You found a bug on a staging site and you want to send it now, not after creating an account and confirming an email. Good news: on Cobalt Capture you can capture the screen, mark it up, and hand someone a working link before you type a password, because there is no password to type. Here is what that actually gets you, and where it stops.
Can I make a review without signing up?
Yes. Open a tab, start a review, and go. No install, no browser extension, no desktop app, and no account step in front of you. You click Capture screen, the browser asks which window or screen to share, and the current frame is grabbed as a still. If you already have an image, paste it, drag it in, or use Add image instead.
From there you can crop the still, drop numbered pins on the exact spots you mean, and draw arrows, boxes, circles, and short one-line text labels in a handful of bright colors. Each screenshot becomes an item, and you add a comment by typing or by dictating with the browser's built-in speech recognition (Chrome and Edge support it; Firefox reviewers type). You can do all of this, as many times as you want, with no cap on reviews or screenshots and nothing paid up front. If you want the shortest version of the capture-and-share flow, the Cobalt Capture home page walks through it in a few lines.
What about the markup, does the receiver see it?
The pins and drawings are baked into the exported images. Whoever opens the link or the export sees exactly what you marked, in the right spot, without needing your original file or your tool. That is the point of marking a cropped still instead of pointing at a live page: the context travels with the picture. There is more on why a cropped still beats an annotated live page if you want the reasoning.
When does Cobalt ask for my email?
When the review is ready to share. You hit Publish, and Cobalt asks for an email address so it can send you the link. That is the first time you give it anything about yourself, and it is an email, not a credit card. Sign-in later, if you want it, is by Google or an emailed link. No password is ever set.
On Publish the review gets a short link of the form /r/<slug>, plus a cleaner /s/<slug> read-only page for people who just need to read it. Anyone with the link can open it, with no account of their own. They can comment on any individual item, so a round of back-and-forth happens without anyone logging in. For the full picture of what the other side sees, there is a breakdown of what your client sees on a review link.
What do I get to share: a link, a PDF, markdown?
All three, from the same review. The link is the fastest path for a person. For a document you can hand off or file, the review exports as HTML, PDF, and Word. And the same review is available as plain-text markdown at /r/<slug>/markdown, which is the format a coding agent reads. An AI assistant that opens the /r/<slug> link is served that markdown automatically, screenshots included, so one review serves both a human reviewer and an agent. You do not pick a format up front; you capture once and send whatever the receiver needs.
So the three concrete things a free, not-yet-signed-in session gets you: unlimited reviews and screenshots with real markup, a shareable link that works for anyone you send it to, and output in a format the receiver can act on. That covers most one-off feedback jobs end to end.
What changes after 7 days, and what does Pro cost?
This is the part worth saying straight, because Cobalt is not simply free forever. Seven days after you make a review, it goes read-only for you, its owner. Editing, exports, Send to GitHub, and agent access stop. The shared link keeps working for the people you sent it to, comments and all, and nothing is deleted. So the review you already sent stays live; what you lose is the ability to keep changing it.
If you need a review to stay editable and exportable past that window, Pro is $5 a month or $50 a year. It removes the 7-day cutoff, reopens a read-only review instantly, and cancels any time. The full terms are on the pricing page. One more detail for the fully anonymous case: a review made without signing in at all is kept for 30 days unless someone signs in and saves it to an account.
If that read-only wall is the thing you are weighing, there is a short guide to reopening a read-only review when you need to edit it. For most people the honest answer is: try it free, send a real review, and decide whether you ever need Pro after you have seen what it does. Start a review and you will know within a few minutes.