Markup.io is for a large team reviewing many file types; Pastel is for starting free and growing canvas by canvas. Markup.io has no free plan; Pro is $79 a month for a workspace with unlimited members. Pastel is free for one user and one active canvas, then $29 a month billed annually for two users.
A review tool for files and websites, sold by workspace rather than by seat, where collaborators join as guests without registering and more than thirty file types, video included, take comments.
A review and approval tool for creative work, layering comments over a live site through its own proxy as well as over PDFs, emails and uploaded images.
Markup.io is a review tool for files and websites, sold by workspace rather than by seat. Every plan carries unlimited members, admins and guests, collaborators join without registering, and comments go on any of more than thirty file types, video included. What each plan counts is MarkUps, with extras sold at $4 each in batches of ten. Its site does not mention console logs, network requests or session replay, and names none of its integrations.
Pastel is a review and approval tool for creative work that layers comments over a live site through its own proxy, with no snippet or extension to install, and over PDFs, emails, uploaded images and uploaded video. Guest reviewers are unlimited on every plan including the free one, and what a plan counts is active canvases and users. It captures no console logs, no network requests and no session replay, and its MCP server has the agent make the change and resolve the comment itself.
Markup.io PastelEvery claim about Markup.io and Pastel comes from each vendor's own public materials, read on 13 September 2026. Products change; check each vendor's site before deciding. Pending cells are unresearched, not zero.
The third option
Notarus is the answer only when the review round has turned into a bug queue. On a live web page it attaches session replay, console logs, network requests and the environment to every report on the free plan, with unlimited seats and 5 projects, and exposes every panel action as an MCP tool.
For creative approval it is the wrong shape. It reviews no PDF, no email, no image and no video file, needs its widget on the page, and offers no mobile SDK, no Intercom and no Zendesk. Both tools on this page do that job and Notarus does not try.
What it shares with them is that the person commenting never pays; what it adds is that the prices, all three, are printed rather than quoted.
No. Markup.io lists three paid plans, Pro from $79 a month, Business from $499 and Enterprise on request, and its 14 day trial asks for a card before it starts. Pastel's Free Forever plan carries one user and one active canvas with unlimited guest reviewers, and its 14 day trial of the paid plans asks for no card.
Markup.io, once the group grows past two. Its Pro workspace is $79 a month for unlimited members and guests. Pastel's Pro carries two users; five means Team at $119 a month, or $99 billed annually, which opens at five users and charges $24 a month for each one after.
Pastel does not: it layers comments over a live site through its own proxy, with no code snippet or extension. Markup.io has a Chrome extension that attaches a screenshot to a comment.
Markup.io, by its own count: more than thirty file types, video included. Pastel lists PDFs, emails, uploaded images and uploaded video beside the live site. Pastel states it captures no console, and Markup.io's site does not mention one.
Pastel does. SAML single sign-on is on Pastel's Enterprise plan, $450 a month from 10 users, which also carries SOC 2. Markup.io's site does not state single sign-on on any plan; its Enterprise tier is quoted rather than listed and is described by unlimited workspaces and storage, not by SAML. A team that needs SSO in writing before buying has the figure on Pastel's plans page and a sales conversation on Markup.io's.
Markup.io alternatives Pastel alternatives
BugHerd vs Pastel
Feedbucket vs Pastel
Gleap vs Pastel
Jam vs Pastel
Marker.io vs Pastel 
Pastel vs Ruttl 
Pastel vs Userback 
Pastel vs Usersnap 
Pastel vs Ybug Markup.io vs BugHerd Markup.io vs Marker.io Markup.io vs Ruttl Markup.io vs Userback Markup.io vs Usersnap Markup.io vs Feedbucket5 projects and unlimited seats, session replay included. No card.
