Should I fix YouTube's auto-captions or make subtitles with another tool?

If the auto-captions for your video are mostly right, editing them in YouTube Studio is the least work. If they are full of wrong names and terms, or your language isn't offered for auto-captions, it is usually quicker to transcribe with another tool, correct the result and upload the SRT. That also leaves you a subtitle file you can reuse on other platforms or translate.

YouTube Subtitles and SEO: What Captions Do for Your Videos

What Subtitles Can and Can't Do for Search

YouTube doesn't publish how much weight caption text carries in search or recommendations. Guides that promise a fixed percentage lift from uploading subtitles are guessing. What can be said with confidence:

Auto-captions make mistakes on names, brand terms and technical vocabulary, and they aren't offered in every language. If YouTube uses caption text to understand a video, a corrected track describes the video accurately and a wrong one doesn't.
Captions make the video usable without sound, for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers and for anyone watching muted. That benefit is certain, whatever captions do for ranking.
Other languages are a real opening. In YouTube Studio you can add a subtitle track per language and also a translated title and description, which viewers with that language setting see. A translated title gives the video words in the viewer's language to match a search against.

How to Add Subtitles to a YouTube Video

Option 1: YouTube Studio

Open YouTube Studio and go to Subtitles.
Select the video and choose the language.
Add subtitles: upload a file, type them manually, or paste a transcript and let Auto-sync set the timing.
Publish.

Good: free and built in. Less good: slow for long videos, and you're working from YouTube's auto-captions or typing everything yourself.

Option 2: Transcription Tool, Then Upload the SRT

Transcribe the video with an AI transcription tool.
Correct names, terms and numbers.
Download the SRT.
Upload it in YouTube Studio under Subtitles.

Good: much faster than typing, accurate timing, and a file you can reuse or translate. Less good: one extra upload step.

Option 3: Burned-In Subtitles

Add and style subtitles in a video editor.
Export a new video with the subtitles drawn into the picture.

Good: the subtitles look the same on every platform, which is what short-form video needs. Less good: burned-in text is part of the image, not a caption track, so viewers can't turn it off and YouTube can't offer or translate it as subtitles. For YouTube itself, upload an SRT as well, or instead.

Practical Habits

Correct auto-generated text before publishing: proper nouns, technical terms, numbers.
Keep sentences short if you plan to translate the subtitles.
Add chapters. Timestamps in the description, starting at 0:00, let viewers jump to the part they want.
Add subtitles before you publish, so the first viewers already have them.

Where Picute Fits

Picute covers Option 2 and Option 3. Paste a YouTube link (up to 10 at a time) or upload the file; Picute transcribes it in 60 languages and you correct the text in the editor. Export SRT or VTT to upload in YouTube Studio, translate the subtitles into another language for an extra track, or export an MP4 with styled subtitles burned in. Picute does not upload to YouTube for you; you add the file in Studio.