Toonly Review: Pros, Cons, Lifetime Deal & Alternative

If you are looking for honest toonly reviews then you are on the right page. Toonly is not some kind of new animation software. It has 4-5 years since toonly exist in the market.

Toonly was developed by Bryxen same company that previously developed Doodly. That is one of the most famous animation software.

Recently ClickFunnel acquired Bryxen so now toonly come under the ClickFunnel. In a blog post they have mentioned they have great plans for Bryxen products but no update so far, except promoting clickfunnels.

Anyway, it doesn’t who acquired what unless the company is offering value to the end customer.

Toonly is already famous software in a video animation. Here I will share everything pros & cons, price, lifetime deal and compare it with other products as well.

Why Trust Us?

The reason why you should trust us is I have spent my own money on the toonly. Here is my receipt.

Toonly Recipt

Not only this, I have also spent tons of hours testing the product. In other words, this review is coming from genuine users.

What Is Toonly & What Problem it Solves?

Toonly is a 2D animation software that can help you to create cartoon explainer videos. All professionals use adobe after effects for making these types of videos.

However, after-effects is extremely difficult to use (creating a Hi video will take you easily 5 minutes) that’s why the type of software like toonly comes into play.

Basically toonly comes with pre-made characters and their actions, pre-made background and objects, and text templates.

No doubt, After effects is extremely powerful compared to Toonly and you need a powerful PC too. However, you can create any type of animation video with it. Here is the

Toonly Tutorial

When you purchase toonly you will automatically receive login details on the email that you have used while signing up. You will also receive toonly download link for both windows (the company has created different software for 32 and 64 bit) and mac.

Toonly needs a working internet connection.

How to Create a project: After the login, you will see the screen like the following screen. Click on the Create New Video and it will ask for the project name. Type the project name and click on Create.

Creating project in Toonly.

How To Add Background: Once you create the project, it will automatically open that project. Here as you can see I’m inside the project, in the left sidebar you can switch between Scenes, Background, Characters, Objects, Text, and Audio.

For adding background, just drag and drop the image that you like. By the way, you can also upload your own background. Toonly only supports pictures.

Toonly tutorial

How to Work With Characters: Now we have added background. Let’s see how we can add characters. First of all, switch to the characters tab from the left sidebar.

After that again drag and drop the characters that you want to add to the Scene. You can adjust the position later on.

The default action is idle which is doing nothing. For changing, action and other options click on the character and choose the gear icon. You can change the action from the type. As you can see Toonly comes with tons of actions along with a preview. Not only this, you can change your eyes and mouth emotions.

Another cool feature of toonly is Lips sync. Basically, you can upload your voiceover file and character will move his lips accordingly to create presentation type of videos.

Toonly character options

Adding Objects and Text: Next we have Objects in the left sidebar. Basically, objects are prop images such as country flags and other icons. Again to add them you just drag and drop them to the canvas.

Just like the background, you can also upload your own object it should be in the form of an image.

Coming to text, there are only 5 pre-made text templates as you can see in the screen. You can customize it a little bit for example changing font family, color, size & animation duration.

You can also upload your own font-family too.

Add Music & Voiceover: Adding Music or voiceover is quite simple to the toonly. Switch to the Audio tab, you will notice that Toonly comes with its own music library. You can also upload your own audio file.

To add them to the timeline just drag and drop to the canvas.

In case you want to add recording your voiceover inside toonly then you can do it from the Timeline. The last layer is for recording.

However, it is not recommended to do it inside the toonly. The reason behind this is that Toonly works in Scenes instead of 100% timeline, although all scenes come with a timeline, however making a full video inside one scene can hang your computer.

So for the recording, it will keep switching between Scenes and that can distract you. Plus toonly doesn’t have audio editing features such as noise reduction, volume, pitch control, etc.

Toonly Pros

Characters & their options: I think I love most about toonly is its characters’ options. You are getting plenty of character options inside toonly, you find any type of character such as a doctor, child, labor worker, etc.

Every character also has plenty of actions. On top of it, you can lips sync and customize facial emotions.

Upload own Font-Family: Toonly has added this feature very recently. Toonly has limited text templates however uploading its own font family is definitely a pro.

Lifetime Deal: Most of the animation software are available by subscription. However, toonly is available on a lifetime deal.

Desktop software: Unlike it’s most of the competitors that are cloud-based, toonly is desktop software. Keep in mind, that toonly is also cloud-based. It requires a working internet connection and everything will be saved on the cloud. However, still having software is better than cloud-based solutions.

Unlimited Login: Did you know that you can sign in to unlimited computers using the same toonly account. Yes, that’s true, it doesn’t matter how many devices are used toonly, their support will not disturb you.

Toonly Cons

Can’t Change the ratio: One of the biggest con of toonly is you can’t change the project ratio. All Videos will be in a 16:9 ratio which is great for youtube videos but not good for social media sites.

No pre-made templates: The second biggest con of Toonly is it doesn’t come with pre-made templates. Its alternative CreateStudio (will discuss more in the alternative section) come with a lot of pre-made templates where you can just change slight things and be ready to publish your video.

Not Suitable for longer videos: Toonly is not suitable in case you want to create longer videos such as 10 minutes longer. I tried, but some toonly hang my computer or show some error on the screen.

Only 5 Text templates: Last but not least toonly only has 5 text templates. No doubt, you can edit them, and upload your own font family however still it isn’t good enough. You will quickly realize that 5 text templates are not while making quality videos.

Paid Masterclass: On the thank you page, toonly provide you with some basic tutorials. However, if you want to master it then they have an elite masterclass that will cost you $97.

I think it should be available for free instead of charging $97.

How To Import Video Into Toonly

Inside the toonly you can import images (background, object) and audio files. However, there is no direct option for importing videos.

Now that doesn’t mean you can upload videos. For importing your videos you need to detach the audio file from the video. Now import audio in the Audio section.

For the video itself first convert it into a gif then import it inside objects or background.

Pricing & LifeTime Deal

Toonly does a brilliant thing in their marketing that is price. On the website they have provided is subscription-based extremely expensive for a product like toonly.

However, in the backend, the team is running lifetime deals on social media platforms. So when users figure out about lifetime deals they think they are getting the same price at low price. And a lot of people buy in the fear of missing out.

Their toonly been running this lifetime deal from the last 5-6 years. Here is the all information about their lifetime deal.

1. Toonly standard $67: That’s what we all see on the lifetime deal page. Here is what you are getting inside the standard plan.

  1. 30 Characters
  2. 17 character animations
  3. 1058 Ojbects
  4. 71 Background
  5. 20 Background Music
  6. 21 Scene Transitions
  7. 3 Text animations

Upsell 1) Toonly Enterprise $97: Once you purchased the standard deal then you will be pitched enterprise version at $97 one-time fees. Basically, the enterprise is more of everything more characters, more background, etc. here are all features

  1. 52 Additional Characters
  2. 13 Additional Character Animations
  3. Unlock 1024 Objects
  4. Unlock 68 Backgrounds
  5. 2 More Text templates
  6. 101 Scene Transitions
  7. 122 More Background Music

I recommend you to upgrade on this upsell. Without this, you won’t be able to make outstanding videos.

Upsell 2) Automated Script $97 The second upsell is the automated script. Basically, there is their software for sales videos script. I spend some time on it but nothing like toonly.

Basically, it asks you a few simple questions about your product then it fills in their pre-made template.

Their templates are good if you want to write a video script without hiring or learning copywriting

Upsell 3) Click Funnel Free Trial: As I mentioned above Toonly is acquired by click funnels. That’s why in the last upsell they try to sell Clickfunnels. You don’t have to pay anything upfront, however, you can claim 14 days free trial.

Tip: If you request click funnels team on the 12th or 13th day to extent your trial they will provide you 14 days more free trial.

Currently, there are 3 upsells. However, once they do your email address they will sell you Doodly and other products created by their company.

Toonly Alternative

There are so many alternatives to Toonly. Here is the comparison with a few main alternatives.

Toonly vs CreateStudio: CreateStudio is the strongest alternative to Toonly. Unlike Toonly CreateStudio can also create 3d animation videos and doodle videos too. Here are the toonly pros of CreateStudio

  1. Lips Sync: Toonly can lip-sync your audio however this feature is currently not available inside CreateStudio
  2. Control Face expression: You can also customize the facial expression of characters. However, this feature is not available in CreateStudio
  3. More Pre-made actions: Toonly’s characters also come with more pre-made actions compared to CreateStudio Characters.
  4. Price: Another advantage that Toonly has over CreateStudio is the Price. Toonly is a complete lifetime deal. However, CreateStudio offers front end version at one time and then All-access Pass to unlock all the content at $37/month.

CreateStudio Cons Over Toonly

  1. Better Characters: There is no doubt, that the CreateStudio team designed better characters than Toonly. You are also getting 3D characters.
  2. Custom Keyframe: Basically keyframe means you provide the first and final position then it will automatically move from point A to B in a given period of time. For example, if you select the size for the first and last keyframe. It will automatically change size in a given time. In toonly, you can only move position. However, inside CreateStudio you can animate Position, opacity, Scale, Rotation, Skew, Color, Border & Shadow
  3. Pre-made Templates: Another Advantage that CreateStudio has over Toonly is Pre-made templates. CreateStudio has a vast number of pre-made templates and the team is constantly adding new templates as well. From GYM to kitchen promotion you can find all kind of templates.
  4. And Many More: CreateStudio also lets you create doodle videos, Scroll stopping social ads, typography videos, and many more. It has built-in text to speech and pixabay integration.

Toonly vs Doodly: Both products come from the same company. Toonly let you create 2d Animation videos while doodly lets you create doodle videos also known as whiteboard animation videos.

Personally, I think toonly videos are more fun to watch. However, you are ability is limited inside toonly. On the other hand, using doodly is pretty much fully unlocked (you need to purchase all upsells). The team recently launched people builder to build characters for doodly.

Toonly vs Vyond: Vyond is the most famous tool for making animation videos. Along with cartoon animation videos, you can also create doodly videos. Vyond crushes toonly in every feature.

Vyond has more characters, more pre-made actions, and more facial control options and on top of that, you can also create custom characters.

However, Vyond is very expensive. Their cheapest plan is $250/year which let you import only 720p videos and vyond watermark will there. Their premium plan (upgraded plan) will cost you $650/year.

Final Words

Today there are so much software that makes it easy to make animation videos for everyone.

Toonly is one of them and it justifies its cost. However, if you are willing to spend more then you definitely better alternative like CreateStudio. Anyway, that’s it for this blog post, if you have any questions do let me know in the comment section.

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