A Separo alternative that starts free and keeps your art local

What Separo is, as its vendor describes it

Separo is a browser-based separation service at separo.io. When we checked on 28 July 2026 it listed two plans: Starter at $49 per month with unlimited proofs, unlimited spot-colour jobs and 10 simulated-process jobs per month; and Plus at $149 per month with unlimited proofs, unlimited spot-colour jobs, 40 simulated-process jobs per month and advanced separation options. Enterprise is by enquiry. All plans came with a 30-day free trial and a money-back guarantee. The vendor describes patented and machine-learning technology, automated colour detection with PMS matching, a 300 dpi raster workflow, an underbase on every separation for dark garments, configurable dot gain and ink types, and output as multi-channel EPS files; a cloud RIP is described as coming soon. Pricing and features move — check their site.

Where Separo is likely the better choice

Unlimited spot-colour jobs and unlimited proofs on a flat monthly fee is a clean, predictable model, and for a shop separating dozens of jobs a day a flat fee removes any per-job thinking entirely. Their real-time colour extraction is pitched at quoting — reading a customer's uploaded artwork fast enough to price the job on the spot — which is a workflow benefit that has nothing to do with plate quality. And multi-channel EPS is exactly the file some RIP workflows want handed to them. If those fit how you work, they fit.

Where this is genuinely different

Three things. First, the free line: spot and index separation here are free with no account and no monthly fee at all, rather than free for a 30-day trial. Second, privacy by architecture: free separation runs entirely in your browser and makes no network call, so your customer's artwork is not uploaded anywhere — for shops handling licensed or NDA'd designs that is not a nicety. Third, the deliverable: alongside plates and film you get a real layered PSD and a multichannel PSD with true spot channels, so the file behaves like a separation in Photoshop rather than a stack of images. And there are no job quotas on the paid side — 10 credits per image, re-renders free, and simulated process is not metered differently from anything else.

The cost comparison, plainly

Separo was $49 a month for 10 simulated-process jobs, or $149 for 40. Here, a plan is $8.50 a month for 600 credits or $19 for 1,500, and every print-ready render — simulated process included — is 10 credits per image with free re-renders. That is 60 separations a month on the $8.50 plan and 150 on the $19 plan, with no separate quota for the expensive separation type. Spot and index separation are outside the credit system entirely because they run on your hardware. The honest caveat: their unlimited spot-colour jobs are also effectively free at the margin, so at very high spot volume with a proofing-heavy workflow the comparison is closer than the headline numbers suggest.

The thing neither of us can promise

Automatic simulated process is unreliable in every tool on the market. Nobody in this category has solved it — the desktop packages all keep manual channel override, and the browser tools do too. We ship the per-channel curve and density controls in the same release as the automatic pass and say so on the box, because a shop that discovers the limitation after a bad print is a shop we have lost. Treat any vendor's automatic sim-process claim, ours included, as a starting point you will correct.

What we do not have

No built-in or forthcoming RIP: we output plates, 1-bit film, PSD, multichannel PSD and SVG, and your existing RIP takes it from there. No instant-quoting workflow built around colour extraction. And we are newer to this specific vertical than they are. What we do have is a free tier that is not a countdown, no watermarks on any output at any tier, and a separation you can run without your file leaving the building.