CleanShot X vs Snagit Comparison 2026
Both cover screen recording. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
Mac screen capture that replaces the built-in
The screenshot tool that grew an editor
At a glance
- CleanShot X starts cheaper, at $29.
- Neither has a free tier.
- Snagit bills annually only, so there is no month to try it for.
Side by side
CleanShot X | Snagit | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (they differ) | From $29 | From $39 |
| Pricing model (they differ) | One-time purchase | Paid subscription |
| Free tier | No | No |
| Billing (they differ) | One-time purchase | Annual only |
| Free trial | Not stated | Not stated |
| API | Not stated | Not stated |
| Data export |
CleanShot X
Mac screen capture that replaces the built-in
CleanShot X is the tool Mac users buy once and then cannot work without: scrolling captures, an annotation layer, a cursor you can hide, and a desktop it tidies before the shot. Recordings export as GIF or MP4 without a round trip through an editor. It is macOS only, and the cloud sharing that competes with Loom is a separate subscription.
Our note
Buy the $29 licence and ignore the cloud tier unless you are sharing captures with a team every day. Loom is the better answer for anything that needs to be watched rather than looked at.
Only on this side
- Covers design & graphics
Snagit
The screenshot tool that grew an editor
Snagit is for the thousand small captures that are not worth opening a video editor for: a scrolling grab of a whole page, a numbered set of steps, an arrow pointing at the button somebody keeps missing. It records short video too, and hands off to Camtasia when a clip turns into a project. TechSmith has sold it for decades and it shows in the unglamorous places, like the templates that turn six screenshots into one document.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.