AI reel generator: turn long videos into Instagram and Facebook Reels
First video free up to 60 min, then 20 min a month, watermarked, no card. No watermark from $12/month, or self-host free under MIT.
No link? Upload the file in the app instead. Sources need at least 45 seconds of material.
A one-hour webinar, recorded on Zoom and sitting in a folder, holds a month of Reels for most businesses. Upload it here and the AI reads all of it, finds the 6 to 12 passages that make sense on their own, and returns each one as a vertical Reel with captions, a hook over the first seconds and a description written for Instagram.
Publish them to Instagram as Reels from the same screen, one a day if you schedule a week, or download them for Facebook. Nothing is generated from stock footage: every Reel is you, or your guest, saying the thing.
Free plan: your first video clipped whole up to 60 minutes, then 20 minutes a month, with a watermark and no credit card. Paid plans start at $12/month with no watermark, and the self-hosted edition is free under MIT.
How the AI reel generator works
1. Add the long video
Paste a public link (YouTube, Vimeo, a Facebook video or Live replay, an Instagram post, and the other sites listed below) or upload the recording: a podcast, a webinar, a talk, a class.
2. The AI picks the Reels
The recording is transcribed word by word and Gemini ranks every stretch of it for how well it would play on its own. The strongest are cut on sentence boundaries, 15 to 60 seconds each unless you set other limits.
3. Publish to Instagram or download
Each Reel comes back 9:16 with captions, a hook and a description written for Instagram. Publish it to your Instagram account as a Reel, schedule a week of them, or download the MP4 for Facebook.
Reels from recordings, not from templates
Search for a reel maker and most of what comes back is a template editor: pick a layout, drop in photos and a song, and it makes a slideshow. That is a different job. An AI reel generator in the sense this page means takes a recording you already have (an interview, a class, a podcast, a product demo, a sermon) and turns its best minutes into Reels. The material is real, the voice is yours and the work saved is the part that takes longest by hand: watching the whole thing to find the moments.
That search is what the AI does here. The recording is transcribed with a timestamp on every word, the transcript is split into windows of about 90 seconds, and Gemini scores every window on hook strength, emotional payload and how well it stands alone. The best windows go to a second pass that cuts each Reel on sentence boundaries. For anything over about 12 minutes it is asked for 6 to 12 Reels, and returns fewer rather than padding.
What makes a clip work as a Reel
The full screen, with the person in it
Reels are 9:16 and fill the phone. A horizontal recording is reframed rather than shrunk: one speaker is face-tracked with a stabiliser that holds the frame steady, two people on camera together are stacked, and a screen share keeps the slide or the demo readable with the presenter beside it. If you recorded vertical in the first place, the video is left exactly as it is.
Captions for a muted feed
Reels autoplay in a feed people scroll with the sound off. Captions are burned in from the word-level transcript, so each word appears as it is said, and placed about 15% above the bottom edge, clear of the caption and account name Instagram draws there. Change the style afterwards if your brand has one.
An opening that earns the second second
Each Reel gets a hook line written from what is said in it, drawn over the opening seconds at the height that covers the least of anyone's face.
Instagram Reels: posting directly
Connect your Instagram account once in the dashboard. Each clip then has a publish button that posts it to Instagram as a Reel, with the description written for Instagram (edit it first if you like), and schedule a week spreads a batch over the following days at the hour you pick. Instagram raised the Reels length limit to 3 minutes in January 2025, so you can raise the clip maximum to 180 seconds when a longer Reel suits the moment; the default of 15 to 60 seconds is where most moments that stand alone end.
The same screen posts to TikTok and YouTube Shorts, so one recording can fill all three. Posting is available on the free plan as well, with a daily cap.
Facebook Reels: same file, posted by you
A Reel made here is the right shape for Facebook: vertical, captioned, with the hook burned in. What OpenShorts does not do is publish to Facebook, so download the MP4 and post it from the Facebook app or Meta Business Suite. Going the other way works: if your source is on Facebook (a public video, or the replay of a public Facebook Live), paste its link above and it is fetched like a YouTube link. Facebook Live is where many churches, local businesses and community groups already stream, which makes it one of the most common sources for Reels.
Reels in other languages
An account with followers in several countries can post the same Reel more than once. With your own ElevenLabs API key, the dubbing option translates a clip into more than 30 languages while keeping the speaker's voice, and the dubbed audio is transcribed again so the captions match the new language. It works on Cloud and self-hosted alike.
Works with links from
YouTube, Vimeo, TikTok, X (Twitter), Twitch, Kick, Facebook, Instagram, Dailymotion, Reddit and Streamable, as public links, plus file uploads on every plan. Instagram posts and Reels can be used as a source too, though most are already short; the source needs at least 45 seconds of material.
Free tier compared
Competitor plans checked 5 October 2026 on their public pricing pages.
| Tool | Free plan | Paid from |
|---|---|---|
| OpenShorts Cloud | First video up to 60 min, then 20 min/month. Watermark, no credit card | $12/month, 100 min, no watermark |
| OpenShorts self-hosted | Free under MIT. No watermark, no cap; your hardware and API keys | $0 |
| Opus Clip | 60 min/mo. Watermarked, export within 3 days | $15/month |
| Vizard | 60 min/mo. 720p, watermark, exports up to 10 min | $14.50/month billed yearly ($29 monthly) |
| Quso | 75 min/mo. 720p, data kept 7 days | $19/month billed yearly ($29 monthly) |
| SendShort | None. 3 free videos at sign-up | $19/month ($15 billed yearly) |
Quso (the renamed Vidyo.ai) adds a content planner and analytics around the clipper, which OpenShorts does not have. SendShort has no free plan and starts clipping long videos at $29/month. If a Reel without a watermark on day one matters more than anything else, the self-hosted edition is the free route that gives you that.
What it does not do
- It does not publish to Facebook. Download the Reel and post it there yourself.
- It does not make Reels from photos or templates. It cuts them from a video recording.
- It does not add licensed music. Add a sound from Instagram's library when you post, if you want one.
- It does not fetch private or sign-in-only posts, and it does not clip a Live while it is on air.
- It does not pick the cover frame Instagram shows on your grid.
- Free Reels carry a watermark. Upgrading removes it, also from Reels you already made.
Whose recordings you can turn into Reels
Yours, your clients' with their permission, and anything you have licensed. A Reel cut from someone else's video is a reupload, and Instagram and Facebook take those down when the owner reports them. Each job asks you to confirm the rights first.
Common questions
- Is there a free AI reel generator here?
- Yes, with an honest asterisk: the hosted free plan clips your first video whole up to 60 minutes, then 20 minutes a month, and those Reels carry a watermark. No credit card is needed. Paid plans start at $12/month and remove the watermark; the self-hosted edition is free under MIT with no watermark.
- Does it post Reels to Instagram directly?
- Yes. Connect your Instagram account in the dashboard and each clip can be published as a Reel with its own description, or scheduled across a week.
- Does it work for Facebook Reels?
- The clips are the right shape for Facebook Reels, but OpenShorts does not publish to Facebook. Download the MP4 and post it from the Facebook app or Meta Business Suite.
- How long can an Instagram Reel be?
- Instagram raised the Reels limit to 3 minutes in January 2025. Clips here are 15 to 60 seconds by default; set the maximum up to 180 seconds in the advanced options for longer Reels.
- Will the captions be covered by the Instagram buttons?
- They are placed about 15% above the bottom edge, which keeps them clear of the caption text and account name Instagram draws at the bottom of a Reel.
- How many Reels does one video give?
- A video longer than about 12 minutes is asked for 6 to 12 Reels, fewer when fewer moments stand alone. You can ask for an exact number from 1 to 15.
- Can I make Reels from an Instagram Live or a Facebook Live?
- From the replay, once it has ended: paste the link of a public Facebook Live replay, or upload the file of an Instagram Live you downloaded. Nothing is clipped while a broadcast is on air.
- Can the Reels be in another language?
- Yes, with your own ElevenLabs API key: dubbing translates a clip into more than 30 languages, keeps the speaker's voice and re-captions it in the new language.
- Is the reel maker AI picking the moments, or me?
- The AI picks them, from the transcript. You can then trim, extend or reorder any clip in the clip editor, move the crop scene by scene, restyle the captions and rewrite the hook.
- How does it compare with Opus Clip, Vizard or Quso?
- All of them cut long videos into vertical clips. Their free plans, checked 5 October 2026: Opus Clip and Vizard 60 credits a month with a watermark, Quso 75 credits at 720p. Quso adds a content planner and analytics we do not have; Vizard has the stronger hand-editing timeline. OpenShorts is open source, self-hostable and hosted from $12/month billed monthly.
Sources
- Instagram Reels up to 3 minutes: announced by Instagram in January 2025, reported by Social Media Today, checked 28 October 2026.
- Competitor plans: our comparison data, checked 5 October 2026. See Vidyo.ai (Quso).
- Instagram posting as Reels, caption margin and dubbing:
app.py,subtitles.pyandtranslate.pyat github.com/mutonby/openshorts.