How to Set Up a DIY Teleprompter with Your Phone (Under $30)

Memorizing a five-minute script — or even a 60-second TikTok — eats time you don't need to spend. A teleprompter fixes that, but commercial rigs run $100 to $500, which is a lot for something you can genuinely build yourself for under $30.

Here's the build, start to finish.

How a Physical Teleprompter Actually Works

It comes down to one piece of glass. A beamsplitter sits at a 45-degree angle between the camera and the speaker.

• The camera sits behind the glass, shooting through it.
• A screen — your phone, in this case — lies flat underneath, facing up.
• The glass reflects the screen's text toward you while staying transparent to the camera behind it.

Because the text bounces off the glass, it comes out mirrored. That's the entire reason teleprompter software needs a Mirror Mode toggle.

What You'll Need (~$25 total)

• A cheap photo frame, 8×10 or 5×7 — $3–5. The glass from this frame is your beamsplitter.
• A plastic bin or cardboard box — $2–4. This becomes the hood that blocks ambient light.
• Black matte tape — $3–5. Holds everything together, seals light leaks.
• A scrap of black fabric or an old black t-shirt — $2–5. Drapes over the camera behind the glass.
• Your phone or tablet — $0. Runs the software.

Building It

Step 1: Build the hood

Cut a hole in the back of your box, sized for your camera lens. Line the inside with black tape or matte black paint so nothing bounces light back onto the glass.

Step 2: Mount the glass

Pull the glass out of the photo frame. Set it at a 45-degree angle inside the front of the box and tape the top and bottom edges down.

[!WARNING]

Glass edges are sharp enough to cut you without trying hard. Tape every exposed corner before you handle it more than once.

Step 3: Place the phone

Lay your phone flat, screen up, directly under the angled glass. If your box has a lip on the bottom, the phone can sit inside it rather than just under it.

Step 4: Seal the back

Feed your camera lens through the hole in the back. Drape the black fabric over the camera and the rear of the box — this keeps stray light out so the reflected text stays bright and readable.

Getting the Camera Settings Right

Shooting through glass adds two problems a normal setup doesn't have, and both have simple fixes.

• Focus: Set your camera to manual focus, locked on your face — not autofocus. Autofocus systems occasionally grab the glass surface or the reflected text, and the resulting focus hunt ruins takes in a way you often only notice in the edit.
• Exposure: The beamsplitter eats roughly half a stop to a full stop of light. Either open up the aperture slightly, nudge ISO up one notch, or add a bit more light on your face. Test before a long session, not during it.
• Lens position: Get the lens as close to the glass as possible without touching it. The further back the camera sits, the more likely stray reflections creep into frame from the sides.

And the one everyone forgets: clean the glass. Photo-frame glass ships with fingerprints and dust that turn into soft blooms the moment light hits them. A microfiber cloth before each session is the cheapest image-quality upgrade in this entire build.

Troubleshooting the Usual Suspects

Symptom	Cause	Fix
Ghost/double text	Reflection off both glass surfaces	Normal with frame glass; thinner glass reduces it, larger font hides it
Text too dim to read	Ambient light washing out the reflection	Max out phone brightness, seal light leaks with tape and fabric
Text visible in the footage	Light leaking from the hood, or lens too far back	Re-drape the fabric, move the camera closer to the glass
Text reads backwards	Mirror Mode off	Toggle Mirror Mode in the software
Blurry face, sharp text	Autofocus locked onto the glass	Switch to manual focus on your face

Is DIY Actually Worth It vs. Buying?

Honest answer: it depends on how often you record.

Option	Cost	Best for
DIY frame-glass build	~$25	Occasional recording, testing whether a prompter helps you at all
Entry beamsplitter rig (e.g. small Desview/Neewer)	$60–120	Weekly recording; proper glass kills the ghosting
Pro broadcast prompter	$300+	Studio use, large read distances, external monitors

The DIY build's real value is finding out — for $25 instead of $150 — whether reading from a prompter actually improves your delivery. For plenty of creators it immediately does; for some, a well-placed bullet list next to the lens works better. Build cheap, decide with evidence, upgrade only if the rig becomes part of your weekly workflow.

One more honest note: if you mostly record talking-head videos on the phone itself (front camera), you don't need glass at all. Run the prompter app on the same phone, position the text as close to the front lens as possible, and stand back far enough that your eyes reading don't visibly track. The glass build is for when a separate camera needs to sit behind the text.

Running the Software

With the hardware built, you need a teleprompter that actually mirrors properly.

Open a browser on your phone and go to ScriptPacer.com.

1. Paste or import your script.
2. Set your font size and scroll speed.
3. Hit Launch Teleprompter, then toggle Mirror Mode — the text flips instantly and reads correctly off your glass.

It's free, runs in the browser with no install, and includes a built-in script timer with section-by-section pacing — useful for checking your new rig isn't just functional but actually helping your delivery.

A few settings worth dialing in for a DIY rig specifically:

• Font size: bigger than you think. With the phone lying under the glass, your effective reading distance is longer than handheld use — if you're squinting, your eyes squint on camera too.
• Margins: keep the text block narrow. Wide lines force visible left-to-right eye movement; a narrow column keeps your gaze centered on the lens.
• Scroll speed: do one full practice run with the timer before recording. The pace that felt right while building the rig is rarely the pace you actually speak at — measure it instead of guessing.