Clipping tools, compared
Six tools that turn long video into shorts, what separates them, and honest pricing on a category where almost every comparison is written by a competitor.
All six do the same core job well enough that the differentiator is not clip quality, it is what happens around the clip. Opus Clip has the lowest entry price at about fifteen dollars a month and a virality score that picks moments for you. Choppity sits near twenty and aims at podcasts. Spikes Studio is free to start and built for game streams. Reap is the one to look at if you need dubbing into other languages. Every one of them is in the under-fifty band except Reap, which means the choice costs you almost nothing to get wrong.
What actually separates them?
Not the cutting. All six find reasonable moments and burn in reasonable captions. The differences are in what you feed them and what you need back.
Opus Clip · lowest entry price, picks for you
About fifteen dollars a month to start, with a virality score that ranks moments so you do not have to watch the source. The most hands-off option. Competitors point out you effectively need the Pro tier before it is complete, which changes the real number.
Choppity · podcasts and long interviews
Around twenty a month. Aimed squarely at turning long talk into captioned shorts ready to publish, which is the most common version of this job.
Spikes Studio · game streams, free to start
The only one with a genuinely usable free entry point, and built for stream footage where the interesting moments are sparse and unpredictable.
Reap · many languages
Clip, caption, reframe and dub. The only one in the fifty to two hundred band, and the reason to pay it is dubbing rather than clipping.
Submagic · captions, B roll and silence trimming
Closer to an editor than a clipper. Worth it if the output needs to look produced rather than raw.
Clip Factory · straightforward moment picking
Upload long video, get the best moments. Does the core job without the surrounding features, which is sometimes exactly what you want.
How does the pricing actually work?
Per unit of output, not per seat, and the unit differs enough between tools that headline prices are not comparable. Opus Clip charges roughly a credit a minute of source video; other tools charge a credit a video regardless of length.
That difference is the whole cost story. On a per-minute model a sixty-minute podcast consumes sixty credits, where a per-video model consumes one to three. If your source material is long, a tool with a higher headline price can be several times cheaper in practice. Work out your monthly minutes before comparing monthly prices, because otherwise you are comparing two different products.
Which one should I choose?
Opus Clip if you want the moment chosen for you and you are clipping short-to-medium source video. Choppity if your input is podcasts. Spikes Studio if it is streams or you want to test the workflow for nothing. Reap only if you need other languages.
The honest version: this is a low-stakes decision and the category is close to commoditised. All of these are under fifty a month except one, all offer a trial, and the switching cost is an afternoon. Spend the decision energy on whether you should be clipping at all, which depends on whether you have long-form content worth cutting, not on which of six tools cuts it.
Not yet
- Paying for clipping before you have long video to clip. One recorded demo is not a content channel.
- A dubbing tier before one language works. Reach in a second language is not the constraint at any early stage.
Good to know
What is the best AI clipping tool?
Opus Clip for most people, because it has the lowest entry price at around fifteen a month and it picks the moments for you. Choppity if your source is podcasts, Spikes Studio if it is game streams or you want a free start.
Is there a free clipping tool?
Spikes Studio is free to start. Beyond that the whole category sits in the under-fifty band, so the paid step is small.
Why do the comparisons I find disagree?
Because most of them are published by one of the tools being compared. Pricing is checkable and worth reading; verdicts in a comparison hosted by a competitor are marketing.
When should I start clipping?
At about a thousand a month, once you have long-form content worth cutting and you know which platform your buyers use. It is one of the cheapest channels to start because the raw material already exists.
This expands the Treeline camp on the climb, which lays out the stages either side of it. Tools by job are on the route index, the free ones are here, and the other answers are in insights. Updated 30 July 2026.