What does a crew call sheet template have to get right?
A crew call sheet template is a list of positions before it is a list of people. The 2nd AC, the best boy, the medic and the two drivers are on it because the job needs them, and on the evening the sheet is built some of those slots are still empty, one has changed hands since the prep meeting, and four more names will arrive at nine at night. That is the part a blank layout does not help with, and it is what separates the four tools below. StudioBinder publishes three named layouts and fills them from a shooting schedule it also holds. SetHero publishes the fields a crew sheet actually needs, down to walkie channels by department. Celtx starts further upstream, at the script. Mustyn, which we make, holds the crew as records rather than as rows in a grid, and has nothing upstream at all. Below, what each vendor publishes on its own pages, read on September 13, 2026, and three situations where the difference decides. One of the three goes elsewhere.
Which one, by situation
On most crewed jobs the call sheet is not where the day is decided. The 1st AD decides it, in a schedule, and the 2nd AD turns that into sixty individual call times the evening before. Whether those two documents live in the same place is the difference between an evening of transcription and an evening of checking. StudioBinder holds both: its template page says the sheet is "automatically filled with video production essentials like weather updates, map links, shoot schedules, and scene number references", and that the auto-fill "includes the shooting schedule, cast list, and locations". Celtx sits even further upstream, running from the script into scheduling, and is the other name worth opening if this is the reason you are looking. SetHero does not close it either, and its own page is precise about the direction: it describes a Movie Magic Scheduling exporter and "Export MMS data to Excel in seconds", not a schedule coming in. Mustyn has nothing upstream at all. There is no script breakdown in it, no shooting schedule, no stripboard, no shot list, no storyboard, so there is no document inside it that knows what tomorrow's work is, and the call times arrive by import from a file somebody sends, from the contact book, or by typing. On a job where the schedule is genuinely built and kept current, that is a real difference and it goes one way.
A crew sheet is a list of jobs before it is a list of names, and on the evening it is built some of those jobs are unresolved. The second AC is being confirmed. The medic came from an agency and the agency has not said who. A driver dropped out at six and the replacement is a phone call somebody is still making. The sheet cannot wait for any of that, because sixty people need to know where to be. In Mustyn the assignment of a person to a position on a shoot is its own record, separate from the person, so a position exists on the sheet whether or not anybody is in it yet, and filling it later changes that record rather than rewriting the page. The check that runs before anyone receives anything is looking at exactly this kind of gap, and the sheet is versioned, so the name that arrives at eleven goes out as a correction rather than as a second document. Of the three other pages read here, StudioBinder describes a configurable Department Layout and a dual-column crew grid, SetHero names the fields a crew sheet carries down to walkie channels by department, and Celtx describes tiers rather than sheets. What any of them does with a position nobody is in yet is not described on those pages, which is a statement about them on the day they were read and not a claim about what those products can do. It is a fair thing to put in a trial, in the plainest form: put an empty role on the sheet, and see what the tool does with it.
Crew lists grow late. Two more grips get added when the rig changes, a runner is hired at nine, and somebody's agent finally sends the number. The question then is narrow and practical: can those four be given the sheet without the sixty who already have it receiving anything at all. In Mustyn each send is its own record rather than a line in one broadcast, and each person reads the sheet from a personal link with no account to create, so adding four people is four sends, tracked individually, and nobody else's phone lights up. Be exact about what is and is not ours here, because tracking itself is not: SetHero publishes more of it than we describe, saying you "see who has opened their call sheet and how many times they've viewed it" and flagging it when an "email or text message bounces or fails to be delivered", and StudioBinder tracks delivery, views and confirmations too. Knowing who opened the sheet is a shared property and it is not the point of this situation. What is narrower, and what none of the three other pages read here describes, is what happens to the people who already have it when the list grows, which is a statement about those pages on the day they were read. The honest caution on this one is the same as everywhere else on this page: whatever arrives, arrives by email and by link, because there is no SMS channel here at all.
StudioBinder
Not readable on September 13, 2026studiobinder.com/pricing returned a 301 to app.studiobinder.com/pricing, whose plans render in JavaScript.The one that answers the template question in public, and the one whose sheet is filled by something else it holds. Its templates page publishes three named layouts: a Feature Film Call Sheet Template, "Detailed and easy to read", "built for feature films, television shows, commercials, and large-scale video production", which it describes as carrying a "Dual-column crew grid" and "Department notes"; a Simple Call Sheet Template, "Clean and efficient", "ideal for quick-turnaround shoots like interviews, documentaries, and digital content"; and a Photoshoot Call Sheet Template, for "creative teams and video agencies". The crew side is configurable rather than fixed, with a Department Layout that lets you organise "the crew members and departments as you see fit". The pay-off is stated on the template page itself: sheets arrive "automatically filled with video production essentials like weather updates, map links, shoot schedules, and scene number references", and what the auto-fill pulls in "includes the shooting schedule, cast list, and locations". Sheets "are sent electronically via email and SMS text", and delivery, views and confirmations are tracked. On access it is unambiguous: "StudioBinder is and will forever be free to access and use."
The word template does not mean here what a search for it usually means: the layouts live inside the product and registration comes before any of them, so there is no blank file to hand to somebody. The auto-fill is a debt rather than a gift, because everything it pulls in has to have been entered upstream, which makes the shooting schedule, the cast list and the locations database the actual price of the filled-in sheet. And what a plan costs is not readable: studiobinder.com/pricing returned a 301 to app.studiobinder.com/pricing on the day this page was read, and that page renders its plans in JavaScript.
SetHero
Not readable on September 13, 2026sethero.com/pricing served "Pricing loading…" and renders its plans in JavaScript.The narrowest of the four and the most specific about what a crew sheet contains. Its promise is "Damn good call sheets in 20 minutes", and the loop is one line: "Craft professional call sheets with our drag-and-drop editor", then "Send instantly via text, email, and PDF." The fields are the ones a 2nd AD actually fills, named on the page rather than left to a generic block: you "List your cast members and their key times like pickup, arrival, makeup, and blocking", there are sections for "extras, standins or doubles", and you can "list walkie channel assignments for departments", which is a detail no other page read here mentions at all. Crew details are kept between jobs, "Keep all your cast & crew information together. It's easy to spin up a new project and be collaborating with your team in just minutes." Tracking goes further than delivery: "See who has confirmed their call time", "see who has opened their call sheet and how many times they've viewed it", and the system flags it when an "email or text message bounces or fails to be delivered". It publishes a figure about its own use: "Over 301,412 personalized call sheets published".
Its own /call-sheet-template URL returned a 404 on the day this page was read, so the template a search sends you looking for is not where the address suggests. The schedule question is answered in one direction only: the page describes a Movie Magic Scheduling exporter and "Export MMS data to Excel in seconds", and it does not describe pulling a schedule in, so the call times still arrive by hand from wherever the day was planned. And nothing about what it costs could be read: sethero.com/pricing served "Pricing loading…" and renders its plans in JavaScript.
Celtx
Not readable on September 13, 2026celtx.com/pricing.html names its tiers but renders the figures in JavaScript.The one that starts furthest upstream, with a chain that runs from the script through scheduling, which is the part that decides what a crew is called for in the first place. It names its tiers in public: Free, Writer, Writer Pro, Team, Education and Student. There is a free tier, and the page offers to "Get Started with a 7-Day Free Trial of Celtx. At the end of your trial you'll have the option to upgrade or to stay free." For a school or a course, the education tier is sized in seats rather than projects.
The figures are not on the page in a form a reader can quote: the tiers are named, a yearly "Save 25%" is advertised and the Student plan is described as "over 75% off regular price", and the amounts themselves render in JavaScript, with Education and Student sent to sales. The free tier is one project and one seat, which is a shape that suits trying the product rather than running two jobs at once. And a crew call sheet is a long way downstream of what this is built around.
Mustynours
$0, then $15 for 1 day, up to $149 / monthBy shoot day published, not by seat and not by crew size. Published on the page.The crew here is held as records rather than as rows in a grid: a person is assigned to a position on a shoot, the team is structured by department, vendor companies are attached to the shoot alongside the people, and a contact book carries between jobs so the same twelve names are not retyped. The sheet is composed from sections you arrange, with free blocks for whatever the form did not anticipate, and it is kept as a reusable template for the next job. A sheet imported from an existing Excel file or PDF is modelled as a piece of analysis rather than a paste. Each person gets their own page, served per recipient, opened from a personal link with no account and nothing to install, and the sheet is versioned, so it corrects and goes back out instead of being frozen. Each send is its own record, so delivery is tracked one envelope at a time. Around it sit the day's weather, the nearest emergency room for the location, an address lookup, a resolved time zone, a check that runs before anyone receives anything, a review step somebody else can hold, a PDF export and a calendar export. Prices are on the pricing page, with both billing bases side by side: Free at "$0" with "5, for life" shoot days and one seat; Studio at "$41 / month" billed annually or "$49 / month" billed monthly, with "60 the day you sign" then "5 a month, they stack up", and three seats; Company at "$124 / month" annually or "$149 / month" monthly, with "240 the day you sign" then "20 a month, they stack up", and unlimited seats. Day packs are "$15" for 1 day, "$39" for 3 and "$109" for 10, valid 24 months. The unit is printed in one sentence, "A Day is one shoot day published to its team for the first time", and the page says the crew receiving sheets "are never seats, and never billed".
The crew-sheet fields are generic where SetHero's are named. Sections and free blocks will hold walkie channels, a stand-in, or a cast pickup time, and none of those is a field the product knows by that name, so the shape is yours to build rather than one the tool already understands. There is no SMS channel: no messaging provider is wired in, so the sheet travels by email and by link, and a crew that only reads texts is a crew this does not reach. There is no native app on either phone store, and no identity or device tables behind one, so it is a website on a phone rather than something installed. And there is no pre-production suite around it: no script breakdown, no shooting schedule, no stripboard, no shot list, no storyboard, so nothing upstream exists to say what tomorrow's work is.
How we checked
- 01Each vendor's claims were read on that vendor's own pages on September 13, 2026: the StudioBinder free call sheet template page and its call sheet templates page, sethero.com and its call sheets feature page, celtx.com/pricing.html, and our own pricing page. Where a URL returned a 404 or a redirect, that is reported as what came back.
- 02Three of the four tools here did not serve a readable price that day. StudioBinder redirects its pricing page to its app and renders plans in JavaScript; SetHero's pricing page served a loading message and renders its plans the same way; Celtx names its tiers and renders the figures in JavaScript. That is reported as what the pages answered, not as a judgement about the vendors, and no figure is carried over from our own older pages.
- 03Our own pricing page served both billing bases that day, a monthly figure for annual billing beside a monthly figure for monthly billing, so all four are quoted here with the basis attached. An earlier page on this site declined to quote the two annual-basis figures because that basis had not been established at the time.
- 04What a vendor says its product does is that vendor's claim, attributed here rather than confirmed by use. There is no first-hand use of the three other products behind this page.
- 05Where this page says a vendor's page does not describe something, that is a statement about the pages listed above on the day they were read. It is not a claim about what those products can do, and the two are easy to confuse.
- 06The number SetHero publishes about its own use is reproduced as the vendor's claim. Nothing here tests it.
- 07The description of Mustyn comes from its own code and its own rendered pricing page rather than from a feature list.
- 08The date above is when these pages were read, not when this page was published. Tools in this category change their pages without notice.