Pastel
Pastel is a Toronto-based SaaS platform that lets agencies, designers, and developers collect pinned visual feedback on live websites, PDFs, videos, and emails via shareable canvases, with no client login or installation required.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2016
- HeadquartersToronto, Canada
- Headcount1–10
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What Pastel does
Pastel, legally Pastel Labs Inc., is a private SaaS company founded in 2016 and headquartered in Toronto, Canada, that operates a visual website feedback and approval platform. The product centers on a shareable 'canvas' — generated from any live URL, image, PDF, video, or email — on which stakeholders can click anywhere to leave pinned, contextual comments without needing to log in, install browser extensions, or add code snippets. The underlying differentiator is custom proxy technology that layers comments on live websites in real time, so reviewers always see the current state of the asset rather than a stale copy.
The platform is sold on a freemium tiered subscription: a Free plan (1 active canvas, unlimited reviewers) for individual try-before-you-buy, a Pro plan (3 canvases, 2 users, 100GB video storage) for small teams, and a Team plan (unlimited canvases, 5+ users, 500GB storage, enterprise integrations) for agencies and larger organizations. Distribution is product-led growth through usepastel.com with a 14-day trial, no credit card required, supported by content marketing (blog, free utility tools, competitor comparison pages) and organic social. Native integrations with Trello, Jira, Asana, ClickUp, Monday.com, Zapier, plus SAML SSO with Okta, Google, and Azure AD, embed the product into existing delivery workflows. SOC 2 compliance and named enterprise customers (Calendly, Dropbox, Broadcom) alongside a long tail of design agencies and SMBs indicate a positioning that spans PLG self-serve and lightweight enterprise upmarket motion.
The company is small (1-10 employees), appears to have been largely bootstrapped since a 2018 DMZ accelerator affiliation, and has no disclosed revenue, funding, or detailed ownership data. Customer reach is documented through case studies spanning North America, the UK, Nepal, and Mexico, and the platform has crossed an 8-million-comment usage milestone.
Pastel firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Pastel
- Legal name
- Pastel Labs Inc.
- Website
- https://usepastel.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2016
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 1–10 employees
- Short description
- Pastel is a Toronto-based SaaS platform that lets agencies, designers, and developers collect pinned visual feedback on live websites, PDFs, videos, and emails via shareable canvases, with no client login or installation required.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Pastel industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Visual Feedback and Client Approval Software
- NAICS
- Software Publishers (513210)
- SIC
- Services-Prepackaged Software (7372)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Collaborative Review, SME Feedback & Version Control for eLearning (EDAFAHAK)
Keywords
Where Pastel is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Toronto
- HQ country
- Canada
- HQ region
- North America
Markets served
Pastel business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Technology or R&D, Personnel, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales, Operations
Revenue model
- Subscription SaaS: Pastel operates on a tiered subscription model with Free, Pro, and Team plans. The Free plan provides 1 active canvas with unlimited reviewers. Pro and Team plans offer additional active canvases, more users, integrations with project management tools, and increased storage.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Freemium | Monthly | Free Plan - 1 active canvas for single project use |
| Subscription | Monthly | Pro Plan - 3 active canvases for small teams |
| Subscription | Monthly | Team Plan - Unlimited canvases for agencies |
| Subscription | Annual | Annual Discounts |
Go-to-market motion2 records
Distribution channels3 records
Marketing channels6 records
Pastel product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Pastel sells a SaaS visual feedback and client approval platform that converts any website URL, image, PDF, video, or email into a shareable commenting canvas. Stakeholders click on the asset to leave pinned comments with automatic screenshot and device metadata capture, with no install or login required from reviewers, and tasks can be exported into Trello, Asana, Jira, ClickUp, Monday.com, or Zapier. The product is sold via a freemium, Pro, and Team subscription model to digital agencies, freelancers, in-house marketing teams, and developers.
Product overview
Pastel is a unified visual feedback and approval platform that centers on a core collaborative canvas product. The platform allows users to paste any website URL or upload any file (images, PDFs, videos, emails) to generate a shareable canvas where stakeholders can click anywhere to leave pinned, contextual comments without logging in. The product suite consists of the Core Platform (Pastel) as the central offering, alongside dedicated tools for website annotation, PDF annotation, email review and approval, website QA testing, design reviews, and client project approvals — all built on the same canvas technology. Pastel also provides free supplementary tools including a Responsive Website Test Tool, CSS Box Shadow Generator, Compare Pixels Tool, and Hourly Rate Calculator, which serve as lead-generation and utility resources for the creative and agency audience. The platform integrates natively with Trello, Asana, Jira, ClickUp, Monday.com, and Zapier, and supports custom exports via webhooks, CSV, and a developer API.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Products and services
- Pastel Visual Feedback Platform SaaS visual feedback and client approval platform that turns any URL or file (website, image, PDF, video, email) into a shareable, annotatable canvas where stakeholders can click anywhere to leave pinned, contextual comments without installs or logins, with automatic screenshot and metadata capture and exports to project management tools.
- Pastel Email Review and Approval Tool Standalone email-marketing review workflow that creates a Pastel canvas from a test email sent to a Pastel inbox address or an uploaded EML file, letting reviewers click on subject lines, headers, and preview text to leave pinned feedback with responsive-size testing.
- Responsive Website Test Tool Free utility that lets users enter any website URL to generate a Pastel canvas and toggle between mobile, tablet, and desktop breakpoints to capture breakpoint-specific feedback.
- CSS Box Shadow Generator Free CSS utility that generates ready-to-use box-shadow CSS snippets, including webkit and moz prefixes, for web design.
- Compare Pixels Tool Free pixel-comparison utility that overlays an uploaded design image against a live website URL to visually identify discrepancies between mockup and implementation.
- Hourly Rate Calculator Free calculator that helps freelancers and agencies calculate ideal and break-even hourly rates from annual business costs, billable hours, and target profit.
Quantifiable outcome
- Get client approval on websites 4.7x faster
- +3 more outcomes
Companies that use Pastel
Customer profileNamed customers14 records
Segments5 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
Pastel technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration10 records
Feature17 records
Pastel partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Nine partnerships are on record, tiered core.
- TrellocoreNative integration allowing users to export Pastel comments as Trello cards with automatic capture of screenshots, browser type, screen size, and metadata.
- JiracoreNative integration for exporting Pastel comments to Jira issues, enriching tasks with visual context and metadata.
- AsanacoreNative integration allowing export of Pastel comments to Asana tasks with full visual context.
- ClickUpcoreNative integration for exporting Pastel comments to ClickUp projects.
- Monday.comcoreNative integration for exporting Pastel comments to Monday.com workitems.
- ZapiercoreIntegration via Zapier allowing export of Pastel comments to thousands of third-party apps.
- OktacoreSAML SSO integration with Okta for enterprise account security and single sign-on.
- GooglecoreGoogle SAML SSO integration for enterprise account security and single sign-on.
- Microsoft Azure ADcoreAzure AD SAML SSO integration for enterprise account security and single sign-on.
Scale indicators5 records
Recent moves1 record
Expansion highlights6 records
Pastel competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- BugHerd: BugHerd is a visual feedback and bug-tracking tool for websites, allowing reviewers to leave pin-based comments on live pages. It is one of Pastel's named direct competitors on its comparison pages and serves the same agency and in-house marketing teams.
- Filestage: Filestage is a review and approval platform for files including video, image, and document formats, used by agencies and marketing teams. It overlaps with Pastel's PDF, image, and video annotation workflows and targets the same client-approval use case.
- Ziflow: Ziflow is an online proofing and creative review platform supporting video, image, and document workflows with threaded comments and approval workflows. It competes with Pastel for marketing and creative team collaboration on multi-format assets.
- zipBoard: zipBoard is a visual review and collaboration tool for websites, eLearning content, documents, and videos. It targets similar agency and education-content workflows and provides direct annotation and bug-tracking overlap with Pastel.
- ReviewStudio: ReviewStudio is a creative proofing and review platform used by agencies for design, video, and document approvals. It competes with Pastel's design review and client approval sub-products within the same creative agency buyer segment.
- MarkUp.io: MarkUp.io provides visual markup and review tools for websites, images, and PDFs with shared comment threads. It is explicitly positioned as a Pastel alternative on Pastel's own comparison landing pages, making it a near-direct competitor in the visual feedback category.
- TrackDuck: TrackDuck (now part of the wider visual review ecosystem) offered visual website feedback with bug-tracking integrations. Pastel maintains a dedicated TrackDuck alternative page, confirming it as a direct competitor for website annotation use cases.
- Wipster: Wipster is a video review and approval platform with time-stamped frame comments, overlapping with Pastel's time-stamped video comments feature. Both target creative teams that need frame-level feedback, though Pastel extends into website review.
Broad incumbents
- Frame.io (Adobe): Frame.io, now part of Adobe, is a video review and collaboration platform with pinned comments and timecode-based feedback. It overlaps with Pastel's video annotation capability but is focused on professional video production rather than website feedback.
- InVision (Freehand / Comments): InVision historically provided design collaboration tools with inline comments and proofing, broadly competing with Pastel's design review workflows. Although it has wound down parts of its product, its surviving capabilities overlap with what Pastel offers to design teams.
Market position
Weaknesses1 record
Competitive moat4 records
Key risks5 records
Key highlights6 records
Customer concentration
Pastel social profiles
Digital presencePastel compliance and trust
Trust signalCompliance1 record
Pastel financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Pastel leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles3 records
Pastel funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds1 record
Investors1 record
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Pastel M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Pastel
What does Pastel do?
Pastel sells a SaaS visual feedback and client approval platform that converts any website URL, image, PDF, video, or email into a shareable commenting canvas. Stakeholders click on the asset to leave pinned comments with automatic screenshot and device metadata capture, with no install or login required from reviewers, and tasks can be exported into Trello, Asana, Jira, ClickUp, Monday.com, or Zapier. The product is sold via a freemium, Pro, and Team subscription model to digital agencies, freelancers, in-house marketing teams, and developers.
Is Pastel a public or private company?
Pastel is a private company. It is classified as founder individual operated bootstrapped and is currently operating.
When was Pastel founded?
Pastel was founded in 2016. It employs 1 to 10 people.
Where is Pastel based?
Pastel is headquartered in Toronto, Canada, in the North America region.
How does Pastel make money?
One revenue line is on record: subscription SaaS.
Who are Pastel's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are BugHerd, Filestage, Ziflow, zipBoard, ReviewStudio, MarkUp.io, TrackDuck and Wipster. Broad incumbents are Frame.io (Adobe) and InVision (Freehand / Comments).
Does Pastel have an API?
Yes. Pastel provides a webhook integration and API for custom integrations. Users can export comments along with screen size, browser type, and screenshots to enrich tasks in external tools.
What industry is Pastel in?
Pastel's product category is Visual Feedback and Client Approval Software. Its primary akta.pro industry code is EDAFAHAK, Collaborative Review, SME Feedback & Version Control for eLearning. Its NAICS code is 513210 and its SIC code is 7372.