Compare Questro as a Stagetimer alternative for uploading an agenda, generating a timer queue with AI, and running timers from the browser.
Stagetimer is a capable dedicated timing product with CSV rundown import, linked and scheduled timers, multiple output views, and production integrations. Questro is different at setup time: upload a schedule file or paste agenda text, generate a timer queue with AI, review the queue, and run the timer from a private browser control link. The teams who go looking for Stagetimer alternatives are rarely unhappy with how it keeps time. They are looking at the hour before the show: a run of show that arrived as a PDF from the client, a running order that changed twice this week, and a timer that has to be built by hand before anyone can rehearse against it. And they usually need more than a timer — the same event has a speaker reading prepared remarks, an audience with questions, and sometimes an international audience that needs captions, which is three more logins unless the timer already lives beside them.
Stagetimer is a dedicated professional stage timer for events, broadcasts, and productions, with CSV rundown import from Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel including automatic structure detection and manual column adjustment, manual, linked, and scheduled timers with advanced timing feedback, and Viewer, Controller, Operator, Agenda, and Moderator outputs. Its production depth includes a custom output designer, API, Stream Deck and Companion workflows, OBS guidance, a desktop app, and NDI output, and it publishes explicit per-room limits: 3 live connections and 3 timers on the free tier, 5 connections and up to 50 timers on Pro, and 50 connections with unlimited timers on Premium. Questro focuses on browser-based setup: AI-generated timer queues from an uploaded schedule or pasted agenda, queue review, and start, pause, reset, add time, remove time, and jump-next controls behind a public display link and a private control link. Questro publishes no per-room connection cap, because the display is a public web page rather than a provisioned connection, and the same event also runs moderated Q&A, a Teleprompter, and AI live captions. Stagetimer figures reflect its published pricing and documentation as of August 2026.
Every stage timer is good at counting down; what differs is how the segments got into it. A run of show usually arrives as something other than a clean table — a cue sheet exported to PDF, an agenda in a slide, a paragraph pasted into an email by a client who has never used a timer. CSV import is the right answer once that content is already a spreadsheet, and Stagetimer documents it well: import from Google Sheets or Excel, with automatic structure detection and manual column adjustment when the detection guesses wrong. Questro starts one step earlier, from the document the schedule actually arrived in, and extracts session names and durations into a timer queue you then review. The review step is not optional: check the segment names, check the durations, check the order, and fix what the extraction misread before anyone rehearses against it.
Stagetimer publishes a custom output designer, an API, Stream Deck and Companion control, OBS guidance, NDI output, and a desktop application sold as a lifetime licence for offline operation. Questro has none of these. If the timer needs to be a source in a video switcher, or driven from a hardware surface, or run in a room with no reliable network, that is a hard requirement and Questro fails it. The same goes for output scale: Stagetimer publishes explicit per-room connection limits, which is a straightforward way to check a large production against a plan, while Questro does not publish a comparable cap. A production company running shows every week is buying infrastructure, and infrastructure is what Stagetimer sells. The comparison only tilts for a team running a handful of events a year, where setup speed and tool count matter more than depth.
Every Questro tool produces a public display link for the room and a private control link for whoever is running it, so the audience never sees a button. The operator holds the control link on a laptop or tablet at front of house and drives the queue: start the segment, pause, reset, add or remove time when a speaker runs long, and jump to the next item when the running order changes mid-show. The display link is the countdown a speaker reads from a confidence monitor or stage screen, and because it is an ordinary web page it opens on a venue laptop, a TV, or a tablet taped to the lectern. The same display-and-control split runs moderated Q&A, a Teleprompter for prepared remarks, and AI live captions in the same event, so adding another screen to the room is a link rather than another vendor.
Choose Stagetimer when you need a dedicated stage timer with deep timing controls, when your rundown already lives in a clean spreadsheet or CSV workflow, when API, Companion, OBS, vMix, NDI, desktop, or offline workflows are central to the production, when you need custom outputs and several specialized timing views, when the show drives many independent timer outputs and published per-room connection limits matter, or when you run events often enough that an annual plan or a lifetime desktop licence pays for itself. Questro is not trying to replace those advanced production workflows.
Choose Questro when you want AI to create a timer queue from a schedule file or pasted agenda text, when a public display link and a private control link are enough for the room, when the same event also needs moderated Q&A, a teleprompter, or AI captions, when a one-event buying option through the $99 7-Day Event Pass fits the event window better than an annual plan, when the run of show arrives as a document rather than a spreadsheet and changes late, or when whoever runs the timer is a producer with a laptop rather than a dedicated show caller.
Check the hard requirements first: if the show needs NDI, Companion, an API, or offline desktop operation, stop and keep Stagetimer. Otherwise the room pattern stays familiar, with the operator controlling timing privately while speakers see a clean public display. Open Questro Timer, upload the schedule file or paste the agenda text, generate the timer queue with AI, review segment names, durations, and order and fix anything the extraction misread, open the display link on the stage screen or confidence monitor and read it from the speaker position, keep the control link on the operator laptop at front of house, add Q&A, Teleprompter, or AI captions to the same event if the room needs them, and run a short rehearsal before doors open including one deliberate add-time and one jump-to-next.
Stagetimer publishes a free tier, Pro at USD 210 a year (USD 17.50 a month), Premium at USD 420 a year (USD 35 a month), Enterprise starting from USD 630, a single-event licence billed once and active for 30 days, and a desktop lifetime licence at USD 980 including three years of updates, with a 20% discount offered to non-profits, as of August 2026. Questro has a Free plan, Pro at $19 per month or $15 per month billed annually, and a 7-Day Event Pass at $99 for one event that also covers moderated Q&A, Teleprompter, and AI captions in the same workspace and does not renew. Read the two ladders as answering different questions: Stagetimer prices timing depth and output count, Questro prices an event. Stagetimer localises the currency it displays, so those are its US dollar list figures; check both pricing pages for current figures before you buy.