Why do captions matter in videos?

Studies have shown that video captions can significantly enhance viewer attention, retention, and overall engagement.

• Enhanced Comprehension and Retention: Subtitles improve comprehension and retention, especially in academic contexts, by helping viewers better understand and recall information.

• Improved Attention: Eye-tracking data shows that subtitles focus attention, enabling more effective processing of audiovisual content and aiding learning.

• Increased Viewer Engagement: Subtitles boost engagement by promoting active reading and immersion in multimedia content, while also supporting language learning.

How to auto-generate captions per word in Premiere Pro?

In Premiere Pro, adding animated captions like the ones that change per word, things can get tricky. You have to type in the transcription manually, set the timestamps down to the word, and animate each keyframe. If you are skilled with Adobe After Effects, you could make a motion preset of your own but it takes a lot of effort too.

There are many Premiere Pro plugins developed to solve these problems. I tried all the best plugins in the market deep to the bottom for a detailed review from the perspective of an everyday video editor.

For more, read our detailed step-by-step guide on how to add captions in Premiere Pro.

What are the most important things to consider when choosing an auto caption plugin?

While adding captions might seem straightforward, there are a lot of details that can make or break your workflow. Here are the key factors to consider:

• Preview Capability: You should be able to change styles and animations and preview the results directly on your video in real time before rendering the captions throughout the whole video.

• Speed: You’ll still have to apply the full transcription to the video and review it to see what the real video would look like. To do this and change again, applying captions to the sequence should be fast and easy. This becomes especially important when working on longer videos, where applying captions to an hour-long clip can take significant time.

• Built-in Templates: Having a large variety of ready-made templates will save you time and give a good starting point for your customized style. Read more tips on how to save time in Premiere Pro here.

• Implementation Method (MOGRT, PNG, Graphic Clip): There are different ways to implement animated captions in Premiere Pro. MOGRT(Motion Graphic Template made with After Effects) files can be heavy and slow to preview. PNG images take time to generate frame by frame and can’t be edited directly, and Premiere’s native graphic clips are fast and editable but most plugins do not support it.

  • In my experiment, the graphic clip method was about x20 faster than the MOGRT method. So like 10 minutes of caption rendering takes 12 minutes and an additional 10 minutes to render to see the preview and the graphic clip method only took 40 seconds to fully render.

    

• Multiple Effects in One Video: If a video has only one caption effect for the entire video, it might look dull. To make your video stand out and keep viewers’ attention, you should be able to add different caption effects for other sections or emphasize key parts in longer videos.

• Font Support (Cloud Fonts): Your plugin should support custom fonts, including those you've downloaded or purchased. It's frustrating when a plugin doesn't allow you to use the fonts you’ve invested in.

• STT Accuracy & Language Support: Accurate speech-to-text (STT) transcription is vital for saving time. Additionally, support for multiple languages is necessary if you're editing for a global audience.

The Ranking: Top 5 Premiere Pro Video Caption Plugins in 2025

1. Cutback

Cutback is widely loved by professionals for its high accuracy, performance, and user-friendly UI. From enterprise-level editors to YouTubers, Cutback offers a seamless experience with many features beyond just captioning.

Pros

• Uses Premiere Pro’s native graphic clips to render captions. Which means it’s free from heavy MOGRT or PNG files.

• About 20~40 times faster to apply effects compared to MOGRT/PNG. And faster video rendering.

• Near real-time animated preview is available when selecting templates.

• Cloud font support for purchased fonts and has capability to automatically download uninstalled fonts.

• Easy transcript editor with fully supported shortcuts.

• Additional features like silence removal, text-based editing, transcription, and B-roll search.

• It's the only plugin that offers captions behind objects.

Cons

• No automatic emoji support yet.

Price

• Offers free plan and other plan starts from $9 per month

2. Submachine

Submachine is a professional plugin created by Creative Workflow Solutions. It offers highly customizable options, but it comes with a steep learning curve and lacks some convenience.

Pros

• A pro tool with many customizable options.

• Easy copy-paste functions after modifying a clip.

• Support lifetime payment options.

• Custom MOGRT creation.

Cons

• Steep learning curve.

• To apply styles, you have to download the MOGRT pack from the website and load the file manually to the plugin that matches the fps of the sequence.

• No built-in transcription. You have to use Premiere Pro’s transcript feature, export to srt file, and import it back to the extension again.

• Premiere Pro’s built-in transcription accuracy is not considered good other than English. And it does not support only 19 languages.

• Uses MOGRT to render captions. If you want to preview the whole thing with real animation, you have to render it in Premiere Pro which takes some time. About 20~40 times slower than graphic captions.

Price

• $8 per month

3. Firecut

Firecut is a plugin created by FireCrafts Ltd and YouTuber Ali Abdaal. It offers many features other than captions too.

Pros

• Supports emojis

• You can drag the location of the caption inside the preview

• You can review and edit transcription (but shortcuts are not supported)

Cons

• Animated preview is not available when selecting templates.

• The preview is made inside of its own panel and animation preview is not available.

• Uses PNG to render captions so if you find a typo or want to modify the style, you have to delete them all and re-render again.

• PNG renders are faster than MOGRT, but still much slower than graphic clips.

• PNG files have some limitations when expressing animations. Some animation effects you want might not be available.

• The results are saved as PNG files, so when you share your project, if you do not remember to share PNG files too, it will all be offline.

• Cloud fonts are not supported.

• Highest price

Price

• $34 per month

4. Autocut

AutoCut is a plugin that also offers many features other than captions.

Pros

• Animated preview is available when selecting templates.

• Emoji support.

• Community templates.

• You can review and edit transcription (but shortcuts are not supported)

Cons

• Does not support cloud fonts.

• The preview only supports screen capture, so it's little inconvenient to see real transcription in the real video.

• Transcription editing is a bit complicated.

• Uses MOGRT to render captions. If you want to preview the whole thing with real animation, you have to render it in Premiere Pro which takes some time. About 20~40 times slower than graphic captions.

Price

• $14.9 per month

5. Brevidy

Brevidy is a plugin that also offers many features other than captions too.

Pros

• Animated preview is available when selecting templates.

• Supports translation.

• Shows the preview inside the video, so you can check the animation and how it works with your video right away but with 1 clip only.

• Emoji support

• You can review and edit transcription (but shortcuts are not supported)

• Caption-only plan supported with $14.99

Cons

• A little bit of clunky transcription editing UI.

• Uses MOGRT to render captions. If you want to preview the whole thing with real animation, you have to render it in Premiere Pro which takes some time. About 20~40 times slower than graphic captions.

Price

• Caption-only plan: $14.99 per month, full other features: $29.99 per month

Conclusion

And that’s my roundup of the best Premiere Pro auto caption plugins for 2024!

Most of the tools here do a great job enhancing comprehension and retention, and improving attention and engagement. If having full customization is the most important thing to you, even though learning how to operate it initially is difficult and requires a lot of effort, then I would recommend Submachine.

For me, Cutback stands out as the top choice, offering excellent UI, high performance, and a more than reasonable price of additional features that make it an all-in-one tool for video editors. Plus, they’ve been shipping meaningful updates every Friday for a long time. Which ensures you're always getting the latest improvements.

If you're interested in trying out Cutback, you can start a free trial today here or learn more with the YouTube introduction video.

Happy editing!