Do you know when captions were first added to videos?

Around five decades back - to help hard of hearing and deaf viewers.

Fast forward to today, captioning has evolved significantly with advancing technology. From making its place on television to becoming a vital accessibility component on streaming services, captioning technology has applications in many sectors.

Besides, captions help a viewer better define words, comprehend and retain information, identify emotions, and draw conclusions from videos. At present, adding captions has become a necessity with guidelines like the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

However, a 2020 report says that 98.1% of home pages have at least a single WCAG 2.0 failure. It's essential to address these concerns to ensure all viewers, including hard of hearing and deaf people can access all web content.

Closed captioning services can help here by generating accurate captions for your videos. These tools are affordable, particularly for educational institutions, content creators, and small businesses.

To help you add captions to your videos, we've curated a list of the best closed captioning apps. But before that, let's understand some vital aspects of these tools.

Key Factors to Consider in Closed Captioning Apps

With plenty of closed captioning solutions available, choosing one can be confusing. Let’s simplify that for you.

Accuracy

Accuracy (in percentage) refers to how correct or exact a caption is to the spoken content. To achieve full accuracy, captions that a captioning application generates must exactly match the speaker’s words and be in sync with the video.

However, achieving 100% accuracy is highly challenging due to errors like context, language, human errors, etc. So, look for a caption generator that offers the maximum accuracy possible to achieve the best results.

Ease of Use

A closed captioning application must not give you a hard time with its functions or interface. Choose a tool that comes with a user-friendly interface that you can learn, adapt, and use easily.

Pricing

Most providers offer their captions on a per-minute basis, while others have monthly pricing. So, individuals and organizations must consider their budget and captioning needs in a month and choose a solution accordingly.

For example, if you are a beginner, look for free or basic plans with limited features. But for mass video production, look for enterprise plans.

Integration

Good caption services integrate with plenty of tools to make life easier for video creators, saving time and avoiding frequent tab switches.

Customization

The captioning tool you choose must allow you to customize captions and file-tune the content to match your content style.

File Format Support

Check how many file formats the tool supports. If it supports the ones you regularly use for importing and exporting, it should be fine.

Turnaround Time

The duration a tool takes to generate the caption for a video is turnaround time. It mainly depends on video length and is indicated in minutes or hours. Look for tools that offer faster turnaround time.

1. EL.AI

Generate high-quality, accurate closed captions for your video content using EL.AI. This advanced captioning app is built specifically for higher education, allowing educators and institutions to create more inclusive classrooms for all students and meet ADA compliance.

Pricing: El.AI’s pricing starts at just $0.70/minute, 3x more cost-friendly than conventional methods. You also get a 5-hour free trial to test the software and explore its effectiveness.

Turnaround time: EL.AI offers faster turnaround times of 24 hours and can process up to 5000 hours of content per week, delivering captions on time.

Features:

  • Generates closed captions with over 99.8% accuracy, transcribing essential sounds, and all spoken words precisely
  • Improved content comprehension and clarity with speaker labels
  • Handles technical jargon effectively
  • Leverages AES-256 encryption and secured US data centers for data security
  • Flexible data use policies
  • Integrates seamlessly with educational platforms such as Moodle, Anthology, Panopto, Canvas, Kaltura, and Blackboard

Best for: Higher education institutions as well as lecturers, professors, and administrative staff creating and managing video content that needs to be accessible for all students, including those with disabilities.

2. YouTube

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If you create educational content on YouTube, use YouTube Studio’s built-in closed captioning app. It allows you to generate captions and subtitles on your pre-recorded videos and share them with your students, including those who are hard of hearing or speak other languages.

Pricing: Free

Turnaround time: Within minutes

Features:

  • Automatic captioning using machine learning algorithms
  • Supports live streaming and pre-recorded content
  • Option to edit/delete captions after generating them
  • Multi-lingual support
  • Translates your video titles and descriptions
  • Suggests tips to create transcript files

Best for: Educators creating content on YouTube.

3. Rev

Improve your video’s reach and accessibility with Rev which helps you generate accurate human and AI captions. It precisely captures every sound and word and adapts quickly to your video content.

Pricing:

  • Human-generated English-only captions: $1.50/minute
  • AI-captions in 38 languages: $0.25/minute
  • Human-transcribed subtitles for global accessibility: $5 to $12 per minute

Turnaround time:

  • Human captions: up to 12 hours
  • AI captions: up to 5 minutes
  • Global subtitles: up to 48 hours

Features:

  • 99% accuracy
  • Compliant with ADA and FCC
  • Translates subtitles in 17+ languages
  • Free audio recording for the mobile app
  • Integration with Google Drive, YouTube, etc.
  • Data security and privacy with robust encryption
  • Interactive content editor to fine-tune captions

Best for: Bulk captioning needs and free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channels

4. 3Play Media

Combining human expertise with AI, 3Play Media generates live, open, and closed captions and transcripts with high efficiency and accuracy. It makes your content more engaging, searchable, and accessible.

Pricing:

  • Express for individuals
  • Enterprise for organizations with complex needs. The site has not listed the pricing but calculates it based on turnaround times, services, and account volume.

Turnaround time: Flexible - choose from 4, 2, or 1 business day(s) to 8 or 2 hours

Features:

  • 99% accuracy across all files
  • Supports 20+ languages
  • Compliant with ADA, FCC, WCAG 2.0, and Section 508
  • Upload your technical glossary and get a specialist vocabulary
  • Option to download captions in 10+ formats

Best for: Individuals and organizations with heavy captioning needs.

5. Amara

Offered by a non-profit organization - Participatory Culture Foundation (PCF) striving to create a more inclusive media since 2006, Amara allows you to generate open and closed captions, subtitles, and translation services.

Pricing:

  • Public: Free for 1 user
  • Plus: $24/month for 2 users
  • Human-generated captions: $2.50/minute
  • Auto captions: $0.35/minute
  • Auto captions + human proofreading: $1.25/minute

Turnaround time: 2-3 days for up to 30 minutes of content

Features:

  • Award-winning Amara Editor to view and polish captions
  • Customizable workflows
  • Intuitive team management tools
  • Integrates with Vimeo, YouTube, etc. for easy caption exports and imports
  • Amara API to automate workflows
  • 50+ supported languages

Best for: Team collaboration

6. Transkriptor

Transcribe your videos automatically with Transkriptor - a solution 100k+ customers trust globally. It has a simple yet advanced user interface where you can sign up, upload your video file, and let the tool generate captions that you can download, edit, or share from your email.

Pricing:

  • Individuals: Lite: $4.99/month

Premium: $12.49/month

  • Small teams: Custom pricing
  • Enterprises: Custom pricing

Turnaround time: 5-50 hours/month

Features:

  • Up to 99% accuracy, sound-quality dependent
  • Supports 100+ languages
  • Integrates with GDrive, YouTube, WhatsApp, Dropbox, Onedrive, etc.
  • Option to export files as plain-text, Word, SRT, or TXT
  • Supports iOS, Android, and web
  • Slow motion text editing
  • Recognizes and separates multiple speakers

Best for: Individual creators

7. GoTranscript

GoTranscript’s human-made closed captions will help you improve your video’s accessibility, inclusiveness, and clarity for your target audience.

Pricing: Starts at $1.22/minute, based on video length, turnaround time, and language chosen

Turnaround time: 6 hours to 5 days

Features:

  • Supports 28 languages
  • 99%+ accuracy
  • ADA compliance
  • Generates automated transcripts, audio translations, and foreign subtitles

Best for: Legal and highly regulated industries

8. Scribie

Get accurate transcripts for your recorded classroom videos, tutorials, interviews, lectures, seminars, etc., with Scribie. It offers a shared workplace for your team to collaborate effectively and easily upload files, view rates, and order transcripts based on designated roles.

Pricing: Starts at $0.80/minute for clear audio, paid features like strict verbatim, noisy audio, rush order, and burnt-in time coding cost extra.

Turnaround time: 24 hours

Features:

  • 99% accuracy
  • Online editor to edit and verify transcripts
  • Maintains NDA with transcribers for confidentiality
  • 50k+ certified transcribers
  • Custom formatting
  • API integration

Best for: Educational videos

9. CaptioningStar

https://youtu.be/RXkAUkqMsO0

Trusted by top global institutions, CaptioningStar provides professional and error-free closed captioning services. It also offers open captioning, transcriptions, foreign language subtitles, live captioning and subtitling, and audio descriptions.

Pricing: Starts at $0.25/minute, offers a free trial

Turnaround time: 12-48 hours

Features:

  • 50+ language support
  • 18+ formats
  • Multiple templates and styles
  • 99% accuracy
  • Compliant with ADA, FCC, Section 508, and CVAA

Best for: All-round captioning, including foreign language captioning

10. Riverside

Harness the power of AI and add accurate captions to your videos with Riverside. Upload your recorded videos or record videos directly in Riverside’s online video to get automatic transcriptions word-by-word, covering each idiom, nuance, and syllable.

Pricing: Transcriptions are available in Pro and Business plans, starting at $24/month.

Turnaround time: Starts transcribing once you upload/record your video.

Features:

  • 100+ languages supported
  • 99% accuracy
  • Option to edit captions
  • Automated transcriptions for speed
  • Supports TXT and SRT files
  • Differentiates multiple speakers

Best for: Mass content production

11. Notta

Automatically transcribe your videos, online meetings, and interviews with Notta and enhance your content’s reach and accessibility. Upload your hour-long video or audio files or record live speech and let the AI produce high-quality captions.

Pricing: Ranges from $0.10-$0.25 per minute. You can also get their free plan or a monthly plan starting from $9/month.

Turnaround time: 24-48 hours

Features:

  • Compliant with SOC-2, GDPR, ISO 27001, HIPAA, and CCPA
  • Enterprise-grade security
  • Up to 99% accuracy
  • Offers web and mobile apps and Chrome extension
  • Supports 58 global languages
  • Editable and shareable captions
  • Supports 10+ file formats
  • Identifies and labels speakers

Best for: Professional-grade live captions

12. Ava.me

Built specifically to empower hard-of-hearing and deaf people and break communication barriers, Ava Scribe allows you to create high-quality captions for your videos. It combines the right blend of cost-efficiency and speed without compromising quality.

Pricing:

  • Free: for individuals with basic needs
  • Community: $9.99/month for individuals with advanced feature needs
  • Pro: Contact sales, 15-day free trial, suitable for small teams
  • Enterprise: Contact sales, suitable for large organizations with complex needs

Turnaround time: Live captioning

Features:

  • Supports iOS and Android apps and Windows and MAC systems
  • Compliant with ADA, GDPR, and CCPA
  • Speaker identification
  • 1-click integration with many video conferencing tools like Zoom and Teams
  • Advanced permissions and admin tools

Best for: Live captioning on multiple platforms

Which is the Right Closed Captioning Tool for Your Needs?

Choose the closed captioning tool based on your budget and video captioning needs in a month. Look for the best closed captioning app that comes with over 99% accuracy, faster turnaround time, multiple formats and languages, robust security, and compliance.

EL.AI ticks all the boxes by offering an advanced captioning platform catering specifically to higher education, empowering both educators. Trusted by top institutes like Harvard University, University of Illinois, and California State University, El.AI aims to create all-inclusive classrooms.

What you'll get:

  • 99.8% accuracy, backed by UChicago and Siri
  • Multiple integrations
  • ADA compliant
  • Faster turnaround time of 24 hours
  • Useful features
  • Cost-effective starts at $0.70/minute

Make the online world more accessible and engaging with EL.AI. Try it free for 5 hours.