# 10 podcast clipping tools, tried on real episodes

_September 20, 2026 · Clips Done · https://clipsdone.com/blog/podcast-clipping-tools-compared_

I've run the same episodes through most of these while building our own pipeline, partly to see what they get wrong and partly because some of them are good. Prices are what was on their pricing pages in September 2026. Where I couldn't confirm a price I've said so rather than guess.

## 1. Opus Clip

The one everyone starts with, and for good reason: paste a YouTube link, get twenty clips in a few minutes with captions and a hook. Free tier with a watermark, $15 a month for Starter, $29 for Pro. What annoyed me: the "virality score" ranks clips by keywords, so a boring sentence with the word "secret" in it outranks the actual story. The face tracking drifts on wide shots. Fine if you plan to fix five clips out of twenty.

## 2. Descript

Really a full editor that happens to make clips. You edit video by editing the transcript, which is the best interface anyone has come up with for this. Free plan exports 720p with a watermark, paid from $16 a month on annual billing. If you want control over every cut and you'll spend an hour per episode, this is the one to learn. Its auto-clip suggestions are weaker than Opus's, but the manual editing is much better.

## 3. Riverside, Magic Clips

If you already record on Riverside, its clips feature is right there and uses the separate camera tracks, which means the speaker switch in a two-person show is usually right, because it knows whose mic is live. That's a real advantage over tools working from a single video file. Check their pricing page for the current plan that includes it; it moved around while I was writing this.

## 4. Vizard

Similar to Opus with a free tier of about 60 upload minutes a month and 720p export. Clip selection felt slightly better on interview shows, captions slightly worse. I couldn't get a clear paid price off their page, which tells you something about the page.

## 5. Submagic

Not really a clipper. It's a caption tool, and the captions are the best-looking of the bunch: word highlights, emoji, zooms, the TikTok look. $19 a month for 15 videos, $39 for 40. You bring an already-cut clip. If your cuts are fine and your captions are ugly, this is the fix.

## 6. Klap

$14 a month for 100 clips, $39 for 300. Cheap per clip and it posts to your accounts. The cuts were the most "timer-based" of any tool I tried: lots of clips opening mid-sentence. Good for volume, not for a show where every clip has your name on it.

## 7. Munch

Positions itself around trend and keyword analysis: it tells you which clip matches what people search for. Interesting idea, and the clips themselves were average. Their pricing page wouldn't load for me the day I checked, so look yourself.

## 8. CapCut

Free, on your phone, with the best auto-captions of anything free. There's no auto-clipping: you find the moment and cut it. For a host who posts one clip a week and enjoys it, honestly this is enough. The catch is doing it eight times per episode.

## 9. Veed

Browser editor with auto-subtitles, a clip generator, and templates. Middle of the road on everything, which is fine. The free plan has a watermark; paid plans are on their page and change often enough that I won't quote one.

## 10. Premiere Pro with AutoPod

For editors, not hosts. AutoPod is a plugin that cuts multi-camera podcasts automatically based on who's speaking, and it's the most accurate speaker switching I've seen anywhere, because it works from the audio tracks. Premiere is $23 a month and AutoPod is extra, plus you need to know Premiere. If you have a video editor already, point them at this.

## What none of them do

None of them read the captions against the audio. None of them notice that the frame just sat on the host while the guest told the story. None of them know your co-host is Dargie, not Darcy. Every tool above gives you raw material and a good editor built in; the hour after that is the actual work. If you want to do that hour, Descript or Opus. If you don't, that hour is what you're paying a person for, whoever that person is.

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Clips Done cuts podcast episodes into 8 to 12 finished vertical clips, checked by a person, within 24 hours. $99 an episode or $350 a month with posting. First episode free: https://clipsdone.com