Free alternatives to paid caption tools
Straight comparisons of the caption tools people pay for, with their free plan limits, where the watermark shows up, and what each one does better than we do. Prices and limits were checked on each company's own site in October 2026.
Comparisons
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VEED alternative
A free VEED alternative for subtitles. Compare free plans, watermarks and limits side by side, then caption your video in the browser with no account. -
Kapwing alternative
A free Kapwing alternative for auto subtitles. Compare free plan limits and watermarks, then add subtitles in your browser with nothing to install. -
Submagic alternative
A free Submagic alternative for short-form captions that highlight the spoken word. Compare features, limits and pricing, then caption videos free.
Side by side
The free options compared
What you get without paying, at the time of writing (October 2026). "Free" means different things here: two of these tools are free all the way through, two have free plans with a watermark, and one has a trial. Anything a company doesn't state on its own site is marked "Not stated".
| Tool | Without paying | Watermark | Account | Where it runs | Free limits | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Auto Captions (this site) | Everything | No | No | Your browser. Only the audio is sent for transcription | 30 min per video, 20 min of transcription a day | Quick captions, SRT files, burned-in MP4s |
| WithSubtitles | Everything | Not stated | No | Fully in your browser, with a downloaded AI model | No strict limit; recommends under 10 min | Privacy, short clips on a desktop |
| VEED | Free plan | Yes | Optional (logged-out exports are watermarked) | VEED's cloud | 720p exports; subtitle files and longer videos need a paid plan | All-in-one editing |
| Kapwing | Free plan | Yes | Free account | Kapwing's cloud | 4-min, 720p exports; 10 min of auto-subtitling | Teams editing together |
| Submagic | Trial, 3 short videos | Yes, on trial downloads | Not stated | Submagic's cloud | Trial only; paid plans allow 2, 5 or 30 min per video | Styled short-form edits |
Where WithSubtitles fits
WithSubtitles is the closest thing to us, and on privacy it's ahead. It downloads a speech model into your browser and transcribes on your own device, so nothing is uploaded, audio included. We can't say that. Our tool keeps the video in your browser but sends a small audio track to Whisper large-v3 turbo for the transcript. If full privacy is the requirement, use WithSubtitles. It's free with no account, handles almost 100 languages by its own count, and its editor lets you style individual words and place captions in several positions, with a safe-zone overlay for short-form video.
The local model has costs, though. Its FAQ says the web app is desktop only for now, recommends keeping videos under 10 minutes, and suggests the "Large" model for non-English speech, which is a bigger download and slower on a modest laptop. Our transcription runs on a server, so an older device doesn't slow it down. The tool also works in mobile browsers, and it takes videos up to 30 minutes.
How to choose
If you edit whole videos in one place, a paid editor like VEED or Kapwing earns its price, and Kapwing is the better fit when several people work on the same project. If your videos are shorts and the animated templates, emojis and B-roll are the point, Submagic is built for that. If you just need captions on a video, pick one of the two free tools: WithSubtitles for maximum privacy on a desktop, or our free subtitle generator for speed, longer videos and phones. Already have an SRT? Our burn-in tool puts it on the video without transcribing anything.