Last updated: 2026-06-14
Scribe automatically records your screen as you work and turns those actions into annotated, step-by-step guides for documenting workflows and training hires.
Scribe, built by Colony Labs (San Francisco), is a screen-recording tool that auto-generates step-by-step guides as you click through a workflow. Over 6 million users and 94% of the Fortune 500 use it; pricing runs free for 25 guides, Pro Personal at $23/month per seat, and Pro Team at $15/seat/month for 5+ seats. It produces text-and-screenshot guides only, with no native video output.
Scribe records your screen as you work — clicks, keystrokes, screenshots — and automatically turns those actions into a step-by-step guide. Once generated, guides are editable: rename steps, redact sensitive info, add notes, and export or embed them wherever you need. It's useful for documenting SOPs, onboarding new hires, training on software, and writing support documentation. A process that takes an hour to explain verbally can be captured in a few minutes by just doing the task with Scribe running. Over 5M users across 600,000 organizations use it, including 94% of Fortune 500 companies. Features include Scribe Optimize (AI suggestions for improving workflows), Guide Me (interactive in-product walkthroughs), and data redaction for sensitive content. The free plan supports unlimited guides with basic features; paid tiers add desktop capture, custom branding, and advanced collaboration tools.
Free Basic tier (web-only, limited features). Pro Personal: $23-29/month per user. Pro Team: $12-17/seat/month (minimum 5 seats = $60-85/month). Enterprise: custom pricing ($18,000-600,000+/year). Annual billing saves 24%.
Scribe is a documentation tool built by Colony Labs, Inc., founded in 2019 by Jennifer Smith and Aaron Podolny and based in San Francisco. It runs as a browser extension and desktop app that records your clicks and screenshots while you complete a task, then turns that recording into an annotated step-by-step guide automatically. As of May 2026 Scribe has over 6 million users, and 94% of the Fortune 500 use it for internal process documentation, onboarding, and SOPs. The company raised a $75 million Series C in November 2025 led by StepStone, valuing it at $1.3 billion. Guides can be exported as HTML, PDF, or Markdown, or embedded directly into Confluence, Zendesk, and other team wikis. The core pitch is turning a 30-minute manual writeup into a 2-minute automated one.
Scribe's Basic plan is free and includes 25 guides with web app capture only. Pro Personal costs $29/month billed monthly, dropping to $23/month per user on an annual plan, and unlocks unlimited guides, PDF/HTML export, and AI-powered editing. Pro Team costs $15 per seat per month on annual billing (around $85/month shown for a starter team) but requires a minimum of 5 seats, adding shared workspaces, branding, and admin controls. Enterprise pricing is custom and quoted through sales, with real-world contracts reported between $18,000 and $600,000+ per year depending on team size, SSO, and compliance needs like SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA. There are no setup fees, but the jump from free to Pro Team's 5-seat minimum is a common sticking point reviewers mention.
Scribe's biggest differentiator is Scribe Optimize, which analyzes the workflows you capture and flags automation opportunities and inefficiencies across a team, something most screen-capture documentation tools don't attempt. It also ships Sidekick Discovery, a browser-based layer that surfaces relevant guides to users automatically while they work on any website, and an in-browser Guide Me mode that walks someone through a process live rather than just showing them a static doc. On the compliance side, Scribe is SOC 2 Type II certified and HIPAA/CCPA compliant with automated PII redaction built into captures, which matters for healthcare and finance teams documenting workflows that touch sensitive data. Competitors like Tango focus on real-time on-screen guidance, while Scribe leans toward a searchable, centralized knowledge base of static guides.
Scribe and Tango both capture clicks and screenshots to build text-based step-by-step guides, but they're built for different jobs. Tango's 'Guidance' overlay is designed for real-time, in-app navigation help, walking a user through a tool as they use it, while Scribe's 'Pages' feature is built around creating a polished, searchable knowledge base of SOPs and documentation. On price, Tango's Pro tier starts around $16/month versus Scribe's $23/month per seat on annual billing, making Tango the cheaper entry point for small teams. Neither tool produces video output natively; for that, teams typically look at Guidde, which adds AI voiceover in 25+ languages on top of the same screen-capture workflow. Pick Scribe if you want a centralized, searchable doc library; pick Tango if real-time in-app guidance matters more.
Yes, Scribe has a free Basic plan that includes up to 25 guides created through the web app, with capture limited to browser-based workflows (no desktop app capture on the free tier). The free plan covers core auto-documentation: recording clicks, generating screenshots, and producing a shareable step-by-step guide. It does not include PDF or HTML export, AI-powered editing of captured steps, or team sharing features, which require Pro Personal at $23/month per seat (annual) or higher. For individuals documenting a handful of personal workflows or evaluating the tool before a team rollout, the free tier is usable on its own, but anyone needing desktop app capture or more than 25 guides will hit the upgrade wall quickly.
Scribe works best for operations, IT, HR, and customer support teams that need to turn repetitive manual processes into shareable SOPs quickly, especially in larger organizations; 94% of the Fortune 500 already use it, including companies like T-Mobile, LinkedIn, and HubSpot. It's also a good fit for SaaS companies building internal training libraries or customer-facing help center articles from real workflows. Teams that need video tutorials with voiceover for marketing or customer onboarding should look elsewhere, since Scribe only outputs text-and-screenshot guides, not video. Very small teams or solo users who only need a handful of guides a month may also find the jump from the 25-guide free tier to a $23/month seat, or Pro Team's 5-seat minimum, steep relative to their usage.
Yes, Scribe captures workflows both in the browser (via its Chrome and Edge extensions) and on desktop applications through its downloadable desktop app for Windows and Mac, so a guide can span steps taken in a web app and steps taken in, say, a desktop accounting tool or internal software. However, desktop app capture is reserved for paid Pro and above plans; the free Basic tier only supports browser-based capture. Once a guide is created, it can be exported to HTML, PDF, or Markdown, or embedded directly into Confluence, Zendesk, Notion-style wikis, and similar knowledge bases, so the output isn't locked to Scribe's own viewer. Some reviewers note occasional capture glitches when switching rapidly between browser tabs and desktop windows mid-recording.
Scribe is SOC 2 Type II certified and HIPAA and CCPA compliant, and it includes automated PII (personally identifiable information) redaction that blurs sensitive fields like names, emails, and account numbers in captured screenshots before a guide is saved or shared. The platform offers role-based access control and single sign-on (SSO) for enterprise customers, which lets IT teams control who can view or export guides containing internal process data. Scribe's enterprise terms are built around customer data ownership, with redaction and access controls positioned specifically so regulated industries (healthcare, finance) can document internal workflows without exposing protected data externally. Specific model-training opt-out language is part of enterprise contracts, which is one reason enterprise pricing requires a sales conversation rather than self-serve checkout.