PowToon

4.5 (375)
Create animated videos and presentations

Overall rating

4.5 /5
(375)
Value for Money
4.1/5
Features
4.4/5
Ease of Use
4.3/5
Customer Support
4.3/5

91%
recommended this app
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375 Reviews

Deepika
Overall rating
  • Industry: Information Technology & Services
  • Company size: 51–200 Employees
  • Used Daily for 1+ year
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Ease of Use
  • Likelihood to recommend 8.0 /10

Great to use

Reviewed on 9/12/2018

Pros

Being a graphic designer, I use this for animated videos & presentations almost everyday. powtoon has so many templates & animation effects which make it very useful to make quick videos. I love this software because it has a clean interface. Colors & design are very user friendly . I would recommend this product to everyone who wants to make animated videos & presentations.

Cons

The hardest part of this product is it sometimes takes way too much time to upload images & add videos to timeline. This is a heavy product, which hangs alot, that makes it very irritating at times.
One thing I want in this product is options to arrange the saved files in folders or as we want because the minus point is when we mistakenly open a file it comes to number one which bothers the order of the files & makes it difficult to keep a check.

Alain Jove
Overall rating
  • Industry: Telecommunications
  • Company size: 501–1,000 Employees
  • Used Weekly for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support
  • Likelihood to recommend 8.0 /10

Powtoon for Power Cartoon Graphics

Reviewed on 18/2/2021

Overall, it is really fun putting crazy ideas to life in this app. The templates save time from creating your own vector graphics and animation, or toying around with other photo or video editing/ creation tools which is very taxing when time is of the essence. The output looks fantastic as it is very smooth and the resolution is really fitting for any setup such as branding of products, personal promotions, and any other creative endeavors.

Pros

This is an outstanding app that I've used and is still using since it has powerful customizable templates for designing cartoon storyline. As opposed to just comic style speech bubble presentation, this brings more life to it than the old school approach. Although it still works, the this new approach works better and provides more life - but most of all, an eye catcher to the social media age of today.

I like this app because it provides a lot of customizable templates for characters, backgrounds, props, images, and other elements. All of them are customizable down to changing the character's gender and outfit, sceneries that change as your storyline progresses, moving objects like cars and buses, including other animated elements like traffic lights and blinking lights. In addition, you have several audio to choose from to fit the storyline, and has several zoom/pan effect for added touch.

Cons

In my opinion, your own imagination is the only thing that hinders you from getting into your end product. If you're stuck, you can always do a Google lookup and find ideas from other Powtoon animations to keep you going with your project. As far as loading times are concerned, there is no lag at all even if the elements already stack up.

riley
Overall rating
  • Industry: Hospital & Health Care
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used for 6-12 months
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support
  • Likelihood to recommend 3.0 /10

Powtoon

Reviewed on 25/10/2019

Not great they say they would be creating new content and we have had the service for 6 months with absolutely no content updates

Pros

You can put multiple layers of text on one slide and customize where it will show up.

Cons

They have absolutely zero content. They say they have marketing videos but they are only 10 seconds long and random. We no longer use this software.

Alternatives Considered

Promo.com

Reasons for Switching to PowToon

We ended up purchasing promo as well because promo has a wide range and variety of videos and music that works a lot better than Powtoon. Very disappointed in Powtoon.
Verified Reviewer
Overall rating
  • Industry: E-Learning
  • Company size: Self Employed
  • Used Weekly for 1+ year
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support
  • Likelihood to recommend 8.0 /10

A great tool to create interactive lessons!

Reviewed on 3/1/2023

In my personal experience, I've enjoyed using the tool to have another option to create amusing and creative lessons. It's effective and simple and it can be used not only by teachers but also by students in many different fields and levels of education, even children can be taught how to create an animation or a video to show in class.

Pros

One of the things I liked the most was the possibility of creating all sorts of scenarios and using them in a pedagogical sense. I enjoyed a lot creating situations to be understood in class and on the other hand many of my students have also created their own animations which makes it even more interesting.

Cons

There are a few drawbacks with this software, for example, some of the functions have the potential to be more user-friendly, and sometimes the transitions are a bit slow, but nothing too serious.

Shelly
Overall rating
  • Industry: Insurance
  • Company size: 51–200 Employees
  • Used Weekly for 6-12 months
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support
  • Likelihood to recommend 9.0 /10

An amazing video maker

Reviewed on 27/9/2022

The overall experience of using this software has been excellent. I enjoy making videos with it.

Pros

Powtoon is a great tool for creating animated videos, and I also used it to create informative reels and presentation videos for my organization. The Powtoon tool makes video creation a lot easier for me.

Cons

With this software, we are able to create commendable videos for our clients and different organizations. However, I would say it is a bit pricey, although that's okay considering we can use it to create incredible videos.

Cedric
Overall rating
  • Industry: Banking
  • Company size: 201–500 Employees
  • Used Weekly for 1+ year
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Ease of Use
  • Likelihood to recommend 9.0 /10

Powtoon

Reviewed on 23/10/2022

Pros

Powtoon offers a wide range of features animated music, graphic qualities and people

Cons

Some features are available only for paid version and downloaded file are heavy

Jacki
Overall rating
  • Industry: Legal Services
  • Company size: 501–1,000 Employees
  • Used Weekly for 1+ year
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Likelihood to recommend 6.0 /10

Intro to Video Design

Reviewed on 8/12/2022

Pros

Powtoon makes editing videos easy & for simple designs/animations, it’s the best program I have used. It is a very user-friendly program and offers enough features to keep videos interesting. My company does not make more than 2 videos a month, so Powtoon is perfect for occasional use.

Cons

The website glitches a lot, at least once a month my coworkers or I have issues with the site loading. When it works, it’s great, but it is very glitchy. Another thing that isn’t great about PowToon is that it is hard to move items around on the page, there are no guides to make sure you are centered.

Rabika
Overall rating
  • Industry: Marketing & Advertising
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used Monthly for 6-12 months
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support
  • Likelihood to recommend 9.0 /10

Easy way to create educative videos!

Reviewed on 18/10/2022

Great software to level up our presentation videos easily.

Pros

It’s a big solution for us to create videos with effective tools to make them catchy and engaging. I use it to make short tutorials and friends share academic clips among us through this.

Cons

Can’t use it everywhere and can't edit different types of videos.

Nwodo
Overall rating
  • Industry: Entertainment
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Weekly for Free Trial
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support
  • Likelihood to recommend 7.0 /10

Powtoon is one of the best online animation video and presentation maker

Reviewed on 23/1/2023

It was a great app to use though with limitations especially in the free version.

Pros

Powtoons provide the appealing and captivating animations for a range of uses, including presentations, proposals, demonstrations, infographics, online advertisements, digital manuals or guides, and brief animations, to mention a few. With Powtoon's intuitive interface, it's never been difficult to create and share original animations with great available template which can play around with till you get something nice and interesting . Animations created by users can be shared via email and social medias as well as online.

Cons

Within the application, creating a new custom action is very impossible. A video is in revision mode once it has been published, and there are very few editing choices available at this time.

Herman
Overall rating
  • Industry: E-Learning
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used Weekly for 6-12 months
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support
  • Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10

A go-to animation software that meets your needs and more.

Reviewed on 2/1/2023

I am using PowToon to create educational videos for YouTube and TikTok that grab my students' attention. So far, their feedback has been very positive.

Pros

PowToon allows you to create fantastic and visually arresting animated explainer videos for educational purposes.

Cons

I have not experienced any problems with this product. All the features and functions have so far been exceptional.

Randy
Overall rating
  • Industry: E-Learning
  • Company size: 1,001–5,000 Employees
  • Used Daily for Free Trial
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support
  • Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10

Great Features and Easy to Use

Reviewed on 28/8/2019

Overall, I am satisfied with this tool. It has some minor issues, but none of those issues are deal breakers for me.

Pros

Easy to Start: It only takes me ~20 min to gain basic proficiency and ~60 min to gain advanced proficiency.
Time-Saving Templates: It has several templates ready to be used, which saves time.
Beautiful built-in assets: Animated avatars, objects, short videos, graphics, audios, etc. Basically anything you could possibly want in a multimedia product--PowToon has it already built-in.
Ease of Future Maintenance/Update: The way Powtoon's interface is designed allows for ease of future edits. You can easily swap in/out vectors/audio/texts if your video ever needs an update in the future.

Cons

Minor Glitch: Sometimes, objects (vectors, geometric shapes) would move to the wrong place by mouse drags. This is more of a minor nuisance than a real problem.
Lack of Audio Editing Feature: It has very little audio-editing capability. Because it has a built-in voice-over recording feature, this feature would be more useful if audio editing ability can be available.

Patti
Overall rating
  • Industry: E-Learning
  • Company size: 501–1,000 Employees
  • Used Weekly for 6-12 months
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support
  • Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10

Fun and easy to use

Reviewed on 24/1/2017

I am an instructional designer/developer and I use PowToon as part of eLearning courses and to communicate changes to end users. The premade templates make PowToon really easy to use. I find a look I like then modify with my content. Each template has its own music but I may upload my own music and upload images to personalize the video even more.

If I have a question, I can chat directly with the support team (and I have had lots of questions). I had some trouble understanding the timing of objects when I first started. (Hint: where the thumbnail displays on the time line has Nothing to do with the exit time) and was frustrated by the lack of technical information about how the product works. This is because they depend on their support team to help users. Generally this is good but I would like to see Some documentation, even if it were just voiceovers on a PowToon to explain something.

I found using a PowToon to communicate a recent system change to end users resulted in about a 70% view rate instead of a close to 10% read rate for just an email for a previous communication. I host the video on our SharePoint site and provide a link so it's easy to track the views.

I just extended my subscription for another year and look forward to new features, new images, and new templates.

Pros

Easy to use, fun. Produces very professional looking videos.

Cons

It is difficult to select objects and edit if they overlap.
I would like to be able to add tags to the images so I could easily find those I want to use multiple times.
When changing the sizes of objects, both the width and height change proportionately. It would be good to be able to change just one, especially boxes.

ulises
Overall rating
  • Used Weekly for 1+ year
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support
  • Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10

Animated, creative and unique videos to develop your ideas

Reviewed on 28/6/2018

An educator should always be preparing and never stop studying or preparing. That is why whenever I can take a course I do it in this case it was an elearning course and I was presented with this tool and from that moment on every occasion I can use it I develop my videos through it.

Pros

This tool is great since the environment is very friendly which allows us to devote to the development of the video without worrying about technical difficulties, as well as the possibility of inserting characters, templates and emoticons that allow us to draw the attention of the viewer by remembering that from time to time the viewer loses attention is why we have to find that in that moment that loses attention is also part of our explanation.

Cons

This tool has incredible potential to come to shape the ideas in unique and wonderful ways because in addition to having a large repertoire for the help of the video developer has the ability to add all that audiovisual element that we consider the only difficulty is that it is dependent of the Internet and without it you can not work but that reason does not detract from its great potential

Linda
Overall rating
  • Used Weekly for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support
  • Likelihood to recommend 9.0 /10

I've been using Powtoon since it was in BETA. I use for both my business and the classroom

Reviewed on 28/2/2018

Powtoon gave me the ability to create engaging content for my students. I've used it to create lessons in both a brick and mortar classroom as well as for online curriculum. I also use it for content on my Youtube channel.

Pros

A variety of pre-built templates to use or edit. The business version has the most options for characters. It's very easy to do voiceover and export the final product.

Cons

The collaboration function doesn't work properly. This feature is still in BETA, but I'd like to use it like you can collaborate on a Google Slides. Sometimes updates don't save. I'd be sure to click SAVE every time you make a major change, or at least each slide you create.

Response from Powtoon

Linda, thank you for the great review,
We are making strides towards upgrading the collaboration feature into something very similar to google docs. In fact we are working on a whole new way to work in teams, share brand assets and powtoons, and work together on the same Powtoon. Stay tuned

Ana
Overall rating
  • Used Monthly for 6-12 months
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support
  • Likelihood to recommend 8.0 /10

I love how the presentations are, although it is not as fast to learn how to use it as I...

Reviewed on 21/6/2018

what most took advantage of this application was the use of storyboard because I did not have much knowledge in making animations of this type.

Pros

- It has very nice templates and the icons, images and shapes look very modern.
- I can use it for free, with some limitations of course.
- the elements on the screen are very well organized and have guidelines to correctly place what you want to show.
- allows you to share presentations or videos through popular social networks and download them in various formats depending on the type of account, for free accounts you can download it in ppt or pdf format.
- It has good tutorials to learn how to use the application and the help center is good.
- It allows to choose between several styles of presentations such as: real, infographics, cartoon, whiteboard and modern edge.
- The storyboard function is quite useful and practical since it adapts to the type of person who will make the presentation and guides you throughout the process.

Cons

- In spite of the tutorials and help it is not so easy to use it the first time, you have to dedicate a considerable time in learning how to make animations, if you are looking for something to make animated videos quickly this application or is for you.
- the free account only allows videos or presentations with a maximum duration of 3 minutes and pro and agency accounts are quite expensive.
- he does not have options of collaboration with other people for the edition.

Verified Reviewer
Overall rating
  • Industry: Computer & Network Security
  • Company size: 5,001–10,000 Employees
  • Used Daily for 6-12 months
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support
  • Likelihood to recommend 6.0 /10

Almost perfect

Reviewed on 14/12/2021

Overall, Powtoon achieves what it sets out to do. I just wish there were more editing capabilities.

Pros

Powtoon is very easy to learn and the templates are great to get you started. The media library is full of great assets to create a video quickly and the image library is robust. The software is very intuitive and easy to use.

Cons

I am frustrated with the lack of sound editing you can do on Powtoon - for example, you cannot edit voiceovers once you have recorded them. You also cannot add music to the first three slides, you have to add them separtately, which makes continuity an issue. I would love to see a way to expand the timeline so you can edit on a granular level.

Hanaa
Overall rating
  • Industry: Computer Software
  • Company size: 51–200 Employees
  • Used Daily for 1+ year
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Likelihood to recommend 9.0 /10

The best video creating software for beginner!

Reviewed on 29/7/2019

It is one of the best investments we have made. It is very convenient and a good platform to training as well.

Pros

Very convenient and easy to use. The features help us put our creativity into action with little effort. From explainer to animation, you have pre-set templates you can use. There is an array of music to choose from too. You can put together a decent video within a couple of hours.

Cons

Rendering for larger videos take a very long time, but it is quite usual in most platforms.

Jen
Overall rating
  • Industry: Education Management
  • Company size: Self Employed
  • Used Daily for 1+ year
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support
  • Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10

Fantastic - has helped me connect with customers in an awesome format!

Reviewed on 27/3/2018

Create products that I can sell that are really fun to create!

Pros

My customers are school parents and the cartoon options really grab their attention. I love telling stories through pictures and find it so much easier to put a presentation together on powtoon than any other presentation tool I've used or to write long text.

Cons

It's at the top of my budget limit. But the features are all fantastic and they keep rolling out new ones (like square format and mobile optimized) that help me expand my product offerings.

Verified Reviewer
Overall rating
  • Industry: E-Learning
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used for Free Trial
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Likelihood to recommend 8.0 /10

Quick and dirty explainer in an afternoon

Reviewed on 1/8/2019

Pros

My assistant was able to make some pretty cool videos very quickly, despite limited technical experience with video creation. The tool presents a variety of diverse characters with stock animations for different moods or actions (e.g., explaining, gesturing angrily, looking bored). The audio recording tool allows you to retry if you're unhappy with a take, and was reasonably painless to use. The animations were simple to string together but more visually interesting than what you can produce in PowerPoint.

We created a lesson plan for instructors to use where the learners responded using PowToon projects, and these were a hit. It gives them an alternative way to communicate their ideas and again, is quite easy to use.

Cons

We were not using the pro version of the tool, so we were limited in access to characters, scenes and icons. That said, the free version provided a very smooth experience. If you do not upgrade, there will be a PowToon logo and music appended to your video, and some animations will have limited customizability (e.g., a character animation may loop ad nauseum).

It is also easy for a junior designer to get caught up in the capabilities of the tool and lose focus on the quality and structure of the content. It's easy to add too much irrelevant on-screen animation and so detract from your message.

Verified Reviewer
Overall rating
  • Industry: Marketing & Advertising
  • Company size: Self Employed
  • Used Weekly for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Likelihood to recommend 9.0 /10

Powtoon has made animation possible for everyday video needs.

Reviewed on 29/7/2019

I have been able to add some video animation that I didn't possess prior to using Powtoon which has helped me create a higher level of video production results at a reasonable cost.

Pros

I like that I can easily produce animated videos for myself and clients without technically being a "video animator" on more complex software. Oftentimes, I only need a portion of a video to be animated or need a clip of animated typography, which I can now easily accomplish on Powtoon to later insert into my overall video creation.

Cons

There are some fine-tune controls that are lacking in the software, like setting timing in less than one-second increments.

Mindy
Overall rating
  • Industry: Education Management
  • Company size: 51–200 Employees
  • Used for 1+ year
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Ease of Use
  • Likelihood to recommend 8.0 /10

A fun way to get students engaged

Reviewed on 18/1/2019

I have had my students use PowToons to create a visual representation of text. I have also had them use it as a visual aid for a speech. In both situations, it was very entertaining. The students were engaged completing the assignment and their classmates were engaged when watching their peers present.

Pros

I love anything that will grab my students' attention. I especially love it when it's something I can have them use to capture the attention of their classmates. I really like that this is flashy and doesn't require coding or graphic design knowledge to make a fun and professional presentation.

Cons

It's hard to explain to students that they can't use everything they can see. I completely understand that a company would want people to see what they could have for a price, but it's frustrating for students to see all of these really cool features and not be able to touch them.

Verified Reviewer
Overall rating
  • Industry: Education Management
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used Weekly for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Ease of Use
  • Likelihood to recommend 9.0 /10

Use Powtoons to create engaging videos

Reviewed on 12/4/2019

I learned about this program in grad school and I am thankful for it. I have been able to create videos and continue to use them for the past few years. Highly recommend

Pros

As an educator, I am constantly trying to engage parents and I often use Powtoons as a way to communicate with them. I have used this program to create videos on introducing them to stress management techniques, how to register for classes, and so much more. These videos are short and engaging for them.

Cons

There is a bit of a learning curve when using Powtoons; however, once you get use to it- it's very user friendly!

Julia
Overall rating
  • Industry: Higher Education
  • Company size: 51–200 Employees
  • Used Weekly for 6-12 months
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support
  • Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10

This is the one!

Reviewed on 30/9/2019

eLearning Design, custom course production, explainer videos

Pros

If you are looking for a program to help you build quick, easy, powerful instructional videos - this is it! Look no further.

Cons

I loved all of it. We used Vyond before and were limited to animated characters and scenes. Here you can have actual videos and pictures of non-cartoons.

Verified Reviewer
Overall rating
  • Industry: Government Administration
  • Company size: 501–1,000 Employees
  • Used Monthly for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support
  • Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10

Sassiest animation tool to add zing to your presentations

Reviewed on 26/12/2018

I first started using Powtoons to add animations to my presentations for university projects. With the tool still being pretty new at that time, I had a lot of fellow students asking for the link to it. More recently I have been using Powtoons to create audio guided videos as help-videos for my clients with some light animations. It has worked wonders in capturing audience attention without the intricacies of some of the other tools available like Adobe. I would recommend it to students as well as professionals to add some edge to their presentations.

Pros

Powtoons is the easiest online software I could find that helps create professional animated videos to add to my presentations (both for university and for work) without the need for me to take an animation course. The fact that it is free and comes with templates helps too :) The canvas is very intuitive to use with drag and drop functionality.

Cons

These are absolutely no shortcomings of the software

Matthew
Overall rating
  • Industry: Automotive
  • Company size: 51–200 Employees
  • Used Weekly for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support
  • Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10

Capture the Attention of your viewers

Reviewed on 11/6/2020

With cookie-cutter ads, email and video out there for marketing, Powtoon pushes that to the side and stands well above the rest to make a difference with allowing you to get your message through with creativity that you don't see in other software.

Pros

Powtoon is a great Animation software that anyone can use to get your message through for Training, Marketing or just to say "Hi".

Cons

Because this is internet based, it does lag at times with the speed of the playback and crashes from time to time.