Is CapCut free? What you get without paying

Is CapCut free? The short answer

Yes. CapCut has a Free plan priced at USD 0, described on its pricing page as “Start for free with the basics you need to create”. The download page offers the editor “for free”, and CapCut’s sign-up buttons say no credit card is required. You can edit, add text and music, use free templates and export without paying.

CapCut is not free for everything. Premium templates and effects, AI generation credits and extra cloud storage sit in the paid plans: Pro at USD 19.99 a month or USD 179.99 a year, Ultra at USD 79 a month or USD 900 a year, and Teams at USD 12.49 per seat a month. CapCut says displayed prices are “for reference only” and the final price appears after you sign in. The full breakdown is on our CapCut Pro price page.

What the free CapCut plan includes

Source: CapCut pricing page, checked October 23, 2026. CapCut states: “Displayed pricing is for reference only. Sign in to see final pricing, taxes, and any applicable offers for your account.”

The Free card does not list any monthly AI credits, a storage amount or an export resolution, so we do not quote numbers for them. What CapCut does say elsewhere is that its online video maker is free and that exports at resolutions like 1080p or 2160p are “all watermark-free”, on its commercial video maker page. In practice the free plan is a full editor for cutting, trimming, captions with free assets and templates, while AI generation is a paid feature.

Is CapCut free without a watermark?

Usually, yes. CapCut’s help article on watermarks, dated March 25, 2026, says “videos created in CapCut can usually be exported without a watermark” and that “in most cases, the watermark comes from a default ending clip or built-in template element—not from the export itself.” If you see a CapCut logo in your export, it is almost always one of two things:

• A branded ending clip. Many templates add a CapCut outro at the end of the timeline. Scroll to the end, select the CapCut-branded clip and delete it.
• A logo inside a template layer. Some template elements contain logo overlays. Check every track for an overlay with a logo and remove or replace it.

The steps are the same idea on CapCut Online, the PC desktop app and the iOS and Android apps: remove the outro or overlay, preview, then export again. CapCut says to contact its support team if a watermark remains after you remove every visible element. We have not tested every template, so preview your export before publishing.

Is CapCut free on PC, iPhone and the web?

The editor is free to download for desktop and mobile, and there is a web editor you can try online. The difference between devices is in the paid plans, which matters if you plan to upgrade later:

• CapCut Pro works across the mobile app (iOS and Android), the desktop versions (PC and Mac) and the web editor, according to CapCut’s help article on multi-platform subscriptions (August 13, 2026).
• CapCut Standard, a cheaper plan that CapCut says is available only in certain regions, gives its benefits only in the mobile app. CapCut’s help center says membership features on PC require Pro.

On iPhone and Android, the price of a paid plan bought in the app can differ from the website, because CapCut says the app store region, currency and taxes can change what you see. CapCut also says Pro prices vary by region, device and promotions. We did not find a Standard price on the public pricing page, so we do not quote one.

What is not free in CapCut

CapCut marks paid content with diamond icons. Its help center says items with a blue diamond are included in Standard, and items with a purple diamond belong to the Pro plan. If a template, effect or tool shows a diamond, it is not part of the free plan. The paid plans also add:

• AI credits. Pro includes 1,200 monthly AI credits, up from 550 under CapCut’s earlier pricing, according to its April 8, 2026 announcement. Ultra includes 8,645. AI video from Seedance models is quoted per second on the Pro card, from USD 0.12 a second for Seedance 2.5 in the first month.
• Storage. Pro and Teams list 1 TB of cloud storage, up from 100 GB.
• Premium templates and Pro features. The Pro card lists all premium templates and all premium Pro features.

If you want AI video generation rather than editing, compare credits per dollar in our AI video pricing tracker, or see which tools have usable free tiers in AI video free plans compared.

Can you use free CapCut videos commercially?

CapCut’s Trust Center says users own the content they create, and that only templates and materials expressly labelled “Commercial Use” may be used for commercial purposes. That applies on the free plan too: a free template or song is not automatically cleared for an ad or a client video. Before you use a CapCut video to promote a business, check the label on every template, music track, sticker and effect in it. CapCut’s commercial video maker page describes itself as a free online commercial video creator with royalty-free music and ad templates, but the Trust Center rule on labels is what decides commercial use.

How to stay on the free plan

The free plan does not renew because there is nothing to pay. Paid plans do. CapCut’s help center says CapCut Pro and CapCut Teams are set to auto-renew, and that if you do not cancel at least 24 hours before the renewal date, your account will be charged for a new billing cycle. It also says CapCut subscriptions are virtual goods and “generally, purchases do not support refunds”, though you can submit an appeal in special cases such as accidental double billing. If you try a paid plan, put the renewal date in your calendar and cancel at least a day before it.

We did not find a free trial on the public pricing page on October 23, 2026. The page did advertise “Monthly up to 40% off” and “Yearly up to 30% off” as promotions; the discount for your account appears at checkout.

Should you stay on CapCut Free?

Stay on CapCut Free if you mainly cut clips, add captions, music and text, and use free templates for social video. Remove the template ending clip and you can export clean videos without paying. Upgrade to Pro if you keep reaching for purple-diamond templates and effects, need the 1 TB of cloud storage, want to edit with premium features on both PC and phone, or want AI generation credits. Standard, where it is offered, only helps if you edit on your phone.

Before upgrading, check what the paid plan costs in your region on our CapCut Pro price page, and compare the editor against other tools in the AI video generator picker.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

Vendor facts on this page come from these public pages, checked October 23, 2026. Prices and plan limits change; confirm them at checkout.

• CapCut pricing page
• CapCut download page
• CapCut help: removing the watermark from template videos
• CapCut help: using a subscription across platforms
• CapCut help: Standard subscription devices
• CapCut help: blue and purple diamond items
• CapCut help: new subscription pricing
• CapCut help: forgetting to cancel a subscription
• CapCut help: in-app price differences
• CapCut help: How much does CapCut Pro cost?
• CapCut Trust Center: legal
• CapCut commercial video maker