- Why captions make your videos perform better
- The two best iPhone apps for the job
- Tips for getting the most out of your captions
Adding captions to your videos used to mean hours of manual work. These days, a good iPhone app can transcribe your audio and drop in styled subtitles in minutes.
The importance of captions
It’s worth doing. Captions make your videos accessible to viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing, help people watching in noisy or sound-sensitive environments follow along, and generally improve retention across the board. Plenty of social platforms offer basic captioning tools, but they’re rough around the edges – the quality and control you get from a dedicated app is noticeably better, and you’ll spend a lot less time fixing transcription errors.
Which apps to use
After a good deal of research and testing, the two iOS captioning apps we like best are VEED and Captions: For Talking Videos.
VEED (above) is a little quicker and easier to use, and particularly good for producing captions in the kind of high-energy style prevalent in YouTube shorts and Instagram reels. Meanwhile, Captions (below) is a little more mature, granting greater customization and control.
That’s reflected in the price: while VEED charges $6/month or $36/year, Captions is almost double that at $11/month or $60/year.
Still, both apps were remarkably good at automatically transcribing the audio of a given clip into subtitles. Neither was 100% perfect, but we found them to be more reliable than the built-in dictation and transcription tools elsewhere.
How to use
Both apps are relatively easy to use, but you’ll want to get to grips with their nuances to make the best content you can. Luckily, both have official guides that are pretty comprehensive: see How to use VEED and Introduction to Captions. We won’t duplicate all the nitty-gritty details from those help pages, but will instead leave you with a few general tips for creating video captions.
Positioning: Obviously, you’ll want to position your captions so as not to obscure the most important aspects of the video. But also be careful placing your captions too close to the top or bottom, as many platforms will either clip the edges or overlay descriptions and menus in those areas.
Colors: Use a contrasting color for your captions to make them stand out. White text with a black outline or background is a popular choice as it’s visible against most things, and won’t be an issue for those with color blindness.
Accuracy: Double-check for spelling and grammatical errors. Accurate captions enhance the professionalism and accessibility of your video.
Length: Break longer sentences into shorter, digestible chunks. This makes it easier for viewers to read and follow the captions without feeling overwhelmed.
Fonts: While it’s smart to use a clear, readable font over anything too fancy, you may want to consider using a custom font to match existing branding or keep your videos consistent and unique.
Happy captioning!