Screen Studio quality. Free. No 5-minute limit.

Why people leave Screen Studio

Screen Studio is a lovely app. It made the "auto zoom on clicks" look popular, and version 4.0 added transcript editing and a camera cutout. People don't leave because it got worse. They leave for three reasons:

• It became a subscription. $29 a month, or $108 a year. The one-time license, last sold at $229, stopped for new customers on 1 October 2025.
• You find out at export. The app opens and records, but saving your video needs a paid plan. That's a bad surprise after a good take.
• Mac only, no Windows plans. Their FAQ says so plainly.

If you record every day and need its deepest features, like iPhone recording or color grading, Screen Studio is still worth it. If you record a demo every week or two and want a video that looks great, you're paying for a lot you don't use.

What Dolly keeps, and what it changes

Dolly does one thing: screen recording that looks filmed, not captured. You record normally. Dolly finds your clicks and moves the camera there on springs, redraws your cursor so it glides, and puts it all on a background with padding, rounded corners and a soft shadow. Everything stays editable, and everything happens on your Mac.

What changes is the deal:

• Free that actually works. Unlimited recordings with no time limit, the full editor including Auto edit, and export up to 1080p. The only catch is a small "Made with Dolly" logo in the corner.
• Pro is €59 a year (or €9.99 a month), about half a year of Screen Studio: no logo, 4K at 60 fps, GIF, unlimited Dolly links with stats, and Connect your AI, so Claude, Claude Code or Cursor can record, cut and export a demo for you.
• Lifetime is €99 once (€49 for the first 500 founders) if you'd rather never pay again: everything on your Mac, forever. Hosted links stay part of Pro.

What you'd miss (honestly)

Dolly's iPhone and iPad recording is coming soon (not in the app yet), and there's no color grading or AI voiceover in the editor. Its share links (Dolly links) are new (10 active links on Free, unlimited on Pro); Screen Studio's have been around longer. There's no Windows version yet either, though it's in the works. If any of those is the reason you use Screen Studio, stay. We'd rather you know now.

Looking for a free Screen Studio alternative?

Dolly's free plan records and exports without a time limit, so you can make real videos before you pay anything. If you need fully free and open source, OpenScreen and Cap are honest options; expect rougher edges in the motion and the editor. Our longer roundup covers eight tools.

Screen Studio for Windows?

There isn't one, and Screen Studio has announced no plans. Dolly for Windows is in the works; today, Cap, FocuSee and OpenScreen run on Windows. See Screen Studio for Windows: what to use instead.

A cheaper Screen Studio, with or without a subscription

Screen Studio has no free plan and costs about $108 a year. Dolly Pro is €59 a year, Dolly Lifetime is €99 once, and Dolly Free already exports. The lifetime license story explains what happened to Screen Studio's one-time option and lists every one-time alternative we know.

Switching takes two minutes

1. Download Dolly and drag it to Applications.
2. The first time, right-click it and choose Open (it isn't notarized yet; the install guide shows every step).
3. Press ⇧⌘2, record your take, stop. Your zooms are already on the timeline.