What you’ll be able to do

By the end of this guide you’ll have a launch video that shows your product actually working, cut to the right shape for each platform, with every claim traceable to a page on your own site. Fifteen to sixty seconds. No motion designer needed.

Here’s what AI actually does in this. ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Copilot are good at the words: pulling facts out of your homepage, writing a script, reshaping it for different lengths. They don’t film your product for you. Generated clips from tools like Sora, Runway or Gemini Omni can do mood shots, but never use them to fake a product screen. Viewers can tell, and on launch day that’s the last thing you want.

Before you start

A launch video has one job: help a stranger understand what you built, quickly enough that they keep watching. It’s not a brand film and it’s not a product tour. Think of it as the short version of your homepage.

So start from facts, not adjectives. “Fast, powerful, seamless” says nothing a viewer can check. What you want is what it does in one sentence, who it’s for, what it costs, a number you can source, and one feature that’s genuinely yours. If a fact isn’t on a page of your site, publish it there or leave it out. A video gets reposted without context and has no footnotes.

The structure is five beats, and I’d resist adding a sixth:

  1. The problem, one line, in your customers’ words.
  2. What it is: the name plus one sentence.
  3. The product doing its main job, real screen, real result.
  4. One piece of proof: a number, a customer, a before and after, or a price.
  5. What to do next: one call to action, held long enough to read.

Lead with the problem or the payoff, never the logo. The logo goes at the end, next to the call to action.

For a 30-second video the rough timing is about 3 seconds of hook, 5 for the name, 12 for the product (the biggest chunk, as it should be), 5 or 6 for proof and the last few seconds for the ask. Watch it on a phone and trim wherever your attention drifts.

Length depends on the job. Fifteen seconds is one idea, for Shorts, Reels, TikTok and ads. Thirty is the most flexible, so make that first if you only make one. Sixty suits YouTube, LinkedIn and your landing page.

Shape matters too: 9:16 vertical for Shorts, Reels and TikTok; 16:9 for YouTube and your own site; 4:5 for Instagram and LinkedIn feeds. Recut each shape, don’t crop one into another. Cropping loses the edges, and the edges are where the words usually are.

One more thing, and it’s a big one. Many feeds start muted, so every point has to work as on-screen text: short, large, and on screen long enough to read twice. Never let a voiceover carry a fact that isn’t also written down.

Get set up

Gather your homepage text and your pricing page text into one document. That’s your raw material. If you’ve no website yet, a short written description of what the product does, who it’s for and what it costs will do, but then you’re the source, so be strict with yourself.

For the words, ChatGPT or Claude on a free tier is plenty. For recording your screen, Loom has a free Starter plan (check loom.com/pricing for the current limits). Screen Studio is a macOS recorder that zooms in on your mouse actions automatically, which makes a plain recording look far more deliberate; it’s paid, so check screen.studio. To assemble, caption and export each shape, CapCut, Canva and Descript all do the job (check each pricing page, as these change). If you want an AI voiceover, ElevenLabs has a free tier, but commercial use is on a paid plan, so check elevenlabs.io/pricing before you publish anything.

Now decide which cuts you need. Launching on Product Hunt? According to its help centre, the gallery video has to be a YouTube link: the full URL, not shortened, and not private. Check it plays when you’re signed out. Launch day runs on Pacific time from 12:01 AM, which is about 8am in the UK, so have every cut exported and scheduled the night before. The sensible set is a 16:9 cut of 30 to 60 seconds for the gallery, plus a 15-second vertical and a 4:5 cut for X and LinkedIn. Keep the pitch identical everywhere.

Or skip the assembly entirely. Launch Video Maker is ours, and it was built for exactly this job. You give it your web address and it reads your public pages: words, colours, fonts, logo, screenshots. Then it lists facts worth showing, each with the exact words from your site and the page it came from. Nothing goes on screen until you approve it, which is the whole fact-first idea built into the process. You pick one of 22 looks and 24 music genres, start from an example reel, or let it choose. No website yet? “Build it from scratch” works from a short form.

Prices include VAT and are paid once per video, no subscription. Short is £9 for one 15-second reel. Reel is £29 for 15, 30 or 60 seconds in one format. Bundle is £49 for 16:9, 9:16 and 4:5 together, voiceover included. AI voiceover is £5 extra on Short and Reel. You get 3 free edits per order, and you can use the result anywhere, paid ads included; the music is generated per video.

The free alternative is perfectly respectable: screen-record the product yourself, then assemble it in CapCut, Canva or Descript, with an assistant writing the script. It costs you more time and a bit more fiddling, but nothing else.

Try it yourself

Start with the facts. Paste your homepage and pricing text into your assistant with this:

Here is the text of my homepage and pricing page: [paste]. List every fact a launch video could show: what it does in one sentence, who it is for, the price, any number, any feature only we have. Quote the exact words from the page for each. Do not add anything that is not in the text. Then mark which three are strongest for a stranger.

Read the list against your site. If a quote isn’t really there, throw that line out. Assistants sometimes tidy things up when you didn’t ask them to.

Next, the script, using only the facts you’ve kept:

Write a 30-second launch video script for [product] using only these facts: [paste]. Five beats: problem, what it is, the product doing its main job, one proof, one call to action. For each beat give the on-screen text in under eight words, what is on screen, and the seconds it runs. It must work with the sound off. No adjectives like powerful, seamless or revolutionary.

Then record the real product doing its main job, using a demo account (more on that below). Follow the “what is on screen” column of your script.

Once the 30-second 16:9 version works, rework it for the other shapes:

Here is my 30-second 16:9 launch script and shot list: [paste]. Rework it into a 15-second 9:16 cut for Reels and TikTok and a 4:5 cut for LinkedIn. Keep the same pitch line in all three. Tell me what to drop for the 15-second version and where the text must sit so it is not covered by the app's buttons.

Treat that as advice, not gospel. Assistants can’t see the current layout of every app’s buttons, so check where the text sits yourself. Then assemble each cut in your editor.

Check the result

Run these tests yourself. They take minutes.

Mute it and watch the whole thing. Can you still follow every point? If not, something’s living only in the voiceover.

Check the product is visible within the first few seconds. A logo card or a slow fade doesn’t count.

Open your site next to the video and tick off every claim. Each number, price and feature should be on a page, in roughly those words. If one isn’t, publish it first or cut it.

Count the calls to action. There should be one, held long enough to read.

Watch on an actual phone, at arm’s length, not on your monitor. Note where you drift and trim there.

Then check each shape separately. Don’t assume the 4:5 is fine because the 16:9 was. If you’re going to Product Hunt, open the YouTube link signed out and make sure it plays.

If it doesn’t work

If people drop off early, cut your intro and open on the payoff. Nobody’s waiting to meet your logo.

If it feels like an advert for any product, you’ve probably left an adjective where a fact should be. Swap it for a sourced number or a real screen.

If words are cut off on the vertical version, rebuild that cut. Don’t crop the wide one; that’s how the edges go missing.

Now privacy, which matters more than the rest. Don’t paste customer data, real emails or private documents into an AI assistant, and don’t put them in a screen recording either. Use a demo account, so no dashboard shows real names. Customer logos or quotes go in only with permission. And no real people’s faces or voices without consent, including in a voiceover that sounds like someone. Check your assistant’s data settings too, since what happens to pasted text varies between tools and plans.

Questions people ask

Can I make a launch video for free without a video editor?

Yes. The free route is perfectly respectable: screen-record the product yourself, then assemble it in CapCut, Canva or Descript, with an assistant writing the script. It costs you more time and a bit more fiddling, but nothing else.

Which AI tools should I use to make a product launch video?

ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Copilot are good at the words: pulling facts out of your homepage, writing a script, reshaping it for different lengths. Loom or Screen Studio record your screen, and CapCut, Canva or Descript assemble, caption and export each shape.

How long should a startup launch video be and what aspect ratio?

Fifteen seconds is one idea for Shorts, Reels, TikTok and ads; thirty is the most flexible, so make that first; sixty suits YouTube, LinkedIn and your landing page. Use 9:16 for Shorts, Reels and TikTok, 16:9 for YouTube and your own site, and 4:5 for Instagram and LinkedIn feeds.

What should I not paste into an AI assistant when making the video?

Don't paste customer data, real emails or private documents into an AI assistant, and don't put them in a screen recording either. Use a demo account so no dashboard shows real names, and get permission for customer logos, quotes, faces or voices.

How do I check my launch video before I publish it?

Mute it and watch the whole thing to see if you can still follow every point, check the product appears within the first few seconds, tick off every claim against a page on your site, count the calls to action, and watch it on an actual phone at arm's length.

What do I need for a Product Hunt launch video?

According to Product Hunt's help centre, the gallery video has to be a YouTube link: the full URL, not shortened, and not private, so check it plays when you're signed out. Launch day runs on Pacific time from 12:01 AM, which is about 8am in the UK, so export and schedule every cut the night before.

Keep exploring

For the wider picture on generated footage, read “How to get AI to make a video”. If the launch is just the start and you want to keep posting, “How to get AI to make short videos” covers the routine and each platform’s AI labels. For narration, “How to get AI to make a voice-over”, and for tidying your screen recordings, “How to get AI to edit a video”.

Sources and review notes

Review date: 1 October 2026 — every source above was opened and checked against the text on that date.

Disclosure: Launch Video Maker is one of our products — this site is made by the same studio, Adapt Progress Evolve. We have tried to compare fairly, and the alternatives named are real and worth a look.