Loom Alternative for Freelancers: Pay Once, Own the Domain

TL;DR

• Screenify Studio records and edits on your Mac, then shares a link from your own subdomain — share.yourstudio.com/s/… — with your logo on the page and no "made with" footer. Custom domain and branding come with Pro Annual ($119/year), Pro Lifetime ($149 once) and Pro+ ($249 once).
• One link per client. A folder link shows every video you've put in that client's folder, and new videos appear on the same URL. No resending.
• Your Loom library comes with you. Drag the exported MP4s — or whole folders — onto the dashboard. Up to 5 GB per file, folder structure kept.
• What you give up versus Loom: recording is Mac-only, analytics stop at a view count, and the monthly plan doesn't include the custom domain.

If you send walkthroughs to clients and the thing you resent about Loom is a per-seat subscription that puts someone else's brand on your work, this is the setup that fixes both. Pay once, record on your Mac, and the link your client opens carries your name — not the tool's.

Why freelancers leave Loom

Loom is good at what it was built for: fast async video inside a company. Freelancers use it for something else — sending finished work to clients — and three things rub.

The price is per seat and it renews. Loom Business is $18 per user per month billed monthly, $24 with the AI add-on. For a team of ten that's a line item. For one person sending a dozen client videos a month, it's a tax on sending video at all, and the renewal notices keep coming whether you recorded anything that month or not.

The share page advertises the tool. Your client clicks the link and lands on a page with Loom's header, Loom's "record your own" button, and a loom.com address. For internal video that's fine. For a deliverable you're invoicing for, it reads like you borrowed someone's office.

Your library lives in their account. Years of client videos sit under a subscription you don't own. Stop paying and the links die.

One freelancer who records Webflow walkthroughs for her clients put it plainly when she switched: a share page with another company's banner on it is awkward to send to someone who is paying you. She bought a lifetime licence, pointed a subdomain at Screenify, and moved 74 videos into 15 client folders in an afternoon. That workflow is what this post describes.

What "your own domain" actually changes

The player, the page and the link IDs are identical. Only two things differ, and they are the two things your client sees first.

When the link gets pasted into Slack, iMessage or an email, the preview card uses your brand name too. That preview is often the first thing a client sees, before they ever click.

Branding applies on your domain. The same video opened on a screenify.studio link keeps Screenify's branding, which is the right behaviour — you're only putting your name on pages that live under your name.

Setting it up takes about ten minutes

You need a subdomain you control (share.yourstudio.com, videos.yourstudio.com) and access to your DNS provider. An apex domain — yourstudio.com with nothing in front — won't work, because that record would take your whole website offline, and the dashboard refuses it for that reason.

1. Add the domain. Dashboard → Account → Custom domain. Type the subdomain, click Add. You immediately get two DNS records to create — one that proves you own the domain, one that points it at Screenify.
2. Create the two records at your DNS provider, exactly as shown. If your provider has a proxy or CDN toggle (Cloudflare's orange cloud), turn it off for this record, or the certificate can't be issued.
3. Verify. DNS usually propagates in minutes, sometimes a couple of hours. The panel re-checks on its own while it's open. When it reads Active, every new share link uses your domain.

Not the person who manages DNS? The panel has a Copy setup prompt button that writes out the complete request — records, the proxy warning, and an instruction not to touch anything else — for whoever does, or for your own AI assistant.

Links you already sent on screenify.studio keep working. Nothing you've shipped breaks.

Full walkthrough with every DNS state explained: Custom domain for share links.

One link per client

Loom users send a new link for every video. Clients end up with twelve links in twelve emails, and nobody can find the one from March.

Screenify's dashboard has folders, and a folder can be shared as a single link. Make one folder per client, share it once, and drop every new video into it. The client's link stays the same; the new video is just there the next time they open it. On a custom domain that link is share.yourstudio.com/f/… with your branding, same as a single video.

For a retainer client this replaces the "here's this week's walkthrough" email with a bookmark they already have.

Moving your Loom library

Export your videos from Loom as MP4s. Then, in the Screenify dashboard, open the folder you want them in and click Upload — or drag the files, or a whole folder, onto the page.

• Upload folder keeps the structure. A folder with a sub-folder per client becomes the same folders in your dashboard. Before anything uploads you see a summary like Upload 23 videos into 4 folders?
• MP4, MOV and M4V, up to 5 GB per file.
• You can keep using the dashboard while uploads run; closing the tab asks you first.
• Uploaded videos get share links like any other and can go into a folder link.

The uploads happen in a browser, so you don't need the Mac app for this step. You do need it to record new videos — more on that below.

What it costs, honestly

Prices are what each vendor lists as of October 2026; they change, so check before you buy.

Two notes on the Screenify column. Pro Monthly ($19) does not include the custom domain — a domain means we keep a certificate alive for your hostname, so it lives on the yearly and lifetime plans. If you're on monthly and want it, switching to annual turns it on immediately. And the $149 licence includes a year of updates; after that the app keeps working, and continuing updates is an optional $39/year.

The free plan is for trying the editor, not for client work: exports carry a watermark and cap at five minutes, and share links are limited to three at a time for seven days.

Best for…

The table tells you what each tool has. This is who each one actually suits — the main strength, and the downside that decides it.

Screenify Studio — freelancers on a Mac who want to buy once

Pick it if you record on a Mac, send finished videos to clients rather than chatting async with a team, and you'd rather pay $149 once than $216 a year for Loom Business. The custom domain and branded page are the point; the recording side — automatic zoom on clicks, on-device captions, device mockups — is what makes a walkthrough look like it was edited by someone, which clients notice.

Skip it if you need to know who watched. Screenify counts views; it doesn't name viewers. And if you're on Windows, there's nothing to install.

Tella — browser-first, polished, on a subscription

Pick it if you record from a browser on any OS and want a scene-based editor with a teleprompter. Tella's Premium plan ($19 per user per month) includes a custom domain and branding, and the output looks produced.

Skip it if the recurring bill is the problem you're solving. Tella is subscription-only, and the custom domain sits on the top plan — for one person that's $228 a year for the same feature Screenify sells once.

Cap — open source, custom domain if you self-host

Pick it if you're comfortable running your own server. Cap is open source; self-hosted, the custom domain costs nothing but your time, and recordings never leave infrastructure you control. The hosted Pro plan ($9 per user per month) adds the domain without the server.

Skip it if you want the recorder to be the polished part. Cap's editor is simpler than Screenify's, and the share-page branding is lighter. It's a strong choice for engineers; it's more work for a designer or coach who just wants the video to look good.

Stay on Loom — teams, and anyone who sells on analytics

Stay if you're part of a company that already runs on Loom, or if your sales process depends on seeing that a specific prospect watched to minute three. Loom Business ($18 per user per month) does viewer analytics, CTAs on the player and Slack/Salesforce integrations that none of the Mac-native tools match.

Leave if you're one person, the per-seat price is the complaint, and the thing you want from the share page is your name on it. Loom's branding option dresses the page; the address still reads loom.com, and the plan still renews.

Limitations — what Screenify doesn't do

Say the trade-offs out loud before your client finds them.

• Recording is Mac-only. The dashboard and uploads work from any browser, but the recorder and editor are a native Mac app. No Windows, no Chrome extension, no phone.
• Analytics stop at a view count. Each video shows how many times it was watched. There is no per-viewer tracking, no watch-time graph, no "who opened it". If your business depends on knowing whether a specific person watched, Loom's Business plan does that and Screenify doesn't.
• Subdomain only. share.yourstudio.com works; yourstudio.com doesn't, by design.
• No comments or reactions on the share page. Feedback comes back by email, Slack, or whatever you already use with the client.
• Custom domain isn't on the monthly plan. Covered above, repeated here because it's the question we get most.

If none of those are dealbreakers, the rest of the comparison is in your favour: native-resolution recording with automatic zoom, on-device captions, device mockups for app demos, and a share page that carries your name.

FAQ

Can I use my main website's domain? A subdomain of it, yes — share.yourstudio.com or videos.yourstudio.com. The apex (yourstudio.com) can't be used, because the DNS record type a custom domain needs would redirect your whole site.

Do old links break when I add a domain? No. Links you already sent on screenify.studio keep working forever. New links use your domain.

Can clients watch without an account? Yes. A share link opens the video directly — no login, no sign-up prompt, and on your domain no sign-up button either.

Does the free plan include the custom domain? No. Custom domain and branding are on Pro Annual, Pro Lifetime and Pro+. The free plan is for trying the editor.

What happens if I stop paying for Pro Monthly? Your links keep serving on screenify.studio. The custom domain is tied to the annual and lifetime plans, so monthly users never had it to lose.

Related reading

• Leaving Loom: a migration guide — redirects, exports, and what to tell clients
• Loom vs Screenify Studio — the full feature comparison
• Share links — folders, branding, limits
• Custom domain for share links — the DNS steps with screenshots

Ready to put your name on your client videos? Download Screenify Studio — the free plan lets you try the editor before you buy.