Pin Feed
Plan limits checked on usepastel.com, June 2026

Pastel alternatives worth switching to

Pastel earned its spot at the top of this category, and this is not a hit piece. But if you keep bumping into canvas caps, per-user pricing, or mobile review that never quite points at the problem, these six tools deserve a look.

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Free for 3 projects · 14 days of Pro included · No credit card
The short version

Why people go looking

None of these are dealbreakers for everyone. They are the four things Pastel users mention most when they start shopping.

Canvas caps on every plan below Team

Pastel's free plan is one active canvas at a time, and Pro ($35/mo) raises that to three. Unlimited canvases start at the $119/mo Team plan. If you juggle a handful of client projects, you hit the ceiling fast.

Per-user pricing as you grow

Team starts at five users, then adds $24 per user per month. Loop in a PM, a designer, and a copywriter and the invoice grows with every seat.

Features unlock by tier

CSV export arrives on Pro. Trello, Asana, Jira, Zapier, and webhook exports arrive on Team. SSO is Enterprise. You pay up to unlock workflow, not just capacity.

Mobile review that points at something

Pastel can check that a site is responsive. But when a client says it looks broken on their phone, you want pins that live on the mobile viewport itself, separate from desktop feedback.

One more thing to test before you commit to any tool here, including ours: load your three ugliest client sites. Every product in this category renders other people's websites, and every one of them meets a site that fights back. What separates them is how they recover. Pin Feed was hardened for WordPress, Elementor, and page-builder markup, falls back to snapshot mode for modern SPAs, and ships a self-serve firewall whitelist guide for the rest.

The list

Six alternatives, honestly compared

Pin Feed is first because we built it. The other five get the same straight treatment, including the things they do better than we do.

1

Pin Feed

That's us

Best for client review on live websites, across all three viewports

Full disclosure: Pin Feed is ours, so read this entry knowing who wrote it. It exists for one loop, the agency-to-client review round. You paste a URL and the live site loads through a reverse proxy, so there is no script to install, no plugin, and no extension. Your client opens a share link, types a name and an email, and starts pinning. No account, no onboarding call.

The part nobody else on this list does the same way: you review the site at desktop 1440, tablet 768, and mobile 375, and each viewport keeps its own pins. Every pin auto-captures a screenshot of the page at that moment, so you keep a record of exactly what the reviewer saw even after the site changes. Six drawing tools, threads, @mentions, resolve, and image and PDF proofing with version-scoped comments round it out, so files and live sites live in one tool.

Where it wins
  • Nothing to install, the live site loads through a proxy and survives WordPress and Elementor markup
  • Three viewports with separate pin sets, and review works on iPhone Safari
  • Flat pricing, every feature on both plans, no per-seat math
  • Auto screenshots at pin time, with the element selector attached
Where it doesn't
  • The newest tool on this list, launched in 2026
  • Slack is the only integration live today (Jira, Linear, and Trello are coming)
  • Sites behind strict firewalls occasionally need snapshot mode or the 30-second whitelist guide

Pricing: Free for 3 projects and 500 MB. Pro is $49/mo, or $39/mo billed yearly, for unlimited projects and 100 GB. New accounts get 14 days of Pro automatically, no card.

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2

MarkUp.io

Best for teams that prefer capture-based review

The best-known name in the category, and the tool many clients have already seen. MarkUp.io handles websites, images, and PDFs, and the commenting flow is genuinely easy. The trade-off is the capture model: you annotate a snapshot of the page, so when the site changes you re-capture and re-share. The bigger sticking point is pricing, the free plan is gone and costs have climbed, which is why we wrote a full MarkUp.io alternatives breakdown too.

Where it wins
  • Familiar to many clients, low learning curve
  • Websites, images, and PDFs in one place
Where it doesn't
  • No free plan anymore
  • Captures freeze the page, so feedback can go stale as the site evolves

Pricing: Paid plans only, the free tier was retired.

3

BugHerd

Best for dev teams tracking bugs on a kanban board

BugHerd pins feedback to page elements and pipes everything into a built-in kanban board, which is exactly what a dev team triaging bugs wants. It gets there with a JavaScript snippet on the site or a browser extension for reviewers, and pricing is per seat. For internal QA it is a strong choice. For client review, where the other side should just click a link, the install step is friction you will feel. More in our BugHerd alternatives guide.

Where it wins
  • Kanban triage built in, great for dev-led QA
  • Element-pinned feedback with technical context
Where it doesn't
  • Needs a script install or a browser extension
  • Per-seat pricing climbs with the team

Pricing: Per-seat plans, costs scale with team size.

4

Ruttl

Best for teams that want to edit the page, not just comment on it

Ruttl's signature move is editing: change CSS, swap copy, and show the client the fix instead of describing it. If your reviewers are designers who think in changes rather than comments, that is a real draw. The flip side is surface area, with multiple modes and features the simple pin-comment-resolve loop can feel buried, and per-project pricing makes costs harder to predict for an agency juggling many sites. We compare the two directly in Pin Feed vs Ruttl.

Where it wins
  • Edit CSS and copy on the page to demonstrate fixes
  • Covers websites and design files
Where it doesn't
  • Feature-heavy, simple review rounds can feel like a lot of tool
  • Per-project pricing is hard to predict across many client sites

Pricing: Per-project pricing.

5

Marker.io

Best for piping bug reports into your dev tracker

Marker.io is a reporting widget at heart. You install it on your site, reporters annotate a screenshot, and the report lands in Jira or your tracker of choice with technical context attached. For product and dev teams that live in a ticket queue, it is excellent. It is not really built for the client-review job, the widget needs installing on each site and the workflow assumes the destination is a dev board, not a conversation with a client. See Pin Feed vs Marker.io for the head-to-head.

Where it wins
  • Deep dev-tracker integrations, reports arrive with technical context
  • Reporters do not need to leave the site
Where it doesn't
  • Widget install required on every site you review
  • Dev-centric workflow, not a client feedback conversation

Pricing: Paid plans aimed at dev and product teams.

6

Userback

Best for product feedback from your own users

Userback leans into product feedback: in-app widgets, surveys, and the machinery for collecting opinions from the people using your software. If that is your job, it is a better fit than anything else on this list. If your job is reviewing client websites before launch, you will be paying for survey tooling you never touch while the core review-a-site loop stays secondary.

Where it wins
  • Strong in-app feedback and survey tooling
  • Good fit for product teams with a live user base
Where it doesn't
  • Client website review is not its center of gravity
  • Heavier than a review tool needs to be for agency work

Pricing: Tiered plans aimed at product teams.

0 client accounts needed3 viewports6 drawing tools1 link

Side by side

Pin Feed vs Pastel, the short version

The condensed table. For the full head-to-head, read Pin Feed vs Pastel.

FeaturePin FeedPastel
Free plan3 projects, 500 MB, every feature1 active canvas, 1 user
Unlimited projects$49/mo Pro ($39/mo billed yearly)$119/mo Team plan
Per-user pricingNever, the price is flatTeam adds $24 per user past 5
Every feature on every planYesCSV export, exports, and SSO are tier-gated
Guests comment without an accountName + email onlyYes
Websites, images, and PDFs in one toolYesYes
Viewport reviewDesktop, tablet, and mobile, each with its own pinsResponsive checks
Auto screenshot at pin timeYesNot advertised
IntegrationsSlack today (Jira, Linear, Trello coming)Trello, Asana, Jira, Zapier, webhooks on Team

Plan limits and prices pulled from usepastel.com in June 2026. If something changed, tell us and we will fix it.

Where Pastel is honestly the better pick

  • Unlimited guest reviewers on every plan, including free
  • Deeper export integrations today: Trello, Asana, Jira, Zapier, and webhooks on the Team plan
  • Tiered video storage (2 GB free up to 500 GB on Team) if you collect a lot of video feedback
  • Years of polish as the category's SEO leader, with case studies to show for it

If those carry your workflow, staying put is the right call. What Pin Feed offers in exchange is a bigger free plan, one flat price with every feature on every plan, and mobile review where each viewport keeps its own pins. For agencies running many client projects at once, that math usually decides it.

Pastel alternative questions, answered

The things people ask before switching, with straight answers.

If your work is client review on live websites, yes. Pin Feed loads the real site through a reverse proxy (nothing to install), lets clients comment with just a name and email, and reviews desktop, tablet, and mobile with separate pins per viewport. Pastel is more established and has deeper export integrations today, so the honest answer depends on which of those you lean on.

Switching costs you one pasted URL.

Paste a client site, drop a pin, send the share link. If the review round goes smoother than your current setup, keep it. Free for 3 projects, 14 days of Pro included.

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No credit card · Nothing to install · Your projects are never deleted