Compare
Prepaid minutes. Not a seat.
Most captioning tools are editors with an API bolted on, priced per month whether you run one video or none. The columns on the right are those tools' own pricing pages, quoted, with the date we read them.
| CaptionPipe | ZapCap | Submagic | JSON2Video | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| How you pay | $10 for 250 minutes, prepaid, no subscription | $8, $16 or $32 a month by plan | $19, $39 or $69 per member a month by plan | $16.95 a month billed yearly, $49.95 or $99.95 a month; or prepaid, $49.95 for 120 minutes and $99.95 for 260 |
| Longest video | 30 minutes, 3 on the trial | 2, 5 or 10 minutes by plan | 2, 5 or 30 minutes by plan | 1, 10 or 30 minutes by plan |
| Calling it | MCP and REST, on every account | API on the Pro and Agency+ plans, credits sold separately | API credits of 10 minutes a month on Starter and Pro, 100 on Business; packs from $57 for 250 minutes to $150 for 1,000 | API on every plan |
| Fixing a wrong word | Free, 3 re-burns per job, 24 hours | Not stated on their pricing page | Not stated on their pricing page | Not stated on their pricing page |
| What you get back | Burned MP4, SRT, VTT, ASS, word timings | Not stated on their pricing page | Not stated on their pricing page | Rendered videos |
| Editor | None. There is no interface to open | A web editor with caption templates | A web editor with b-roll, zooms and templates | None. Scenes are described in JSON |
| The better fit when | You already have the video and something that can make an HTTP call | You pick a caption template in a browser and export from there | You edit shorts by hand and want b-roll, zooms and captions in one tool | You are composing whole videos from JSON and captions are one layer |
The first 5 rows quote zapcap.ai/pricing, submagic.co/pricing, json2video.com/pricing as read on 8 September 2026. Their pages may have changed since; check them before deciding. Where a page does not state something, the cell says so rather than guessing. The last 2 rows are our own description of each product, not a quotation.
On comparisons
Only what their pages say.
Side-by-side tables age badly and usually flatter whoever wrote them. So every figure in the table is the vendor's own wording on the day we read it, nothing is worked out from it, and a number a page does not print is not printed here. The two rows under the heavier rule are ours, and the last of them is the honest one: each of these tools is the better choice for someone, and it says who.