Pictory MCP Server

The Pictory MCP server lets Claude create videos through your Pictory account. It exposes the Text-to-Video API as a set of tools that Claude calls on your behalf, so you describe the video in plain English and Claude writes the script, designs the scenes, finds the visuals and music, submits the render, and hands you the link. There is nothing to install. You add the server to Claude once, sign in with your Pictory account, and it is available in every conversation. Every action runs against your own account, so your plan, quota and AI Credits apply exactly as they do for a direct API call.

​

Two ways to connect

​

What you can ask for

Once connected, you can say things like:

• “Make a 60-second explainer about our new expense-tracking feature, professional tone, for YouTube.”
• “Create a vertical Instagram teaser for our coffee brand: warm, cozy, upbeat music.”
• “Turn this blog post into a video: https://example.com/post”
• “Show me a preview first.” Claude builds the storyboard and gives you a preview link before anything is rendered.
• “Make the title smaller and swap the clip on scene 2.” After a preview, edits are applied in place; the same preview link shows the change.
• “Which voices do you have?”, “How much quota do I have left?”

Claude settles a few things with you before it starts: what the video is about, whether it is narrated and in which voice, whether it has music, what shape it is, and whether to save it as a project in your Pictory workspace. It never renders a preview into a final video without your go-ahead.

​

Who designs the scenes

This is the first question Claude asks, and the most consequential. It decides what you supply, how much control you keep, and which tools come into play. There is no default, so Claude always asks; the choice applies to the whole video, not to individual scenes.

​

Pictory designs it

Pictory’s AI Storyboard lays out every scene: the visuals, the on-screen text, the colors and the pacing. You supply the source material only, as any one of:

• A brief. A plain-language prompt for a video Pictory writes the script for. Claude asks what the video is about, what it is for (an explainer, marketing, internal communication, a tutorial or a product video), how long it should run (8–500 seconds) and how it should sound. It asks where the video will be published too, because that settles the shape.
• A script you already have. The storyboard splits it into scenes and designs each one around your words.
• A blog or article URL. Pictory reads the page and turns it into a video.
• Scene-by-scene narration. You give the narration for each scene, with an optional background per scene.

Beyond the source, you still choose the narration voice, the music, the shape, a brand kit and a subtitle style. A background you name for a scene is honored; everything else about the layout is the storyboard’s to decide, which is the point of this mode. Templates, smart layouts and the 4:5 ratio are not available here. Best for speed, for turning existing written content into video, and for anyone who does not want to art-direct. Searching for media is unnecessary, because the storyboard sources its own visuals.

​

Design it together

You and Claude compose each scene explicitly, then send the finished design. Per scene you control:

• Narration. It becomes both the voice-over and the burned-in subtitles. A title or call-to-action card may omit it, but then needs a minimum duration.
• Background. Exactly one of a stock clip or image (from a search, or your own URL), a solid color, or an AI-generated visual. Plus an optional color tint, a slow pan on stills, and loop or mute on footage. A stock clip loops by default, so a short clip still covers the narration over it.
• Elements, up to 20 per scene, drawn in order:
  • Text overlays with control over font, size, color, case, alignment, wrap width, placement and entry or exit animation. Every text element enters with an animation unless you ask for none: a heading drifts up, other text fades in.
  • Shape overlays from a library of badges, arrows, quote marks, underlines, blobs and speech bubbles, plus plain rectangles, circles and lines that can be drawn to any width and height. A rectangle with both is a bar, a panel or a divider, which is how bar charts, stat rings and stat tiles are built. A filled shape placed before a text element gives the text its own panel.
  • Extra image or video panels, from a search, your own URL, or an AI prompt.
• Placement. An anchor preset (nine positions relative to the scene, kept clear of the edges) or an exact top and left offset in percent.
• Scene transition, minimum duration, and the option to hide subtitles where your own text elements already carry the words.

The natural rhythm is draft, preview, adjust, render. A preview takes 2–5 minutes; Claude can estimate the layout before that and flag anything that overlaps. Once the preview is up, edits to wording, size, color, placement, a clip, a tint or the music are applied in place at the same URL. Only a new scene or a new element needs a fresh preview, and when a design is resent the narration already voiced is reused: visual and layout changes never cost a new voice, and only scenes whose wording changed, or a change of voice, speed or volume, are voiced again. Best for branded, precisely laid out or template-like videos, and for data and infographic scenes. Stock media and music are free; AI-generated visuals draw AI Credits.

​

Which to choose

You can ask for a preview in either mode, and in Design it together you can keep editing that preview until it is right before anything is rendered.

​

Tools

Thirteen tools, in four groups.

​

Creating and rendering

​

Refining a preview

​

Finding assets

​

Account and options

​

What you get back

A finished job returns the MP4, a watch link, an embed link, the narration audio, and subtitles in both SRT and VTT.

​

Quick reference

​

What you need

Two things must be in place, or the connection fails at sign-in.

​

MCP server or Claude Skill?

Both let you create videos by describing them. The MCP server works wherever you use Claude and signs in with your Pictory account. The Text-to-Video skill runs in Claude Code with your API key and carries its own design playbook for developers who want to script the process. The Pictory for Claude overview compares the two.