How to Make AI Videos on Your Phone for Free

AI video generators are doing amazing things these days, but they can be expensive.

If you’re looking for some free options to make AI videos on your phone, you’re in the right place.

Not too long ago—I’m talking even just a few months ago—people mistrusted generative AI, as the quality wasn’t very good yet. So, it was easier to find free or freemium apps to try them out.

Now, this technology is well-established, and it has become increasingly difficult to find any free alternatives.

Not to worry, though! I scoured the Google Play Store and the App Store to find some valid options for you – I even tried them out to ensure they were actually free and to check their quality and conditions of use.

So, if you want to save some time and frustration, keep on reading to see what I found.

4 free AI Video Generators for iPhone and Android, plus one alternative

Please consider that AI technology is evolving rapidly and continuously, and so is the app market. So, review the terms and conditions on the apps before subscribing, as they may have changed since this article was written.

Another thing to consider is that free trials and credits usually don’t grant commercial use.

Microsoft Bing Search

Don’t be discouraged if you go to Google Play and can’t find a Bing Creator app or a Bing Video Generator app. Simply download the Microsoft Bing Search.

On the home page, click on Image Creator. Then, tap on Video to start using it – you’ll find this option on top. You can type your own prompt, or use the Surprise Me button to let it generate something random for you.

For now, the only aspect ratio available is 9:16, which is the standard aspect ratio of a traditional smartphone screen. The video can last only 5 seconds. Perhaps in the future, you’ll have more options, but for now, this is all there is.

You can generate unlimited videos at a standard rate, which means that each one can take several hours to be ready. If you need it faster, you get 10 Fast Passes to generate the video in minutes.

The actual time can be much faster depending on the traffic. The example I’m showing you above was set to Standard, which presumably would take hours. Then the timer told me it would be ready in a few minutes, and it actually was ready in seconds.

This video generator is powered by Sora, a product from OpenAI (the makers of ChatGPT). However, using ChatGPT, you would have to pay to generate a video. Of course, using it through a free Bing account comes with many limitations, but you still get the quality of their powerful technology.

Your videos will remain available on the app for 90 days. To save them, you can download them to your phone or share them via email and social media.

PixVerse

PixVerse is an excellent freemium app for AI video generation. As you open the app, you can browse the video library for templates. There are plenty of categories for you to explore.

Once you decide to create a video, you’ll be asked to create an account. Alternatively, you can log in with your Apple or Google account. On your first log-in, you get 60 credits.

Then, you’ll get another 60 credits each day you enter – if you don’t launch the app, you don’t get credits that day. However, you don’t have to use the credits right away.

So, you can launch it every day to save up the credits for another time when you need to make more videos. Consider that each video generation uses 20 credits.

There are plenty of creative tools in PixVerse. You can use the most common text-to-video, but you can also use images as prompts. You can also upload two frames and describe the transition you want between them.

It’s also possible to merge two subjects/backgrounds by describing how you want them to interact, or you can extend a video you already have. The possibilities are endless.

I found the quality to be quite good, and there’s plenty of space to type a very detailed prompt. The generation time was very fast, but I suppose it depends on the amount of traffic. If it’s taking too long, you can do other things, and you’ll get notified when it’s ready.

If it sounds too good to be true, it’s because there’s a caveat – anything you generate with free credits will have a watermark when you download or share it. There are also time and resolution limits.

The paid subscriptions remove the watermark from your videos and offer higher resolutions, additional credits, concurrent generations, and other benefits, depending on the plan.

There are three membership tiers starting at US$9.90 p/mo which includes 1200 credits. All in all, it’s a good deal if you have the budget. You can choose to subscribe on a monthly or yearly basis – the yearly option offers a discount.

Another advantage of PixVerse is that it has a social aspect. Click on the Discover tab to browse other users’ creations for inspiration. You can also like and comment on their creations – plus, you can use them as templates for your own videos.

VideoGPT

VideoGPT is another premium app for text-to-video generation.

While it has fewer generative options than PixVerse, you can include background music and voice-over. VideoGPT has a gallery of styles and AI voices to choose from.

When writing this article, I decided to craft a prompt to use in every app. This would allow me to have an equal starting point to compare the AI video generators.

VideoGPT rejected this prompt because it requires prompts to be written as stories. I must say, I found this a bit odd. However, it wasn’t a big deal in my case as I wasn’t looking for a specific result – just a trial video. It may be a problem for some users, though.

The video generation took longer than others I tried, but this is probably because you can make longer videos even with the free version. While other free options offer five- or eight-second videos, VideoGPT creates 30-second videos.

There’s a reason for this; the scenes aren’t animated. So, you’ll get a set of images where there’s a simulated camera movement, but the characters and scene are still. There’s a smooth transition between them as you hear the narrator tell the story.

So, this isn’t what you would traditionally expect when thinking about AI video generators, but it technically is. I’ve seen many YouTube accounts using this type of video as their content.

Once your video is generated, you’ll get a set of editing tools. However, you can’t save the edited version with the free account – you’ll be prompted to upgrade.

Generally speaking, I could live without the editing tools except for the caption one. The default version of the video features large captions displayed in the center of the frame.

If you want to remove them or make them less intrusive, you have to upgrade to VideoGPT Unlimited. You can export the free video to your phone or share it, but it will have a watermark.

Upgrading is simpler than others because there’s only one subscription – VideoGPT Unlimited for US$6.99/week. Right now there’s an offer for US$69.99/year.

Canva

Canva’s AI video generator is still very new. Therefore, the quality is not yet comparable to other tools on this list, especially when it comes to people and animals. However, I expect it to improve very soon—I saw the same thing happen with the AI image generator.

Currently, the only available format is in landscape orientation. If you need it in portrait format to make Instagram Reels, Stories, YouTube shorts or other content, don’t worry! Canva is a graphic design platform with numerous templates that you can use to transform your AI-generated video into eye-catching content.

Canva has a free account with multiple media assets. However, most AI tools are only available to Pro users, including the AI video generator.

However, you get five credits to try the AI video generator. This is a one-time only allocation. So, use them wisely.

On the Canva app, the AI video generator is not that easy to find if you’re not already working on a design. To reach it, scroll the menu bar under the prompt bar on the home page.

At the end of the menu, there’s a More option – tap on that one. On the new menu, choose Videos and the format you prefer.

Once you’re on the blank template, find the Magic Media option and tap on it.

On the Magic Media workspace, you can choose videos on the top bar and type the prompt you want. You can also use the Inspire Me button, and Canva will come up with a random prompt.

The amount of characters supported for the prompt is much shorter than others, but that’s also because currently, you can only make 4-second videos.

There aren’t any styles to choose from either, so you have to specify that on the prompt. Once you’ve typed in the description, simply hit Create.

If you’re satisfied with the video, tap on it to go back to the Edit page, where you’ll be able to edit both the video and the overall design of your project.

If you don’t like the resulting video, you can tap on Generate Again, but this will cost you another credit.

You’ll have the same editing options that you have with any other video. This means that you can adjust Brightness, Contrast, Temperature, etc. You can also cut the video, add audio, make it play on loop, and so on.

If you have a Pro account, you can also use the Magic Studio, which includes the AI Background Remover and Highlight generator.

Speaking of the Pro membership, you can subscribe for €12/month or get a discount if you get the annual plan. This will give you 45 credits for AI video generation and many other perks. There are also pricing plans for teams and organizations.

invideo AI

Now for the bonus app on the list, which works slightly differently.

Let me start by warning you that the free version of invideo AI won’t generate AI content for your videos. Instead, it will use stock media to compose a video based on your prompt. It will also make a voiceover with an AI-generated narrator.

Another thing to be aware of beforehand is that the free video will have watermarks from all the stock photo marketplaces that hold the rights to the media used by invideo AI.

You can use invideo AI for free as a trial to decide whether you like the results, or simply to create a mockup to show to your client or designer before proceeding.

You can’t actually publish the generated video even if it’s not for commercial use, given the terms and conditions from Shutterstock, iStock, and other platforms. This is why I only included it at the end of the list.

Having said that, I found the quality to be very good. However, the waiting time was a bit long considering that it wasn’t generating the content.

I like that it offers a series of ‘flows’, which are the different types of video it can generate, from short films to explainer videos to short ads.

It also lets you choose the format by video platform instead of resolution size, which you may not be familiar with.

Using stock media is quite expensive because you’re paying rights to multiple platforms, plus the use of InvideoAI. If you have the budget, it’s best to opt for one of the three membership plans and utilize AI-generated content.

The plans start at US$28/month, but a yearly subscription gives you a 20% discount.