Tella review

Polished browser-based screen and camera recorder with a scene-based editor, sold as a paid product with a 7-day trial.

Facts checked July 2026

Free plan: No
Free plan score: 7/100Barely free
Starting price: $13/month
Open source: Proprietary
Company: Tella

Our take

One of the nicest browser-based recorders to actually use, but it is a paid product with a 7-day trial, so it does not belong on a list of free Loom alternatives.

Record in clips, then restyle them as scenes

Tella is a browser-based screen and camera recorder aimed at people making videos other people will actually watch: product demos, course lessons, onboarding, launch videos. Instead of one continuous take, you record clips that become scenes on a timeline, then restyle them with backgrounds, layouts, zoom, and transitions. Re-record a scene you fumbled and the rest stays untouched.

That editor is the reason people like it. Most screen recorders make you choose between a raw take and opening a real video editor. Tella sits in the middle and does it well.

The people who re-record the same 20 seconds five times

Course creators and educators producing lesson videos
Product marketers making demos that need to look designed
Anyone who re-records the same 20 seconds five times and does not want to redo the whole video
Teams who want a polished result without learning an editor

No free plan: 7 days, then Pro is priced at $13

As of July 2026, Tella's own documentation says the product is paid with no forever-free plan, and new accounts get full Pro access for 7 days from signup. After that you pick a plan.

Pro is $13 per month, with unlimited videos, 106 languages, 4K export, team collaboration, and analytics. Premium is $19 per month and adds a custom domain, domain restriction, branding removal, 60 FPS export, and advanced analytics. Enterprise is quote-based with SSO and SCIM. Annual billing is discounted.

We are flagging this loudly because a lot of "free Loom alternative" articles still list Tella as having a free tier. It used to. It does not now.

Paid-only, browser-bound, and three more limits

No free plan at all, so it fails the basic test for this category
Browser-based recording means quality is bounded by the tab, not your hardware
Closed source and cloud-only, with no self-hosting and no local-only mode
More tool than you need for a quick "here is the bug" clip
Removing Tella branding requires Premium at $19 per month, not Pro

We would still send you to Cap or Kommodo

Tella is a good product priced like a good product. If you make videos for an audience rather than a colleague, the scene-based editor saves real time and $13 a month is easy to justify. But it belongs in this category as a paid option, not a free one. If you came here to stop paying for Loom, use the 7-day trial to see what a proper editor buys you, then look at Cap or Kommodo for the free version of the same job.

What Tella offers

Screen recording
Webcam overlay
Editing & trimming
Cloud hosting & share links
Transcription & captions

Not included

Self-hosting
Local-only recording
Live streaming
GIF export
Annotation & drawing

Tella plans and pricing

Tella's help documentation states plainly that Tella is a paid product with no forever-free plan (verified July 2026). Listed prices are the monthly figures from the pricing page; annual billing is discounted.

Free trial

Free

Full Pro access for 7 days from account creation, including recording, editing, exporting, and sharing

7 days, then a paid plan is required

Pro

$13/mo

Unlimited videos, 106 languages, 4K export, team collaboration, and analytics

Premium

$19/mo

Everything in Pro plus a custom domain, domain restriction, branding removal, 60 FPS export, and advanced analytics

Enterprise

Free

Everything in Premium plus SSO and SCIM, a shared Slack channel, onboarding, and volume discounts

As of July 2026. Check current pricing on the Tella pricing page.

Tella's free plan score

How good Tella's free plan really is, judged on four things and weighted into one number.

7/100

Barely free

A 7-day trial of a good paid product, and no free plan at all.

Free plan generosity35% of the score: 3/100
There is nothing free to score. Tella's own help documentation states it is a paid product with no forever-free plan, and new accounts get full Pro access for 7 days before a paid plan is required (verified July 2026). A trial is not a free plan, and roundups still listing a Tella free tier are describing something that no longer exists.
Feature depth for the category25% of the score: 6/100
For seven days you get the whole product, and it is a good one: scene-based editing, backgrounds, layouts, zoom, 106 languages, 4K export and analytics. On day eight you get nothing, and this pillar is about what the free tier does, so a product with no free tier scores at the floor no matter how well built it is.
Freedom and honesty20% of the score: 20/100
Credit where it is due: Tella says plainly in its own documentation that there is no free plan, which is more honest than vendors who let you find out later. Everything else pulls down. It is closed source and cloud-only with no self-hosting and no local-only mode, removing Tella branding needs Premium at $19 per month rather than Pro at $13, and the clock starts at signup.
What free users report20% of the score: 0/100
Tella has no free plan, so there are no free users and nothing for this pillar to measure. It scores at the floor by definition rather than because of anything reviewers said. We hold no G2, Trustpilot or Capterra figure for it either, and any rating we did hold would describe paying customers.

Scored July 2026. How we calculate the free plan score.

Frequently asked questions about Tella

Does Tella have a free plan?

No. Tella's own help documentation states that Tella is a paid product with no forever-free plan (verified July 2026). New accounts get full Pro access for 7 days, after which you need a paid plan. Older roundups still describe a free tier, and they are out of date.

What does Tella cost?

Pro is $13 per month and Premium is $19 per month at the rates shown on Tella's pricing page in July 2026, with a discount for annual billing. Enterprise is quote-based.

How is Tella different from Loom?

Editing. Loom records and shares; Tella records into scenes you can rearrange, restyle, and zoom, so the finished video looks produced rather than captured. That is also why it costs money and Loom has a free tier.

Do I need to install anything?

No. Tella runs in the browser, which is convenient but means your recording quality depends on the tab rather than on a native app talking to your GPU.

Latest Tella news

Changes that affect what you get for free: pricing, free plan limits, ownership, and whether the project is still maintained. Not every release.

We checked Tella's own blog, changelog and release notes in July 2026 and found nothing that changes the picture above.

Reader reviews

What people who actually use Tella think of it.

No reviews of Tella yet. If you have used it, yours would be the first.

The useful part is the specifics: what you used it for, and where it got in your way.