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By the toolist.ai editors. Researched from vendor pages and hands-on tests published by others, not hands-on tested by toolist.ai. Updated November 3, 2026.

Best editors tools

AI video editors cut, caption and clean up footage you already have. Descript edits video by editing its transcript and suits talking-head video and podcasts, VEED is known for styled subtitles, Kapwing suits teams editing together in the browser, CapCut is free to start for quick social video, and Riverside records remote interviews and podcasts and edits them by transcript. Captions edits talking-head shorts filmed on an iPhone for you: AI Edit adds captions, B-roll and music in one pass. Filmora is a desktop timeline editor for Windows and Mac with AI tools built in, most of them paid in AI credits, and suits hobbyists, YouTubers and small creators on a low yearly budget. Clipchamp, Microsoft's editor for desktop browsers and Windows, is a beginner-friendly timeline with AI tools rather than an AI-first product: its free plan exports up to 1080p without a watermark and includes AI captions, text-to-speech voiceovers, silence removal and noise suppression. Final Cut Pro, Apple's professional editor for Mac and iPad, is also a video editor with AI features rather than an AI-first product: its AI tools find shots by what they show or what is said in them, mark the beats of a song, write captions and mask subjects, without credits. Billed monthly, paid plans start at $4.99 a month for the reduced Captions Lite on Android, $9.99 for CapCut Standard, Captions Basic and Microsoft 365 Personal (with Clipchamp's 4K export, premium stock and brand kit), $12.99 for Apple Creator Studio (Final Cut Pro for Mac and iPad with Apple's other creative apps, or $129 a year), $24 for Descript and Kapwing, and $35 for Riverside Pro ($24 a month billed yearly); Captions' AI Edit starts with Max at $24.99. Final Cut Pro for Mac alone costs $299.99 once, without the iPad app. Clipchamp has no price of its own on clipchamp.com, so with Microsoft 365 you pay for Office apps, Copilot and OneDrive storage too; a standalone Clipchamp Premium is still listed in the US Microsoft Store at $11.99 a month, though Clipchamp's own pages no longer offer it. Filmora's US pricing page offers no monthly plan, only yearly plans and a one-time Perpetual license: on Windows, Basic costs $49.99 a year ($4.17 a month billed yearly) and includes no AI credits; AI credits start with Advanced at $59.99 a year.

Quick picks

• CapCut: best for fast TikTok, Reels and Shorts edits on any device
• Captions: best for turning talking-head footage into finished vertical videos on an iPhone, with AI avatars when you cannot film
• Clipchamp: best for free, beginner-friendly video editing on Windows or in the browser, with AI captions and voiceovers
• Descript: best for editing talking-head video and podcasts by editing the transcript
• Filmora: best for desktop video editing on Windows or Mac with built-in AI tools, on a low yearly budget
• Final Cut Pro: best for Mac and iPad video editing, from quick social clips to long professional edits, with AI search, captions and masking built in
• Kapwing: best for teams editing short social videos together in the browser
• Riverside: best for recording remote interviews and podcasts, then editing and clipping them in one place
• VEED: best for social videos that need well-styled subtitles, edited in the browser

Compared

Listed in alphabetical order: we do not rank tools we have not tested ourselves. Price per unit divides each cheapest plan's monthly price by what it includes. Units differ between tools, so read the unit before comparing two rows.

Also listed, not researched yet: Arsaze, Publishub.

Filter every tool by price and free plan in the tool directory, or price your own month in the AI cost calculator.

How to choose

• Talking-head, interview or podcast footage: pick an editor that cuts by transcript. Descript is built around it; VEED, Kapwing and Riverside offer it too. If you also record the conversation, Riverside records each guest on their own device and cuts clips from it with Magic Clips. For short videos filmed on an iPhone, Captions' AI Edit cuts the clip and adds captions, B-roll and music in one pass. Filmora, a desktop timeline editor, also lists AI text-based editing, and its Smart Short Clips turns a long talking-head video into short vertical clips: PCMag's tester got 10 scored clips with titles and a transcript (with a few errors) from one video. For screen-and-webcam tutorials and voiceovers on a free plan, Clipchamp records your screen and camera, finds pauses longer than 3 seconds to cut, and adds autocaptions, which MakeUseOf's writer found consistently accurate on podcast clips, tutorials and videos with heavy accents.
• Watch the meters: Descript counts media hours and AI credits, while VEED and Kapwing charge their AI tools in credits; Riverside records, edits and exports without limit on paid plans but caps downloads of separate tracks and uploads of outside video (15 hours a month each on Pro), and gives a one-off balance of AI credits that does not renew. Captions spends credits on every AI feature, even on projects you never export (AI Edit takes 10 to 40 credits a project, and Max includes 500 a month). Filmora charges most of its AI tools in credits reissued every 30 days, with unused ones reclaimed (none on Basic, 1,000 on Advanced, 2,000 on Premium), and the cost varies by feature and model: AI Eye Contact on a 22-second clip used 400 credits in PCMag's test, and text-to-video on Veo 3.1 takes 450 a time, so Advanced's month covers about two. Clipchamp has no credits: its AI tools are free on every personal plan and Clipchamp's pages say they have no usage limit, though a Microsoft help page reserves the right to restrict transcription to curb excessive use or fraud; exports are unlimited, and projects are saved to OneDrive, with 5 GB on a free account and 1 TB with Microsoft 365 Personal. Final Cut Pro has no credits either: its AI tools run without monthly limits, but Visual Search, Transcript Search and Generate Captions need Apple silicon and work in US English only.
• Check refunds: Kapwing has none after you upgrade, VEED only within 14 days if unused, Descript within 48 hours of the invoice, Riverside within 24 hours of a monthly Pro or Grow plan or 14 days of a yearly one, Filmora generally not for a change of mind, credits already used or a renewal you did not cancel in time, despite a '30-day money-back guarantee' on its pricing page, and Captions not at all unless the law requires it. Clipchamp follows Microsoft's subscription policy: a refund within 30 days of the first purchase or before the first renewal, whichever is sooner, and one refund per account and product of a renewal cancelled within 30 days of payment.
• Several people editing the same video: Kapwing has real-time collaboration in the browser.
• Pay once or subscribe: Final Cut Pro for Mac costs $299.99 once, with free updates so far. Apple Creator Studio ($12.99 a month or $129 a year) adds Final Cut Pro for iPad and subscriber-only content, but projects made in its apps open only while you subscribe, or on the Mac in the one-time app.

Read more

• CapCut review
• Captions review · pricing
• Clipchamp review · pricing
• Descript review · pricing
• Filmora review · pricing
• Final Cut Pro review · pricing
• Kapwing review · pricing
• Riverside review · pricing
• VEED review · pricing
• Descript vs CapCut
• VEED vs Kapwing

Other categories: avatar video, text to video, clips, script to video, voice, image, writing, coding. All lists: best-of lists.