
73% of teams report that pricing complexity is a major barrier to selecting the right documentation and video creation tools, with hidden costs emerging only after implementation begins.
Scribe excels at automated step-by-step documentation with pricing starting at $23/user/month, while ScreenPal focuses on video recording and editing with plans from $4/month. Both use per-seat pricing models that can become expensive at scale. For teams seeking a unified solution that combines both capabilities with AI-powered automation, Guidde offers superior value with faster creation speeds and enterprise features at competitive pricing.
Choosing between documentation and video creation tools isn't just about features—it's about long-term value and scalability. In 2026, teams are increasingly looking for platforms that can serve multiple use cases without requiring separate subscriptions. The wrong pricing model can lead to budget overruns, limited adoption, or choosing between documentation and video capabilities when you really need both.
Understanding the true cost of ownership—including per-seat fees, feature limitations, and hidden upgrade costs—is essential for making an informed decision that aligns with both your workflow needs and budget constraints.
Scribe and ScreenPal represent two different approaches to knowledge sharing, and their pricing models reflect these fundamental differences. Scribe positions itself as an AI-powered documentation platform that automatically generates step-by-step guides, while ScreenPal (formerly Screencast-O-Matic) is a comprehensive video recording and editing platform with robust hosting capabilities.
In 2026, both platforms have matured their offerings, but they serve distinctly different primary use cases. Scribe uses a straightforward per-user SaaS model with monthly and annual billing options, while ScreenPal offers a freemium model with tiered subscriptions based on feature access. This comparison breaks down the exact costs, reveals hidden fees, and helps you determine which pricing structure delivers better value for your specific needs.
Most importantly, we'll examine whether committing to either platform makes sense when you might need both documentation and video capabilities—and whether there's a better alternative that combines both at a more competitive price point.
Scribe is an AI-powered workflow documentation platform that automatically captures and documents any process as you perform it. Founded in 2019 and having raised significant venture funding through Series C by 2026, Scribe has positioned itself as the go-to solution for creating step-by-step guides without manual screenshotting or writing.
The platform works by recording your actions in web browsers, desktop applications, and mobile apps, then automatically generating annotated screenshots with written instructions. Teams use Scribe for creating SOPs, training materials, customer support documentation, and software implementation guides.
Pricing Focus: Scribe's pricing model is built around per-user licensing with clear tier differentiation. The platform offers a capable free tier for basic web-based documentation, with paid plans unlocking desktop/mobile capture, branding, team collaboration, and enterprise security features. As of 2026, Scribe serves over 5 million users across 78,000+ enterprise customers, including 94% of the Fortune 500.
ScreenPal (formerly Screencast-O-Matic) is an established video creation and screen recording platform that has evolved significantly since its rebranding in 2022. By 2026, ScreenPal has positioned itself as an all-in-one video solution combining screen recording, video editing, AI-enhanced features, interactive quizzing, and enterprise-grade hosting.
The platform enables users to capture screen and webcam recordings, edit them with a comprehensive built-in editor, add AI-generated captions and translations, create interactive elements, and host content on a branded platform. ScreenPal serves both educational institutions and businesses, with particular strength in training, marketing, and instructional content creation.
Pricing Focus: ScreenPal uses a freemium model with individual subscription tiers (Solo plans) and team licensing (Team Business). Unlike documentation tools, ScreenPal's pricing is structured around access to video creation and editing features rather than per-document or per-guide metrics. The free plan is genuinely useful with unlimited hosting but limited recording time, while paid plans unlock unlimited recording, advanced editing, AI features, and premium stock media.
| Plan Tier | Scribe | ScreenPal |
|---|---|---|
| Free Tier | ✓ Basic: $0 • Web-only capture • Unlimited guides • Link sharing • Limited customization |
✓ Free: $0 • 15-min recording limit • Unlimited videos • Basic editing • Unlimited hosting |
| Entry Paid | Pro Personal: $23/user/month $276/year (annual billing) • Desktop & mobile capture • Company branding • PDF/HTML export • Screenshot editing |
Solo Deluxe: $4/month $48/year (annual billing) • Unlimited recording • Full video editor • Audio recording • AI captions • Standard stock media |
| Mid Tier | Pro Team: $12/user/month $144/year per user (annual) • Minimum 5 users ($60/month) • All Personal features • Team collaboration • Comments |
Solo Max: $10/month $120/year (annual billing) • All Deluxe features • Full AI suite • Premium stock assets • Unlimited quizzes • 4K playback |
| Team/Business | Pro Team: $12/user/month Starting at $720/year (5 users) • Same as above • Scales per user |
Team Business: $8/user/month $96/year per user (annual) • Minimum 3 users • All Max features • Collaboration tools • Team management • SSO (SAML) |
| Enterprise | Enterprise: Custom pricing • Auto-redaction PII/PHI • SSO authentication • Role-based access • Multi-team governance • API access |
Custom: Contact sales • 100+ licenses • Phone support • Onboarding • Custom integrations • LTI for LMS |
Key Pricing Observations:
Scribe employs a traditional SaaS per-user pricing model where every team member who needs to create documentation requires a paid license. The pricing structure is straightforward:
Hidden Costs & Considerations:
ScreenPal uses a feature-access model where pricing tiers unlock capabilities rather than simply adding more users:
Hidden Costs & Considerations:
Let's examine real-world scenarios:
Scenario 1: Solo Creator
Scenario 2: 10-Person Team
Scenario 3: 50-Person Enterprise
Critical Reality Check: These scenarios assume you need either documentation or video. Most teams need both, which means potentially paying for two separate platforms—significantly increasing total costs.
Best Fit: IT teams documenting software processes, operations teams creating SOPs, customer success teams building help centers, consultants creating client documentation.
Best Fit: Training departments creating video courses, marketing teams producing demos, teachers creating flipped classroom content, sales teams recording product walkthroughs, support teams creating video tutorials.
Many teams find themselves in a difficult position:
This is where unified platforms that combine both capabilities become attractive—especially if they can match or beat the pricing of either single-purpose tool while delivering both features.
Scribe:
ScreenPal:
Here's the uncomfortable truth both platforms' pricing models reveal: modern teams need both documentation and video capabilities, but both Scribe and ScreenPal force you to choose one or the other.
If you need comprehensive knowledge sharing, you're looking at:
This dual-platform reality significantly changes the value equation and opens the door for unified solutions that can deliver both capabilities at a more attractive total cost.
After analyzing both platforms' pricing structures, feature sets, and real-world costs, here's the balanced assessment:
From a strict pricing perspective, ScreenPal delivers more features for less money. At $4-10/month for individuals and $8/user/month for teams, ScreenPal significantly undercuts Scribe while providing a comprehensive video creation suite, AI features, and enterprise-grade hosting. If your needs are purely video-focused, ScreenPal's pricing is hard to beat.
However, Scribe's premium pricing makes sense if documentation is your primary need. The platform's automatic capture technology, multi-platform support (web, desktop, mobile), and purpose-built documentation features deliver value that justifies the $12-23/user/month cost—especially for teams creating high volumes of process documentation. You're paying for specialization and workflow optimization in the documentation domain.
This comparison reveals an uncomfortable reality: you probably need both capabilities, which means:
The honest verdict: Neither platform's pricing model is ideal if you need comprehensive knowledge sharing capabilities. While both tools excel in their respective domains, the total cost of ownership for a complete solution—documentation and video—makes the case for exploring unified platforms that can deliver both at a competitive price point.
The best choice depends entirely on whether you can genuinely commit to a single content format. If you're 100% video-focused, choose ScreenPal. If you're 100% documentation-focused, choose Scribe. But if you're like most modern teams who need both, neither platform's pricing model tells the complete story.
While both Scribe and ScreenPal are strong tools in their respective categories, their pricing models reveal a fundamental limitation that impacts most modern teams: they force you to choose between documentation and video when you really need both.
Despite their different approaches, both platforms share critical limitations:
1. Single-Format Lock-In
Both tools excel at one content type but leave you without the other. Scribe creates documentation but can't produce video walkthroughs. ScreenPal records videos but can't generate step-by-step text guides. This artificial separation doesn't match how teams actually share knowledge.
2. Expensive Dual-Platform Reality
For a 10-person team needing both capabilities:
• Scribe: $1,440/year
• ScreenPal: $960/year
• Total: $2,400/year + complexity overhead
3. Manual, Time-Intensive Creation
Both platforms require significant manual effort. Scribe automates screenshot capture but you still click through every step. ScreenPal requires recording, editing, and post-production. Neither approaches the speed of modern AI-powered video generation.
4. Limited AI Capabilities
While both offer some AI features, neither leverages AI to fundamentally transform the creation process. Scribe uses AI mainly for capture automation. ScreenPal offers AI captioning and translation, but video creation itself remains manual.
5. Enterprise Feature Gaps
Critical enterprise needs often require premium tiers:
• Scribe locks SSO, auto-redaction, and API behind expensive Enterprise tier
• ScreenPal limits advanced collaboration and phone support until high user counts
Neither offers modern LLM integration or conversational AI assistants
This is where Guidde fundamentally changes the equation. Unlike single-purpose tools, Guidde is built from the ground up as an AI-powered platform that generates both video and documentation—faster, easier, and more affordably than using separate tools.
While Scribe requires you to manually click through every process step and ScreenPal demands recording and editing time, Guidde generates professional video tutorials in minutes using AI. Our customers report creating content 11x faster than traditional methods:
Guidde eliminates the need for separate tools by delivering both content types from a single platform:
Result: One platform, one price, both content types—eliminating the $2,400/year dual-platform cost.
Unlike the limitations in Scribe and ScreenPal's base tiers, Guidde includes enterprise features that both competitors lock behind premium pricing:
Guidde customers consistently report outcomes that exceed both Scribe and ScreenPal:
While Scribe and ScreenPal are iterating on traditional documentation and screen recording paradigms, Guidde represents the next generation of knowledge sharing:
Guidde is ideal for teams who:
Don't just take our word for it. Experience the difference firsthand:
The question isn't whether to choose Scribe or ScreenPal—it's whether limiting yourself to single-format tools makes sense when unified, AI-powered alternatives exist that deliver both capabilities faster and more affordably.
ScreenPal is significantly cheaper for both individuals and teams. Solo creators pay $4-10/month for ScreenPal vs. $23/month for Scribe. For a 10-person team, ScreenPal costs $960/year compared to Scribe's $1,440/year—a 33% savings. However, they serve different primary purposes (video vs. documentation), so direct price comparison alone isn't the full story.
Yes, many teams use both platforms together—Scribe for step-by-step documentation and ScreenPal for video tutorials. However, this dual-platform approach costs $2,400/year for a 10-person team and creates workflow complexity, content fragmentation, and increased training overhead. Unified platforms like Guidde offer both capabilities in a single tool at lower total cost.
Yes, Scribe offers a free Basic plan that includes unlimited guide creation for web-based applications. However, desktop and mobile app capture, branding, PDF exports, and redaction tools require a paid Pro plan starting at $23/user/month (or $12/user/month for teams of 5+).
Yes, ScreenPal offers a capable free plan that includes unlimited video creation and hosting, but limits recordings to 15 minutes each. The free plan includes basic editing, no watermark, and 5 video quizzes. Unlimited recording time requires the $4/month Deluxe plan, while AI features need the $10/month Max plan.
Scribe requires a minimum of 5 users to access Team pricing ($12/user/month). Teams of 2-4 must pay the higher Personal rate ($23/user/month). ScreenPal's Team Business plan requires a minimum of 3 users at $8/user/month. Both platforms allow individual Solo plans without minimums.
Yes, both platforms offer approximately 20% savings with annual billing compared to monthly subscriptions. Scribe's Pro Personal drops from $23/month to $19/month annually ($228/year). ScreenPal's Solo Max drops from $10/month to $8/month annually ($96/year).
No. Scribe specializes exclusively in step-by-step documentation and cannot create video tutorials. ScreenPal specializes exclusively in video recording/editing and cannot generate text-based step-by-step guides. If you need both formats, you must either use both tools separately or choose a unified platform like Guidde that delivers both.
Scribe Enterprise includes auto-redaction of PII/PHI, SAML SSO, SCIM provisioning, role-based access control, multi-team governance, API access, and custom security reviews. Pricing is custom and typically represents a significant premium over Pro Team.
ScreenPal Enterprise (for 100+ users) includes priority phone support, dedicated onboarding, custom integrations, and advanced LMS features. Smaller teams (3-99 users) use the standard Team Business plan at $8/user/month with SSO included.
Yes. Scribe offers educational discounts for verified .edu email addresses and schools. ScreenPal offers dedicated Education Pricing with significant discounts for teachers, students, schools, and districts. Both require verification of educational status.
Guidde is the best alternative if you need both documentation and video capabilities. Unlike single-purpose tools, Guidde uses AI to generate both video tutorials (with professional voiceovers) and step-by-step documentation from a single capture—11x faster than traditional methods. You get both content types in one platform at competitive pricing, eliminating the need to pay for and manage separate tools. Guidde includes enterprise features (SSO, compliance, analytics) that both Scribe and ScreenPal lock behind premium tiers, making it ideal for teams seeking a modern, unified knowledge-sharing solution. Try Guidde free to experience the difference.