The Best AI YouTube Shorts Generators in 2026, Compared

ShortFast writes, makes and posts Shorts to your channel for you from $19 a month, and Faceless.so (from $29), Faceless.video (from $20) and Revid (from $39) do too, while InVideo AI, from $20 a seat, suits creators who edit by hand and upload themselves. If you already have long videos, OpusClip cuts them into Shorts and posts them from $15 a month (its free plan doesn't post), and the AI features built into the YouTube app make clips of up to 10 seconds to build a Short around.

How we compared

We read each tool's pricing page, FAQ and help pages, and YouTube's own help pages, on October 23, 2026, with monthly billing selected. Prices are monthly list prices, without first-month offers or coupons. Credits are each vendor's own unit and don't compare across tools. "Posts directly" means the tool's own pages say it publishes to YouTube for you, rather than handing you a file to upload. We didn't buy plans to test the other tools. ShortFast is our product; we list it first, in the same format as the others.

The tools at a glance

The first four generate the whole Short from a topic or prompt and post it to YouTube on a schedule. ShortFast, our product, comes first; the other three follow alphabetically, not ranked, and the right one depends on how much control you want before a video goes live.

ShortFast: 27 styles, posted on your schedule

ShortFast writes the script and hook, generates the video in one of 27 styles, adds a voiceover and word-by-word captions, and posts to TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts on the schedule you set. The styles are its strength: licensed documentary stock footage, AI video, or AI images in a fixed art style such as stick figures, whiteboard, anime, claymation or classical painting, plus UGC-style videos with AI actors. Each automation writes the next episode for every posting slot, with a new topic, script, title and footage in the same tone and format, and checks recent titles to avoid repeats.

Starter is $19 a month for 1,000 credits, one automation and one social account. A stock-footage Short typically uses about 12 credits and an art-style Short about 25, so Starter covers about 80 or about 40 a month (typical); an AI video Short uses about 324. There's no free plan, but every monthly plan starts with a three-day trial for $1. The trade-offs: one YouTube channel on Starter and Pro (two on Advanced), no approval step (an automation posts, or emails you the video instead), no analytics yet, the same video and caption on every platform, and no clipping of long videos you upload.

Faceless.so: private uploads and seven platforms

Faceless.so turns a prompt, a Reddit post or a blog into a video and auto-posts it to YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, X, Facebook, LinkedIn and Threads. It has the most YouTube-specific controls we found: a series can upload to YouTube as private or unlisted, so you can check each video on the platform before making it public, and one series can post to several YouTube channels. Every paid plan runs unlimited series.

Starter is $29 a month for 500 credits. A storyboard Short of narrated stills costs 20 credits and a 30-second Short of real motion video 60, and by Faceless.so's own example a daily storyboard series needs the $39 Growth plan. There's no free trial, plan credits stopped rolling over on October 2, 2026, and API access starts on the $99 Ultra plan.

Faceless.video: drafts you can edit before they post

Faceless.video generates faceless videos in a niche or format you pick and posts them to TikTok, YouTube or Instagram on a schedule. Its strength is drafts: you can generate videos ahead of time, edit any of them before it posts, change a series' privacy settings, or choose email-only delivery instead of auto-posting. Unused credits roll over while you subscribe.

Starter is $20 a month for 30 credits, which it says is up to 15 videos, with one connected social account; a Short a day takes the $35 Daily plan (up to 30 videos, unlimited accounts). Each series posts to one account, and you set how often it posts but not the exact time. Its homepage offers a free trial.

Revid: many AI models and daily Auto-Mode

Revid is the broadest studio of the four: 100+ AI video tools, models such as Seedance 2.5 up to 4K, avatars, voiceovers in 70+ languages, and a workflow that turns a long YouTube video into Shorts. It publishes directly to YouTube, TikTok and Instagram, immediately or on a schedule, and shows post stats. Its Auto-Mode workers each generate a fresh video every day from a source you configure once, and can publish it automatically; Growth includes three.

Growth is $39 a month, shown against a struck-through $99, for 2,000 credits. By Revid's own estimate, a typical 30-second video with Pro moving images and a voiceover costs 40 to 80 credits, roughly 25 to 50 videos a month, and full AI video models cost more per second. Signing up is free, but making videos needs a paid plan, and plan credits don't roll over.

InVideo AI: an AI editor, and you upload

InVideo AI now leads with Agent Two, "the agentic video editor", on a real multitrack timeline, with AI models such as Seedance and premium stock footage in its plans. Its YouTube Shorts generator goes prompt, generate, then edit with plain commands such as "delete scene" or "change voiceover", and the last step reads "Export the video & share it with your audience". The pages we read don't describe publishing to YouTube for you, so plan to upload each Short yourself.

Starter is $20 per seat a month for 400 credits, about 15 Seedance 2 Fast videos by InVideo's own estimate, with Agent Two Lite only; the $60 Plus plan opens every model and agent. Its pricing page lists no free plan, although its Shorts generator page says "Get started - It's free!", and unused credits don't roll over.

OpusClip: Shorts from long videos you already have

OpusClip is the pick when the material already exists: podcasts, streams, interviews or long YouTube uploads. It finds and scores the moments likely to work as Shorts, reframes them to vertical, adds animated captions in 20+ languages, and posts to YouTube Shorts, TikTok and Instagram Reels, or lets you download. Paid plans can import videos automatically from a verified YouTube account.

Clipping costs 1 credit per minute of the video you import, so Starter's 150 credits, at $15 a month and billed monthly only, cover 150 minutes of source video. The free plan gives 60 credits a month, with a watermark, no editing, no posting, and clips you can export for only three days. Pro, at $29 a month, adds a scheduler and six social account connections.

YouTube's own AI features for Shorts

Try these before you pay for a tool: they're part of YouTube, and the help page lists no price or plan. It describes "experimental AI-generated features": standalone clips of up to 10 seconds from a text prompt and up to three reference photos, AI-generated green screen backgrounds, and photo to video. In YouTube Studio on a computer, audio-first videos, such as a podcast uploaded as a static image, can become Shorts of 8 seconds to 3 minutes in one of four visual styles. YouTube discloses the AI use for you automatically.

The limits: the help page describes clips, backgrounds and effects, not a script or an AI voiceover, so you still put the Short together yourself. They're available "in most countries for creators that have their YouTube device language set to English", but the clip and background tools aren't offered in the European Economic Area, and the audio-first tool works only in Australia, Canada, the UK and the US.

YouTube rules every tool has to live with

Length. YouTube counts square or vertical videos of up to three minutes as Shorts (for uploads since October 15, 2024), so a longer video is a regular upload, whichever tool sends it. Music needs more care past one minute: YouTube says Shorts longer than one minute "that have an active Content ID claim, regardless of the policy, will be blocked", so use music you have the rights to.

AI labels. YouTube requires creators "to disclose AI-generated or altered content that seems realistic", with the "AI use" setting in the Attributes section of YouTube Studio at upload. By its examples, a realistic scene that didn't happen needs it, while clearly unrealistic content, such as a fully animated video, and AI help with a script or captions don't. So a stick-figure or anime Short generally needs no label, while photorealistic AI video or an AI actor usually does. When a tool uploads for you, check the answer under Attributes in YouTube Studio on its first videos.

Repetitive and mass-produced content. YouTube doesn't ban automated tools, but its monetization policies say "channels where content feels interchangeable from video to video are not allowed to monetize", and list "AI-generated content made with generic or unoriginal templates giving the impression of mass production" as ineligible. Its spam policy covers "using automated tools or AI to churn out high volumes of similar content with minimal changes". If you automate, YouTube says "the final product must still demonstrate your creative vision and provide educational or entertainment value". So vary topics and formats, and watch the first videos of any automated series before you let it run.

Which one to pick

A Short a day from a topic on a small budget: ShortFast's $19 Starter, if stock footage or an art style suits your niche.

Checking every Short on YouTube before it goes public, or running several channels and platforms: Faceless.so.

Editing drafts before they post, with credits that roll over: Faceless.video.

The widest choice of AI video models, with post stats: Revid.

Hands-on editing on a timeline, uploading yourself: InVideo AI.

Long videos to cut into Shorts: OpusClip, or its free plan for a test.

Trying AI clips before you pay for any tool: YouTube's own features in the YouTube app.

Is there a free AI YouTube Shorts generator?

YouTube's own AI features in the YouTube app make clips of up to 10 seconds, and its help page lists no price for them. OpusClip has a free plan with 60 credits a month, a watermark and no posting, and Faceless.video's homepage offers a free trial. Revid and Faceless.so let you sign up free but need a paid plan to make videos, InVideo AI's pricing page lists no free plan, and ShortFast has no free plan but a $1 three-day trial. Checked October 23, 2026.

Which AI Shorts generators post to YouTube for you?

Faceless.so, Faceless.video, Revid and ShortFast generate Shorts and publish them to your channel on a schedule, and OpusClip posts clips cut from your own videos on its paid plans. InVideo AI's pages describe exporting and sharing the video, so plan to upload yourself. Faceless.so can also upload to YouTube as private or unlisted, so you can check a video before it goes public.

How long can a YouTube Short be?

Up to three minutes. YouTube counts square or vertical videos of up to three minutes as Shorts if they were uploaded on or after October 15, 2024. Shorts longer than one minute with an active Content ID claim are blocked, so use music you have the rights to in longer Shorts.

Do I have to label AI-generated Shorts on YouTube?

When they look realistic. YouTube requires creators to disclose AI-generated or altered content that seems realistic, with the AI use setting under Attributes in YouTube Studio when uploading. Clearly unrealistic content, such as animation, and AI help with a script or captions don't need it, and YouTube discloses Shorts made with its own AI features automatically.

Can an AI-generated Shorts channel be monetized?

Using AI doesn't rule it out, but the videos can't be interchangeable. YouTube's monetization policies exclude channels whose content feels interchangeable from video to video, and AI content made with generic templates that looks mass-produced. Its spam policy covers using automated tools or AI to churn out similar videos with minimal changes. Vary topics and formats, and review the first videos of any automated series.