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What is the Powtoon App?
Powtoon is an attention grabbing video and presentation maker. Use drag and drop templates to explain, engage, and sell through video.
Overview
Who Powtoon is For:
Powtoon is perfect for course creators because you can create your course videos with this application. It will enable you to create highly engaging videos quickly and easily. In addition, you can use Powtoon to create marketing videos and presentations as well as your course materials.
Skill Level:
The brilliance of Powtoon is that it’s easy to use. You don’t need any design skills. In addition, it’s all drag and drop. You can choose to start with a template which will often include several slides you change by adding in your text. If you don’t want to use one of their video templates, then you can use their slide templates where you just choose which slide you want next, insert your custom content, then grab another.
Deployment:
Powtoon is a desktop application which means there’s nothing for you to install. Once you sign-up, you’ll be redirected to your Powtoon account where you can create, manage, and export your video presentations.
Special Features:
The impressiveness of Powtoon comes from the fact that you can design an amazing animated video presentation with no design skills. If you’ve never tried creating a PowerPoint presentation then the full impact of my previous statement may be lost on you. I’ve used PowerPoint for around 20 years and feel like I’m pretty good with design, but I still can’t come up with designs as good as those on the Powtoon templates. If you want to save yourself some time and still have an awesome presentation, then I’d suggest giving Powtoon a try.
Disadvantages:
If you want full control over each and every element on your slide and don’t want to use templates then Powtoon probably isn’t for you. You can however move things around, but it is limiting compared to the blank slate you’re presented with PowerPoint.
Another disadvantage is the price. The pricing is structured in favor of a business that creates a few marketing videos a month. Even their mid-range plan limits you to 5 premium exports a month. If you’re creating a course with Powtoon, you will likely need to pay for the Pro + subscription which gets you unlimited premium exports a month. That subscription is expensive. Once you create and export your videos you could cancel Powtoon, but you will likely lose the ability to edit those videos again (which may or may not matter to you).
Detailed Features
| CONTENT ENHANCEMENTS | VIDEO TYPES | FEATURES |
| ✔ Characters | ✔ Marketing videos | ✔ Unlimited exports |
| ✔ Objects | ✔ Training videos | ✔ Access all content |
| ✔ Layouts | ✔ Education | ✔ Video storage |
| ✔ Backgrounds | ✔ PowerPoint to video | ✔ Videos up to 30 min |
| ✔ Agencies | ✔ Privacy controls | |
Pricing Model
Starting Price: $49/month for 1 premium export a month, video maximum length up to 5 minutes, and 1GB storage.
Advanced Plans: $197/month for Pro + plan which includes unlimited premium exports, unlimited access to all content, and 10GB storage.
Annual Savings: Only $16/month with Starter Plan and $59/month for Pro+ with unlimited premium exports per month if paid for annually. These are huge savings.
Trial Option: You can try out the premium version for 4 days.
Free Version: There is a free version where all the videos you export will be branded with the Powtoon logo.
Guarantee: 14 day money-back guarantee unless you have exported or published a Powtoon. If you have exported or published a video, then you are not eligible for a refund.
Customer Support
Training: Mini-course with videos and articles.
Support: 24/7 priority support
Company Details
Founded in: 2011 by Ilya Spitalnik
Headquarters: London, United Kingdom
Competing Tools
Powtoon is considered one of the top animated video makers available, but the price is expensive. If you’re looking for something a little less expensive then you may want to consider Moovly. It will make both presentations as well as explainer videos for marketing your courses. Another alternative is Prezi which is a unique alternative to Powerpoint. Prezi offers a unique twist on presentation creation.
