A startup founder I know recently needed to create an explainer video for her new product. She had a limited budget, no video production experience, and a deadline of one week. She looked into hiring a freelance animator — quotes came back between two and five thousand dollars. She looked into traditional video production — even more expensive, and the timeline was longer than she had. "I just need something that explains what we do clearly," she told me. "It does not need to win awards. It needs to be clear, professional, and done by Friday."

That is the space Raw Shorts occupies. It is an AI-powered video creation platform designed specifically for explainer videos, animated presentations, and business communications. Unlike AI video generators like Runway or Pika that create original footage, or AI presenter tools like Synthesia that generate talking-head videos, Raw Shorts focuses on animated explainer content — whiteboard animations, motion graphics, text-based storytelling.

I have been testing Raw Shorts for several weeks, and I have covered the broader landscape of AI video tools in my ultimate AI video generator comparison and my complete guide to creating AI videos. This review focuses specifically on Raw Shorts — what it does, how well it works, and who should be using it.

What Is Raw Shorts, Exactly?

Raw Shorts is an online video creation platform that uses AI to automate the process of making explainer videos and animated presentations. The platform's core technology scans your script or text input, identifies key concepts, and automatically matches them with relevant animated visuals, text overlays, and transitions to create a complete video.

The platform offers several ways to create videos. You can paste a script, upload a document, or provide a URL to a webpage. Raw Shorts' AI analyzes the content, extracts the key points, and generates a storyboard with suggested visuals. You can then customize the output — adjusting the visuals, text, timing, colors, and music — or let the AI handle most of the decisions.

Raw Shorts includes a library of animated assets — characters, icons, backgrounds, charts, and diagrams. The visual style is distinctly "explainer video" — clean, professional, and similar to what you would expect from an animated corporate presentation. It is not designed for cinematic content, social media trends, or creative artistic expression. It is designed for clear, professional business communication.

How I Tested Raw Shorts for This Review

I tested Raw Shorts over several weeks, creating various types of business videos. Here is what I evaluated:

1. Script-to-video: Quality of AI-generated storyboards and visual matching.
2. Asset library: Variety and quality of animated characters, icons, and backgrounds.
3. Customization: How easily generated videos can be edited and refined.
4. Voiceover: Quality of text-to-speech and support for custom audio.
5. Export quality: Resolution options and rendering speed.
6. Comparison with other explainer tools: How Raw Shorts stacks up against alternatives.

I tested on the Essential plan ($20/month) and explored the free trial.

What Raw Shorts Does Exceptionally Well

1. AI Storyboard Generation Saves Hours of Planning

This is Raw Shorts' standout feature. You paste a script — anywhere from a few paragraphs to a full document — and the AI analyzes the content, breaks it into scenes, and suggests relevant visuals for each scene. The process takes about one to two minutes, and the result is a complete storyboard that provides a solid starting point for your video.

The AI's visual matching is not perfect — it sometimes selects generic or tangentially related images — but it is good enough to provide a foundation. Instead of staring at a blank canvas wondering where to start, you have a structured video with suggested visuals that you can refine. For someone creating an explainer video from scratch, this initial storyboard generation saves significant planning time.

2. Clean, Professional Explainer Video Aesthetic

Raw Shorts produces videos with a consistent, professional visual style. The animated characters, icons, and transitions all share a cohesive design language. The output looks like a professionally produced explainer video — not like a template-based video that has been hastily assembled. For businesses that need to communicate clearly and professionally, this aesthetic is appropriate and effective.

3. Text-to-Video With Good Accuracy

Raw Shorts' ability to convert text into video is solid. The AI identifies key phrases, extracts important concepts, and selects visuals that are reasonably relevant. It handles straightforward business content well — product explanations, process descriptions, company introductions. It struggles with abstract concepts, technical jargon, or content that requires specific, non-generic visuals.

4. Affordable Pricing for Business Users

Raw Shorts' Essential plan at $20/month is affordable for businesses that need explainer videos regularly. Compared to the cost of hiring a freelance animator ($2,000-5,000 per video) or an explainer video agency ($5,000-20,000 per video), the subscription is negligible. For businesses that produce even one explainer video per month, Raw Shorts provides exceptional value.

Where Raw Shorts Falls Short

1. Limited to Explainer Video Style

Raw Shorts produces one type of video: animated explainers. If you need live-action footage, cinematic B-roll, AI-generated original video, or social-media-optimized short clips, other tools are necessary. Raw Shorts is a specialist, not a generalist. Within its specialty, it excels. Outside it, it is not relevant.

2. AI Voiceover Is Functional, Not Premium

Raw Shorts includes text-to-speech voiceover, but the quality is standard — clear and intelligible, but with the slightly robotic quality of basic TTS. For professional business videos, you will likely want to record your own voiceover or use a premium AI voice tool like ElevenLabs and upload the audio.

3. Limited Advanced Customization

Raw Shorts is designed for speed and accessibility, not deep creative control. You can swap visuals, edit text, adjust timing, change colors, and add your own assets. But you cannot create complex animations, apply custom effects, or do the kind of detailed editing that professional animation software enables. For most business explainer videos, the available customization is sufficient. For premium, highly customized productions, a professional animator or advanced tool is needed.

Raw Shorts vs. The Competition

Raw Shorts vs. InVideo AI

InVideo AI assembles videos from stock footage and templates — more suitable for promotional and social media content. Raw Shorts creates animated explainer videos — more suitable for product demos, process explanations, and corporate communications. Choose based on the visual style you need.

Raw Shorts vs. Animaker / Vyond

Animaker and Vyond are established animated video platforms with more assets and customization options but steeper learning curves and higher prices. Raw Shorts offers faster creation through AI automation at a lower price point. For quick, straightforward explainer videos, Raw Shorts is faster. For complex, highly customized animations, Animaker or Vyond provide more control.

Raw Shorts Pricing

Who Should Subscribe to Raw Shorts?

• Startups and small businesses that need to create explainer videos without hiring animators.
• Marketing teams producing product demos, process explanations, and corporate communications.
• Training and HR departments creating onboarding and procedural videos.
• Anyone who needs clear, professional animated videos without animation skills.

Who Should Look Elsewhere?

• Creators who need cinematic footage or original AI-generated video — use Runway or Pika.
• Users who need AI presenter videos — use Synthesia or HeyGen.
• Those who need highly customized, premium animations — a professional animator or advanced tool is needed.
• Creators focused on social media short-form content — other tools are better optimized for those formats.

Pros and Cons Summary

Tips for Getting the Most Out of Raw Shorts

1. Write your script with visuals in mind. Concrete concepts and clear explanations work better than abstract ideas. The AI matches visuals to specific words and phrases.
2. Use the AI storyboard as a starting point. Review every scene. Swap weak visuals. Adjust timing. The AI gives you a foundation — your refinement makes it professional.
3. Upload your own voiceover. For professional results, record your narration or generate it with ElevenLabs and upload the audio file.
4. Customize colors to match your brand. Spend time setting up your brand colors and fonts before creating videos to maintain visual consistency.
5. Start with the free trial. Test Raw Shorts with your actual content before subscribing.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can Raw Shorts create videos in styles other than animation?

No. Raw Shorts focuses exclusively on animated explainer videos. For live-action, cinematic, or AI-generated footage, other tools are needed.

How accurate is the AI storyboard generation?

Good for straightforward business content. The AI correctly identifies key concepts and suggests relevant visuals most of the time. For abstract or highly technical content, the visual matching may be less accurate.

Can I upload my own images and videos?

Yes. You can upload your own images, graphics, and video clips to use in your Raw Shorts projects alongside the built-in asset library.

Does Raw Shorts support multiple languages?

Raw Shorts supports text in multiple languages. AI voiceover language support is more limited — check the current language options on the platform.

Can I use Raw Shorts videos commercially?

Yes. Paid plans include commercial usage rights for videos created with Raw Shorts.

Disclosure: This review is based on my personal testing of Raw Shorts. I pay for my own subscription. Some links on Vexaruno may be affiliate links, but this does not influence my ratings or opinions. All mentioned tools — Raw Shorts, Runway, Pika, Synthesia, HeyGen, and ElevenLabs — are linked for your convenience and are not affiliated with this review.