PowToon Reviews – Pros & Cons, Costs, and Ratings

Back in the day, creating animation videos demands high-level editing skills. You might think that you need to be a software expert to make the type of animated video that you see online.

But now, you can easily make explainer videos with software like PowToon, Toonly and Vyond.

In this PowToon reviews, I will cover everything related to this software, which includes its features, pricing, customer support, pros and cons, and its competitors and alternatives.

So, let’s explore more about PowToon.

PowToon Reviews

Samuel White

Ease of Use
Functionality
Pricing
Customer Support

Summary

PowToon is one of the most effective and powerful animation video applications available online. It has an intuitive interface that guides you into creating professional animation videos and presentations from a wide range of templates or from scratch.
If you’re a complete newbie to video production, and are anxious to get started, give the free version of PowToon a try.

4.1
PowToon Reviews

What Is PowToon?

PowToon is a web-based visual communication platform designed to help businesses to create animated videos & presentations for marketing, HR, IT, training & more. 

It offers education, training, and communication templates, as well as a massive media library to empower easy and intuitive creation of engaging learning materials, assignments, announcements, safety training etc.

With PowToon, anyone can make video animations instead of drab slide decks to use for presentations, training, and more. 

PowToon Features

1. Easy to Use

Creation of an account is easy and straightforward, and getting started is easy as well. There is no software to download, as PowToon is web-based.

PowToon provides many customizable templates for beginning users, as well as a blank canvas for the more daring. Learning to use PowToon is as easy as learning any other presentation tool, but the end product is much more exciting. Simple drag and drop of text, props, characters and markers makes creation quick and easy.

2. Storyboards

One of the leading jobs of video creation is the storyteller. If you are right in telling a story, Indeed you will get victory in any platform. For making your storyteller uniquely and enjoyably, there is a feature in PowToon called storyboard. It helps the users to layout their story in visual format by breaking them into steps.

  • Intro 
  • Statement
  • Problem 
  • Benefits
  • Solution 
  • Outro

3. Pre-made Drag & Drop Templates

PowToon offers pre-made templates of animated videos and presentations that are designed for users without knowledge of how to use animation software.

These templates can get you started in creating an explainer video, an infographic video, an animated presentation, a video advertisement, a corporate video and many more. A video or presentation can be made for any niche or industry such as IT, Lifestyle, Business, HR and more, with these easy to use, drag and drop templates.

4.  Massive, Royalty-Free Libraries

So, you want a professional and quality looking video, but you do not have any templates, images, or props? That’s okay.

PowToon has a sizeable library of top-notch templates, soundtracks, text options, and images among many other things necessary for making this your go-to platform for video creation.

5. Various Ways to Export and Share

One of the most beloved features of PowToon is the fact that you can integrate it into all major social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and more. This makes it an ideal tool to get your professionally appealing videos spread across the internet.

PowToon allows you to export or share your videos or presentations in three different ways.

  • Uploaded directly on Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo, SlideShare, or hosted in my PowToon.
  • Export as an MP4, PDF, or PPT file format.
  • It can also be shared via Email, Twitter, or LinkedIn
PowToon Publish Options

How to Use PowToon?

Step 1. Script

Create a script that describes what will happen in every “scene”.

Step 2 Select A Template Type

Depending on the type of PowToon that you want to create, select one of the following template categories.

Step 3. Choose A Template

Once you’ve logged in, and started a new video, you need to find and select a template. When you have decided on a template, click Use. The template will open in Edit mode, ready for you to work on.

PowToon Template

Step 4. Begin Editing the Template According To Your Requirements

The following actions can be performed in Edit mode:

  • Add a ready-made scene
  • Swap scene
  • Delete a slide
  • Duplicate a slide
  • Remove or change transition
  • Change aspect ratio
  • Swap video background / Swap slide background   
  • Swap object (character, image, prop, shape)
  • Edit text
  • Swap music

Step 5. Timing

Whatever you choose to use in your video, but sure to adjust the timeframes for each item.

Step 6. Export and Share

Preview your PowToon and then continue to the export process

PowToon Output

PowToon Pricing

PowToon provides three different pricing plans.

In addition to the pricing plans that we will explain below, PowToon also offers free account which includes a 3-minute animated story that will include animated charts and graphs and can be exported in both PDF and PPT formats. For the free basic version, they limit the product to about 100 MB in output with PowToon branding. 

1. Subscription Plans 

  • PowToon’s entry-level paid plan is Pro plan. This will cost you $89 per month, but if you are prepared to commit to a year, the price drops considerably to a mere $19 per month. For this, you can make five premium exports per month, with videos up to 10 minutes long and the PowToon branding removed.
  • For $197 per month (or an average of $29 per month on an annual plan), you can buy the Pro + plan. This gives you all the features of the Pro plan, but you can make videos up to 20 minutes long.
  • Agencies have their own plan (on an annual basis only), costing the equivalent of $99 per month. This includes everything in the Pro + plan, with videos up to 30 minutes long. You also have a few additional features, such as third-party resell rights and advanced animation.

It’s pretty clear that PowToon wants you to go for the annual version right away, thus paying them upfront for the entire year. And they do this by drastically inflating the monthly price. By comparison, the annual option seems like a no-brainer!

Here I recommend you to subscribe for the monthly package for 1 month first. Then, if you love the software after testing, go ahead and buy the annual subscription.

2.  Educational Plans

This package meant for teachers as well as for students. Whereas it gives educational institutes to subscribe PowToon in bulk for their student.

  • Student plan: $4/month ($48/yearly) 
  • Teacher plan: $/month ($472/yearly)
  • Classroom plan: $10/month ($120/yearly)
PowToon Educational Plans

3. Business Plans

For getting a business plan, you have to contact directly for pricing.

PowToon Customer Support

PowToon has a massive library of tutorials and Help Desk content to guide you through pretty much any question you may have.

  • Creating PowToon
  • Advanced Editing Tips
  • Exporting PowToon
  • Troubleshooting
  • Account Management
  • Billing
  • and more…

90% of my questions and concerns have been resolved through PowToon’s Help Desk content.

For the other 10%, we have use Email.

In a time when people expect near instant responses to their questions, concerns and problems, PowToon only offers customer support communication through one old-fashioned channel: Email.

No phone support. No Live chat. No Twitter. 

PowToon Review: Its Pros and Cons

👍Pros:

  • The interface of PowToon is designed to be easy to navigate
  • Useful media in a rich library and comes as a cloud-based option
  • It includes many templates which are ready to use
  • You enjoy loads of community resources on creating your videos and using PowToon

😔Cons

  • It uses a lot of power on your computer
  • No phone call support or live chat support

PowToon ​Alternatives and Competitors

1. PowToon Vs Animaker

Animaker is one of the most popular animation software where anyone can create animated videos without any expertise in animation.

It works very similarly to PowToon where you have to choose the template and insert animated characters, texts, and design objects from the library.

And, here are where they differentiate from each other.

  • Character builder – Both tools allow you to build a custom character. However, for PowToon, you have to purchase an agency plan to use this feature. On other side, Animaker allows you to build custom characters in any subscription.
  • Pre-made characters – PowToon has a never-ending list of characters. Characters are divided into multiple sections. On the other side, inside Animaker, you are getting around 30 characters only.
  • Other Assets – Both platforms have a big enough library of other assets such as shapes, emoji, stickers, etc.
  • Customer Support – Animaker has live chat support while you need to send an email to PowToon.
  • Price – Both of them have free version. If you need to upgrade, Animaker may be cheaper.

To know more read the detailed Animaker review.

2. PowToon Vs Toonly

The list of PowToon alternative continues with Toonly. Toonly is an animated explainer software used to create cartoon explainer videos.

When comparing PowToon vs. Toonly features, we noticed that you could do far more things in PowToon. That’s because PowToon has more options for creating videos apart from animated explainer, such as whiteboard video, presentation video, promotional video and infographic. However, Toonly is manlily dedicated to animated explainer video.

When comparing PowToon vs. Toonly pricing, PowToon comes in four different plans from Free to Agency Plan. When you subscribe yearly, it is a litter bit cheaper than Toonly with less features at the same time.

Also, you can get PowToon for free, though the features are limited. However, Toonly even don’t have a trial version.

To know more read the detailed Toonly review.

3. PowToon Vs Vyond

Vyond is the new name for GoAnimate and is one of the most versatile animation video tools.

Similar to PowToon, it offers hundreds of templates to choose from. There are some broad categories from where you can choose your scene and get started with it. If you want to create videos for business meetings, HR, eLearning, etc. then Vyond has some great ready-made templates to offer.

Vyond costs more than some animation software tools, but it has more solid features too!

To know more read the detailed Vyond review.

4. PowToon Vs Doodly 

Here are the main differences between PowToon and Doodly;

  • Doodly can be downloaded on your PC, while PowToon can only be accessed online as it is located in the cloud.
  • PowToon offers a fairly great free plan unlike Doodly.
  • PowToon has different options for creating videos apart from whiteboard videos, such as animated explainer, presentation video, promotional video and infographic. However, Doodly is completely dedicated to whiteboard animation. This is why there are more whiteboard animation features available on Doodly.

To know more read the detailed Doodly review.

5. PowToon Vs Moovly

Moovly is a robust video editor. It has a higher learning curve than PowToon and offers a professional style editing tool that resembles higher-end editors.

Therefore, Moovly is more suitable for larger companies and corporations with team members that know how to use video editing tools. 

To know more read the detailed Moovly review.

6. PowToon Vs VideoScribe

If you like doodling and whiteboard animation, VideoScribe is another great PowToon alternative that also works offline. Similar to PowToon’s whiteboard template, it lets you create intuitive videos automatically without requiring to doodle manually.

You just have to select the template and type your text, VideoScribe will do the rest of the work. There are thousands of pre-designed doodles that you can easily drag into your sketch. Besides, there is an option to sync your voice-over as well.

To know more read the detailed VideoScribe review.

PowToon Review Conclusion

PowToon is one of the most effective and powerful animation video applications available online. It has an intuitive interface that guides you into creating professional animation videos and presentations from a wide range of templates or from scratch.

If you’re a complete newbie to video production, and are anxious to get started, give the free version of PowToon a try.

Samuel White
  • Samuel White
  • Samuel White is an accomplished author with extensive experience in reviewing apps and software. His well-researched and engaging content helps readers navigate the ever-evolving tech landscape. Samuel's passion for innovation drives him to stay updated on the latest trends and share his expertise with his audience.