Price
Descript's pricing has a free plan with 60 media minutes a month, 720p exports with a watermark and 100 AI credits once. Paid plans are per person: Hobbyist $16, Creator $24 and Business $50 a month billed yearly ($24, $35 and $65 billed monthly). 4K export starts at Creator.
Dolly's free plan has no time limit and exports up to 1080p, with a small logo in the corner. Pro is €9.99 a month or €59 a year (4K at 60 fps, GIF, no logo), Lifetime €99 once. There are no media minutes and no credits: Dolly runs on your Mac.
What each is good at
Descript's big idea is editing video by editing its transcript, plus a deep set of AI tools: Studio Sound, eye contact, voice clones, translation and its AI co-editor, Underlord. It records screens too, with a camera overlay, but its screen recording page doesn't mention automatic zoom or cursor effects.
Dolly's big idea is the camera work on a screen recording. It records your cursor as data and redraws it, zooms in on clicks and typing on springs, and frames the result on a background. It also edits by transcript (select words and cut them), finds silences and filler words, cleans up your voice and makes captions, all on your Mac.
What Dolly doesn't do
No AI voices or voice clones, no dubbing, no multi-guest recording and no Windows version yet. If those matter, Descript is the better tool, and some people use both: Dolly for the screen parts, Descript for the rest.
