# Storiara vs Croogloo: Prep Planning or Production Office Kits?

Source: https://storiara.com/compare/croogloo
Last updated: 2026-09-14
Author: Nick Harty, Storiara

> Croogloo and Storiara do different jobs. Croogloo is production office software sold as kits: sides for $19 a month, daily time reports for $99, and tracked email and SMS distribution for $999. Storiara is for planning the shoot from the script: AI breakdown, drag-and-drop stripboard, cast Day Out of Days, budget, and emailed call sheets. A funded series office may want Croogloo; a small indie still building its schedule needs Storiara.

People search for these two side by side because both show up when you look for "call sheet software", but they sit at opposite ends of prep. Storiara is where the schedule gets made. Croogloo is where the production office takes a finished schedule and script and turns them into sides, distributions and payroll paperwork. On a funded series you could see both in the same building, one on the AD's laptop and one on the coordinator's.

## What Croogloo sells

Croogloo's site is short, and its pricing page is plain about what you get:

| Kit | Price | Listed features |
|---|---|---|
| Side Kit | $19/month | Script breakdowns, sides, watermark, production templates and forms |
| Report Kit | $99/month | Everything in Side Kit, daily time reports, collated time reports, automated DPR grid, weekly timesheets |
| Distribution Kit | $999/month | Everything in Side Kit, production distribution, distribution tracking, distribution reports, text (SMS) distribution |

The help center fills in the detail. Sides can be pulled from one or several scripts by scene, character or location, laid out as a booklet or standard pages, and sorted by script order or shooting order. The distribution guides cover distribution lists, pairing cast members with their agents so both receive the right documents, inviting crew, sending as a link instead of an attachment, and an SMS broadcast. The Report Kit collects crew daily time reports and formats them for payroll.

Croogloo also says it is TPN certified, which studio productions often ask vendors about, and that indie and low-budget productions can request a personalized quote. Nothing on its public pages mentions stripboards, a Day Out of Days or a budget.

## What Storiara does instead

Storiara starts with a script upload in PDF, Word or Final Draft format. Scene headings are parsed straight from the sluglines, page length is measured in eighths from the PDF (a scene that starts halfway down page 14 and ends seven-eighths of the way down page 15 is 4/8 + 7/8, shown as "1 3/8"), and an AI pass extracts characters, extras, locations, props, wardrobe, and music and effects. From there:

1. You drag scenes into shoot days on the [stripboard](https://storiara.com/glossary/stripboard). The board blocks a drop that would push a day past the maximum length you set.
2. The cast [Day Out of Days](https://storiara.com/glossary/day-out-of-days) fills itself from the board with SW, W, WF, SWF, H and I codes. You can override any cell.
3. The budget calculates a top sheet from the rates on your cast, crew, equipment and locations, fills gaps from tier tables, and exports to Excel.
4. Each shoot day gets a call sheet with weather, cast, crew and location details, sent by email now or at a scheduled time, with one public link per day.

What Storiara doesn't have is the office layer Croogloo is built around: no SMS, no delivery tracking or read receipts, no crew time reports and no DPR.

## Sides: the one place they overlap

Sides are the clearest overlap, and Croogloo is the stronger tool for them. On a shoot day with scenes 12, 14 and 31, a coordinator in Croogloo can pull those three scenes in shooting order, watermark them, and send the booklet to the day's cast list and their agents in one pass.

In Storiara, the script panel prints a single scene's pages, all scenes, or the original script. You can print the pages for 12, 14 and 31 and attach them yourself, but there is no watermarking and no sides booklet.

For a four-day short with eight cast members, printing scenes from Storiara is fine. For a 22-episode series where sides go to 40 actors and their reps every night, Croogloo was built for that job.

## Distribution and why SMS matters

The Distribution Kit is $999 a month, and the price tells you who it is for: a production office that sends hundreds of documents a week and needs to prove who received the revised pages. Distribution tracking and reports are what a coordinator pulls up when a day player says they never got the call time change.

Storiara's call sheet emails are fine for small crews who check email. They are not a replacement for tracked distribution on a large show. If your crew list is past 50 people and changes daily, look at Croogloo's Distribution Kit or a call sheet tool with confirmations; the [digital vs PDF call sheets](https://storiara.com/blog/digital-call-sheets-vs-pdf) guide covers what to look for.

## Time reports and payroll

The Report Kit ($99 a month) is for the office side of payroll: crew fill out daily time reports, the office collates them, and the output is formatted for the payroll company, with weekly timesheets and a DPR grid. Storiara has nothing like this, since its job ends when the call sheet goes out. On a Storiara show, time cards and the DPR live in a spreadsheet or a payroll provider's app. Our [daily production report template](https://storiara.com/templates/daily-production-report) is a starting point if you are doing it by hand.

## Cost for a small indie

Take a 15-day indie with a producer, a 1st AD and a coordinator, eight weeks of prep and three weeks of shooting (about three months of software).

Storiara Producer for three people: $39.99 + (2 x $19.99) = $79.97 a month, or $239.91 for three months. That covers breakdown, board, DOOD, budget and call sheets.

Croogloo Side Kit for three months: 3 x $19 = $57. That covers sides and watermarking but not the schedule. If you add the Report Kit for the shooting month only, that is $99 more.

The two numbers aren't really competing, since they buy different work. A small production that already boards in a spreadsheet and only needs sides could get by on the Side Kit. A production without a schedule yet needs a planning tool first.

## Which to choose

Choose Croogloo if you run a production office on a series or studio feature, the schedule already exists, and your pain is sides, tracked distribution, SMS and time reports for payroll.

Choose Storiara if you are still turning a script into a schedule and budget, the team is small, and emailed call sheets with a shareable link are enough for your crew.

For other comparisons, the [compare hub](https://storiara.com/compare) lists every page, and the [film scheduling software roundup](https://storiara.com/blog/top-10-film-scheduling-software) covers the planning tools that would sit upstream of Croogloo. If you are building a crew list for either tool, start from the [crew contact list template](https://storiara.com/templates/crew-contact-list).

## Frequently asked questions

### What is Croogloo used for?

Croogloo describes itself as software that helps a film or TV production office manage script sides, time reports and distribution in one platform. It is sold as three kits: Side Kit, Report Kit and Distribution Kit.

### How much does Croogloo cost?

Croogloo's pricing page lists the Side Kit at $19 a month, the Report Kit at $99 a month and the Distribution Kit at $999 a month. Its FAQ says indie and low-budget productions can fill out a form for a personalized quote.

### Does Croogloo make a shooting schedule?

Croogloo's site and pricing page don't list stripboard scheduling, a Day Out of Days or budgeting. The office usually receives the schedule from the AD department and uses Croogloo to pull sides and send documents out.

### Can Storiara text call sheets to the crew?

No. Storiara emails call sheets immediately or at a scheduled time and gives each shoot date a shareable link. It doesn't send SMS and doesn't track who opened the email. Croogloo's Distribution Kit includes SMS and tracking.

## Sources

- [Croogloo home page and FAQ](https://croogloo.com/)
- [Croogloo pricing (kits)](https://croogloo.com/pricing/)
- [Croogloo Help Center: Help Guides](https://support.croogloo.com/en/collections/12142690-help-guides)
- [Croogloo Help Center: Welcome to Croogloo](https://support.croogloo.com/en/collections/12141404-welcome-to-croogloo)