How much does a YouTube editor cost in 2026? Per video, per minute, per hour and per month
Editing one long-form YouTube video costs about $45 to $576 on published 2026 price lists: $45 to $135 on subscription and credit plans, $278 to $327 at Tasty Edits and $483 to $576 for a dedicated weekly editor. At a full 20 minutes, capped plans come to $4.50–$6.75 per minute; monthly plans start at $295 for four videos.
Every price on this page is published by the service itself, linked to the page it came from and read on October 13, 2026. When a service sells a monthly plan, the price per video is my own division of its price by the videos it includes, marked "derived". Two sources that most guides quote, Upwork's cost page and individual Fiverr gigs, blocked automated reading that day, so their rates are left out until I can read them again.
- Per video
- Per minute
- Per hour
- Per month
- What moves a quote
- Study: 1,159 real videos
- Calculator
- The 7-line brief
- Hidden costs and red flags
- How I price
- FAQ
Per video: published prices, October 2026
The cheapest prices per video come from monthly plans and credit bundles; the most expensive from single videos and dedicated weekly editors. What "one video" means changes from plan to plan, so the cap on finished length, the revisions and the turnaround sit in the same row as the price.
| Service and plan | Price per video | Finished length cap | Revisions | Turnaround | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Editvideo.io, 4 / 10 / 22 videos a month | $73.75 / $49.50 / $45.23 (derived from $295, $495, $995) | None on finished length; raw footage up to 45 min | Unlimited | 48 hours | editvideo.io/pricing |
| Vidchops, 4 or 8 credits a month (1 credit = 1 long-form video) | $123.75 / $124.38 (derived from $495, $995) | FAQ says 15 minutes in one answer and 20 "except under special circumstances" in another | 3 per video / unlimited | 1–2 days | vidchops.com/pricing-details |
| Video Husky, basic edit (2 credits) | $90 ($81 in the 50-credit bundle) | Up to 20 min | Up to 2 | Not stated on the page | videohusky.com/credit-bundles |
| Video Husky, faceless or stock-heavy (3 credits) | $135 ($121.50) | Up to 20 min | Up to 2 | Not stated on the page | videohusky.com/credit-bundles |
| Video Husky, long format (5 credits) | $225 ($202.50) | 20 to 90 min | Up to 2 | Not stated on the page | videohusky.com/credit-bundles |
| Tasty Edits, 1 / 4 / 8 horizontal videos | $327 / $305 / $278 | Not stated | Unlimited | 48 hours | tastyedits.com/pricing |
| Dava Studios, long-form, 1 video a week | About $483 to $576 (derived from $2,095 a month on a 12-month plan or from $2,495 month to month) | Not stated | Unlimited | 48 to 72 hours | davastudios.com/services |
All read on October 13, 2026. "Derived" = monthly price divided by the videos it includes; Dava Studios at 4.33 weeks a month.
Three things to check before you compare these numbers. The length cap: a 20-minute cap is fine for a 12-minute video and useless for a 40-minute one. The revisions: "unlimited" and "up to 2" are different products at the same price. What is included: Tasty Edits lists royalty-free music and stock footage in the price and sells thumbnails as a $43 add-on; Editvideo.io's monthly videos do not roll over to the next month.
Per finished minute: what those prices really work out to
Almost nobody publishes a per-minute rate for YouTube editing, but you can work one out. Divide the price by the finished length. The catch is which length you divide by: at the cap, every plan looks cheap; at the length you actually publish, it does not. The last column uses 12.1 minutes, the median length of the 1,159 long-form videos in my study below.
| Plan | Price per video | Published cap | $ per minute at the cap | $ per minute at a 12.1-minute video |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Video Husky, basic | $90 | 20 min | $4.50 | $7.44 |
| Video Husky, faceless | $135 | 20 min | $6.75 | $11.16 |
| Video Husky, long format | $225 | 20 to 90 min | $2.50 at 90 min, $11.25 at 20 min | Not for this length |
| Vidchops, 4 credits | $123.75 | 15 or 20 min (FAQ) | $8.25 at 15 min, $6.19 at 20 min | $10.23 |
| Editvideo.io, 4 / 22 videos a month | $73.75 / $45.23 | None | No cap to divide by | $6.10 / $3.74 |
| Tasty Edits, 1 / 8 videos | $327 / $278 | Not stated | No cap to divide by | $27.02 / $22.98 |
| Vidico guide, "YouTube (long-form)" | $300–$1,500 | Not stated | $20–$100 (their estimate, no method published) | n/a |
Prices from the table above, read October 13, 2026; Vidico guide by Laura Chaves, June 1, 2026 (vidico.com). All per-minute figures are derived.
Per-minute pricing also hides the real driver of the work: how much raw footage goes into each finished minute. Eighteen finished minutes cut from twenty-five minutes of clean talking is a different job from eighteen minutes cut from six hours of gameplay, and it is the limit Editvideo.io sets: raw footage up to 45 minutes, no cap on finished length. More on why the unit misleads in how much video editors charge per minute.
Per hour
Hourly rates are what most guides lead with, and the least useful number when you buy finished videos, because you do not control the hours. These are the figures with a name behind them:
| Source | Entry | Mid | Senior | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Krock.io, Sep 14, 2026 | $20–$45 | $45–$85 | $85–$150+ | The author's benchmarks; no source given for the rates |
| Vidico, Jun 1, 2026 | $20–$45 | $45–$85 | $85–$150+ | Same tiers; agencies $100–$250 an hour |
| Cutjamm survey | Average $27.55 | 2025 survey of 201 editors worldwide, self-reported; the method is not described | ||
| US Bureau of Labor Statistics | Median $75,420 a year (May 2025) | Employed film and video editors, not freelance YouTube editors; about $36.26 an hour over 2,080 hours (derived) | ||
| Editvideo.io, full-time editor | $2,950 a month | 8 hours a day: about $17 an hour (derived, 21.7 workdays a month) | ||
| Vidpros, part time / full time | $1,000 / $4,000 a month | 2 hours per workday / 8 hours a day: about $23 an hour either way (derived) |
Read October 13, 2026. Blank cells: that source does not split its figure by level.
Hours matter more than the rate. Ten hours at $50 is $500; four hours at $100 is $400. If an editor quotes by the hour, ask for the hours a video like yours took last time, or ask for a price per delivered video instead.
Per month: retainers and plans
A monthly plan is a price per video multiplied by a volume you commit to, sometimes with a discount. Bundled packages that add scripts, thumbnails and strategy are a different product and cost several times more.
| Service | Monthly price | What it includes | Per video (derived) | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Editvideo.io | $295 / $495 / $995 | 4 / 10 / 22 long-form videos; 10% off on quarterly or annual billing | $73.75 / $49.50 / $45.23 | editvideo.io |
| Vidchops | $495 / $995 | 4 / 8 long-form videos | $123.75 / $124.38 | vidchops.com |
| Dava Studios | $2,095 (12 months) / from $2,495 | 1 long-form video a week, dedicated in-house editor | About $483–$576 | davastudios.com |
| Editvideo.io, full-time editor | $2,950 | 8 hours a day; number of videos not stated | n/a | editvideo.io |
| Vidpros | $1,000 / $4,000 | 2 hours per workday / 8 hours a day; month to month | n/a | vidpros.com |
| Tasty Edits, channel management | $1,490 / $2,370 (billed quarterly) | On top of editing; $1,266 / $2,014 a month on the annual plan | n/a | tastyedits.com |
| Increditors | From $5,000 | Editing, strategy, thumbnails, scripts; number of videos not stated | n/a | increditors.com |
| Video Editing Company | $5,000 / $9,500 / $16,000 | 2 / 4 / 8 long-form videos (5–15 min) plus Shorts, scripts and thumbnails; written for software companies | Bundle | videoeditingcompany.com |
| Guide estimates | ||||
| Cutjamm survey | Average $1,206.60 | 201 editors, self-reported | n/a | Survey |
| Vidico | $1,200–$6,000 | 4–8 long-form videos/month for a YouTube channel | n/a | Estimate |
| BizToolKit | $400–$1,200 | Editor only, 4 videos a month | n/a | Estimate, no sources cited |
| The Creator's Assistant | $800–$1,800 | Part-time offshore editor for channels with 10K–100K subscribers | n/a | Estimate by a placement agency |
Read October 13, 2026.
Retainer or per video? Count the videos you published in the last three months and divide by three. If that number is steady and close to what a plan includes, the plan is likely cheaper per video. If it swings, stay per video until it settles, and always divide the monthly price by the videos you will really send, not the ones the plan allows. The longer version is in what a monthly retainer costs.
Whatever you choose, budget for a run of videos rather than one. What I tell the creators I work with:
"Some people try for a month and give up. Five videos don't get views and they get tired. The difference between the people who make it and the people who don't is that they keep trying until it works, and they enjoy the process."
Kevin Tabares, from editing for the channels in the study below
That is experience, not a promise: a monthly plan does not guarantee growth. It does mean you judge an editor, and a format, on several videos, not on the first one.
What moves a quote up or down
- Raw footage per finished minute. The more material to watch and choose from, the more hours. Editvideo.io caps raw footage at 45 minutes; Video Husky charges more credits for longer formats.
- Turnaround. Published turnaround runs from 1–2 days (Vidchops) and 48 hours (Editvideo.io, Tasty Edits) to 48–72 hours (Dava Studios). Faster than what a service lists is a rush job.
- Revision rounds. From up to 2 (Video Husky) and 3 (Vidchops' 4-credit plan) to unlimited. Unlimited only helps if each round comes back fast.
- Extras. Thumbnails, captions, motion graphics and stock footage are inside some prices and outside others (Tasty Edits sells thumbnails at $43).
- Strategy. An editor who reads your analytics and changes the next video is doing part of a producer's job; packages that add strategy and scripts start in the thousands a month.
What those prices buy: the real length of 1,159 long-form videos
Price lists talk about "a video". To see which tier a real channel needs, I measured the videos I edited for clients: 1,163 of the 1,250 videos tracked on my YT Jobs profile, for 46 channels (the profile also lists dakblake's main channel; I edit only his second channel, DakBlox, so the main channel is left out). Length, views and dates come from the YouTube Data API, read on October 13, 2026. 4 Shorts of 3 minutes or less are excluded, which leaves 1,159 long-form videos published between August 2024 and October 2026.
The median finished length is 12.1 minutes (half of the videos run between 9.7 and 18.6). 77.0% ran under 20 minutes, so a 20-minute cap covers most of them; 12.8% ran 35 minutes or more, up to Swaylemc's Minecraft horror films of 60 to 234 minutes. The table puts on each length the price of the one plan in the tables above that sets its price by length (Video Husky) and turns it into dollars per finished minute at the real length of each video.
| Finished length | Videos (share) | Median length | Video Husky price for that length | Its $ per finished minute |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under 8 min | 23 (2.0%) | 6.7 min | Basic, $90 | $13.53 |
| 8 to 10 min | 308 (26.6%) | 8.9 min | Basic, $90 | $10.16 |
| 10 to 20 min | 562 (48.5%) | 12.5 min | Basic, $90 | $7.19 |
| 20 to 35 min | 118 (10.2%) | 26.1 min | Long format, $225 | $8.63 |
| 35 min or more | 148 (12.8%) | 43.2 min | Long format, $225 (up to 90 min) | $5.28 |
| All | 1,159 | 12.1 min |
Per-minute column = median, across the videos in each row, of price ÷ that video's finished length. In the 35+ row, Video Husky's figure covers the videos up to 90 minutes (135 of 148). Data: videos.csv (CC BY 4.0).
Two readings. First, per-minute prices at the cap flatter every plan: Video Husky's basic edit is $4.50 a minute at 20 minutes and $7.19 at the 12.5 minutes a typical 10-to-20-minute video runs. Second, the length your channel publishes decides the tier, so check your last ten uploads before you compare quotes.
And what those videos got
Price per 1,000 views is one public way to set a price against what a video got. The column on the channel's typical video corrects for channel size: 1.00 means as many views as that channel's median video.
| Finished length | Videos with 90+ days of views | Median views | Vs. the channel's typical video (7 channels) | Video Husky's price per 1,000 views |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under 8 min | 22 | 42,380 | Too few (3) | $2.15 |
| 8 to 10 min | 264 | 56,054 | 0.78× (228 videos) | $1.61 |
| 10 to 20 min | 514 | 71,753 | 1.05× (447 videos) | $1.25 |
| 20 to 35 min | 83 | 44,849 | 0.93× (68 videos) | $5.02 |
| 35 min or more | 127 | 117,526 | 1.13× (113 videos) | $2.21 (117 up to 90 min) |
Views read October 13, 2026, only for videos at least 90 days old (1,010 videos); that also leaves out every video published after August 24, 2026, when YouTube started counting views "from the first frame" (YouTube blog, August 19, 2026). Channel comparison: the 7 channels with 20 or more such videos (859 videos). Price per 1,000 views = Video Husky's published price for that length ($90 up to 20 minutes, $225 from 20 to 90) ÷ the video's views, median per row.
Read this with care. The views column mixes channels of 10K and 2M subscribers, so a length bucket reflects which channels make that length as much as the length itself. Within the same channel, 10-to-20-minute videos got 1.05× the channel's typical views and 8-to-10-minute ones 0.78×, but the spread inside each bucket is wider than the gap between them. Length does not cause views, and none of this measures retention, revenue or what each client paid: the prices are Video Husky's published prices for that length.
The most watched video in each length bucket, among channels I edit today:
- Under 8 min: NEW FREE Skin... (Roblox Rivals News) 🤩 (Mud), 3.5 min, 96,832 views (published 2025-09-01).
- 8 to 10 min: DON'T PLAY Dress To Impress IN VR.. (ashlele), 8.0 min, 737,553 views (published 2025-07-21).
- 10 to 20 min: ROBLOX FLING THINGS AND PEOPLE WITH ALEXA! (Rex & Alexa), 19.9 min, 1,366,984 views (published 2025-08-21).
- 20 to 35 min: Roblox 99 Nights in the Forest with Alexa! (SPECIAL GUESTS) Part 3 (Rex & Alexa), 20.4 min, 439,153 views (published 2025-08-22).
- 35 min or more: 3 Idiots Hunt Down the Sun Man in Minecraft (Puff), 47.2 min, 1,370,403 views (published 2026-04-17).
Limits: these are my clients' videos, mostly Roblox and Minecraft gaming, not a sample of the market; 85% of the videos with views come from 7 channels. The full table, one row per video, is open: youtube-editing-data on GitHub.
Estimate your own budget
Put your upload count and video length into the YouTube editor cost calculator: it turns the published prices above into a monthly range for your channel. Then divide by your own finished minutes, not by the plan's cap.
Get quotes you can compare: the 7-line brief
Two editors given a vague request will quote two different jobs. Send every editor the same seven lines and the quotes become comparable. Copy it:
1. Finished length I want: __ min (my last 3 uploads ran __, __ and __ min)
2. Raw footage per video: __ min, __ cameras / screen recording + facecam
3. Captions: yes / no. On-screen text and zooms: light / heavy
4. Graphics or stock footage: none / some / most of the video
5. Revision rounds I expect: __. Turnaround I need: __ days
6. Reference: one video whose edit I want to match (link)
7. Please quote a price per delivered video, not per minute or per hourThen ask four things back:
- What counts as one video: the finished-length cap and how much raw footage is included.
- What happens if a video runs over, for example 22 minutes on a 20-minute plan.
- How many revision rounds are included and how fast each one comes back.
- Whether you can try a short test on your own footage before paying for a full video.
A fuller template is in how to brief your video editor.
Hidden costs and red flags
- Marketplace fees. Fiverr adds a 5.5% service fee plus $3.50 on orders under $200 (Fiverr help, read October 13, 2026); Upwork charges clients up to 7.99% on its Basic plan (Upwork support, read October 13, 2026).
- Credits that expire. Video Husky credits are valid for 6 months; Editvideo.io's unused monthly videos do not roll over.
- Extras outside the price. Thumbnails, extra revision rounds and longer formats are often billed on top. Ask what is inside the number.
- Your own time. Every round of notes on a poor-fit edit costs you time. A clear brief and labelled files save the editor time at the same price.
Red flags in a quote: a price that does not say what a "video" is (length cap, raw footage, revisions); evidence you cannot check (ask for named channels and videos you can watch); and a number that halves the moment you hesitate, which means the first one was a guess.
How I price long-form editing
I edit long-form YouTube videos for Rex & Alexa (2.29M subscribers), Mud (1.26M), Puff (1.83M), ashlele (500K) and Swaylemc (205K). My price depends on finished length, not on raw footage: $55 up to 10 finished minutes, $150 up to 20 and $300 up to 35; longer videos are quoted per video. Most videos land between $55 and $150; long or complex ones go up to $300. At the top of each package that is $5.50, $7.50 and $8.57 per finished minute; on the client videos in the study above, the median works out to $6.21 a minute for 8-to-10-minute videos, $11.97 for 10 to 20 and $11.51 for 20 to 35 ($10.15 across the 1,011 videos up to 35 minutes), and $0.98, $2.09 and $6.69 per 1,000 views. No contract and no minimum; the first video takes 1 to 5 days, the next ones 1 to 2; unlimited revisions, each back within 24 hours. The packages, with real videos for each length, are on the packages page; how I work is on the pricing page, and every video is in the portfolio.
FAQ
How much does a YouTube editor cost per video in 2026?
Published 2026 prices run from $45.23 a video (Editvideo.io, 22 videos a month) to $327 (Tasty Edits, one video), and about $483–$576 for a dedicated weekly editor at Dava Studios. At four videos a month or single credits, most plans cost $73.75 to $135.
How much do YouTube editors charge per finished minute?
Few publish a per-minute rate. Dividing capped plans by their 20-minute cap gives $4.50–$6.75 per minute, but at 12.1 minutes, the median length of the 1,159 long-form videos I edited, the same plans cost $7.44–$11.16 per minute. Divide any price by your own finished length.
What is a fair hourly rate for a YouTube editor?
Guides estimate $20–$45 an hour entry-level, $45–$85 mid-level and $85–$150+ senior (Krock.io, Vidico; no method published). Cutjamm's survey of 201 editors averaged $27.55, and dedicated-editor plans work out to about $17–$23 an hour.
How much is a monthly retainer with a YouTube editor?
Published plans run from $295 a month for four videos (Editvideo.io) and $495 for four (Vidchops) to $2,095–$2,495 for one video a week (Dava Studios). Cutjamm's survey averaged $1,206.60 a month.
How much should I pay for a 20-minute gaming video?
Plans that price by length charge $90 up to 20 finished minutes (Video Husky, 2 credits) or $123.75 (Vidchops, whose FAQ gives 15 and 20-minute caps); Tasty Edits charges $327 with no published cap. I charge $150 up to 20 finished minutes.
Is $100 per video enough for a long-form editor?
On published plans, yes: Editvideo.io ($45.23–$73.75) and Video Husky's basic edit ($81–$90) sit under $100. What usually gets trimmed is revision rounds, length (often a 20-minute cap) and extras like thumbnails. My 10-minute package is $55.
What does it cost to edit a 30 to 60-minute YouTube video?
Video Husky's long-format price covers 20 to 90 minutes for $225 ($202.50 in the 50-credit bundle); Tasty Edits and Editvideo.io publish no length cap. 12.8% of the 1,159 videos I edited ran 35 minutes or more, and I quote those per video.
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