It’s a question almost all video creators face once their audience starts growing and they scale up their content production: How to outsource video editing?
Why should you delegate anyway, especially given the expense? What does it involve? Should you opt for a freelancer or a video editing service? And: What factors do you have to consider when you make your choice?
We’ve rounded up all the information you’ll need to find the best video editing solution for your needs as a creator.
Key Takeaways
- Outsourcing video editing lets you save time, increase your content volume and enhance your videos’ quality.
- Video editing services are more reliable than freelancers.
- The key criteria are editing quality, niche experience, easy workflows and communication, as well as the pricing model.
- Many services also offer custom thumbnails, channel management, and more.
Keep reading for the full scoop!
Outsourcing Video Editing - What Does That Actually Mean?
Basically, outsourcing video editing means nothing more than having someone else do it. Once you’re done shooting, you send the footage off to a professional video editor, tell them what you want, and they do their magic.
Finding and hiring a video editor is super simple these days.
You can go with a freelancer and go hunting on platforms like Fiverr, Upwork, or PeoplePerHour.
Or you can opt for a professional video editing service – many of which offer either per-video pricing or bulk subscriptions.
Whether you go the freelancer route or choose a pro editing service, the result will be more or less the same. They’ll deliver a professionally edited file, ready for uploading.
Some don’t stop there and also offer full YouTube channel management on top: from uploading and analytics to community management.
Why Outsource Video Editing in the First Place?
TL;DR: You get more time as well as more and better videos.
Outsourcing video editing will help you achieve consistent quality in your edits at predictable turnaround times. Professional video editors can attune perfectly to your personal brand. After a few initial edits, they coherently adopt the pacing, style, and tone of your videos and reliably deliver high-quality edits.
In the long run, this makes planning your content production easier. No matter if you’ve got a rhythm with a set number of videos a month, or if you rely on batch content production, you’ll be able to factor in the turnaround time of your editors and know exactly when your clips will be ready to go online.
Let’s now go into a little more detail. We’ll start with something a lot of creators don’t initially consider – that, in fact, they’re running a serious business.
Outsourcing Video Editing Lets You Focus on Your Creative Core Business
Creating video content is a ton of work – coming up with ideas, drawing storyboards, writing video scripts, and actually shooting (and, perhaps, re-shooting) your footage. Plus, of course, the editing.
Out of all those tasks, there is really only one thing you need to do yourself as a YouTuber: Using your authentic voice to connect to your audience. After all, that’s what they’re here for.
However, it’s hard to be authentic, creative, and unique when you’re bogged down by a massive video production workload.
Outsourcing some of that work gives you the breathing space you need to focus on your creative core business and strengthen your brand.
Save Editing Time, Increase Your Output
Spend a lot of time worrying over which transitions or music to use?
Editing is one of the most time-consuming parts of video content creation. Even pro video editors take between 30 and 60 minutes to edit a single minute of a finished clip. Those who haven’t spent years honing their editing skills take even longer.
This means leaving editing to professionals saves you massive amounts of time. Time that you can spend planning more content, coming up with new ideas, keeping up with trends in your niche, and shooting your next project.
Not to forget: Time to recharge your batteries.
Plus, outsourced talent won’t just free up the time you’d spend editing. Chances are, they’ll also produce results faster than you could yourself. And: They’re pretty good at remixing videos into vertical shorts and teasers that get audiences to the main content. This is a great way of making the most out of your material.
Just let your video editor worry about the color grading, image stabilization, b-roll and music licensing for your YouTube videos. Instead, you get to focus on what you do best – creating more amazing content. Overall, this will help you scale up your video production.
The bottom line? The entire production process becomes so much smoother, allowing you to increase your content volume. And hit your – and your sponsors’ – deadlines.
Get Professional Content to Grow Your Audience
Another benefit of outsourcing video editing is that the result simply looks better.
Video editing pros have a massive skill set and plenty of experience. This allows them to produce high-quality content even from mediocre footage – fast.
They can cut and trim clips, choose the perfect transitions, add effects where needed, and brush up your audio. You keep the final say in the matter, though. That also means you can have them match your own style – or borrow inspiration from other creators’ videos.
Ultimately, what you’ll get from giving the gig to a pro editor is a polished and engaging video that won’t irritate viewers with shaky audio or awkward transitions. Your content can be so, so much more.
No Commitment, Easy Scalability
Another upside of hiring freelancers or a video editing company is that there’s little to no commitment on your part.
For example, you don’t have to shell out for editing software subscriptions, let alone for hiring a full-time editor.
Instead, you get to scale the number of videos you outsource to your own productivity, or the size of your channel – and pay only for what you really need. Many video editing services do run a subscription model – but even those you can cancel.
Breathing Space for Mental Health
Studies show that outsourcing video editing helps prevent creator burnout. Fully 79% of video content creators have faced burnout in the past, and the majority agrees that delegation is a key coping strategy to help them avoid it in the long term.
Save on Soft- and Hardware Investments
Doing high-quality editing yourself is expensive.
Not only do you have to pay a pretty penny for professional video editing software. Editing also takes high-end hardware, tons of storage, and space for several screens.
Also, if you’re just learning to edit, think about just how long it’ll take you to really get the requisite skill set and working speed. And all the mediocre output you’ll produce till you hit pro level.
If you’re looking at making a real income with video, outsourcing the editing is an excellent way of breaking even fast.
That said, how do you outsource video editing when you get right down to it?
How to Outsource Video Editing
Let’s get down to business – to the actual workflow of having a video edit done.
Placing Your Order
First, you’ll be asked to share your raw footage with your editors, along with instructions for your edits – and a video script if you use one. That’s much the same for freelancers and service companies.
In terms of instructions, editors will typically ask for the type of pacing, effects, transitions, tone, and audio you prefer. Most editors would also be happy to see references and examples of the kind of video you want to aim for. If you’ve already edited your own videos and were happy with the results, send them those. Otherwise, examples from video creators whose style you want to make your own will do the trick.
Once the order has been submitted, it takes most professional video editors between 48 and 72 hours to produce a first draft, though this turnaround time depends on the length of your video. (For short-form and vertical formats like Instagram Reels, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts, many editors have 24-hour turnaround times.)
Revisions
With almost all editors, you’ll be able to review the draft and request changes. One widely-used tool for this is Frame.io. Here, you can leave notes at exact timestamps and even highlight elements in each frame that you want adjusted.
Most editors include one or two rounds of revisions in their price. Many video editing services offer unlimited revisions (especially subscription-based ones).
In any case, being thorough in your revision notes pays off and gets you one step closer to getting the deliverables you’re envisioning. Plus, good editors appreciate detailed feedback, especially when they first start working with a client. It helps them attune to your expectations and your style and cuts the number of revisions you’ll need on future projects.
“It is huge. I’m saving 25% of my time. It was suddenly like she could read my brain. We would put a video together and it would suddenly turn into a one-draft-publish.”
Getting Your Deliverables
Finally, your editor will send you over the finished video files and you’ll get to verify that you’re happy with it.
Some video editing agencies offer a broader range of services, including thumbnail design and YouTube channel management. Here, your team will handle crafting custom graphics for your content and send them along, or even upload, schedule, and SEO-optimize it all for you.
Should You Outsource to Freelancers or a Video Editing Company?
All things considered, which of the two major options should you go for – hiring a freelancer, or outsourcing to a video editing company?
Freelancers
Hiring a freelance video editor means you have a single creative partner who can adapt to your needs. Many freelance editors are highly skilled and passionate about crafting high-quality videos.
Plus, platforms like Fiverr and Upwork make it easy to find freelancers and to verify, based on reviews by past clients, that they are worth their salt. At least in theory: If these clients out for cheap edits above all, they won’t expect miracles – that’s how amateurs get 5-star ratings.
However, even if you find a consummate professional, outsourcing video editing to a freelancer comes with some risks. For one thing, individuals simply have limited capacity. For another, professional editors typically work for multiple clients at once – unless, of course, you’re willing to pay them a generous retainer. This means that they might not have the flexibility to get onto work you need done at the drop of a hat. Particularly if you’ve got a big batch-content production push.
Going further, a freelancer is only human – who can have emergencies of their own, gets sick occasionally, and needs regular breaks. While that’s natural, this lack of reliability can impact your content calendar.
Video Editing Services
In contrast, video editing services have a whole editing team on staff, so there are redundancies in case one of them gets sick or goes on vacation. Plus, these editors undergo vetting before they are taken on, which saves you the hassle of sifting through reviews and ratings to make sure that the editor you work with has the skills you need.
Talking about skills: Video editing services also will have editors specialized in individual niches and types of edits. Larger video editing agencies with several dozen full-time editors can afford to have specialists for vertical videos, action and outdoor content, real estate videos, educational courses, or platform-specific edits for LinkedIn, Twitch, and Reels.
These highly specialized editors bring a huge range of experience and invaluable insights to the table. Their talent and expertise adds extra value to outsourcing video editing.
Larger video editing services also typically assign you a personal editor who gets to know your style and preferences – and consistently has your back. You may well also get a dedicated video manager to help you handle the editing process. Their job is also to coordinate thumbnail creation and other services, or if your order volume takes several editors to handle.
Finally, company editors often simply have better tools to work with. We’re not talking about the editing software or graphics hardware there, though. But where a freelancer uses cheap but slow cloud storage like Google Drive or Dropbox, a company can use studio-grade file sharing services. Upwork editors are stuck with the platform’s flaky messenger – a video editing service can build a whole custom dashboard. This simply makes the post-production experience much smoother.
How To Find a Video Editing Service
So, how to outsource video editing to a video editing company?
Finding video editing companies is not difficult – there are dozens offering their services online. However, comparing them and pinpointing the one that best suits your needs can be tricky due to the wide range of pricing models and specializations.
When you look at different contenders, there are three main factors you ought to consider.
Niches and Editing Experience
First, there are the kinds of edits they accept.
Quite few video editing services specialize in individual content niches, such as travel and wedding video editing. Before you go any further, verify that the agency you’re looking at has experience with the type of content you want to produce.
The easiest way of checking out the quality of work is checking out their portfolio and example edits. These usually have a prominent spot on a video editing service’s website anyway.
What you should also look for are the FAQs – they’ll often tell you straight-out what a company won’t do. Weddings are a very common one.
Pricing Models: Project-Based vs. Subscription
Next, compare different pricing models to see which one suits you best.
Some video editing agencies have project or package pricing, with a fixed rate for short- and long-form edits. In most cases, these services offer discounts for batch orders. Occasionally you’ll see a hourly rate, or you’ll get a custom quote.
In contrast, other video editing companies are subscription services. This is usually advertised as “unlimited” video editing, since you can submit whatever amount of orders every month. However, the vast majority of these “unlimited” video editing services will only work on one order at a time. If you factor in turnaround times and revision cycles, this puts a real cap on the number of videos completed every month.
So What Type of Pricing Model Should You Choose?
A video editing subscription can pay off if you are planning to keep your video production at a steady pace and your edits aren’t overly complex.
Say you want to produce straightforward, no-frills coding tutorials. You send your screen recordings and talking-head footage to your editor. They’ll take 48 hours for the first draft. Factor in two revisions cycles of 24 hours each before you’re left with the final product. That means it takes four to five business days to produce a single video. Add in the fact that many video editors don’t work weekends, and you’ll end up with some four videos a month.
If, however, you produce content in batches or need higher volumes, or if your edits are more complex, you’ll face serious limitations with subscription pricing.
Are you a travel vlogger or an online course creator who will need multiple orders edited at once? Do your edits involve interspersing different kinds of footage, from different angles, or tricky lighting conditions – anything that might require more revisions?
Then opting for package pricing is more efficient.
Ratings and Reviews
Finally, as with any kind of online service, you should check out ratings and reviews for video editing services by previous clients. If you can find them, focus especially on those from your specific content niche.
To start with, many video editing services have creator case studies and testimonials pages, where client creators share their experiences in depth. These pages will also give you great insights into the types of creators who work with each service – you might even recognize some of them!
Going further, review sites like Trustpilot, Google Business, G2 and Yelp can prove incredibly helpful. While it’s often not possible to match creators to their channels here, the added anonymity means that reviews are more likely to be honest and give no-nonsense insights into what it’s like to work with each video editing service you’re looking at.
Trial Them
The single best way to evaluate a video editing service is to actually try it. This can mean a single video (if they offer it) or a single-month subscription. This does have a cost, but at least a lot of companies offer money-back guarantees. Some will also do a (short) trial edit for free.
What’s more onerous is that this will cost you time, especially if you’re trialling several services.
The upside is that you get to experience the entire workflow. You’ll see how easy it is to actually put in your order. You’ll find out just how communicative the team really is, and whether you can actually talk to the video editor on the job. Or the thumbnail artist, for that matter.
The revision process, downloads, any add-on work done? That’s how you actually get to check it all out, and see if the marketing copy on their websites holds up.
Some companies have built their workflow systems for video editing and channel management from the ground up, and you’ll get a single, easy-to-use dashboard.
A lot of them have cobbled-together solutions that will require you to sign into three different apps. A file sharing platform, a chat app, a revision tool, some order form, maybe a project management platform. They’ll usually work – but every little action takes just that little extra effort.
And, of course, you (hopefully) get a result video, so you can verify how well your vision translated into the content. That said, this isn’t entirely representative – it can take two or three edits until your editor and you really hit the groove. The revision count will drop, and then you’ll get drafts that are often pretty much ready to publish.
A last bit of advice: This is an excellent reason to opt for services that offer you a dedicated editor (rather than a design service that uses a pool). They’ll often also train up a second – or even third – editor on your style to step in if your workload is high, or when one of the others is unavailable.
So – book a call with your final candidates.
Going Further: Outsourcing Other Video Production Workflows
Finally, when you look at how to outsource video editing, you should also keep in mind what other video production workflows you might want to hand off to professionals further down the line. There is a lot of synergy to be had that way.
As mentioned above, some video editing services also offer thumbnail creation and channel management. Conversely, some social media agencies will offer you video editing, but it’s likely outsourced – meaning you won’t get to talk to the editor, and are less likely to get high-quality video content.
Custom thumbnails are a huge asset. Content with hand-crafted thumbnails – rather than with the default one, or an AI-generated one – has higher click-through and viewer retention rates. Plus, you can ensure brand consistency, and give potential viewers a glimpse of your style.
As for channel management, this is another huge chunk of time that you can reclaim by delegating. This covers a lot of technical, time-consuming routine tasks, such as:
- Uploading and scheduling videos
- Video SEO – optimizing content for search engines and the YouTube algorithm
- ABC testing for title, thumbnail, and other video packaging
- Keyword research
- Keeping an eye on video and channel analytics
- Maintaining playlists and other content connections, like description links and endscreens
- Engaging your audience by replying to comments and making community posts
- Content strategy planning
Even if you don’t want to hand these workflows off to someone else just yet, keep the possibility in mind. As your audience grows and you build your monetization strategy, it’s going to be the next logical step in your journey as a video creator.
To circle back around to the beginning: Outsourcing lets you focus on your creative business – the parts that matter most to you.
Grow Your Channel - Outsource Video Editing
If you’re already an established YouTuber itching to take your channel to the next level, outsourcing your video editing is a great way to grow faster – but also to protect your mental health.
If you’re new to this, professionally-edited content lets you start off on the right foot.
Overall, delegating time-consuming editing work to a video pro allows you to focus on what really matters: Honing your voice and producing original, high-quality content. Ultimately, it helps you cut back on costs for subscriptions, software, and hardware costs.
FAQs
How much does it cost to outsource video editing?
An average 10-minute YouTube video costs from about $300 to edit. A TikTok short will start at around $80-$100. Video editing subscriptions are $500 monthly and up.
Is outsourcing editing more expensive than doing it yourself?
Yes, it does cost money, but the return on investment is high: It gives you better quality video, you don’t have to pay for any of the hard- and software, and you can put your valuable time to better use. You may well end up earning back the cost and then some.
Will AI replace video editors?
No. Video editors themselves increasingly use AI tools to work faster, but they’re not being replaced. A major reason for this is the very generic look and feel of AI video.
What are downsides of outsourcing video editing?
It is tricky to find companies and freelancers that consistently deliver a great service in terms of quality, turnaround time, communication and reliability. Freelancers are usually less available, too. It can take a few edits until you hit your stride.
What will a video editor want from me?
Apart from your footage, video editors will need instructions for style, pacing and music choices. Video scripts, storyboards and examples for what you’d like to see are extremely helpful.
What is the turnaround time for a first draft from a video editor?
For an average YouTube video, professional editors take between 48 and 72 hours to produce a first draft. For formats like Instagram Reels or TikToks, 24h turnarounds are common.
