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How many cuts per minute does my video have? Free cut counter

Open your video and press Count the cuts. The tool finds every hard cut, then shows your cuts per minute, the median and longest shot, a minute by minute pace chart and the slowest stretches, so you can see where the edit drags. For reference, 4 narrated documentaries I measured changed picture between about 2 and 15 times a minute. The video never leaves your device.

Updated · Built by Kevin Tabares, long-form YouTube editor at Umbrella Creators. Reference numbers from my own pacing measurements.

Count the cuts in your video

Your video stays on your device. It plays in this tab and every frame is checked right here.

Choose a video to start.

How to use the cut counter

  1. Open your finished video, or a reference video you want to match. If the browser cannot play the file (some MKV or ProRes files), export an MP4 first.
  2. Keep "4 checks per second" for most videos. Talking-head and documentary videos scan in about half their length; fast gameplay, where almost every frame moves, takes about as long as the video. Use 2 checks per second for long videos, and keep this tab in front while it scans.
  3. Press "Count the cuts". You can stop at any point and see the result for what was scanned. You can change the sensitivity afterwards without scanning again.
  4. Read the chart, not just the average. The red bars are the minutes where the picture barely changes. Click one, watch it, and decide if it needs B-roll, a zoom, a graphic or a trim.
  5. Compare like with like. Run a video from a channel in your format that holds viewers well, then your own, and look at where your pace drops.

What the number means, from an editor

Cuts per minute is a symptom, not a goal. When I edit long-form Roblox and Minecraft videos, the pace follows the moment: fast through action, slower when a story beat needs to land. The narrated documentaries I edit, like The Spy Show and The Interpreter, change picture every few seconds because the narration moves through places, people and documents. A talking-head lesson can hold one shot for a long time and still keep viewers if the speaker is good.

What I look for in this chart is a gap: a minute with almost no change in a video that is otherwise busy. Those are the spots where viewers most often leave, and the fix is usually a cut, a punch-in or one piece of B-roll. Pair this with the silence detector to find dead air in the same places, and with the pacing data from 4 documentaries for real reference numbers.

Step-by-step guide

For the whole process around this tool, read How to measure the editing pace of a YouTube video: what to compare your number with and how to fix a slow minute.

FAQ

How many cuts per minute should a YouTube video have?
There is no single right number. On 4 narrated documentary videos I measured frame by frame in 2026, the picture changed about 2 times a minute on Librarian and about 13 to 15 times a minute on Philip Thompson and The Interpreter, all in the same genre. Compare your video with channels in your own format, and look for long stretches with no change rather than chasing a number.
How does the tool find the cuts?
It checks the video several times per second. When the picture changed between two checks, it searches between them for the exact pair of neighbouring frames where the change happens and compares that jump with the frames just before and after. A cut is a jump several times bigger than its neighbours, even a jump cut in a talking-head video where the framing stays the same. Camera movement changes every frame by a similar amount, so it does not stand out.
Does it count fades, dissolves and flashes?
Hard cuts, flashes, zoom punch-ins and pop-ups that cover most of the screen count, because they change the whole picture at once. A slow dissolve or fade that takes a second or more changes the picture a little on every frame, so it is often missed. Check the longest shots list if your video uses many slow transitions.
Why does my gameplay video show extra cuts?
Very fast camera turns, explosions and menu screens can change the whole picture in one frame. The tool removes most camera turns by checking if the new frame is the old one shifted, but in fast first person gameplay some still count. Set the sensitivity to Low for that kind of footage. The minute by minute chart is still useful, because a slow stretch stays slow.
Is my video uploaded anywhere?
No. The video plays inside your browser and every frame is analysed on your own device. Nothing is sent to a server and nothing is saved.
What can I do with the EDL file?
The EDL lists every shot as its own clip. In DaVinci Resolve you can use it to split a finished, flattened video back into shots (import the video and the EDL as a pre-conformed timeline). The CSV has every cut time if you want your own spreadsheet.

Sources and method

Who made this

I'm Kevin Tabares. I've edited long-form YouTube videos since 2015 (1,277 videos and 152.2M+ views tracked on YT Jobs), mostly Roblox and Minecraft gaming, plus narrated documentaries. I check the pace of every edit before it goes out, so I built the check I use. If you want an editor for your channel, get in touch.

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