About Line Budgeter
What it is
Line Budgeter is a desktop application for building and managing production budgets for film and television. It gives line producers, production accountants, UPMs, producers and students a single place to build a budget line by line, track every rate, fringe, tax and incentive behind the numbers, and share the result with a team or a studio.
It runs on Windows and macOS. The app is offline-first: your budgets are stored in an encrypted database on your own computer, so you can keep working on a plane or on set, and sync when you're back online.
Who makes it
Line Budgeter is built and published by Cinematic Apps, Inc. — and it was created by working producers, for working producers.
Co-founders Matthew Cuny (an Emmy- and Annie-winning television and film producer) and Stephen Marinaccio (an international producer and DGA Unit Production Manager, formerly VP of Television Production at Paramount and creator of the r/FilmTVBudgeting community) bring fifty years of combined experience on the front lines of production. As they put it: "We've felt the friction, the delays, the chaos — and that's why we built Line Budgeter: by industry veterans, for industry professionals who demand better." The goal was never to invent budgeting software, but to reinvent everything about it for teams that care about the details.
What it's for
Line Budgeter is designed around the full life of a production budget:
- Planning — rough out a show quickly with a Goalpost budget (a quick, topsheet-only budget for early planning that gives a high-level view before you detail anything), then grow it into a full budget.
- Building — create a detailed budget from a blank canvas or a template, organized the industry-standard way: a Top Sheet of major accounts, Accounts (minors) under each, and Line Items (details) under those. Add units, rates, fringes, taxes, currencies, episodes and incentives, with brackets and formulas for anything that needs to be calculated.
- Rates you can trust — attach Ratebooks (curated union, guild and regional rate tables maintained by Line Budgeter, available from the in-app Ratebook Store) so crew rates update automatically as agreements change.
- Incentives & taxes — model state and national incentive programs with caps, holdbacks and floors, and apply fringes and taxes with floors, ceilings and ranges, so totals reflect real obligations.
- Tracking & reviewing — compare two budgets side by side, review a complete change log, use the heads-up display for live totals, and keep notes and logs on individual lines.
- Reporting & exporting — produce Budget Reports, Episodic and cash-flow style reports, element and currency reports and more; export to PDF, spreadsheet, a Line Budget archive (.lb), or Movie Magic Budgeting (.mmbx). Import from Movie Magic (.mmb / .mmbx) too.
- Collaborating — share a budget with specific people (viewer or editor, entire budget or specific departments), work on it together in real time, and — on Studio and Institutional plans — run a whole organization inside a Workspace with roles, project folders, groups and granular permissions.
The main screens
| Screen | What you do there |
|---|---|
| Dashboard | See recent and pinned budgets, your plan status, workspace switcher, news and quick actions (New Budget, New Folder, Invite). |
| Library | Organize budgets into project folders, star and pin favorites, manage Trash, open Elements and Ratebooks, and (in a workspace) see All Projects vs My Files and manage who has access. |
| Budget editor | The Top Sheet → Account → Line Item grid, with the sidebar tools: Calendar, Worksheet, Elements, Incentives, Change Log, notes, search-and-replace and batch tools. Opens each budget in its own tab/window. |
| Reports | Build, preview and save PDF reports with custom headers, footers and project details. |
| Account Manager | My Account, Billing, Security (two-step authentication) and Workspaces (for workspace members and admins). |
Plans at a glance
| Plan | For |
|---|---|
| Starter (free) | View budgets — your own and ones shared with you — create one budget and explore the core features. |
| Budgeter / Budgeter Pro | Individual professionals: more active budgets, full editing, sharing, reports and exports. |
| Student | Enrolled students (education email; proof of enrollment required). |
| Studio | Production companies: a shared workspace with seats, roles, permissions, the full ratebook catalog and a Workspace Overview dashboard. |
| Institutional | Schools and training programs: a shared workspace priced per seat (tax-exemption verification required). |
Exact features and prices for each plan are listed on the Billing screen and at linebudgeter.com/pricing. See Workspaces: an overview and Workspace billing for the team plans.
How your data is stored
- Budgets are saved locally in an encrypted database tied to your machine and synced to your Line Budgeter account when you're online, so the same budgets are available on another computer after you sign in.
- Shared and workspace budgets are kept in sync across everyone who has access; changes from collaborators appear live.
- Deleted budgets go to Trash and are permanently removed after 30 days; you can choose Remove from Local Storage to keep a synced budget in the cloud only.