Telos vs. WriterDuet: AI in the project or real-time co-writing
by Telos
WriterDuet is the better choice if you write with a partner and want to spend little: it has a free plan, subscriptions from $9.99 to $13.99 a month, and, according to its own help center, only one co-writer needs to pay for both of you to write together in real time. Telos costs more and solves a different problem: AI that writes and reads your script from the whole project — world, characters, structure, setups and voice. Both handle Final Draft and Fountain, so you can combine them.
| WriterDuet | Telos | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free for up to 3 projects (one document per project); Plus $9.99/month, Pro $11.99/month, Premium $13.99/month; yearly billing is cheaper ($89.88, $107.88 and $125.88 a year) | $49/month + tax where applicable, with 750 credits a month for AI actions |
| Platforms | Any web browser; desktop app from Plus up | Web app |
| AI | We found no generative-AI writing features on its official plan pages; Premium lists "AutoTranslate" and "ReadAloud" without describing them | Claude, by Anthropic: writes from the world, characters, structure and voice you built, and reads the whole script, quoting the passage behind every finding |
| Collaboration | Real-time co-writing; per its plan page, unlimited collaboration starts on Plus (Free allows read-only collaborators); only one co-writer has to pay | A reading link where the studio leaves notes without creating an account (vertical drama) |
| Import and export | "Common formats (Final Draft, Fountain, PDF, and more)," per its plan page | Imports Final Draft (.fdx), Fountain, PDF and plain text; exports PDF, Final Draft (.fdx) and Fountain |
| Formats | Not stated; Pro adds custom formatting and templates | Feature film, TV series, vertical drama and short film |
| Interface languages | Not stated | English and Portuguese; the work can be written in English or Portuguese |
What's the difference between Telos and WriterDuet?
WriterDuet is a screenwriting editor designed for writing together. Two people open the same document and write in real time; according to its help center, only one co-writer needs a paid subscription, and free collaborators can edit the shared project. The plans layer on page tools: a desktop app, chat and notifications on Plus; custom formatting and templates, revision tracking, script shortening and Typewriter Mode on Pro; history you can view and restore, "AutoTranslate," MultiColumn tools and "ReadAloud" on Premium. We found no generative-AI writing features on its official plan pages.
Telos organizes something else: the project. The world, the characters and their arcs, the structure, the setups that haven't paid off yet and your authorial voice live in a system and enter every AI generation, without you pasting anything back. The AI writes scenes, treatments, step outlines and episodes from that material, and you decide what stays.
In one line: WriterDuet organizes people writing together; Telos organizes the project and the AI working inside it.
When is WriterDuet the better choice?
- You write with a partner or a room. Real-time co-writing is the core of WriterDuet, and the one-person-pays model keeps a partnership cheap. Telos doesn't present itself as a real-time co-writing tool.
- Your budget is tight. There's a free plan, and Plus costs $9.99 a month — about a fifth of Telos's $49. Telos has no free plan: the system opens once the subscription is active.
- You don't want AI writing for you. We found no generative-AI writing features on WriterDuet's official plan pages: you write, and it formats and organizes.
- You want a desktop app. It comes with Plus and up. Telos is a web app.
- You need page tools. Revision tracking, script shortening and custom templates are on Pro, at $11.99 a month.
When is Telos the better choice?
- Your bottleneck isn't writing together, it's holding the story. Across a 110-page feature or a 60-episode season, what slips is continuity. In Telos, what you decided enters every generation on its own.
- You want AI writing from your material. Your authorial voice is compiled from what you've written. And every character is an agent: ask one to disagree with a line and it comes back with the scene rewritten and its reasons.
- You want notes backed by evidence. Every structural finding quotes the passage from your script behind it; where something can't be measured, it says "not measured."
- You want to test paths without losing any. One branch per hypothesis, like Git: two endings live side by side, and when one wins, the merge brings over what matters.
- You write across formats. Eleven phases for a feature; the season as the unit for a series; a running-time target per episode for vertical drama — see our guide to writing a vertical drama.
- You want to know the cost up front. Every AI action shows its price before you click. The providers Telos calls, Anthropic and OpenAI, are bound not to train models on what goes through their API, and Telos doesn't use your writing to train anything. Details on pricing.
Can you use both?
Yes. Per its plan page, WriterDuet imports and exports Final Draft, Fountain and PDF. Telos imports Final Draft (.fdx), Fountain, PDF and plain text — character aliases merge on their own — and exports to PDF, Final Draft (.fdx) and Fountain.
Two setups that work:
- Co-write in WriterDuet, read and develop in Telos. The team writes the first draft in WriterDuet, exports .fdx or Fountain, and imports it into Telos for the structural read and the next draft.
- Develop in Telos, polish together in WriterDuet. You build the world, characters and structure in Telos, write with the AI, export, and take the file into a rewrite session with your partner.
The two tools solve different problems, and the file moves between them.
Sources
- WriterDuet help center, choosing a subscription: https://help.writerduet.com/article/231-choose-the-best-subscription-for-you
- WriterDuet, pricing: https://writerduet.com/pricing/
- WriterDuet help center, sharing your project: https://www.writerduet.com/article/149-invite-collaborators-to-a-project
- Telos, home page (Telos at a glance): https://www.telos.guru/en
- Telos, pricing: https://www.telos.guru/en/pricing
Prices and features checked on the official pages on Oct 16, 2026.
Written with AI assistance, from the sources cited.