Check Out The 10 Best AI Thumbnail Makers for YouTube in 2024

Never underestimate the power of a good thumbnail: After all, first impressions count in digital marketing.

Recently published research found a strong relationship between thumbnail design and video likes and views. Even the number of headlines and the distance of the background can have a significant influence on the video feedback you receive. It makes sense, then, that 90% of the best-performing videos on YouTube have custom thumbnails.

To help video creators maximize the impact of their thumbnails, YouTube recently introduced a new “test and compare” function (A/B testing on steroids). This feature allows you to compare the response rates of up to three thumbnails per video. Why should you care? Because the demand for high-quality YouTube thumbnail design is about to explode. 💥

Like many other aspects of digital marketing design, AI has streamlined the thumbnail-making process. And, as with any design project, the most effective approach is to combine AI’s strengths with top human talent.

But whether you’re looking for a DIY quick fix or an AI-fluent design team like the crew at Superside to plug into your workflow, you’ll find what you need in our list of the 10 best AI YouTube thumbnail makers in 2024.

How to Create YouTube Thumbnails with AI

Effective YouTube branding and marketing starts with stellar design, which is where Superside comes into play. As a trusted creative partner for many of the world’s top brands, we’re experts in producing AI-enhanced social media design and video marketing creative. With more than 500 AI-powered creative projects to our name, we also know a thing or two about creating irresistible YouTube thumbnails.

While the design steps are simple, it does take a bit of practice to get a feel for these tools and how to prompt them. It also takes some digging to find the thumbnail maker that best suits your needs.

Here’s how to go about creating your first thumbnails.

The following three elements will boost the performance of your thumbnail design:

Short, punchy text that describes the video.
Eye-catching graphics and colors.
People (faces do well, so ideally it’s someone from the video).

Insider Tips

Initiate the design process by typing a word or phrase into the AI tool’s text field. The skill in using AI—text-to-image, specifically—is in using effective prompts. You’ll want to strike a balance between including enough descriptive detail to create your desired thumbnail, but not too much, which can compromise the result.

Describe the subject matter, composition, lighting, colors, textures and any other relevant details. Provide descriptive adjectives that accurately capture the visual elements you want, such as “vibrant,” “muted,” “realistic,” “stylized,” “intricate” or "minimalist.”

You may also have the option of choosing the dimensions of the thumbnail, i.e. for YouTube Videos (1280 x 720 pixels) or YouTube Shorts (1920 x 1080 pixels), or inputting your own dimensions.

Click on the “Generate image” button or the equivalent in your chosen AI tool. The AI will then process your input and use it to create one or more YouTube thumbnail options. If you’re pleased with the AI-generated image(s), you can proceed to the next step. If not, you might want to practice your prompting by trying a few different iterations until you’re happy with the thumbnail image results.

Explore the tools’ customization options to tweak the AI-generated YouTube thumbnails. You may get a selection of editable templates to choose from, or you may be taken straight to a screen with a dashboard of customization options. Here, you can add text, adjust font styles and color schemes, upload an image, and incorporate additional graphic elements or branding.

When you’re satisfied, hit “download.”

As any digital marketer worth their salt knows, optimizing digital creative based on feedback is the only way to maintain a competitive edge. If you’re not getting the desired response to your video, generate a new YouTube thumbnail with a different focus to see if that makes a difference. Of course, if you’re using YouTube’s new “test and compare” function, you can test up to three YouTube thumbnails with just a few clicks to find out which performs best.

Although AI thumbnail generators are nifty little tools that can speed up the thumbnail-generating process, you may find that human design expertise is required to elevate the originality and quality of your results. AI is a game-changer, but it can’t yet replace human creativity and expertise.

Superside’s Criteria for Choosing AI Thumbnail Generators

Forget mundane, eye-glazing thumbnails… At Superside, we’ve cracked the code for AI-powered design to amplify your YouTube presence. Do-it-yourself AI YouTube thumbnail makers are great, but the results are likely to lack that X factor that will make your engagement metrics soar.

That’s why I’ll focus on choosing specialized AI tools combined with top global design talent to deliver world-class creative that converts based on the following criteria.

1. Accuracy and relevance

Choose AI tools that can analyze video content to focus on the most visually appealing or attention-grabbing moments. The AI can also suggest or create stunning thumbnails that accurately represent the main themes or highlights of the video.

2. Creative control

While AI provides a base template or design, a Superside designer can add high-quality customized creative elements like branding, graphics or templates. These can easily be resized for platforms other than YouTube. Our designers can generate endless thumbnail options (and any other creative you need) to get you the best results.

3. Integration and efficiency

Efficient workflow integration is key. AI should integrate seamlessly into workflows and whichever platforms you need it to (such as YouTube), enabling direct uploads or easy exports to your channels.

The 10 Best AI Thumbnail Makers for YouTube in 2024

Now that we understand what makes a great AI thumbnail maker for YouTube, let’s take a look at the top 10 options for 2024.

1. Superside

Thumbnails are small but potent—too potent to be left to chance.

Superside isn’t an automated AI YouTube thumbnail maker, and that’s a good thing—AI isn’t yet at the point where it understands the nuances of branding, audience psychology and visual storytelling required to craft truly compelling creative.

While AI can generate imagery and copy based on text prompts, it takes the discerning eye and creative expertise of a human to distill a video’s essence into a single, irresistible snapshot.

Superside is what you get when you take top-drawer design talent from across the globe and ignite it with the most powerful AI tools available. We know our way around YouTube marketing and how to use it for brands. Take our paid media video ad (including gorgeous thumbnails) for print-on-demand company Gelato, which attracted 843,000 views in six days.

And that’s just a tiny fraction of our full creative suite. An upfront monthly subscription fee (with no unanticipated costs) gives you access to a fully stacked design team ready to whip up anything from ad creative to social media content (including YouTube channel art), web design, video production, animations, logo design and graphic design—at scale.

Our innovative approach to incorporating generative AI into our creative workflows also sets us apart, resulting in unparalleled efficiency and cost savings for our customers.

Pricing: From $5,000 per month.

Based in: Globally distributed across the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia.

Best for: Larger companies that have a continual, high-volume need for on-brand creative.

2. Simplified

(Source: Simplified)

This is a robust, mobile-friendly platform designed for content creators and marketers seeking to enhance their video engagement with eye-catching thumbnails. The app’s user-friendly interface stands out for its ease of use and efficiency, allowing users to create thumbnails without the need for advanced design skills.

You can start by entering your video theme and either selecting from a variety of templates or letting the AI generate a thumbnail based on your input. The tool offers extensive customization options, allowing users to incorporate their brand elements (e.g., logos, fonts and colors). An enormous range of templates offers easy options for ready-made designs. Users can also upload their own images and adjust elements to suit their preferences.

Simplified doesn’t just make thumbnails, they also offer social media scheduling and employ AI to generate copy, presentations, images, social media posts and more.

Pricing: Simplified offers a free plan with basic features, or a monthly subscription starting from $12 per month.

Based in: San Francisco, California.

Best for: Content creators, marketing agencies and small to large businesses.

3. Adobe Express

(Source: Adobe Express)

This is one of the best AI thumbnail makers out there, which is no surprise since it was created by Adobe’s design wizards. The tool forms part of Adobe’s comprehensive Creative Cloud suite. Best of all? It’s free.

There are plenty of existing templates to choose from, or you can type a prompt into the free template maker and Adobe’s AI will generate several template options, complete with copy, for you to choose from. From there, you can customize to your heart’s content.

Pricing: Free, or from $11 per month for Adobe Premium.

Based in: San Jose, California.

Best for: Start-ups, entrepreneurs, marketing agencies, SMMEs and larger companies.

4. Canva

(Source: Canva)

This is the same Canva that fans know and love, with oodles of YouTube thumbnail templates to choose from and endless customization options, including swapping out or uploading your own images.

On the AI side, Canva now has a huge selection of AI plugins that allow you to generate images, videos and voice-overs from text. Create your own presenter avatar for YouTube videos and use their picture in your AI-generated thumbnail.

Pricing: Canva offers a free plan with basic features or a monthly subscription starting at $12,99.

Based in: New South Wales, Australia.

Best for: Entrepreneurs and SMMEs.

5. Appy Pie

(Source: Appy Pie)

Appy Pie’s AI YouTube thumbnail maker is an app designed to help creators intuitively craft thumbnails with ease. Choose a template from their extensive library, then customize it using AI-powered features: Tweak text, images, colors and layouts to fit your brand and video.

The tool offers over 200 professionally designed templates and allows you to upload your own images or use AI-generated ones to enhance your thumbnails.

Their USP? Users can take advantage of AI suggestions for text and images, ensuring even those without skills can create high-quality thumbnails.

Appy Pie also offers a wide range of other services, including website building, app development and various AI tools for marketing, content creation and customer service. This makes it a one-stop shop for digital creators looking to enhance their online presence.

Pricing: From $16 per month.

Based in: Hampton, Virginia.

Best for: Content creators, marketers and SMMEs, or large corporations needing support for marketing outputs.

6. Veed

(Source: Veed)

This product is all about simplifying the video creation process, so it’s no surprise that Veed also offers AI tools to streamline the creation of YouTube thumbnails.

Unlike most competitors, Veed doesn’t require users to create an account to access the AI YouTube thumbnail maker page. Text-to-image prompts will generate an image that—much like many others—you can customize and embellish with text, animations, audio and graphics.

Pricing: Veed offers a free AI thumbnail maker with basic features, or a monthly subscription starting from $12 per month.

Based in: London, England.

Best for: Video and TikTok content creators.

7. Visme

(Source: Visme)

This popular online design service also offers a wealth of YouTube thumbnail templates, which you can edit using AI prompts.

We love that Visme’s AI prompt process and guidance are built in. You’ll be asked about the content of the video, the main highlights you want to showcase and any additional details. If you’re happy with the AI-generated template, you can go ahead and download or customize it, or head back to the prompt process to tweak until the desired results are achieved.

Pricing: From $4 per month.

Based in: Rockville, Maryland.

Best for: Start-ups, entrepreneurs, small marketing agencies and SMMEs.

8. Hotpot

(Source: Hotpot)

Hotpot is a fuss-free source of AI-generated copy, images, headshots and app content. The free YouTube thumbnail builder offers a relatively small but good-quality selection of templates and super user-friendly customization options. No sign-in or payment required.

Pricing: To download free YouTube thumbnails, Hotpot asks that you attribute the images accordingly. Alternatively, monthly fees start from $10 per month.

Based in: Los Altos, California.

Best for: Content creators, entrepreneurs and small businesses.

9. Fotor

(Source: Fotor)

Similar in look and feel to Adobe’s thumbnail dashboard, Fotor offers templates and AI-generated design elements like images and graphics. Its latest proprietary AI model, Fotor M2, has stronger semantic understanding and visual text-to-image generation capabilities.

Unfortunately, the free version includes a watermark.

Pricing: Free (with watermark), or from $3,99 per month.

Based in: Hong Kong, China.

Best for: Content creators, entrepreneurs and small businesses.

10. Thumbnail.ai

(Source: Thumbnail.ai)

This thumbnail maker is 100% free, which possibly explains why it’s a bit, uhm, basic.

However, if your thumbnail needs are simple, this is an easy tool to use. Much like others, it generates a thumbnail template from prompts using AI, which can then be customized or refined.

Pricing: Free

Based in: Ethiopia.

Best for: Casual content creators.

Superside’s Mastery: Blending AI with Human Creativity for YouTube Thumbnail Design

You now have everything you need to create click-worthy, captivating thumbnails using the best AI currently has to offer. Of course, if you spend time exploring DIY AI thumbnail generators, you’ll bump up against their limitations (such as lacking an intuitive understanding of your audience and brand, and limited design quality).

This is where human expertise comes in.

Thinking Superside could be what you need for YouTube thumbnail generation? Our team of creatives leverages top AI tools to create any creative for your different needs. Book a quick demo, and we'll answer all your questions.