Loom vs Tella 2026: Which Async Video Tool Is Right for You?

You hit record. You explain the thing. You drop the link in Slack. That's the job.

Both Loom and Tella do this job. But the moment you start sharing videos outside your team, the two tools start to feel very different. One leans into raw speed and integrations. The other leans into polish and editing.

This guide breaks down where each one wins, how much they actually cost in 2026, and which is the right pick for your workflow.

The short version

If you're recording quick internal updates, walkthroughs for your team, or async bug reports, Loom is the safer pick. It's faster to hit record, plugs into the tools you already use, and the workflow is built around "send it and forget it."

If you're recording anything that goes outside your team, customer demos, tutorials, social videos, course content, Tella is the better pick. The output looks dramatically more professional, and you don't need a separate editor to get there.

The pricing is closer than most comparisons admit. Loom Business is $18/user/month. Tella Pro is $13/user/month. The bigger cost difference shows up at the AI tier, where Loom charges $24/user/month for AI features that Tella includes in its $13 Pro plan.

What each tool actually is

Loom is async video at scale. It was built to replace meetings, and the entire product reflects that. You hit a keyboard shortcut, record, and the link is in your clipboard before you've stopped talking.

Tella is a screen recorder built for output. The recording flow is similar to Loom, but the editor is where it pulls ahead. Auto-zoom on your cursor, custom backgrounds, multiple camera layouts in the same video, AI filler-word removal, all built into the same browser tab where you recorded.

The tools overlap on the "record and share" basics. They diverge fast on everything that happens after you stop recording.

Pricing in 2026

Both tools changed their pricing in the past 12 months, so it's worth being precise.

A few things worth flagging.

Loom's Starter plan caps you at 25 videos and 5-minute recordings. For most founders that limit gets hit inside the first week of real use.

Loom's "Business + AI" tier is where features like filler-word removal, auto-titles, and auto-summaries live. On Tella, those features are included in the Pro plan at $13.

Tella's free plan has no video count limit but videos expire after 7 days. That's a different trade-off: good for testing, useless for anything you want to keep around.

Annual billing on both tools saves you roughly 17-50%, with Tella running a more aggressive annual discount.

Recording experience

This is the closest fight between the two tools.

Loom records via a Chrome extension or a desktop app on Mac and Windows. The workflow is muscle memory: keyboard shortcut, pick your screen, hit record. When you stop, the video uploads in the background and the share link appears.

Tella records the same way, with a Mac app, a Chrome extension, and a Windows app currently in development. The recording flow is roughly equivalent in speed.

The difference shows up in two places.

Recording length on the free plan. Loom caps free users at 5 minutes per video. Tella's free plan lets you record up to 2 hours per clip. For founders evaluating either tool without paying, that's a meaningful gap.

Reliability post-Atlassian. User reviews across G2, Trustpilot, and Reddit have flagged a consistent pattern of recording reliability issues with Loom since the Atlassian migration. "Recording Issues" is the top con on G2 with 147 mentions. Loom's own troubleshooting KB acknowledges crashes, recommends 5 Mbps minimum upload, and suggests enabling a "Fallback recorder" on Windows. Tella has its own bugs, particularly around the first recording after opening the app, but the issues are less systemic. Prospeo

If you're recording inside a Chromebook, an older Mac, or anything with limited resources, this matters.

Editing experience

Loom's editing is basic by design. You can trim, stitch, add captions, blur sensitive areas, and remove filler words (the last three require Business or higher). The philosophy is that async video should be fast and unedited.

Tella's editing is where the tool earns its price difference. The same browser tab you record in becomes a full timeline editor. You get:

• Auto-zoom that follows your cursor
• Multiple camera layouts in the same video, switching between layouts at different timestamps
• Custom backgrounds, borders, and presets
• AI-driven silence removal, filler word removal, and an AI "mistakes finder" that lets you re-record specific lines
• Subtitle styling
• Layout adjustments for portrait, square, and landscape, useful for repurposing the same recording into LinkedIn, TikTok, and YouTube formats

If your video ends in Slack, you don't need any of this. If it ends on a landing page, a course, or social media, you do.

AI features

Both tools have leaned hard into AI. The difference is what you pay for it.

Loom's AI features sit behind the Business + AI plan at $24/user/month. You get:

• Auto-titles and summaries
• Auto-chapters
• Filler word removal
• Silence removal
• Auto CTA buttons
• Meeting recap emails and notes

Tella's AI features are included in the Pro plan at $13/user/month, the same tier you'd already be on for unlimited recording. You get:

• AI mistakes finder
• Filler word removal
• Silence removal
• Buffer removal between clips
• AI audio enhancement
• AI-generated titles and chapters
• AI document generation (turn a video into a doc)

For founders watching SaaS spend, this is the biggest gap in the entire comparison. If you want AI features, Tella is roughly half the price.

Sharing and analytics

Loom's sharing flow is the cleanest in the category.

The link is in your clipboard before you've stopped recording. Engagement insights (who watched, how long, where they dropped off) are included from the Business plan upward. Exportable analytics are also included.

Tella offers the same core sharing model: instant link, hosted video, embedded player. Analytics on the Pro plan cover total views, unique viewers, watch time, and engagement. On Premium ($19/user/month), you get advanced analytics including viewer locations, traffic sources, individual viewer tracking, and conversion funnels.

Tella also lets you put videos on a custom domain (Premium only), white-label the player, and add interactive call-to-action buttons. Loom offers branding removal on Business but doesn't support a custom domain.

For founders who treat video as a marketing asset rather than internal comms, the custom domain and CTA features matter.

Integrations

Loom wins here, and the gap is significant.

Loom integrates natively with Slack, Jira, Confluence, GitHub, Gmail, Notion, Intercom, Zendesk, Salesforce (Enterprise), and dozens more. If your team lives inside the Atlassian ecosystem, Loom is now part of that ecosystem.

Tella integrates with Slack, Notion, and Linear. That covers the basics for most startup workflows, but it's a much narrower list.

If your async video workflow needs to hand off to Jira tickets, Zendesk replies, or Salesforce records, Loom is the only realistic choice.

Comparison table

Which one should you actually pick?

Pick Loom if:

• You're recording for internal teams, not external audiences
• Your team uses Jira, Confluence, Salesforce, or Zendesk and needs deep integration
• Speed of recording matters more than polish
• You need a 99.95% uptime SLA (Enterprise tier)

Pick Tella if:

• You're recording customer demos, tutorials, course content, or social videos
• You want AI features without paying $24/user/month for them
• You repurpose recordings across multiple formats (portrait, square, landscape)
• You want a custom domain or branded video pages
• Output quality matters more than send speed

Many people use both. Loom for internal Slack drops, Tella for anything customer-facing. At $13/month for Tella Pro and $0 for Loom's free plan, that combination works for solo founders too.

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