or other integrations are not stated.you cannot import Movie Magic Scheduling (.mms) files into StudioBinderGo from Movie Magic Scheduling to StudioBinder |
| Security | TLS on every connection and AES-256 at rest, in the United States (Supabase on AWS us-east-1). Card details are handled by Stripe. KitSlate does not yet hold a SOC 2 or ISO 27001 attestation and has not commissioned a penetration test; the security page says so. | Media is encrypted on Amazon S3, data travels over 256-bit SSL, and user data is backed up hourly. Enterprise adds a dedicated database and file storage, workgroup permissions and single sign-on on request. The company is based in the United States. Certifications are not stated.All user data is backed up hourlyHow does StudioBinder keep my data safe? |
| Price | ||
| Free plan or trial | The free Profile plan has a public page, the used-gear market and the Media Center with 5 GB a transfer. Jobs, call sheets, inventory, quotes and invoices are on the paid plans. | The Free plan never expires and needs no card. It allows 1 project, 10 contacts, 10 shots, 10 scenes or half a script, and call sheets you can only send to yourself. The pricing page says there is no free trial, while a help article calls the Free plan their free trial.StudioBinder does not offer a free trial.Do you offer a free trial or a free plan? |
| Published price | Solo $19 a month (1 seat), Studio $49 a month (3 seats), Production House $149 a month (8 seats); Enterprise: custom pricing. Paying yearly saves 20 percent. | Billed monthly: Starter $29, Indie $49, Professional $99, Agency $199 and Studio $299 a month, and Enterprise is custom. Billed annually: $25, $42, $84, $170 and $254 a month, 15% off. Plans include 1, 2, 4, 10 and 20 users, and extra seats are $25 per user a month. They do not give refunds.Adding an extra seat costs $25 per user per month.Adding seats |
| Beyond | ||
| What else it does | Beyond the job: the Media Center for rushes and cuts, crew pay checked against the job, twelve reports, a free public page, and a used-gear market where you keep the full sale. | Also includes a screenplay editor with industry revision colors, two-column AV scripts, docs, lookbooks and mood boards, kanban task boards, location management with scouting notes, script sides and a media library. Enterprise adds white labelling with custom brand colors and a custom subdomain.Organize your locations with contact, scouting notes, lookbooks, and approvals.Location Management |
Where StudioBinder’s figures come from
Read on StudioBinder’s own site and help centre on 3 November 2026. If something has changed, tell us and we will correct it.
StudioBinder · read 3 November 2026
- Call sheets
- Who has confirmed
- Schedule and calendar
- Script, shot list, storyboard
- Crew and contacts
- Clients
- Budgets
- Releases and contracts
- Sending video to clients
- On a phone
- Connects to
- Security
- Free plan or trial
- Published price
- What else it does
KitSlate · its own pages
- Call sheets
- Who has confirmed
- Schedule and calendar
- Script, shot list, storyboard
- Crew and contacts
- Clients
- Gear list for a job
- Equipment inventory
- Packing and check-out
- Availability and double-booking
- Quotes
- Invoices and payment
- Expenses and receipts
- Budgets
- Releases and contracts
- Sending video to clients
- On a phone
- Connects to
- Security
- Free plan or trial
- Published price
- What else it does