Instagram Reels
Add subtitles to Instagram Reels — automatically.
Drop in your Reel and get auto subtitles written, timed and styled in seconds — word by word, in any of 240+ looks. Free to start, nothing to install.
Captions are added to an Instagram Reel either with Instagram’s own captions sticker, which the viewer can hide, or by burning styled subtitles into the video before uploading. LumaCaption does the second: it times every word from your audio, renders the captions into the picture in any of 242 styles, and never uploads the video file itself.
Reels autoplay on mute. Whether your video gets watched or scrolled past is decided in the first second — and if viewers can’t read what you’re saying, most of them are gone before your hook lands. Captions are the difference between a Reel that gets skipped and one that gets finished.
LumaCaption transcribes your Reel, times every word to your voice and styles the subtitles so they look designed, not auto-generated. One word per line pops in your accent colour to carry the emphasis of your delivery. And your video file is never uploaded — only the audio is used to work out the words.
Timed to the word
Captions sync word-by-word to your voice, so reading speed matches talking speed — no lagging subtitle blocks.
240+ styles that fit your grid
From clean editorial to bold karaoke pops. Pick a look, tweak the colours to your brand, done.
Placed around Instagram’s UI
Drag your captions anywhere on the video, so they never hide behind the like button, caption text or audio tag.
Vertical-first export
Portrait 9:16 exports at 1080p on the free plan and 4K on paid — ready to post without re-cropping.
The captions sticker vs burning them in
Instagram’s captions sticker is free and takes one tap, and for a lot of Reels it is enough. Its limits are that the styling is a short menu of Instagram’s own presets, the transcription cannot be corrected word by word with any real precision on a phone, and the whole thing can be hidden by the viewer or dropped when the clip is reshared.
Burning captions in means they are pixels. They cannot be hidden, they look like your account rather than like Instagram, and they follow the video everywhere it gets reposted. For anyone posting the same cut to Reels, TikTok and Shorts, that last point alone usually decides it — one export covers all three.
Reels has two safe areas, not one
The Reels player puts the account name, caption text and audio attribution across the bottom of the frame and the action rail up the right. That is the obvious one. The less obvious one is the **feed and profile grid crop**: a 9:16 Reel is shown as a 4:5 crop in the feed and a 1:1 square on your profile grid, both taken from the centre.
So a caption placed low enough to clear the player UI can still be cropped out of the grid preview. Keeping captions within the central band solves both problems at once — clear of the bottom furniture, clear of the right rail, and inside the square crop.
Reels-specific caption choices
Instagram skews slower and more considered than TikTok, and the caption styles that work reflect that. Full-bleed Bold and Big Type looks that land on TikTok can read as shouty in a Reels feed, while Clean and Cards presets hold up better against the lifestyle and product footage Reels is full of.
Cards in particular earn their place here: a solid or blurred panel behind the text guarantees contrast over bright, high-key footage in a way an outline cannot, and bright high-key footage is most of Instagram.
Instagram captions sticker vs burned-in
| Instagram sticker | Burned in | |
|---|---|---|
| Styling control | A few presets | 242 styles, fully editable |
| Viewer can hide it | Yes | No |
| Survives repost to TikTok or Shorts | No | Yes |
| Word-level correction | Limited on phone | Full transcript editor |
| Cost | Free | Free plan; paid for 4K and longer videos |
How it works
Upload your Reel
Drag in the clip you were about to post — portrait or landscape, up to 2 minutes on the free plan.
Pick a style
Every word is already written and timed. Choose one of 240+ looks and adjust colours or fonts if you like.
Export and post
Download your captioned Reel and post it. Re-edits are free — you only spend minutes when you export.
Common questions
Doesn’t Instagram add captions to Reels already?
Instagram can overlay basic auto-captions, but they’re plain, easy to mistime and limited to a few looks. Burned-in captions from LumaCaption are styled, word-accurate, editable, and appear identically on every platform you repost to.
Where should captions sit on a Reel?
Keep them in the middle band of the video. The bottom of a Reel is covered by the caption text and audio tag, and the right edge by the action buttons. In LumaCaption you just drag the captions to a safe spot and the preview shows exactly what viewers see.
Can I fix a word the transcription got wrong?
Yes — the transcript is fully editable. Click any word to correct spelling, retime it, or star it so it becomes the highlighted word of that line.
Is there a watermark?
No — not on any plan, including the free one. Every export comes out clean. Paid plans (from ₹166/month billed annually) add Candy Ultra minutes, 4K and longer videos.
