BugSmash: The best MarkUp.io alternative

Q: Is there a free alternative to MarkUp.io?

Yes. BugSmash has a free plan with no expiry and no credit card, covering two projects, unlimited guest reviewers and 5 GB of storage. MarkUp.io retired its own free tier in early 2025 and now offers a 14 day card-backed trial instead.

Q: Why did MarkUp.io raise its price?

MarkUp.io moved Pro from $29 to $79 a month in early 2025 and discontinued the free plan at the same time. The increase applied to existing customers as well as new ones, which is why searches for alternatives rose sharply that year.

Q: What happens if I go over my MarkUp.io allowance?

You buy more MarkUps in batches of ten at a flat $4 each, and the rate does not improve with volume. Twenty extra reviews in a month adds $80 to a $79 bill. Beyond roughly a hundred, the Business plan at $499 a month becomes the alternative.

Q: Can I export my MarkUps to another tool?

There is no bulk export from MarkUp.io, so there is no true migration path to any competitor. The practical approach is to start new projects in the new tool, keep MarkUp.io active until your billing period ends, and cancel once the reviews in flight are closed.

Q: Do my clients need an account to leave feedback in BugSmash?

No. You share one link and they comment directly on the work, with no signup, no download and no browser extension. This works the same way it does in MarkUp.io, so your clients notice no difference in what you ask of them.

Q: Does MarkUp.io integrate with Jira or Slack?

MarkUp.io does not list native integrations with Jira, Slack, ClickUp, Asana, Monday or Trello on its pricing or support pages. API access appears on Business and Enterprise. BugSmash connects to all of those directly, plus Zapier, Make, n8n and webhooks.

Q: Is MarkUp.io still worth it in 2026?

For a single team working inside one workspace, under a hundred assets a month, that needs SOC 2 documentation, yes. For multi-client agencies, for anyone whose volume has grown past the Pro allowance, and for teams reviewing audio, mobile apps or 3D and CAD files, the economics stopped working.

MarkUp.io stops you at 100 reviews a month, then charges $499. BugSmash has no monthly limit.

MarkUp.io Pro includes 50 to 100 reviews a month. Past that you pay $4 each in batches of ten, and the next published plan is $499. Most people who move to BugSmash move at exactly that point. BugSmash does not meter reviews at all, and covers thirteen file types instead of four.

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4.8 out of 5 · 1,250+ agencies in 100+ countries

Loved by1,250+Agenciesand companies in 100+ countries

BugSmash is the closest MarkUp.io alternative for teams reviewing more than a hundred assets a month.

Both let clients comment directly on a live site with no login. BugSmash adds audio, mobile app, 3D and CAD review, native Jira and Slack integrations, a free forever plan, and no monthly cap on how many reviews you run.

Feature	MarkUp.io	BugSmash
Entry price	$79/mo	$0, then $25/mo (2 users included)
Reviews per month	50 to 100 on Pro	No cap
Next plan up	$499/mo	$69/mo
File formats	4	13
Free plan	No, retired in 2025	Yes, no card

What is MarkUp.io?

MarkUp.io is a visual feedback tool for collecting comments on live websites, images, PDFs and videos. Reviewers open a shared link and click directly on the work to leave a comment, with no account needed. It was acquired by Ceros in 2021 and is aimed at marketing teams and agencies running client review cycles.

Plans are metered by the number of MarkUps created each month rather than by the number of people using it, and every plan includes unlimited users.

PRIMARY USE CASES

Collecting client comments on a staging or live website
Reviewing design images and campaign artwork
PDF and document markup with pinned comments
Video review with timestamped feedback

Why teams are leaving MarkUp.io in 2026

MarkUp.io is a good product with a pricing shape that stops working at a specific point. Here is where it breaks, with the numbers from their own pricing page.

The meter, and the jump from $79 to $499

MarkUp.io Pro is not unlimited. You pick a monthly allowance of 50, 75 or 100 MarkUps. Cross it and you buy more in batches of ten at a flat $4 each, a rate that does not improve with volume. The next published plan is Business at $499 a month.

Assets reviewed in a month	What MarkUp.io costs	How that is built
60	$79	Pro, inside the allowance
100	$79	Pro, at the ceiling
120	$159	$79 plus two overage batches
150	$279	$79 plus five overage batches
200	$479 to $499	Overage, or move to Business

There is nothing between $79 and $499. A ten person agency crosses a hundred assets in an ordinary month and finds no plan built for it. That is the point most people start reading pages like this one.

No free plan, and one trial per person

MarkUp.io retired its free tier in early 2025, the same moment Pro moved from $29 to $79. What is left is a 14 day trial that requires a credit card, and one trial per registered user with no restart. When the trial lapses without billing, the account drops to your five most recent MarkUps, storage caps at 10 GB, and folder creation and private MarkUps switch off.

For a freelancer running two client projects a month, that is the entire decision.

One workspace, all the way up to Enterprise

Pro and Business both include exactly one Workspace. Folders organise inside it, which is fine for one team working on one brand. An agency that wants genuine separation between clients, with different people seeing different work, is pushed into a custom priced Enterprise conversation.

Feedback stays inside MarkUp.io

There are no native connections to Jira, Slack, ClickUp, Asana, Monday or Trello. Comments are collected in one place and then someone retypes them somewhere else. For a team whose work already lives in a project tool, that retyping is the hidden cost that does not show up on the invoice.

What does not change when you switch

The real worry about leaving a review tool is never whether the new one is better. It is whether your client will refuse to use it. Nothing your clients do today changes.

Still no login

Clients open the link and comment. No account, no password, no install.

Still one link

Paste it into the email you were already writing. No plugin for them to add.

Still pinned to the page

Click the exact spot, type, reply in a thread. The same interaction they already know.

Still folders and share controls

Organise by client, control who can view or comment, get notified when they do.

BugSmash and MarkUp.io: quick comparison

The short version. The detailed comparison is underneath.

Feature	MarkUp.io	BugSmash
Free plan	None since early 2025	Yes, 2 projects, no card
Entry price	$79/mo	$0, then $25/mo (2 users included)
Monthly review limit	50 to 100 on Pro, then $4 each	None
File types reviewed	4	13
Users included	Unlimited on every plan	10 on Team, 25 on Agency, $5 each after
Project tool integrations	None native	Jira, Slack, ClickUp, Asana and 9 more

BugSmash vs MarkUp.io: detailed comparison

Grouped by the decision you are actually making, not by feature name.

BugSmash vs MarkUp.io: detailed comparison
Feature	MarkUp.io	BugSmash
COST AT VOLUME
Entry price	$79/mo, Pro	$0, then $25/mo (2 users included)
Reviews included per month	50, 75 or 100 depending on tier	No monthly cap
Cost of going over	$4 per MarkUp, batches of 10	No overage
Next plan up	$499/mo, Business	$69/mo, Team
Free plan	None since early 2025	Free forever, no card
Trial	14 days, card required, one per user	Free plan instead of a clock
Seats	Unlimited on every plan	10 on Team, 25 on Agency, $5 for each extra
WHAT YOU CAN REVIEW
Live websites and web apps	Yes	Yes
Images, PDFs, video	Yes	Yes
Audio with timeline comments	No	Yes
Native mobile apps	No	Yes
3D models and CAD drawings	No	Yes
Email builds, slide decks, Word docs, raw HTML	No	Yes
WHAT YOUR CLIENT SEES
Comment without an account	Yes	Yes
Your logo on the review	Business, $499	Team, $69
Your own domain on the link	Business, $499	Agency, $129
Review page in the reviewer's language	No	20+ languages from Team
Welcome note or video for the client	No	Yes
Due dates and automatic reminders	No	Yes, from Team
WHAT HAPPENS AFTER THE COMMENT
Jira, Slack, ClickUp, Asana, Monday, Trello, Linear	None native	All of them
Zapier, Make, n8n, webhooks, API	API on Business and up	Yes
Versions and side by side comparison	Not published	Yes
Approval state per version	Not published	Yes
Automated review before a human looks	No	Accessibility, UI, copy, broken links
Hand the open comments to an AI agent	No	Yes, over MCP
WHERE MARKUP.IO IS STRONGER
SOC 2 documentation	Yes, on Enterprise	Not offered
Single sign-on	SAML, on Enterprise	On Enterprise
Multiple workspaces	Unlimited on Enterprise	Scoped to each Enterprise agreement
Seats	Unlimited users on every plan, including Pro	10 on Team, 25 on Agency, $5 for each extra
Track record	Longer in market, owned by Ceros	Younger product

What you would pay at your volume

If this is you	MarkUp.io	BugSmash	Difference a year
Freelancer, two clients, 15 assets a month	$79	$0	$948
Six person studio, 60 assets a month	$79	$69	$120
Twelve person agency, 120 assets a month	$159	$79	$960
Twenty person agency, 300 assets, own domain	$499	$129	$4,440

Same work, same month, both bills.

These two bills move on different axes. MarkUp.io meters the work and gives you people for free. BugSmash meters the people and gives you the work for free. Which is cheaper depends on which of those you have more of.

If you have a large team pushing a small number of assets through review, MarkUp.io Pro at $79 flat is hard to beat and we would not pretend otherwise. The moment your month crosses a hundred assets, the comparison inverts.

View BugSmash Plans & Pricing

What you get that MarkUp.io does not have

Nine formats MarkUp.io cannot open

MarkUp.io reviews live sites, images, PDFs and video. BugSmash reviews those, plus audio with timeline comments, native mobile apps, 3D models, CAD drawings, email builds, slide decks, Word documents and raw HTML files. Same workspace, same review link, same client experience across all of them.

Comments turn into tickets by themselves

A client comment becomes a Jira issue and a Slack message without anyone copying text between tabs. Jira, Slack, ClickUp, Asana, Monday, Trello, Linear, Notion, Airtable, plus Zapier, Make, n8n, webhooks and a direct API.

Problems get caught before your client sees them

Every upload is checked automatically for accessibility issues, misaligned UI, typos and broken links. On Agency you can train a reviewer per client on their brand book, tone and compliance rules, so their own guidelines are applied before the work reaches them.

Your AI agent can act on the comments

Connect BugSmash to Claude, Cursor or any MCP client and the agent reads the open comments with the exact element each one points at, ships the fix and pushes the new version back for the client to approve. The review stops being a list somebody works through by hand. MarkUp.io has no equivalent.

Two ways to review a website, not one

Paste a URL and review immediately, the way you do in MarkUp.io. Or drop a one line snippet into the site itself and review inside the real environment, which is what you need for a JavaScript heavy app, a password protected build or a staging site behind Basic Auth. MarkUp.io only offers the first path, which is why protected staging environments are a recurring complaint.

Which tool fits your team

BugSmash is the better fit if

You want the flexibility to review any kind of digital asset, not four. A live site, a video cut, an audio edit, a slide deck, a mobile build, a 3D model, a CAD drawing, all in one workspace.
Your month regularly runs past 100 assets in review
You want feedback landing in Jira, ClickUp or Slack without anyone retyping it
You want to hand the open comments to an AI agent. Connect BugSmash over MCP to Claude, Cursor or whatever you already use, and it reads each comment with its exact location on the page, ships the fix and pushes the new version back for approval.
You want API access to pull reviews, comments and approval state into your own tooling
You need your own branding without paying $499 for it
You want to try it on a real client before paying anything

MarkUp.io is the better fit if

You have a large team pushing a small number of assets, where unlimited users at $79 flat wins
You need a SOC 2 report signed off now

Both of those are real. MarkUp.io includes unlimited users on every plan, so a big team with a light review month genuinely pays less there, and if a procurement questionnaire stands between you and the purchase, the SOC 2 report settles it.

Why are teams switching toBugSmash

Everything you didn't know you needed, until now.

Get Started, It's Free

Switching takes an afternoon, not a weekend

There is no bulk export from MarkUp.io, so nobody should promise you a migration. Here is what actually works instead.

Start free and put your next new project in BugSmash. Do not move history. New work only.
Send one client the link. No account for them means no email explaining a signup, which is the step that usually kills a tool change.
Leave MarkUp.io running until your billing period ends. Finish the reviews already in flight over there.
Cancel once the last one closes. Nothing is stranded, because nothing moved.

Other MarkUp.io alternatives worth knowing about

Pastel

The most reliable website rendering in the category, and the fastest to get a marketing page in front of a client. Best if live sites are the only thing you review. Pastel compared

BugHerd

Strong project management around website bugs, unlimited projects, priced well at larger seat counts. Requires a JavaScript snippet on every site, which is worth checking against how you launch. BugHerd compared

Marker.io

Built for development teams that want issues landing in Jira or Linear with full technical context attached. Aimed at engineers rather than clients. Marker.io compared

Ziflow and Filestage

Mature enterprise proofing with very wide format support and formal approval routing. Both start well above MarkUp.io and gate white-labelling behind a quote. Ziflow compared · Filestage compared

Ruttl

Lets you edit CSS and content directly in the browser while reviewing, which is unusual and genuinely useful for small fixes. Per user pricing means the bill grows as you hire. Ruttl compared

Still comparing?

We keep a page on every tool in this category, including the ones that beat us in places. See all comparisons

Questions people ask before switching

What is the best MarkUp.io alternative?

It depends on what pushed you out. If it was the price ceiling or the hundred MarkUp monthly cap, BugSmash is the closest replacement at a quarter of the cost. If you only review live websites and rendering fidelity matters most, Pastel is worth a look. If your team is engineering led, Marker.io fits better.

Is there a free alternative to MarkUp.io?

Why did MarkUp.io raise its price?

What happens if I go over my MarkUp.io allowance?

Can I export my MarkUps to another tool?

Do my clients need an account to leave feedback in BugSmash?

Does MarkUp.io integrate with Jira or Slack?

Is MarkUp.io still worth it in 2026?

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