Final Draft is the industry-standard for a reason: it wrote the format that everyone else conforms to. Arqo is the alternative if you want a phone editor, a real free tier, and a tool that respects your work without auto-generating it. Both are honest tools. The right one depends on who you are.
We’d rather lose the click than lose the trust.
FD is what 95% of agency-repped writers, network notes, and production coordinators expect on the title page. If your script is going to a card-table that prints FDX from FD13, the path of least friction is FD13. Arqo round-trips FDX cleanly, but FD is the file format author and the studio default.
FD has decades of polish on Mac and Windows desktop typography. Arqo’s desktop apps are real and native too — but FD is the more mature, more keyboard-deep experience for writers who never leave the desk.
Arqo is built phone-first: same Fountain editor on iOS and Android, sub-2s open, offline, three synced views on a 390px viewport. Final Draft Go is a 3-star reader the App Store reviews describe as buggy on edit. Writers travel; FD does not travel well.
Arqo Free opens two scripts with full editor + full export. FD has a 5-day Suite trial; otherwise credit-card-before-cursor. Most writers want to write before they buy.
Iv is opt-in and surfaces three narrow routes (Suggest, Inspire, Scene Surgeon). Bring your own Claude/GPT/Gemini key on Pro for +$2/mo, or bundled on Studio. It does not ship a "generate scene" button — and it never will. FD’s assistive features are minimal; ours are bounded by design.
The single hardest line to hold. Sudowrite, NolanAI, and Saga ship this. We will not. The moment we do, we are a replacement, not an amplifier — and Arqo is built on the opposite stance.
Your script is yours. On Pro (with the +$2/mo BYOK add-on) or Studio you can plug in your own key so prompts run through that — we don’t keep them for training. FD doesn’t train on your script either, but writers ask, and we answer in writing.
Voice-tuned style anchors are a real, separate roadmap item (June 2026). Until they ship, we will not run the line. The competitive pressure to overpromise on assistive features is intense; we are choosing to under-claim.
FDX export is in Free, not paywalled to Pro. If Arqo is wrong for you in three months, you leave with your file intact. Vendor lock-in is the oldest screenwriting-software tax; we’re not charging it.
Full signed list at /no-list.
Free tier opens two scripts. No card. Bring your file, see how it lands.
For most working writers, yes — the FDX round-trip is verified by golden tests against FD12, and Pro covers production PDF, Beat Board, Character Bible, and real-time collab. For a coordinator on a network show whose pipeline is 100% FD, no — keep FD13 as the production-side tool and use Arqo for mobile / collab / Iv.
Locked scene numbers, A-pages, dual dialogue, revision marks, and the title page round-trip cleanly. SmartType categories beyond Characters/Locations are partial — the import preserves what FD13 stores, but the editing UI for advanced SmartType is on the 2026-Q3 roadmap.
Yes. FDX is bidirectional. A common pattern: write on Arqo (mobile + Iv), export to FDX for a producer who needs FD13 specifically, edit there, re-import. Both apps respect the file.
Arqo exports FDX as a primary file format. Your agent receives a .fdx that opens in FD13 with locked scene numbers and dual dialogue intact. Same workflow, different writing tool.
Yes. The Mac/Windows desktop app and the iPhone/iPad app are fully offline. The web version also keeps working when you lose connection.