Looking for personalized video software? Here are my top 7 picks for 2024
If you’re at a stage where you want to level up your marketing game through personalized video tech, you need the proper tools to do your best work. There is a plethora of personalized video software out there, and evaluating which one would be the best fit for you takes time.
Because of this, I did extensive research on existing software and signed up for free trials where possible to explore available features, and user-friendliness, and test the limitations of each personalized video marketing solution out there.
To help you make the right choice here’s my honest and objective review of seven completely different personalized video software: Pirsonal, Shotstack, Motionlab, SundaySky, Idoomo, HippoVideo, and Plainly.
The overview of the 7 best personalized video software on the market
In the table beneath, you will see all of the tools I researched. To better understand my point of view, here are the criteria I took in mind while coming up with the list of potential personalized video marketing software you should consider:
- User-friendliness: In addition to the actual features, you should evaluate the learning curve of the personalized video software. You may want to start creating custom videos at scale right away, BUT if the software is a bit more complex, it will affect your desired campaign launch times.
- Customer support: Imagine this: you’re playing around with your customized videos and then you encounter a bug. How quickly can you expect to receive support from the vendor? Or are you forced to read through tons of documentation and troubleshoot yourself?
- Pricing: Obviously, you want to get good value for your money. How transparent is the pricing of the personalized video software you’re considering? Based on what are they charging you? Are there any hidden fees? What do you get within each pricing plan?
- Best for a certain type of user: Not all personalized video software are built for the same audience. Some require more tech knowledge, others are perfect for no-code lovers, while there are also solutions suitable for different types of users. This is why I gave my best judgment on which tool is suitable for a certain type of user or organization.
- API & integrations: Do you want to create custom workflows when working on your customized videos? How smooth do you expect the process of automation to work? Are there any favorite tools you’d like to connect to the software? Checking how powerful the API is and what are the available integrations is important.
Option #1: Pirsonal as a personalized video software
Pirsonal is a cloud-based personalized video software. It allows you to render and mix videos, images, audio, and text in order to create unique campaigns for your customers.
What I like: Creating templates is rather simple and the choice of available templates you can use (if you don’t want to start from scratch) is solid. However, some features do require technical knowledge in order to make the most of them. I’m mentioning this just so you don’t assume it’s sort of like a “plug-and-play” personalized video software. I mean, it is, but only to a certain extent.
What could be improved: The client delivery system could be improved. Pirsonal offers API & Zapier integration which solves for around 3000 apps on the market. But just like their own customer support team said, they are working on making it easier for any organization to integrate with Pirsonal system seamlessly.
Pricing: Pirsonal offers four different pricing plans that cover more than just personalized video editing software. Pricing starts at $199 / month and you have to commit for a year.
Value for money: In my opinion, Pirsonal is more like a one-stop shop for creating personalized video experiences (e.g. they offer analytics, interactive videos, and landing page creation), which might be too much. Or to be more precise, it might not be something that a marketer, who’s only getting started with including customized videos in the marketing mix, really needs. A bit pricey for a starter’s plan.
Who’s it for: If you need a more robust personalized video marketing solution, you have a team that plans on creating personalized videos on a regular basis, and you have a solid budget, then Pirsonal is a fine option.
Overall score: 4/5
Option #2: Shotstack as a personalized video software
Shotstack customized videos. It is essentially a cloud-based video editing API. By relying on Shotstack’s SDK, you control the tech stack you want to use. For developers, the entire process is quite intuitive: you create applications, post the edit to Shotstack Cloud API which then renders the video, and then you download the video in your preferred format - HD, SD, mp4, or gif.
What I like: From a user perspective, I liked how simple it was to get started. You don’t need to make any payment upfront or leave your credit card number. A free trial is truly free, and the videos that you render come with a Shotstack watermark. This gets removed if you decide to subscribe. The documentation is really comprehensive and the API works great. Overall, it’s a personalized video software that offers a good experience for new users.
What could be improved: From my experience with it, it seems like their app is pretty limited when it comes to templates. I didn’t find a way to build any complex templates. The only thing I was able to create were pretty simple, slide-show-like templates. To build a template, you have to work inside their Web-based video template builder. I liked Pirsonal’s template builder more, but again, Shotstack is more oriented toward developers who might actually prefer JSON over a visual creator.
In addition to developers, Shotstack targets startups and creative agencies as their customer segments. There is definitely value in not being forced to break the bank with upfront investments in infrastructure and development, not to mention engineering and maintenance overheads get eliminated. Still, I’d say the learning curve is not that mild.
Pricing: Shotstack offers four different pricing plans that differ depending on the number of minutes available and a number of images used within the video. Storage and bandwidth also vary. Still, the starting plan is quite affordable: only 99$ per month.
Value for money: Pricing makes Shotstack quite competitive on the market. The obvious shortcoming lies in the fact it requires technical knowledge to make the most of it.
Who’s it for: In my opinion, Shotstack is a great option for marketing teams that do have technical support or developers that want to build automated video workflows.
Overall score: 3.5/5
Option #3: Motionlab as a personalized video software
Motionlab is a personalized video marketing platform based in the cloud. It allows video creators, data managers, and campaign analysts to work from a single workspace, deploy different language variations to their videos, and test video quality in a secure sandbox.
What I like: Their reporting is really good. It seems like they tried making that part of their software stand out. It truly is a collaborative platform with easy-to-understand analytics. Also i’m a sucker for great design paired with great functionality, and I got to hand it to the Motionlab team, the interface is really neat.
What could be improved: Their pricing model, and their setup I’d say. It seems a bit weird to me to charge per video instead of video length. Also, the setup is not self-serve and requires multiple touchpoints.
Pricing: Motionlab is not really transparent about its pricing. They only mention they have “flexible pricing plans” in their FAQ section, so you’d need to contact their sales to get more information. Software review websites such as Sourceforge and GetApp state that Motionlab charges €0.19 per video.
Value for money: Unfortunately, I can’t really provide a detailed answer here because pricing is custom-made for each separate client.
Who’s it for: Motionlab is a personalized video software that’s more suited for enterprise-level companies and bigger organizations. Industries they focus on include e-commerce, utilities, and finance. Think brands and agencies as opposed to individual creatives.
Overall score: 4/5
Option #4: SundaySky as a personalized video software
SundaySky is one of the oldest personalized video tools on tools on the market. They started doing purely personalized videos for customer experience, but recently they also started offering easy template-based video creation. They’re trying to compete with tools like Biteable or potentially even Canva in the future.
What I like: I appreciate SundaySky as one of the OG’s in the personalized video. Over many years they built a really feature-rich platform. Recently they had a large update that added a Web Based video editor that allows users to create templates. It looks like SundaySky is going more and more towards the video creation route, rather than video personalization and i expect them to have a fully powered video creation/editor tool in a few years.
What could be improved: Although they started doing only personalized videos for enterprises, they are now venturing into other areas of video. Having a lack of focus leads to a clunky platform that has a bit of everything but may miss key features. Also, SundaySky is for enterprises – that means long sales processes, a lot of hoops to go through, and not an easy setup process.
Pricing: N/A (custom pricing for every client)
Value for money: If you’re a large enterprise, value for money is good – if it wasn’t SundaySky wouldn’t exist for so long. If you’re anything except that you can probably expect to pay a premium because of minimum commitments and large yearly contracts.
Who’s it for: Large enterprises that want to do giant personalized video marketing campaigns.
Overall score: 4/5
Option #5: Idomoo as a personalized video software
Idomoo, alongside SundaySky, is one of the oldest personalized video solutions on the market. They started 15+ years ago and over the years they built a solid platform that’s the standard personalized video solution for large enterprises.
What I like: I like the fact that they offer not only personalized videos but also interactive videos. That means that the video is displayed for each user in a player and they can choose their journey. Each personalized video has buttons that allow the user to pick the next scene that will be displayed.
What could be improved: The template creation process is a bit clunky. Although they have support for After Effects it’s pretty limiting. You can’t use all of the effect and After Effects features, which puts a limit on the type of video you can create.
Pricing: N/A
Value for money: If you are a large enterprise value for money is good, expect to spend tens of thousands at the low end to get started.
Who’s it for: A high bar to entry and a long sales process means that it’s for large enterprises who are used to working in that way. If you have ongoing personalized video campaigns (multiple per year) and want to work with an enterprise-ready solution then Idoomo is for you!
Overall score: 3.5 / 5
Option #6: Hippo Video as a personalized video software
Hippo Video enables you to automate sending personalized video emails. As a video personalization software, it allows you to personalize elements such as text, images, audio, graphs, and animation effects. They are focusing on the automated creation of sales videos. You can send automated, personalized ABM or sales campaigns, or use personalized videos to improve your customer experience.
What I like: I like the fact it’s rather intuitive, it has a lot of useful features and free templates you can use. There are also many integration options and they recently added AI avatars which means that you can have (AI) humans in the video explaining your offering.
What could be improved: HippoVideo tries to do a lot of things, it can get confusing for a first-timer. The whole template creation process & setup is a bit clunky.
Pricing: Plans go from $30 to $80 per month per user, depending on the features your team needs.
Value for money: I would say that value for money isn’t that good considering the shortcomings and user complaints. You should get access to a seamless personalized video platform for that kind of money.
Who’s it for: It’s for sales teams who want to have a screen recorder (think Loom) + video editing + analytics + personalized videos + AI avatars. Basically a bunch of different tools bundled in one (sometimes confusing) interface. It’s quite pricey, so I’d say it’s a solid personalized video platform for sales, marketing, and support teams that are part of a larger organization.
Overall score: 3/5
Option #7: Plainly as a personalized video software
Plainly is proof that you can have your cake and eat it. We noticed that there was an obvious gap in the market. There wasn’t a tool that allowed you to easily create templates in a design industry standard tool like After Effects, which has a user-friendly Web App for setup & rendering, and also a powerful API for more advanced users.
What I like: Plainly favors simplicity and functionality over flashy features. I wanted to ensure you’d be able to get the job done well without minimum hassle.
- For tech teams, this means effectively working with API and setting everything up in just three steps (template creation, Plainly setup, integration setup).
- For agencies and marketing teams, it’s giving the ability to create automated workflows with native integrations to the popular tools and CSV imports.
- For creative teams, this means creating high-quality templates in After Effects, but also having the support from the Plainly team when it comes to personalized video template creation.
What could be improved: I will admit that we’re lacking on the reporting side. We’re building a video player that would enable analytics such as views, user interactions…etc.
Pricing: Three simple monthly subscriptions that vary depending on video minutes, storage, and video retention. Plans start at $59.
Value for money: Combined with responsive support and high-quality tutorials and examples you can use for learning and inspiration, it’s a pretty good deal.
Who’s it for: Great value for both tech teams and marketing teams.
Overall score: 5/5
How to choose a personalized video marketing solution
This article deliberately looks into seven different personalized video marketing solutions so that you can get a good feel for your options.
Here are some of the things you should consider:
- The budget you have available
- The technical capabilities of your team
- How often you will use the personalized video marketing solution
- What product documentation is available
- How are templates created
- How functional is the API
- How often do product updates and releases happen
- What level of support do you get
- What is the quality of learning resources the company provides
Additionally, think about where you’re willing to compromise to save a few bucks. Then categorize features by using the following framework:
Summary of my top 7 personalized video software picks
Pirsonal is more of a drag-and-drop solution, but it offers so much more than just a way to create personalized videos. It’s a solid option for those who are less tech-savvy.
Shotstack is purely technical. Their capabilities are quite solid but their template creation is not that simple.
Motionlab is a personalized video software that’s more suited for enterprise-level companies and bigger organizations.
SundaySky is great if you’re an enterprise that wants to do cloud-based drag-and-drop video creation and not only personalized video marketing campaigns.
HippoVideo is a product for those who primarily want to product to communicate with their clients and internally. This means screen recordings, video editing, and occasional personalized video campaigns.
Idoomo, like SundaySky is for very large enterprises that are used to having dozens of meetings before starting the project, and also paying a bit of a premium for that kind of hand-holding.
Last but not least, Plainly is a personalized video software that gives you the ability to create amazing templates using After Effects, have a user-friendly Web App that allows you to set up your project, and a powerful API for creating custom workflows (or just connecting Plainly with your favorite app using native integrations). It’s important to note that Plainly works at your tempo. It can be a completely self-serve platform if that’s what you wish but also Plainly’s team can be at your disposal for template & integration creation if that’s your requirement.
It is the future of automated video production, which is talking personally to 1000s of customers individually.
I like saying that Plainly is similar to having a team of video-making robots working for you. They cost less than a full-time video editor, they create videos 24/7, and they never rest. But don’t take my word for it: book a demo today to see it in action
Frequently asked questions about personalized video software
How much does personalized video software cost?
Depending on the vendor, personalized video software can cost anywhere from $59 to $599 per month. Some software companies have the “pay-as-you-go” pricing model where you pay for each individually rendered video.
What influences the cost of personalized video software?
The cost of personalized video software can be determined by many factors: complexity of the video, duration and/or resolution of your video, and the complexity of your workflow. Plainly takes into account the total minutes of your video, the amount of storage you need, and video retention time.
What are some of the common use cases for personalized video software?
Personalized video software can be effectively used in sales and customer acquisition, onboarding processes, email marketing, customer support, social media campaigns, and more. Customized videos that are tailored for each individual result in better conversion rates, stronger customer relationships, increased brand awareness, and improved retention.
What is customised video?
A customized video is a video that’s personalized and tailored to fit an individual or an audience. These videos are often made as a part of a larger personalized video marketing campaign and in order to use these companies usually use tools such as Plainly, Personal or SundaySky.
What is personalized video?
Same as customized video, personalized video is a video that contains personalized elements and it’s different for each viewer. These are created in order to increase engagement and conversion rates. Personalization could be achieved through various means including personalized text, audio, images and even videos.
What is the app that sends personalized videos?
This depends on your use case and needs but some of the apps that send personalized videos are Plainly, Shotstack and MotionLab. Different products have different requirements when it comes to template creation and sending the data.
What is video personalization?
This is a process of tailoring individual videos to each viewer. It usually includes creating a video template of sorts, then selecting which elements you want to change in each video and then sending the data which will be used for personalization. Video personalization is usually used in marketing to increase engagement and conversion rates because the videos speak to individual users rather than a general audience.
