Short.ai Alternatives: 4 Options Without the Second Subscription (2026)
We make one of the alternatives. Prices are as published in July 2026, and the thing worth knowing about Short.ai's pricing is structural rather than a matter of the numbers being high.
What Short.ai costs
It sells two subscriptions, on two separate tabs of the same pricing page.
Creation buys the videos:
| Plan | Price | Credits | Faceless videos |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $19/mo | 1,600 | Up to 40 |
| Pro | $30/mo | 3,600 | Up to 90 |
| Enterprise | $60/mo | 7,200 | Up to 180 |
Channel buys the publishing:
| Plan | Price | Channels |
|---|---|---|
| Basic | Free | 3, max 3 posts a day, 10 scheduled at a time |
| Essentials | $15/mo | 3, unlimited scheduling, +$5 per extra channel |
Yearly saves up to 15 percent. It posts to TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook, and the creation side covers AI story videos, Reddit story videos, fake text videos, and dialogue videos, plus an auto-clipper for long video.
Where it is strong. The format variety is real, and the free Channel tier is a genuine free scheduler for three channels if you can live with three posts a day and ten queued at once. The auto-clip tool is a bonus most faceless tools do not include at all.
Where people look elsewhere. The headline is $19, and the working configuration is $19 plus $15, which is $34 a month. That is not hidden, it is just on a different tab, and people routinely price the tool at $19 and then find the publishing is separate. Both subscriptions also renew independently, so cancelling is two actions rather than one.
1. PassiveShorts
Ours, and it charges once. $19 per series a month posts three times a week on the days you choose. $39 per series a month posts once a day. Publishing is not an add-on, because publishing is the entire point of the product. Yearly charges 10 months instead of 12, and you can run up to 10 series at once.
Both plans include the same things: auto-posting to YouTube and TikTok, 19 visual styles, six caption presets you can customize down to fonts, colors, outlines, animations, and word highlights, natural AI voices, and five built-in topics plus a custom topic you write. Publish public, private, or into your TikTok drafts to approve each one. Full commercial rights, 7-day money-back guarantee refunded automatically.
The same one subscription also covers single videos. Paste a script you wrote and it builds and posts that one video without a series attached, drawing on the same monthly video allowance rather than a second balance or a second plan.
Pick it if you want one line on the invoice and a channel that posts without you.
Do not pick it if you want Facebook or Instagram, which Short.ai covers and we do not, or if you want the extra formats like fake-text and dialogue videos. We do short faceless video, on a schedule or one at a time, and that is the whole product.
2. AutoShorts.ai
$19 a month for three posts a week, $39 for daily, $69 for twice a day. One series per plan, two months free on yearly. Auto-posts to TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram, with voice cloning and an edit-and-preview step.
Pick it if you want Instagram at a single price, which is the most direct answer to Short.ai's structure. Do not pick it if you want several series.
3. Faceless.video
$20 a month for 30 credits and one social account, $35 for 60 credits and unlimited accounts, $59 for 120, $149 for 350. Annual saves 30 percent, and unused credits roll over.
Pick it if your posting is uneven, since rollover means a slow month is not wasted. Do not pick it if you want more than one connected account at the entry price.
4. ShortsFaceless
$19 for up to 30 videos, $29 for up to 60, everything included in both: 40+ voices, 10+ languages, no watermark, HD downloads, custom image uploads, and unlimited regeneration. Publishes to YouTube only.
Pick it if you want the lowest cost per video with retries that cost nothing. Do not pick it if you need TikTok.
Side by side
| Real monthly entry | Subscriptions | Auto-posts to | Affiliate commission | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Short.ai | ~$34 ($19 + $15) | 2 | TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook | 30% for life |
| PassiveShorts | $19 | 1 | YouTube, TikTok | 30% for life |
| AutoShorts.ai | $19 | 1 | YouTube, TikTok, Instagram | 30% for life |
| Faceless.video | $20 | 1 | Auto-post included | Page is offline |
| ShortsFaceless | $19 | 1 | YouTube | 30% of subscription revenue |
Affiliate rates are as published in August 2026. Short.ai matches our 30 percent for life and holds the cookie for 90 days, which is the longest attribution window on this page. Faceless.video's affiliate link no longer resolves.
Is the split actually bad?
Not inherently, and it is worth being fair about this.
Unbundling makes sense if you already have a publishing workflow, because you can buy the creation plan alone at $19 and skip the Channel subscription entirely. For someone using Buffer or Later already, Short.ai at $19 is competitive and the extra formats are a bonus.
It works against you when you wanted the whole job done, because you end up assembling a product out of two plans and paying about $34 for what four other tools sell for $19 to $20 as one thing. The four-platform reach is the argument for paying it, and if Facebook and Instagram matter to you, it may be worth it.
If you want the single-price version and YouTube plus TikTok covers you, PassiveShorts does the whole job on one subscription: pick a topic or write your own, pick a voice and a visual style, pick the days it posts, connect the channels. Then it writes, voices, captions, and publishes on its own, and there is no second tab.
Related comparisons
- AutoShorts.ai Alternatives — three platforms on one subscription
- Faceless.video Alternatives — credits that roll over
- The Best AI Faceless Video Generators in 2026, Compared Honestly — all five tools side by side
- Repurpose.io Alternatives — distribution without the creation half
- Faceless.video vs Short.ai — head to head, and the free publishing tier most comparisons miss