11 Must-Try Free Intro Makers to Increase Viewer Retention

An intro is one of the most important parts of a video. It is the first thing a viewer sees when they click on a video, and those first 10 seconds are crucial for deciding whether they want to continue watching. An intro also sets up the tone of your video and gives viewers a sneak peek at what to expect. 

Since intros are so important, finding a high-quality free intro maker is equally as important! A good intro maker should cover everything you need to make an intro, from easy-to-use templates to make-from-scratch options for more experienced designers.

No matter if you want to create gaming intros, business intros, animated intros, logo reveals, or a YouTube channel intro, we have a free intro maker for you. We’ve reviewed the 11 best free intro makers so you can choose the right one for your unique needs.

• Top 3 Free Intro Makers Snapshot
• What Makes a Good Video Intro?
• How to Choose a Free Intro Maker
• 11 Must-Try Free Intro Makers to Increase Viewer Retention
1. PowerDirector - Best Overall
2. InVideo - Best Customer Service
3. Kapwing - Best for Audio
4. Renderforest - Best for Logo Reveals
5. Canva - Best for Businesses
6. DesignWizard - Best for Templates
7. Adobe Express - Best for Stock Assets
8. Blender - Best for Animation
9. PlaceIt - Best for Gamers
10. DaVinci Resolve - Best for Professionals
11. Fastreel - Best for a Variety of Uses
• Best Free Intro Makers Comparison Chart
• How to Make an Intro
• Download the Best Intro Maker for Free
• Free Intro Maker FAQ

Top 3 Free Intro Makers Snapshot

What Makes a Good Video Intro?

A good video intro has the following characteristics:

• Helps viewers become familiar with your branding, i.e. colors, fonts, and most importantly, your logo. 
• Features music and animated graphics or titles
• Provides a snapshot into what the viewer can expect from your videos
• Keeps the viewer engaged so they want to see more
• Is short enough that viewers don’t become bored before your video begins

To find out more about how to make an intro, check out How to Create Engaging YouTube Intros / Outros.

How to Choose a Free Intro Maker

Our list covers a range of free intro makers with completely different strengths and weaknesses. Here are some things you should look for when trying to choose the right free intro maker for your needs. 

Difficulty 

We’ve included free intro makers on our list that are beginner-friendly, and some that are more suited for experts. It’s important to choose a program that fits your skill level. 

Customizations

Are you someone with little design or editing experience who wants to make an intro automatically with little fuss? Or do you like to work from scratch and make all the decisions yourself? We have free intro makers on our list with automatic templates, working-from-scratch options, and everything in between. 

Variety of Uses

Many of the free intro makers on our list provide other uses such as video editors or thumbnail makers. If you don’t currently have video editing software, choose a YouTube intro maker that is also a video editor, so you can make every aspect of your videos in one program, saving you time and money.  

11 Must-Try Free Intro Makers to Increase Viewer Retention

1. PowerDirector - Best Overall

Compatibility: Windows, Mac

PCMag Rating: 5/5

Intro Maker Tools: 5/5

Price: Free
*Premium subscription available for $4.33/month

Key Features

• Royalty-Free Music Library
• 5,000+ Video Templates
• Green Screen Effects
• Motion Graphics

The award-winning video editor PowerDirector makes the top of our list because of its dedicated intro designer. With it, you can choose from thousands of video intro templates and customize them to your needs. It only takes minutes to make an intro.

PowerDirector is more than just a YouTube intro maker. It offers a full editing timeline plus video effects. Some of these include impressive AI-generated results. For example, with one click, you can replace the sky or make a full music track fit the length of a short video.

Overall, it's a one-stop video creation machine. This is probably why PC Magazine has named it Editors' Choice year after year and calls it "best for tons of tools and ease of use." Meanwhile, TechRadar Pro also sings its praises.

If you want to create scroll-stopping intros to pull viewers in, download PowerDirector for free by clicking the button below.

2. InVideo - Best Customer Service

Image from hindustantimes.

Compatibility: Web Browser

TrustPilot Rating: 4.5/5

Intro Maker Tools: 4.7/5

Price: Free
*Premium subscriptions available for $15/month for Business and $30/month for Unlimited

Key Features

• Slideshow and Collage Maker
• Audio Editor
• Customizable Text Boxes
• Royalty-Free Music

In our research, we noticed many InVideo users raved about the free intro maker’s customer service. If you are having difficulty learning how to make an intro, you can schedule a live demonstration with a member of the staff. The site also offers 24/7 live chat and is said to answer emails in a timely fashion. 

InVideo comes with a YouTube intro maker, complete with logo reveal videos and YouTube outros. Use your personal brand kit to customize a template, or pick a trending font, image, or video from the asset library. 

Like PowerDirector, InVideo has manual and automatic options for all skill levels. And while InVideo’s templates are easy to use, we were frustrated that you can’t change a template mid-edit. The free intro maker also has long rendering times, while PowerDirector has some of the fastest rendering times in the business. 

3. Kapwing - Best for Audio

Compatibility: Web Browser

Capterra Rating: 4.5/5

Intro Maker Tools: 4.6/5

Price: Free
*Premium subscription available for $16/month

Key Features

• Meme Generator
• Background Remover
• Speed Adjustment
• Color Correction

Kapwing is a free intro maker with a variety of tools for adding audio and subtitles to your videos. Add audio, sound effects, or music to videos easily and adjust the start time for perfect sync. Add an audio waveform or sound wave to a video and bring your audio to life. There’s a Smart Cut tool that automatically cuts silences from your videos and subtitle tools including text-to-speech, auto-translation and auto-generated subtitles. 

Kapwing has a YouTube intro maker with templates for intros, outros, and logos, although there are only a handful in each category. When you click on a template to edit, you are greeted with a full video editor, including multiple editing tracks for every element. Unlike many of the free intro makers on our list, users have total control over every aspect of a template. 

All of our top three choices for best free intro maker offer easy-to-use intro templates that beginners can create in a few clicks. They also offer video editing functionality and allow creative control over every part of a template. PowerDirector wins out for the sheer volume of editing tools and features, and the price of its premium version is almost a fourth of the other 2 options. When it came to comparing Kapwing and InVideo, we chose InVideo as the slightly better choice. InVideo’s free version caps video length at 40 minutes, while Kapwing caps video length at 7 minutes. Also, InVideo has thousands of video intro templates, while Kapwing has a mere 16.    

4. RenderForest - Best for Logo Reveals

Compatibility: Web Browser

TrustPilot Rating: 4.5/5

Intro Maker Tools: 4.5/5

Price: Free
*Premium subscriptions available for $9.99/month for Lite and $19.99/month for Pro

Key Features

• Slideshow Templates
• Music Visualizations
• Infographic Videos
• 4K Templates

Renderforest is a free intro maker with a vast collection of templates in varying styles for making logo reveals and intro animations. All you have to do is add your logo to a template, and you’ll have a video ready to use as an intro in minutes. To customize the template, you can use the video editor directly from your web browser.

Renderforest is an all-in-one branding platform and YouTube intro maker that doesn’t require any technical know-how. You can make an intro, outro, explainer animations, slideshows, and many other types of videos. You can also create graphics, mockups, and websites. You’ll get high-resolution results you can download in just a few clicks.

This free intro maker has all the design tools you need to make an intro in one place. However, Renderforest can be slow in uploading videos. Also, you won’t be able to fine-tune your work as much as you can with other software. If you are someone who doesn’t want your creativity to be constrained, you should try one of the top 3 options on our list to make an intro.

5. Canva - Best for Businesses

Compatibility: Windows, Mac, Web Browser

PCMag Rating: 4.5/5

Intro Maker Tools: 4.5/5

Price: Free
*Premium subscriptions available for $119.99/year for Pro and $149.90/year for Teams (up to 5 people)

Key Features

• Animations
• Transitions
• Logo Templates
• Stickers and Icons

Canva is a free intro maker and graphic design software you can download for Windows or Mac, or access online. We like Canva for businesses because it offers excellent collaboration tools for teams and has templates for any type of professional need. Templates are even categorized by Industry or Department, such as Sales, Marketing, or Internal Communications. 

It includes a drag-and-drop YouTube intro maker with royalty-free stock assets to use. You can customize the templates as much or as little as you’d like. Plus, once you’re done editing, Canva makes it easy to publish and share.

Overall, Canva is an easy platform with free access to a limited set of tools. You must subscribe to Canva Pro for the more premium features, such as a background remover and brand kit. It also has a limited range of output formats.

6. DesignWizard - Best for Templates

Compatibility: Web Browser

Capterra Rating: 4.3/5

Intro Maker Tools: 4/5

Price: Free
*Premium subscription available for $9.99/month

Key Features

• Magic resize
• Animated Templates
• Create Custom Color Palette
• Download in JPG, PDF, and PNG

DesignWizard is a free intro maker found online with thousands of beautifully designed templates. Every part of the template is customizable, so you can make an intro with all your branding assets or choose from the free stock images, graphics, and videos. The templates are very well organized by categories and subcategories so you can find exactly what you need.

YouTubers will enjoy the YouTube intro maker and templates for YouTube channel art. Everything you make can be shared instantly or scheduled to post on popular social media sites (but not YouTube). 

This free intro maker is easy to use and allows users to create professional-looking videos in minutes. However, DesignWizard doesn’t offer any video editing tools, so users will have to get separate software to complete their videos. 

7. Adobe Express - Best for Stock Assets

Compatibility: Web Browser

TechRadar Rating: 4/5

Intro Maker Tools: 4/5

Price: Free
*Premium subscription available for $9.99/month

Key Features

• Background Remover
• Video Overlays and Textures
• Change Video Speed
• Logo Creator

Adobe Express is a YouTube intro maker with a very robust free version. We liked all the stock assets available for free, including thousands of unique templates, photos from Adobe-Stock, music, and design assets like shapes, illustrations, and frames. Although many of the best options are saved for Premium users, there is more than enough to find exactly what you want to make an intro without paying a dime. We also appreciated that you can filter out the premium assets and only search for free content.  

There are also plenty of customization options, so you can make an intro that will be completely unique. Drag and drop your own photos and videos and choose a background or theme to make an intro from scratch.   

After signing up for a free account, we spent a long time trying to find video templates on the Adobe Express site. In the end, we had to Google “Adobe Express YouTube Intro Maker,” and click on the link provided. The intro templates are just color and font themes that you can animate, so expect to spend more time on your intro than you would if using PowerDirector, InVideo, or Kapwing. Those with no design experience can use Adobe Express to create YouTube thumbnails, banner art, and social media posts, but anyone needing to make an intro or other video content will need design know-how. 

8. Blender - Best for Animation

Image from Artstation.

Compatibility: Windows, Mac, Linux

G2 Rating: 4.5/5

Intro Maker Tools: 3.5/5

Price: Free 

Key Features

• Advanced Motion Graphics
• Audio Editing
• Masking Tools
• Onion Skinning

If you have the knowledge, time, and patience to learn, Blender can empower you to create almost anything you can imagine. This YouTube intro maker goes far beyond video editing, allowing you to make an intro via animation and visual effects. This includes modeling, sculpting, and rigging in 3D space. 

Blender is a popular tool for intermediate and advanced video editors on a budget. It’s also a good YouTube intro maker for anyone interested in animation and effects. You can even use industry-standard simulations in your projects with this free intro maker.

The ability to create cinema-level content comes with a steep learning curve. Blender is best for those with editing experience, or beginners with a lot of time and patience. Both Blender and Adobe Express have a combined rating of 4/5, however, we placed Adobe on top because it is easier to use and offers more intro-specific tools. 

9. PlaceIt - Best for Gamers

Compatibility: Web Browser

TrustPilot Rating: 3.8/5

Intro Maker Tools: 4/5

Price: Free
*Premium subscription available for $7.47/month

Key Features

• Merchandise Mockups
• Logo Creator
• Banner Maker for YouTube and Twitch
• Social Media Sets

PlaceIt is a free intro maker with intro templates for any type of video. We like it for gamers because PlaceIt has a large number of gaming-specific assets for YouTube, Twitch, and live streaming. Users can go to the gaming category, then search by theme or specific game. 

There are over 1,000 intro templates for you to customize. We found this YouTube intro maker  easier to use than the similar online platform Fastreel, and figured out how to customize a template on our first try, including changing the video speed, background image, and logo. 

Free templates are mixed in with premium, and although PlaceIt does a good job of organizing templates by theme, there was no way to filter so you only see free options. The very first intro template is marked free, but we went through 12 pages worth of templates before we saw the next free option. However, the paid version is cheaper than most of the other premium versions on this list (only PowerDirector is more affordable).   

10. DaVinci Resolve - Best for Professionals

Image from Black Magic Design.

Compatibility: Windows, Mac, Linux

PCMag Rating: 4/5

Intro Maker Tools: 3.5/5

Price: Free
*Premium version available for $295

Key Features

• Color Correction and Grading
• Video Stabilization
• Audio Editing
• Animated Titles

DaVinci Resolve is the ideal free intro maker for expert editors. You can cut together video footage or create cinematic visual effects and motion graphics. Unfortunately, the software doesn’t come with intro templates, but plenty of third parties sell them.

It is a post-production powerhouse able to handle everything from editing to delivery. Although there is a learning curve, the interface is well-organized and divided into “pages.” Each page or workspace is dedicated to a specific task and has its own toolset. Pages include Cut, Color, Fusion, Fairlight, and Media/Delivery.

If you have never edited before, DaVinci Resolve is definitely going to be out of your league. But if you are experienced and looking for a free alternative to Adobe Premiere Pro or Final Cut, this YouTube intro maker is your best option. 

11. Fastreel - Best for a Variety of Uses

Image from Fastreel.

Compatibility: Windows, Mac, Linux

TrustPilot Rating: 3/5

Intro Maker Tools: 3.5/5

Price: Free
*Premium version available for $9.95/month or $9.95/video

Key Features

• Change Video Speed
• Resize and Compress Videos
• Audio mixing
• Split-Screen

Fastreel is an online tool with a wide range of functionalities for making any kind of video or graphic design project. It is not only a free intro maker, but also a slideshow maker, video collage maker, screen recorder, and basic video editor.

Create animated intros with just a few clicks with Fastreel’s Facebook and YouTube intro maker. Choose an intro template, customize the text, and add music. The free version offers a good range of music options you can use in your intros.  

Fastreel doesn’t offer thousands of templates like PowerDirector and Canva, but only 39 templates total. With only 7 intro templates to choose from, Fastreel users run the risk of having an intro that looks like everyone else’s. We also found the free version of this YouTube intro maker quite limiting. 

Best Free Intro Makers Comparison Chart

How to Make an Intro

Now, let's take a look at how to make an intro with our top YouTube intro maker, PowerDirector. Download and install it for free by clicking the button below and following along.

1. Open the Timeline Video Editor. Select the Video Intro Room icon on the left side (the second icon down that looks like a play button with 3 dots underneath).

2. Here you can scroll through and preview video templates. Once you find a template you like, double-click on it to open the Video Intro Designer.


Along the bottom are icons to access the editing tools. Each one is to perform a specific task like Change Template Duration, Replace Background Media, Add Text, etc.

3. Use the Replace Background Media to exchange the template's background with your own video or image. You can replace it with stock content provided by Shutterstock and iStock, but this will require you to purchase a subscription.

4. The Scissor icon will allow you to trim media. The Crop tool lets you resize and scale your background video or image.
5. The icon with three circles is to Apply Color LUT. Select from the color options in the left-hand panel.

6. To add more text or a motion graphic title, use the T button. To edit the text, click directly on it in the preview window.
7. You can Add Image or Add Video Overlay with the following two buttons.
8. The Musical Note icon will allow you to Edit\Replace background music.
9. The Volume button opens your audio settings, and by dragging the sliders for Video Audio and Background Music up or down, you can adjust your audio mix.
10. Click Share and label your new video intro with a category.
11. Now, you can add your template to the editing timeline, or save it to use later.

Check out our article How to Create Engaging YouTube Intros/Outros [Step by Step Guide] for more information on how to make an intro.

Download the Best Intro Maker for Free

As you can see, you can make a high-quality video intro for free without any previous video editing experience. The best free intro maker, PowerDirector, gives you thousands of templates to choose from and a designated intro designer so you can customize any template to your specific needs.

Plus, PowerDirector is an award-winning editor that provides all the video editing tools you will need to craft professional projects. Many of the YouTube intro makers on our list only offer intro templates, so you have to find additional software to complete your videos. However, with PowerDirector, you can create a video from start to finish. 

Download it for free by clicking the button below and see what you can create.