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Descript vs Tellers

Two fact sheets from our own research, side by side — pricing, platforms, API access and status re-checked by us rather than quoted from the vendors. Both start at $16. Only Descript has a free tier. Only Descript ships a public API.

DescriptEdit video and podcasts by rewriting the transcriptTellersAn AI editing agent that assembles a rough cut from your footage, adds motion and sound, and keeps it on an editable timeline.

Side by side

FactDescriptTellers
CategoryAI Video EditingAI Video Editing
Pricing modelFreemiumPaid
Starts at$16 month$16 month
Public APIYesNo
PlatformsmacOS, Windows, Web, APIWeb
CompanyDescriptTellers
Launched2017—
Last verifiedSep 6, 2026Sep 1, 2026

What our research says

Descript

Descript is the right tool when your footage is people talking and you would rather edit a document than a timeline. Anyone cutting to music, working frame-accurate, or grading footage will fight it the whole way.

Pros

  • Transcript-first editing genuinely collapses the time to a rough cut for spoken content
  • Studio Sound rescues bad room audio well enough to skip a re-record
  • The API is included with any paid plan rather than sold as a separate tier
  • One project holds recording, editing, captions, translation and publishing

Cons

  • Two independent meters, media hours and AI credits, so either can strand you mid-month
  • The API cannot export a media file directly, you still download through the app
  • Entry paid tier is single-seat and capped at 10 media hours
  • Free tier watermarks exports, so it is a demo rather than a usable tier

Tellers

Tellers' pitch is an editing agent that still leaves a real, editable timeline instead of a black-box render, which is a real differentiator against pure text-to-video generators. Whether the agent's automatic cuts save time versus editing from scratch is something only a hands-on trial can answer.

Pros

  • Keeps an editable multi-track timeline instead of a locked render
  • Pulls from Pexels stock footage plus multiple built-in AI generation models
  • Cloud rendering and 200GB storage included in the base plan
  • Backed by recognized accelerators including NVIDIA Inception and HEC Paris

Cons

  • No offline or desktop app, browser-dependent workflow
  • Exact token pricing for the pay-as-you-go option only loads inside the app, not the marketing site

Which one fits

Choose Descript if you need

  • Podcasters and interview shows where the edit is driven by what was said
  • Course, demo and webinar recordings that need a fast, clean pass
  • Teams with no trained editor who still have to ship weekly video
  • Automating repetitive transcribe-clean-caption pipelines through the API

Choose Tellers if you need

  • Solo creators who want an assistant to build a first cut from raw footage
  • Users who want AI-generated visuals mixed into a normal, editable timeline

More comparisons

All Tellers alternatives →Browse all AI Video Editing →