Is Remotion Free? Yes, Until Your Team Hits 4 People (2026)
The honest answer to "is Remotion free" is: it depends on who you are. Remotion is free for individuals, non-profits, and small for-profit teams, but larger for-profit companies pay for a license. A lot of articles get this wrong in both directions, claiming either that Remotion is fully free or that everyone has to pay. Here is the accurate version, because choosing a tool on a wrong license claim wastes time.
TL;DR — Is Remotion free?
| Who you are | Cost |
|---|---|
| Individual | Free |
| Non-profit | Free |
| For-profit team, up to 3 people | Free |
| For-profit company, 4+ people | Paid company license |
| Real costs beyond license | Developer time + render compute |
Remotion is a video-as-code tool. If you want video without code or licensing math, skip to the no-code path below.
What Remotion's license actually says
Remotion is source-available under a license that ties cost to company size, not to features. If you are an individual, a non-profit, or a for-profit team of up to three people, you can use Remotion for free, including for commercial work. Once a for-profit organization reaches four or more people, it needs a paid company license.
So the practical reading is simple: solo developers and small startups use Remotion free; larger companies pay. That is different from "free for personal use only," and it is different from "everyone pays." Both of those framings are common online and both are inaccurate.
"Open source" with an asterisk
People often call Remotion open source, and the code is openly available, but the license is not a fully permissive one like MIT. There are usage terms, specifically the company-size threshold above. That matters when you compare it to tools licensed under MIT, which carry no such threshold. Motion Canvas, for instance, is MIT-licensed and free regardless of company size, and HyperFrames is Apache 2.0, also free with no threshold, which we cover in Is HyperFrames free?.
This is not a knock on Remotion. The company license funds active development of a mature tool. It is just a real, concrete difference if license cost is what you are optimizing for.
The costs the license does not cover
Even where Remotion is free, a shipped video is not. Remotion renders from React, so someone, you or an AI agent you direct, writes and maintains that React, then debugs it when a render breaks. That is developer time. And rendering at scale means running headless browser plus encoding, which is compute you pay for on your own machine or in the cloud. So Remotion is free as a framework for many users, and paid in time and infrastructure for everyone. That is the normal shape of code-first video.
When free still is not the cheapest
Here is the case worth naming. If you are not a developer and you just need a branded hook or title today, Remotion being "free" does not help you, because the cost is the hours to learn React and the framework, plus the debugging. Measured in your time, that can dwarf a small subscription.
A Motion Agent prices the finished video instead of the toolkit. With AutoAE you describe the clip in plain language, it calls a branded, market-tested template, and you export, no React, no license thresholds, no render pipeline, for $9.90/mo or $2.90 per export. In my experience, for branded short-form work, a few dollars for a finished clip beats an afternoon making a "free" one. The full trade-off is in Remotion vs Motion Agent.
FAQ
Is Remotion free for commercial use? Yes, for individuals, non-profits, and for-profit teams of up to three people. For-profit companies with four or more people need a paid company license.
Is Remotion open source? The code is openly available, but the license is not fully permissive like MIT, it includes a company-size threshold. Tools like Motion Canvas (MIT) and HyperFrames (Apache 2.0) have no such threshold.
How much does Remotion cost? It is free below the company-size threshold. Above it, a for-profit company pays for a company license; pricing scales with company size.
Is Remotion or Motion Canvas cheaper? Motion Canvas is MIT-licensed and free for everyone, including large companies. Remotion is free for individuals and small teams but charges larger for-profit companies.
What if I want video without dealing with licenses or code? Use a Motion Agent like AutoAE: describe the clip in plain language and export a finished, branded result, no code and no license math, from $2.90 per export.