What It Does

SubMachine automates the tedious part of animated captions: syncing text to audio word by word. It works inside Premiere Pro, pulling from Adobe’s built-in transcription tools and applying Motion Graphic Templates (MOGRTs) to produce animated subtitles without ever leaving your timeline. Editors who have previously keyframed word-by-word text manually will immediately recognize the time saved.

Key Features

Nine included MOGRT templates. Each template targets a specific style or use case. Rather than one generic caption look, you get a range of starting points:

  • Animator / Animator Pro. The most flexible options, offering fine-grained animation controls for editors who want expressive, branded caption styles.
  • Blank Slate. A bare-minimum template for motion designers who want to build a fully custom caption style from scratch in After Effects.
  • Block. Arranges text symmetrically across up to 8 lines, suited for full-screen callouts or Instagram-style subtitle layouts.
  • Dynamo. Inspired by the Alex Hormozi style, with a “Single Word” mode added in recent updates.
  • Karaoke. A customizable banner highlights each word as it is spoken, giving captions an active, in-sync feel.
  • Lite. A lightweight option designed for lower-spec machines that still want word-by-word animation.
  • Pod. Text fades in as it is spoken, with an optional background for readability. Modeled on the Ali Abdaal style.
  • TikTok. Replicates TikTok’s native caption look with toggleable colors, fonts, and per-line backgrounds.

After Effects customization. Intermediate users can open any included MOGRT in After Effects and modify it to match a brand or client brief. Motion graphics professionals can use the Blank Slate template to build entirely original styles that still work within SubMachine’s word-timing system.

SRT and multi-language support. SubMachine accepts SRT files and has been tested with German, Spanish, Hebrew, Vietnamese, Danish, and other languages. Right-to-left language MOGRTs are also included.

Who It’s For

SubMachine fits editors producing talking-head content, podcasts, YouTube videos, or social media clips where animated captions are expected. The included templates cover the most common styles currently popular on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube without requiring any motion graphics background. Motion designers get a clean pathway to build and deploy custom styles through the Blank Slate template and After Effects integration.

Pricing

  • Monthly. $8/month, full feature access, cancel anytime. Includes a free trial week.
  • Yearly. $80/year, equivalent to two months free compared to monthly billing.
  • Perpetual. $150 one-time payment for a lifetime license with no ongoing subscription.