Faceless YouTube Shorts on autopilot
Give it a niche and it gives you a finished YouTube Short — topic, script, voiceover, matching footage and animated captions, rendered to a ready-to-post 1080x1920 video. Setup is one config node, and a free dry-run mode lets you preview the result before spending anything.
Copy, then paste directly onto your n8n canvas (Ctrl/Cmd + V) — or import the downloaded file via Workflow menu → Import from file.
How it works
Give it a niche. It gives you a finished YouTube Short.
You set your topic area once — "surprising space facts", "SaaS pricing tips", whatever your channel is about. Every run produces a complete, ready-to-post vertical video.
What one run does
- Picks a topic it hasn't used before.
- Writes the script for a short, punchy video with a hook and a call to action.
- Records the voiceover in the voice you chose.
- Finds the footage — a separate clip matched to every line of the script.
- Burns in animated captions that follow the narration word by word.
- Renders a 1080×1920 video, ready to upload.
- Uploads it to YouTube — optional, and off until you turn it on.
What the finished video looks like
Captions stay on the voice, word for word, in your brand colour. The footage changes exactly when a sentence ends, so it feels cut rather than generated. Every clip gets a slow push-in, there's a music bed underneath, your channel handle sits in the corner, and it closes on your own call-to-action card.
Everything visual is yours to change from a single config node: colours, font, caption style, how many words appear at once, transition style, outro text.
Nothing to install
All 32 nodes are standard n8n. There are no community nodes to install, and no stock-footage accounts to open — the footage, photos and music are all included.
Set up steps
About five minutes, start to finish.
1. Import the workflow
Download the JSON from this page and import it into n8n.
2. Add three credentials
| Service | What it's for | Credential |
|---|---|---|
| Zvid | Renders the video | Header Auth, name x-api-key, your key from app.zvid.io/api-keys |
| ElevenLabs | The voice | Header Auth, name xi-api-key, your ElevenLabs key |
| OpenRouter | Writes the script | OpenRouter credential (or any OpenAI-compatible chat API) |
Attach the Zvid credential to Upload voiceover, Save draft to editor, Validate project, Submit render and Get render status. ElevenLabs goes on Generate voiceover, OpenRouter on Write script.
All three have free tiers that cover normal use. ElevenLabs' free plan is roughly 25 videos a month.
3. Set your channel up
Open the Channel Config node. This is the only node you need to edit.
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
niche |
Your topic area — this drives everything |
audience |
Who it's for; sets the tone |
channelHandle |
Shown in the corner and on the closing card |
voiceId |
Which ElevenLabs voice reads it |
brandBackground / brandAccent |
Your colours — the accent highlights the spoken word |
targetSeconds |
Roughly how long the video should be |
sceneCount |
How many clips (5 on a free plan) |
Everything else already has a working default.
Picking a voice
Copy a voice ID from your ElevenLabs dashboard. On a free ElevenLabs plan you can use the default voices but not Voice Library ones. These work on a free plan:
| Voice | ID |
|---|---|
| Brian — deep narrator (default) | nPczCjzI2devNBz1zQrb |
| George — warm narrator | JBFqnCBsd6RMkjVDRZzb |
| Roger | CwhRBWXzGAHq8TQ4Fs17 |
| Sarah | EXAVITQu4vr4xnSDxMaL |
| Bill | pqHfZKP75CvOlQylNhV4 |
4. Try it free
Run it. Dry run is on by default, so nothing is charged. You get:
- the exact credit cost before you commit
- a scene-by-scene breakdown
- an editor link that opens the finished draft so you can watch it back
Change anything you don't like and run it again — still free.
5. Go live
Happy with the draft? Set dryRun to false and run it again to get the real video.
A 30-second Short is around 28–32 credits.
To publish automatically, set uploadToYouTube to true and connect a YouTube
credential. Leave youTubePrivacy on private until you've seen a few.
6. Put it on a schedule
The workflow ships with a daily trigger set to 9am and a manual trigger for testing. Activate the workflow when you want it running on its own.
Posting somewhere other than YouTube
The output is a standard MP4. Swap the final node for TikTok, Instagram, Google Drive, or anything else — the rest of the workflow is unchanged.
More n8n workflows
Create dynamic Shopify product ad variants with Zvid
Turn selected Shopify products into multiple product-first, benefit-first, and offer-first video ads. Zvid validates and bulk-renders the concepts, while n8n returns review links or sends a tracking-ready manifest to your asset store or social scheduler.
Create and publish Shopify product videos with Zvid
Create branded vertical videos for Shopify products with Zvid. This workflow finds eligible catalog items, validates and renders them in bulk, returns editor and review links, and can stage and attach the finished MP4s to matching products through Shopify?s Admin GraphQL API.
Create daily motivational quote videos from Google Sheets
Turn the first pending quote in Google Sheets into a polished 1080x1920 Reel, Short, or TikTok video every day. This n8n workflow validates and renders the video, writes the finished MP4 URL back to the exact Sheet row, and lets you watch it inside n8n.
Ready to ship video at scale?
Start free — your first render is only a JSON payload away.