Three ways to pay for editing, priced at four monthly volumes, with the case where a retainer beats us.
Pay per video for a few edits a month. Use a retainer, about $1,000 to $4,000 a month, for steady clipping. Hire a full-time editor when video feeds your ads and social every day. A U.S. editor costs about $9,000 a month with benefits. A GrowthPair editor is about $4,000.
Editing is sold three ways. Each one prices a different thing: a finished video, a monthly output cap, or a person’s week.
Per video. You pay for each finished edit. Tasty Edits publishes its prices: $94 for one vertical short, falling to $80 each in a pack of 30, and $327 for one horizontal YouTube video, falling to $278 each in a pack of 8. Vidico’s June 2026 guide puts TikTok and Reels edits at $50 to $400, YouTube long-form at $300 to $1,500, and ad creative at $250 to $1,200.
Retainer. You pay monthly for a set range of output. Vidpros publishes three plans, all month-to-month with a dedicated editor:
| Vidpros plan | Price per month | Output per month |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | $1,000 | 20 to 40 short-form or 5 to 10 long-form videos |
| Growth | $2,000 | 40 to 80 short-form or 10 to 20 long-form videos |
| Scale | $4,000 | 80 to 160 short-form or 20 to 40 long-form videos |
Vidpros defines short-form as up to 60 seconds and long-form as up to 15 minutes, cut from up to 60 minutes of raw footage.
By the hour or full-time. Upwork’s marketplace data shows median rates of $10 an hour for entry-level video editors, $40 for mid-tier, and $100 for senior. Vidico puts agency rates at $100 to $250 an hour. A full-time editor works 40 hours a week on your footage only.
Here’s the monthly bill at four realistic volumes, using the published prices above.
| Monthly volume | Per video (Tasty Edits) | Retainer (Vidpros) | Full-time through GrowthPair | Full-time U.S. hire |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 short clips | $1,320 (15 at $88) | $1,000 (Starter) | About $4,000 | About $9,000 |
| 30 short clips | $2,400 (30 at $80) | $1,000 (Starter) | About $4,000 | About $9,000 |
| 8 long-form videos | $2,224 (8 at $278) | $1,000 (Starter) | About $4,000 | About $9,000 |
| 60 short clips | $4,800 (two packs of 30) | $2,000 (Growth) | About $4,000 | About $9,000 |
The U.S. figure starts from the Bureau of Labor Statistics median for film and video editors, $75,420 in May 2025. Benefits were 30% of total compensation for private-industry workers in June 2026, so $75,420 ÷ 0.70 ÷ 12 is about $9,000 a month. For the full breakdown, see what a video editor costs.
Read that table plainly. If your video work is cutting clips from footage you already have, a retainer is the cheapest option at every volume we priced. A full-time editor wins on the things the table can’t price.
Output caps are built for a predictable stream. Marketing video often isn’t.
Our take: go full-time when video is a daily input to your marketing, and the editing is mixed with judgment.
If that’s your week, the per-video bill climbs fast. The higher-value work, like ad iterations, is the hardest to price per piece.
Where we’re the wrong call: if you need a weekly podcast cut into shorts, a retainer like Vidpros’ $1,000 Starter plan costs a quarter of what we do. If you need one brand film or an animated explainer, hire a specialist freelancer or a production agency for the project. We place full-time editors only, so we fit when video work fills a week and changes with your campaigns.
A GrowthPair Video Editor works full-time on your brand only, in your time zone, for about $4,000 a month, all-in. They edit long-form content like podcasts and testimonials, cut short-form clips for social, create on-brand edits for paid, social, and your website, and add captions and native formatting to UGC-style videos. Every candidate passes our five-step vetting: a resume screen, a phone interview, a proctored skills assessment, a live interview with a marketer, and your interview. About 1.5% of applicants are accepted, and every one passes a C1 English test. Opascope, an agency, had three strong candidates the day it sent its brief, tested them with its own editing assessment, and went from brief to signed offer in three days. Within weeks, its new editor’s work became the team’s internal benchmark. Read the Opascope case study.
To compare every hiring model, see in-house vs agency vs freelancer vs staffing. If design is the other bottleneck, read how to outsource graphic design.
Per video, Tasty Edits charges $80 to $94 for a vertical short and $278 to $327 for a horizontal YouTube video. Vidpros’ retainers run $1,000 to $4,000 a month. A full-time GrowthPair editor costs about $4,000 a month.
For a steady stream of clips from existing footage, a retainer is cheapest. Vidpros’ $1,000 plan covers 20 to 40 shorts. A full-time editor costs more but handles mixed, fast-changing work like ad iterations and same-day edits.
On Upwork, median rates are $10 an hour for entry-level editors, $40 for mid-tier, and $100 for senior. Vidico’s June 2026 guide puts agency rates at $100 to $250 an hour.
Check how revisions count toward your plan, the turnaround on each format, how much raw footage each video can use, and whether you keep the same editor. Then send a paid test edit on your own footage.
About $9,000 a month in the U.S. with benefits, based on the BLS median of $75,420. A full-time editor through GrowthPair costs about $4,000 a month, all-in.
No. We place full-time editors only, each working for one client. For part-time needs, a retainer or per-video service is the better fit.
