OpenShortsVizard AI: what it is, what it costs, and whether the free plan is enough
Vizard AI is the browser-based video clipper at vizard.ai. It transcribes a long video, finds the moments worth posting, reframes them to vertical and hands you a timeline to fix captions and cut points before you export.
It is a good tool if you like editing each clip yourself. Below: what it costs for your own usage, what the free plan really allows, how its workflow differs from an unattended clipper, and when the open source route is the better fit.
Paste the link you tried in Vizard and compare the clips. First video free up to 60 minutes, no credit card.
What is Vizard AI?
Vizard (written Vizard AI in most searches, and served from vizard.ai) is a browser-based clipper: it transcribes the video, finds candidate moments and hands you a timeline to fix them in. That transcription pass is also its video-to-text feature, so a transcript comes out of the same job as the clips. Lately it has added an AI agent and an AI Studio for generated video around the clipper.
The features it leads with: AI clips, auto reframe, animated subtitles with emoji and keyword highlighting, subtitle translation, AI B-roll, post suggestions, and publishing or scheduling to connected social accounts. Paid plans take uploads of up to 600 minutes and 30 GB, at up to 4K.
How the workflow differs
The real difference between Vizard and an unattended clipper is not the AI, it is where you spend your time. Vizard puts a person in the timeline by design; OpenShorts is built to run to the end on its own, with an editor for the clips you choose to touch.
Vizard AI
- Upload a file or paste a link
- AI transcribes and proposes clips
- Review the clips in the timeline
- Fix captions and cut points
- Export, one clip at a time or in bulk
OpenShorts
- Paste a YouTube link or upload
- Word-level transcript and scene cuts
- Gemini scores and picks 3 to 15 moments
- Reframed: face tracking, two speakers, screen + presenter
- Captions and hook burned in, posted or sent by webhook
How much does Vizard AI cost?
Checked 2026-10-05 on vizard.ai/pricing. Vendors change plans without notice; verify before you buy.
| Plan | What it includes |
|---|---|
| Free | 60 credits a month (1 credit = 1 minute uploaded), uploads up to 60 minutes, 720p exports up to 10 minutes with a watermark, 3-day storage, transcript as TXT only |
| Creator | $29/month, or $14.50/month billed yearly: from 600 credits a month, 4K exports of any length, no watermark, scheduling, TXT and SRT transcripts, API |
| Business | $39/month, or $19.50/month billed yearly: shared workspace, 20 social accounts, team seats at $5/month each, brand kit |
One credit is one minute of video uploaded, whatever comes out of it. The yearly toggle halves the price, so the $29 Creator plan is $14.50/month on a yearly commitment.
What you would pay for your own usage
Set the minutes of source video you clip in a month. Each bar is the cheapest published plan that covers it, at Vizard, at Opus Clip (the usual comparison) and at OpenShorts Cloud.
Cheapest published plan that covers that many minutes, per month. Prices checked 2026-10-05. Self-hosted needs Docker and your own Gemini key, whose free tier covers 1,500 requests a day.
The pattern the calculator shows: on yearly billing Vizard's Creator plan is cheap for anything up to 600 minutes, and above that it has no published plan. On monthly billing it is $29 from the first paid minute, which is where a smaller plan can be cheaper.
Is the free plan enough?
For trying it, yes. For publishing, it is tight: 60 minutes of source a month is one podcast episode, exports stop at 720p and 10 minutes, every export carries the watermark, and files are kept for 3 days. The transcript downloads as TXT only on the free plan; SRT subtitles need a paid plan. If what you want is the transcript, the Vizard AI video to text comparison covers that case on its own.
What the open source alternative produces
This is a real OpenShorts clip next to its source, not a mock-up. The same pipeline runs on openshorts.app and, free, on your own machine.
Real OpenShorts output, not a mock-up. A two-person podcast: both speakers stacked in half-frames, captions on the seam where they cover nobody. Source: Turn the Tables with Dan and Shoshana Jordan, Heritage of Faith, CC BY.
Vizard AI vs OpenShorts
| Vizard AI | OpenShorts | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | 60 credits/month, 720p, watermark, exports up to 10 min | First video free up to 60 min, then 20 min/month (watermarked); self-hosted unlimited, no watermark |
| Entry paid plan | $29/month, or $14.50/month yearly | $12/month for 100 minutes, monthly |
| Workflow | AI pass, then you edit in a timeline | Unattended pipeline, with an editor for the clips you want to touch |
| Open source, self-hostable | No | Yes, MIT, Docker |
| Layouts beyond a face-tracked crop | Auto reframe | Two speakers stacked, screencast over presenter, webcam inset enlarged |
| API | Included in paid plans, same credits | Included, same minute balance; MCP server for Claude and ChatGPT |
Which one should you pick?
- You will hand-correct every clip in a timeline
- You process up to 600 minutes a month and can pay yearly
- You want subtitle translation in many languages
- You want clips without sitting in an editor
- You want to automate it from n8n, an API or Claude
- You want it free and self-hosted, or monthly from $12
The full side-by-side, feature by feature, is on the Vizard alternative page.
What does OpenShorts cost?
OpenShorts comes in two editions and they are priced very differently, so it is worth being precise. OpenShorts (self-hosted) is free and open source under the MIT licence: Free and open source under MIT. You run it with Docker on your own machine and bring your own API keys. No watermark, no usage cap, no subscription. What it costs you is hardware and time: on a typical CPU an 8-minute video takes 5 to 8 minutes to process. OpenShorts Cloud is the hosted service: The same software with the compute and API keys covered. An NVIDIA GPU clips that same 8-minute video in about 50 seconds. Free plan: the first video is clipped whole up to 60 minutes, then 20 minutes a month, with a watermark and no credit card. Paid plans start at $12/month for 100 minutes with no watermark, up to $59/month.
Common questions
- What is Vizard AI?
- Vizard (vizard.ai) is a browser-based AI video clipper. It transcribes a long video, picks candidate moments, reframes them and gives you a timeline editor to fix captions and clip boundaries before exporting. It also works as a video-to-text tool, and lately adds an AI agent and an AI Studio for generated video.
- Is Vizard AI free?
- Partly. The free plan gives 60 credits a month (one credit is one minute of uploaded video), uploads up to 60 minutes, and 720p exports of up to 10 minutes with a watermark, kept for 3 days. Paid plans start at $29/month, or $14.50/month billed yearly. OpenShorts self-hosted is free with no watermark and no cap; OpenShorts Cloud clips your first video free up to 60 minutes, then 20 minutes a month.
- How much does Vizard AI cost?
- Creator is $29/month, or $14.50/month billed yearly, from 600 credits a month with 4K exports and no watermark. Business is $39/month, or $19.50/month billed yearly, with a shared workspace and team seats at $5/month each. One credit is one minute of uploaded video. Checked October 2026.
- Does Vizard AI have an API?
- Yes. The API is included in every paid plan and draws from the same credits as the web app, with videos up to 600 minutes and 10 GB. Above 10,000 minutes a month it is a sales conversation.
- Is there an open source alternative to Vizard AI?
- OpenShorts: MIT-licensed, self-hostable with Docker, and free with no cap or watermark when you run it yourself. It does the clipping unattended (moment scoring, face-tracked 9:16 reframing, word-level subtitles) rather than in a timeline. Hosted, it starts at $12/month.
Sources
- Vizard plans, free-plan limits and transcript formats checked 2026-10-05 on vizard.ai/pricing and vizard.ai/tools/video-to-text; API limits on docs.vizard.ai.
- OpenShorts pipeline in the project source at github.com/mutonby/openshorts.