ZUBTITLE ALTERNATIVE

shortshort vs Zubtitle.

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 Zubtitle: 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.

Zubtitle turns talking videos into captioned, branded social posts. It may fit better for B-roll, music, titles; the table below says where, with the source.

Price per minute of video: €0.05 here, guru at 19 per month, currency not named on the site at Zubtitle
Free plan: Permanent on both sides
Longest video: 3 h per video here, 20 min, 30 min on custom at Zubtitle
Largest file: 2 GB per file here, 1 GB per video at Zubtitle

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 Zubtitle column is derived from Zubtitle's own site: the number after a cell points to the source, and the exact wording is under the table.

Reading note. Zubtitle is built around captions and branded social posts rather than picking moments out of a long recording.

Criterion	shortshort	Zubtitle
Getting the video in
Longest video	3 h per videoOne file of up to 3 hours, on every plan.	20 min per video, 30 on custom^[1]Free, Guru and Agency all cap a video at 20 minutes; custom subscriptions can support videos up to 30 minutes.
Largest file	2 GB per fileMP4, MOV or WebM.	1 GB per video^[2]Help article 111 pairs 1GB with the 20 minute limit and the pricing FAQ says less than 1.0 GB; no plan is named, and the custom tier sits behind a login.
How the video gets in	File upload onlyNo YouTube or Drive link import; the file leaves your disk.	Upload only, mp4 mov or m4v^[3]No link import and no cloud drive integration; H.264, up to 4096x2160, under 1 GB and 20 minutes; a recorded Zoom file has to be uploaded like any other.
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.	Not stated on their site
Automatic captions	Word by word, 4 stylesSpotlight, Impact, Karaoke, Minimal; timed on the audio; SRT import.	Yes, burned in, 58 to 59 languages listed^[4]Their own lists disagree: 59 languages in the help centre, 58 on the marketing page, and the copy claims over 60 then more than 50; neither list includes English.
Aspect ratios	9:16 only	Square, widescreen and vertical^[5]Resizing is a manual choice in the editor, no numeric ratio menu is published, and resizing a finished video via Reset to Draft costs no extra credit.
Export	MP4 1080 × 1920, 30 fpsH.264, rendered in the browser or on the server on Creator and Studio.	Up to 4K on paid, 720p on free^[3]Uploads are accepted up to 4096x2160 and output matches the source resolution, with bitrate matched or raised to 8 mbs, whichever is higher.
Editing and export
Manual editor	Yes, free, no account neededBounds, caption words, caption style and title.	Yes, it is the core of the product^[6]Drag and drop editor with caption text and timing edits, per word styling, a trimmer, resize, logo and progress bars; Reset to Draft reopens finished videos.
Brand presets	One preset, Studio planCaption colour and font, preselected on every new video.	Yes, saved templates plus custom fonts^[7]Templates capture styling, logos, progress bar and resize settings, are saved manually, and do not update when you later change those settings.
Edit export	JSON edit plan, Studio planFor rendering on your own server; no Premiere or DaVinci export.	No NLE export, only SRT and TXT files^[8]Every render outputs an SRT and a TXT caption file on all plans; nothing for Premiere, Final Cut, DaVinci, XML or EDL appears anywhere on the site.
Extras
Translation or dubbing	Not offeredCaptions are in the language spoken in the video.	Not offered, captions match the spoken audio^[9]Two help articles say translation is not supported and suggest pasting Google Translate output into the caption editor; no dubbing anywhere on the site.
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.	Headlines, logo and progress bars, no stock^[10]Zubtitle supplies no b-roll, stock footage or music library; overlays are limited to text headlines, an uploaded logo and branded progress bars.
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.	No, the AI only writes the post text^[11]It generates post text, hashtags, titles, descriptions and timestamps, but will not schedule or publish; you copy the text into your social app.
Team and price
Team seats	One account, one login	Not stated on their siteThe Agency plan is pitched for teams creating content for clients, but no seat count, user count or multi-user feature is stated anywhere.
API	None	No public API^[12]They invite you to contact them about integrating, depending on expected volume.
Free plan	60 credits, no cardPermanent: up to 3 shorts per video, watermarked, exports join the public community.	Yes, 2 videos a month, free forever^[3]Bootstrapper gives 2 videos a month with a watermark and 720p output; the FAQ on the same pricing page contradicts the card and says 1 video.
How you pay	1 credit = 1 minute of videoWhatever the number of shorts. Plans from 12 EUR a month for 240 minutes.	Subscription, 2 to 30 videos a month, custom above^[3]Monthly or annual billing, two months free yearly, credits roll over on paid plans; a stale row lower on the same page still prices Guru at 90 a year, not 190.

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 Zubtitle cell, as read on their site

Longest video: 20 minutes on the free, Guru and Agency plans: "The Free Trial, Guru, and Agency plans support videos up to 20 minutes long. Custom subscriptions can support videos up to 30 minutes long." The pricing page upload requirements repeat "20 minutes or less in duration", the compare table shows a "20 min" upload limit per video for all three plans, and help article 111 says "Videos can be up to 20 minutes long and 1GB in size."^[1]
Largest file: 1 GB: "Videos can be up to 20 minutes long and 1GB in size." The pricing page FAQ words the same limit as "less than 1.0 GB".^[2]
How the video gets in: File upload only. The pricing page FAQ states the accepted files: "Zubtitle currently accepts only videos that meet the following criteria: .mp4, .mov, or .m4v format, less than 1.0 GB, H.264 codec (H.265/HEVC codecs can be used in Safari browsers only), resolution up to 4096x2160, 20 minutes or less in duration". The upload step itself is described on /online-video-editor and the feature pages: "Upload your video in any size or aspect ratio, select your language". No YouTube or other link import and no Google Drive integration appears anywhere. Zoom and Dropbox are each mentioned once in the help centre but neither is an integration: help article 168 says "Zubtitle cannot provide live captioning for Zoom meetings at this time. However, recorded Zoom meetings can be used with Zubtitle" (i.e. upload the recording), and help article 147 mentions Dropbox only as a third-party workaround for getting an already-downloaded file onto an older iPhone. The pricing FAQ adds "Zubtitle is mobile friendly on both iOS & Android devices."^[3]
Crop follows the speaker: Not stated on their site.
Automatic captions: Yes, automatic and burned in: "Automatically add captions or subtitles to your videos in seconds", "Our A.I. transcribes the spoken word in your video, converts it to text, and automatically adds open captions to your video", and captions are burned "directly into widescreen, square, and vertical videos". Help article 138 lists 59 languages for speech-to-text transcription (Afrikaans through Zulu, splitting Chinese Cantonese and Chinese Mandarin); /subtitles-in-foreign-languages lists 58 (one "Chinese" entry) and the site publishes 58 matching per-language pages. Neither list contains English. The marketing copy claims "over 60 spoken languages" and then "more than 50 languages" in consecutive sentences on that same page (the "over 60" figure also appears on /features/video-captions). You pick the spoken language before upload. Styling: "Add animated video captions", custom fonts and colours, per-word colour changes, pre-made templates, and manual editing of "caption text and timing". Custom fonts are ticked for all three plans in the compare table, including free. A .srt and a .txt file are output with every render.^[4]
Aspect ratios: "Crop videos for social media easily. Zubtitle lets you quickly resize any video to square, widescreen, or vertical formats." No explicit menu of ratios is published on any marketing page , I grepped every feature page for 16:9, 9:16, 4:5 and 1:1 and the only hit was a CSS comment. The template gallery images are named Square, Portrait and Vertical. Help article 114 only says "Choose the aspect ratio that you want your video to be finalized in" and warns that "Changing the aspect ratio of your video will change the original resolution of your video"; help article 130 discusses 1:1, 4:5, 16:9 and 9:16 as the ratios each social platform wants, not as an in-app menu. Resizing is a manual choice in the editor, and per help article 131 resizing a completed video via Reset to Draft costs no extra credit.^[5]
Export: Up to 4K on paid plans, up to 720p on the free plan ("Resolutions up to 720p" for Bootstrapper, "Resolutions up to 4K" for Guru and Agency; the compare table repeats up to 720p / up to 4K / up to 4K). Uploads are accepted at "resolution up to 4096x2160" per the pricing FAQ. Output tracks the input, per help article 132 (not the pricing page): "Zubtitle matches the resolution of the original video. The bitrate of each video will also match the original video or be raised to 8mbs, whichever is higher." No numeric frame-rate limit is published; the 27 October 2023 blog post on bitrates says only that they "support additional video settings, including variable frame-rates and more codecs", and also claims "We render videos at the same bitrate as input", which does not quite match article 132's 8mbs floor.^[3]
Manual editor: Yes, and it is the core of the product: "An online video editor that's fast & easy", with a "drag and drop editor", a caption editor where you "Edit your caption text and timing as needed", undo and redo of caption edits, per-word styling and colour, a trimmer to "Highlight the most attention grabbing portion of your video", a Re-size button, logo placement and progress bars. Finished videos can be reopened: per help article 133, "click on the Reset To Draft link on that page. This will return your video to draft mode and allow you to make any edits", then "press the Download and Render button again"; "Returning videos to draft will not use video credits."^[6]
Brand presets: Yes. "Use your brand's fonts and colors, and save your own templates for even faster editing", plus a pre-made library: "We provide multiple user templates in a variety of styles and formats to match any platform that supports video." Saving is manual: per help article 113 you "click the 'Save Current as New Template' button on the Templates area of the Video editor", a template captures "Styling, Video, Logos, Progress Bar, or Re-size" settings, and changing those settings later "will not automatically update your template". Custom font upload (.OTF or .TTF) is described in help article 134; its current instructions state no plan gate, and the pricing compare table ticks Custom fonts for all three plans including free Bootstrapper , only the Agency annual card lists it as a bullet.^[7]
Edit export: No. No export to Premiere, Final Cut, DaVinci, XML, FCPXML or EDL appears on any page of the site or in any help article. The only machine-readable output is the caption file: "Everytime you render a new video with Zubtitle, it will automatically output an .SRT file and a .Txt file for download", and "If you only want the .SRT file (and no video), you still need to render the video file to obtain the .SRT file." The pricing FAQ says "For each video that is processed with Zubtitle, a .txt or .srt file can be downloaded", and the compare table ticks ".SRT File" for all three plans.^[8]
Translation or dubbing: No, and they say so in two separate articles. "At this time translations are not supported through Zubtitle. Though Zubtitle does support creating captions in many languages, the generated captions would match the language in the audio of the video file you are uploading to Zubtitle" (article 136). Article 152 adds "We do not, however, support translation at this time", with the worked example of wanting Spanish subtitles on English speech. They suggest pasting Google Translate output into the caption editor as a workaround, warning you may have to re-add timestamps. No dubbing, voice cloning or lip-sync is mentioned anywhere on the site.^[9]
Virality score: Not stated on their site.
B-roll, music, titles: No. Zubtitle supplies no b-roll, stock footage or music library: no product page, the pricing page, the compare table or any of the 69 help articles mentions one. What it does offer as overlays is titles and branding: "Grab your audience's attention with a headline that teases your content using our built-in Text Editor", "Upload your logo" as a logo or watermark, and "Add eye-catching progress bars to your videos to increase retention. Custom branded!" Note that their blog does discuss stock footage and royalty-free music, but only as third-party sources you find yourself (one post recommends Pexels, Pixabay and Videezy and says stock footage is "perfect to use as B-roll"), which confirms rather than contradicts that Zubtitle does not provide it.^[10]
Publishes to social: No. The AI can write the post text but not publish or schedule it: "This feature will not automatically schedule social media posts. It only generates the post content itself. You will need to copy the text generated into your social media app." The AI tab also generates video titles/headlines, hashtags, YouTube descriptions or summaries and timestamps. Finished videos are downloaded and shared manually , help article 147 even recommends Buffer for scheduling, noting "The Zubtitle Team uses Buffer to post videos to Instagram from a desktop."^[11]
Team seats: Not stated on their site.
API: No public API: "Zubtitle does not have a public API at this time. If you have an interest in integrating Zubtitle with your service or website, send us a message, though. We may be able to help depending on expected volume."^[12]
Free plan: Yes. The Bootstrapper plan is "$0 /mo" ("$0 /yr" on the annual toggle), "free forever", with "All video editor features", "2 videos per month", "Zubtitle watermark added" and "Resolutions up to 720p". No card needed: "Try it for free. No credit card required to start creating." Help article 118 confirms "Videos made on the free tier do include a watermark on them" and that it is removed by subscribing and re-rendering via Reset to Draft. Caveat: the FAQ at the bottom of the same pricing page contradicts the card and says "The Free Trial plan lets you upload 1 video", while help article 151 and the homepage both say two.^[3]
How you pay: Monthly or annual subscription with a fixed number of video credits per month (2, 10 or 30), plus a self-serve custom plan sized by a credit slider behind a login. The pricing page says "Get 2 months FREE with annual billing". The Terms of use say "Fees are billed in advance on a monthly or annual basis, as selected" and "All fees are non-refundable, except as required by law". Unused credits roll over, but that is documented on help article 128, not on the pricing page: "Rollover credits are un-used credits that roll over to the next billing cycle", capped because "Each subscription includes double the included credits in rollover credits", and "Roll over credits are only included with active paid subscriptions." Help article 131 says resetting a completed video to draft and resizing it does not consume another credit. No currency is named anywhere on the site.^[3]

Sources for the Zubtitle 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. Zubtitle plans as listed on their pricing page^[3].

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.

Zubtitle

Bootstrapper0 per month and 0 per year2 videos a month, 20 min eachFree forever, no credit card to startZubtitle watermark on every videoResolutions up to 720pAll editor features, including custom fonts
Guru19 per month or 190 per year10 videos a month, 20 min eachWatermark removedResolutions up to 4KPremium supportAnnual saves 38; a stale table row says 90 a year
Agency49 per month or 490 per year30 videos a month, 20 min eachWatermark removed and up to 4KPremium supportPitched for teams, no seat count statedAnnual billing saves 98
Custom pricingNot published, calculator in appCredit slider, videos up to 30 minPrice shown only after you log inChoose 20 or 30 minute videos per creditFor more than 30 video credits a month

As written on their pricing page

Bootstrapper: $0 /mo on the monthly toggle; the annual toggle shows the same plan as "$0 /yr". Currency is never named anywhere on the site (bare "$" only); the Terms of use name Zubtitle LLC under South Carolina law but state no currency.: Monthly card: "All video editor features", "2 videos per month", "Zubtitle watermark added", "Resolutions up to 720p". Annual card: "All video editor features", "2 videos per month", "20 min uploads" (it drops the resolution line). In the compare-plans table Bootstrapper is ticked for Auto-subtitling, Custom headlines, Style templates, Video resizing, Progress animation, Logo upload, .SRT File and Custom fonts, and blank only for Watermark Removed and Premium support.. Described as "For getting started with video marketing" and "free forever". Help article 151 says the free subscription "includes two videos per month" and every video carries a watermark (article 118: "Videos made on the free tier do include a watermark on them"); the FAQ block at the bottom of the same pricing page instead says "The Free Trial plan lets you upload 1 video". The homepage and several other pages say "two video credits on us".
Guru: $19 /mo on the monthly toggle; $190 /yr on the annual toggle ("save $38"). Currency never stated on the site.: Monthly card: "All video editor features", "10 videos per month", "Watermark removed", "Resolutions up to 4K", "Premium support". Annual card: "All video editor features", "10 videos per month", "20 min uploads", "Premium support", "Remove watermarks" — the annual card adds the 20 min line and drops "Resolutions up to 4K".. Described as "For podcasters, experts, and coaches". The monthly card says "or $190 yearly" and the annual card "save $38" ($19x12 = $228, so $38 checks out), but the compare-plans table lower on the same page says "or $90/yr. (save $18)" — a stale row that is not even internally consistent ($18 saving implies a $9/mo price).
Agency: $49 /mo on the monthly toggle; $490 /yr on the annual toggle ("save $98"). Currency never stated on the site.: Monthly card: "All video editor features", "30 videos per month", "Watermark removed", "Resolutions up to 4K", "Premium support". Annual card: same plus "20 min uploads", "Remove watermarks" and "Custom fonts", minus the resolution line. CORRECTION: Custom fonts is NOT an Agency-only item in the compare table — that table ticks Custom fonts for all three plans, including free Bootstrapper. Only Watermark Removed and Premium support are Guru/Agency-only there.. Described as "For teams creating content for clients", and the agency landing pages say "Help your team create videos faster", but no seat count, user count or multi-user feature is stated anywhere. $49x12 = $588, so the $98 annual saving checks out.
Custom pricing: Not stated as a number on any public page. The pricing page only offers "Try our custom pricing calculator to create a plan based on your needs." with a "View options" button.: Help article 122 says you go to the My Subscriptions page in your account, click 'Interested In Custom Pricing?', and "Use the slider to adjust your custom plan for the number of credits you need each month. The price for that custom plan will be displayed to the right of that credit slider. You can also choose if you would like a maximum of 20-minute or 30-minute videos for each credit as well.". The calculator is behind a login (app.zubtitle.com and dashboard.zubtitle.com return an empty client-rendered shell to curl), so there is no public price. Help article 111 says custom plans allow videos "up to 30 minutes long or if you need more than 30 video credits a month"; article 149 says "Custom subscriptions can support videos up to 30 minutes long."

The verdict

shortshort for the price per minute, the cuts and the framing; Zubtitle when you need B-roll, music, titles. Both lists come from the table.

Where shortshort comes out ahead

Longest video3 h per video, on every plan; Zubtitle: 20 min, 30 min on custom.
Largest file2 GB per file, MP4, MOV, WebM; Zubtitle: 1 GB per video.
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 Zubtitle may fit better

B-roll, music, titles^[10]Headlines, logo and progress bars, no stock. Zubtitle supplies no b-roll, stock footage or music library; overlays are limited to text headlines, an uploaded logo and branded progress bars.

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 Zubtitle 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 Zubtitle.

How does shortshort pricing compare with Zubtitle?

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. Zubtitle'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 Zubtitle?

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