SnipAdd Subtitles to Any Video — Free
Drop in a video. It’s transcribed on your device with word-level timing, you see it play back with the subtitles on, and then you download it — or open it in the free Video Editor to style the captions and export without a watermark. No sign-up, nothing uploaded.
Drop a video file
or click to browse — MP4, MOV, WebM. Audio files work too (you get a caption video).
100% in your browser. Your video stays on your device. The Whisper AI model downloads once (~75 MB) from our servers, then runs locally for every transcription. We can't access your audio because it never leaves your computer. Privacy policy.
Transcript
How long will your file take to transcribe?
Free runs 100% in your browser — private, $0, great for most files. For a long file or top accuracy, Pro runs on cloud GPUs in seconds.
What's the catch with free?
There isn't a hidden one — it's genuinely free, unlimited, and private, because it runs on your own device instead of our servers, so there's nothing for us to charge for. The only trade-off is time: your computer isn't as fast as a cloud GPU, so transcription takes a few minutes. For short clips that's barely noticeable. For long files the wait adds up — and that's the one case where Pro earns its keep: the same job on cloud GPUs in seconds, at higher accuracy, on any device.
Free vs Pro — typical transcription times
| File length | Free — in your browser* | Pro — cloud |
|---|---|---|
| 10 min | ~2–3 min | ~22 sec |
| 30 min | ~7–8 min | ~45 sec |
| 1 hour | ~15 min | ~1.5 min |
| 2 hours | split into ≤60-min parts first | ~2.5 min |
*Free times on a typical laptop with a WebGPU browser (Chrome/Edge); older devices without a GPU can be 2–4× slower. Free is capped at 60 minutes per file. Pro runs on cloud GPUs at the same speed on any device, using the larger large-v3 model for higher accuracy.
What makes free transcription faster?
- Use a WebGPU browser — Chrome or Edge (and the latest Firefox) run it on your GPU, roughly 2× faster than a CPU-only browser. Brave disables WebGPU by default.
- Keep your laptop plugged in — battery-saver mode throttles your CPU/GPU and can nearly double the time.
- Close other heavy tabs and apps — transcription uses your CPU/GPU and memory; free them up.
- A device with a GPU is much faster — a recent phone or laptop with WebGPU beats an old CPU-only machine by a wide margin (a modern phone can even out-run a no-GPU laptop).
- The first run downloads the model once — a one-time wait; every transcription after that skips it.
Speed by device & browser — a 16-minute file
| Your setup | Time to transcribe (16 min) |
|---|---|
| Laptop or phone with WebGPU (Chrome, Edge, latest Firefox) | ~4 min |
| Phone, CPU only (no WebGPU) | ~5–6 min |
| Laptop without WebGPU (Brave default, older browser) | ~8 min |
| Old laptop, single-core fallback | up to ~18 min |
| Any device with Pro (cloud GPUs) | ~29 sec |
Measured on our own benchmarks with the Whisper base model in-browser (large-v3-turbo for Pro). Your exact time varies with your device's chip and the audio itself.
How do I add subtitles to a video for free?
Drop the video on this page and click Transcribe. The speech is transcribed in your browser with word-level timing and the video plays back with the subtitles on — three words at a time, the spoken word highlighted. Download that video, or open it in SnipSound’s free Video Editor to style the captions and export without a watermark. Nothing is uploaded and there is no sign-up.
What happens in the Video Editor
- No watermark — the quick download here carries a small snipsound.com stamp; the editor’s export doesn’t.
- Style the captions — font, size, colour, position; every caption is a clip you can retime.
- Trim, cut and add music — free background music from the built-in library, auto-ducked under the speech.
- Export for TikTok, Reels, Shorts or YouTube — rendered on your device.
Automatic subtitles, without the upload
Most subtitle generators upload your video to a server, transcribe it there, and send back a watermarked result unless you pay. SnipSound does the whole job in your browser: an on-device speech model transcribes the audio with word-level timing, the subtitles are drawn onto your video right here for the preview, and the Video Editor renders the final MP4 on your machine. No upload, no queue, no account.
Made for
- TikTok, Reels & Shorts creators — most short-form video is watched on mute; burned-in captions keep people watching.
- YouTubers — burn the captions in, or export an SRT and upload it alongside the video so viewers can toggle them.
- Teachers, trainers & course makers — captions make lessons searchable and easier to follow.
- Accessibility — subtitles make your video usable for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers, and for anyone watching somewhere loud.
How it compares
Kapwing, Veed and Submagic auto-subtitle well, but they upload your video and watermark the free export. CapCut is free but a full app to install and learn. YouTube Studio’s auto-captions stay on YouTube — you can’t burn them into a clip for TikTok. SnipSound’s wedge is simple: the same automatic, word-timed subtitles, entirely in your browser, free, and watermark-free through the Video Editor.
Just need the text?
The Audio Transcription tool gives you an editable transcript, and the SRT Generator a timed caption file — both in your browser. For the step-by-step on every platform, see how to add captions to a video.