Creatomate vs Placid Comparison 2026
Both cover thumbnails & cover art. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
Video and image templates rendered by API
Design once, generate the image every time
At a glance
- Placid starts cheaper, at $19.
- Neither has a free tier.
Side by side
Creatomate | Placid | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (they differ) | From $45 | From $19 |
| Pricing model | Paid subscription | Paid subscription |
| Free tier | No | No |
| Billing | Not stated | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial | Not stated | Not stated |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Data export | Not stated | Not stated |
| Their cut | None | None |
| Runs on | Web | Web |
Shaded rows are where the two answers disagree and both listings have answered. A row where one side has not stated a fact is left plain, because silence is not a difference.
Creatomate
Video and image templates rendered by API
Creatomate renders finished videos and images from a template and a payload, so a thousand variations of a cover or a promo clip become an automation rather than an afternoon. It works from code or from the no-code automation tools, and a spreadsheet of rows can drive a batch. Credits rather than seats are what a plan buys. Anybody making a handful of graphics by hand will find this expensive and slow to set up.
Our note
Build one real template during the 50-credit trial rather than several simple ones, because the question is whether your design survives being templated and that only becomes clear on something complicated. Compare against an image-only tool if you are not rendering video: the video capability is most of what you are paying for here.
Only on this side
- Covers motion graphics & animation
Placid
Design once, generate the image every time
Placid turns a template into an endpoint: build the layout once, then hand it a title and a photo and get back a finished image. Thumbnails, quote cards and social previews stop being a task and become part of publishing. It connects to the automation tools and to a site's own code, and credits rather than seats are what a plan buys. Anybody making one image a week does not need this.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.