Alternatives
The Arcads alternative built for app installs
Updated
People look for an Arcads alternative for two reasons that usually arrive together, which are the monthly price and the amount of work left over after the render finishes.
Viralway answers both. It is free to start and 25 dollars a month once you are running, and the file it hands back is an ad rather than a component of one, with your app on screen, captions already burned in and a set of variants to test.
That matters most for the thing app teams are actually measured on. Nobody reports on how many clips were made, they report on installs, on the people who opened the app twice and on what each of those cost.
Side by side
Prices are the lowest published plan at the time of writing and change often. Check each vendor before deciding.
What you stop doing after the switch
The work that disappears is the work between the render and the campaign, and on most teams that gap is where a week goes.
- Writing twenty hooks by hand before anything can be built
- Recording your own screen capture and cutting it into each clip
- Running a separate captioning pass so the ad works with sound off
- Resizing and re-exporting the same ad for four placements
- Rebuilding the whole clip when you only wanted to test a new opening line
Same realism question, different answer
Realism is the reason people try Arcads first, and it is a fair reason. What app teams find after a few weeks is that a flawless face reading a flat script still loses to an ordinary face saying something true about the app in the first two seconds.
Viralway puts the effort where the money is, which is the hook, the proof on screen and the reason to install now. The presenter is natural, the voice is natural, and the ad is built so the app is the interesting part rather than the person.
Moving over takes one brief
There is nothing to migrate. Write the brief the way you would explain the app to a friend, add your app screens and an approved likeness if you want one, and the first set of clips comes back the same day.
Everything you keep is yours to run as paid ads, organic posts or store listing assets, and private ads are never resold or used for training.
Key takeaways
- Viralway is the Arcads alternative for teams whose product lives on a screen.
- A brief replaces the script writing step that Arcads assumes you have already finished.
- Captions, app screens and platform sizes are included instead of being follow-up work.
- Free to try, then 25 dollars a month, against roughly 100 dollars a month.
- One brief produces the variant set, so creative testing stops being a budget decision.
Want to see it on your app?
Send a brief and get vertical clips for Meta, TikTok and YouTube the same day, with your app on screen and captions already burned in.
Common questions
- What is the best Arcads alternative in 2026?
- For mobile apps it is Viralway, which produces finished app install ads from a brief instead of actor footage from a script, at a fraction of the monthly price. For physical product work at an agency, Arcads remains aimed squarely at that audience.
- Is there a free Arcads alternative?
- Viralway has a free plan with 5 personalized videos a month and 1080p exports, with no card required, so you can see finished app ads before paying anything.
- Do I need to write scripts to switch?
- No. Viralway writes the hooks and scripts from your brief, and you can edit any line you want to change. Arcads expects a finished script as its input.