Shorthand pricing in 2026, and what you get for $10 a month instead
Last updated: October 17, 2026 · The enterprise publishing platform for branded visual stories
Shorthand pricing in 2026
Shorthand no longer publishes prices. On October 17, 2026 its pricing page lists four plans, Core, Unlimited, Enterprise and On Demand, every one of them behind "Book a demo" or "Talk to sales", with not a single dollar figure on the page. The last public price list, captured in December 2025, is the best guide to what a demo will quote.
| Shorthand plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Core (current) | Quote by demo | 12 new published stories a year, unlimited users, 3 teams |
| Unlimited (current) | Quote by demo | Unlimited stories and users, 10 teams |
| Enterprise (current) | Talk to sales | Custom |
| On Demand (current) | Paid once per project | A single story, no annual commitment |
| Starter (last public, Dec 2025) | $60/month billed yearly | 1 member (+$60/month each extra), 12 stories a year, $60 per additional story |
| Team (last public, Dec 2025) | $875/month billed yearly | Unlimited members, 12 stories a year, $300 per extra story |
| Business (last public, Dec 2025) | $1,750/month billed yearly | 24 stories a year, $300 per extra story |
Is Shorthand free? You can create for free, but not publish: Shorthand's own line is "free to create, pay when you publish". Publishing consumes one of the plan's yearly story credits, unpublishing does not refund it, and ZIP export counts as a published story. Third-party listings quote Shorthand "from $200 a month", which fits a product that now sells by demo. Prices checked on October 17, 2026 on shorthand.com/pricing.
Shorthand vs Scrollytelling.ai: what each one is
Shorthand is the established platform for branded visual stories: newsrooms like the BBC and Sky, universities and non-profits use it to publish long, image-rich features without developers. It has a decade of refinement, ISO 27001 and SOC 2 certification, team workflows, and real newsroom features such as self-hosting to your own S3 bucket and CMS plugins.
Scrollytelling.ai is the self-serve option for everyone a demo-led platform prices out: solo marketers, small newsrooms, students, agencies on a budget. You describe the story, paste a URL or upload a PDF, the AI builds the scroll-driven page with a hero video, and you edit it in the browser. A free plan builds and publishes one story; 10 published stories, a custom domain and badge removal start on Starter at $10 a month billed yearly.
Side by side
| Feature | Scrollytelling.ai | Shorthand |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free plan; Starter $12/mo ($10 yearly); Pro $29 ($24 yearly); Pro+ $59 ($49 yearly) | No public prices (demo); last public Starter $60/mo billed yearly, Team $875, Business $1,750 |
| Free plan | Yes: 60 monthly credits, 1 published story on a scrollytelling.ai link | Free to create, pay to publish; no free published story |
| Scrollytelling | Core of the product: scroll-scrubbed hero video, stacking cards, split scroll, reveals, scenes | Yes: Scrollpoints, Reveal, Background Transition sections, assembled by hand |
| AI generation | Full story from a prompt, a URL or an uploaded PDF, images and hero video included | AI writing help inside sections; no prompt-to-story |
| Hosting and domain | Hosted; custom domain on every paid plan; WordPress and Shopify embeds | Hosted, own S3, WordPress/Drupal plugins; custom domain on higher tiers |
| Editing | Visual editor, free manual edits; AI edits use credits | Section-based visual editor |
| Export | .zip of the story and HD PDF on every plan, Free included | ZIP export counts as a published story |
| Team | Invite members on Pro and Pro+ | Unlimited users on Core and above, teams and roles |
What Shorthand does better
Shorthand is better for teams. Its workspaces, roles and review flows are built for an editorial desk with several hands on one story, and the Unlimited plan removes the per-story accounting entirely. It is better for regulated organisations: the security certifications and enterprise support are real and audited. It is better for self-hosting at scale, with publishing to your own S3, WordPress and Drupal plugins and an API. And the visual polish of its section types, after ten years of iteration, is hard to argue with.
If you publish dozens of stories a year with a team of five and a procurement department, Shorthand is the safer choice, and the price is the price of that safety.
Where Shorthand falls short, and who should look elsewhere
The problem is everyone else. With no public prices, a single author has to book a demo to learn what one story costs, and the last public list put the entry point at $60 a month billed yearly for twelve stories, with every extra story at $60. That is $720 a year before the first extra story, for a solo user with no custom domain on the entry tier. Every people pasting Shorthand story links into our importer did so for that reason.
Shorthand also builds stories by hand. There is AI writing help inside sections, but no prompt-to-story generation: structure, design and media are assembled section by section. For a one-off story that is fine; for a marketer who needs a product page by Friday it is a day's work.
If you are coming from Shorthand
Rebuild from the link. Paste the URL of an existing Shorthand story and the AI rebuilds it as a scroll-driven page from its text and images, with a hero video generated from the lead photo. Six Shorthand stories have been imported that way so far.
Keep the hand-built parts. Stacking images, pinned text over media, split scroll and reveal sections cover Shorthand's Scrollpoints, Reveal and Background Transition patterns. Everything is editable without credits.
What you lose: self-hosting to your own S3 and the newsroom integrations. Paid plans give you a .zip of the story to host anywhere, and WordPress and Shopify embeds, but not a CMS plugin.
Verdict
Choose Shorthand if you are a team with an editorial workflow, a compliance requirement or a self-hosting mandate, and the budget to match a demo-led price.
Choose Scrollytelling.ai if you are one person or a small team, you want prices on a page, a free story to judge the output, and AI doing the first draft. Starter is $10 a month billed yearly.
Frequently asked questions
How much does Shorthand cost?
Shorthand stopped publishing prices; every plan on shorthand.com/pricing is quote-by-demo as of October 17, 2026. The last public list (December 2025) was Starter $60/month billed yearly for 12 stories a year, Team $875/month and Business $1,750/month. Third-party listings quote "from $200/month".
Is Shorthand free?
Creating is free, publishing is not. A free account lets you build stories; publishing uses one of a paid plan's yearly story credits. There is no free published story.
What is the best Shorthand alternative for a small team or a single author?
Scrollytelling.ai: a free plan with one published story, Starter at $10 a month billed yearly with a custom domain and 10 published stories, Pro at $24 with 50. Vev, Foleon and Ceros are the other named alternatives, all quote-led.
Does Scrollytelling.ai do what Shorthand's Scrollpoints and Reveal sections do?
Yes. Pinned media with text steps, scroll-scrubbed video, stacking images and reveals are built in, and the AI assembles them for you from a prompt or a URL. What it does not have is Shorthand's team review workflow or S3 self-hosting.
Shorthand vs Ceros: which is closer to Scrollytelling.ai?
Neither in price. Shorthand is a publishing platform for story-shaped content; Ceros is a design canvas for marketing experiences, sold by enterprise sales at a median of about $45,000 a year. Scrollytelling.ai is the self-serve option under both; see the Ceros comparison.
Can I move my Shorthand stories over?
There is no automated migration, but you can paste a story's URL and the AI rebuilds it from the page's text and images. Expect to tidy the result in the editor rather than get a pixel copy.
Try the $0 plan before you decide
Build your story free, no card. To publish it, Starter is $10 a month billed yearly.
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