Both live in the MacBook notch. The real split is how they follow you: Tellie tracks the words you actually say, while Moody is a focused, single-purpose prompter that scrolls to the sound of your voice. Both are one-time purchases, close in price ($29 vs $39), so the real lever is following plus coaching, not cost. Here is the honest breakdown, including where Moody is the better pick.
Free to try as a teleprompter. 10 days of Pro on the house, no card.
Moody is a focused, single-purpose notch prompter, and it does one thing cleanly: sound-paced scrolling. It moves while it hears you talking and waits when you go quiet. That keeps a rhythm, but it does not know which words you said. Skip a line, double back, or make your point in different words, and it keeps rolling to its own clock.
Tellie does word-level tracking. On-device speech recognition matches your spoken words to the script, so the read line sits on the exact words leaving your mouth. Backtrack and it follows you back; ad-lib and it waits, then picks up where you return. That one difference is what makes the must-cover coaching below possible. Your voice never leaves your Mac. Voice sync vs. word tracking, explained →
Moody scrolls your script above the lens and stops there, cleanly, which is a fair choice. Tellie adds the part Moody has no answer for: it knows the words you said. Tag the sections you must hit and the points you must land, and Stagehand turns them green the moment they leave your mouth, in any phrasing, and taps you by name before an important one slips past your clock. When you finish, Take Coach scores the run and hands you one thing to sharpen. If a script above the camera is all you need, you will not miss this. If you tend to skip the line you came to say, you will. All on-device.
Both are native Mac notch teleprompters that live in the notch. Here is where they diverge. Prices as published by each maker; check the latest before you buy.
| Feature | Tellie | Moody |
|---|---|---|
| Follows your voice | Word-level: your actual words | Sound-paced: scrolls while you talk |
| Lives in the MacBook notch | Yes | Yes |
| Invisible on Zoom & recordings | Yes | Not clearly documented |
| Must-cover coaching | Yes: Stagehand marks + Take Coach | No |
| Post-take Take Coach | Yes | No |
| Runs on-device (nothing leaves your Mac) | Yes | Yes |
| Price | Free tier · Pro $29 once | $39 one-time |
The honest summary: Tellie leads on word-level following and coaching; Moody is a clean, focused prompter at a close one-time price. Whether Moody hides on a shared screen is not clearly documented, so test it before you rely on it. See the full field guide →
Moody is a genuinely good app, and it is honest about what it is: a focused, minimal prompter that just scrolls your script above the lens, cleanly, with nothing extra to learn. If that is all you want, and $39 once feels fair to you, Moody does exactly that one thing and does it well. You do not have to think about coaching, marks, or matching, because it does not try to do them.
Pick Tellie if what matters most is a prompter that follows the words you actually say, makes sure you cover the key points you came to make, and costs $29 once with a 10-day Pro trial so you can put the difference to the test first.
Neither is better for everyone. Tellie is the pick if you want a prompter that follows the exact words you say and coaches you to cover your key points, at a one-time $29 with a 10-day Pro trial. Moody is the pick if you want a focused, minimal notch prompter that just scrolls your script cleanly and $39 once feels fair to you. Both are native Mac notch prompters that live in the notch.
How they follow your voice, and their scope. Moody is a clean, single-purpose prompter that sound-paces your scroll: it moves while you talk and waits when you pause, but it does not match which words you say. Tellie matches the words you say against your script, so it follows you through skips, backtracks, and ad-libs, and can check off the points you actually made. Tellie also adds Stagehand must-cover coaching and a post-take Take Coach.
They are close, and both are one-time purchases. Tellie Pro is $29 once with a free teleprompter tier and a 10-day Pro trial (no card); Moody is $39 once as published. Price is not the real lever here: it is word-level following and coaching versus Moody's focused simplicity. Check the latest prices before you buy.
“It truly is a magnificent app.”
Sprague Theobald · Emmy-winning writer and producer
Download Tellie free and run your own script: it follows the words you say and flags the ones you are about to skip. Ten days of Pro on the house, no card.
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