Free screenwriting software: what free actually gets you
Free screenwriting software is real: Trelby is free, Celtx has a free tier and Fade In runs a free demo. Here is what each one holds back today.
The short answer is that typing a screenplay in the right format costs nothing. If that is the whole question, download Trelby and stop reading. The rest of this post is about the trade each free option makes, because the trades are not the same.
Trelby is free software. Its own site calls it a free, multiplatform, feature-rich screenwriting program. It enforces script format and pagination while you type, spellchecks, and runs on Windows, Mac and Linux. The cost is none. The trade is that Trelby is a typewriter for scripts. It will not tell you that act two is empty, because it has no opinion about acts.
Celtx runs in the browser. You sign up free, start with a seven-day trial of the paid features, and after that, in the site's words, you can either upgrade or stay free forever. If free means no money leaves your pocket, Celtx qualifies. If free means your work sits on your own disk, it does not: the scripts live in your Celtx account.
Fade In's demo is the closest thing to free professional software. The download page says it includes all key functionality except online realtime collaboration, and that it will place a watermark on any printed or PDF output. You can write a full feature in it. The watermark is what the money removes: $79.95 once, from a listed $99.95, with updates free after that.
Final Draft has no free version of the desktop app. It lists $249.99, on sale at $199.99 when I checked. The five-day free trial on their site is for the Suite subscription, $99.99 a year or $16.99 a month, not for the one-time purchase. I compared the paid options in more detail in Final Draft alternatives on the Mac.
So what is the money for? Free covers typed, formatted pages. What no free option covers is the work before page one: what happens in which order, across acts, sequences and scenes. Full disclosure: I build Beatstack, a Mac app for that part. It costs $39.95 once, has a 15-day free trial, needs no account, and keeps project files on your disk. It plans on a board, drafts in a writer, and exports to Final Draft .fdx and Fountain, so the pages can be finished in any of the tools above.
The free list above is honest, and it stops at the same place every time: the blank board before page one. If you want to see what the board does, the 15-day trial does not ask for a card.