Free plan
A free caption generator that’s actually usable.
Free captions every month plus premium Candy Ultra minutes, all 240+ styles unlocked, word-by-word timing and free subtitle downloads. No credit card.
Most free caption generators recover their costs by watermarking the export, capping the resolution, or locking the good styles behind an upgrade. LumaCaption’s free plan has no watermark on any plan, unlocks all 242 styles, exports unlimited 1080p video and includes unlimited SRT, VTT and TXT downloads.
“Free” caption tools usually mean three exports, locked styles, or a trial that expires the moment you like the result. LumaCaption’s free plan is a real daily driver: every caption style, the full timing and colour editor, and subtitle file downloads — with free Candy Lite captions and 5 fresh minutes of premium Candy Ultra every month.
The business model keeps it honest. Exports are always free, unlimited and unbranded — you only spend minutes on premium Candy Ultra transcription; uploading, restyling and re-editing never cost a thing. The free plan’s limits are a 2-minute cap per video and a monthly caption allowance — enough for every Reel, Short and TikTok you’ll ever post.
All 240+ styles, no paywall
Free users pick from the same style library as Pro users — nothing is locked behind an upgrade prompt.
Fresh minutes every month
Not a one-off trial: 20 minutes of Candy Lite plus 5 minutes of premium Candy Ultra reset monthly, so free can be your permanent plan.
Subtitle files included
SRT, VTT and TXT downloads are free — use LumaCaption purely as a free subtitle generator if that’s all you need.
Re-edit without spending
Minutes are only spent on export. Try ten styles on the same video and pay for none of it until you render.
The four ways a free caption tool is usually not free
Transcription and video rendering both cost real money to run, so a free tier is always recovering that cost somewhere. Knowing where is the whole skill of picking one — the tools are not dishonest about it, they just put it at the end of the process rather than the start.
- A watermark on the export
- The most common. Free to make, paid to remove — and you find out after you have done the work.
- Resolution or length caps
- A 720p export or a 30-second limit that makes the output unusable for the thing you needed it for.
- Styles locked to a plan
- The look that made you pick the tool turns out to be a paid template.
- Export credits
- A small number of free renders, after which the project you already built is held behind a paywall.
What LumaCaption’s free plan actually includes
There is no watermark on any plan, free included, so there is nothing to pay to remove. All 242 styles are unlocked from the first video. Exports are unlimited at 1080p, and SRT, VTT and TXT downloads are unlimited too.
The limits that do exist are on transcription minutes and video length, because that is the part with a real per-minute cost: 20 minutes a month of Candy Lite and 5 minutes of premium Candy Ultra, with videos up to 2 minutes each. If those numbers suit your posting rhythm, nothing about the free plan is designed to become unusable later.
When free stops being the right answer
Free is genuinely enough for testing the tool, for occasional posting, and for anyone whose clips are short. It stops being enough at exactly two thresholds, and both are about minutes rather than features.
The first is volume — more than about 20 minutes of footage a month. The second is length: a single video over 2 minutes needs a paid plan regardless of how little you post. Creator at ₹199/month (₹166 billed annually) raises the ceiling to 30-minute videos and adds 4K export; Pro goes to 90 minutes. Nothing you made on free is locked or re-rendered when you upgrade.
What you get without paying
| Free plan | |
|---|---|
| Watermark | None — on any plan |
| Caption styles | All 242 unlocked |
| Video exports | Unlimited, 1080p |
| SRT / VTT / TXT downloads | Unlimited |
| Transcription | 20 min Candy Lite + 5 min Candy Ultra per month |
| Video length | Up to 2 minutes each |
| Card required | No |
How it works
Sign in with Google
That’s the whole signup. No card, no trial countdown.
Caption your video
Upload up to 2 minutes of video, get timed captions, pick any style you like.
Export free
Exports never cost a minute and never carry a watermark — render as often as you like. Need 4K or longer videos? Paid plans start at ₹166/month billed annually.
Common questions
What’s the catch with the free plan?
A 2-minute cap per video and a monthly caption allowance. Styles, editing, subtitle downloads and watermark-free exports are all unrestricted.
What happens when I use up my monthly minutes?
Exporting and editing carry on as normal — minutes are only spent transcribing. What pauses is new transcription, which resumes when your allowance resets on your monthly window, or immediately if you upgrade.
Can I use free exports commercially?
Yes. Videos you caption are yours, on every plan, for any use.
Do I need to install anything?
No — LumaCaption works on desktop and mobile with nothing to install, and your video file is never uploaded.
