# How to add captions to a video message, and why they matter

Many people open a video message with the sound off. Add captions to a video message, keep them accurate and write them so they read well on a phone.

By Pranav Reddy, founder of hi.video. Published 2026-09-30, updated 2026-09-30. Canonical page: https://hi.video/blog/captions-on-your-intro-video

## Short answer

Add captions because many people open a video message on a phone with the sound off, often in a meeting or on a train, and decide within seconds whether to keep watching. Captions let them follow you silently. Keep each caption short, one line at a time, check every name and number, and read them back before you send the link.

Think about where your video gets opened. Probably not at a desk with headphones on, and more likely on a phone, in a lift, at the back of a meeting that overran, or on a train with the headphones left at home. The sound is off, and it is going to stay off.

If the video has captions, the person watches anyway. If it does not, they see a silent face moving its mouth, may put the phone down, meaning to come back later.

## Who watches with the sound off

Some are somewhere sound would be rude or impossible: an open plan office, a waiting room, a quiet carriage. Others have a phone that is always muted and never think about it.

Some are deaf or hard of hearing. Some are watching in their second or third language and read it more easily than they hear it, especially with an unfamiliar accent. Some have a toddler asleep on them.

Your recipient could be any of these at the moment the link arrives. You do not get to choose, so the video has to work either way.

## What captions change on a phone

On a laptop, a muted video is a small inconvenience. On a phone, it can decide whether the video gets watched at all.

The recipient opens the link with the sound off. With captions, the first thing they read is your first sentence, in text, while your face is on screen. They know within a few seconds who you are and why you sent this, and they can keep going without finding headphones.

They may turn the sound on when they get somewhere quieter. They may never turn it on and still get the whole message.

Without captions, they see your mouth moving and nothing else. Some close the tab meaning to come back, and some just close it.

Captions also help the people who do have the sound on. A name they did not catch, a company they have not heard of, a number: they see it written down. For a 40 second message, that can be the difference between remembering what you said and remembering only that you sent a video.

## Where captions come from

On hi.video you add captions from the Captions option on a published hi, and you can correct any line that is wrong before you save them. The point is that the text matches what you said, word for word where it matters, because the recipient may read it instead of listening.

The effort is small when the video is short. The free plan caps a hi at one minute, and a minute of speech is only about 150 words to check. A ten minute walkthrough on the [Pro plan](https://hi.video/pricing) takes longer to check, which is one more reason to keep a first message short. There is a separate piece on [how long an intro video should be](https://hi.video/blog/how-long-should-an-intro-video-be).

## How to write captions that read well

Captions are read, not heard, so they follow writing rules rather than speaking rules.

Keep each caption to a few words on one line, and never more than two lines. On a phone, a long caption covers your face and is gone before anyone finishes it.

Break at natural pauses. A caption that ends mid phrase, with the rest of the sentence on the next one, is hard to follow.

Drop the "um", the "so", the "like" and the repeated word. You said them, but nobody needs to read them. The caption should be what you meant to say, cleaned up, as long as it stays true to what you did say.

Use sentence case and ordinary punctuation. All capitals read as shouting and take longer to read. A full stop at the end of a sentence tells the reader where to pause.

Write numbers as digits. "14 years" is read faster than "fourteen years", and digits are what the eye scans for.

## Keeping captions accurate

A wrong caption is worse than no caption. If the recipient's name is spelt wrong in the text under your face, you have given them a reason to doubt everything else, and they are likely to notice it before anything you said.

Check these every time:

> The recipient's name, and the spelling of it.
>
> Their company name, and any product or team name you mention.
>
> Your own name, which gets misspelt more often than you would think.
>
> Every number: years, prices, dates, counts.
>
> Any word in another language, or any word with an unusual spelling.
>
> The last line, because that is where you usually trail off.

Read the captions back with the sound off, as the recipient will, and ask whether they make sense on their own. Then read them with the sound on and check that they match what you say. If the text and the audio disagree, a muted viewer only sees the text, so make the text right.

This matters beyond politeness. The recipient is assuming that a real person is saying real things, and a caption that says something you did not say works against that. hi.video has no uploads and no AI avatars, and the [trust page](https://hi.video/trust) explains what its "Recorded in hi.video" label does and does not tell a viewer.

## Speak so the captions are easy

The best time to make captions accurate is before you record.

Speak in short sentences. Long ones with clauses inside clauses are hard to caption and hard to follow with the sound off.

Pause between thoughts. A pause gives a natural caption break and lets the reader catch up.

Say names slowly and clearly, once. If a name is unusual, consider writing it in the note above the video as well, so the recipient has seen it spelt correctly before they press play.

Do not read from a script word for word. It sounds stiff, and the captions come out stiff too.

## A caption check before you send the link

> Every caption is one or two short lines, not a paragraph.
>
> Names, company names and numbers checked against what I know is right.
>
> Filler words removed, meaning unchanged.
>
> Read once silently, once with sound, and both make sense.
>
> The first caption says who I am or why I'm writing, because that is all a muted viewer sees first.

If your first spoken sentence is "Hi, so, um, I hope this finds you well", the first caption is wasted. Start with the thing that matters and the caption does its work.

When you are ready, [record your first hi](https://hi.video/app), add captions, and watch it back on your phone with the sound off before you send it. The [browser recording guide](https://hi.video/blog/record-a-video-introduction-in-your-browser) covers the recording itself, and [what to write in the note](https://hi.video/blog/what-to-write-in-the-note-with-your-video) covers the text around the video.

## Questions people ask

**Why should I add captions to a video message?**

Because the person may watch it on a phone with the sound off, in a meeting, on a train or in an open office, and captions let them follow you without headphones. They also help people who are deaf or hard of hearing, people watching in a second language, and anyone who needs to catch a name or number you said.

**How do I add captions to a hi.video introduction?**

Open the Captions option on the published hi, then read each line and correct anything that is wrong, especially names and numbers, before you send the link. Check them once with the sound off and once with it on. The captions appear with the video on the page the recipient opens, on any phone or laptop.

**Should captions be word for word?**

Close to it, but cleaned up. Keep the meaning and the words you said, and remove the "um", the "so" and the repeated phrase. Do not add anything you did not say, and do not change a number or a name to what you wish you had said. If the recording is wrong, retake it.

**How many words should a caption line have?**

A few words per line and no more than two lines on screen at once. On a phone, a long caption covers your face and disappears before the reader finishes it. Break captions at natural pauses so each one is a complete phrase rather than the middle of a sentence.

Related: https://hi.video/blog/how-long-should-an-intro-video-be, https://hi.video/blog/record-a-video-introduction-in-your-browser, https://hi.video/blog/what-to-write-in-the-note-with-your-video