How much does Shotstack cost, and is there a free tier?

Shotstack prices by minutes of rendered video, not by image. These figures come from Shotstack's pricing page as of November 2026, so confirm them on shotstack.io/pricing before you budget.

Is there a free tier? Not a permanent one. A new account gets 10 free credits valid for 30 days, with no card required. On pay-as-you-go, one credit renders one minute. The sandbox is free to render in, but output is watermarked, AI generation still costs credits, and you need at least one active credit to call it at all.

What happens when you run out? On pay-as-you-go, rendering stops until you top up. Subscriptions keep rendering and bill overage at the end of the cycle. Plan minutes roll over for 3 months. Pay-as-you-go minutes last 12 months. Minutes are counted by the second, so a 30-second video uses half a minute.

What this means for image work. Shotstack is a video API. If your output is a still image or PDF from a design that already lives in Canva, you pay video-minute pricing for a job that does not need a timeline. Layerre imports a Canva share link and renders images and PDFs: free is 50 credits a month, Starter is $15 a month for 500 credits. Layerre does not render video.

Rule of thumb:

• Programmatic video (MP4 timelines, voiceover, AI clips): use Shotstack or Creatomate.
• Images and PDFs from Canva templates: use Layerre.

See Shotstack alternatives and Layerre vs Shotstack.