--- title: Final Draft Reviews meta_title: 'Final Draft Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2' meta_description: Filter 46 reviews by the users' company size, role or industry to find out how Final Draft works for a business like yours. aggregate_rating: rating_value: 4.5 review_count: 46 scale: '5' date_modified: '2026-08-07' parent_category: name: Performing Arts url: https://www.g2.com/categories/performing-arts --- # Final Draft Reviews **Vendor:** Final Draft **Category:** [Screenwriting Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/screenwriting) **Average Rating:** 4.5/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 46 ## About Final Draft For over 25 years Final Draft has been the industry standard and market leader in screenwriting software. Used by 95% of film and television productions, Final Draft is the first choice for both professional and aspiring screenwriters, producers, directors, and industry executives. Final Draft was co-founded in 1990 by Marc Madnick and Ben Cahan, who recognized that Hollywood lacked a word-processor capable of automatically formatting a script to the entertainment industry’s stringent standards. This led to the creation of Final Draft, a fully dedicated screenwriting software application that automatically formats your script to Hollywood’s industry standards. Final Draft quickly became an essential tool for the entertainment industry, and in 2013 the program was awarded the prestigious Primetime Emmy Engineering Award. In recent years Final Draft’s mission has extended beyond providing writers with the best screenwriting software on the market. Final Draft also provides free and exclusive educational resources to writers to help them every step of the way on their screenwriting journey. This includes interviews with professional screenwriters, podcasts, tech tips, and how-to articles. Regular live events keep writers connected with industry and each other, and up-to-date on the latest industry trends. Final Draft continues to unearth the best new talent through the Big Break Screenwriting Contest, which every year awards over $100,000 in cash and prizes, and has launched the careers of countless new screenwriters. Final Draft is fully committed to diversity, equity and inclusion. The Big Break Contest offers Diversity categories that ensure underrepresented writers come to the attention of industry professionals. Final Draft also provides invaluable resources and connections to BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, marginalized and differently abled writers, helping them bring their stories to the world. As the needs of these communities grow and change, Final Draft will be there to meet them. In 2016, Final Draft was acquired by Cast & Crew. Based in Burbank, California, and with offices across the U.S. and in Canada, Cast & Crew is a trusted partner to major and independent film and television studios. Cast & Crew provides clients with a robust portfolio of critical services. These include payroll and residuals processing, the industry-leading PSL production accounting software and other digital solutions, as well as financial services such as production incentive consulting, management and financing. Cast & Crew continues to accelerate its investment in technology, supported by majority shareholder EQT, a leading investment firm with portfolio companies in Europe, Asia, and the U.S., which acquired Cast & Crew in early 2019. Under Cast & Crew Final Draft provides a world-class product with world-class service and will continue to listen and respond to the needs of writers everywhere. Final Draft is proud to continue to work with our industry partners to improve the lives and careers of writers, including Hillman Grad, Start with Hollywood, Women of Color Unite, the Geena Davis Institute, Seed & Spark, CAPE Fellowship, The Disruptors, Women in Film & TV and NALIP. Final Draft – It all starts with the script. ## Final Draft Pros & Cons **What users like:** - Users value the **ease of use** in Final Draft, appreciating its intuitive tools for seamless writing and collaboration. (1 reviews) - Users love the **intuitive tools** of Final Draft, enabling easy scriptwriting and seamless team collaboration. (1 reviews) - Users value the **intuitive tools** of Final Draft, facilitating easy and effective scripting anytime and anywhere. (1 reviews) - Users value the **fast and secure online collaboration** features of Final Draft, enhancing their teamwork on projects. (1 reviews) **What users dislike:** - Users find the **upgrade process clunky** , particularly when skipping a full version, impacting their experience negatively. (1 reviews) ## Final Draft Reviews ### 1. Not the best, but industry standard **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Motion Pictures and Film | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 09, 2019 **What do you like best about Final Draft?** Makes it relatively easy to write a screenplay. **What do you dislike about Final Draft?** Lots of bugs, lots of obvious things missing, not a lot of innovation. **Recommendations to others considering Final Draft:** It's the industry standard, so it's a solid option. but writer duet has much better collaboration tools. **What problems is Final Draft solving and how is that benefiting you?** Final Draft solves the need to easily write things in a standardized screenplay format. ### 2. Increasingly less worth the price... **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Chris B. | Writer, Writing and Editing, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 24, 2018 **What do you like best about Final Draft?** As far as formatting screenplays goes, Final Draft is still an easy to use way to get your screenplay on the page. It's ability run reports for characters and locations can be handy when scanning your script for budgeting reasons. Exporting as PDF works well and is necessary if you want to send to anyone who does not have Final Draft installed on their computer. **What do you dislike about Final Draft?** The application is rarely updated and many of the features (such as the Names Database) don't work on my computer (MacBook running High Sierra). Additionally, there are many more cost effective/free solutions to screenplay formatting (CeltX, Highland) that make it hard to justify spending over $100 on Final Draft. **Recommendations to others considering Final Draft:** Try the free options first. **What problems is Final Draft solving and how is that benefiting you?** For years, I used Final Draft to format my screenplays largely because there were not many alternatives. It has done and continues to do the job it advertises. ### 3. Lot's of great features, but overwhelming at the same time **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Josh H. | Co-Founder & CEO, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 13, 2018 **What do you like best about Final Draft?** It's great that your script can be tied into soooooo many different tools to help produce the film, not just write. Trying to do all things like breakdowns, shot lists, etc separately would be a nightmare. **What do you dislike about Final Draft?** I don't like how complicated it is. I feel like I need to go to college to learn how all the tools like the navigator work and I need to have a dictionary available to know what the labels mean. I'm sure a very experienced writer would get it, but not me. **Recommendations to others considering Final Draft:** If you're not super experienced, there are many other writing tools out there that are easier and more simple to use. This has everything, but it's not very useful unless you know the lingo and how to use it. **What problems is Final Draft solving and how is that benefiting you?** I'm trying to write a short film/demo. Well, with FinalDraft 9 I haven't realized any really. There are simpler script writing tools out there. ## Final Draft Discussions - [What is Final Draft used for?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-final-draft-used-for) - 1 comment - [Is it worth upgrading to Final Draft 11?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/is-it-worth-upgrading-to-final-draft-11) - 1 comment - [Is Final Draft a one time purchase?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/is-final-draft-a-one-time-purchase) - 1 comment - [What is Final Draft educational?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-final-draft-educational) - 1 comment - [How much does final draft cost?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/how-much-does-final-draft-cost) - 1 comment - [View Final Draft pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/final-draft/reviews?filters%5Bnps_score%5D%5B%5D=3§ion=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-08-09+12%3A01%3A04+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=8d0d9c2c-e0a5-4ace-9254-9180b3f727da&secure%5Btoken%5D=25b0f24f81ea97504077156b885ccefccf424ab6e9465631c222ada33a2250b1&format=llm_user) ## Final Draft Features **Additional Functionality** - Third-Party Integrations - To-Do List - @mentions - Single Sign On - File Management - Activity Dashboard - Drag & Drop - Alerts/Notifications - Prioritization - Access Controls/Permissions - Screen Sharing - Content Management - Brainstorming - AI Copilot - File Transfer - Calendar Management - Status Tracking - Real-Time Notifications - Version Control - Task Management - Activity Tracking - Real Time Editing - Communication Management - Chat/Messaging - Tagging - Generative AI - Assignment Management - Task Scheduling - Project Management - Collaboration Tools - Workflow Management - Secure Data Storage - File Sharing - Document Storage - Task Progress Tracking - Discussions/Forums - Commenting/Notes - Reporting & Statistics - Contact Management - Video Conferencing - Progress Tracking - Mobile Access - API - Document Management - Customizable Branding **Document Creation** - Customizable Templates - Story Map - Script Formatting - PDF Creation - Mind Maps **Design** - Graphics - Templates - Themes **Workflow** - Collaborative Creation - Comments and Tasks - Chat/Messaging - Access Control **Collaboration** - Multi-User Collaboration - Real-Time Communication **Platform** - Web Interface - Mobile apps **File Types** - Export - Import - Web Publishing **Edit & Revise** - Revision History - Suggestion Mode - Document Editor **Agentic AI - Screenwriting** - Autonomous Task Execution - Multi-step Planning - Adaptive Learning - Natural Language Interaction - Proactive Assistance - Multi-Language **Additional Functionality** - Commenting/Notes - AI Copilot - Text to Speech - Automatic Backup - WYSIWYG Editor - Progress Tracking - Auto-Save - Screen Sharing - Offline Access - File Sharing - Visual Workflow Management - Scene Reordering - Revision History - Tagging - Project Management - Mobile Access - Scene and Page Number Locking - Drag & Drop - Multiple File Format Support - PDF Conversion - Data Import/Export - Version Control - Rich Text Editor - Autofill - Reporting & Statistics - Real-Time Updates - Scheduling - Data Synchronization - Collaboration Tools - Third-Party Integration - Generative AI **Integrate & Embed** - Calendar - Website - Applications **Operating System** - PC Operating System - Mac Operating System - Linux Operating System **Generative AI** - AI Text Generation - AI Text Summarization - AI Text-to-Image - AI Text-to-Speech - AI Image-to-Text **Agentic AI - Document Creation** - Proactive Assistance ## Top Final Draft Alternatives - [Scrivener](https://www.g2.com/products/scrivener/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (87 reviews) - [Celtx](https://www.g2.com/products/celtx/reviews) - 4.2/5.0 (83 reviews) - [WriterDuet](https://www.g2.com/products/writerduet/reviews) - 4.6/5.0 (29 reviews)