KAPWING ALTERNATIVE

shortshort vs Kapwing.

shortshort cuts one long video into vertical shorts that end where the sentence ends, frames the face with automatic zooms, and costs €0.05 per minute of video. Below: the numbers first, then 18 criteria with a check or a cross, then the plans of both.

Try it on a video · free See the 18 criteria

60 free credits, no cardUp to 3 hours per videoMP4 · 1080 × 1920

shortshort vs Kapwing: the short answer

shortshort turns one video of up to 3 hours into 9:16 shorts that end where the sentence ends, framed on the face on screen with automatic emphasis zooms, captioned word by word, for €0.05 per minute of source video. 60 minutes are free, no card.

Kapwing is a browser video editor that also generates videos from a prompt. It may fit better for bigger files, link import, translation or dubbing; the table below says where, with the source.

Price per minute of video: €0.05 here, pro, $24 per member per month, $16/mo billed yearly at Kapwing
Free plan: Permanent on both sides
Longest video: 3 h per video here, 2 h for link imports at Kapwing

Facts checked against the product on 20 September 2026. Prices before VAT.

Why shortshort

Four things the product does by design; the table below checks the rest, both ways.

Priced by the minute, not by the short

€0.05 per minute on Starter, whatever the number of shorts. 60 minutes are free at sign-up, no card.

Cuts that finish the sentence

The AI reads the whole transcript and keeps complete, quotable passages: a short opens and closes on a sentence, never mid-thought.

Framing that follows the face, with motion

The 9:16 crop tracks the face on screen and adds emphasis zooms between x1.0 and x1.6; slides and wide shots stay whole. Framing is automatic; cuts, title and captions stay editable.

One page, nothing to learn

Drop the file, choose how many shorts and how long, check the proposals, export the MP4s. No timeline, no template to configure.

18 criteria, side by side

One line per criterion, the same shape on both sides. The Kapwing column is derived from Kapwing's own site: the number after a cell points to the source, and the exact wording is under the table.

Reading note. Kapwing is a general browser video editor that also generates videos from a prompt; clipping is one tool inside it.

Criterion	shortshort	Kapwing
Getting the video in
Longest video	3 h per videoOne file of up to 3 hours, on every plan.	2 h for link imports, no cap on uploads^[1]Link uploads are capped at 120 minutes; file uploads have no stated duration limit, only the 6 GB size cap, and the clip maker wants at least 10 minutes.
Largest file	2 GB per fileMP4, MOV or WebM.	6 GB on paid plans, 250 MB on free^[1]Paid plans take 6 GB per file; their pricing table says 2 GB on Free while three help pages dated later say 250 MB.
How the video gets in	File upload onlyNo YouTube or Drive link import; the file leaves your disk.	Upload, paste a link, or record in browser^[2]Three routes on every plan including Free: upload from your device, paste a URL such as TikTok or YouTube, or record screen, camera and audio in the editor.
What comes out
Crop follows the speaker	Face and scene trackingThe 9:16 crop moves with the speaker; slides and wide shots stay full frame; framing set automatically.	Yes, Auto Speaker Focus reframes on speakers^[3]A named feature that detects and centers talking heads, used by the clipping tool; the pricing table does not list it, so no plan split is stated.
Automatic captions	Word by word, 4 stylesSpotlight, Impact, Karaoke, Minimal; timed on the audio; SRT import.	Yes, automatic, metered by plan^[4]Free 10 minutes, Pro 1,000 a month on the pricing page but 300 in their FAQ, Business 4,000, at 1 credit a minute; SRT, VTT and transcript files need a paid plan.
Aspect ratios	9:16 only	Presets plus custom sizes, 9:16 default^[5]Presets for YouTube 16:9, TikTok and Reels 9:16 and Facebook 1.19:1, custom ratios you can save, and clips come out 9:16 unless you ask for another.
Export	MP4 1080 × 1920, 30 fpsH.264, rendered in the browser or on the server on Creator and Studio.	4K on paid plans, 720p on free^[6]The pricing page states 4K for Pro and above and 720p on Free, but two of their own help pages say Pro exports 1080p; frame rate is never stated.
Editing and export
Manual editor	Yes, free, no account neededBounds, caption words, caption style and title.	Yes, a full drag and drop timeline editor^[2]Kapwing Studio is the core product, with timeline trimming, transcript based editing and full control over generated clips; a few tools are paid only.
Brand presets	One preset, Studio planCaption colour and font, preselected on every new video.	Brand Kit and templates, Pro and above^[7]Brand Kit, brand templates, text styles and a glossary are crossed out on Free and ticked on Pro and above, though their help article says free users can try it out.
Edit export	JSON edit plan, Studio planFor rendering on your own server; no Premiere or DaVinci export.	No Premiere, DaVinci or XML export^[6]Exports are MP4, PNG, JPG, MP3 and GIF on every plan; SRT, VTT and transcript files need a paid plan, and nothing else leaves Kapwing Studio.
Extras
Translation or dubbing	Not offeredCaptions are in the language spoken in the video.	Yes, translated subtitles and dubbed audio^[8]Counts conflict: 100+ languages on their translate page, over 60 in the pricing table, 40+ for dubbing; Pro gets 500 min translation, 50 dubbing and 30 lip sync.
Virality score	None, by designThe AI keeps complete, quotable sentences; you choose what goes out.	Not stated on their site
B-roll, music, titles	None addedThe short is your video, reframed and captioned.	Yes, auto b-roll, stock, music and titles^[9]The b-roll generator reads the transcript and places clips from iStock, Pexels and Pixabay or generates them; Free gets a starter stock set, paid unlimited.
Publishes to social	Download and post yourselfOne MP4 per short, or one ZIP with every short with and without captions; nothing is published from the studio.	Publishes to Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, no scheduling^[10]You can post exports to Facebook Pages, TikTok, YouTube and YouTube Shorts after confirming settings; there is no queue, and only the connecting user can post.
Team and price
Team seats	One account, one login	Yes, and free workspaces can invite members too^[1]Paid plans bill per member with no seat cap, but usage limits are per workspace, so extra seats add no minutes; inviting and real time editing work on Free.
API	None	No public API, MCP connector in closed beta^[11]Their own article says the Model Context Protocol connector is in beta with a small set of trusted testers on a dev environment, available by request only.
Free plan	60 credits, no cardPermanent: up to 3 shorts per video, watermarked, exports join the public community.	Yes, free plan with watermark^[6]Free gives 10 lifetime credits, 720p, 30 min of export a month and exports of 4 minutes, or 1 minute per their help FAQ; only Enterprise above 7 licences gets a trial.
How you pay	1 credit = 1 minute of videoWhatever the number of shorts. Plans from 12 EUR a month for 240 minutes.	Subscription per member, plus AI credits^[6]Four tiers Free, Pro, Business and Enterprise, billed per member per month; Free gets 10 lifetime credits, Pro and Business a monthly pool that does not roll over.

Offered
On some plans, or with a limit
Not offered
A fact, not a yes or no
Not stated on their site

The exact wording of each Kapwing cell, as read on their site

Longest video: A maximum is stated, but only for link imports: "Link uploads are limited to 120 minutes. If you are unable to upload from a link, we recommend downloading that video elsewhere and uploading it as a file from your device instead" (https://www.kapwing.com/help/subscription-faq/). File uploads have no stated duration cap, only a size cap: "You can upload files over 120 minutes long as long as they are under 6GB. But you will need to trim down your video before exporting." The cap on the finished video is separate: the table row "Video export length", described as "The maximum duration finished videos can be", is "4 minutes" on Free and "120 minutes" on Pro and Business, matching "Export projects up to 2 hours long" - though the same help FAQ says the free export ceiling is 1 minute, not 4. For clipping there is a stated minimum rather than a maximum: "Once you have a video at least 10 minutes in length, upload it to our Repurpose Clip Generator", and for audio "As long as you are uploading an audio of at least ten minutes in length, we can still suggest short clips of it". The Clip Maker page frames it as a recommendation: "Our AI Clip Maker gives the best results with long-form videos over 10 minutes."^[1]
Largest file: 6 GB on paid plans, agreed by every page. On Free their pages disagree three to one, and the weight is against the pricing page. The pricing comparison table, row "File upload limit" ("The maximum file size you can upload in the editor"), says "2 GB" on Free. Three help centre pages say 250 MB: the general FAQ, updated 16 July 2026 - "The current maximum upload size is 250 MB per file on the Free plan and 6 GB per file on eligible paid plans"; "Is Kapwing Free?", updated 31 August 2026 - "Users in workspaces on the Free Plan can upload any supported file type to Kapwing, as long as it is no larger than 250MB"; and the Pricing and Subscription FAQ, updated 10 September 2026 - "You can upload any supported file type to Kapwing, as long as it is no larger than 250MB for users in Free Plan workspaces or 6GB for users in Pro Plan workspaces." The general FAQ then points readers back at the pricing page for current limits, so one side is stale, and the three dated pages are the more recent.^[1]
How the video gets in: Three routes, all stated on their own pages. Upload from your device, paste a URL, or record in the browser: "Upload a video from your device, paste a URL, or record directly in the editor", and in their step list "Upload your video to Kapwing.com, record a video in the studio, or copy and paste a URL link into the editor." The pricing table row "Paste a link to import content" is described as "Use content from the internet in your projects, such as TikTok, YouTube, Twitter videos" and is ticked on every plan including Free; their FAQ adds "Kapwing can import videos, images, GIFs, and audio from many public or shareable URLs" but warns "Kapwing cannot import from every website, and third-party website changes can temporarily affect supported URL imports", and link imports are capped at 120 minutes. Recording is its own table row: "Record screen, camera, and audio", "Start recording inside the editor - includes combined screen and video recording", on all plans. Formats per their FAQ: video "MP4, MOV, WebM, OGG, AVI, 3GP, MPEG, WMV, FLV, and MKV", audio "MP3, AAC, M4A, MP4, MPEG, OGG, WAV, WebM, and FLAC", images "GIF, JPG, JPEG, PNG, HEIC, HEIF, SVG, and WebP", plus "SRT uploads are supported in Kapwing's subtitle tools and Studio" and custom font uploads "TTF and OTF" on paid plans. No podcast host, Zoom, Dropbox or Google Drive import integration is stated; their MCP article mentions pushing exports out to "Air, Dropbox, and Google Drive" as a beta use case, not an import.^[2]
Crop follows the speaker: Yes, a named feature called Auto Speaker Focus, listed in their main navigation as "Speaker Focus: Auto-resize videos to focus on the speakers". Its own page says "Keep active speakers always centered", "Kapwing's auto speaker focus detects and centers talking heads in a video for you", and "Auto reframe video on active speakers without manually cropping", adding "no add-ons needed". The Repurpose Studio page applies it to clipping: "Keep active speakers perfectly centered with our Auto Speaker Focus feature. Whether you're a podcaster hosting multiple guests, a YouTuber streaming gaming content with friends, or a journalist capturing a one-on-one interview, this tool saves hours of manual editing by automatically adjusting the frame." The AI Clip Maker page mentions "auto-focus to keep speakers centered". On the Resize page it is one of three reframing modes alongside "Fit to Center" and "Fill and Crop". CORRECTED: the record implied it appears in the pricing comparison table as a row that is not paid-gated; it does not appear in that table at all, under any name, so no plan availability is stated for it - the nearest row is the generic "Resizer", ticked on every plan.^[3]
Automatic captions: Yes, automatic, and one of their flagship tools. Their Subtitles page is titled "Auto-Subtitle Generator , 99% Accurate (Free)" and says "Kapwing's AI subtitle generator creates word-by-word subtitles and a fully editable transcript", with "Start with over 100 preset styles and templates, or create your own to match your brand", "Apply different styles for multiple speakers, fine-tune spacing and timing, and upload your own fonts", and "Even with long video uploads, auto-captions are processed in under 2 minutes." The Repurpose page claims "Auto-generte 99% accurate subtitles in 100+ languages" (their typo). Metered by plan: "Up to 10 minutes" on Free, "Up to 1,000 minutes per month" on Pro, "Up to 4,000 minutes per month" on Business, "Custom" on Enterprise, costed at "1 minute = 1 credit" - though their Pricing and Subscription FAQ says Pro gets "up to 300 minutes of subtitles for videos per month", which disagrees with their own pricing page. CORRECTED: getting caption files out is a paid feature, not a free one. The table rows "Download SRT/VTT files" ("Save subtitles in the SRT/VTT file format used when uploading videos to social media") and "Download video transcript" are crossed out on Free and ticked only on Pro, Business and Enterprise, and their FAQ confirms it as a Pro benefit: "With the Pro Plan, you can also upload and download SRT/VTT files for closed captions." Their /subtitles marketing page still says, unqualified, that you can "download subtitles separately as an SRT, VTT, or TXT file".^[4]
Aspect ratios: Any ratio, via presets or a custom size. Their Resize page: "Kapwing stores presets for social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube so you don't have to keep track of the right aspect ratios", and in detail: "choose from several preset size ratios: YouTube (16:9), TikTok (9:16), Instagram Stories and Reels (9:16), Facebook posts (1.19:1), and more. You can also type in your own custom size and dimensions or drag the canvas to scale the video layer." Also "Save your own aspect ratios and styles" and "Go beyond presets and save custom ratios directly to your workspace." Three reframing modes are named: "Kapwing will then offer multiple ways to resize your video, including Fit to Center, Fill and Crop, and Speaker Focus." For clipping, the AI Clip Maker page promises "Any topic, any length, any aspect ratio", and their Repurpose help article gives the default and how to override it: the generator creates clips "in mobile output format" by default, and "You can also use the prompt box to share the aspect you want if you would prefer something like 4:5 or 16:9 instead of the 9:16 default." Repurpose Studio "handles the heavy lifting by adjusting aspect ratios based on your destination platform".^[5]
Export: Stated as "720p video quality" on Free and "Export content in 4K resolution" on Pro, Business and Enterprise; the table row "Video resolution" ("The quality of exported videos") reads "720p" and "4K". Treat the 4K figure with care, because their own help centre contradicts it twice. "Is Kapwing Free?", updated 31 August 2026: "Users in workspaces on the Free Plan can only export in SD quality (720p) while users in workspaces on the Pro Plan can export in HD quality (1080p)." The Pricing and Subscription FAQ, updated 10 September 2026, in its Pro benefit list: "Export in HD video quality - The Pro Plan lets you export in 1080p so you can keep your projects crisp and beautiful, while on the Free Plan users can export only up to 720p." The same FAQ then answers the direct question the other way: "Can I export videos in 4K with the paid plans? Yes - Kapwing only supports exports up to 720p (SD) for users in Free Plan workspaces and up to 4K for users in Pro Plan workspaces." Their Resize FAQ lists the export dialog's options as "resolutions like 480p, 1080p, and 4K". Resolution is chosen at export time: "Adjust the export setting to your liking (pick resolution and compression level)". Frame rate is not stated on any page of theirs that I read.^[6]
Manual editor: Yes, and it is arguably the core product rather than an add-on. Kapwing Studio is "a browser-based editor for detailed, hands-on control" per their FAQ, and the Video Editor page leads with "Upload any video, edit with a drag-and-drop timeline and AI tools, then export in HD", elaborating "Kapwing's drag-and-drop timeline lets you trim, split, add transitions, layer B-roll, and apply effects" and "Once you're ready to assemble your video, drag and drop clips onto the timeline", with "a user-friendly editing timeline designed for frame-by-frame precision". Clips generated by the clipping tool stay editable: "Unlike other AI video repurpose tools, you maintain full creative control of the suggested clips and can edit them directly in the studio. Select from a wide range of templates, subtitles, aspect ratios, intros, and additional effects like emojis, all customizable at any time." There is also text-based editing, in the navigation as "Trim with Transcript: Edit videos by editing text", and their Repurpose help article confirms it works on generated clips: "If the AI-generated clip left out a specific sentence you want, you can add it back in; if it left in a word you didn't want, you can delete it in the studio." Other manual and semi-manual tools in the pricing table, with their plan gating: Chroma Key and Find Scenes on every plan including Free; Smart Cut, Video Stabilization, the video and image background removers and Audio Waveforms crossed out on Free and ticked on the paid plans, though their credits article says these cost no credits and that "free users may still have limited or one-time access to some of them."^[2]
Brand presets: Yes. The pricing table lists "Brand Kit", described as "Save your brand logos, fonts, and colors for to access easily when editing" (their typo), and "Custom fonts", "Upload your own fonts to use in projects", both crossed out on Free and ticked on Pro, Business and Enterprise. The Pro card reads "Brand Kit and custom fonts". Their help article covers Brand Templates as a distinct feature alongside the Brand Kit, with sections "How To Set Up Brand Templates", "How Do I Make New Projects From My Brand Templates?", "How Do I Set Up Custom Text Styles & Subtitle Styles?", "Can I Lock Layers In a Brand Template So That Others Cannot Edit Or Change Them?", "How To Add Brand Character" and "How To Set Up Your Brand Glossary". Saved inside it: "Brand Templates: Formats or layouts that to use as a starting point", colours as hex codes, and custom fonts. The same article, updated 18 May 2026, says "Kapwing has supported Brand Kits for Pro, Business, and Enterprise workspaces since 2020. Even free users can try it out!", which sits awkwardly against the pricing table showing Brand Kit as paid-only. Each workspace gets its own: "Since Brand Kits are created in a specific workspace, each workspace has its own Brand Kit."^[7]
Edit export: No export to a professional editing suite is offered. Premiere, DaVinci Resolve, Final Cut, XML and EDL appear nowhere in the text of any page of theirs I read. The pricing comparison table states what you can get out, on every plan including Free: "Export as MP4, PNG, JPG, MP3, GIF", described as "Export and download projects as videos, images, audio, and GIF files". CORRECTED: the two machine-readable outputs are not free. "Download SRT/VTT files" and "Download video transcript" ("Save a transcript file that contains all the text spoken in the video.") are crossed out in the Free column and ticked on Pro, Business and Enterprise, and their Pricing and Subscription FAQ lists SRT/VTT download among the Pro benefits. Their MCP article confirms the same ceiling for programmatic access, offering only to "Access and save exported MP4 videos". Everything else stays inside Kapwing Studio.^[6]
Translation or dubbing: Yes, both translated subtitles and dubbed audio, with voice cloning and lip sync. Their Translate page: "Translate videos into 100+ languages. Subtitles, AI dubbing, voice cloning, and automatic lip sync", and "Choose from 180+ AI voices or clone the original speaker's voice to keep translated versions consistent across languages." Their Dubbing page: "Dub videos into 40+ languages", powered by named third parties - "Using trusted partners like Google, DeepL, and GPT" for translation and "Our premium AI voice library - powered by ElevenLabs" for voices. The AI Clip Maker page splits the two figures: "Translate subtitles into 100+ languages and audio into over 40, including Spanish, Chinese, French, and Hindi." The pricing table disagrees with all of them, describing auto-translating as "Automatically translate subtitles to over 60 languages using AI". Metered separately: auto-translating "Up to 5 minutes" Free, "Up to 500 minutes per month" Pro, "Up to 2,000 minutes per month" Business; dubbing "up to 50 mins / month" Pro and "up to 200 mins / month" Business, nothing on Free, which their credits article explains as pure credit arithmetic at "30 seconds = 10 credits" - "On the Pro Plan, you can dub up to 50 minutes if you do not use your credits for any other tool." Lip Sync is "Up to 30 minutes per month" on Pro and "Up to 130 minutes per month" on Business, at 30 credits a minute. "Create custom voice clones" is listed as a Business-tier card feature. Dubbing uses "built-in voice cloning, timing, and multi-speaker detection".^[8]
Virality score: Not stated on their site.
B-roll, music, titles: Yes, and broadly. Their AI B-Roll Generator page: "Auto-generate B-roll that matches your video topic" and "AI adds relevant B-roll to the right moments. No manual editing required." It works from the transcript: the tool "analyzes your video transcript to identify key themes, topics, and visual moments, then automatically matches them with high-quality B-roll", with automatic timeline placement, "synced automatically to your narration". Sources are named: "The AI B-roll Generator pulls from a vast library of stock footage powered by iStock, Pexels, and Pixabay", and for custom shots "Create one-of-a-kind B-roll from text prompts using models like MiniMax, Veo, and Seedance." Beyond b-roll, the pricing table lists "Stock videos, photos, audio, GIFs" ("Browse thousands of copyright-free assets") as a "Starter set of stock assets" on Free and "Unlimited stock assets" on paid plans, plus "Transitions and video effects" ("a library of hundreds of transitions") and "Free stock templates" on every plan. The Repurpose page lets you keep "adding background music, brand assets, or B-roll footage", and their help centre has an article titled "Adding a Title Card to Your Videos on Kapwing".^[9]
Publishes to social: Publishing yes, scheduling no. Their help article, last updated 22 April 2025, states "Right now, you can share your exports to Facebook, TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and YouTube" and "We're working on adding support for other platforms, so stay tuned!" The flow is manual and post-export: after exporting "you'll see an option to 'Share to socials'", you authorise the account by OAuth, then "you'll be able to edit key publishing settings directly within Kapwing such as title, description, tags, category, audience, and visibility settings", and "Confirm your publishing settings and initiate the publishing process by clicking 'Post my project.'" No scheduler or queue appears anywhere, and they rule out hands-off posting explicitly: "No, your videos will not be automatically published to your connected social accounts after editing. You will always have the option to review and confirm the publishing settings before initiating the upload process." Two further limits from the same article: Facebook publishing is Pages only - "Due to Facebook's policies, it's only possible to publish videos to Facebook Pages - not to personal profiles" - and only the connecting user can post, since "Other members of your workspace won't be able to post to the social channels you've connected." No Instagram, LinkedIn or X publishing, despite those platforms being named as repurposing destinations elsewhere on the site.^[10]
Team seats: Yes, and seats are the unit of pricing: Pro and Business are billed "Per member, per month", and "Workspaces on all paid plans are billed per member", prorated mid-cycle, with "Every person in your Workspace needs a paid seat" and account sharing barred ("Account sharing is against our terms of service"). No seat cap is stated; the Pro benefit is "Add unlimited team members to your shared workspace". CORRECTED: collaboration is not paid-gated the way the record said. The table rows "Invite team members" ("Add other members to view and edit all projects in the workspace"), "Real time collaboration", "Commenting", "Project link sharing" and "Project version history" all carry checkmarks in the Free column as well as the paid ones, and their FAQ agrees: "All teams can get started on Kapwing for free by following the steps for creating a team and added members prior to upgrading the workspace", with "If your workspace is already on a Pro Plan or Business Plan, adding members to that workspace is not free." Genuinely paid-only: "Brand Kit", "Custom fonts", "Private folders", "Private projects", and unlimited workspace folders against "1 folder" on Free. Enterprise alone adds "SAML single sign-on (SSO)", "Priority support", "Dedicated account manager", "Custom billing" and "Onboarding & training". One limit the record omitted and that matters for teams: allowances do not scale with headcount - "auto-subtitle limits and all other usage limits of the Pro & Business Plan are total per workspace per month. Paid workspaces with multiple seats do not have increased limits than single-seat paid workspaces."^[1]
API: No public API is stated anywhere on their site: the word does not appear in the rendered text of any page I read, and none of the 163 articles in their help sitemap is about one. What they offer is a Model Context Protocol connector, and their own article, updated 21 September 2026, is explicit that it is not generally available: "Kapwing's MCP is currently in beta with a small set of trusted testers", it runs on a dev environment ("The Kapwing MCP is currently being tested on Kapwing's dev environment"), and it is in neither directory ("we have not submitted our MCP for their approval yet"). Access is by request, by emailing them with the subject "Kapwing MCP Interest", and today's testers are existing customers: "Right now, the Kapwing MCP is available for beta testers only. Our Trusted Testers are comprised of Business and Enterprise customers who have requested access to an MCP in the past", with a stated plan to "make the Kapwing MCP available to Pro, Business, and Enterprise customers." The connector "gives Claude, ChatGPT, and other agents direct access to your Kapwing Workspace"; its tool calls cover workspace and account information, recent project information, uploading assets, downloading exported MP4s, and three editing operations - adding subtitles, translating subtitles, and dubbing. Pricing is not separate: "The MCP is included in Kapwing's paid subscription at no additional cost", with AI features deducting from the same credit pool. No documented REST endpoint, no key issuance, no rate limits.^[11]
Free plan: Yes. The Free plan costs "$0" ("It's Free!") and their help centre has an article titled "Is Kapwing Free?". Card: "10 credits", "Unlimited exports with a watermark", "Export videos up to 4 minutes long", "720p video quality", "5 GB of cloud storage". Comparison table adds a "2 GB" file upload limit, a "30 minutes" monthly video export limit, "1 folder", a "Starter set of stock assets" and storage duration "3 days". Free credit allowances: auto-subtitling "Up to 10 minutes", auto-translating "Up to 5 minutes", text to speech "Up to 1 minutes", Clean Audio "Up to 5 minutes"; no Lip Sync. Not on Free per the table: SRT/VTT download, transcript download, Brand Kit, custom fonts, Smart Cut, video stabilisation, the background removers, audio waveforms, private folders and private projects. The watermark is unavoidable: "Projects exported on the Free plan include a Kapwing watermark." Their help centre states tighter free limits than the pricing page: 250 MB uploads, a 1 minute export ceiling, and "they only have access to 3 projects in each folder and all projects are subject to deletion after 3 days. After three free projects are created, each new project created will lock the oldest one." On trials, the pricing FAQ says "We do not currently offer a free trial for Kapwing's paid plans", but their Pricing and Subscription FAQ carves out an exception the record missed: "For Enterprise customers, we do offer a week-long free trial for businesses interested in more than 7 licenses."^[6]
How you pay: Subscription, priced "Per member, per month", with a credit allowance on top. Four tiers: Free, Pro, Business, Enterprise. "Kapwing Pro and Business are only available as a subscription not as a one time charge. The subscription will auto renew until cancelled." AI usage is metered in credits: "Credits measure usage of eligible AI-powered features. The cost varies based on the tool, model, input duration, output duration, quality, and generation settings." Free gets "10 credits" lifetime, Pro "1,000 credits / month", Business "4,000 credits / month", Enterprise custom. Their credits article prices the tools: subtitle transcription 1 credit a minute, subtitle translation and Clean Audio and Repurpose Studio 2 credits a minute, dubbing 10 credits per 30 seconds, Lip Sync 30 credits a minute, video resize 4 credits. Credits "do not roll over" and "All usage limits on the Pro and Business Plans reset on the first of each month, regardless of billing date." Only Business can top up, at "a one-time purchase of 500 credits for $50 USD". Limits are per workspace, not per seat: "auto-subtitle limits and all other usage limits of the Pro & Business Plan are total per workspace per month." Currency: "All of our prices are listed in USD." No refunds: "we do not issue refunds for subscriptions once you decide to upgrade to Kapwing Pro or Business".^[6]

Sources for the Kapwing column, read on 20 September 2026

Their pages can change after that date; the table does not update itself.

What a month costs

shortshort prices before VAT, from the product. Kapwing plans as listed on their pricing page^[6].

shortshort

Free€0, no card60 welcome credits, one hour of videoUp to 3 shorts per videoWatermarked exportExported shorts join the community
Starter€12 a month240 min of video a month, 4 hoursUp to 5 shorts per videoNo watermarkPrivate exports: nothing posted to the public community gallery
Creator€29 a month800 min of video a month, 13 h 20Everything in StarterUp to 10 shorts per videoRenders on our servers: close the tab and come back to finished shorts
Studio€79 a month3,000 min of video a month, 50 hoursEverything in CreatorUp to 20 shorts per videoOne brand preset: your caption colors and font, preselected on every new video

Annual billing: Starter €115 a year, Creator €278 a year, Studio €758 a year. Full detail on the pricing page.

Kapwing

Free$010 credits lifetime, 30 min of export a monthEvery export carries a Kapwing watermark720p, exports of 4 min, or 1 min per their help FAQUploads 2 GB per pricing page, 250 MB per help centreNo SRT, VTT or transcript download, no Brand Kit
Pro$24/mo, $16/mo billed yearly ($192/yr)1,000 credits a month, unlimited exportsNo watermark, 4K per pricing page, 1080p per helpUploads to 6 GB, 2 hour exports, Brand Kit, 200 GB1,000 min subtitles per pricing page, 300 per FAQ500 translation, 50 dubbing, 50 speech, 30 lip sync
Business$64/mo, $50/mo billed yearly ($600/yr)4,000 credits a month, 800 GB storageVoice clones, plus 130 min of lip sync a monthIts card sells lip sync as new, the table gives Pro 30 minOnly tier that can buy 500 extra credits for $504,000 min subtitles, 2,000 translation, 200 dubbing
EnterpriseContact Sales, not statedCustom amount of creditsSAML single sign-on and priority supportDedicated account manager, onboarding and trainingWeek-long free trial above 7 licences

As written on their pricing page

Free: $0 ("$0", labelled "It's Free!"). Currency USD, stated in their pricing FAQ: "All of our prices are listed in USD.": Card bullets: "10 credits" (the plan's credit line), "Unlimited exports with a watermark", "Export videos up to 4 minutes long", "720p video quality", "5 GB of cloud storage"; card credit uses list only "Auto-subtitling (up to 10 mins)" and "Text to speech (up to 1 mins)". The comparison table adds: file upload limit "2 GB", video export length "4 minutes", monthly video export limit "30 minutes", "1 folder", storage duration "3 days", "Starter set of stock assets", watermark-free exports "None", auto-translating "Up to 5 minutes", Clean Audio "Up to 5 minutes", no Lip Sync. Ticked on Free in the table: record screen/camera/audio, transitions and effects, free stock templates, export as MP4/PNG/JPG/MP3/GIF, paste a link to import, Resizer, Find Scenes, Auto Level Audio, Chroma Key, commenting, project link sharing, invite team members, real time collaboration, project version history. Crossed out on Free: Smart Cut, Video Stabilization, video and image background removers, Audio Waveforms, Download SRT/VTT files, Download video transcript, Brand Kit, custom fonts, private folders, private projects, priority support.. Credits are lifetime, not monthly: their credits article says "The Free Plan comes with 10 credits lifetime." CORRECTED: the record claimed SRT/VTT and transcript downloads were free; both are crossed out for Free in the comparison table and their Pricing and Subscription FAQ confirms "With the Pro Plan, you can also upload and download SRT/VTT files for closed captions." Their help centre contradicts the pricing table twice on this tier: upload limit 250 MB rather than 2 GB (three help pages), and "the exporting time limit is 1 minute for users in Free Plan workspaces" rather than 4 minutes. Their "Is Kapwing Free?" article adds a limit absent from the pricing page: free users "only have access to 3 projects in each folder and all projects are subject to deletion after 3 days. After three free projects are created, each new project created will lock the oldest one."
Pro: $16 per member per month billed annually (card: "$16", "Per member, per month, billed annually"), or $24 per member per month billed monthly (card: "$24 billed monthly"). Their FAQ gives the annual total: "Kapwing Pro is available for $16/month billed annually or $192/year." USD.: "Everything in Free, plus these features for your team workspace:" "No Kapwing watermark on your creations", "Upload files up to 6 GB", "Export content in 4K resolution", "Create and edit unlimited projects", "Export projects up to 2 hours long", "Brand Kit and custom fonts", "Collaborative shared workspace", "200 GB of cloud storage", "1,000 credits / month". Table adds versus Free: unlimited monthly video exports, "Unlimited stock assets", watermark-free exports "For all projects", Smart Cut, Video Stabilization, video and image background removers, Audio Waveforms, Download SRT/VTT files, Download video transcript, Brand Kit, custom fonts, private folders, private projects, "Unlimited" workspace folders, storage "Duration of subscription". Credit uses: auto-subtitling "Up to 1,000 minutes per month", auto-translating "Up to 500 minutes per month", text to speech "Up to 50 minutes per month", Clean Audio "Up to 500 minutes per month", Lip Sync "Up to 30 minutes per month", dubbing "up to 50 mins / month".. Priced "Per member, per month", so team size multiplies the price; their FAQ works the monthly case through: "the Pro Plan will renew with 3 members at $72 ($24 x 3 members)". Marked "Most Popular". CORRECTED: the record listed "invite team members", "real time collaboration" and "project version history" as Pro additions; all three carry checkmarks in the Free column of the table today, and their FAQ says "All teams can get started on Kapwing for free by following the steps for creating a team and added members prior to upgrading." Two of their own help pages say Pro exports at 1080p, not 4K. The same Pricing and Subscription FAQ that says 4K also says Pro gives "up to 300 minutes of subtitles for videos per month", against 1,000 on the pricing page.
Business: $50 per member per month billed annually (card: "$50", "Per member, per month, billed annually"), or $64 per member per month billed monthly (card: "$64 billed monthly"). Their FAQ: "Kapwing Business ... is available for $50/month billed annually or $600/year." USD.: "Everything in Pro, plus these features for your team workspace:" "Create custom voice clones", "Lip sync videos", "Ability to purchase additional credits", "800 GB of cloud storage", "4,000 credits / month". Credit uses: auto-subtitling "Up to 4,000 minutes per month", auto-translating "Up to 2,000 minutes per month", text to speech "Up to 200 minutes per month", Clean Audio "Up to 2,000 minutes per month", Lip Sync "Up to 130 minutes per month", dubbing "up to 200 mins / month".. Same 6 GB upload limit, 4K resolution and 120 minute export length as Pro; what changes is credit volume, storage, voice clones and lip sync. ADDED: the extra-credit price the record left blank is published on their own credits article: "we do offer a one-time purchase of 500 credits for $50 USD. You can buy multiple packs of 500 credits, but please note these credits do not roll over." The pricing table does not give Business priority support; that row is Enterprise-only, despite the Business card's positioning.
Enterprise: Not stated, "Contact Sales": Credit line reads "Custom amount of credits". Bullets under "Everything in Business, plus these features for your team workspace:" are "Custom billing", "Dedicated account manager", "Priority customer support", "Onboarding & training", "SAML single sign-on (SSO)", "Custom cloud storage", plus credit uses "Custom amount of auto-subtitling", "Custom amount of dubbing", "Custom usage of generative AI features.". No public number on the page. CORRECTED: the record listed "Custom amount of credits" as a feature bullet; on the page it is the credit-allowance line above the price, in the same slot as "10 credits" and "1,000 credits / month". ADDED: Enterprise is the one tier with a stated trial - "For Enterprise customers, we do offer a week-long free trial for businesses interested in more than 7 licenses."

The verdict

shortshort for the price per minute, the cuts and the framing; Kapwing when you need bigger files or link import. Both lists come from the table.

Where shortshort comes out ahead

Longest video3 h per video, on every plan; Kapwing: 2 h for link imports.
Cuts on complete sentencesEach short opens and closes on a sentence boundary, with a 25% margin around the target length; nothing ends mid-thought.
Framing that follows the face, with emphasis zoomsFace and scene tracking move the 9:16 crop; zooms between x1.0 and x1.6 add motion; slides and wide shots stay whole.
One page, nothing to learnDrop, choose the count and the length, check, export. No timeline or template to set up.
A free manual editor, no account neededBounds, caption words, caption style and title; the MP4 export works without signing in.
A public before-and-after galleryEach short next to the video it came from, with the transcript, so the result can be judged before trying.

Where Kapwing may fit better

Bigger files^[1]6 GB paid, 2 GB or 250 MB free against 2 GB here. Paid plans take 6 GB per file; their pricing table says 2 GB on Free while three help pages dated later say 250 MB.
Link import^[2]Upload, paste a link, or record in browser. Three routes on every plan including Free: upload from your device, paste a URL such as TikTok or YouTube, or record screen, camera and audio in the editor.
Translation or dubbing^[8]Yes, translated subtitles and dubbed audio. Counts conflict: 100+ languages on their translate page, over 60 in the pricing table, 40+ for dubbing; Pro gets 500 min translation, 50 dubbing and 30 lip sync.
B-roll, music, titles^[9]Yes, auto b-roll, stock, music and titles. The b-roll generator reads the transcript and places clips from iStock, Pexels and Pixabay or generates them; Free gets a starter stock set, paid unlimited.
Publishes to social^[10]Publishes to Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, no scheduling. You can post exports to Facebook Pages, TikTok, YouTube and YouTube Shorts after confirming settings; there is no queue, and only the connecting user can post.
Team seats^[1]Yes, and free workspaces can invite members too. Paid plans bill per member with no seat cap, but usage limits are per workspace, so extra seats add no minutes; inviting and real time editing work on Free.

What shortshort produces, on a real video

A published transformation from the community: the original on top, the shorts it became below. Click one to see it with its transcript.

Frame of the original video: The Sun Doesn't Stop for Anyone

23 sStarting Before the Sun Rises

25 sYour Life Is a Book

26 sThe Sun Doesn't Stop for Anyone

3 of 10 shorts shown · The Sun Doesn't Stop for Anyone · watch it in the community, with the transcript

How shortshort cuts, frames and captions

Three things the table can only name. The passage, the frame and the captions below are illustrations; the community shows the real thing.

1 · The cut ends on the sentence

Cut at the target

The reason most clips fail is that they stop before the idea lands, and a viewer who never hears the end of the sentence has no reason to share it.

Cut at the sentence

The reason most clips fail is that they stop before the idea lands, and a viewer who never hears the end of the sentence has no reason to share it.

Same passage, same 30-second target. shortshort keeps going to the end of the sentence, 37 seconds here, which is inside the 25% margin it allows.

2 · The 9:16 crop follows the speaker

The face is tracked; the 9:16 window moves with it, zoomed between x1.0 and x1.6.

A slide, a shared screen or a wide shot is detected and kept whole in the 9:16 short, with bands above and below.

3 · Captions timed word by word

Spotlight, one of the four caption styles. Impact, Karaoke and Minimal use the same word timing.

Questions people ask

Is shortshort a good Kapwing alternative?

It depends on what you need. shortshort turns one video of up to 3 hours into vertical shorts, 3 per video on the free plan and up to 20 on Studio, cut on complete sentences, framed on the speaker and captioned word by word in one of four styles. If that is the job, try it with the 60 free credits and compare the result with what you get from Kapwing.

How does shortshort pricing compare with Kapwing?

shortshort charges 1 credit per minute of source video, whatever the number of shorts. Starter is 12 EUR for 240 credits, Creator 29 EUR for 800 and Studio 79 EUR for 3,000, and every account starts with 60 free credits. Kapwing's own plans, as written on their pricing page, are listed on this page under "What a month costs".

Can I try shortshort before leaving Kapwing?

Yes. The 60 free credits cover a one-hour video with up to 3 shorts, no card needed. Your source video stays private; only the shorts you export join the community, and every paid plan lets you keep them out of it.

Cuts that finish the sentence, at a price by the minute.

The fastest comparison is your own video: 60 minutes are free, no card. Your source video stays yours; the shorts you export join the community, and any paid plan keeps them out of it.

Open the studio See the plans