The 🥇 thumbnail maker for YouTube creators
A Canva and Photoshop level editor with no subscriptions. All on your machine, pay once, own it forever
Every tool you need.
Nothing you don't.
A purpose-built editor for YouTube thumbnails. Designed around how creators actually iterate on a hook.
One tap. Background gone. Runs on your machine.
Drag the handle to see it for yourself. WebAssembly inference on every machine, every OS. Nothing uploads anywhere.
- Runs offline in WebAssembly. No upload. No usage cap.
- Open-source build ships with BRIA RMBG-1.4 for sharper cutouts.
- Queue dozens at once from the gallery.
- Non-destructive. Your original layer is never touched.
AI at API rates. Not SaaS rates.
Bring your own Google AI Studio key. Pay Google directly at ~$0.04 per image. No middle-man markup. Type a prompt below to see it in action.
Every format. Every platform. One dialog.
PNG, JPEG, WebP, animated GIF and MP4. YouTube, Shorts, X, custom sizes. Drag the quality slider below.
Export Image
Pull a frame from any video.
Drag any MP4 or MOV in. Scrub with arrow keys. Extract at source resolution.
Layer panel that actually works.
Toggle, lock, group, drag to reorder. Like Photoshop. Native speed.
100 thumbnails. One workspace.
Search, sort, bulk export, 30-day trash. Built for people who ship daily.
From video to thumbnail in three steps.
Drop in your source
Drag any image, paste from clipboard, or drop a video and scrub for the frame. Nothing uploads anywhere.
Compose with AI on tap
Cut the background, generate a new one with your Gemini key, drop in text, glow, badges. Iterate in seconds.
Export to every platform
Pick a preset, pick a format, ship. The same project gives you YouTube, Shorts, and X in one click.
Why pay $20 a month
for AI you barely use?
Most thumbnail tools bundle AI into a fat monthly fee. Backstage doesn't. Paste your Google AI Studio key once and you pay Google directly at API rates. Most creators spend under $2 a month on Gemini even when generating dozens of variants per video.
- Get a free key from aistudio.google.com in 30 seconds
- Key is stored encrypted in your OS keychain. Never leaves your machine.
- Swap to a different Gemini model anytime. You control the cost knob.
- No rate limits from us. No quota from us. We're not in the loop.
Your work stays on your machine.
Backstage is a native desktop app, not a web wrapper. Your projects, your source files, your API keys. Never sent to a server we control.
No cloud round-trip
Background removal runs in WebAssembly on-device. Video frame extraction never leaves your disk. Your unfinished thumbnails don't exist on anybody else's hard drive.
Your files, your folder
Projects live on your filesystem as plain folders. Move them, sync them in Dropbox, version-control them in git. We don't lock you into a proprietary cloud.
Keys in your keychain
Your Gemini API key is stored using the native OS secure store: macOS Keychain, Windows Credential Manager, libsecret on Linux. Never plaintext on disk. Never seen by us.
Built for thumbnails.
Everything else is for something else.
Real comparison of the tools creators actually evaluate.
Built in the open. Shipped to creators who notice.
“I went from spending 40 minutes on a thumbnail in Photoshop to 8 minutes in Backstage. The video-frame extractor alone is worth the price.”
“BYO key is the killer feature. I was paying for Canva Pro and a separate Midjourney sub just for thumbnails. Now I pay Google $1.50 a month and that's it.”
“Finally a tool that respects that I have my own workflow. It's not trying to be everything for everyone. Layers work like Photoshop. Export is fast. That's it.”
“Native, dark, keyboard-first. It feels like a developer made it. Probably because one did.”
“The carousel generator changed my A/B testing workflow. I can run 4 variants of the same thumbnail concept and pick the winner in minutes.”
“$20 lifetime in a world of $25 a month subscriptions feels almost suspicious. Then you realize it's open source and built by one person and it makes sense.”
MIT-licensed and audited by anyone who wants to.
Backstage's source is on GitHub. The desktop app, the editor, the AI integrations. Every line. The lifetime deal is for the prebuilt, signed, auto-updating binaries we ship and support. If you'd rather compile it yourself, that's free.
All updates included.
No “Pro tier” hiding behind a paywall.
Every feature below ships to your existing license at zero extra cost.
Pay once. Use forever.
No subscriptions. No “AI credits”. No B.S.
A founders-week lifetime deal while we hit 1,000 customers. Locked-in pricing. Every future update is included.
Backstage Lifetime
One payment. Every feature. Every update. Every platform. Forever.
- Layer editor, AI tools, video extractor, carousel
- Mac, Windows, and Linux signed binaries
- All future updates (template library, A/B analyzer, more)
- Priority email support, direct from the dev
- 30-day refund. No questions asked.
- Use on every device you own
Billed once via Polar. No auto-renewal. No card on file.
Buy Backstage LifetimeSecure checkout via Polar. Instant license delivery.
The honest answers.
What does "lifetime" actually mean?
What's "bring your own Gemini key" and why?
Do I have to use AI?
What if the app shuts down?
Can I use it on multiple machines?
Refunds?
What about commercial use of the BRIA model?
Why is it so cheap?
Ship better thumbnails this weekend.
Pay $20 once. Use it for the rest of your career.