Annotely — free screenshot annotation in the browser

• Annotely

  This page

  CostAnnotely leads

  • Free, with no paid tier listed
  • No account, no card, no trial clock
  • Funded by donations

• Monosnap

  CostAnnotely leads

  • Free tier alongside paid plans
  • Sign-in for the cloud side
  • An enterprise plan sits in the nav

• Markup Hero

  CostAnnotely leads

  • Free plan alongside paid tiers
  • Apps for Mac, Windows, Linux, and the web
  • Paid tiers add team features

1. Annotely — official site
2. Annotely — the browser editor and its markup tools
3. Annotely — project story and local-processing approach
4. Annotely — changelog, including offline mode
5. Monosnap — official site
6. Markup Hero — official site

Free tier

Yes

Pricing summary

Annotely is free with no paid tier, no account, and no credit card: the editor, every markup tool, image export, and the multi-slide how-to editor are all unlocked from the first page load. There is no pricing page on the site at all. Instead it is funded by donations through Buy Me a Coffee and Ko-Fi, and because annotation runs in your own browser there is no storage or compute bill for the operator to pass on. That is the honest trade: you are not a customer with a support contract, you are a user of a free tool. The practical cost is elsewhere—the project is a long-running side project, and pages such as the privacy policy are hosted documents rather than a commercial service agreement. Confirm the current state on the official site before you standardize a team on it.

Reviewed on 19 September 2026 · Annotely — official site

• Thirteen markup tools in one palette

  Arrow, line, polyline, ellipse, rectangle, highlight, freehand path, blur, spot, zoom, numbered pin, text, note, image, and crop. The editor also exposes color and stroke-size controls plus simple and fancy background styles.

• Blur and spot for redacting a screenshot

  Blur softens a region and the spot marker dims everything around a point, which is what makes the tool usable for hiding names, tokens, or customer data before a screenshot is shared externally.

• Numbered pins for step-by-step instructions

  Pins auto-increment, so a single screenshot can carry a numbered sequence instead of a paragraph explaining where to click first.

• A multi-slide how-to editor

  Add and duplicate slides, reorder markers, and crop inside a slide to assemble a short visual tutorial rather than a pile of separate annotated images.

• Six ways to get an image in

  Drag and drop, paste from the clipboard, pick a local file, pull a direct URL, grab a frame from the camera, or capture the screen through the browser’s own capture APIs.

• Screen capture without an extension

  Native capture uses the browser’s media and streams support, so there is nothing to install to grab a window or a tab.

• Export, clipboard, or publish a link

  Download the finished image, copy it straight to the clipboard, or publish it to get a shareable link — the one action that deliberately sends data to a server.

• A genuine offline mode

  Since version 2.13.2 the editor can import, annotate, and export with no network connection at all, which is what makes it usable in restricted or air-gapped environments.

1. 1

   Open the editor — no account needed

   Go straight to the editor and start. There is no sign-up wall, no email confirmation, and no card, which is why it works for a one-off task.

2. 2

   Get your image in

   Drag and drop it, paste from the clipboard, choose a file, paste a direct image URL, take a webcam frame, or capture the screen through the browser.

3. 3

   Mark it up

   Pick a tool from the palette — arrow and rectangle for callouts, highlight to draw the eye, note and text for explanation, pin to number a sequence.

4. 4

   Redact before you share

   Blur anything sensitive in the same pass rather than exporting twice. Blur and spot are the two markers built for hiding detail instead of pointing at it.

5. 5

   Export, or publish if you need a link

   Download or copy the image for private use. Press Publish only when you actually want a hosted link — that is the point where the file leaves your browser.

6. 6

   Add slides for a longer walkthrough

   For more than one screen of instructions, add and duplicate slides and let the numbered pins carry the reader from step to step.

• Support and QA teams

  File a bug with a marked-up screenshot instead of a written description, and blur customer data in the same pass so the ticket is safe to forward.

• Product and brand designers

  Circle, arrow, and number a build to give feedback that survives a handoff, without opening a design tool for a five-second note.

• Technical writers and educators

  Build multi-slide how-tos with numbered pins, then export the set as the images a documentation page or course needs.

• Anyone in a restricted environment

  Because annotation runs locally and an offline mode exists, screenshots from internal systems can be marked up without an upload step — and without a vendor account to request.

Browser-only, spanning every major platform

There is no install. The editor is listed as working in Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Opera, and Edge, on Windows, Linux, macOS, iOS, and Android — and the same editor loads on a phone as on a desktop.

What leaves your machine, and when

The project describes local processing: nothing is sent to a server without a user action, and annotation itself happens in the tab. The deliberate exception is Publish, which uploads the finished image to mint a share link — so treat publishing as the moment a file leaves your device.

Offline mode is real

The changelog records an offline mode added in version 2.13.2: import, annotate, and export with no network connection. That is the strongest privacy claim the product makes, and it is verifiable by simply disconnecting.

Images only — no PDF or website markup

The editor loads a local image, a URL, the camera, or a screen capture. It does not annotate PDFs or live web pages, so it is not a drop-in substitute for a document markup tool.

Release cadence

The changelog is long-running and incremental — it starts from a 2010 Flash-era tool called szoter, was rewritten to modern JavaScript in 2019, and the most recent entry, version 2.13.8, landed in January 2025. Expect a stable, slow-moving product rather than a fast roadmap.

How the project is funded

The site carries no pricing page. Support runs through donation links to Buy Me a Coffee and Ko-Fi, and the codebase is presented as a solo side project rather than a company with a support organization.

Legal and consent

Privacy Policy, Terms of Service, Acceptable Use, and Cookies documents are published as embedded third-party policy documents alongside a consent-preferences control, and the site loads Google Tag Manager. Read those documents for the current consent and analytics position before rolling the tool out.

Publisher

Annotely is published under its own name rather than a registered company; the site is reachable through a contact form and the @annotely account on X.