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Pencil vs Selzee

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. Selzee publishes a starting price ($75); Pencil does not. Both have a free tier.

PencilDesign canvas that lives in your repo: draw a screen, get code your editor and coding agent can readSelzeeResearches what is working in your market on TikTok and Meta, then generates ad variations from it.

Side by side

FactPencilSelzee
CategoryDesign-to-CodeAd Creative Generation
Pricing modelFreeFreemium
Starts at—$75 month
Public APINoNo
PlatformsmacOS, Windows, Linux, Vscode ExtWeb
CompanyHigh Agency, Inc.AI Studio s. r. o.
Launched2026—
Last verifiedSep 6, 2026Sep 6, 2026

What our research says

Pencil

The interesting decision here is storing the design as a file in the repository instead of a cloud document — it means a branch carries its own design state and a coding agent can read the canvas through MCP without an export step. That is a real answer to the handoff problem rather than another Figma-to-React exporter. It is also very new, free with no stated business model, and only worth adopting if your team already works with a coding agent in the loop.

Pros

  • Canvas is a .pen file stored locally and versioned with git, not a cloud document
  • Editor extension covers VS Code, Cursor, Windsurf and Antigravity rather than one IDE
  • Ships an MCP server so a coding agent can read the design directly
  • Native desktop builds for macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel), Windows x64 and Linux, plus an npm CLI
  • Free with no credit card at time of check

Cons

  • No pricing at all yet, which means no commitment about what stays free
  • Very young — launched January 2026, so ecosystem, plugins and file-format stability are unproven
  • Local-first storage means collaboration is whatever your git workflow gives you, with no built-in review tooling

Selzee

The useful idea here is the research step - it looks at what is currently performing in your category before generating anything, rather than riffing off a product photo in isolation. Volume output for paid social is the target, and the credit maths is transparent. Entry pricing is steep for a single brand, and the terms explicitly exclude consumers, so solo sellers without a registered business are locked out.

Pros

  • Pulls trend and competitor signal from TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube before generating
  • Outputs sized for Meta, TikTok, Instagram, and Pinterest placements
  • Feeds campaign performance back into later creative batches
  • 2,000 free credits on signup with no card required

Cons

  • $75/month for a single brand is high compared with generic ad-creative tools
  • Tiers gate brand slots, so adding a second brand means a $200 jump
  • Terms restrict the service to registered business entities only
  • No API and no stated integration for pushing creative into ad managers automatically

Which one fits

Choose Pencil if you need

  • Solo developers and small teams where the same person designs and implements
  • Workflows where a coding agent generates the components and needs a design source it can read
  • Projects that want design state to branch and merge with the code

Choose Selzee if you need

  • DTC brands running continuous Meta and TikTok creative testing
  • Agencies managing creative for several brands under one account
  • Teams that want competitor research and generation in the same tool

More comparisons

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