Both live in the MacBook notch and stay invisible on a shared screen. The real split is how they follow you: Tellie tracks the words you actually say, while NotchPrompter scrolls to the sound of your voice. NotchPrompter is free and open-source; Tellie has a free tier and a one-time $29 Pro. Here is the honest breakdown, including where NotchPrompter is the better pick.
Free to try as a teleprompter. 10 days of Pro on the house, no card.
NotchPrompter is a free, open-source notch prompter, available on GitHub and the Mac App Store, and like most prompters it does sound-paced scrolling: it moves while it hears you talking and pauses 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 →
NotchPrompter displays your script and hides on a call, and for free that is genuinely a lot. What a free viewer cannot do is notice what you actually said. Tellie can. Mark your must-cover sections and key points, and Stagehand ticks each one off as you make it, in any words, and flags the ones about to run out of time. At the end, Take Coach scores the take and points to the one fix worth making. It is the gap between a prompter that shows your notes and one that makes sure you land them. All on-device.
Both are native Mac notch teleprompters that hide on screen share. Here is where they diverge. Prices as published by each maker; check the latest before you buy.
| Feature | Tellie | NotchPrompter |
|---|---|---|
| Follows your voice | Word-level: your actual words | Sound-paced: scrolls while you talk |
| Lives in the MacBook notch | Yes | Yes |
| Invisible on screen share | Yes | Yes |
| Must-cover coaching | Yes: Stagehand + Take Coach | No |
| Multiple monitors | Yes | Yes |
| Open-source | No | Yes |
| Price | Free tier · Pro $29 once | Free & open-source |
The honest summary: Tellie leads on word-level following and must-cover coaching; NotchPrompter is the strongest free, open-source option in the category. See the full field guide →
NotchPrompter is a genuinely good app, and $0 plus open-source is real value. If you want a free, open-source notch prompter that scrolls to your voice, you can have it today, inspect the source, and pay nothing. If you specifically want the OpenDyslexic font for easier reading, or you like its multi-monitor layout and flexible positioning, and you do not need word-level following or coaching, NotchPrompter is an excellent free choice.
Pick Tellie if what matters most is a prompter that follows the words you actually say, tells you when you are about to skip the point you came to make, and coaches you to land your key points. Tellie has a free tier too; word-level Voice Follow and Stagehand are the one-time $29 Pro.
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 Pro. NotchPrompter is the pick if you want a free, open-source prompter and do not need word-level following or coaching. Both are native Mac notch prompters that hide on screen share.
How they follow your voice. NotchPrompter scrolls to the sound of you talking; 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. NotchPrompter is free and open-source; Tellie adds word-level Voice Follow and Stagehand coaching in a one-time $29 Pro.
Yes. NotchPrompter is free and open-source, available on GitHub and the Mac App Store, and it is the strongest free notch prompter in the category. Tellie also has a free tier that is a complete teleprompter; word-level Voice Follow, Stagehand, and the Companion are the Pro upgrade, a one-time $29 with a 10-day trial and no card.
“It truly is a magnificent app.”
Sprague Theobald · Emmy-winning writer and producer
Download Tellie free and read a take. Word-level Voice Follow and Stagehand are the Pro upgrade, switched on for 10 days with no card, so you can feel the difference before you decide.
Download TellieMore: Best teleprompter for Mac · The full field guide · Tellie Pro