What Goes in a Storyboard Panel? The 6 Parts, Top to Bottom

Key Takeaways

• Storyflow builds a storyboard panel as one wall that stacks all six parts (sketch, reference frame, the line with its labels, script, why, to-do list) under a number and a name, so the crew, the client and the editor each find their part without asking.
• The words carry the panel. The sketch shows what the shot looks like; the line underneath says what we see, how the camera moves and what we hear, in that order, and the labels repeat the shot size, the move and the seconds so anyone can scan the board.
• Each part has a reader. The crew reads the line, the labels and the to-do list. The client reads the sketch, the frame and the why. The editor reads the seconds and the script.
• A reference frame is someone else's film. It is there for light, lens and colour; the sketch is the shot you are making. Caption every frame with its source, and skip the frame when nobody has filmed anything like your shot.
• Panels are not shots. Our example board for a 90-second ad has 14 panels for an ad that has 68 shots: one panel for every moment the client needs to see.
• Different jobs keep different parts. A client pitch keeps the why and hides the to-dos; a shoot-day board keeps the to-dos and shortens the why; an animation board leans on seconds; a solo creator's board can be a line and a sketch.
• Storyflow has no animatic, no approve button and no drawing tools; AI sketches are on Pro and Max. Boords, Storyboarder and paper each win a part of this job, named below.
• Watch it done: How to Storyboard a Film So Your Client Says Yes builds a full panel part by part in 10 minutes, from the empty wall to the ticked to-do list.

Why Most Storyboard Panels Fail the People Who Read Them

You draw the frame, you number it, you send the board. Then the questions start. The camera operator asks whether panel 6 is on a long lens. The client asks why there is a shot of a puddle. The editor asks how long the montage runs. The producer finds out on the shoot day that nobody booked the overhead rig. Every one of those questions was answerable on the panel, and the panel did not answer it.

The usual storyboard panel is a picture with a caption. That format comes from animation, where storyboards were born: by most accounts the modern storyboard took shape at Walt Disney Productions in the early 1930s, per Wikipedia's storyboard history. A picture with a caption works when the people reading it are the people who drew it. It fails when a board travels to a crew, a client and an editor, because each of them needs something different from the same rectangle.

The crew reads a picture and guesses the lens

A sketch of a woman at a mirror does not tell the crew how close the camera is, whether it moves or what plays over the shot. Two camera operators will light and frame it two ways. The fix is not a better drawing. The fix is words under the drawing that settle the shot size and the move, plus labels that repeat them so they can be scanned.

The client sees a shot and not the reason

Clients approve ideas, not frames. A panel that shows a face-shaped puddle on concrete looks random until someone explains that it is the spark: something ordinary that suddenly looks like something else. If the reason is not on the panel, the client either asks in the meeting or, worse, decides on their own that the shot can go.

The editor gets no seconds

A board without durations is a board that cannot be checked against the brief. A 90-second ad with 14 panels has to add up to 90 seconds, and you can only check that when every panel carries its seconds. Without them, the first time anyone learns the board runs long is in the edit, when the fix costs a day instead of a minute.

The prep lives in someone's head

Every shot needs things: a location, a prop, a rig, a costume that matches the last shot. On most boards that list lives in a producer's notebook, separate from the panel it belongs to. When the panel changes, the list does not, and the shoot day finds the gap.

A storyboard panel is not a picture with a caption. It is six small documents stacked in one place, each written for a different reader.

The Anatomy of a Storyboard Panel at a Glance

Before the step-by-step, here is the whole panel in one table: each part, what it is for, who reads it, and what goes wrong when it is missing. The order is the order on the panel, top to bottom.

The table is the whole answer to "what goes in a storyboard panel". The rest of this post is how to fill each row well, a filled example, and which rows to keep for which job.

Why top to bottom, in this order

The order follows how people read a board. Eyes land on the picture first, so the sketch sits on top. The reference frame sits right under it so the two images can be compared at a glance: the shot you are making above, the light you want below. Then the words, starting with the line, because the line is the part the crew cannot do without. The script, the why and the to-do list come last because they are read by fewer people, more slowly. If you keep the same order on every panel, nobody has to hunt.

What a panel is not

A panel is not a shot. In our example, the real ad has 68 shots and the board has 14 panels. A panel covers one moment the client needs to see; a fast montage of six cuts can sit on one panel with "Under a second" on the line. A panel is also not a shot list row. The shot list breaks the panels into setups for the shoot day; our storyboard vs shot list guide covers the hand-off between the two.

Tools for Each Step: Building a Storyboard Panel

Each part of the panel can be made in a different tool. The table puts Storyflow first because it is our own product; the rest follow by the job each does best, and every rival keeps the job it wins.

Sources for the rival columns, checked on 11 October 2026: Boords storyboard software, Boords pricing and Storyboarder by Wonder Unit.

The table shows where the trade sits. Storyflow keeps all six parts and the prep in one column on one board. Boords is ahead when the client needs to see the panels move with sound, or when approvals must be tracked frame by frame. Storyboarder is ahead when you draw every panel yourself and want it free.

How to Build a Storyboard Panel, Top to Bottom

Seven steps build one complete panel. The steps follow the order on the panel, not the order you think of things in: in practice you will write the line before you sketch, and that is fine. What matters is that every panel ends with all parts in the same places, so the board reads the same from panel 01 to the last one.

In Storyflow, a panel is a wall. Grab a wall from the toolbar, drop it on the board and everything below goes inside it. On paper, a panel is a column on the page. On Boords or Storyboarder, a panel is a frame with fields. The steps work in all of them.

Step 1: Give the panel a number and a name

The number is for speed. "Change panel eight" means one thing to everyone, in a meeting, in a comment, in an email a week later. Use two digits (01, 02) so the panels sort correctly once you pass nine.

The name is for memory. "The mirror", "Fire from above", "Floating bedroom": two or three words that name what we see, not what it means. People remember panels by their pictures, so name them by their pictures. In Storyflow, the wall title holds both: "01 · The mirror". On our example board, the finished storyboard is 14 walls in one row, numbered 01 to 14.

Never renumber during a review round; renumber only when you start a fresh round. If you insert a panel between 04 and 05 mid-round, call it 04a rather than renumbering everything after it. Every comment the client already left points at the old numbers.

Step 2: Put the sketch at the top

The sketch is the shot you are actually making: who is in frame, how big, where the camera is. It does not need to be good. It needs to show composition and action, and it needs to look like the same film as every other panel.

You have three options, and two of them involve no drawing:

• Draw it yourself. If you can draw, draw. A rough sketch in your own hand does the same job as anything else, and it is faster than describing it to anyone.
• Leave it blank. A panel with an empty picture and a strong line still works, especially when the reference frame shows the look. Our guide to storyboarding when you cannot draw goes further down this road.
• Let the AI sketch it from the line. In Storyflow, select the line and ask the AI for a pencil sketch of it. AI image generation is on the Pro and Max plans only; on Plus, upload your own sketch or leave the picture empty.

Consistency is the hard part with AI sketches. Two habits fix it. End every request with the same style ("loose pencil sketch with grey shading"), and describe the character the same way every time ("young woman with long dark curly hair in a grey sweater"). The same words in produce the same-looking film out.

The poster above is the same idea at shot-list scale: the AI reads each written shot and makes a picture for it in the look of the photos you gave it. On a storyboard, the line is the written shot, and the sketch is the picture. Our AI storyboard generator page shows the flow end to end.

Step 3: Add a reference frame under the sketch

For every panel, ask one question: has anyone filmed something like this before? If yes, find one real frame and put it under the sketch. One frame shows the crew the light, the lens and the colour at once, which no sketch and no sentence can do.

Our film finds its frames on Frameset, a library of stills from films, ads and music videos. Search for what is physically in the shot ("woman bathroom mirror"), not for a feeling ("dreamy"); libraries index what is in the picture.

Three rules keep reference frames honest:

• Same shape on every panel. Set every frame to the same aspect ratio so the board reads as one film. Our example uses 4:3 for all of them. In Storyflow, paste the still into the wall, drag it under the sketch and set the shape from the image menu.
• Caption the source. Write in the caption which film the frame comes from, so nobody thinks it is your footage and nobody pitches it as such.
• Remember what it is for. The frame is someone else's film, with their actor and their room. It is there for light and mood. The sketch above it is the shot you are making.

If nobody has filmed your shot, skip the frame. In our example, panels 03 and 09 have no frame, and their to-do lists say so: "No frame: sketch from the line." The sibling post on reference frames in a storyboard covers searching, cropping and crediting in depth.

Step 4: Write the line and pull out its labels

The line is the most important part of the panel, and it is also the shortest. One sentence or three short ones, always answering three questions in the same order: what do we see, how does the camera move, what do we hear.

Weak: "Girl at a mirror." The crew cannot tell how close the camera is, whether it moves, or what we hear.

Strong: "Medium close-up. She breathes on the mirror and picks at the glass. Slow push in. Voice-over: there's a moment when the world sharpens."

Medium close-up means chest up; push in means the camera moves closer. The test is to read the line out loud to your crew. If they can picture the shot, it works, and then your client can too. How to word the line, shot size by shot size and move by move, is its own craft, and our sibling post How to Write a Storyboard Shot Description owns it.

The part this post owns is what happens next: pull the details out into labels. The line says "Medium close-up" and "Slow push in" inside a sentence; the labels repeat them as tags on the note ("Medium close-up", "Push in"). Labels are for scanning. A camera operator can look along a row of 14 panels and see every push in without reading 14 sentences. In Storyflow, select the note and click the label button.

Which labels to use:

• Shot size: extreme close-up, close-up, medium close-up, medium shot, wide, top-down, low angle. The standard sizes are defined by where the frame cuts the body, per Wikipedia's entry on shots).
• Camera move: push in, handheld, locked off, still, or "Burst" for a cut under a second.
• Special handling: VFX for anything finished in post.
• Seconds: the duration, added as a label too (Step 7 below covers how to time it).

Keep the vocabulary small and identical across the board. If panel 02 says "Handheld" and panel 08 says "hand-held camera", a scan misses one of them.

Step 5: Add the script note

Under the line, a separate note holds the script: the exact words heard over this moment. Voice-over, dialogue, a lyric, an on-screen line. Exact means copied from the script, not paraphrased.

Why a separate note when the line already ends with "Voice-over: ..."? Because they do different jobs. The line's hearing part is a pointer for the crew, often a few words. The script note is the full text for the client, the editor and sound, and it is the place where the picture and the words are checked against each other. If a line of script has no panel, the script notes show it immediately. If a panel has no words, that is a decision you can now see.

On a client board, the script note is also where copy gets approved. A client who reads the words under the picture they will play over is approving the pair, not each half separately.

Step 6: Write why the shot is there

One sentence, for the client, on the idea behind the shot. Not what the shot shows (the line does that) but what it does in the film.

Panel 01 of our example: "A quiet, private start, so the spark that comes next hits harder." Panel 12: "The same lighter, no spark: the contrast."

This note earns its place in three moments. In the pitch, it lets the client follow the argument of the film panel by panel instead of seeing a sequence of pretty frames. In the cut, it tells the editor what each shot is for when time runs short. And in a budget conversation, it protects the shots that hold the idea together: a client who wants to lose a VFX panel can see what the film loses with it.

Write it in plain words. "Establishes mood" says nothing. "Shows what she collects: the habit the app is for" says exactly why panel 02 exists.

Step 7: Finish with the to-do list and the seconds

The last part is a to-do list of everything the shot needs before the shoot: the location, the props, the rig, the wardrobe that must match for continuity. Tick items off as you go. Matching wardrobe, props and make-up from shot to shot is the job continuity exists for, per Wikipedia's entry on continuity), and the to-do list is where the board carries it.

Panel 01's list on our board: "Bathroom with green tiles", "Mirror that fogs on cue", "Slider for the push in", "Grey sweater, for continuity". Four items, each something a person must find, book or check. In Storyflow, any to-do can take a person and a due date from the selection toolbar, so "Slider for the push in" can belong to the camera assistant by Thursday.

Then the seconds. The fourth question every line needs is how long the shot lasts. Act out every shot with a stopwatch and add the seconds to the panel as a label. Once every panel has its seconds, the board can be added up against the brief. Our sibling post on timing a storyboard to the second covers the stopwatch method and what to cut when the total runs long.

The step 2 chapter of our storyboard film shows what this section can only describe: the labels landing on the note, the script and why notes going in underneath, and the to-do list filling up on a real panel.

Worked Example: Panel 01 of a 90-Second Ad, Part by Part

The example in this post, and in the film, is a storyboard for "Your Space to Dream", the 90-second ad Aidan Cullen directed for Cosmos, with Odessa A'zion; you can watch the ad on YouTube.

This is not the official storyboard for that film, and Storyflow had nothing to do with making it. It is how we would plan a film like it. The sketches were made from our written lines only, never from the film's shots. The reference frames come from other films, found on Frameset and credited on the board. The camera operator and the client in the comments are made up for the demo. We say nothing here about how the real ad was planned, shot or edited, because we do not know.

The board has 14 panels for an ad that has 68 shots, and the brief is 90 seconds.

Panel 01, filled in

Here is the first panel, every part, in the order it sits on the wall.

Read it as each reader would. The client looks at the sketch, glances at the frame for the light, and reads the why: a quiet start before the spark. The camera operator reads the line and the labels: chest up, slow push in, nine seconds, and sees the slider on the to-do list. The art department reads the to-do list: green tiles and a mirror that fogs on cue, which is a real problem to solve before the day. The editor reads the seconds and the script. Nobody needs to ask anyone anything.

Panel 04: a shot under a second

Fast shots are where a panel line is easiest to leave vague. Panel 04's line handles it by adding the speed to the line itself: "Top-down. A puddle shaped like a face on cracked concrete. Under a second." The labels are "Top-down" and "Burst", and the to-do list ends with "Cut under a second", so the editor and the camera team both see it.

The panel still carries a why ("The spark itself, found somewhere ordinary"), and that matters more on a fast shot than a slow one. A client sees a puddle for less than a second and wonders why it is there; the why note answers before they ask. Panels 04 to 07 on the board are all bursts, and on the seconds labels they add up to 4, 3, 2 and 2.

Panel 13: a shot you cannot film for real

Some shots cannot happen in front of a camera. Panel 13, "Floating bedroom", has her room lifting off with pictures and objects floating around her. The line splits into two parts: what you film on the day and what is added later. "Wide. Her bedroom lifts off and pictures and objects float around her as she looks up. Shoot the room locked off, hang the objects on fishing wire, then paint the wire out in post."

The labels carry the split too: "Wide", "Locked off", "VFX". And the to-do list turns the method into tasks: "Fishing wire and rigging", "List of floating props", "Paint out the wire in post". The panel now answers both the client ("what will it look like?") and the producer ("what does it take?").

Panels 03 and 09: when there is no reference frame

Panel 03 is a close-up of her turning toward window light, eyes wide. Panel 09 is an extreme close-up of her hands flicking a red lighter above a rainbow sleeve. On our board neither has a reference frame, and both to-do lists say "No frame: sketch from the line."

That is the rule working, not a gap. A frame is only useful when someone has filmed something close enough to share its light. When nobody has, a forced reference misleads the crew more than no reference. The sketch, made from a line precise enough to picture, carries the panel alone.

What the 14 panels add up to

The seconds labels on the 14 panels read 9, 3, 1, 4, 3, 2, 2, 5, 7, 13, 4, 19, 14 and 6. Add them and you get 92 seconds against a 90-second brief. That is exactly the situation the seconds label exists to show, on the board, before anyone shoots.

The rule for fixing it: cut your longest shots first. You lose seconds, not whole ideas. The two longest panels are 12 (the grey office, 19 seconds) and 13 (the floating bedroom, 14 seconds), so that is where the two seconds come from. Our 90-second ad in 14 panels post walks the whole board panel by panel.

Before and After: Three Panels Rewritten

The difference between a panel that works and one that does not is rarely the drawing. Here are three panels as they often arrive, and the same panels with every part filled in. The "after" versions use panels from our example board.

A picture with a caption

Before: a sketch of a woman at a mirror, captioned "Girl at a mirror. Opening."

After: the full panel 01 from the table above. The caption became a line with three answers, two labels and a duration; "Opening" became a why that says what the opening does; and four to-dos appeared that the caption never hinted at. The sketch did not change at all.

A montage on one panel

Before: one panel labelled "Montage of inspiring images", with four small doodles.

After: four panels (04 The puddle, 05 Fire from above, 06 Mirror eyes, 07 Tyre smoke), each with a line that ends "Under a second", a "Burst" label and its own seconds. Panel 05's to-do list reads "Fire safety officer on set", "Grey ground plate", "One take, three cameras". A montage on one panel hides four shoots; a montage on four panels shows them.

An effect without a method

Before: "Room floats (VFX)."

After: panel 13, where the line names what is filmed on the day and what is added in post, and the to-do list has the fishing wire, the prop list and the paint-out. The before version gets approved and then budgeted; the after version gets budgeted and then approved, which is the order you want.

Panel Layouts by Job

Not every board needs every part at full size. The six parts are the full panel; a layout is the choice of which parts to show, for whom, at which stage. Four jobs cover most boards.

The client pitch

The client needs to see the film and understand the idea. Keep the sketch and the frame large, keep the line and the script visible, and make the why prominent: it is the part that turns a sequence of frames into an argument. The to-do list is noise to a client. On a shared Storyflow board you can keep the to-dos on the working panels and present the client a version without them; our sibling post on presenting a storyboard to a client covers how to ask for a decision rather than opinions.

The shoot-day board

On the day, nobody reads the why twice. The crew needs the line, the labels and the seconds, and the assistant director needs the to-do list ticked. The sketch shrinks to a thumbnail. This is the layout closest to a shot list, and the shot list is the natural next document; our shot list template page shows the next step.

The animation board

In animation the board is often the first cut, so seconds and script matter most: the panel is timed against the recorded dialogue. The sketch carries far more, because there is no set to discover the shot on later. Reference frames matter less (nobody needs a real lens), and the to-do list turns into an asset list: characters, backgrounds, effects. Our animation storyboard page covers the layout.

The solo creator's quick board

If you shoot your own video, you are the crew, the client and the editor. Keep the line and the seconds; they stop you from overshooting and help you cut. A rough sketch or none at all is fine. Add a to-do list only for the shots that need something you do not own yet. The full six-part panel is overhead when the person reading it is you.

Storyboard Panels by Kind of Film

The six parts stay the same across kinds of film. What changes is which part does the heavy lifting.

Commercials and ads

The seconds label and the script note carry the most weight, because a commercial is bought by the second and the copy is approved word by word. Board the end card and the logo as their own panel: our panel 14 has "Logo end card" on its to-do list. Our guide on how to storyboard a commercial and the commercial storyboard page go further.

Music videos

The script note holds the lyric, and the seconds come from the track rather than a stopwatch: count the bars. Reference frames do a lot here, because music videos live on look. The why note is often about the song's structure ("first chorus: the room opens up"). The music video storyboard page shows a layout.

Corporate and brand films

The why note is the client's favourite part, because brand films are approved by people who think in messages. Keep the to-do list detailed: corporate shoots often happen on the client's own premises, where every room and every permission is a to-do.

Short films

Dialogue lives in the script note, and the line describes performance as well as picture. Short films tend to need more panels per scene than ads need per moment, because blocking and eyelines matter. The film storyboard page covers narrative boards.

Documentaries

You cannot storyboard what has not happened yet, but you can board the shots you control: interviews, establishing shots, re-enactments, archive. The line describes the setup, the why says what the shot must prove, and the to-do list holds permissions and gear. The documentary storyboard page shows how to keep the planned and the found apart.

Social video

Vertical frames change the sketch and the reference frame (set every frame to 9:16), and the seconds get very small. The first panel's why matters most, because it has to justify the first second. Keep panels few; a 20-second vertical video rarely needs more than five or six moments.

A Storyboard Panel Template You Can Copy

Copy this into whatever you board in. Each row is one part of the panel, in order, with what to write and the filled example from panel 01. Our storyboard template page has a ready-made board version, and storyboard examples shows finished ones.

And the blank version, as a list to paste into a note or a document:

• Number and name:
• Sketch: (draw, leave blank, or generate from the line)
• Reference frame: (source film in the caption, or "No frame: sketch from the line")
• Line: (what we see. camera move. what we hear.)
• Labels: (shot size, move, VFX if any)
• Seconds:
• Script:
• Why the shot is there:
• To-do list: (one item per thing to find, book or check)

If you start from a script rather than a blank board, our script to storyboard page shows how the AI turns script pages into walls you then complete with the parts above.

The Panel Checklist

Run this before any board leaves your hands. Each item is a yes or a no.

• Every panel has a two-digit number and a short name that describes the picture.
• Every sketch uses the same style words and the same character description.
• Every reference frame has the same shape, sits under the sketch, and names its source film in the caption.
• Panels with no fitting reference say so ("No frame: sketch from the line") instead of using a near miss.
• Every line answers what we see, how the camera moves and what we hear, in that order.
• Fast shots say "Under a second" on the line; shots finished in post split into what is filmed and what is added.
• Labels use the same small vocabulary on every panel.
• Every panel has its seconds as a label, and the seconds add up to the brief (or you know which long panels to cut).
• Every script note holds the exact words, copied, not paraphrased.
• Every panel has a why the client could repeat back.
• Every to-do list names the location, props, rig and continuity items, and the urgent ones have a person and a date.
• The client version hides what the client does not need (usually the to-dos).

Common Mistakes in a Storyboard Panel

Each of these is a panel that looks finished and is not. The fix is always small.

Mistake 1: Polishing the sketch and skipping the line

A beautiful drawing with "Girl at mirror" under it is a worse panel than a stick figure with a full line. Drawing was never the hard part; writing the lines is. Fix: write the line first, then decide how much sketch you need.

Mistake 2: Using the reference frame as the shot

A pasted frame from another film becomes, by accident, the thing the client approves: that actor, that room. Fix: keep the sketch on top as the shot, put the frame underneath for light and mood, and caption its source.

Mistake 3: Labels that do not match the line

The line says "slow push in" and the label says "Static". Someone will read the wrong one. Fix: pull the labels from the line, never type them separately, and re-check both when either changes.

Mistake 4: No seconds

Without durations, the board cannot be checked against the brief. Fix: time every panel with a stopwatch and add the seconds as a label before the client sees it. Our example ran 92 seconds against 90, and the seconds labels are how that showed up.

Mistake 5: A why that describes instead of explains

"Shot of her bedroom" is a second line, not a why. Fix: the why says what the shot does: "The calm before making: her space, her things."

Mistake 6: One panel per shot

Sixty-eight panels for a 68-shot ad is a shot list with pictures, and a client cannot hold it in their head. Fix: one panel per moment the client needs to see. Our sibling post on how many panels a storyboard needs works through the choice.

Mistake 7: The to-do list lives somewhere else

A prep list in a separate spreadsheet drifts from the panels as they change. Fix: keep the to-dos on the panel they belong to, so moving or cutting the panel moves or cuts its prep with it.

Mistake 8: Renumbering after the client has commented

Insert a panel, renumber everything, and every comment now points at the wrong panel. Fix: never renumber during a review round; insert as 04a, and renumber only when you start a fresh round.

The Tools for Building Storyboard Panels

Four tools matter for building panels part by part. Storyflow comes first because it is our own product; the rest follow by the job each does best.

1. Storyflow

Verdict: the place to build a full six-part panel, because each panel is one wall that holds the sketch, the reference frame, the line with its labels, the script, the why and a to-do list, on the same board as the rest of the production.

Best for: directors, producers and small production companies boarding a film for a client, and anyone who wants the prep to move with the panels.

Pricing: Plus $7.99 a month billed annually ($9.99 monthly); Pro $14 ($19 monthly) adds AI image generation, which is what sketches the panels; Max $39 ($49 monthly) adds a team workspace with roles and permissions. Storyflow is paid-only during early access; its Free plan launches before the end of 2026, and anyone a paid member invites to a board joins free now. See pricing.

Storyflow is an AI visual workspace for planning creative projects: an infinite canvas board with notes, to-dos, tables, documents, images and walls, plus an AI agent that reads the board and builds plans, storyboards, shot lists and decks onto it. For a storyboard panel that means a wall per panel, a note per line with labels for shot size, move and seconds, notes for the script and the why, and a to-do list whose items take a person and a due date. On Pro and Max the AI sketches each panel from its line. The client opens a view link with no account and signs in to leave a comment, and Present walks the board one wall at a time, fullscreen. Storyflow also connects to Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini and Grok through its MCP connector, so the assistant you already use can read your projects and build boards in them. The storyboard maker page shows the layout.

• All six parts and the number, name and seconds in one wall
• AI sketches from the line on Pro and Max, in one style you set
• To-dos on the panel, each with a person and a due date
• View link with no account; comments after sign-in; Present mode, one wall at a time

Limitations: no animatic and no MP4 export; no approve button or approval status per panel, and no version history; no drawing tools for hand-drawn boards; browser only, with no native app and no offline mode; AI sketches are not on Plus.

2. Boords

Verdict: the strongest dedicated storyboard tool for panels that must turn into an animatic and be approved frame by frame.

Best for: agencies and studios whose deliverable is the storyboard or the animatic itself, with tracked sign-off.

Pricing: a free plan with 5 active storyboards, 3 active scripts and 8 one-off sample AI image credits; Solo $26 a month billed yearly ($39 monthly); Pro $50 billed yearly ($75 monthly) for up to 5 users; Team $85 billed yearly ($125 monthly) for up to 10, per Boords pricing on 11 October 2026.

Boords frames take custom fields you can save as team templates, so the six parts can each become a field. Frames carry comments and approval statuses, versions keep comments intact, and the animatic tool times the frames to an uploaded soundtrack or voiceover and exports MP4, per its storyboard software page and animatic page. Against Storyflow, Boords is ahead on everything after the panel is built: animatic, statuses and versions. Storyflow is ahead on keeping the panel's to-dos and the rest of the production on the same board. Choose Boords instead of Storyflow when the client must see the panels play with sound, or when every frame needs a recorded approval.

• Custom fields per frame, saved as templates
• Approval statuses and version history
• Animatics with audio and MP4 export

Limitations: the storyboard sits apart from the brief, references board and shoot prep; AI images are capped per plan.

3. Storyboarder

Verdict: the best pick when you draw every panel yourself and want to pay nothing.

Best for: directors and artists who sketch, students, and anyone boarding offline.

Pricing: free and open source, for Mac, Windows and Linux, per Wonder Unit; the code is on GitHub.

Storyboarder gives each board fields for dialogue, action, timing and shot type, and drawing tools (light pencil, hard pencil, pen, brush) built in. It exports to Premiere, Final Cut and Avid, and to PDF and animated GIF. Against Storyflow, Storyboarder wins the sketch: it is a drawing tool first, and Storyflow has no drawing tools. Storyflow wins the parts after the sketch: the why, the to-do list, the reference frames and the review link. Choose Storyboarder instead of Storyflow when you can draw and want a free program that runs without a connection.

• Built-in drawing tools
• Dialogue, action, timing and shot type per board
• Free, with editing-software export

Limitations: no to-do list or why field on the board; review means exporting a PDF and collecting notes elsewhere.

4. StudioBinder

Verdict: a storyboard creator inside a larger production suite, for teams already running their shoot there.

Best for: productions that keep shot lists, schedules and call sheets in StudioBinder.

Pricing: not published when checked; the StudioBinder pricing page showed no plans on 11 October 2026.

StudioBinder's storyboard creator supports scanning sketches by webcam, uploading any image, custom shot numbering, colour-coding, aspect ratios, comments and tasks, with shot lists as a separate tool in the same suite. Against Storyflow, StudioBinder is ahead on stripboard scheduling and sending call sheets. Storyflow is ahead on stacking all six panel parts in one place and sketching from the line. Choose StudioBinder instead of Storyflow when the production already schedules and sends call sheets there and the board needs to sit beside them.

• Image upload and webcam sketch scanning
• Shot numbering, colour-coding and aspect ratios
• Part of a suite with shot lists and scheduling

Limitations: pricing not shown on its own pricing page when checked; the frame fields are not listed on the storyboard page, so check the panel layout in a trial before committing.

When Storyflow Is Not the Right Choice

Storyflow builds the panel. Several jobs around the panel belong to other tools, and pretending otherwise would send you to the wrong one.

You need the panels to play as an animatic

Storyflow has no animatic and no MP4 export. Present walks the board one wall at a time, which works for a meeting, but it is not timed playback with sound. Use Boords' animatic tool, or have an editor cut the panels; our guide on making an animatic covers both routes.

Your client needs a recorded approval per panel

Storyflow has comments, but no approve button, no approval status per panel and no version history. Boords has all three. In Storyflow, the honest workaround is a comment reply that records the decision on the panel.

You draw every panel by hand

Storyflow has no drawing tools. Draw in Storyboarder, Procreate or Photoshop, or on paper, and upload the drawing to the wall if you want the rest of the panel in Storyflow.

You need frame-accurate review of footage

Once there is footage, review moves to a video review tool. Frame.io Pro is $15 and Team $25 per member a month, per Frame.io pricing on 11 October 2026.

You need scheduling and call sheets

Storyflow does not do stripboard scheduling or send call sheets. StudioBinder does both.

You want AI sketches on the entry plan, or a free plan today

AI image generation is on Pro and Max only, and there is no free plan during early access. Boords has a free plan, and Storyboarder is free outright.

You work offline

Storyflow runs in the browser, with no native app and no offline mode. Paper or Storyboarder on a laptop is the answer on a location with no signal.

What It Costs to Build Storyboard Panels

Prices as of 11 October 2026, from each vendor's own pricing page.

A solo director boarding one client film a month on Storyflow Pro pays $14 a month on annual billing, or $168 a year; the client and crew who are invited to the board join free. The same director on Boords Solo pays $26 a month on annual billing, or $312 a year, and gets the animatic and statuses Storyflow does not have. The arithmetic is on the page, so the choice is about which parts of the job you need.

The Bottom Line

A storyboard panel is six small documents stacked in one place: the sketch for the shot you are making, the reference frame for the light, the line and its labels for the crew, the script for the words, the why for the client and the to-do list for the prep, under a number, a name and the seconds. The drawing is the part people worry about and the part that matters least; the words are what let a crew, a client and an editor read the same panel and act on it. Storyflow holds all six parts in one wall and sketches from your line on Pro and Max; Boords is the pick when the panels must become an animatic with tracked approvals, and Storyboarder when you draw them yourself for free. To see a panel built from the empty wall to the ticked to-do list, watch How to Storyboard a Film So Your Client Says Yes, then build your first panel with the template above.