Native for Mac · In active development

Unlimited editing. One flat Rooster price.

Rooster is a transcript-first video editor for Mac. Record, transcribe, edit, caption and export as much as you like. Your Rooster bill won’t grow with your workload.

Get notified at launchSee how it works

Rooster is in active development and not released yet. Built for Apple silicon Macs running macOS 26 or newer.

Rooster's editor. The transcript pane on the left, the canvas showing the speaker in front of a warm Green Screen gradient, and the filmstrip timeline below with the playhead at 0:55 and the transcript's sentences as chips beneath the waveform.

No media-minute limits

Record, transcribe, edit, caption and export as much as you like. Your Rooster bill won’t grow with your workload.

Local by default

Transcription starts the second you stop recording, on your own processor and Neural Engine. No queue, no sync, and it still works on a plane.

Files you keep

Projects are files on your Mac. No account is needed to open your own work, and no library sits behind a storage cap if you stop paying.

Three steps

Record, edit by transcript and export

Three steps from a rough take to a finished video, without a Rooster meter running underneath them.

Your original recordings are never rewritten.

  1. Record or import

    Camera, screen or both, straight into a Rooster project, with a teleprompter and framing guides when you want them.

  2. Edit the transcript

    The transcript appears as soon as recording stops. Click a word to seek. Select words and delete to cut the media. Correct a word without touching the picture.

  3. Export

    A finished video saved to Downloads, with captions on the picture or in a separate file. Everything renders on your Mac.

The core loop

Edit words, not timelines

Select words to find the matching moment, then delete them to cut the video. Correcting a word fixes the transcript without touching the recording. Text and timeline stay in sync, and Rooster keeps natural pauses at every join.

Rooster's transcript pane. Seven words are selected across a line break, and the pane header reads 7 words - 3.3s.
The transcript is the edit surface. Select words and the header says what they cost in seconds as well as words.
Rooster's filler-word review. Three sentences from a transcript, each with its filler word in bold and a timestamp, above a button reading Remove 3 (1.2s).
The same idea, applied for you: Rooster finds the fillers and says what cutting them costs, and nothing goes until you approve it.

In the app

What Rooster does

Everything from first recording to finished export, plus the tools to polish and reshape the result.

Recording suite

Record your camera, screen or both, with teleprompter, framing, resolution and countdown controls.

Local transcription

An NVIDIA Parakeet speech model runs privately on your Mac, in English and 24 other languages. Switch local engines or connect your own service when you need one.

Transcript editing

Click a word to find the moment. Delete words to cut the video, or correct the transcript without changing the recording.

AI cutting tools

Find filler words, long pauses and dead air, preview every suggestion and cut only what you approve.

Captions

Style captions in a live preview, burn them into the video or save a separate subtitle file.

Export

Export a finished video ready to publish, with captions on the picture or in a separate file. Save video, audio and transcripts to Downloads.

Polish, reframe and organise

More control when the first cut needs a little more work.

Rooster's Enhance panel. Six rows - Studio Sound, Eye Contact marked BETA, Green Screen, Remove filler words, Shorten long pauses, and Trim silence at the start and end - each with a line saying what it does.
One panel for both: the cutting tools from the row above, and the effects beside them. Every one runs on your Mac, and each says what it does before you run it.

Studio Sound

Clean up speech and compare the result with the original before you keep it.

Eye Contact

Correct eye line with Apple Vision, with A/B playback to check the result.

Green Screen

Remove the background, with controls for clean edges. Your canvas colour, or a layer behind you, shows through.

B-roll and layered media

Add, trim and position B-roll and music, with automatic speech ducking.

Vertical and square canvases

Reframe an edit for landscape, vertical or square video, with safe-area guides.

Timeline and projects

Trim, reorder and undo, with projects stored as files on your Mac.

See every featureSee how Rooster works

Unlimited, structurally

Why your Rooster bill stays flat

Every unlimited offer invites the question: what is the catch? Here the answer is structural. Transcription, effects, preview and export all run on your own processor, so Rooster does not need to charge by the minute or the action. Cloud editors work the other way round: their costs rise with every minute and every AI action, which is why their plans are built around media minutes and credit balances. Descript’s paid plans, read from its pages on 14 August 2026, run $16 to $65 a month with both meters underneath.

Planned launch pricing is $12.99 a month or $99 a year, with a $249 lifetime licence on the direct download. The price stays the same however much you record, edit and export.

See the pricing pageRead the meter arithmetic

Before you decide

Compared honestly

See how the leading tools compare on workflow, pricing and limits. Every price links to the vendor page it was read from, with the date.

Alternatives

Descript alternatives

Seven real Descript alternatives compared by the job you need done, with metering, platforms and pricing checked against each vendor's own page in August 2026.

Head to head

Descript vs Riverside

A straight comparison of Descript and Riverside for podcasters: recording, text-based editing, meters, pricing and where each falls down. Checked August 2026.

Alternatives

Loom alternatives

Six real Loom alternatives compared by the job you need done - share links, polished demos, free tools, full editing - each with a dated price from the vendor.

See every comparison

The essentials

Questions about Rooster

What does unmetered mean?
No media-minute limits. No top-ups. No overage maths. Record a short clip or a two-hour episode - your Rooster bill stays the same.
How does transcript-first editing work?
Rooster turns speech into a transcript. Select words and delete them to cut the matching video, or correct the text without touching the recording. Reading replaces most of the hunting and trimming on a timeline.
What does Rooster cost?
Rooster’s planned launch prices are $12.99 a month, $99 a year, or a $249 lifetime licence with a year of updates. The pricing page explains each option.
Can I connect external AI tools?
Yes. Connect your own OpenAI-compatible transcription service or use fal.ai to generate B-roll. These services are optional, use your own provider account and are billed separately.
Which Macs does Rooster support?
Apple silicon Macs running macOS 26 or newer. Transcription and local effects use Apple’s Neural Engine, which is why the requirement is that specific.

Writing

From the blog

Notes on transcript-first editing and what cloud editors actually charge.

Read the blog