Script coverage is a written assessment of a screenplay, usually covering premise, structure, characters, dialogue, and marketability, ending in a recommendation like pass, consider, or recommend. Studios, production companies, and agency script departments use it to decide which scripts are worth a closer read.
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A one-line summary, then a longer plot summary, usually written by the reader, not pulled from the script's own title page.
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The reader's assessment of premise, structure, character, dialogue, and marketability, usually a page or two, sometimes longer.
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Numeric or letter ratings across the same categories, meant to let a busy executive scan a stack of coverage without reading every page of every report.
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Pass, consider, or recommend (sometimes "consider with reservations"). This line is often the only part anyone above the reader actually reads.
Done in-house by staff or freelance readers, to decide what gets passed up the chain internally. Writers don't commission this and usually never see it.
Independent readers or companies a writer hires directly, priced per script, meant to catch problems before the script goes anywhere with real stakes.
Deeper, more personal engagement, often multiple passes or a call, priced higher, closer to notes than coverage.
No score, no verdict, just a reader's real reaction as it happens, page by page. What Fresh Eyes does, further down.
It doesn't rewrite anything for you. It doesn't guarantee representation, a sale, or a spot in a competition. It's not personal mentorship, and a pass verdict from one reader isn't a verdict on the script itself, readers disagree with each other constantly. What it does is give you one outside read you didn't have before, which is worth something even when it stings.
Fresh Eyes doesn't produce a pass/consider/recommend verdict or a marketability score. There's a subscription instead of a per-script fee, a free instant AI first read through AISHA, and a real reader's cold, in-the-moment reaction to your first 10 pages, tagged by what specifically happened while reading, established, confusion, sticky, physicalize, space, time, characterization, title, journey, not by how sellable the script is.
Want the full side-by-side? Fresh Eyes vs. traditional coverage →
Not quite. Coverage is a structured, written report with a pass/consider/recommend verdict, usually done by a reader who doesn't know you. Notes are more open-ended feedback, often from a person who does know your work, and don't require a score or a verdict.
Independent coverage services typically charge $50 to $300 per script, and consultants who go deeper can run $300 to $2,000 or more. Studios and agencies pay staff readers to cover scripts in-house, which isn't something a writer can buy directly.
No competition or agent requires coverage as a submission document. Writers get it beforehand as a gut check, to catch problems a reader would catch before someone with real gatekeeping power does.