How to make animated captions in Premiere Pro: your first video in 5 minutes

Step by step

1. Open your sequence and the panel — Open the sequence you want to caption, then go to Window › Extensions › Subkick Caption. The panel opens on step 1 Style.

2. Pick a style — Click a preset card in the gallery: it applies right away. Then click Next: your text in the bottom bar.

3. Add your text — Click Add text. In the ✨ AI transcription tab, click ✨ Start transcription, or use 📥 Import for an .srt file or the captions of your sequence, or ✍ Write to type your lines.

4. Check your lines — Your lines appear in the Text step. Click a word to fix it, then click Lay it out in the bottom bar.

5. Check the layout — In 3 Layout, create the video background when asked, flip through the blocks with ‹ › and drag any word you want to move.

6. Generate — In the bottom bar, choose the track (V − +), keep the scope on All and click ⚡ Generate.

7. Tweak and update — Change your text, style or placement in the panel, then click ⚡ Update: only the blocks that changed are redone.

Before you start: open your sequence

Subkick Caption always works on the sequence in front in your timeline. Before anything else:

1. Open your editing sequence in Premiere Pro and click in its timeline so it is the active one.
2. Open the panel: Window › Extensions › Subkick Caption.
3. The panel opens on step 1 Style. Along the top you see the three steps — 1 Style, 2 Text, 3 Layout — and ⚙ on the right.

Not installed yet? Follow Install the plugin, then Activate your license key. For a guided tour of every bar and button, see Tour of the panel.

Tip: if you only want part of the video, set an In point and an Out point in Premiere first. AI transcription works Between in / out points by default.

Step 1 — Pick a style (1 Style)

The Style step opens on the gallery: 63 Subkick presets in 9 families (Classic, Punch, Premium, Retro, Fun, Clean, Neon, Story, Simple), and your own presets under My presets. Each card plays an animated preview — with your own words as soon as your text is in.

1. Scroll through the families, or type in Search a preset….
2. Click a card: the preset applies right away.
3. Want to adjust it now? Click ✏️ Customize on the active card. You can also do it later — nothing is final until you generate.
4. Click Next: your text in the bottom bar.

On the Free plan, cards marked ✓ stay usable once the free words are used up. More in Choose a preset and Customize a style.

Step 2 — Add your text (2 Text)

Click + Add text at the top of the Text step. A window opens with three tabs:

Tab	What it does	When to use it
✨ AI transcription	Listens to your sequence and writes every word with its own timecode.	You have a voice track and no captions yet.
📥 Import	Choose an .srt file, or Import from the sequence to pick up the captions already in your Premiere project.	You already have captions: no transcription credits used.
✍ Write	One line = one caption, then Create the subtitles. You set the timecodes afterwards.	You have a script, or a video without speech.

To transcribe:

1. In Spoken language, keep Auto-detect or pick the language. Auto-detection recognizes more than 100 languages; 26 languages can be picked from the list.
2. In Audio tracks, tick the track that holds the voice (or All non-muted tracks).
3. In What to transcribe, choose Whole sequence or Between in / out points.
4. Click ✨ Start transcription. The Start transcription? window shows the Credit cost and your Credits remaining: click 🚀 Start.

Count roughly 1 minute of processing for 10 minutes of audio. When the lines arrive, the window closes on its own and the preset’s ⚡ Compo Auto gives each word a style and a place. Details in AI transcription and Import an SRT file.

Step 3 — Check your lines

The Text step shows your bare text, without the style, so you can focus on the words and the timing.

• Click a word to correct it.
• × between two words cuts the block there; ⇄ merges a block with the previous one.
• The Case and Punctuation bar switches the whole text to UPPERCASE, removes commas and periods, and so on.
• A ⏱ alert lists the blocks that still have no timecode: place the playhead in Premiere, then click ⊞ (start) and ⊞ (end) on each highlighted block.

When the text reads right, click Lay it out in the bottom bar. Everything about blocks and timecodes is in Edit lines and timing.

Step 4 — Check the layout (3 Layout)

The Layout step is a full-screen preview of your sequence, with the current block’s sentence at the top.

1. The first time, Create the video background? appears: click Yes, create it. Your edit then shows behind the captions and follows the playhead (otherwise, the orange Create background button does it later).
2. Flip through the blocks with ‹ › (or ← →) and click ▶ to play a block with its animation and sounds.
3. Drag a word in the preview to move it. Click a word in the top sentence to give it the next style; right-click it to customize that word only.
4. Below the preview, Margins, Height, Line spacing, Word spacing and Global size adjust all blocks at once.

If you changed the text or the style since the last layout, Redo the layout? offers to redo it in one go: Redo the layout, or No, keep it. More in Layout and word placement and Customize a single word.

Step 5 — Generate on the timeline

At step 3, the bottom bar is the generation bar. The button always says what it will do.

1. Track — V − n +: the video track for your captions. Green = free; red = other clips are there (the button then reads ⚡ Generate and overwrite and asks for confirmation). Click V to jump to the first free track.
2. Scope: This block, In-out or All (All by default).
3. Click ⚡ Generate. The Generating… window shows the progress and a few tips; ⛔ Stop lets you Cancel all or Keep what’s done.

Your captions arrive in a sequence named <your sequence> Subtitles, placed on the track you chose and tidied into a bin of your project. By default it is cut at each caption on the timeline, so you can move or delete one block like any clip. Play it in the Program monitor and export your video as usual. All the options are in Generate your captions.

Note: on the Free plan, the bar shows 🎁 Free trial: N / 1,000 generation words used. Only words actually placed on your timeline count — previews and layout work cost nothing. See Free, Pro and Max.

Step 6 — Tweak and update

Nothing is frozen. Click any step in the top bar to go back, change a word, a style or a placement, then return to 3 Layout:

• With the same track selected (green with an orange ring), the button reads ⚡ Update. Only the missing or changed blocks are redone; your cuts and sounds on the timeline don’t move.
• To redo a single caption, set the scope to This block.
• Made a mistake in the panel? Ctrl+Z (Cmd+Z on Mac) undoes it.

Your work is saved automatically for each sequence: close Premiere Pro, reopen the project, and everything is back in the panel.

Why it matters: done by hand, word-by-word captions mean one text layer per word, keyframes for each animation and a fresh pass every time the edit changes. Here the timing comes from the transcription, the styling from the preset, and a change costs one click on ⚡ Update.

Frequently asked questions

How do I make animated captions in Premiere Pro?

Install Subkick Caption, open Window › Extensions › Subkick Caption, click a preset in 1 Style, add your text in 2 Text (AI transcription, .srt import or typing), check the placement in 3 Layout and click ⚡ Generate. The animated captions arrive in your timeline as a sequence named “<your sequence> Subtitles”.

Can I make word-by-word or karaoke-style captions in Premiere Pro without After Effects?

Yes. Subkick Caption builds word-by-word animated captions directly in Premiere Pro 2025 or later, with no After Effects. Words can appear one by one, and the Active word effect in the Animation pane highlights the word being spoken, karaoke-style.

Do I have to use AI transcription?

No. In Subkick Caption, Add text offers three ways in: ✨ AI transcription, 📥 Import (an .srt file or the captions already in your Premiere sequence) and ✍ Write. Importing and typing never use transcription credits.

Can I edit the captions after generating them?

Yes. Change the text, a style or a placement in the Subkick Caption panel, then click ⚡ Update with the same track selected: only the missing or changed blocks are redone, and your cuts and sounds on the timeline stay where they are.

How long does it take to caption a video with Subkick Caption?

For a short vertical video, the whole path fits in a few minutes. AI transcription takes roughly 1 minute of processing for 10 minutes of audio; generation time depends on the number of words, since each word is its own animated graphic.

Is Subkick Caption free to try?

Yes. The Free plan unlocks every feature for your first 1,000 generated words and includes 10 minutes of AI transcription, with no credit card. After that, you keep generating with no word limit in simple mode.