Open vs Closed Captions: What's the Difference?

Open captions are burned into the video image, so every viewer sees them and nobody can turn them off. Closed captions are a separate text track that viewers switch on or off, and the player draws them on top of the video. Use open captions for short-form social video where people watch on mute; use closed captions for long-form video, where viewers want control and accessibility options.

Both are useful. The best choice depends on where the video will play and who's watching.

Definitions

Open captions

Also called burned-in or hard-coded captions (and "hardsubs" in some circles). The text is rendered into the video frames when you export. After that, it's just pixels: the same as any other graphic in the shot.

Closed captions

Stored separately from the picture, usually as a subtitle file such as SRT or VTT, or embedded as a track inside the video container. The viewer's player shows them when captions are switched on. The "CC" icon you see on YouTube and streaming services is for closed captions. If you want the details of the file format, see what an SRT file is.

Pros and cons

Open captions

Pros

• Show everywhere, including platforms and players that ignore caption files.
• Full design control: font, color, size, animation, position, highlighting the current word.
• No setup for the viewer, which matters when most people watch with sound off.
• Can be part of your brand look.

Cons

• Can't be turned off, even by viewers who find them distracting.
• Can't be corrected after export without re-uploading the video.
• One language only, unless you export separate versions.
• Can clash with on-screen text or be covered by platform buttons if placed badly.

Closed captions

Pros

• Viewers choose whether to see them, and on many players can change size and color.
• Multiple languages from one video.
• Can be corrected any time without touching the video.
• Readable by software, which helps search tools and assistive technology work with your content.

Cons

• Not every platform accepts them, and on some the toggle is easy to miss.
• Little or no styling control; the player decides how they look.
• Another file to create, check and upload.

Accessibility basics

Captions exist first for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers, and that's worth keeping in mind even when you're adding them for engagement. A few principles apply to both types:

• Accuracy. Wrong words are worse than no words for someone relying on them. Proofread names, numbers and technical terms.
• Timing. Captions should appear with the speech and stay long enough to read.
• Completeness. Don't skip sentences to save space. Accessibility-focused captions also note meaningful sounds, like [music] or [laughs], where they matter to the content.
• Readability. Strong contrast, a clean font and a size you can read on a phone. Avoid placing captions on busy backgrounds without an outline or box.

Open captions score well on "always available" but poorly on "adjustable." Closed captions are the opposite. For important long-form content, such as courses, training videos or anything public-facing for an organization, offering a closed caption track is the more accessible option, and some organizations have legal accessibility requirements to follow. If that applies to you, check the specific rules rather than relying on a blog post.

Which platforms support what

Support changes over time, so treat this as a general picture and check the upload screen of each platform:

• YouTube supports closed captions: automatic captions, uploaded files and translations. Open captions work too, and are common on Shorts. See how to add subtitles to a YouTube video.
• Facebook accepts uploaded caption files and also generates captions.
• Instagram and TikTok offer automatically generated captions that viewers can toggle, but don't generally let you upload your own caption file. Creators mostly burn captions in.
• LinkedIn accepts caption files for native video uploads.
• Websites and course platforms using HTML5 video usually support VTT files.

How to create each type

Open captions are made in your editor: generate or type the captions, style them, place them inside the safe zone, proofread, and export. Because they become part of the picture, the review has to happen before export.

Closed captions are made as a file or track: generate them on the platform (for example YouTube's automatic captions, then correct them), export a caption file such as SRT from your editor, or create one with a transcription tool. Then upload the file alongside the video. Our guide to SRT files explains the format if you need to fix one by hand.

Whichever you choose, build captions from the final edit. If you change the cut afterwards, closed caption timings drift and open captions have to be re-exported.

Recommendation by use case

You can also do both: open captions for the short version posted on social, closed captions for the full version on YouTube or your website. Just avoid having both visible on the same long video, where viewers who turn on CC would see doubled text.

For short talking-head clips, ShotFlick's Auto Caption burns styled captions into the edit for you. For tips on making either type easy to read, see caption styles that keep viewers watching and our guide to adding captions automatically.