Pastel renders a live web page better than anyone in this category, and that is where it stops: three active canvases on Pro, websites and video only. BugSmash keeps every project open and reviews PDFs, audio, mobile builds, 3D models and CAD alongside the site.
4.8 out of 5 · 1,250+ agencies in 100+ countries
Loved by1,250+Agenciesand companies in 100+ countries
Both let clients comment directly on a live site with no login. BugSmash removes the active canvas limit, includes ten people before any seat charge and prices further seats at $5 rather than $24, adds PDF, video, audio, mobile app, 3D and CAD review, and puts Jira and Slack integrations on every paid plan instead of only the $119 tier.
| Feature | Pastel | BugSmash |
|---|---|---|
| Entry price | $0, then $35/mo (2 users) | $0, then $25/mo (2 users included) |
| Active projects at that price | 3 | 50 |
| Cost for 12 people | $287/mo | $79/mo |
| Jira, Slack, Asana | From $119/mo | From $25/mo |
| File formats | Websites and video | 13 formats |
Pastel is a website feedback tool. You add a live web page as a canvas, share the link, and clients click anywhere on the page to leave a pinned comment without creating an account. It is widely regarded as having the most accurate live-website rendering in this category.
Pricing is built around two meters: how many canvases you can keep active at once, and how many people are on your team. Pro allows three active canvases, and the Team plan charges $24 for each person past the fifth.
Pastel is very good at the thing it does. It is priced for a small team working on a few sites, and three specific limits show up the moment you are not that.
Pastel meters active canvases, not total ones. Free gives you one. Pro at $35 a month gives you three, alongside two users. Archived canvases are unlimited, so the constraint is not storage, it is how many client projects you can have open at the same time.
Any agency running five live builds has already failed that test, which pushes the real entry price to Team at $119.
Team starts at five users and every additional person is $24 a month. Enterprise starts at ten users and every additional person is $45.
| Team size | Pastel Team | BugSmash Team |
|---|---|---|
| 6 people | $143 | $69 |
| 12 people | $287 | $79 |
| 22 people | $527 | $129 on Team, $129 on Agency |
Both tools charge for people past a threshold. The threshold and the rate are what differ: Pastel includes five and charges $24, BugSmash includes ten and charges $5. At twenty two people that is a $398 a month gap on the same headcount.
Exporting to Trello, Asana or Jira, and sending comments to a webhook or Zapier, are Team features. On Free and Pro the only way out of Pastel is a CSV, and only from Pro upward. For a team whose work lives in a project tool, that is a person retyping comments every week.
Pastel is built around the canvas, which is a live web page. If the same client sends you a brochure PDF, a campaign video, a podcast edit or an app build, that work goes somewhere else and your feedback history splits across two tools.
The real worry about changing review tool is never whether the new one is better. It is whether your client will refuse to use it. Nothing you ask of your clients changes.
Clients open the link and comment. No account, no password, no install.
Paste it into the email you were already writing.
Click the exact spot, type, reply in a thread.
Organise by client, control who can view or comment, get notified when they do.
The short version. The detailed comparison is underneath.
| Feature | Pastel | BugSmash |
|---|---|---|
| Entry price | $0, then $35/mo (2 users) | $0, then $25/mo (2 users included) |
| Projects open at once | 3 active canvases on Pro | Unlimited from $69 |
| Extra people | $24 each above 5 | $5 each, 10 included on Team |
| File types reviewed | Websites and video | 13 |
| Jira, Asana, Trello | $119/mo Team plan | From $25/mo |
| Live website rendering | Best in the category | Good |
Grouped by the decision you are actually making, not by feature name.
| Feature | Pastel | BugSmash |
|---|---|---|
| COST AND LIMITS | ||
| Free plan | 1 user, 1 active canvas | 2 projects, unlimited guest reviewers |
| Entry price | $0, then $35/mo (2 users, 3 active canvases) | $0, then $25/mo (2 users included) |
| Unlimited projects | $119/mo, Team | $69/mo, Team |
| People included | 1 on Free, 2 on Pro, 5 on Team, 10 on Enterprise | 2 on Free and Starter, 10 on Team, 25 on Agency |
| Extra people | $24 each above 5, $45 above 10 on Enterprise | $5 each, on any plan |
| Top published plan | $450/mo Enterprise | $129/mo Agency |
| Trial | 14 days, no card | Free plan instead of a clock |
| WHAT YOU CAN REVIEW | ||
| Live websites and web apps | Yes | Yes |
| Video | Yes | Yes, with timeline comments |
| Audio | No | Yes, with timeline comments |
| 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 | Not published | Team, $69 |
| Your own domain on the link | Not published | 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 | ||
| Trello, Asana, Jira export | Team, $119 | Starter, $25 |
| Slack, ClickUp, Monday, Linear, Notion | Not published | Yes |
| Webhook and Zapier | Team, $119 | Yes, plus Make and n8n |
| Public REST API | No | Yes, on Agency |
| Automated review before a human looks | No | Accessibility, UI, copy, broken links |
| Hand open comments to an AI agent | No | Yes, over MCP |
| WHERE PASTEL IS STRONGER | ||
| Live website rendering | Best in the category | Good, and improving |
| SOC 2 report | Yes, on Enterprise | Not offered |
| Single sign-on | SAML, on Enterprise at $450/mo | On Enterprise |
| Versions per canvas on the free plan | Unlimited | Versioning starts on Starter |
| If this is you | Pastel | BugSmash | Difference a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Freelancer, 1 live project | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Solo, 4 live client projects | $119 | $25 | $1,128 |
| Six person studio | $143 | $69 | $888 |
| Twelve person agency | $287 | $79 | $2,496 |
| Twenty two people, own domain | $527 | $129 | $4,776 |
Same work, same month, both bills.
The first row is a genuine tie. Pastel free is a good free plan for one person on one site. The gap opens at the fourth project and again at the sixth person.
View BugSmash Plans & PricingTen people are included on the Team plan at $69 and each one after that is $5 a month. Pastel includes five and charges $24 for each one after, then $45 a head on Enterprise. Same headcount, roughly a fifth of the seat cost, and the gap widens every time you hire.
No active project counter, no archiving work to free a slot, no deciding which client build is allowed to be live this week. Unlimited projects from $59 and fifty of them from $19.
Live sites, PDFs, images, video, audio with timeline comments, native mobile apps, 3D models, CAD drawings, email builds, decks, Word documents and raw HTML. One workspace, one review link, one feedback history per client instead of two tools and two histories.
Paste a URL and review immediately, the way you do in Pastel. Or drop a one line snippet into the site itself and review inside the real environment, which is what a JavaScript heavy app or a password protected staging build needs. Pastel only offers the first path.
If live websites are the only thing you review, rendering fidelity on complex marketing pages is what you care about most, and you are one or two people working on a handful of sites, Pastel is a better product for that job and we would not pretend otherwise. The same applies if you need a SOC 2 report signed off today.
If you are running more than three client projects at once, adding people to the team, or reviewing anything that is not a web page, keep reading.
Everything you didn't know you needed, until now.
Pastel exports comments to CSV from Pro upward, so you can take a record of past feedback with you, but there is no import path into any competitor. Here is what actually works.
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 Pastel 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.
Simple canvas-style review on live sites, images, PDFs and video, with unlimited users on every plan. Pro is metered at 100 reviews a month and the next plan is $499.
Lets you edit CSS and content directly in the browser while reviewing, which is genuinely useful for small fixes. Priced per user.
Strong project management around website bugs with unlimited projects and guests. Needs a JavaScript snippet on every site.
Built for development teams that want issues landing in Jira or Linear with full technical context. Aimed at engineers rather than clients.
Mature enterprise proofing, very wide format support, formal approval routing. Both start well above the rest and gate white-labelling behind a quote.
We keep a page on every tool in this category, including the ones that beat us in places. See all comparisons
It depends on what pushed you out. If it was the three active canvas limit or the $24 per person charge, BugSmash is the closest replacement, with unlimited projects, ten people included and further seats at $5 rather than $24. If you need deeper enterprise proofing and approval routing, Ziflow or Filestage fit better.
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