# How to add an AI voiceover to TikTok, Reels, and Shorts

Script, voice, and caption a short video with an AI voice. How long the script should be, which voice fits, and what the platforms ask you to disclose.

Published 2026-10-11, updated 2026-10-23. Paxa Labs.

Most short videos are a script read over footage. A recipe, a product review, a news recap, and a story told over gameplay all run on narration, and the narration is the part many creators put off. Recording it takes a quiet room, a decent microphone, and a voice you are willing to post.

An AI voice removes the recording. You write the script, pick a voice, and download the audio. The steps are the same for TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and Facebook Reels, because the result is an audio file that every editor accepts.

## The app's built-in voice, or your own

TikTok and the other short-video editors include a text to speech button. You type a caption, tap the button, and a preset voice reads it. It costs nothing and takes seconds, and for a quick reply video it is enough.

The limits show once a channel has a style. Every creator on the app has the same few voices, and regular viewers recognize them. The voice belongs to that app's editor, and the same clip cut in another editor gets a different one. Control ends at picking the voice.

A voice from a speech catalog is a file. Paxa TTS Flash has 34 voices in English, Thai, and Mandarin, and the file drops into any editor. One voice can narrate every clip on every platform a channel posts to.

## Write the script to the length of the clip

Narration runs at a steady pace, and the length of the script sets the length of the clip. English narration runs at about 897 characters a minute, spaces included. Count the characters before you cut the footage.

| Clip length | Script length | Cost to voice |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 15 seconds | About 224 characters | 2.2 credits |
| 30 seconds | About 449 characters | 4.5 credits |
| 60 seconds | About 897 characters | 9 credits |

Three habits make a short script work. Put the payoff in the first sentence, because a viewer decides in the first seconds whether to stay. Keep one idea to a sentence. Write the way you talk, and read the script aloud once before you generate anything.

Write numbers, prices, and names the way you want them said. [The script guide](https://paxalabs.com/guides/writing-for-thai-text-to-speech) covers Thai scripts in detail, including where a space becomes a pause.

## Choose a voice that fits the content

A voice sets the tone before the first word lands. A calm narrator on a flash-sale clip sounds wrong, and so does a hype voice on a news recap. The catalog states what each voice was cast for.

| Voice | Role | Cast for |
| --- | --- | --- |
| [Nom Yen](https://paxalabs.com/voices/nomyen) | Lead voice | Bright, energetic voice and the roster's female lead: promos, social clips, and everyday product speech. |
| [Massaman](https://paxalabs.com/voices/massaman) | Leading man | Deep, steady leading-man voice for trailers, drama, and announcements. |
| [Thong Ek](https://paxalabs.com/voices/thongek) | News anchor | Crisp, authoritative read for news bulletins and corporate updates. |
| [Moo Ping](https://paxalabs.com/voices/mooping) | Street energy | Confident, streetwise voice for ads and shorts. |
| [Tom Yum](https://paxalabs.com/voices/tomyum) | Best friend | Fast, hot, chatty best-friend voice for drama recaps, entertainment news, and social clips. |
| [Khanom Chan](https://paxalabs.com/voices/khanomchan) | Emotion tags | Natural conversational voice that changes mood with emotion tags written into the text: happy, sad, angry, or afraid. |
| [Som Tam](https://paxalabs.com/voices/somtam) | Isan | Isan-accented voice with local warmth. |
| [Donut](https://paxalabs.com/voices/donut) | Promos | Cheerful English voice for promos and demos. |
| [Toast](https://paxalabs.com/voices/toast) | Tutorials | Plain-spoken everyday English voice for tutorials. |
| [Tao Huay](https://paxalabs.com/voices/taohuay) | Drama lead | Tender, melancholy Mandarin voice for drama recaps, audio novels, and companion speech. |

Five voices for short video:

- [Nom Yen](https://paxalabs.com/voices/nomyen), Lead voice: https://paxalabs.com/audio/nomyen.m4a
- [Moo Ping](https://paxalabs.com/voices/mooping), Street energy: https://paxalabs.com/audio/mooping.m4a
- [Tom Yum](https://paxalabs.com/voices/tomyum), Best friend: https://paxalabs.com/audio/tomyum.m4a
- [Khanom Chan](https://paxalabs.com/voices/khanomchan), Emotion tags: https://paxalabs.com/audio/khanomchan.m4a
- [Massaman](https://paxalabs.com/voices/massaman), Leading man: https://paxalabs.com/audio/massaman.m4a

Pick one voice per channel and keep it. Viewers come to know a narrator the way they know a face, and a channel that changes voice every clip gives that up. [The guide to choosing a voice](https://paxalabs.com/guides/choosing-a-thai-ai-voice) goes through all 34 by job.

## Make the voiceover, step by step

1. Paste the script: Open [the Speech tool](https://paxalabs.com/app/speech) and paste the script. The cost appears under the text before you generate anything.
2. Pick and preview a voice: Open the voice picker, filter by language, and play the samples. Previews are free.
3. Set the pace: Move the speed control up a little for a fast promo, or down for an explainer. The price is the same at every speed.
4. Generate and listen: Listen to the whole take once, with your attention on names, numbers, and English words. Fix a misread word by respelling it in the script, then generate again.
5. Download the file: Choose MP3 for most editors, or WAV when the voice will be mixed with music. Then download the clip.
6. Cut the video to the voice: Import the audio into your editor and lay the footage over it. Cutting pictures to a finished voice track is faster than stretching a voice to fit finished pictures.

The catalog's experimental Thai emotion voices read tags written into the script, such as `[happy]` before a line. [The emotional voices page](https://paxalabs.com/emotional-voices) plays each tag.

## Add captions from the same audio

A viewer with the sound off gets only the captions. Upload the finished voice track to [the Transcribe tool](https://paxalabs.com/app/transcribe) and ask for subtitles. It returns an SRT or VTT file with the timing of every line, ready to import into a video editor.

A Thai caption breaks only between words. That matters because Thai is written without spaces, and a careless break splits a word in two. Transcription costs 8.33 credits per minute of audio.

## What it costs

Speech is priced by the character, at 10 credits per 1,000 characters. A one-minute clip costs about 9 credits, which is $0.009. A new account's 100 free credits voice about 11 one-minute clips.

A channel that posts a one-minute clip every day uses about 269 credits a month. The smallest plan is $6 a month for 8,100 credits, and [the pricing page](https://paxalabs.com/pricing) lists the rest.

The free credits are for personal use and evaluation. Buy any plan or credit pack and the account's audio is yours to use commercially, including clips made before the purchase. A monetized channel or a client job belongs on a paid account.

## What the platforms ask you to disclose

Each platform publishes its own rule on AI-made content, and the rules change. YouTube's is a useful reference. [It asks for a disclosure](https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/14328491) in three cases. Realistic content makes a real person appear to say or do something they did not. Footage of a real event or place is altered. A realistic scene is shown that never happened.

A catalog voice reading your own script over your own footage makes no real person say anything, which is the case the rule is written around. Read the rule against any clip that shows or imitates a real person.

Paxa TTS Flash does not clone voices. Every voice in the catalog is a fixed cast member, and a new voice comes from [voice design](https://paxalabs.com/voice-design), built from a written description. Imitating a real person's voice without their consent is against [the rules every account accepts](https://paxalabs.com/responsible-ai).

### Can a channel with an AI voice be monetized?

[YouTube's channel policies](https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1311392) allow creative tools that help deliver an original narrative. They turn away mass-produced, templated videos and videos that only read out material someone else wrote. Both tests look at the script and the edit. A channel earns on a script that is its own and adds something to the footage.

## Mistakes that give an AI voiceover away

- A number read the wrong way. Listen to every price, date, and phone number, and spell out the ones that come back wrong.
- A brand name respelled in Thai letters. Keep the name in the Latin letters its owner uses, and [a Thai voice reads it as English](https://paxalabs.com/thai-english) inside the sentence.
- Sentences with no place to breathe. Break a long sentence in two, and in Thai put a space where the pause belongs.
- A pace set too fast. A little faster holds attention. A lot faster sounds like the terms and conditions at the end of a radio ad.
- Music louder than the voice. Lower the music under the narration until every word is clear on a phone speaker.

## Next steps

- Hear a line in the demo voices on [the free text to speech page](https://paxalabs.com/tts), with no account.
- Open [the Speech tool](https://paxalabs.com/app/speech) with the free credits and voice a first clip.
- See what [creators](https://paxalabs.com/use-cases/creators) and [advertisers](https://paxalabs.com/use-cases/advertising) make with the same voices.
- Read [what a Thai voiceover costs](https://paxalabs.com/guides/thai-voice-over-cost) for studio and freelance rates beside these.