Buyer's guide
Stripboard software for Mac
A stripboard is the shooting schedule as a row of coloured strips, one per scene, that you drag into shooting days. Good stripboard software builds the strips from the breakdown, shows page counts and cast per day, and turns the board into a Day Out of Days and call sheets.
What a good stripboard does
- Strips coloured by INT/EXT and DAY/NIGHT, with scene number, page count, location and cast numbers on each.
- Day breaks with running page totals, so you can see when a day is overloaded. Our guide to pages per day covers the numbers.
- Strips built from the breakdown, not typed by hand, so a rewrite updates the board.
- A Day Out of Days and call sheets generated from the board.
Stripboard software compared
| Tool | Platform | Strips from the script | Price | Free option |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scriptease | Mac, offline | Yes — script, breakdown and board in one project | $99.99 once | 14-day full trial |
| Movie Magic Scheduling | Mac and Windows | Imports scripts | $42.99/month or $299.88/year | None stated |
| Gorilla Scheduling | Mac and Windows desktop, or online | Breakdown sheets feed the board | Desktop $199/year; online from $19/month | Online demo: 1 project, 20 scenes |
| StudioBinder | Web | Imports a screenplay | From $29/month | Free plan: up to 10 scenes |
| Celtx | Web | Auto-populates from script and breakdown | Paid add-on on Writer Pro or Team | Not on the free plan |
| Filmustage | Web | Schedule, DOOD and conflicts from the AI breakdown | From $49/month | Free plan with manual tools |
Competitor details checked on 22 October 2026 on each company's own pricing and support pages. Prices are USD and change often.
Free stripboard options
For a short with a handful of scenes, a free tier or a spreadsheet works: StudioBinder's free plan schedules up to 10 scenes, and Gorilla's online demo up to 20. Past that you are paying monthly, or building strips by hand in a spreadsheet and keeping them in sync with every rewrite yourself.
The Scriptease stripboard
Colour-coded strips with day breaks, page counts, locations and cast numbers, built from the breakdown of the script in the same project. Drag a strip and the day reflows. The Day Out of Days and the call sheet come from the board, and the budget reads the same project. No script yet? Enter scenes and page counts by hand and board those.
It is single-user, macOS only, and does not exchange Movie Magic files. If your production office runs on MMS, read our Movie Magic Scheduling comparison first.