Upload a product still, a portrait, a pet or an old family photo, and MakeAIVideo animates it into a 5 or 10 second 1080p clip in 9:16, 16:9 or 1:1. Real motion inside the frame, not a Ken Burns pan, with an optional spoken line and lip sync.
7-day free trial, 350 credits·Plans from $9/mo · Cancel anytime
Which stills animate best
Not every image animates equally. The model reads best on skies, water, fog, glass, hair, fabric and product materials, subjects with natural micro-motion it can infer from the photo. That is real motion inside the frame, not a Ken Burns effect panning and zooming over a still. Composite illustrations, dense text overlays and heavily stylised graphics fight it. Pick 9:16, 16:9 or 1:1 before you generate, so the motion is framed for the feed, YouTube or a billboard.
Source image
How should it animate?
ExampleThe aurora ripples slowly across the sky and its reflection moves on the water.
Clip length
5 seconds
Fastest
10 seconds
Smoother motion
1080p clip
GenerateHow it works
One image in, one clip out. The two text boxes are both optional, so the fastest path is upload, pick a length, generate.
Any photo, illustration, product shot or album cover: JPEG, PNG or WebP, at least 300 by 300 pixels and up to 10 MB. Upload the sharpest copy you have, not a thumbnail.
The box under “How should it animate?” is optional. Leave it blank and the motion is inferred from the photo, or write one line such as “waves crashing, slow push-in”.
Type it under “What should they say?” and pick a voice. If the image shows a face, the person says it with lip sync; if not, it plays as a voiceover. Leave it blank for a silent clip.
5 seconds is labelled Fastest, 10 seconds Smoother motion. Choose 9:16, 16:9 or 1:1 first, one ratio per render. A watermark-free 1080p MP4 lands in your library.
Animate a photo
Photos of people are the hardest case to get right. MakeAIVideo animates the photo you upload rather than generating a new one, adding micro-motion to the scene while the likeness stays put. That is what makes it suit family portraits, pets and memorial slideshows, where the face is the whole point.
Straight to your library
Upload one photo, pick the duration, hit generate. The finished clip lands in My Videos beside everything else you have made, ready to download or post. Want a longer piece with narration around it? Build a multi-scene video with prompt to video.
0:25Universe in 25s
0:48Cathedrals by candlelight
0:31Nobody filmed this
0:10Aurora over the fjord
0:08Rooftop take, swapped
0:42Rome in a day
The motion prompt
The box under “How should it animate?” is optional and holds up to 500 characters. Leave it blank and the motion is inferred from the photo, which suits most portraits and landscapes. When you want a say in it, write one line: what moves, and how. A line for the person to say goes in its own box, “What should they say?”, never in the motion prompt.
“Make it move”
“Wind in the trees on a stormy day with rain and lightning”
“She stands up and walks to the window”
“Slow wind through her hair, soft camera push-in”
“Clouds drifting across the sky, gentle ripple on the water”
“Subtle breath and a slow blink”
Hair movement, a head turn and a smile are three clips, not one. The subject also keeps the pose they were photographed in, so for walking or dancing, start from a photo already in that pose.
Length, speech and price
Every clip is one render of 5 or 10 seconds. The cost depends on the length and on whether you add a spoken line, and the app shows it before you generate.
5 seconds renders fastest and suits product loops and feed posts. 10 seconds gives landscapes, portraits and album art room for the motion to land before the clip ends.
Type a line under “What should they say?” and pick a voice. When the photo shows a face, the person says it with lip sync; on a product or a landscape, it plays as a voiceover. For a presenter reading a longer script, use an AI talking avatar.
The 7-day free trial includes 350 credits. Run out? Add credits any time, from $5; credits you buy never expire.
All included
Each render is one clip, exported as a watermark-free 1080p MP4 at the aspect ratio you picked. Post it to TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and eight more platforms without leaving the app. See auto post.
We upload the finished file to each account you pick.
Where should it go?
@yourbrand
TikTok
@yourbrand
Instagram · Posts as a Reel
Your Brand
YouTube · Vertical videos post as Shorts
Caption
RewriteRome did not build the Colosseum with magic. It built it with one ingredient we forgot. #history
Customise caption per platform
Schedule (optional, leave empty to post now)
Goes out within about two minutes of it.
Connect your AI agent
Image to Video runs in the app. Once a clip is in your library, Claude, ChatGPT, Grok or any MCP client can find it, write the caption and post it to your accounts, or make a longer narrated video on the same subject.
MCP, API and CLI use the same credits and the same balance as the app.
Use cases
The same upload works for very different photos. Each card has a motion prompt and a length to start from.
Give a single product on a clean background a premium sense of motion for a listing, an ad or a social preview. Try “soft light shift, gentle camera drift” at 5 seconds, 1:1 or 9:16. Busy flat-lays give the model too much to move at once.
Small motion keeps the likeness: a breath, a blink, hair in the wind. Use it for a profile loop or a launch teaser, or add a spoken line so the photo talks. Try “subtle breath, slow blink, gentle hair movement”.
Bring a favourite photo of a dog or cat back into motion for a tribute or a social post. Soft, photoreal movement in fur and eyes, not a cartoon overlay. Try “slow tail wag and an ear twitch”, with the pet staying in frame.
Skies drift, water shimmers, light shifts. Landscapes are among the most reliable photos to animate, because clouds and water move so cleanly. Try “slow cloud drift, gentle ripple on the water” at 10 seconds, 16:9.
Animate a restored print or a grandparent’s portrait with respectful micro-motion, so the scene breathes while faces, clothes and the room stay close to the original. 10 seconds, with “a single breath, a slow blink”.
Turn a single artwork or album cover into a looping motion piece for a release post or a Reel. Paintings and digital art animate well; at 5 seconds the style has less time to drift. Try “neon lights flickering”.
Image to Video animates one existing image for a few seconds. For a vertical video with a script and voiceover, use the TikTok video generator; to put your own character into a real clip, try AI character swap.
Old and black-and-white photos
Old prints carry the most feeling and the least detail, so the order you work in matters more than any setting. And ask before you animate someone else: get permission for any likeness that is not yours, and say the clip was made with AI.
Scan the print at the highest resolution you can, then remove dust, scratches and tears in a restoration tool. MakeAIVideo animates the photo you give it; it does not restore it, so a faded copy gives you a faded clip.
Optional. A colourised photo tends to read as a moment from life, a black-and-white one more as an effect. Both can be animated.
A single breath, a slow blink, a little hair movement, over 10 seconds. Big head turns and broad smiles on an old portrait are where it starts to look uncanny.
The input image
Motion quality scales with the source. Resolution, one clear subject and sensible framing do more for the result than any prompt.
The minimum is 300 by 300 pixels, but a sharp, detailed photo gives the model far more to work with. If the photo came off social media, a denoise pass first stops compression noise being read as detail.
One subject animates better than a busy frame with several focal points. If the subject is small, crop in so it fills more of the frame, with some room around it.
Tightly framed faces and hyper-detailed textures can warp under motion. A medium shot with breathing room around the subject gives cleaner, more reliable results.
Skies, water, hair, fabric and atmospheric light animate convincingly. Rigid objects on a table mostly hold still; a portrait outdoors will breathe.
Beauty filters and painterly effects get read as the real structure of a face. Very dark photos give the model too little to work with, and text in the image tends to warp once it moves.
The subject stays in the pose from your photo. For someone mid-stride or mid-dance, upload a photo where they are already in that pose.
5 seconds suits a product loop or a feed post. Use 10 seconds when the motion needs room to land: a landscape, a memorial portrait, an album cover.
The motion is framed around the ratio you pick, so set 9:16, 16:9 or 1:1 first. Re-cropping afterwards can cut out motion that mattered.
When a render misses
Generate again before you rewrite anything: the same photo and note give a different take each time, at the same cost as the first. If it keeps missing, the symptom usually points to the fix.
Choosing a tool
Tools that turn a photo into a video do one of four quite different jobs. Work out which one you have before you compare anything else.
A product shot, a landscape or a cover that should move in a feed, an ad or a listing. This is the image to video job: the tool infers motion from the one frame you give it.
What this page does: one 5 or 10 second 1080p clip per render, in 9:16, 16:9 or 1:1.
A portrait that should say a line to camera. Motion alone is not enough here; the tool also needs a voice and a mouth that moves with it.
Type the line under “What should they say?” and the person in the photo says it, with an AI voice and lip sync. For a presenter reading a full script, use an AI talking avatar.
A flat photo split into layers, with a virtual camera gliding between them. Dedicated depth and parallax tools are built for exactly that look.
Image to video generates motion inside the frame (water, light, hair, fabric) and can add a gentle camera drift. If the layered 3D look is the brief, a depth tool is the better fit.
Thirty seconds or more, with a voiceover, captions and music, built from an idea or a script. A single clip is one ingredient of that, not the whole video.
Start from prompt to video or script to video, which build multi-scene videos with narration.
Motion quality depends on the source, so judge every tool on the photo you actually need to animate. Then check these, which are the same questions we answer for our own.
AI Talking AvatarA presenter reads your whole script to camera.
AI Character SwapPut your character into a real video clip.
Prompt to VideoA narrated, multi-scene video from one line.
TikTok Video GeneratorVertical videos sized for the For You feed.
AI Influencer GeneratorTurn a still character into a posting creator.
Best AI video model 2026AI video models compared and ranked on quality, price and use.Compare the best AI video models
Faceless YouTube channelRun a channel without filming yourself, from niche to posting cadence.Start a faceless YouTube channel
AI video generatorEvery way MakeAIVideo makes a video: a prompt, a script, a presenter, a photo or a swapped character.See the AI video generatorPricing
Image to Video is on every plan, next to every other way to make a video. A silent 5 second clip is about 92 credits and a 10 second clip about 163. Plans start at $9 a month for 600 credits, with a 7-day free trial.
The easy start. Every tool, one creator.
$9/mo
or $99 a year, 1 month free
600credits every month
Use them on any tool below
7 days free with 350 credits. Cancel before day 7 and you won't be charged.
For one creator posting every week.
$19/mo
or $190 a year, 2 months free
1,100credits every month
Use them on any tool below
7 days free with 350 credits. Cancel before day 7 and you won't be charged.
Long-form, your branding and a team of three.
$29/mo
or $290 a year, 2 months free
1,750credits every month
Use them on any tool below
7 days free with 350 credits. Cancel before day 7 and you won't be charged.
For teams and channels running at volume.
$49/mo
or $490 a year, 2 months free
3,000credits every month
Use them on any tool below
7 days free with 350 credits. Cancel before day 7 and you won't be charged.
Run out in a busy month? Add credits any time, from $5. Credits you buy never expire. See pricing
Every plan includes
Clip length, formats, cost, old photos and talking photos, answered before you upload your first still.
Something else? Visit the help center
You upload a single image and MakeAIVideo animates it into a short photoreal video clip, adding natural motion while keeping the scene faithful to your original photo.
Upload one photo on the Image to Video screen, optionally describe the motion under “How should it animate?”, choose 5 or 10 seconds and your aspect ratio, then generate. The finished 1080p clip lands in your library.
Restore it first, fixing dust, scratches and fading, and colourise it if you want to. Then animate it with small motion over 10 seconds: a breath and a slow blink read as life, while big movements on an old portrait start to look uncanny.
Image to Video produces short clips of 5 or 10 seconds. For longer videos, use prompt to video or script to video, which build multi-scene videos.
Photos and illustrations with a clear subject and some scope for motion (skies, water, light, hair, fabric) animate most naturally. Product shots, portraits, pets and landscapes work well.
It animates your existing image rather than generating a new scene, so faces, clothes and surroundings stay close to what you uploaded. Likeness holds up best on a sharp, well-lit face; on a small, blurred or partly hidden face the model has to guess at features, and it can drift.
A silent 5 second clip is about 92 credits and a 10 second clip about 163. A spoken line with lip sync costs about 22 credits a second, so a 10 second clip is about 216. A 10 second voiceover on a photo with no face is about 183 credits. The app shows the exact cost before you generate.
Plans start at $9 a month for 600 credits, and every plan starts with a 7-day free trial. Solo is $19 a month for 1,100 credits. A silent 5 second clip is about 92 credits and a 10 second clip about 163. Plan credits reset monthly. Run out? Add credits any time, from $5; credits you buy never expire and stack on top. See MakeAIVideo plans and pricing.
Yes. Every plan starts with a 7-day free trial with 350 credits, full quality and no watermark, so you can try both clip lengths. A card is required to start the trial, and the plan you chose starts when it ends unless you cancel first.
JPEG, PNG or WebP, at least 300 by 300 pixels and up to 10 MB. A higher-resolution still animates more naturally than a small thumbnail.
9:16 vertical (TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts), 16:9 landscape (YouTube), and 1:1 square (Instagram feed, Facebook). Pick the ratio before generating.
A Ken Burns effect pans and zooms a camera over a still, and a slideshow moves from one still to the next. Image to video generates motion inside the frame (water, light, fabric, hair, a breath or a blink), so the scene itself comes alive instead of sliding around.
One motion idea: what moves, and how. “Slow wind through her hair, soft camera push-in” works; “make it move” is too vague, and a list of five motions blurs together. The note is optional and holds up to 500 characters, so you can also leave it blank and let the motion be inferred from the photo.
Yes. Videos you generate are yours to use commercially, for ads, product pages, social posts, and client work. Read the terms of service.
Nothing is lost: your account and finished videos stay exactly as they are. Plan credits reset on your next billing date. Run out sooner? Add credits any time, from $5.
Motion quality scales with the source image. Photoreal stills with clear subjects (a portrait outdoors, a landscape, a product in good light) animate cleanly. Highly stylised illustrations, busy compositions, or low-resolution thumbnails can produce odd warping. The tips above cover what to look for in a source that animates well.
Yes. Open the finished clip in the built-in editor, or generate again from the same image for a fresh take on the motion. Each new generation costs the same as the first, and the result lands back in your library alongside the original.
5 second clips render fastest, which is why the app labels them Fastest; 10 second clips take longer. The finished MP4 lands in your library when it is ready.
Yes. Re-generating from the same source produces a fresh motion pattern each time. It's the simplest way to get the result you want when the first variation isn't quite right; each retry costs the same as a new generation.
No. The motion prompt is optional: leave it blank and it reads the scene from your photo and infers the motion that fits, or describe the movement to steer it. If you'd rather build a video from a text idea, use prompt to video instead.
It depends on the job. For a few seconds of real motion from one still, use an image to video tool like this one. For a portrait that speaks, you need a voice and lip sync as well as motion. For a layered 3D look, a dedicated depth tool fits better, and for a narrated multi-scene video, a prompt or script based generator. Then compare clip length, resolution, aspect ratios, watermark, motion control and commercial rights, and test each tool on the photo you actually need to animate.
Yes. Both mean turning one still into a short clip with motion inside the frame. Image to video is the usual name for the feature; photo to video, animate a photo and bring a photo to life are how many people search for it.
The model works out motion from a single frame, so it has to guess at anything the photo does not show clearly. Crowds, intricate patterns, reflections, text and low-resolution sources are where those guesses tend to go wrong. A sharper source with one clear subject helps, and generating again gives you a fresh take on the motion.
Not reliably. Image to video keeps the subject in the pose from your photo and adds motion within it: a breeze, a camera drift, a change of expression. If you want someone mid-stride, upload a photo where they are already walking.
Yes, and everyone in frame is animated at once. It works best when the faces are a similar size and similarly lit. Give one shared motion idea, like a gentle sway, rather than directions for each person.
Yes. Type a line under “What should they say?” before you generate. If the image shows a face, the person says it with an AI voice and lip sync; a 10 second clip with lip sync is about 216 credits. On an image without a face, such as a product or a landscape, the line plays as a voiceover. For a presenter reading a full script, use an AI talking avatar.
Image to Video animates one photo per clip. For a memorial or a montage, animate each photo separately at the same aspect ratio, then join the clips in any video editor. For a narrated video built from a written idea, use prompt to video.
Animating your own family's photos for your family is one thing. Animating a stranger or a public figure, or making anyone appear to say something, and posting it as if it were real footage is another. Get permission for any likeness that is not yours, and say that the clip was made with AI.
Yes. The same source can render in 9:16, 16:9, and 1:1. Each crop is generated independently so the motion fits the chosen frame; re-render in another ratio if you need multiple sizes for different platforms.
Start a 7-day free trial with 350 credits. Plans from $9/mo; cancel anytime before the trial ends.
