Shotstack

API

Cloud video editing API that renders a JSON edit into a finished video

Price: Free credits, then paid
Access: API key (x-api-key)

About

Cloud API that renders videos, images and audio from a JSON timeline of clips, text, transitions and effects, with templates, captions, AI assets, hosting and destinations. A watermarked sandbox is free for testing; rendered files expire after 24 hours.

What you can do with it

Render personalised videos at scale from a template with merge fields
Add text, captions, music and transitions to clips with code
Resize, crop or convert source footage into new renditions

Get started

Sign up and copy your sandbox (stage) API key
POST a JSON edit to the render endpoint
Poll the render by its id until status is done

Example

curl -X POST https://api.shotstack.io/edit/stage/render \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "x-api-key: $SHOTSTACK_API_KEY" \
  -d '{
    "timeline": { "tracks": [{ "clips": [{
      "asset": { "type": "text", "text": "HELLO WORLD" },
      "start": 0, "length": 5
    }] }] },
    "output": { "format": "mp4", "size": { "width": 1024, "height": 576 } }
  }'

Details

Hosting: Hosted service
Available in: Worldwide
Official SDKs: JavaScript/TypeScript, Python, PHP, Ruby
MCP server: Remote