14 Best YouTube Thumbnail Makers of 2025 (Free & Online)
The quality of YouTube thumbnails you use is just as important as the video quality. YouTube thumbnail is the first point of contact that YouTube users notice first before they even watch your video.
If you upload videos without thumbnails, YouTube will generate an irregular image thumbnail which can lessen the number of views the video can potentially generate. Thumbnails are also important for other video-sharing platforms.
Creating a thumbnail is no good if it is not eye-catching. An eye-catching YouTube thumbnail is one of the easiest ways to get more YouTube subscribers fast. Your number of views will explode with an eye-catching thumbnail compared to a poorly designed one or no thumbnail.
However, creating a click-worthy YouTube thumbnail is challenging easily if you have no skill in graphic design.
The easiest and fastest way to create click-worthy YouTube thumbnails with no graphic design skill is to use a YouTube thumbnail maker. There are so many YouTube thumbnail makers, you need to selectively pick the best tools to help increase views and better monetize your YouTube channel.
In this article, you will learn 14 or the best YouTube thumbnail makers (free and online) which you can use to create eye-catching and click-worthy YouTube thumbnails.
Let’s get started.
Comparison of Best YouTube Thumbnail Makers
1. Canva
Best YouTube Thumbnail Maker with Multipurpose Tools
Canva is one of the best graphic design tools in the market for online use. You can use the multipurpose tool to create eye-catching YouTube thumbnails for your YouTube channel. It is easy to use for users with little or no design skills.
The YouTube thumbnail maker has a wide range of YouTube thumbnail templates which users can edit to suit their needs. With its simple drag-and-drop user interface, you can search for YouTube thumbnail templates, import images, and add other images from Canva to create your design.
Canva is a comprehensive graphic design tool that allows users to create any graphic design they need for their personal, social media, and business needs. There are over 1 million+ photo, graphics, templates, and fonts available in Canva’s ever-growing extensive library.
You can access the online graphic design application from anywhere. It works on any web browser such as Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Opera, and Safari. Thanks to its mobile app, users can easily create YouTube thumbnails from their mobile devices.
Pricing
Canva offers three pricing plans: free, pro, and enterprise. The free plan allows you to create video thumbnails for your YouTube channel. However, you have to register to use it.
If you want access to more templates than the 250 thousand free templates limitation of the free plan, you have to sign up for its pro and enterprise plans.
2. Adobe Spark
Best YouTube Thumbnail Maker for Creating Professional Video Thumbnails
Adobe Spark is one of the best YouTube thumbnail makers available in the market. The online application offers users tons of customizable and professional video thumbnail templates.
With the software, you do not need to create your YouTube thumbnails from scratch. You can use Adobe Spark’s rich templates to create amazing video thumbnails easily and quickly.
The YouTube thumbnail maker allows users to add custom backgrounds, text, colors, and other elements to the YouTube thumbnail template you choose to make it stand out. You can also add additional images to the thumbnail. It is a basic and easy-to-use tool that is suitable for beginners with little or no graphic design skills.
Adobe Spark is available for Windows (Windows 7 or newer), Mac OS X, and Chromebook. You can use its online editor to create, save, edit, apply filters, zoom in and out, reuse, and resize your YouTube thumbnail.
The online application also helps users to create any sort of art and images for their social media accounts, individual, and business needs. You can use it to design social media graphics, websites, short videos, and many more.
Pricing
Adobe Spark has three pricing plans: starter plan, individual, and team. The starter plan is free and allows users to create YouTube thumbnails from scratch or use one of its free templates.
The individual plan is suitable for individuals who want to enjoy access to premium features and YouTube thumbnail templates, while the team plan is best for managing multiple users in one account.
3. Placeit
Best YouTube Thumbnail Maker
Placeit is one of the best YouTube thumbnail makers in the market. The online application is an easy design tool that is suitable for beginners. You do not need any design skills to use this tool effectively.
There are over 1,000 pre-built YouTube thumbnail templates that you can choose from. You enjoy a diversified collection of templates that cut across different niches such as fitness, gaming, crafts and DIY, marketing, education, sports, tech, beauty, and more.
Placeit provides you the tools you need to customize any of its YouTube thumbnail templates to match your brand. You can add images, text, and styles to your design.
The YouTube thumbnail maker saves you time and money it would cost to hire a graphic designer to design video thumbnails for each video you upload on your YouTube channel. With the online design tool, you can create YouTube thumbnails within the constraints of your budget (for free with its free plan).
Pricing
Placeit offers users access to its free YouTube thumbnail templates and tools for free. However, if you want to enjoy unlimited features and pro templates, you have to subscribe to its premium plans. The monthly plan costs $14.95 per month and the annual plan costs $89.69 per year.
4. Venngage
Best YouTube Thumbnail and Banner Maker with Highly-Customizable Templates
Venngage offers users a rich collection of YouTube templates which they can use to design eye-catching YouTube thumbnails and banners. With its YouTube templates, you can showcase your YouTube channel in the best light to attract more viewers which helps you better monetize your YouTube channel.
The online design tool optimizes its YouTube video thumbnail templates to meet YouTube’s requirements. They include a 16:9 aspect ratio, optimal resolution of 1280×720 (the minimum width of 640 pixels), image formats (JPG, PNG, or GIF), and under 2 MB file size limit.
Creating a YouTube thumbnail with Venngage is easy and quick. You do not have to be a professional designer to create amazing YouTube video thumbnails for your YouTube videos. Users can use their brand logos, colors, and other important brand aesthetics and information to design their YouTube thumbnails.
Venngage provides users with millions of stock photos, icons, and illustrations they can use in their YouTube thumbnail designs. You need to sign up on Venngage with an email, Gmail, or Facebook account to enjoy access to its free services.
The YouTube thumbnail maker downloads the video thumbnail you created as a high-quality PNG. It helps you upload your video thumbnail design directly to your YouTube channel.
Pricing
Venngage has four pricing plans: free, premium, business, and enterprise. The free plan offers users access to five designs and five image uploads. All designs with the free plan come with Venngage branding.
If you want to enjoy access to unlimited designs, more image uploads, and premium templates, you have to sign up for its premium plans (premium, business, and enterprise).
5. Crello
Best YouTube Thumbnail Maker with Extensive Pool of Free Templates and Photos
Crello is a comprehensive graphic design software tool with an extensive pool of templates and photos available to users for free. There are over 20,000+ templates, 250 fonts, and an enormous library of images (500,000 free photos and access to Depositphotos library of 80 million photos) you can use to create your YouTube thumbnail design.
Creating catchy and appealing thumbnails with Crello to generate more views, likes, and subscriptions to your YouTube channel is easy. The YouTube thumbnail maker offers specific template sections which you can use for creating channel art and YouTube thumbnails.
Designing on Crello is easy and user-friendly even for those with no graphic design skills. You can also build your YouTube thumbnails from scratch with the software. Crello supports multiple alphabets such as the Latin/English, Cyrillic, and Hebrew alphabets.
Pricing
Crello has two pricing plans for users: starter and pro. The starter plan offers users access to five design downloads every month, 50K+ static and animated graphic design templates, 1M+ free premium images, thousands of Full HD video clips and animations, and instant access to 200M+ royalty-free stock files from Depositphotos.
The pro plan offers users access to unlimited downloads, team collaboration, and all the features offered in the free plan.
6. Picmaker
Best YouTube Thumbnail Maker for YouTubers
Picmaker is one of the best YouTube thumbnail makers available in the market. The online graphic design tool offers users access to over 700+ professionally designed templates, 100,000 graphic elements, 1000s of stock images and filters, and other tools you need to create eye-catching YouTube video thumbnails.
Users can choose its customized YouTube thumbnails and edit them to suit their brand to attract more views, comments, and subscribers for their videos. It also has a background burner tool that removes an image’s background quickly and easily. Signing up to Picmaker is free and simple. There is no credit card required to enjoy its free plan.
The YouTube thumbnail generator saves you the time you would have spent on creating video thumbnails from scratch. It also saves you the money you would have spent on hiring freelance graphic designers from freelance job sites such as Upwork and Fiverr to carry out the task.
Picmaker is a suitable tool for creating YouTube video thumbnails across different niches such as video games, music, cuisine, entertainment, and others. You can use the YouTube thumbnail maker to add cool outlines, pick color filters, and use gradients.
The online design tool lets users upload their pictures and edit them to their preference. Picmaker lets you download your favorite YouTube thumbnails in different file formats such as JPEG, PNG, PDF, and SVG.
Pricing
Picmaker has four pricing plans: free, starter, pro, and enterprise. The free plan is suitable for individual users with little design needs, while the starter plan is suitable for users who want access to more design features.
The pro and enterprise plans are suitable for businesses and teams who want access to more customization templates and unlimited storage.
7. Fotor
Best YouTube Thumbnail Maker for Modern-looking Video Thumbnails
Fotor is a great YouTube thumbnail creator that helps users to create eye-catching YouTube thumbnails. The photo editing software does this by offering users a rich range of well-designed YouTube thumbnail templates to choose from. It lets you edit its modern-looking youTube thumbnail templates according to your style.
The YouTube thumbnail maker has a simple and easy-to-use interface that users at all skill levels, including beginners, can use. It offers users a rich range of editing tools and custom elements that they can use to enhance the attractiveness of their thumbnails.
With the graphic design software, users enjoy the text and design elements including stickers and emoji which they can add to their YouTube thumbnails to give it a modern look.
One advantage of using Fotor to create your YouTube thumbnails is that it saves your unfinished and finished thumbnail designs on the cloud. The photo editor offers users HDR effects for advanced editing needs.
Pricing
Fotor offers three pricing plans: Fotor basic, Fotor pro, and Fotor pro+. Fotor’s basic plan is free and suitable for new users with little photo editing and creation needs.
The Fotor pro plan costs $8.99 per month and it is the ideal plan for small businesses, freelancers, and designers. The Fotor pro+ plan is best for agencies, start-ups, and corporate marketing.
8. Creatopy
Best YouTube Thumbnail for Amazing Visuals
Creatopy is one of the best YouTube thumbnail markers in the market. The online application offers users a wide range of eye-catching YouTube thumbnail templates which helps them attract more engagement to their videos and ultimately their YouTube channels.
Using the intuitive YouTube thumbnail creator is easy. All you have to do is to select the YouTube thumbnail template you want to customize and use its simple drag and drop design elements to create the best YouTub thumbnails.
The YouTube thumbnail maker helps you to loosen up your creativity and create amazing YouTube thumbnails. You save time as you do not have to start from scratch thanks to its collection of YouTube thumbnail templates.
Creatopy offers users a wide range of editing features such as stock images, textures, and more. It covers the technical aspect of designing a YouTube thumbnail. The online application helps you create clean and simple thumbnails that match YouTube’s requirements.
Apart from being a YouTube thumbnail maker, Creatopy also offers more ad designs such as YouTube banner maker, LinkedIn banner creator, Twitter header maker, and Instagram story design.
Pricing
Creatopy offers four pricing plans: free, create, automate, and enterprise. The free plan gives you access to templates and graphic resources you can use to create static designs.
The create plan allows you to create both static and animated designs, it is best for individuals. The automate plan is best for collaboration between teams, while the enterprise plan is suitable for agencies and organizations.
9. Visme
Best YouTube Thumbnail Maker for Making Custom YouTube Thumbnails
Visme is an easy-to-customize YouTube thumbnail maker for users of all design skill levels, including those with little or no design. The easy-to-use YouTube thumbnail maker offers users tons of templates to choose from.
You can easily edit every part of the templates to suit your needs. The drag-and-drop YouTube thumbnail maker lets you easily edit the shape, size, and location of different elements on the chosen template. Users can also add new sections such as custom text, graphics, and icons. ‘
With the online application, you can easily apply an existing color scheme while creating the perfect YouTube thumbnail or create one to match your YouTube channel art colors. You can also add your visuals and choose your fonts. Visme lets you choose from millions of images and apply color overlays and filters to your design.
The YouTube thumbnail helps users create professional thumbnails. Over 10.2 million people from about 120 countries use Visme. You can export and download your YouTube thumbnail design as JPEG or PNG image format and upload it to YouTube as your video thumbnail.
Pricing
Visme offers users access to four pricing plans: free, standard, business, and enterprise. The free plan gives you access to limited YouTube thumbnail designs and features.
The standard plan is suitable for individuals, the business plan is best for managing your brand, team, and scaling. The enterprise plan is ideal for organizations or users who want access to advanced features such as upgraded security, onboarding, support, and integrations.
10. PicMonkey
Best YouTube Thumbnail Maker for Brands
PicMonkey is one of the best YouTube thumbnail creators available in the market. The YouTube thumbnail creator has over 100 professionally designed YouTube thumbnail templates that users can choose from and customize to fit their purpose.
Users have the option of starting with a blank canvas and customizing your YouTube thumbnail for scratch or start with one of its customizable YouTube thumbnail templates. Picmonkey allows you to add your own photos, graphics, text, and logos to your design.
The YouTube thumbnail creator is excellent for beginners. It offers in-depth tutorials which teach you everything you need to know about creating the perfect YouTube thumbnail with Picmonkey. Even if you have not used the tool before, you can follow its easy instructions to create the perfect YouTube thumbnail that matches your brand image.
Picmonkey provides users with lots of design resources such as filters, fonts, frames, exclusive overlays, and other beautifying touch-up type tools.
Pricing
PicMonkey has three pricing plans: basic, pro, and business. The basic and pro plans offer users a 7-day free trial option.
The basic plan is suitable for single individuals and rising creators, the pro plan is best for growing businesses, while the business plan is excellent for businesses and organizations looking to scale.
11. Snappa
Fast YouTube Thumbnail Maker with Automatic Resizing Feature
Snappa is a graphic design software tool that offers users an online YouTube thumbnail maker for making high-resolution YouTube thumbnails.
The online application offers users a wide range of stunning templates and high-resolution images to help them create the perfect YouTube thumbnail to generate more views, comments, and subscribers.
With the YouTube thumbnail creator, you can create YouTube thumbnails from scratch or use its templates. There are limitless design options offered by Snappa to make the design process easy and versatile to fit the needs of different users. You can add custom fonts, shapes, backgrounds, icons, and other design elements to your design.
The simple and versatile YouTube thumbnail maker is suitable for non-designers who have no prior experience with photo editing tools.
One of the greatest benefits of using Snappa is that you can use the same tools you use to create YouTube video thumbnails to create other designs for social media platforms. You need to create a free account to start using the YouTube thumbnail creator.
Pricing
Snappa has three pricing plans: free, pro, and team. The free plan offers users 6,000+ templates, 5 million+ HD photos and graphics, and 3 downloads per month.
The pro plan is suitable for individuals who want access to all the benefits of the free plan in addition to other features such as unlimited downloads per month, social media integrations, custom font uploads, and image background removal.
The team plan is suitable for up to five users. This plan offers all the benefits of the free and pro plans and offers team collaboration.
12. Fotojet
Best YouTube Thumbnail Maker for Mac and Windows
Fotojet is one of the best YouTube thumbnail makers in the market. The online application provides users with tools for creating eye-catching YouTube video thumbnails. With the versatile and comprehensive graphic design tool, you can perform photo editing, collage-making, and graphic design activities.
The YouTube thumbnail maker gives users access to over 700 professionally designed templates. With its advanced thumbnail maker, you can add filters to the template you select.
You can easily crop, rotate, filter, or resize your images with the graphic design tool. The online application has a simple and easy-to-use user interface. There is no need to sign up to enjoy its free YouTube thumbnail maker.
Fotojet is a social media graphic design software that allows you to create direct posts for your social media accounts such as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. The online application is available online and supports Windows and Mac operating systems.
Pricing
Fotojet has a free plan that offers you basic editing tools and features. If you want access to advanced editing tools and features, you have to subscribe to a premium plan.
The YouTube thumbnail maker offers two premium plans, you can either subscribe to its monthly billing or annual billing. The monthly plan costs $6.99 per month while the annual plan costs $39.99. Both plans offer you a 7-day free trial.
13. Pixelied
Best YouTube Thumbnail Maker for Creating Jaw-Dropping Thumbnails for YouTubers
Pixelled is one of the best design tools for creating eye-catching YouTube thumbnails. One of the benefits of using this software to create YouTube thumbnails for your videos is that it helps users generate YouTube thumbnails quickly.
Compared to how long it takes to get a graphic designer to design a custom YouTube thumbnail for you, the online application is super fast at generating YouTube thumbnails. The YouTube thumbnail creator saves you from spending on expensive graphic design and photo editing software just to create YouTube thumbnails.
The easy-to-use YouTube thumbnail maker is a YouTuber's paradise. It offers all the tools you need to design YouTube thumbnails easily and quickly. There is no need to get a graphic design education to use the tool.
Pixelied makes it easy for you to add your favorite fonts, text, or any image to your design. The online tool is suitable for creating multiple YouTube thumbnails. You can use its background image removal to remove background images from your design.
Pricing
Pixelled offers users two pricing plans: free and pro. The free plan gives users access to 200+ templates, unlimited downloads, and 5 million+ stock photos and icons.
The pro plan offers users access to all templates, unlimited downloads, team collaboration, background removal, resizing, and custom font uploads.
14. BeFunky
Best User-Friendly YouTube Thumbnail Maker
BeFunky is one of the best YouTube thumbnails available on the market. The all-in-one design application offers users a rich selection of YouTube thumbnail templates that they can edit and customize to match their needs.
With BeFunky’s YouTube thumbnail maker, you can create professional and on-brand YouTube templates that give people a reason to check your video and subscribe to your channel. You do not need any design skills to use this software.
Using the online YouTube thumbnail maker is easy. Simply pick your favorite YouTube thumbnail template from BeFunky’s wide range of custom templates. You can then customize the designs by adding details such as photos, illustrations, icons, shapes, text, and others.
BeFunky lets users save their YouTube thumbnail designs and other YouTube thumbnail templates in an editable format so that users can easily access them when they need them. It saves you the stress of having to start afresh each time you want to use the software.
The online application offers you the option of starting your YouTube thumbnail from scratch without using its templates. You can also create YouTube channel arts and other social media templates with the online design tool. BeFunky lets you save your YouTube thumbnail design as a JPG or PNG on your device.
Pricing
BeFunky offers a free YouTube thumbnail creator that users can use to create eye-catching YouTube thumbnails for their videos.
The YouTube thumbnail maker has two pricing plans: monthly and annual plan. The monthly plan costs $8.99 per month while the annual plan costs $59.88.
YouTube Thumbnail Maker FAQ
A YouTube thumbnail maker is software that allows you to design pictures that will be used as the thumbnails of your videos on YouTube.
Your thumbnail is the first thing that people notice when browsing YouTube. It is a major factor that they use to judge your YouTube video if it is worth it or not.
If you want people to be engaged by your thumbnail immediately, you have to make it as striking as possible so that their interest is piqued. You need to use an alluring and eye-catching YouTube thumbnail to get visitors to watch, like, comment, and subscribe to your YouTube channels.
Creating a YouTube thumbnail can be done in a few easy steps. All you need is a photo editing website or app.
You have to select the picture you want to be the main subject of the thumbnail. Make sure that the picture is relevant to the video. If you do not have the time to create a custom thumbnail, you could just take a screenshot of the video. Edit the screenshot image in a way that makes it pop and avoid using dull colors.
One of the best recommendations for a thumbnail maker is Canva. Although it contains premium features as well as a pro version, Canva contains many worthwhile free-to-use functions. Canva can be easily accessed from its official website.
Some of its best features include simple to use drag and drop functions and free stocks of photos, backgrounds, and frames. Some Canva alternatives include PicMonkey, Fotojet, and Picmaker.
When you create your YouTube channel, the custom thumbnail option will not be activated by default so you have to enable it through YouTube settings. To enable the option you have to go through the YouTube verification process.
You can enable custom thumbnails by entering your channel on YouTube and clicking on the customize channel button on the top right side of the screen.
Next, you will click on the button on the bottom left column. There you will find out your account has not yet been verified. Request a verification code and enter your phone number. You will receive your code within a minute and enter it. Verification is complete after clicking the submit button.
Once your account is verified, you can go to your channel videos and select any video to add the custom thumbnail to select the thumbnail you want for the video and save!
Which YouTube Thumbnail Maker Should I Pick?
There are lots of YouTube thumbnail makers available for users. It can be a difficult task to select one from the lot. When choosing the right YouTube thumbnail maker for your video thumbnails, compare the functionality you want to achieve and what the tools offer.
Also, consider your design skills and budget. There is no point in paying for expensive graphic design software when your budget is low. If you have little or no design skills, getting a design tool that is not user-friendly and designed for pro designers will be a struggle.
Canva is the most user-friendly YouTube thumbnail maker for users with no design skills. If you want a tool with advanced features for creating professional YouTube thumbnails, Adobe Spark fits the bill.
If you are looking for a YouTube thumbnail maker with lots of highly customizable templates and photos available for free, Venngage, Placeit, Snappa are ideal picks.