Best Free Teleprompter App for iPhone (2026)

the best free teleprompter app for iphone is the one that stays free after the first take: no watermark on the file, no account wall, and mirror mode included. i built open prompter to be that app, so weigh my answer accordingly. below is how it compares with BIGVU, PromptSmart and Teleprompter Pro, including the places where they beat it.

prices checked September 2026, on each app's own pricing page or App Store listing. apps change their tiers, so check again before you pay for anything.

the short version#

sources: BIGVU pricing, BIGVU on the App Store, PromptSmart Pro, PromptSmart Lite, Teleprompter Pro pricing, Teleprompter Pro features, Teleprompter Pro on the App Store.

the apps, one at a time#

BIGVU#

BIGVU is a full video suite with a teleprompter at the front. it does automatic captions, themes with your logo, green-screen replacement, and one-tap posting to social accounts. it runs on phones and in a browser.

the free plan is real, but the export carries a watermark and tops out at 720p. BIGVU's paid Starter plan is the first one listed as "no watermark, 1080p HD". if you want captions and an editor in one app, BIGVU does far more than a teleprompter does. if you only want to read a script and keep a clean file, you are paying for the rest.

PromptSmart#

PromptSmart's patented VoiceTrack is the reference for voice-following in this category. it listens and scrolls at your pace, its listing says it pauses when you pause, and it holds your place when you go off-script. VoiceTrack is English only, and the listing recommends scripts up to 5,000 words.

PromptSmart Lite is free and includes VoiceTrack, but it describes itself as a trial of Pro, and mirrored text and video recording appear in Pro's feature list, not Lite's. PromptSmart Pro costs $29.99 up front. remote control, file sync and Scroll Assist sit behind a separate Extended subscription, $1.99 a month or $19.99 a year after a trial month.

Teleprompter Pro (formerly Teleprompter Premium)#

Teleprompter Pro is the renamed Teleprompter Premium. its listing says TV and film studios use it, and it has the widest set of display options here: an external display or AirPlay TV, web-browser control, and Word, PDF and PowerPoint import.

the free version scrolls scripts with no watermark on recordings. mirroring, which is the feature a beam-splitter rig needs, is Pro, at $59.99 a year or $159.99 once. one detail disagrees between sources: its website lists video recording as free, while its App Store description lists camera recording under Pro. check which applies in the version you install.

what about Elgato?#

people search for the Elgato Prompter app, but Elgato Prompter is a $299.99 piece of hardware. its Camera Hub software runs on PC and Mac, and Elgato's product page lists Windows, macOS and Android, not iPhone. with an iPhone it is a screen you send a picture to, not an app you install.

open prompter#

open prompter is free and MIT-licensed. there is no paid tier to find: no watermark, no account, mirror mode on both axes, a Bluetooth remote, and voice tracking that runs on the phone. it reads the markdown file you already wrote from a folder you pick, in iCloud Drive, Obsidian or Dropbox, and it can save each take back next to the script.

where the others win#

this is the part a comparison written by one of the apps usually leaves out.

• other platforms. open prompter runs on iPhone and iPad only. there is no Android version and no Mac app. BIGVU has Android and web. Teleprompter Pro has a Mac version, and PromptSmart installs on Apple-silicon Macs.
• editing and captions. open prompter records and saves the take. BIGVU captions, edits and posts it. Teleprompter Pro can generate .srt captions. if you want one app from script to upload, open prompter is not it.
• voice tracking maturity. open prompter's voice tracking left beta in 3.0; PromptSmart's VoiceTrack has had years longer to mature, so test both on your own scripts.
• studio setups. Teleprompter Pro can send a clean feed to an external display or AirPlay TV, which suits a studio with a separate prompter monitor.
• the rear camera. open prompter records with the front camera only, on purpose. if you want to film with the phone's main camera while reading, look elsewhere.

why open prompter is the free pick#

for a phone and a script, the free question is simple: what do you lose by not paying? with open prompter, nothing is held back, because there is nothing to upgrade to.

that matters most for the two features the category tends to charge for. mirror mode is what makes a teleprompter work with a beam-splitter rig (here's why). voice scrolling is what makes a long read feel natural (how it works). both are free here, and both run with no network connection.

if you want to know how long a script will take before you record it, the speech length calculator counts only the words you say aloud, the same way the app reads the file.

the checklist: test any free teleprompter in ten minutes#

whatever you install, including this one, run these five checks before you point a camera at yourself.

1. does the recording come out clean#

record 10 seconds of yourself and look at the file. not the preview, the file.

look for a watermark in a corner, a bumper on the front or end, or a resolution cap on the free tier. a watermark you can crop is still a watermark that ate your frame. a bumper is a hard cut you trim on every clip, forever. do this first, because a fail here ends the evaluation.

2. can you get to the words without an account#

open the app cold. can you paste a script and read it, with no sign-in screen and no email?

an account is not a feature for a teleprompter. the text is on your device and the reading happens on your device. if it demands an account before it shows you a word, you are evaluating a funnel, not a teleprompter.

3. is mirror mode free#

mirror mode flips the text left to right so it survives a bounce off beam-splitter glass. it is one line of code, and it is also, in a startling number of apps, the paid feature.

check it before you buy a rig. a beam-splitter build is worthless if the software behind it charges for the flip. the rig side is covered in the beam splitter teleprompter guide.

4. how do you control the scroll, and does it cost anything#

there are four ways to move the text, and the free tier usually gives you the worst one.

• fixed speed. a slider, set before you start. you match the machine instead of it matching you.
• your thumb. drag to scroll. fine if your hands are out of frame.
• a bluetooth remote. a cheap clicker or page-turner. good, if the app supports one, and the setup is a five-minute job.
• your voice. the app listens and advances the text as you say it, so a pause is a pause and an ad-lib does not desync you.

5. where does your script live when you close the app#

add a script, then find that file on your device.

if the answer is "in the app's own library, in a format only this app reads," your scripts are hostage. moving to another tool means copy-pasting every one of them. the better answer is a plain text or markdown file in a folder you chose, which is the workflow in the file is the handoff.

what open source adds to the checklist#

open source is not a promise that an app is good. plenty of open source software is abandoned or broken.

what it does give you is that the five answers above cannot quietly change. a closed app can add a watermark, add an account wall, or move mirror mode behind a subscription in an update you did not read the notes for. with an MIT-licensed app the version you have stays licensed the way it was, someone can fork it, and the claims are checkable: on-device processing is either in the source or it is not. the privacy argument rests on that.

the only money in the picture goes the other way. keeping open prompter on the App Store costs $99 a year in Apple Developer Program fees.

a teleprompter is text that scrolls, flipped left to right. run the checklist on every app you try, this one included.