Captions in four styles, timed per word
Spotlight, Impact, Karaoke and Minimal are the four options, each timed on the audio in a second word-level pass, with a colour and a font of your choosing on each video.
INSTAGRAM REELS MAKER
Make Instagram Reels and 4:5 feed videos from a longer video.
In a feed a clip often starts without sound, so the words have to be on screen and the face has to fill the frame; that is what the shortshort studio does to each passage it selects. It is the one product behind every tools page here, and it hands you files rather than posting them to Instagram.
30 free credits, no cardUp to 2 GB per videoMP4 · 9:16 or 4:5
Instagram Reels maker: the short answer
shortshort cuts a long video into Instagram Reels in 9:16 or feed videos in 4:5 at 1080 x 1350, framed on the face, captioned word by word, as MP4s you post.
Example with shortshort: a 27-minute cooking video becomes 5 shorts of about 30 seconds, for 27 credits on the Starter plan.
- Shorts per video
- 3 on the Free plan, 5 on Starter, 10 on Creator, 20 on the Studio plan
- Cost
- 1 credit per minute; 30 free, then plans from €12 a month
- Source video
- A file or a YouTube link, up to 2 GB
- Clip length
- Aimed at 15 to 90 s, within 25% to end on a sentence
Facts checked against the product on . Prices before VAT.
Why the studio fits this job
The rules of the studio that matter most here.
The crop follows the face on screen
Face and scene tracking move the 9:16 window as the person moves, with automatic zooms held between x1.0 and x1.6 so nothing looks blown up.
Rendered on our servers
With an account, rendering runs on our servers on every plan, Free included: once the upload finishes you can close the tab and do something else.
How to do it
Four steps. About two minutes of your time; the processing itself runs on our servers and depends on the length of the video.
- 01Upload the long video, MP4, MOV or WebM, up to 2 GB
- 02Choose a target around 30 seconds and the number of Reels you want
- 03Set the caption style and colour, then check the crop in the preview
- 04Export each clip as an MP4, 9:16 for Reels or 4:5 at 1080 x 1350 for the feed, and post it from the Instagram app
What this page does not promise
What the search term usually implies, and the studio does not do.
No posting to Instagram and no caption text for the Reel: scheduled publishing exists for YouTube, with TikTok in early access, and for Instagram the studio ends at the MP4 download.
No music, stickers or trending audio: the sound in the Reel is the sound of the source video.
On a real video, in the same studio
A published transformation from the community: the original on top, the shorts it became below, with the transcript of each short.
3 of 6 shorts shown · The Override That Saved Humanity · watch it in the community, with the transcript of each short
Demo footage: Tears of Steel © Blender Foundation, licensed CC BY 3.0. Cut, cropped and captioned by shortshort.
Questions people ask
What size are the Reels?
1080 by 1920 pixels, 9:16, MP4 with H.264 video at 30 fps: the full-screen frame of a Reel. For a post in the Instagram feed, choose 4:5 at export and the whole series comes out at 1080 x 1350, each short framed again on the face for that shape. There is no square option.
Can I make 4:5 videos for the Instagram feed, at 1080 x 1350?
Yes. Choose 4:5 at export and the whole series renders at 1080 x 1350, on every plan, Free included, at no credit cost. Each short is framed again for that shape, with the face tracked anew rather than the 9:16 crop made wider. A 4:5 export stays out of the gallery unless you publish it yourself. shortshort does not post to Instagram: download the MP4 and post it from the Instagram app. There is no 1:1 or 3:4 export.
Can I change the caption colour to match my account?
Yes, on any plan, per video. On the Studio plan the colour and font are saved as the account's brand preset and preselected on every new video. There is one preset per account.
How short can a Reel be?
The target goes from 15 to 90 seconds. Because the AI aims to finish sentences, each Reel may land up to 25% shorter or longer than the target: a 30-second target produces clips of between 22.5 and 37.5 seconds.
Does the Free plan add a watermark?
Yes. On the Free plan every Reel leaves with a shortshort watermark, and one video yields at most 3 of them. The watermark disappears on Starter, 12 EUR a month before VAT, which also allows 5 Reels per video.
Can I import captions I already have?
Yes. Drop an SRT whose timing matches the source video and the Reels take their captions from those cues instead of the studio's own transcription.
Is this a separate Reels app?
No. It is the shortshort studio, which runs in the browser and makes the same shorts whatever platform you post them to, in 9:16 or, for the feed, in 4:5. Nothing on this page is exclusive to Instagram.
A 27-minute cooking video on Starter, 5 shorts, one upload.
Free to try with 30 credits. Your upload stays private until you export; exported shorts join the community with their source video by default, and any paid plan can keep them out.