Captions that land
on every word.
Upload a video, get it back with karaoke captions burned in. Every word is timed to the audio, the active word lights up as it is spoken, and the whole thing renders in the cloud. No GPU, no timeline, no subtitle files.
From Upload to Burned-In Captions
The entire flow is four decisions, and two of them are optional. There is nothing to learn and nothing to install.
This is the same promise as the rest of Apatero. The studio is hosted, the heavy machinery stays on our side, and what reaches you is a clean decision surface with a finished file at the end of it.
Upload the Video
Drop in any clip up to 3 minutes. Vertical, square, or widescreen. The audio track is transcribed and timed automatically, word by word.
Pick One of Three Looks
Bold pop, clean lower-third bar, or minimal. Each look is a complete, tuned style rather than a settings panel with forty sliders.
Toggle Smart Emphasis
Optionally let Apatero pick out the words that carry the sentence and give them extra visual weight, the way a good editor would.
Render and Collect
The captions are burned into the video and the finished file lands in your gallery, ready to download and post anywhere.
Three Looks, All Word-Timed
Caption styling is where most tools drown you in options. We shipped three looks that actually work, and each one carries the karaoke timing underneath.
A look is a complete decision. Type, weight, placement, and highlight behavior are tuned together, so you never end up with a font you love fighting a highlight you do not. Pick the intent, and the styling holds.
Bold Pop
Big type, high contrast, and a lime highlight that snaps onto the active word as it is spoken. Built for short-form feeds where the first second decides whether anyone stays.
Lower-Third Bar
A clean bar anchored to the lower third of the frame. Reads as broadcast rather than meme. The right choice for interviews, talking-head content, and anything where the speaker is the star.
Minimal
Quiet type, no container, nothing shouting. For brand films and product work where captions should be readable without ever pulling focus from the footage.
Smart Emphasis, When You Want It
Not every word deserves the same weight. With smart emphasis on, Apatero reads the transcript and picks the words that carry each sentence, then styles them with extra presence.
The result feels hand-edited. Numbers, names, and punchlines get the pop, filler stays quiet. Leave it off and every word renders with equal weight. It is one toggle, not a markup language.
Ten Credits per Started Minute
Pricing is one rule. Each started minute of video costs 10 credits. A 40 second clip costs 10. A two and a half minute clip costs 30. The cap is 3 minutes per video.
No per-word fees, no style surcharges, no export tax. And because your first generation on Apatero is free, you can caption your first clip before spending anything at all.
Why Word Timing Beats Line Timing
Most caption tools time by the line. A sentence appears, sits there, and swaps out. Your eye reads ahead of the voice, finishes early, and starts negotiating with the scroll gesture.
Karaoke timing keeps the eye and the ear on the same word. The highlight moves at speech pace, so the viewer is always mid-sentence, never done early. That pull is the reason the style took over short-form in the first place.
Doing this by hand is brutal. A three minute video is several hundred words, each needing its own timing keyframe. Editors charge accordingly. Apatero does the timing pass automatically on every render, in every one of the three looks.
Built for the Sound-Off Feed
Most short-form video is watched muted. Captions are not an accessibility afterthought anymore, they are the difference between a scroll-past and a view.
Clippers run podcast pull-quotes through bold pop. Talking-head creators keep a lower-third preset for every episode. Founders caption product demos in minimal so the interface stays the hero. Same engine, three intents.
And because Captions lives inside the same studio as everything else, the clip you caption today can come from the talking avatar you generated yesterday. One gallery, one workflow, no export chain between tools.
The math stays friendly at volume too. A daily one minute clip runs 10 credits a day. A weekly three minute video costs 30. You always know the number before you press render, because the rule never changes shape.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Long Can My Video Be?
Up to 3 minutes per video. That covers short-form vertical clips, talking-head segments, product demos, and most podcast pull-quotes with room to spare.
What Does Captioning Cost?
Ten credits per started minute. A 45 second clip is one started minute, so 10 credits. A 90 second clip crosses into a second minute, so 20 credits. Your first generation on Apatero is free.
Are the Captions a Separate Subtitle File?
No. The captions are burned into the video itself, timed word by word. What you download from the gallery is one finished file that plays the same everywhere, with no player settings involved.
Do I Need a GPU or Editing Software?
Neither. Apatero is a hosted studio, so the transcription, timing, and rendering all run on our infrastructure. You upload from any browser and download a finished clip.
How Does the Word Timing Work?
The engine times every single word to the audio track. That is what makes the karaoke effect land, since the highlight moves onto each word at the moment it is spoken rather than line by line.
Which of the Three Looks Should I Pick?
Bold pop is built for short-form feeds where attention is contested. The lower-third bar suits interviews and talking-head content. Minimal is for brand work where the captions should support the footage, not compete with it.
Where Do Finished Videos Go?
Every render lands in your Apatero gallery next to everything else you make in the studio. Download it from there, or keep iterating on the same clip with a different look.
Can I Try a Different Look on the Same Video?
Yes. Run the same upload again with another look or with smart emphasis toggled. Each render is its own generation, and each one lands in the gallery, so you can compare bold pop against minimal side by side before posting.
Caption a Clip in Minutes
Upload a video, pick a look, and let the word timing do the work. Your first generation is free, and every started minute after that is 10 credits.