How to use a teleprompter on your phone, step by step

A phone teleprompter is a script that scrolls on the same screen the front camera sits above, so you can read and record at once. Done well, nobody watching can tell. Done badly — the default in most apps — your eyes sweep the whole display and the viewer sees exactly what you are doing. The difference is almost entirely setup, and it takes about five minutes.

What you need

• A phone, propped at eye level. A tripod with a phone clamp is ideal; a stack of books works. Hand-held is fine for a short clip and poor for anything longer than a minute.
• An app that records and prompts at the same time. A notes app scrolled by hand does not count: you cannot record and scroll with one thumb, and the recording app will be hiding the notes. Options are compared in free teleprompter apps for Android and the four-app teleprompter app comparison.
• A script written to be spoken. Short sentences, one idea each. If you have not written it yet, how to write a teleprompter script covers the format.
• Light in front of you. Face a window. That single change does more than any setting below. The rest of the physical setup is in talking-head video setup with a phone.

Step 1: put the words directly under the lens

This is the step most apps get wrong and the one that matters most. Your camera is a small dot at the top edge of the phone. If the script fills the screen, the last line you read is ten or more centimetres below it, and every line you read moves your eyes to a different place. On camera that looks like scanning, because it is.

The fix is to confine the script to a narrow band at the edge nearest the camera, so the words you are reading are always a few millimetres from the lens. The angle between where you are looking and where the camera is gets small enough that the viewer reads it as eye contact. The arithmetic behind that — how far the words can be before it shows — is in why teleprompter videos still look like you’re reading.

Two things to check in whatever app you use:

• Can you shrink the reading area? Look for a setting called reading window, margin, or text area height. Smaller is better, down to the point where you lose your place.
• Does it follow the camera when you turn the phone? In landscape the lens is on a side edge, not the top. A band that stays at the top of a sideways phone is now nowhere near the lens.

Step 2: make the text bigger than feels necessary

Large text means fewer words per line, and fewer words per line means your eyes travel less sideways. Sideways travel is the other half of looking like you are reading. Aim for three to six words on a line in portrait. On a typical phone that is somewhere in the 30–40 point range; go bigger if you are further from the phone or wear reading glasses.

The trade-off is warning: with fewer words visible you see less of what is coming. A band of three or four lines is a good starting point. If you keep stumbling over the start of a new sentence, make the band a little taller, not the text smaller.

Step 3: set the speed from your own reading

A default scroll speed is somebody else’s pace. The quickest way to get yours: read a paragraph of your own script aloud, at the pace you would use on camera, for exactly 20 seconds. Count the words and multiply by three. That is your words per minute, and it is the number to set.

For English most people land between 120 and 160. If your script is in Hindi, Tamil, Arabic or another language whose words are longer or shorter than English ones, the right number is different again — teleprompter speed by language explains why one words-per-minute figure cannot serve every script, and there is a practical guide to using a teleprompter for Hindi scripts. And for what to do when the speed is wrong in the middle of a take, see what teleprompter speed to set.

Step 4: rehearse once with the camera off

Read the whole script through the prompter once without recording. You are not rehearsing the performance; you are finding the lines that trip you. Every script has two or three: a name you have not said aloud before, a number like “₹1,25,000” that is one word on the page and six in the mouth, a sentence that runs out of breath. Rewrite them now, in the script, rather than hoping to get them right on take four.

If you are preparing for a live talk rather than a recording, this pass is most of the work — the schedule in how to practise a speech builds on it.

Step 5: record in sections, not one long take

A three-minute video recorded in one take has to be perfect for three minutes. Recorded in three one-minute sections, each section only has to be perfect for one, and you can cut between them. Break the script at natural pauses — a new point, a new example — and record each part until you have one you are happy with.

• Pause for two seconds before and after each section. It gives you clean places to cut and stops your first word from being clipped.
• Look at the lens, not the screen, for the first and last line. Glance at the opening words, then deliver them to the camera. Nobody needs to see you reading “Hi, I’m Rosa”.
• Keep long takes safe. If you do record ten minutes in one go, check what your app does if it is killed partway — many lose the whole file. Does a teleprompter app save your video if it crashes? has a four-minute test.

Step 6: watch it back with the sound off

Sound off is the honest test of eye contact, because your voice cannot cover for your eyes. Look for three things: eyes dropping at the end of each line, eyes sweeping left to right, and a fixed, unblinking stare. The first means the band is too tall or too far from the lens; the second means the text is too small; the third means you are concentrating on the words rather than the person, which how to sound natural reading a script deals with.

Then watch it with sound, and listen for rushing. Rushing is almost always the prompter setting your pace instead of you setting its pace.

Front camera or back camera?

The back camera on most phones is sharper and handles low light better. It also faces away from the screen, so you cannot see the script. If you want the back camera, you need either a second device showing the prompter beside the lens, or a beam-splitter rig: angled glass in front of the lens that reflects a mirrored screen towards you. That is how studio teleprompters work, and why their text is reversed — why teleprompters are mirrored explains the optics and when to switch an app’s mirror setting on.

For one person talking to camera, the front camera with the script under the lens is the simpler setup and, at 1080p, is good enough for every social platform.

Built-in prompters in Instagram and CapCut

Several apps people already use now include a teleprompter. They are convenient if you will edit and post in the same app, and they tend to offer less control over where the words sit and how they move. If one of them is giving you trouble, there are separate guides to the Instagram Edits teleprompter and the CapCut teleprompter. For platform-specific scripts, see a teleprompter for Instagram Reels and a teleprompter for YouTube videos.

Doing it in Orate

We built Orate around step 1, so the defaults already follow this guide. The script scrolls in a band directly under the front camera — 45% of the screen to start, adjustable from 15% to the full screen — and when you turn the phone, the band moves to whichever edge the lens is now on. Text starts at 34 point and goes from 18 to 96.

1. Write or paste your script, or import a plain-text file. The read time under it is worked out from the script’s writing system, so a Tamil or Hindi script shows a longer estimate than English of the same word count.
2. Tap Record. After the countdown, the script starts scrolling when recording starts, at a pace taken from that same estimate.
3. Adjust the pace on the recorder itself, mid-take if you need to. Dragging it keeps your place rather than jumping, so a take you are halfway through survives the change.
4. Text size, band height and how much the band dims the picture sit behind the sliders icon beside the pace. Mirror is there too, for a beam-splitter rig.
5. Trim and crop the take afterwards: vertical 9:16 for Reels, TikTok and Shorts, 4:5 or square for an Instagram post, 16:9 for YouTube and LinkedIn. Then save or share it. Exports carry no watermark, on the free tier too.

If you want to rehearse without the camera, the recorder also has a prompter-only mode. And if the app is killed mid-take — a call, a flat battery — you keep the take except, at most, its last two seconds — the kill case is measured rather than promised in what is recoverable when a recording app crashes.

The six mistakes that make it obvious

1. Words across the whole screen. Your eyes travel; the viewer sees it. Shrink the reading area to the camera edge.
2. Text too small. Long lines mean sideways scanning. Fewer, bigger words.
3. Speed on the default. Measure your own; err slow.
4. One long take. Sections, with pauses to cut on.
5. A written script, not a spoken one. If a sentence would look normal in an email, it will sound like one. Rewrite it for the ear.
6. Reading the first line. Learn your opening sentence and say it to the lens; let the prompter take over from the second.

Questions people ask

How do you use a teleprompter on a phone while recording?

Use an app that records video and scrolls the script at the same time, place the text as close to the front camera as the app allows, set the speed from a 20-second read of your own script, and start the scroll and the recording together. Record in sections of a minute or two rather than one long take.

Can I use a teleprompter with the back camera of my phone?

Only if you can see the script some other way, because the screen faces away from you. The usual options are a second device running the prompter, or a beam-splitter rig with the app's mirror setting on. For most talking-head video, the front camera with the script under the lens is simpler and looks better than people expect.

Does Instagram or CapCut have a teleprompter?

Both do. Instagram's is in its Edits app and CapCut has one in its mobile app. They work for short clips you will edit in the same app; a dedicated prompter tends to give more control over where the text sits, how fast it moves and what happens to a long take.

What is a good teleprompter speed for beginners?

Start slightly slower than you think you need, around 130 words a minute for English, and adjust after the first take. A prompter running a little slow is easy to recover from; one running fast makes you rush, and rushing is what reads as reading.

How far should the phone be from my face?

About an arm's length, 60 to 90 centimetres, for a head-and-shoulders shot. Further away, your eye movements shrink relative to the frame, but the text has to grow to stay readable, so most people settle on the closest distance that gives them the framing they want.