Free Pastel alternatives

By Dean Rusin · Last updated: September 2026

Pastel alternatives compared#

Prices as published by each vendor, checked August 2026, and read from each tool's owncomparison page. "Not tracked" means there is no comparison page for that option yet, so no price is quoted for it here.

Top free Pastel alternatives#

Pastel is built for agencies that need a client to sign off on creative work: a webpage, a PDF, a Figma export. You drop a URL or file into a "canvas", the client clicks and comments on it, and the feedback lives in one thread instead of an email chain three rounds deep in "see attached."

The free plan gives that workflow to one person on one canvas at a time. You can archive a canvas to open another, and archived ones stay readable, but only one is ever active. Start a second client review in the same week and you've hit the ceiling.

That's usually when agencies start pricing Pro ($29 to $35 a month) or Team, which starts at $99 a month for five seats and adds $24 for each seat after that (Pastel's plans page, checked September 2026). A two-person shop reviewing one site at a time might not notice the cap for months. Someone juggling three clients notices it on day one.

The four tools on this page each cover a different slice of what Pastel does. MarkLayer replaces the live-page annotation for free, with no canvas cap and no account required. Markup.io, PageProofer and BugHerd are the paid routes, and each one earns its bill for a different reason.

What switching saves#

Two Pastel Pro seats cost $696 a year at the annual rate. Team starts at $1,188 a year for five people, before extra seats. MarkLayer costs nothing for any of those teams, because there is no plan to buy.

The gap grows with headcount. An eight-person team on Pastel Team pays $99 plus three extra seats at $24, which comes to $171 a month or $2,052 a year (same pricing page, same date). On MarkLayer that team still pays zero, and a ninth reviewer changes nothing.

What you give up by leaving Pastel#

The canvas. A Pastel canvas is a named project with unlimited versions, filed in project folders, so a client can scroll back to round two of a project that's now on round nine. Pastel's Team plan also connects to Trello, Asana, Jira, ClickUp, Monday and Zapier.

MarkLayer has none of the versioning. Each review is its own link. It can file a comment into Jira, Linear or GitHub, but only one way. If you run the same clients through structured monthly reviews, that is a real loss. If you mostly need someone to look at a page once and say what's wrong, you were paying for a filing cabinet you never opened.

How long the first review takes#

On MarkLayer, about as long as pasting a URL. You paste it at marklayer.app, the page loads with the toolbar ready, and you send the link.

Pastel's clients can comment without an account too, so the difference sits on the creator's side: Pastel asks you to sign up and set up a canvas before the first comment. MarkLayer asks nothing of either side. Whoever pasted the URL only needs an account if they later want to manage that link from a dashboard.

AI coding agents on both sides#

Both tools now have an MCP server. Pastel's lets Cursor, Claude or ChatGPT read a comment, make the fix, reply and resolve it (usepastel.com/agents, checked September 2026). MarkLayer's marklayer-mcp covers the same loop.

The differences are in what the agent sees and what else it can do. MarkLayer hands the agent each annotation's CSS selector, text fingerprint, computed styles and the React, Vue or Svelte component underneath it. The agent can also watch a room live, mark a comment in progress, dismiss one with a reason, and propose an exact text edit that shows up as a diff. Pastel's page doesn't say which plan includes its agent feature or list its tools in detail, so I can't compare further than that. In both products the final approval belongs to a person. The rest of the feature table is on the MarkLayer vs Pastel comparison.

How long reviews are kept#

Pastel keeps a canvas until someone deletes it; its help docs mention no automatic expiry. MarkLayer deletes an unclaimed link 90 days after its last view, comment or edit, and every visit resets that clock. A link you claim with the optional free account stays until you delete it or pick an end date.

So an active review never disappears on MarkLayer. A link nobody has opened for three months does, for good, unless someone claimed it. If you want an archive of past reviews, claim each link. Pastel keeps everything by default, and that is part of what its subscription pays for.

Moving an existing review over#

You can't import one. Pastel doesn't export a canvas in any format another tool reads, so the realistic move is to start your next review on MarkLayer and leave the old threads where they are.

It matters less than it sounds, because a MarkLayer review starts from the page URL rather than a project file. If you're mid-round on Pastel, finish that round there. Two tools running side by side for a couple of weeks confuses reviewers less than a half-moved project does.

Who should stay on Pastel#

Agencies that put the same clients through recurring review cycles and lean on Pastel's version history, folders or Team-plan integrations. They will feel the missing structure fast.

A freelancer checking one client site a month probably won't miss any of it. A ten-person studio with four client engagements running at once, each client expecting a branded canvas and a status they can check without emailing, almost certainly will. Work out which one you are before switching, because switching back means starting over.

Frequently asked questions#

Is there a free version of Pastel?

Yes, but it's built to be outgrown fast: the free plan gives you one user and one active canvas at a time, confirmed on Pastel's own pricing page as of September 2026. You can archive a canvas to open a new one, but only one stays live. Pro runs $29 to $35 a month; Team starts at $99 a month for five users plus $24 per extra seat. MarkLayer skips all of that. It's free, with no canvas limit and no seat count, plus an optional account if you want a dashboard of your own links.

What's the best free option instead of Pastel?

MarkLayer for the core visual-feedback use case. Markup.io if you're comfortable paying for the same kind of project-workspace structure Pastel offers. BugHerd if you need full bug-tracking workflow on top of the annotation.

Can I self-host something instead of Pastel?

MarkLayer is open source and self-hostable on Cloudflare Workers, so you can run it on infrastructure you control. Pastel, Markup.io, PageProofer, and BugHerd are all closed-source SaaS with no self-hosting option.

What does MarkLayer not do that Pastel does?

Versioning and filing. Pastel keeps unlimited versions of each canvas, groups reviews in project folders and includes a formal Approvals step on every plan, Free included (Pastel's plans page, checked September 2026). MarkLayer's optional account gives you a list of your links and a comment can be marked approved, but nothing is versioned.

Does Pastel work with AI coding agents the way MarkLayer does?

Yes. As of September 2026 Pastel offers an MCP server that lets Cursor, Claude or ChatGPT read a comment, make the fix, reply and resolve it. MarkLayer's marklayer-mcp covers the same loop and also lets an agent watch a room live and propose exact text edits as diffs.

Related comparisons#

Try MarkLayer

Paste any URL at marklayer.app and annotate the live page in your browser. No install, no account, no sign-up. Recipients of your share links don't need to install anything either.

Or add the free Chrome extension for sites the web app cannot embed, such as pages behind a login.