Rates and calculator
Video editing rates
Freelance video editors on Upwork charge a middle rate of $10 an hour at entry level, $40 in the mid tier and $100 for senior editors, and one editing service lists $94 for a single short video. Put in your own videos below to see what a month costs.
An assumption you can change
One editing company puts it at 30 to 60 minutes on average. Where your videos land is our guess, so set it to what you see. Sources
Each month, for 8 videos of 1 min
Freelance editor
$60 to $240
$7.50 to $30 a video.
About 45 minutes of work each, at $10 to $40 an hour. A senior editor at $100 an hour: $75 a video.
Editing service
$752
$94 a video, at one service's listed price for a vertical video.
Services with one monthly fee start at $849 a month.
Edit it yourself
6 hours
45 minutes a video, at 45 minutes of editing for each finished minute.
No money out, but the hours are yours. Add what your hour is worth to see them in dollars.
Krafto
$25
$25 a month. You upload your clips and say what you want, and it makes the first cut.
A paid plan from the first month. You still film, and you check the cut.
Krafto edits your clips for you, just by chatting. See how it works
Estimates from published rates, not quotes. Sources
Free, no sign-up. Nothing you type leaves this page.
Video editing rates
What editors charge, from the pages listed under Sources. The freelance rates are from contracts all over the world, not one country.
| Who | Rate | Middle of the range | From |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry level freelancer | Below $30 an hour | $10 an hour | Upwork |
| Mid tier freelancer | $31 to $60 an hour | $40 an hour | Upwork |
| Senior freelancer | $61 to $150 an hour | $100 an hour | Upwork |
| Editor with a job in the US | $40,280 to $148,550 a year | $75,420 a year, about $36 an hour | Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2025 |
| Per finished minute | Social videos from $10, YouTube videos from $5 | A basic editing job averages $65 | Fiverr |
| Service, per video | $80 to $94 for a vertical video | $278 to $327 for a horizontal video | Tasty Edits |
| Service, monthly fee | From $849 a month | Its lowest plan | Video Husky |
| Service, monthly fee | From $1,000 a month | Two hours of a dedicated editor each workday | Vidpros |
How long editing takes, and what that costs
At 30 to 60 minutes of editing for each finished minute, one editing company's rule of thumb. The dollar columns are those hours at each freelance tier's middle rate.
| Finished length | Editing time | Entry level ($10/hr) | Mid tier ($40/hr) | Senior ($100/hr) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30 sec | 15 to 30 minutes | $2.50 to $5 | $10 to $20 | $25 to $50 |
| 1 min | 30 minutes to 1 hour | $5 to $10 | $20 to $40 | $50 to $100 |
| 3 min | 1.5 to 3 hours | $15 to $30 | $60 to $120 | $150 to $300 |
| 10 min | 5 to 10 hours | $50 to $100 | $200 to $400 | $500 to $1,000 |
| 20 min | 10 to 20 hours | $100 to $200 | $400 to $800 | $1,000 to $2,000 |
If you're hiring an editor
Editors charge by the hour, by the video, or by the finished minute. By the video is easiest to budget for: you know the bill before the work starts. By the hour suits work that changes as it goes. Either way the price follows the hours, and the hours follow your footage.
The cheapest way to lower a quote is to hand over less to sort through. Send only the takes you want used, say what the video is for, and link a video you'd like it to look like. Agree how many rounds of changes are included before the work starts, because extra rounds are where a fixed price grows.
A service usually costs more than a freelancer for the same video. You're paying for a team, a set turnaround and someone to manage the work. A freelancer at $10 to $40 an hour costs less, but you find them, brief them and check the work yourself.
If you're an editor setting your rates
The middle rate on Upwork is $10 an hour at entry level, $40 in the mid tier and $100 for senior editors. Its own headline says editors there typically cost $6 to $25 an hour. Those contracts come from all over the world, so they say where the market is, not where you have to sit.
For a US comparison, an editor with a job earned a median of $75,420 a year in May 2025. Over a full-time year of 2,080 hours that's about $36 an hour. A freelancer pays for their own software, computer and the hours between jobs, so matching that wage means charging more than it.
To price by the video, count the hours and multiply. Use the calculator the other way round: set the length and how long a finished minute takes you, and read the freelance figure as your quote at each rate.
What the calculator can't see
One number is an assumption, and you can change it: how long editing takes. The published rule of thumb is 30 to 60 minutes for each finished minute, on average. Where your kind of video lands in that range is our guess, and your first few videos will probably take longer than an editor's.
Quotes also change with things no calculator knows: how much raw footage there is, how fast you need it, whether you want graphics or music, and how many rounds of changes you ask for. Treat every figure here as a place to start a conversation, not a price.
Questions
Asked often
Last checked 6 October 2026
More free tools
Try these next
When you're ready to edit
Skip the editing, keep the videos.
Upload your clips, say what you want, and see the first cut. Krafto is $25 a month.