Before you start
Pick the video first, not the plan. Opus Clip charges 1 credit per minute of source video processed, so a 45-minute interview costs 45 credits whether it yields three clips or thirty. The Free plan’s 60 monthly credits are enough to try one or two episodes. Decide in advance what a good clip looks like for you, such as a complete answer under 60 seconds, so you can judge results quickly. If you are still choosing a plan, read Opus Clip pricing or Is Opus Clip free?
Step 1: Set up your account
The help center recommends three things before your first project:
- Create a brand template. This stores caption style, fonts, colors and layout preferences and applies them to every clip. Free and Starter users get one template.
- Connect social accounts from the Social Accounts item in the left toolbar, if your plan includes posting (Starter and above).
- Set up a team workspace if others will review clips (Pro).
Spend five minutes on the brand template. Every later clip inherits it, and fixing caption style clip by clip is the slowest way to work.
Step 2: Import a video
Paste a link or upload a file. Free and Starter accept local uploads up to 10 GB; Pro accepts up to 30 GB and public MP4 URLs. The help center lists YouTube links and local files on Free; Starter adds sources such as Google Drive, Vimeo, Zoom, Rumble and StreamYard; Pro adds Twitch, Riverside, Dropbox, Loom, Frame.io, Apple Podcasts and others. Starter and Pro can also auto-import from a verified YouTube account.
If you upload, use the best-quality master you have. Reframing and captions both work from the source, and a compressed re-upload gives the tool less to work with.
Step 3: Choose what to clip
- Processing timeframe. Drag the slider to skip intros, ads and Q&A you will never clip. This is the single biggest credit saver.
- Clip model. For talk-heavy content the default model is the natural start. For footage with little dialogue, such as sport, gameplay or B-roll heavy video, the help center recommends ClipAnything.
- Genre (optional). Tell the model what kind of video it is.
- Prompt (optional). Describe the moments you want in plain language, for example “find every moment the guest disagrees with the host”.
- Clip length. Choose a range: under 1 minute, 1–3, 3–5, 5–10 or 10–15 minutes.
- Caption preset. Pick a style, or “No Caption” if your video already has burned-in captions.
You can save your preferred model, genre and presets as defaults, so later projects start from the same settings. Keep them fixed while you compare results across videos; otherwise you cannot tell whether the tool or the setting changed the outcome.
Step 4: Review the results
Results are sorted by Virality Score (0–99) on Starter and Pro; Free users do not see the score. Switch between grid and list view from the top-left corner. Watch every clip, not just the top few, and sort them into three piles: post as is, fix, discard. The score is the vendor’s prediction and a useful sort order, but your judgement of whether a clip makes sense on its own is what decides.
Use the heart or thumbs-down buttons on each clip if you want to send feedback to the vendor. If a whole project is poor on Pro, you can refund its credits from the three-dot menu, as long as you have not downloaded any clip and it is within 14 days of upload.
Step 5: Edit and fix captions
Paid plans include text- and timeline-based editing: trim the start or end, fix caption typos, and adjust the crop. Check names, product terms and numbers first, because they are where automatic captions most often go wrong. On Pro, brand vocabulary and custom fonts help reduce repeated fixes across clips. Free has no editor, so either upgrade or fix clips in another editor after export.
Step 6: Export, post or schedule
- Download as MP4. Free exports are watermarked, up to 1080p, and must be downloaded within 3 days; Starter has a 30-day window; Pro has no limit.
- Post directly to YouTube Shorts, TikTok or Instagram Reels from Starter upward.
- Schedule and post to more platforms (X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Threads, Bluesky) on Pro. Posting to X costs 3 credits per clip per account.
- Hand off to Adobe Premiere Pro or DaVinci Resolve on Pro if an editor finishes the clips.
Watermark questions are covered in how to remove the Opus Clip watermark.
Tips that save credits
- Trim with the timeframe slider instead of processing whole recordings.
- Remember the rounding: partial minutes round down, videos under a minute cost 1 credit.
- Process one representative episode before a backlog, and check the share of clips you keep.
- On Pro, refund a bad project before downloading anything from it.
- Monthly credits last 60 days, so a quiet month carries over once.
For a fuller picture of strengths and open questions, read our Opus Clip review and the testing method we use.
Frequently asked questions
How does Opus Clip work?
You import a long video, choose a clip model, length range and caption style, and Opus Clip transcribes the video, picks moments, adds captions and reframes them to vertical. You then review, edit and export or post the clips.
How long does Opus Clip take to process a video?
The vendor does not publish a fixed processing time. Its pricing page only ranks speed by plan: Starter is faster than Free and Trial, Pro is faster than Starter, and Business uses a dedicated queue.
Can I use Opus Clip for free?
Yes. The Free plan includes 60 credits a month, enough for about an hour of source video, with a watermark and a 3-day export window. New accounts can also start a 7-day trial of paid features.
What is ClipAnything in Opus Clip?
ClipAnything is a clip model that the help center describes as multimodal, using visual, audio and sentiment cues. It accepts natural-language prompts and is recommended for videos with little or no dialogue.
Sources
Vendor facts on this page come from these public pages, checked October 11, 2026. Prices and plan limits change; confirm them at checkout.