After Effects has no auto captions of its own. As of 19 October 2026, the After Effects user guide for version 26.5 has no speech-to-text, transcription or captions topic; Adobe's Speech to Text lives in Premiere Pro. So there are three practical routes: transcribe in Premiere Pro and bring the text over, use a plugin or script that builds caption layers inside After Effects, or caption the video in a browser and import the captioned clip as a layer.
Each route suits a different job. If you need editable, hand-animated text layers, use the first or second. If you need a captioned social clip with a ready-made animated look, the third skips the animation work. Here is how each works, what it costs, and what you give up.
Does After Effects have auto captions?
No built-in tool. The current After Effects guide covers text layers, text animators and expressions, but nothing that listens to audio and writes text. The obvious workaround, copying captions from a Premiere timeline into a composition, doesn't work either: Adobe's Premiere to After Effects copy guide (updated 18 August 2026) says "Premiere titles cannot be pasted into After Effects" and lists titles as not converted.
You can, of course, type captions yourself: one text layer per line, trimmed to the moment it's spoken. That's fine for a short title sequence or a 20-second promo with a few lines. For a talking-head video, typing and timing every sentence by hand is where the hours go, which is why people search for an automatic route.
So the text has to come from somewhere else: Premiere's transcript, a plugin's transcription, or a tool that burns captions into the video for you.
Route 1: Speech to Text in Premiere Pro, then into After Effects
Start in Premiere Pro: transcribe the sequence, create captions, and correct them. Our Premiere Pro captions guide has those steps. Then pick one of two handoffs.
Keep the captions in Premiere. Do the motion graphics in After Effects and leave the captions on the Premiere timeline. Select the clips that need effects, right-click and choose Replace With After Effects Composition. Changes you make in After Effects update in Premiere without rendering, and the captions stay on top, editable, styled with Premiere's tools. This is the simplest route when the captions themselves don't need After Effects animation.
Move the captions into After Effects as text layers. Export them from Premiere's Text panel: Captions tab, ellipsis menu, Export, Export to SRT file. Then turn the SRT into layers with a script:
- pt_ImportSubtitles on aescripts ($34.99 on 19 October 2026) imports SRT, WebVTT and Encore files, with an optional black box behind the text.
- AutoSubs, free and open source under the MIT license (v3.11.0, 29 September 2026), creates text layers from SRT entries in After Effects; its GitHub README says it can also transcribe on your own machine, with no cloud.
Once the lines are layers, you animate them like any text: text animators, range selectors, expressions. That's the reason to take this route. Expect to restyle from scratch, though: an SRT carries only the words and their times, so the fonts and colors you set in Premiere don't travel with it.
Route 2: caption plugins and scripts inside After Effects
If you'd rather not open Premiere, some plugins transcribe inside After Effects, and others animate a transcript you bring:
- AEJuice Auto Captions. Its product page, read on 19 October 2026, says it "automatically detects and extracts speech" and builds styled captions. It shows a free tier of 10 minutes a month and a paid plan with 240 minutes a month, listed at $19 a month against a struck-through $39 during a sale banner.
- AutoSubs again: it runs speech-to-text locally and sends the result to After Effects, for free.
- Subtitle Pro on aescripts ($49.99) imports an SRT or typed text and applies animated subtitle templates in After Effects; its page says the templates aren't available in Premiere Pro yet. Automatic transcription is listed under "What's Next" on its page, so for now you bring the transcript.
- pt_SSAKaraokeAnimator ($29.99) builds karaoke-style animated text from .ass, .ssa or KaraFun files, for the highlight-as-you-sing look.
What they automate is the tedious part: turning each timed line into text that appears and disappears at the right moment. What they don't do is proofread. Check every name and number before you animate, because fixing text after you've keyframed it is slow.
Route 3: caption the MP4 in a browser and import it as a layer
The third route skips text layers entirely. Render your composition or edit without captions, caption that file in a browser, and import the captioned MP4 back into After Effects as footage. With CapsAI:
- Render an MP4 or MOV of up to 10 minutes. 3 free minutes to start. Files up to 500 MB, or 10 GB with a pack.
- Upload it, pick the spoken language (English plus 10 Indian languages) and wait a few minutes for the draft on a short clip.
- Fix words and timings, set 1 to 4 words per caption, and pick one of 37 styles, including karaoke-type highlights, word-by-word pop-on and stacked lockups. See the looks on the animated caption generator page.
- Export one MP4 with the captions burned in, at 1080p on Starter or up to 4K on Creator and Pro, then import it into After Effects with File > Import and place it where the original footage was.
You can still build on top of it. Put logos, lower thirds and other graphics on layers above the captioned footage, and keep them out of the strip where the captions sit so nothing overlaps.
The trade-off is control. Burned-in captions are pixels, not text layers, so you can't re-animate, recolor or move them in After Effects; changes mean going back to the browser and exporting again. There is no After Effects plugin, no SRT or VTT export, and the export keeps your video's dimensions, so render the composition at the final aspect ratio first. 8 styles are free; the other 29 come with any paid pack. For when animation helps and when it hurts, see dynamic and animated captions explained.
Which route for which job
- Client motion work with a brand font and custom animation: route 1 or 2. You need editable text layers, and you'll spend your time on animation anyway.
- A weekly talking-head clip for Reels, Shorts or TikTok: route 3. A preset look on a captioned MP4 means no keyframing, and you can still add your own graphics around it in After Effects.
- Karaoke-style highlights: pt_SSAKaraokeAnimator if you work from .ass files, or a karaoke-type preset from the karaoke caption generator if you don't need layers.
- Speech that isn't in Premiere's list: Adobe's Speech to Text list has 18 entries, including Hindi but not Bengali, Tamil or Telugu. CapsAI handles English plus 10 Indian languages, including those three; check any plugin's own language list before you buy.
Whichever route you take, keep captions inside the area platforms don't cover with buttons and descriptions. Our Instagram Reels safe zone tool shows where that is on a 9:16 frame.
Time and cost per minute of video for each route
Prices as listed on 19 October 2026, in US dollars. Per-minute figures are simple division of those prices, not vendor quotes, and assume you use the whole allowance. CapsAI's packs (20, 60 and 180 minutes) cost ₹49, ₹99 and ₹299 in India and €4, €9 and €19 in the euro area.
| Route | Who transcribes | Cost | Per minute of video | What you get in After Effects |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Premiere Speech to Text + AutoSubs | Premiere | Your Adobe plan; AutoSubs free | No extra cost | Editable text layers |
| Premiere Speech to Text + pt_ImportSubtitles | Premiere | Your Adobe plan + $34.99 script | No per-minute charge | Editable text layers |
| AutoSubs alone | Your computer | Free | No extra cost | Editable text layers |
| AEJuice Auto Captions | AEJuice | Free for 10 min a month; paid plan with 240 min a month | About $0.08 at $19, or $0.16 at $39 | Animated captions in the comp |
| CapsAI in a browser | CapsAI | 3 free minutes, then $4, $9 or $19 paid once | $0.20, $0.15 or about $0.11 | One captioned MP4 layer |
Time is harder to compare honestly. Transcription speed depends on your machine or the service, and the step that takes longest on every route is the same one: reading the transcript against the audio and fixing it. Routes 1 and 2 then add animation time, which is the point of using After Effects. Route 3 swaps animation time for a preset look.
What to do next
If you need editable layers, transcribe in Premiere and move the SRT over with a script, or try a plugin that transcribes inside After Effects. If you want a finished social clip with a word-highlight or Hormozi-style look, render without captions and run it through the animated caption generator, then bring the MP4 back into your composition. For one-word-at-a-time steps in other editors, see how to make word-by-word captions.
