bckendIQ vs Production Slate
Production Slate is film production management for line producers: budgets, stripboard scheduling, call sheets, crew directory with rates, crew hours with film overtime rules, and unlimited crew payroll entries. It is genuinely inexpensive — free to start, $12 a month personal, $20 per user for teams — and it is the closest competitor to the crew half of bckendIQ. It has no client-facing side at all: no enquiries, no invoices, no contracts, no galleries. bckendIQ is not cheaper and does not try to be.
Production Slate
Free · $12/mo · $20/user
bckendIQ
$89–$429/mo
When to choose Production Slate
You are a line producer or production manager on project-based film work, you already have client billing handled elsewhere, and price matters. Production Slate is a fraction of the cost and its film-specific overtime handling and stripboard are stronger than ours.
When to choose bckendIQ
You are a studio, not a production office — you own the client relationship as well as the crew, and you want one system holding both rather than a booking tool bolted to a production tool.
Feature by feature
bckendIQ leads on 5 of 11 rows. Production Slate leads on 4. Verified against live vendor pages on 2026-08-05.
| Capability | bckendIQ | Production Slate | Leads |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | From $89/mo | Free to $20/user | Production Slate |
| Budgets & cost estimates | Payables per shoot | Full budgeting with estimates vs actuals | Production Slate |
| Stripboard scheduling | Calendar and shoot days | Drag-and-drop stripboard | Production Slate |
| Film overtime rules | Extra-hours grants, no tiered OT | Tiered OT at 1×, 1.5×, 2× | Production Slate |
| Crew directory with rates | Yes | Yes | Comparable |
| Crew hours | Clock-in per session | Wrap-time logging | Comparable |
| Client enquiries & booking | Full intake, quotes, packages | Not offered | bckendIQ |
| Invoices & contracts | Yes, with e-signature | Not offered | bckendIQ |
| Client galleries & approval | Yes | Not offered | bckendIQ |
| Booking creates the crew job | Automatic on confirmation | Not applicable — no bookings | bckendIQ |
| Performance review & scorecards | Yes | Not offered | bckendIQ |
Common questions
Is Production Slate cheaper than bckendIQ?
Considerably. Production Slate is free to start, $12 a month for personal use, and $20 per user per month for teams. bckendIQ starts at $89 a month. For crew payroll entries alone, Production Slate is the cheaper tool.
What does bckendIQ do that Production Slate does not?
The entire client side. Production Slate has no enquiry intake, quotes, invoices, contracts or client galleries. In bckendIQ a confirmed client booking automatically creates the shoot and its crew slots, so the client record and the crew record are the same record.