A good YouTube thumbnail can make or break your video’s clickthrough rate. With so much competition on YouTube, an eye-catching and compelling thumbnail is crucial to get more views and subscribers.
While you can certainly create thumbnails yourself using basic image editing software, that can be time-consuming. The good news is many excellent online YouTube thumbnail makers can create amazing thumbnails for you in minutes.
In this article, we’ll highlight the top 10 YouTube thumbnail creators and generators to try this year. Whether you want a free thumbnail maker or are willing to pay for a more advanced tool, we’ve got you covered.
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10 Best Online YouTube Thumbnail Maker To Unleash Your Creativity
1. Canva
Canva should be your first stop when looking for a powerful yet easy-to-use YouTube thumbnail maker. It’s completely free to use and doesn’t require any design experience.
The platform offers a drag-and-drop interface and a huge library of templates, graphics, icons, and fonts. Simply customize one of Canva’s YouTube thumbnail layouts by adding your text, logos, and images.
Canva also provides photo editing features to help you resize, crop, apply filters, adjust colors, and more. When you’re done, download your thumbnail or export it directly to YouTube.
An excellent option for beginners and professionals alike. Canva works on desktop and mobile.
2. Snappa
For a capable free online YouTube thumbnail generator, Snappa is a superb choice. It’s straightforward to create custom thumbnails in different sizes like landscape, square, vertical, and more.
Snappa gives you access to over 2 million stock photos, graphics, and illustrations to incorporate into your designs. Add text, stickers, shapes, and filters to craft an eye-catching thumbnail.
When you’re happy with your creation, download it as a JPG, PNG, or PDF. Snappa has handy integrations with YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and more to simplify uploading your thumbnails.
3. Pablo by Buffer
Pablo by Buffer offers an effortless way to produce beautiful free YouTube thumbnails through its drag-and-drop editor. It has an extensive collection of templates and design elements to help build your ideal thumbnail.
Simply pick a template, and customize it with colors, fonts, illustrations, background images, icons, shapes, and your brand kit. Pablo has handy integrations to save your thumbnails to Google Drive or Dropbox.
While Pablo has a free plan, upgrading to premium provides more templates, unlimited uploads, and access to Getty stock photos. Pablo works great on both desktop and mobile.
4. Thumbnail AI
As the name suggests, Thumbnail AI specializes in fast and easy YouTube thumbnail generation. It has a clean drag-and-drop editor to customize thumbnails from over 70 template options.
The platform is loaded with 1 million stock photos, over 600 fonts, and more than enough stickers, shapes, and illustrations to make your thumbnails pop. Adjust colors, add shadows, crop, rotate, and apply other edits before exporting your thumbnail.
Thumbnail AI offers a forever-free plan with basic features. Paid plans provide more templates, graphics, editing capabilities, and faster exports.
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5. Fotor
Next on our list of best online YouTube thumbnail makers comes Fotor. Fotor is a highly versatile online graphic design platform with excellent YouTube thumbnail creator capabilities. It makes the thumbnail design process incredibly simple.
Start with one of Fotor’s professionally designed YouTube thumbnail templates or create your own from scratch. Access over 1 million stock images and graphics to incorporate into your thumbnails.
Use Fotor’s collage maker, text editor, filter effects, and adjustment tools to customize your creations. Then download your thumbnails or share them straight to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and more.
Fotor has free and paid subscription plans available. The free plan covers the core features while paid plans provide more graphics, effects, and design options.’
6. Adobe Spark
From the makers of Photoshop and Illustrator comes Adobe Spark – an intuitive app for crafting stunning YouTube thumbnails for free. You can use it right within your web browser.
With Adobe Spark, simply choose a thumbnail template you like and customize it. Add graphics, text, logos, animations, and images sourced from Adobe Stock to make it your own.
Use the photo editing capabilities to apply filters, adjust lighting, crop, rotate, resize, and more. When your thumbnail is ready, export it or share it directly with your desired platforms.
Adobe Spark works on desktop and mobile. It’s easy to learn and use even for beginners.
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7. Kapwing
Kapwing is an online creative studio with professional-grade tools for DIY thumbnail design. It offers a fast thumbnail maker optimized for YouTube.
Start with a template or create your thumbnail from scratch. Kapwing gives you access to over 15 million stock photos and illustrations. Add text, stickers, frames, filters, and more graphical elements.
Use Kapwing’s image editor to seamlessly remove backgrounds, resize, crop, and touch up your thumbnails. Then download them as JPG, PNG, or GIF. You can also directly upload the thumbnails to YouTube.
Kapwing has a free plan as well as paid plans for premium features. It works on web and mobile browsers.
8. PicMonkey
PicMonkey is a renowned photo editing tool that also doubles up as an excellent YouTube thumbnail generator. It equips you with all the design features needed to create eye-catching thumbnails.
You can choose a pre-sized YouTube thumbnail template to start with. PicMonkey offers plenty of graphics, fonts, effects, and touch-up tools to customize your design.
Add overlays, textures, frames, stickers, and background images sourced from Hub by PicMonkey. Adjust colors, crop, retouch, add text and shapes, and export your thumbnail upon completion.
PicMonkey offers a free basic plan and paid pro plans with more features. It’s available online through desktop and mobile browsers.
9. Pixlr
Pixlr from Inmagine Lab is a full-featured online photo editor that provides a fast and easy thumbnail maker for YouTube. It’s completely free to use with no ads or watermarks.
Pixlr has an array of templates, overlays, fonts, illustrations, and effects to help design stunning YouTube thumbnails. You can also start with a blank canvas and create custom thumbnails from scratch.
Edit your thumbnails using Pixlr’s array of tools including layers, lighting fixes, color adjustments, crop, resize, rotate, and more. Download your creations or share them online seamlessly.
Pixlr works in web browsers on desktop and mobile devices. An excellent free alternative for creating great YouTube thumbnails.
10. Befunky
With Befunky’s AI-powered online thumbnail maker, you can easily craft beautiful YouTube thumbnails in a few clicks. Choose from an ever-growing library of templates, graphics, icons, and typography.
Customize every element using Befunky’s editing features like cropping, resizing, applying filters, adjusting colors, adding text, overlays, and more. Use the background remover to isolate subjects.
Befunky is integrated with top stock image services like Getty Images and EyeEm. Save your thumbnail creations to your computer or share them directly to YouTube.
A user-friendly platform with a free plan and a paid premium plan. Works seamlessly across desktop and mobile.
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Conclusion
So those are our picks for the top 10 online YouTube thumbnail makers, to try this year! Each platform offers intuitive design features, templates, graphics, editing tools, and seamless export options to craft stunning thumbnails that drive more YouTube views. We recommend trying out the free plans first to get a feel for these tools. Then you can always upgrade to unlock more capabilities if needed. Follow us on social media – Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.