How do you make subtitles for a 3-hour video? Upload it, then download the SRT.
Upload the 3-hour video, or paste its YouTube, Vimeo or Google Drive link, and about 6 minutes later download the subtitles as an SRT or VTT file, timed to the speech from start to end. Three hours is 180 minutes in one file (the limit is 10 hours or 5 GB); the first 20 minutes are free and the $6 pack of 500 minutes covers it with 320 minutes left.
Three hours of captions
From the video to a subtitle file.
Send the video or just its sound
A three-hour 1080p video often weighs a few gigabytes. Under 2 GB it uploads right away; up to 5 GB it uploads once a pack is on the account. Or extract the audio track, a couple of hundred megabytes, through the upload page: subtitle timing comes from the speech, so it fits the video exactly.
Or skip the upload with a link
A video already on YouTube, Vimeo or Google Drive can be pasted as a link and fetched directly. For a long YouTube live replay, the same works. Stream recordings longer than 6 hours start once a pack is on the account; three hours is well under that.
SRT for most players, VTT for the web
SRT is what YouTube, Vimeo, most editors and media players take. VTT is the format HTML5 video players read. Both carry the same cues on the same clock. In YouTube Studio, open the video's Subtitles section and upload the SRT as a file with timing.
More than captions
The same upload gives the full transcript, a brief of the video's thesis and takeaways, chapters with timestamps you can paste into a description, the names, numbers and dates said, and a chat. In the summary, key quotes and chapters, the speakers are named.
Subtitling long video the hard way
Where three hours usually goes wrong.
✗ Manual or capped
Typing cues by hand or fighting a short length limit turns three hours of video into days.
- Six or more hours of typing per hour of video
- Auto-captions that only appear on one site
- Tools that stop at 60 minutes
- Timing drift after stitching parts
- Exports locked behind a monthly plan
- No transcript to reuse for a blog post
✓ One file, one subtitle track
The whole video in one go, with timing from the first word to the last.
- 180 minutes in one upload
- About six minutes to the SRT
- SRT and VTT, plus TXT and DOCX
- Link or file, same result
- The first 20 minutes free
- The $6 pack covers it
Sample output
Captions near the end of a 3-hour tutorial.
Illustrative, not a real video. The SRT carries the same lines as numbered cues with start and end times.
Export
One transcript. Five clean formats.
Every pack exports all five — no format is held back for a higher tier.
Plain text
De-ummed paragraphs. Ready to paste.
SRT captions
Timed to the speech. Every video editor reads this.
WebVTT
HTML5 player + YouTube uploads.
Show notes
Formatted with chapters and pull-quotes.
Machine-readable
Timestamped text for your own tools.
Pricing
Honest pricing, no surprises.
A pack from $6 (500 minutes) opens the full transcript. After that, no subscription and no auto-renew — every tier is a one-time minute pack, and credits never expire. Buy once, use the minutes whenever you need them.
Casual pack
$6/500 min
8 hours of audio — $0.72 an hour. One-time — credits never expire.
- 500 minutes of audio
- All export formats
- AI chat over the whole transcript
- Executive summary & key quote
Best value
$12/2,000 min
33 hours of audio — $0.36 an hour. Credits never expire.
- 2,000 minutes of audio
- Summary, chapters and key quotes
- All export formats
- AI chat over the whole transcript
Bulk pack
$24/5,000 min
83 hours of audio — $0.29 an hour. Credits never expire.
- 5,000 minutes of audio
- Summary, chapters and key quotes
- API access for batch pipelines
- All export formats
FAQ
Subtitles for long video, answered.
How long does it take to make subtitles for a 3-hour video?
About 6 minutes once the file has arrived, because processing runs near 2 minutes per hour of audio. A link is fetched on the server side. A large video uploaded from home can take longer to send than to transcribe, which is the reason to send just the audio.
How much do subtitles for three hours cost?
Three hours is 180 minutes. The first 20 minutes are free for a first-time visitor, and the $6 pack of 500 minutes covers the whole video with 320 minutes left, enough for another long video. Packs are one-time and credits never expire; there is no subscription.
My video file is 4 GB. Will it upload?
Before the first pack, uploads go up to 2 GB; once a pack is on the account, one file can be 5 GB. Extracting the audio is usually quicker: a three-hour audio track at 128 kbps is about 173 MB and gives exactly the same subtitle timing.
Can I edit the subtitles before publishing?
Yes. SRT and VTT are plain text, so any text editor or subtitle editor can fix a name or a term before you upload them. Check proper names and jargon in particular; the timing stays as it is when you only change words.
What about music or a subtitle file in another language?
Music and sound effects are not transcribed; the speech is. Subtitles come out in the language spoken, detected automatically from 99 languages, and a video that switches language is detected on its main language.
Can I get subtitles for a video longer than 10 hours?
Cut it into files of 10 hours or less and subtitle each part. Remember that the second part's SRT starts at zero, so in an editor place it after the first. Videos are transcribed on our own servers and are never used for training.
Related
Related answers about video.
Three hours of video. Subtitles in about six minutes.
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