How to Automatically Add Subtitles to Videos using Make

Learn how to add animated subtitles to videos using Make.com and Creatomate by automatically transcribing audio into word-by-word captions.

It's easy to see why subtitles are so important for social media videos. First of all, animated captions engage better, keeping viewers interested longer. Assuming they watch the video to begin with, because most people flick through social media with sound muted. Without captions, videos are less likely to be watched.

If you've ever transcribed a video manually, you know how time-consuming this can be, especially if you also want to animate the captions. Fortunately, speech-to-text AI and no-code tools like Make.com make it possible to automate this entire process. Below is the video we'll create in this tutorial, complete with animated subtitles:

In this step-by-step tutorial, you'll learn how to build a simple workflow that takes a video file, transcribes it, and returns a version with animated subtitles. We'll keep the setup minimal so you can understand how it works and then adapt it to your own needs.

We'll use Creatomate to handle transcription, styling, and rendering, while Make.com connects everything together. This makes it easy to extend the workflow, for example by automatically publishing your videos to social media.

If you look at YouTube Shorts, TikTok videos, or Instagram Reels, you'll see a wide range of subtitle styles. Creatomate supports the most common formats used on social media and gives you full control to customize their appearance, animation, and behavior to match your style.

There is much more to video automation than adding subtitles. Using Creatomate's template editor, you can automate many types of videos, from social media content to marketing and personalized videos. For now, we'll focus on subtitles so you can understand the core process. If you're curious about what else is possible, be sure to explore the rest of our video automation tutorials.

Prerequisites

To keep things simple, we'll build a minimal workflow that takes a video as input and returns a fully subtitled version.

For this tutorial, we'll use a pre-hosted video file, so you don't need to upload or prepare anything yourself. You can directly use the provided URL inside the Make.com scenario.

Here are the tools we'll use:

• Creatomate: handles transcription, subtitle styling, and video rendering.
• Make.com: connects everything and passes data between services.
• Instagram for Business (optional): used here as an example, but you can connect any platform you prefer.

How automatic subtitle generation works with Make.com

First, a basic trigger in Make.com starts the workflow by sending a video URL into the system. You can later replace this trigger with apps like Google Drive, Airtable, or any other service supported by Make.

Next, the video is processed in Creatomate, where the audio is automatically transcribed and a subtitle template is applied to define how captions look and behave. This template is an essential part of the system. It controls the styling of the subtitles - such as font, color, positioning, and word-by-word animation.

Finally, Creatomate renders a video with animated subtitles and returns a downloadable file, ready to use on platforms like Instagram or other social channels.

Let's get started by creating a template!

1. Create a transcription template in Creatomate

In this step, we'll create the template that defines the look and behavior of the subtitles.

Log in to your Creatomate account, or sign up for free if you don't have one yet.

Navigate to the Templates page and open the template gallery. For this tutorial, select the Highlighted Subtitles template from the Auto-Subtitles category. Choose a size, such as the 9:16 Vertical format, then click Create Template to open it in the editor:

This template is already set up for automatic transcription. Let's quickly break down how it works.

In the left-hand panel, you'll see that our template consists of three main elements:

• a text element as the subtitles layer (Subtitles)
• a placeholder video (Video)
• an outro image (Logo)

The Video element is marked as dynamic. This means we can replace it automatically each time the template is used in Make.com, allowing you to generate subtitles for different videos.

At this point, the subtitles are still placeholders. They will be replaced with the actual subtitles when the Make.com scenario runs.

To customize the subtitles, select the Subtitles element. Then, in the right-hand properties panel, scroll down until you find the Transcription settings.

Here, the Source is set to the Video element. This tells Creatomate to generate subtitles based on the audio from that video file.

From here, you can fully customize the styling and animation by playing around with the Style properties. For example, if you want to display one word at a time, which is a popular style on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram, set "Max. Length" to 1. The editor gives a live preview, so feel free to experiment to get the subtitles you like:

For now, we'll keep the template as-is, so you can clearly see how the automation works. You can always return later to refine the design or explore more advanced styling options in the documentation.

2. Set up a trigger and test input in Make.com

In this step, we'll create a simple starting point and send test data into the workflow. To keep things simple, we'll use a Basic trigger. This is useful for testing, but in a real workflow, you would usually replace it with a source like Airtable, Google Sheets, or any other app that fits your workflow.

The test data will include a video file and a caption, which we'll use later when publishing the video to social media.

Log in to your Make.com account and click + Create scenario.

Click the + button, search for the Tools app, and select Basic trigger.

Next, let's add some test data that we'll use throughout the next steps:

• Input-Video -> https://cdn.creatomate.com/demo/the-daily-stoic-podcast.mp4
• Caption -> How does this affect your life?

Then, click Save.

To verify everything is working, right-click the module and select Run module:

This sends the test data into the scenario, making it available for the modules we'll add next.

3. Generate a subtitled video

In this step, we'll connect our Make.com scenario to Creatomate and generate a subtitled video using the template we created earlier. The input video from the previous step is sent to Creatomate, where it's transcribed, styled, and rendered into a final video.

Click + to add a new module. Search for the Creatomate app, and select the Render a Template action.

Before we can continue, we need to connect your Creatomate account.

Click Add and enter your API key. You can find this in your Creatomate dashboard under Project Settings. Then, click Save:

Next, in the Template ID field, select the template we created in Step 1: Highlighted Subtitles. This loads the template's dynamic elements.

Then, map the input data from your trigger to the template. In the Video field, select the Input-Video from the previous step to replace the dynamic video element with your actual file:

Then, click Save.

To test the setup, click Run once in the bottom left corner:

Creatomate will now process the video by transcribing the audio, applying the subtitle template, and rendering the final result. This may take a moment.

Once the test is successful, the module turns green. You can view the video by clicking the bubble and visiting the provided URL:

Tip: For more insight into what's happening behind the scenes, you can open the API Log page in your Creatomate dashboard. Here you'll find an overview of all render requests along with their status, timing, and output details. It's useful for monitoring your renders and troubleshooting if needed.

4. Post the video to social media

By now, the subtitles have been successfully generated, and we have access to a transcribed MP4 video for further use. To wrap up this example, we'll post the video on Instagram. However, feel free to customize the workflow based on your preferences. For example, you might want to share the video on Facebook, TikTok, or YouTube instead.

Click + to add a new module and search for Instagram for Business. Select the Create a Reel Post action.

Choose your account (or create a connection), then select the page you want to post to.

Next, in the Video URL field, select Creatomate - Render a Template -> URL:

In the Caption field, choose Tools - Basic trigger -> caption. You can customize the remaining options based on your preferences. Once you're finished, click Save:

Finally, click Run once to execute the entire scenario.

If everything is set up correctly, your video – with automatically generated subtitles – will now be published on Instagram.

Next steps for automated subtitle videos with Make.com

With Creatomate, you can skip the manual work of typing transcripts and syncing captions for every video. Combined with Make.com, you've now built a simple but powerful workflow that automatically turns raw videos into ready-to-publish, subtitled content.

From here, you can start expanding your automation. For example, you could generate videos from text, repurpose content for different platforms, or fully automate your content pipeline from creation to publishing.

If you'd like to go further, check out these step-by-step tutorials:

👉 How to Automatically Convert Text to Video using AI and Make.com
👉 How to Automatically Create TikTok Videos using Make.com
👉 How to Automatically Create YouTube Shorts using Make.com
👉 How to Automatically Create Instagram Posts using Make.com
👉 How to Create Videos with AI Voice Overs using Make.com
👉 How to Create AI-Generated Videos using ChatGPT and Make.com