Wayscript vs Arc Studio

The longer answer

Formatting and interchange: no friction either way

On the page itself, this is close to a tie. Both apps format to industry standard automatically, both speak Fountain, both import and export Final Draft (.fdx), and both print a clean, submission-ready PDF. That shared fluency matters — it means trying either tool costs nothing but time, and nothing you write in one is stranded there. The differences start the moment you look past the page.

The beat board: credit where due

Arc Studio's beat board is its calling card, and it deserves the reputation — beats live beside the script and flow straight into pages, so restructuring the story and restructuring the document are the same gesture. Wayscript's answer is broader rather than deeper on this one axis: index cards and beat-sheet templates, plus a corkboard, outliner, narrative threads and a timeline, all synchronised views of one structure. If your entire process is beats-to-pages on a single script, Arc's board is a beautifully focused version of it. If your planning spans a season, a series or a world, Wayscript gives that structure more rooms to live in.

The story bible: notes vs a vault that links itself

Arc Studio does ship a story bible — a real one, not an afterthought — and for many writers it's enough. What it isn't is connected. Wayscript's vault is a database of typed entities with relationships, automatic backlinks from every mention in the script, and a live graph of how the cast and world hang together. Type a character's name into a scene and her entry already lists it. For a contained feature, Arc's bible does the job; for an ensemble show, a franchise or anything with a novel attached, the self-linking vault is the difference between notes and a model of the story.

Collaboration: both real-time, both good

Real-time collaboration is standard on both sides of this page. Arc Studio does live co-writing in the modern-web mould; Wayscript's Author plan does real-time co-editing with presence and comments, the same script open on two screens at once. If co-writing is your deciding feature, neither app should scare you off — the choice falls to everything around it.

Production and revisions: Arc wins today

Said plainly — if your script is going into production now, Arc Studio is ahead. It handles production revision workflows today, and Wayscript now answers with revision passes, colored-page sets and margin marks of its own — locked pages excepted. Wayscript doesn't pretend otherwise, and writers in active production should weight this row heavily until that roadmap item ships.

Platforms and offline: iOS-and-desktop vs everywhere

Both apps work offline, which is no longer a given in this category. Arc Studio covers desktop, the web and iOS — but there's no Android app. Wayscript ships the full studio on Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android and the web, local-first everywhere, with encrypted cloud sync included on every plan, free included, syncing automatically once you sign in rather than being a requirement. If your pocket runs Android or your desk runs Linux, this section decides it on its own.

AI stance and certification

Most modern writing tools are experimenting with AI assistance, and Arc Studio's current feature list is the place to check where it draws that line. Wayscript's line is drawn in the architecture: AI is opt-in and paid-only, the Reviewer critiques pacing, consistency and structure but never drafts, Ask AI answers research questions over your own bible and nothing else, and your words never train anyone's models. On top sits a tamper-evident authorship certification, from Bronze up to Onyx — the mark that says not a single word came from a machine. In a market where contests and studios increasingly ask, that's evidence rather than a promise.

Price: a year of each, added up

The paid tiers land closer than the headline numbers suggest. Arc Studio runs Essentials at $69/year and Pro at $99/year; Wayscript's Author plan is $8/month, or $72/year — within a few dollars of Arc's entry tier. The real difference is at the free end and in what the money buys. Arc's free tier caps you at two scripts; Wayscript's free plan holds three of your own projects at a time — sample novels and imported manuscripts don't count — and includes the editor, planning, the story bible, every export format and encrypted cloud sync. The Author plan then adds unlimited projects, co-writing, analysis and the interactive game-narrative studio, with Author + Reviewer at $14/month for the full editorial reviewer.

Switching from Arc Studio

Export your script from Arc Studio as Final Draft (.fdx) or Fountain, then import it into Wayscript — both formats are read natively, so scenes, sluglines and dialogue arrive as structure. Beats and bible entries are re-created by hand, which for most scripts is an afternoon, and the moment the vault starts linking itself, usually a worthwhile one. Your Arc Studio account and its two free scripts stay exactly where they are, so trying the other side costs nothing.