Captions vs OpusClip
Buy OpusClip if you have long recordings and the hard part is choosing what to cut. Buy Captions if you already know your clips and they need finishing on a phone, with generative extras attached. OpusClip is by far the cheaper entry at $15/month against $24.99, and it does not do any of what Captions does.
Disclosure: this page is published by Kineo, which is not one of the two tools compared here and does not compete with either on the job they do. There is a short, clearly labelled note about Kineo at the bottom. Everything above it is written as if we had nothing at stake, because on this comparison we do not.
The verdict
Selection versus presentation
OpusClip’s job is finding the moments in a long recording that stand alone, reframing them vertically and captioning them. Captions assumes the clip exists and adds caption styling, AI edit styles, generative b-roll and voiceover. If your bottleneck is "which 40 seconds", that is OpusClip. If it is "why does this look homemade", that is Captions.
The 3-day expiry on OpusClip’s free plan
OpusClip states that on the free plan clips are no longer exportable after 3 days. That makes the free tier a trial rather than a workflow: generate a batch, leave it for a long weekend, and the work is gone. Starter lifts it to a 30-day MP4 export window and only Pro removes it. There is no equivalent expiry published on the Captions pricing page.
The Captions free plan has no AI in it, which is the other trap
It lists basic editing and one caption template with no AI credits and no generative AI features at all. Both free tiers, in other words, withhold the thing you would be evaluating — one by expiring your output, the other by removing the features. Budget for a paid month on whichever side you shortlist.
On entry price OpusClip wins by ten dollars, and the ladders diverge after that
OpusClip: Free, Starter $15/month monthly-only, Pro $29 or $14.50 billed annually at $174/year with 3,600 credits up front and 2 seats. Captions: Free, Max $24.99, then Scale at $69.99, $139.99 and $279.99. OpusClip tops out cheap and narrow; Captions keeps climbing for people who burn credits generating footage.
Side by side
Every figure below was read off each vendor’s own pricing page on July 26, 2026. Where a tier table did not resolve to readable prices, the cell says so rather than guessing — a wrong competitor price is worse than no price at all.
| Captions | OpusClip | |
|---|---|---|
| What it actually is | A mobile-first short-form editor built around captions, AI edit styles, AI actors and generative b-roll. | Finds the best moments in a long video you already recorded and cuts them into vertical clips. |
| Needs an existing video? | Mostly. You record or upload, then edit — though the generative features on paid tiers can produce footage, voiceover and images. | Yes — you upload a long video or paste a link. There is nothing to clip from an idea. |
| Free tier | Free plan: basic editing (trimming, transitions, media assets) and 1 caption template, with no AI credits and no generative AI features at all. | Free plan: $0, 60 credits per month, renders up to 1080p, auto-reframe and AI captions with emoji and keyword highlighting. Clips are watermarked, and after 3 days they are no longer exportable. |
| Cheapest paid plan | Max $24.99/month | Starter $15/month (150 credits/month, monthly billing only) |
| Full pricing | Free $0 (no AI credits) · Max $24.99/mo (500 credits/mo, curated AI Edit styles, AI actors and digital twins, chat-based editor, 100+ caption templates, generative music, voiceover, images, video and b-roll) · Scale 1x $69.99/mo (1,400 credits) · Scale 2x $139.99/mo (2,800 credits) · Scale 4x $279.99/mo (5,600 credits) · Enterprise custom. The pricing page states that "Features and prices reflect iOS plans only". | Free $0 (60 credits/mo) · Starter $15/mo (150 credits/mo, monthly billing only) · Pro $29/mo, or $14.50/mo billed annually at $174/year (3,600 credits released up front, 2 seats) · Business custom. |
| Watermark | Not stated on the pricing page — worth confirming before you commit. | Watermarked on the free plan; watermark-free from Starter up. |
| Aspect ratio | Short-form vertical. | Vertical clips auto-reframed from your horizontal or square source. |
| Voice / narration | Generative voiceover is available on paid tiers; the free plan has no generative AI. | Whatever voice is already in your footage. There is no text-to-speech narration of a written script. |
| Where the visuals come from | Media assets on free; generative b-roll and images from Max up. | None. Every frame in the output came from the video you uploaded. |
| Export & usage limits | Credit-metered per month, from 500 credits on Max to 5,600 on Scale 4x. | Free: clips stop being exportable after 3 days. Starter: 30-day limit on MP4 exports. Pro: no limit on MP4 exports. |
| Verified | Verified July 26, 2026 — read from https://www.captions.ai/pricing | Verified July 26, 2026 — read from https://www.opus.pro/pricing |
Sources: Captions pricing · OpusClip pricing — both checked on July 26, 2026. Vendors change tiers without notice, so confirm on their site before you pay. If you find something here that is out of date, we would rather fix it than keep the click.
Captions: The pricing page carries the line "All prices displayed in USD. Features and prices reflect iOS plans only," so plans reached from a desktop browser may differ.
Which one you should pick
Pick Captions if…
- Your whole workflow lives on a phone and the clips already exist.
- You want generative b-roll, images and voiceover in the same app as the captions — from Max at $24.99/month.
- AI actors or digital twins are part of the format.
- You want 100+ caption templates and curated AI Edit styles rather than a look you build yourself.
- You burn a lot of generative credits and the Scale tiers are cheaper per credit than smaller plans elsewhere.
Pick OpusClip if…
- You record long — podcasts, streams, webinars — and deciding what to cut is the expensive part of the week.
- You want the cheaper entry: $15/month against $24.99.
- Auto-reframe from a horizontal source is the specific automation you want.
- You want a recurring free tier that renders at 1080p: 60 credits a month.
- Two people need access — Pro includes 2 seats.
The differences that actually matter
One tool is disqualified by having no footage; the other mostly is
OpusClip is absolutely dependent on a long source video. Captions is mostly dependent on a clip you bring, though its generative features on paid tiers can produce footage, voiceover and images. That "mostly" is the only path either offers toward starting from nothing, and it starts at $24.99/month.
Metering: processing credits against generative credits
OpusClip credits meter clip processing — 60 free a month, 150 on Starter, 3,600 a year on Pro. Captions credits meter generative operations across music, voiceover, images, video and b-roll — 500 on Max up to 5,600 on Scale 4x. Same word, unrelated economics; do not read the two numbers across the table.
Watermark: documented versus not stated
OpusClip watermarks free-plan clips and goes watermark-free from Starter at $15/month. The Captions pricing page does not state a watermark policy either way in what we could read. If the free tier is your plan, that is a question to resolve with Captions before you rely on it.
Whose voice, and whether there is a script
OpusClip uses whatever audio is in your footage; there is no text-to-speech narration of a written script. Captions lists generative voiceover on paid tiers. If you want a narrated video and have not recorded narration, only one of these two can produce it, and only above the free tier.
Frequently asked questions
Is Captions or OpusClip cheaper?
OpusClip: Starter is $15/month against Captions Max at $24.99/month. OpusClip Pro billed annually is $14.50/month at $174/year. Both figures read from their own pricing pages on July 26, 2026, and the Captions page did not list an annual rate in what we could read.
Can Captions find the best moments in a long video?
That is not what its pricing page sells. Captions is a short-form editor built around captions, AI edit styles, AI actors and generative b-roll. Unattended clip discovery from a long recording is OpusClip’s specific job.
What happens to my OpusClip clips after 3 days?
On the free plan they are no longer exportable after 3 days, per opus.pro/pricing on July 26, 2026. Starter raises that to a 30-day export window and Pro removes the limit entirely.
Do I need both?
If you record long-form and want the clips to look feed-native, that is a coherent stack — OpusClip Starter at $15 plus Captions Max at $24.99 is about $40 a month. If you only have clips already, OpusClip has nothing to add. If you only have long recordings and plain captions are fine, Captions is optional.
Does either one work without a source video?
OpusClip does not, at any tier. Captions can generate b-roll, images, video and voiceover from its Max tier up, so it is the only one of the two with any path that does not begin with an upload — but the product is still built around a clip you bring.
One disclosed third option
Disclosure: Kineo publishes this page and is neither tool above. It generates a faceless 9:16 Short from a typed topic — no upload, no clip to style. It is relevant only if the honest answer to "which of these two" turned out to be "neither, because I have nothing to work with". If you have long recordings, OpusClip is the better buy and this page is not trying to talk you out of it.
Make one free →Up to 3 watermarked Fast videos / 24h · No card · Starter $4.90 first month
Other comparisons
Looking to replace one of these rather than choose between them? OpusClip alternatives
Prices, free-tier terms and limits on this page were verified on July 26, 2026 by reading each vendor’s own published pricing page, linked above. They change. Nothing here is an endorsement by, or affiliation with, Captions or OpusClip, and no comparison on this site is paid for or sponsored. Kineo is a product of the same company that publishes this page, which is stated on every comparison whether or not Kineo is one of the tools being judged.