Five BugHerd alternatives compared for client feedback and sign-off rather than bug tracking: HopBack, Pastel, Markup.io, Marker.io and Ruttl, with prices checked this month
Say it plainly, because most alternative posts do not: BugHerd is the best bug tracker in this category. A pin on a live site captures a screenshot, the browser, the OS and the screen size, and drops into a kanban board that syncs with Jira, Asana, Linear, ClickUp and GitHub. Reviewers can suggest text edits. Guests are unlimited on every plan. Video feedback and MCP are included. If you run a dev team and your feedback is issues, it is a strong choice and we would not talk you out of it.
The reason agencies go looking anyway is that a BugHerd project is a board of tasks, and a client review is not a list of tasks. It is a conversation that has to end in a decision. BugHerd has no concept of a revision round, no finish-review lock, and no approval with a name and a time on it. And it starts at $50 a month for five members, which for a two-person studio is a lot of bug tracker.
So the question is not "what is better than BugHerd." It is "what is built for the thing I am actually doing."
| Tool | Best for | Entry price | Clients need an account | Rounds and sign-off |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HopBack | Client feedback and sign-off across websites, design, print and video | $19/mo | No | Numbered rounds, finish-review lock, approval with name and time |
| Pastel | Website feedback with approvals, closest to HopBack | $35/mo | No | Approvals, no rounds |
| Markup.io | The widest range of file types | $79/mo | No | Neither |
| Marker.io | Bug reporting for dev teams, the other bug tracker | $39/mo annual | No | Neither |
| Ruttl | One person on a budget, free tier | $18 per user/mo | No | Partial |
Prices from each tool's public pricing page, checked 11 September 2026. Full table on the compare hub.
HopBack is ours, so weigh this paragraph accordingly. It was built by an agency for the client-review job: paste a URL or upload a file, send a link, the client clicks on the thing they mean and types. Pins stick to the element and hold at every screen size. A review has numbered rounds, Round 1 of 3, and unresolved comments carry into the next one. When the client hits Finish review they choose Approve or Send feedback, the feedback locks, and the approval records who and when. Compare shows two rounds side by side.
It reviews live websites (including staging sites behind a password), images, PDFs and video, so a client learns it once and uses it from the logo to the launch. Reminders chase the client for you on business days. Slack, Teams and email tell you when they finish.
Starter is $19 a month for 2 seats and 10 active reviews. Studio, where most agencies land, is $49 for 5 seats, 30 active reviews, reminders, video and Slack and Teams. Agency is $99 with unlimited reviews and MCP. Client reviewers are unlimited on every plan. There is no free plan; every account starts with 14 days of Studio, no card.
What it does not do: bug tracking. No kanban, no Jira sync, no browser metadata on every pin. If that is your job, keep reading.
Pastel (usepastel.com) is the tool we would point to if HopBack did not exist. Live website review, images and PDFs, no client accounts, approvals and deadlines and reminders on every plan including free, a responsive tester, and project management integrations on Team.
Pro is $35 a month for 2 users and 3 canvases, which is the catch: a canvas is a review, and three is not many. Team is $119 for 5 users and unlimited canvases. There is a free plan with one canvas.
Choose Pastel if you want approvals and reminders at the lowest entry price and three open reviews is enough. The gaps against HopBack are revision rounds, a finish-review lock, and pins that stay put when the client switches to mobile width; Pastel pins the element but locks the comment to the screen size it was left at.
Markup.io reviews live websites, images, PDFs, video and a long list of other formats, with unlimited users on every plan and a polished interface. If your reviews include things nobody else handles, it is the safe pick.
Two things send agencies looking elsewhere. Price: the entry plan moved from $29 to $79 a month in 2025 with nothing in between. And the meter: plans are priced by MarkUps per month, 50 on Pro, so a busy month costs more and a quiet month is wasted. Pro is $79, with $99 and $129 tiers for 75 and 100 MarkUps.
No rounds, no lock, no recorded approval. Pins are tied to the element and move to the sidebar if the element is removed.
Marker.io is built for developers and QA, closer to BugHerd than to the rest of this list. It annotates screenshots rather than pinning the live page, captures console logs and session replays, and syncs to Jira, ClickUp and the usual boards.
If you are leaving BugHerd for a cheaper bug tracker, Marker.io is the comparison to make. Starter is $59 a month, or $39 annual, for 3 members and 10 projects. Agency is $129, or $99 annual, for 15 members and 50 active client projects, and it is only open to eligible agencies. Guests are unlimited on every plan as of October 2026; the caps of 10 to 50 that earlier comparisons mention are gone. Our neutral comparison is at BugHerd vs Marker.io.
If you are leaving BugHerd because you did not need a bug tracker, Marker.io is not the answer.
Ruttl reviews live websites, images and PDFs, has a free plan (one project, five pages), a mobile app feedback product and a long integrations list. Pro is $18 per user per month.
For one person it is the cheapest paid option here. For a team of five it is $90 a month, more than HopBack Studio or Pastel Team, because the price is per user. Ruttl keeps a separate set of pins per device size, so a comment left at desktop width is not there at mobile width. There is no trial of Pro, only the free plan.
Not really, if you mean free and good enough to run client work on. Ruttl's free plan is one project. Pastel's is one canvas. HopBack and Markup.io have trials, not free plans. The honest answer is that a client-review tool for an agency is a $19 to $50 a month decision, and the free tiers are for trying it on one project before you commit.
If you switch, there is no import and you do not need one. Start your next project in HopBack: paste the URL, set the rounds, send the link. Finished BugHerd projects stay where they are. Your clients will not notice a new tool, because they never needed an account for the old one either.
No. It is a client feedback and approval tool with priority and tags for triage. If you need a bug tracker, BugHerd and Marker.io are built for it.
$50, $80 or $150 a month for 5, 10 or 25 members, with extra members at $8, as of 11 September 2026.
HopBack, Pastel, Markup.io, Ruttl and, since 2026, Marker.io all have unlimited guests or reviewers.
HopBack has numbered rounds with carry-forward and Compare. Ruttl has partial versioning. The others do not.
BugHerd, Marker.io and Ruttl do. Pastel does on Team via Zapier. HopBack does not at launch; MCP on Agency lets an AI assistant move comments into other tools.
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