MakeShorts.ai
Turn long YouTube videos into viral shorts instantly
- Category
- Video Generation
- Pricing
- Free plan (30 credits/mo, watermarked); Lite $6/mo, Plus $9.75/mo, Pro $19.75/mo (billed annually, steep intro discounts) for 150-800 upload minutes/month, no watermark.
- Best for
- Best fit: YouTube-based podcasters, interviewers, and educators who want an ultra-cheap, no-upload-needed way to mine long recordings for shorts, and who are comfortable with a fully automated (non-manual) editing process.
- Official site
- www.makeshorts.ai
- Last updated
- August 2026
MakeShorts.ai is an AI-powered short-form video generator built by Xynth Labs Pvt Ltd. It is designed for creators who publish long-form talking-head content — podcasts, interviews, webinars, and lectures — and want to repurpose that footage into short, vertical clips for TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts. Instead of uploading raw video files, users simply paste a YouTube link; MakeShorts pulls the video, transcribes the audio, and applies its AI models (trained on large volumes of video content) to identify the most engaging, self-contained segments. From there, it automatically reframes horizontal footage into a vertical 9:16 format using face-detection-based autofocus cropping, burns in styled subtitles, and generates AI-written titles, descriptions, and hashtags to speed up publishing.
MakeShorts differentiates itself primarily on simplicity and price rather than depth of manual editing controls — there is no timeline editor, brand-kit customization, or advanced B-roll insertion, unlike full-featured competitors such as Opus Clip or Vizard. Its value proposition is a fast, low-friction pipeline for YouTube-based creators who don't want to hunt for clippable moments manually. The product supports transcription and captioning in more than 30 languages and dialects, which broadens its usefulness for international creators and educators. Pricing is structured around 'upload minutes' rather than output clips, meaning users pay for how much source footage they process rather than how many shorts they generate, and unlimited shorts can be produced from that footage. The company promotes steep 'forever' introductory discounts (50-75% off list price) on its paid tiers to attract early subscribers, and it markets primarily through AI tool directories like There's An AI For That and its own blog, which directly compares itself to alternatives like 2short.ai.
Best fit: YouTube-based podcasters, interviewers, and educators who want an ultra-cheap, no-upload-needed way to mine long recordings for shorts, and who are comfortable with a fully automated (non-manual) editing process. Weak fit: creators who film raw footage outside YouTube, need frame-accurate manual editing or brand templating, or produce fast-cut, non-dialogue content like vlogs, product demos, or gaming highlights.
Key features
AI Clipping
Automatically identifies the most engaging, self-contained segments of a long video and turns them into standalone short clips.
Autofocus Cropping
Uses face-detection to convert landscape footage into vertical 9:16 video while keeping the speaker centered in frame.
AI Subtitling
Fast, accurate AI transcription burns styled captions directly onto each generated short for sound-off viewing.
AI Social Captions & Hashtags
Auto-generates titles, descriptions, and relevant hashtags for each clip to speed up publishing across platforms.
YouTube Link Import
Users paste a YouTube URL rather than uploading a file; MakeShorts pulls and processes the video directly.
Multi-language Support
Transcription and captioning cover 30+ languages and regional dialects, including English, Spanish, Portuguese, Hindi, and more.
Flexible Source Video Limits
Plans scale from 15-minute source videos on Free up to 4-hour videos on Pro, with matching upload size caps.
Tiered Clip Retention
Generated clips are stored for a plan-dependent window ranging from 3 days (Free) to 60 days (Pro) before expiring.
Pricing breakdown
Free
- 30 credits/month
- Auto captions & auto reframe/crop
- Up to 15 minutes per video
- Watermarked exports
- Clips expire in 3 days
- Low-quality exports, no editing tools
Lite
- 150 upload minutes/month
- No watermark, unlimited shorts
- Up to 45 minutes per video
- High quality outputs
- 1 video processed at a time
- 800MB max upload size
- Clips stored 10 days
Plus (Popular)
- 350 upload minutes/month
- No watermark, unlimited shorts
- Up to 2 hours per video
- 3 videos processed at a time
- 3GB max upload size, add logo
- Clips stored 30 days
Pro
- 800 upload minutes/month
- No watermark, unlimited shorts
- Up to 4 hours per video
- 6 videos processed at a time
- 6GB max upload size, add logo
- Priority 24/7 support
- Clips stored 60 days
Custom
- For teams needing volume above Pro tier limits
Pros and cons
Pros
- Extremely simple workflow — paste a YouTube URL and get AI-selected, captioned, vertically-cropped shorts without any manual timeline work, per the site's 'one click' positioning.
- Free plan (30 credits/month) lets creators test AI clip quality before committing to a paid tier, unusually generous among AI shorts clippers.
- Broad language coverage — the FAQ lists transcription/caption support across 30+ languages and regional dialects (e.g., English-US/UK/AU/IN, Portuguese-Brazil/Portugal), useful for non-English creators.
- Autofocus cropping uses face-detection to keep speakers centered when converting landscape to vertical, reducing manual reframing work.
- Steep 'forever' introductory discounts (50-75% off) on annual billing make the paid tiers among the cheapest in the AI-shorts category at list price.
- AI-generated titles, descriptions, and hashtags remove a separate copywriting step from the publishing workflow.
Cons
- Only YouTube link import is supported — creators with raw camera footage, Zoom recordings, or video not hosted on YouTube cannot use the tool directly, per the site's own FAQ.
- No direct video upload or in-app manual editing tools (trimming, color, overlays) — MakeShorts is purely an automated pipeline, so users wanting fine control need a separate editor.
- Optimized for speech-focused content (podcasts, interviews, lectures); action-heavy or visually dynamic footage without dialogue is unlikely to work well with its AI selection logic.
- Processing time can stretch to 'up to an hour' for longer source videos, per the FAQ, which is slower than some real-time competitors.
- No verified third-party review data (G2/Capterra/Trustpilot) was found at time of research, making it hard to validate real-world reliability and support quality beyond the vendor's own claims.
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How does MakeShorts decide what to include in a short?
It uses AI models trained on large volumes of video content to detect captivating, self-contained segments while preserving the original context, aiming to mimic what a human editor would select.
What video sources does MakeShorts support?
Currently only YouTube videos via link import; direct file uploads are not yet supported.
How many languages does MakeShorts support?
Transcription and captions cover 30+ languages and regional dialects, including English, Spanish, French, German, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, and Portuguese variants.
Is there a free plan?
Yes — the Free plan includes 30 credits per month, auto captions and reframing, videos up to 15 minutes, but exports are watermarked and low quality, and clips expire after 3 days.
How is pricing structured?
Plans are priced by total upload minutes per month (source video processed), not by number of output shorts — users can generate unlimited shorts from their uploaded footage.
How long does it take to generate shorts?
Typically a few minutes for shorter videos, though longer source content can take up to an hour to process.
Ready to try MakeShorts.ai?
Head to the official site to explore pricing and start a free trial where available.
Visit MakeShorts.ai →