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The free Mac writing app · launching soon

A writer’s room, not a typewriter.

Professional screenwriting software, made for the page. Free for Mac.

Industry-standard formatting, true pagination, and FDX, Fountain & PDF — no subscription, no account, no catch.

New to screenwriting? It handles the formatting, so you just write.

Be a founding writer — get DraftBerry the day it ships, plus early-access builds.

No spam — just the launch. Your files stay on your Mac.

DraftBerry — Story Lab and editor (dark) DraftBerry — Story Lab and editor (light)

The cost of starting

Writing shouldn’t cost $249$0 to start.

The industry standard runs $249, and the alternatives pull you into subscriptions, cloud lock-in, and accounts that hold your work hostage — friction between you and the page. DraftBerry takes the price and the friction off the table. Free, on your Mac, in formatting any production will recognize.

Formatting you never
have to think about.

Scene headings, action, dialogue, and transitions fall into place as you type, in the exact layout the industry expects. True pagination means the page count is real — what you see is the runtime, so a page on screen is a page on set. And it opens and saves FDX and Fountain, and exports clean PDF — so it fits a Final Draft room, a Fountain workflow, or a producer’s inbox without a fight.

FDXFountainPDF
DraftBerry editor showing industry-standard screenplay formatting (dark) DraftBerry editor showing industry-standard screenplay formatting (light)

Not a typewriter. A writer’s room.

Writing a screenplay in the DraftBerry editor (dark) Writing a screenplay in the DraftBerry editor (light)
Write the pages.
A Save the Cat beat sheet in DraftBerry Story Lab (dark) A Save the Cat beat sheet in DraftBerry Story Lab (light)
Plan every beat.
Story Lab graph view connecting characters and scenes (dark) Story Lab graph view connecting characters and scenes (light)
Connect every thread.
A worldbuilding rules table in DraftBerry Story Lab (dark) A worldbuilding rules table in DraftBerry Story Lab (light)
Keep the world straight.

How DraftBerry compares

Same professional output.
None of the price.

Feature DraftBerry Final DraftFade InWriterDuetCeltx
Price $0 $249.99$79.95SubscriptionSubscription
The free app · at launch
Industry-standard formatting
True pagination
FDX import / export
Fountain
Title page
Revisions & track changes
Script notes
Scene navigator
Native spell-check
Autosave & crash recovery
Story planning built in
Offline · no account
Files stay on your Mac
DraftBerry Gold · coming soon
AI script Assistant reads your draft Gold
AI Coverage 8-perspective AI report Gold
Voice dictation Gold
On the way
Cloud sync Soon
Real-time collaboration Soon

DraftBerry is local-first by design — your script lives on your Mac, not on someone’s server. The free-app rows above are fully local; Gold’s AI features are optional and opt-in. Cloud sync and live collaboration are in development, opt-in, and will never hold your files hostage to a login.

Competitor prices & features as of June 2026.

DraftBerry Gold · the optional AI layer

The writing app is free.
Gold is for when you want a second read.

Everything you need to write a professional screenplay is free, with everything included — no account, nothing to unlock. DraftBerry Gold is a separate, optional layer for writers who want AI in the room: a reader for your draft, a full coverage panel, and dictation. It never touches the price of the writing app — and it never writes your script for you.

Not available yet · Paid add-on · Coming soon

Not a screenplay generator.

Gold reads. It flags, researches, and reports — but it never puts words in your characters’ mouths. The craft stays human. That line doesn’t move.

Assistant

A reader for your draft — never a writer of it.

Ask the Assistant anything about your own pages and it answers from the script in front of it — flagging a pacing drag, catching a continuity slip, pressure-testing a character’s arc before anyone else sees it. A Deep Pass reads the whole draft and reports back in plain notes you can act on.

It can reach past your pages, too: search the web to pin down a date for continuity, check a fact, or look up a technique — and learn the craft as you write. Screenwriting school, without the tuition.

Check a factPull a dateTeach a technique

Optional · Paid · Coming soon

The DraftBerry Assistant reading a script and reporting notes (dark) The DraftBerry Assistant reading a script and reporting notes (light)

Coverage

Eight AI readers.
One honest verdict.

Send your draft to an AI coverage panel modeled on eight distinct reader perspectives — four critics and four audience voices. Each assesses your script against what it’s looking for, and they converge on a single verdict: Recommend, Consider, or Pass. You get the full reasoning as a shareable PDF, with notes you can actually act on — not a star rating, a real read.

Optional · Paid · Coming soon

DraftBerry Coverage — an eight-perspective AI panel and one verdict, as a PDF (dark) DraftBerry Coverage — an eight-perspective AI panel and one verdict, as a PDF (light)

Dictate

Speak it.
Watch it format.

Say the scene out loud and DraftBerry lays it down as properly formatted screenplay pages — scene headings, action, and dialogue all in place. Review the lines, tighten anything, then Approve. For the moments that come faster in your voice than on a keyboard.

AI-assisted · Optional · Paid · Coming soon

DraftBerry listening for dictation (dark) DraftBerry listening for dictation (light)
DraftBerry dictation review with Approve (dark) DraftBerry dictation review with Approve (light)

Gold opens after launch. Founding writers get first access the moment it does.

Notify me about Gold

The writing app stays free, with or without it.

Free to write. Gold when you want more.

DraftBerry

$0

free, no account, no catch — yours to keep

The full professional writing app.

  • Industry-standard formatting — scene headings, action, dialogue, parentheticals, transitions, shots, dual dialogue
  • True pagination — a page on screen is a page on set
  • Opens and saves FDX (Final Draft) and Fountain · exports clean PDF
  • Revisions, track changes, and script notes
  • Scene navigator, Find / Go To, native spell-check, title-page editor
  • Autosave and crash recovery
  • Story Lab — notes, a drawing canvas, a connected story graph
  • Offline, on your Mac. Your files never leave your machine.
Join the Waitlist

DraftBerry Gold

$19.99/mo

optional add-on

The AI layer, for when you want a second read. Coming soon.

  • Assistant — reads your draft and answers questions about it; never writes it
  • Coverage — an eight-perspective AI panel and one honest verdict, as a PDF
  • Dictate — speak your scene, get formatted pages

Coming soon — every Gold feature is in development. The writing app is free either way.

Notify me about Gold

One meter, not credits. Gold doesn’t run on credits you have to count. There’s one usage meter that refills every month. Quick questions and dictation barely move it. A Deep Pass on your script moves it more. A full Coverage report moves it the most.

Founding writers get DraftBerry the day it ships, early-access builds before that, and first access to Gold the moment it opens.

The roadmap · built in the open

Where DraftBerry is headed.

Now — waitlist open

The waitlist is live. Join it to get the app the day it ships and early-access builds before that.

Launch — the free writing app soon

The full professional editor for Mac — formatting, true pagination, FDX / Fountain / PDF, revisions, and Story Lab. Free, offline, no account.

Next — DraftBerry Gold targeting late August 2026

The optional AI layer rolls out: Assistant, Coverage, and Dictate. Paid and separate — the writing app stays free.

Later — in development late 2026

Cloud sync, collaboration, and more are on the way. Not built yet — and DraftBerry will say so until it is.

Your writing stays yours.

The DraftBerry writing app is fully local. There is no account and no cloud — every script is an ordinary file on your Mac, and nothing is ever uploaded. DraftBerry Gold’s AI features only work by sending the text they need — and, for Dictate, audio — to leading AI providers (Anthropic’s Claude and Google’s Gemini), routed through DraftBerry’s own server. That server forwards the request and returns the result; it keeps only what’s needed to meter usage for billing — not your script text or Dictate audio. Under those providers’ commercial API terms, that content is not used to train their models. DraftBerry never trains AI on your writing, and never sells it.

Read the full privacy policy →

Questions, answered.

Yes. Download it, write in it, export from it — no account, no trial, no card. The writing app is free with everything included. The only thing that ever costs money is DraftBerry Gold, the optional AI add-on, and you never need it to write a single page.

Because a professional writing tool shouldn’t be the thing standing between a writer and their first scene. The free app is the whole point. DraftBerry Gold — the optional, paid AI layer — is what funds the work, so the writing app itself never has to charge.

The free writing app stays free — that’s the plan, and there’s no intention to change it. But just in case: any version of DraftBerry you download is yours to keep and keep using, with no account and no expiry. If the business model ever changed, it would only mean new optional features — never a paywall dropped in front of the writing you already do today.

Everything you need to write and deliver a screenplay is free: the editor, industry-standard formatting, true pagination, FDX / Fountain / PDF, revisions, track changes, and Story Lab. DraftBerry Gold is a separate $19.99/month add-on for AI features — Assistant, Coverage, and Dictate — all coming soon.

No — by design. The Assistant reads your pages and answers questions about them, flagging pacing and continuity issues. It never puts words in your characters’ mouths. That boundary doesn’t move.

Yes. DraftBerry opens and saves FDX, so your existing Final Draft drafts come straight in and clean files go back out. It also handles Fountain, and exports polished PDF.

Yes. Scene headings, action, dialogue, parentheticals, and transitions land in the exact layout productions expect, with smart name autocomplete, auto-caps, and auto-CONT’D. True pagination means your runtime is real — a page on screen is a page on set.

No. The free writing app runs entirely on your Mac, offline, and you never create an account to write. Your files stay on your machine.

The free writing app is fully local — nothing is uploaded, and your scripts never leave your Mac. DraftBerry Gold’s AI features (coming later) send only the text they need — and, for Dictate, audio — to AI providers (Anthropic and Google) through DraftBerry’s own server, which keeps only what’s needed to meter usage for billing — not your script or audio. Under those providers’ commercial API terms, that content is not used to train their models, and DraftBerry never trains AI on your writing. Full privacy policy →

DraftBerry is a native Mac app. macOS only at launch — the full minimum-version and hardware details ship with the download. Join the waitlist and they’ll arrive with your link.

Not at launch — DraftBerry is macOS only for now.

Soon. Join the waitlist and you’ll get DraftBerry the day it ships — plus early-access builds before that.

DraftBerry

Stop renting your
screenwriting software.

DraftBerry ships free, for Mac, soon. Join the waitlist and get it the day it’s ready — your craft, your files, your Mac.

Free to download. No account needed to write. Your files, your Mac.

A native Mac app · macOS only at launch · full system requirements ship with the download.