The Best MarkUp.io Alternative for Agencies (No Install & No Sign-up)

The Hidden Cost of Client Feedback: Why $70/mo is Hurting Your Agency

Most feedback tools were built for enterprise marketing teams with bottomless budgets, and that pricing assumption creates real problems for the rest of us. For a freelancer or a boutique agency, paying $70+ every month for what should be a "simple" feedback tool eats directly into your project margins, margins that were already tight before you started adding subscription fees for every piece of software in your workflow. Over a year, that's over $800 spent just to get a client to say "make the logo bigger," and when you add up all the other tools you're paying for, the overhead starts feeling like a second employee who doesn't actually do any work.

Commentblocks was built by a former agency owner who realized that the final 10% of a project (the feedback loop) is where money is either made or lost. I've watched agencies burn entire profit margins on revision cycles that dragged on for weeks because clients couldn't figure out how to leave feedback, or because the feedback they left was so scattered across emails, Slack messages, and screenshots that nobody could keep track of what had actually been addressed. We priced our tool at $14/month specifically so you can keep your overhead low without sacrificing a professional workflow, because the feedback tool shouldn't cost more than some of the projects it's being used for.

The Markup.io Alternative That Respects Your Budget

You loved the simplicity of proxy-based visual feedback: paste a URL, generate a shareable link, collect client comments without asking anyone to install anything. The workflow was clean, clients actually used it, and for a while the pricing made sense for agencies that weren't running enterprise-scale operations. But the January 2025 pricing update that raised the Pro plan from $29 to $79 per month changed your calculation entirely, and suddenly you found yourself justifying an expense that had tripled without delivering three times the value.

That 172% increase didn't come with 172% more value for agencies who were using the tool for straightforward client feedback workflows, and if you're like most agencies I've talked to, you weren't using the PDF annotation features or the video review capabilities. You were using it for websites, which is what you needed, and paying for a bunch of features you'd never touch. Suddenly the tool you'd built into your project pricing was eating into margins that were already tight, and the math that had made sense at $29/month simply didn't work at $79/month. Switch to the feedback tool that offers the same zero-installation architecture without the premium price tag, and keep more of what you earn.

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The Core Difference: Same Architecture, Different Priorities

When you analyze Markup.io's technical approach, you're looking at a tool that was first to offer proxy-based visual feedback and proved that you could collect client comments on live websites without requiring browser extensions, JavaScript snippets, or any installation whatsoever. This approach hadn't been tried before when it launched in 2020 and has since attracted over 350,000 users who appreciate the simplicity of pasting a URL and generating a shareable feedback link. The proxy architecture means clients click a link, see their website rendered through Markup.io's servers, and can immediately drop comments on specific elements without modifying their browser or understanding any technical concepts, which solved a real problem for agencies tired of having the "can you install this Chrome extension?" conversation with clients who either couldn't or wouldn't. Markup.io earned its position by validating that visual feedback could be friction-free for clients, and the platform's support for multiple asset types including images, PDFs, and videos means teams can consolidate feedback across different formats in a single tool.

What drove many agencies to search for alternatives was a combination of the January 2025 pricing change and accumulated frustrations with gaps that became more apparent as teams scaled their use of the platform. The jump from $29/month to $79/month represented a 172% increase that landed without proportional feature improvements for the agencies who were using Markup.io primarily for straightforward website feedback. The additional cost wasn't buying additional value for teams who didn't need the full breadth of asset types the platform supports. Beyond pricing, persistent issues around comment management became more painful as projects accumulated feedback threads: resolved comments get buried in growing lists that become increasingly difficult to navigate, and finding specific feedback across multiple projects requires more clicking and searching than it should. The mobile experience, while functional, also felt like an afterthought compared to the desktop workflow, which mattered as more client feedback shifted to phones and tablets where busy stakeholders actually review work.

Commentblocks shares the same proxy-based architectural foundation that made Markup.io successful but addresses the pain points that have emerged as agencies scaled their use and confronted the new pricing reality. We offer the same zero-installation experience (paste any URL, generate a feedback link, collect client comments without friction) but with flat-rate agency pricing that includes unlimited projects, unlimited team members, and unlimited guests at a predictable monthly cost that doesn't triple overnight. We've also prioritized mobile-first design from the beginning, recognizing that a significant portion of client feedback happens on phones during commutes and between meetings, and built comment management workflows that keep resolved feedback archived while focusing your attention on what actually needs action. The transition from Markup.io to Commentblocks is particularly smooth because the core experience is familiar: both tools use proxy overlays to render feedback on any URL, so clients already comfortable with Markup.io's workflow will find Commentblocks immediately intuitive.

Why I Searched for an Alternative

My search started with the pricing change that landed in January 2025 and changed the value proposition I'd built into my agency pricing. I'd been using Markup.io for over two years at the $29/month price point, and that cost was baked into my project estimates and monthly overhead calculations. It was small enough to be effectively invisible, a utility fee that I didn't think about because the value clearly exceeded the price. When the Pro plan jumped to $79/month, I suddenly needed to justify an additional $600 per year for a tool that wasn't doing anything new, and that justification didn't hold up when I examined how I was actually using the platform. I primarily used Markup.io for website feedback from clients, rarely touched the PDF or image annotation features, and didn't use the Loom integration that was being positioned as a premium differentiator. The pricing increase felt like I was subsidizing features I didn't use, and the math no longer worked for my agency's margins.

Comment management had been mildly annoying at lower volume but became frustrating as I scaled across more projects, and the pricing change brought that pain into sharper focus. When you're managing 15-20 active client websites and each has 30-100 feedback threads at various stages of resolution, navigating through historical comments to find what you need becomes a productivity nightmare that defeats the purpose of using a feedback tool in the first place. Resolved comments don't disappear cleanly. They linger in growing lists that require scrolling and searching to work through, and the mental overhead of remembering which project contains which feedback adds friction to your daily workflow. I started noticing that team members were duplicating effort because finding existing feedback was harder than just leaving new comments, which is exactly the inefficiency that feedback tools are supposed to eliminate. At the original pricing, these workflow frictions were a mild annoyance; at the new pricing, they felt like problems I was paying premium prices to endure.

Mobile was another frustration I'd accumulated over months of use. The experience didn't match how my clients actually review websites in practice. Markup.io offers device emulation on desktop, where you can simulate how a site looks on mobile screen sizes, but that's not the same as actually reviewing on a phone where touch interaction, real viewport rendering, and the constraints of reviewing on a small screen while doing other things create a distinct experience. My clients aren't sitting at desks during extended review sessions; they're checking feedback requests on their phones during commutes, between meetings, and in the brief windows of attention that busy executives have throughout their days. The desktop-focused workflow meant clients reviewing on mobile encountered an experience that felt less polished, and some reverted to email feedback because the mobile web interface was cumbersome enough to discourage participation.

Integration limitations kept Markup.io siloed from my primary project management workflow. Integrations are limited to Zapier and Slack, which meant building custom automations to bridge feedback into my Asana-based task management system. Those automations required maintenance when Zapier connections broke and didn't provide the real-time two-way sync I wanted. Feedback that should have flowed automatically into actionable tasks instead required manual steps to transfer, and status updates in Asana didn't reflect back to Markup.io, which meant maintaining parallel tracking in two systems. For a tool at the new $79/month price point, I expected deeper native integrations that would eliminate manual overhead rather than creating it.

Evaluating Alternatives

With these pain points clearly defined by the pricing change that forced me to reevaluate, I spent several weeks evaluating alternatives before settling on Commentblocks. I wasn't looking to reinvent my workflow. Proxy-based feedback is the right architecture for client-facing work, and I was looking for a tool that executed that approach better while respecting my budget.

I spent time with Pastel, which also uses a proxy-based architecture and has been in the market long enough to have a solid reputation for reliability. The experience is similar to Markup.io in that you paste a URL, generate a shareable link, and clients can comment without installing anything, which meant the transition would have been smooth from a workflow perspective. However, Pastel's pricing model uses per-canvas limits that created friction I wasn't willing to accept. The Solo plan limits you to 3 premium canvases at $29/month, and scaling beyond that requires the $99/month Studio tier, which was higher than what I was already trying to escape from. I also noticed that Pastel's mobile experience, while functional, felt like a secondary consideration compared to desktop, which was one of the gaps I was specifically trying to address.

I also evaluated Ruttl, which attracted attention with aggressive pricing that starts at just $4 per user per month and impressive-sounding features like live CSS editing and real-time content changes. The budget-friendly positioning made it seem like an obvious win for agencies looking to reduce feedback tool costs after Markup.io's price hike. However, my evaluation surfaced reliability concerns: screenshots that didn't accurately capture what clients saw on screen, inconsistent behavior across browser configurations, and a general sense that the feature breadth came at the expense of core reliability. The per-user pricing model also meant costs would scale unpredictably as I added team members and client stakeholders, trading one pricing headache for another.

What these evaluations clarified was that I needed proxy-based architecture for zero-friction client access, flat-rate pricing for predictable costs, mobile-first design for how clients actually review, and reliable core functionality over feature breadth. Commentblocks checked all four boxes.

How Commentblocks Solves Each Pain Point

Flat-rate agency pricing directly addresses the budget concern that triggered my search and ensures I won't face another surprise price increase that forces tool reevaluation mid-year. Commentblocks charges a single monthly rate for unlimited projects, unlimited team members, and unlimited guests, which means my costs stay predictable regardless of how many clients I'm actively managing or how many stakeholders need access to feedback workflows. I no longer calculate whether a project "justifies" the feedback tool overhead. I just create projects and send feedback links because there's no marginal cost to using the tool for everything from a quick logo review to a full website rebuild. The pricing structure assumes agencies have variable project volumes and fluctuating team compositions, which is how agency economics actually work, rather than penalizing growth or collaboration. My finance team appreciates knowing the monthly cost won't change, and my project managers appreciate not having to justify tool access for each new project or stakeholder.

Mobile-first design addressed the gap I'd felt in Markup.io's desktop-focused approach by ensuring feedback works identically regardless of what device clients use to review our work. Because Commentblocks uses the same proxy architecture, mobile clients see their website rendered at their device's native resolution with the feedback overlay adapted for touch interaction. They tap elements to leave comments, and the experience feels native to mobile rather than like a desktop interface squeezed onto a smaller screen. I started capturing more feedback from stakeholders who review on phones because the experience no longer felt like a compromise compared to desktop. The device and resolution metadata attached to each comment tells developers exactly what viewport size clients were reviewing at, which eliminates the guesswork around responsive issues that previously required follow-up questions. Mobile feedback went from something I hoped clients would avoid to something I actively encourage because the experience is good enough to support it.

Comment management keeps my dashboard focused on active feedback rather than drowning me in historical threads I've already addressed. Resolved comments archive cleanly, the active feedback list shows what actually needs attention, and finding specific feedback across projects doesn't require scrolling through everything I've ever received. The workflow is designed around the reality that agencies accumulate significant feedback volume over time and need tools that surface what's actionable rather than displaying everything chronologically. I spend less time navigating my feedback tool and more time acting on the feedback it contains, which is how the productivity math should work. The search and filtering capabilities make finding historical feedback straightforward when I need it, while keeping day-to-day operation focused on current priorities.

Integrations connect feedback to my existing project management workflow without requiring me to build and maintain custom Zapier automations that break when I least expect them. Feedback flows into my task management system with the technical metadata developers need (browser, resolution, device type, exact URL) attached as part of the task details. Status changes sync automatically, which means I'm not maintaining parallel tracking in multiple systems or manually updating feedback statuses after marking tasks complete in my PM tool. The integration depth makes feedback feel like a natural input to my existing workflow rather than a parallel system that requires context-switching and manual synchronization.

How "Zero-Installation" Actually Works

When we say "zero installation," we mean it for both you and your client. There's no JavaScript snippets to clutter your staging site's <head> with extra scripts that you'll inevitably forget to remove before going live. There's no browser extensions that require your clients to install something, which matters enormously when your client is at a corporate office with restricted IT permissions and your feedback process grinds to a halt while you wait for someone to approve a Chrome extension. And there's no "security" hurdle where your client's IT team needs to review code you've added to their server. Since there's nothing to install on the server, there's no security review or approval phase required. You simply paste your URL into Commentblocks, and we create a collaborative layer on top of it.

The biggest reason feedback tools fail is that clients don't use them, and the biggest reason clients don't use them is the signup friction. Your clients don't want to create their 50th SaaS account just to give you five comments on a homepage redesign. They're already drowning in login credentials and password reset emails, and adding another account to manage feels like an imposition rather than a convenience. With Commentblocks, the barrier to entry is zero: you share a private link, the client opens it without any login required, they click on an element, type their name, and leave a comment. That's it. By removing the "Sign Up" wall, you get feedback faster, projects launch sooner, and you get paid earlier because you're not waiting two weeks for a client to find time to create an account and figure out a new interface.

Built for the Freelance Lifecycle: Pause, Don't Delete

Agency work is cyclical in ways that most SaaS pricing models don't acknowledge. You might have five active projects this month and none the next. That's not failure, that's just how client work ebbs and flows with proposal cycles, seasonal budgets, and the unpredictable timing of when projects actually kick off. Most "Pro" tools will delete your data or lock your projects the moment you stop paying, which means you lose access to feedback history you might need for a maintenance request six months later, or you're paying monthly fees during slow periods just to keep your archive accessible.

I think that approach is wrong, and Commentblocks offers generous pausing options that reflect how agency economics actually work. If you're between projects, you can pause your subscription without losing your history or your clients' previous comments. We keep your data safe until you're ready to start your next build. This isn't a workaround or a hack; it's a fundamental design decision based on understanding that agencies need tools that flex with their business cycles rather than punishing them for having slow months.

At a Glance: Markup.io vs. Commentblocks

The Verdict

I want to be specific about when staying with Markup.io still makes sense, because the tool does work well for certain workflows and the switching cost isn't zero even when both tools share similar architecture. Stick with Markup.io if you're actively using the multi-asset feedback capabilities for images, PDFs, and videos across your workflow and that format diversity is core to how you operate rather than incidental. Markup.io's breadth across asset types is real value that justifies higher pricing if you're using all of it. Markup.io also remains the right choice if you're deeply invested in the Loom integration for video feedback and that specific capability is central to how your clients communicate, or if you've already built automations around Markup.io's API that would be costly to rebuild. If the $79/month price point doesn't strain your budget and the mobile and comment management limitations haven't impacted your workflow much, the transition effort may not be worth the improvement.

Switch to Commentblocks if the January 2025 price hike broke your budget math and you need a tool that delivers the same zero-installation feedback experience at a price point that works for agency margins. If you primarily use proxy-based feedback for website reviews rather than multi-format asset annotation, if you've felt the friction of comment management on busy projects with extensive feedback history, if your clients review on mobile and deserve a first-class experience regardless of device, or if you're tired of maintaining Zapier workarounds for integrations that should be native, Commentblocks is the modern alternative that addresses these specific pain points. We share the same proxy-based architecture that made Markup.io successful, so the client experience transfers directly, but we've focused on the pricing, mobile, and workflow concerns that have emerged as agencies scaled their use and confronted the new pricing reality.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I import my Markup.io feedback history into Commentblocks?

Most tools don't support direct import, and Commentblocks is no exception. You can usually export feedback from Markup.io as a CSV or PDF, then manually reference it for ongoing projects. It's not automatic, but it's doable for recent projects, and honestly most agencies find that historical feedback becomes less relevant once a project launches. You're starting fresh with new feedback cycles anyway.

Is the transition confusing for clients who are used to Markup.io?

Transitions are smooth because both tools use the same basic approach: clients click a link, see their website rendered through a proxy overlay, and leave comments on specific elements. The interface is different but the mental model is identical, so clients who understood Markup.io will understand Commentblocks within seconds. I've migrated multiple teams and never had a client express confusion about the new tool.

What if I need PDF review capabilities?

If you need PDF annotation as part of your feedback workflow, Commentblocks isn't the right fit. We focus specifically on website feedback and do that one thing well rather than spreading across multiple asset types. For PDF-heavy workflows, Markup.io's multi-asset approach or dedicated tools like Adobe Acrobat's review features are better choices.

Does Commentblocks work with password-protected staging sites?

Yes. The proxy architecture handles authentication, so you can collect feedback on staging environments that require login credentials without exposing those credentials to clients. This matters for agencies working on sites that aren't publicly accessible yet.

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