AI Clipping Cost Breakdown
Opus Clip vs Vizard vs Klap: the meter decides the price, not the plan
Two of these tools bill you for video going in and one bills you for clips coming out, and that single structural difference matters far more than the monthly price. Opus Clip and Vizard both charge 1 credit per minute of video you upload, no matter how many clips you keep. Klap's plans are sold in clips per month. So a podcaster and a short-form creator should buy opposite tools, and the plan price barely enters into it.
Comparison Outline
Quick verdict Input billing vs output billing What each one costs The ratio that decides it Paying before you know it worked The free plans What we could not confirm FAQQuick verdict
Match the meter to your source material, then look at the price. Picking on monthly cost alone is how podcasters end up buying a tool that charges them for every minute of a two-hour episode they were never going to publish.
Input billing versus output billing
Every roundup of these tools compares monthly prices and clip counts side by side, as though the numbers describe the same thing. They do not. Two of the three meter what goes in, and one meters what comes out.
Opus Clip meters imported minutes. Its help documentation is unambiguous: "Currently, processing clips will cost 1 credit per minute of the original video imported." It also states plainly that the number of clips generated does not affect the cost. The rounding is slightly odd in both directions — a video under a minute rounds up to 1 credit, while partial minutes round down, so Opus gives the example of a 4.5-minute video being calculated as 4 minutes.
Vizard meters uploaded minutes. Same model, stated on its pricing page as "Every minute of video you upload will cost 1 credit." Its plans also carry a separate monthly upload capacity — 60 minutes and 1GB on Free, 600 minutes and 30GB on Creator and Business.
Klap meters clips. Its pricing page sells plans as 100, 300 and 1,000 clips a month across Basic, Pro and Pro+. Nothing on that page charges for the length of what you upload.
So the question "how much does clipping cost" has no single answer. It depends entirely on the shape of your footage, and the two shapes are billed in opposite directions.
What each one costs
Read off the vendors' own pricing pages and help documentation in September 2026.
| Plan | Price as displayed | The meter | Notable limits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Opus Clip Free | $0 | Minutes imported | Captions watermark; up to 1080p; media expires after 3 days |
| Opus Clip Starter | $15/mo | Minutes imported | Watermark-free; media expires after 29 days; AI voice-over 20/day; AI B-roll 3 clips/mo |
| Opus Clip Pro | $29/mo | Minutes imported | Adds custom reframing, dubbing, sound effects, API |
| Vizard Free | $0 | 60 credits/mo (1 credit = 1 min uploaded) | Watermark; 720p; 10-minute max export; 60 min / 1GB upload capacity |
| Vizard Creator | Not displayed to us | Annual credit tiers from 7,200 to 69,600/yr | No watermark; 4K; any export length; 600 min / 30GB; 6 social accounts |
| Vizard Business | Not displayed to us | Same credit tiers | Adds 20 social accounts, team workspace, brand kit |
| Klap Basic | $14/mo billed yearly | 100 clips/mo | Unlimited social accounts; analytics |
| Klap Pro | $39/mo billed yearly | 300 clips/mo | Same shared features |
| Klap Pro+ | $94/mo billed yearly | 1,000 clips/mo | Team-oriented tier |
Quotes read September 2026 from Opus Clip pricing, Opus Clip's credit documentation, Vizard pricing and Klap pricing. Klap advertises "Save 50%" on annual billing and displayed only the yearly figures to us. Vizard's plan prices did not render at all — see the section on what we could not confirm.
One rule worth knowing before you subscribe monthly. Opus Clip states that on monthly plans credits expire in 60 days, "so they roll over for one additional month," while yearly plans deliver credits immediately and keep them valid for 12 months. If you cancel, whatever is left expires on its original date rather than at the end of your billing cycle. That is a two-month buffer for uneven publishing schedules, not a bank.
The ratio that decides it
There is a simple way to work out which meter is on your side, and it takes one division. Take the minutes of video you upload in a month, and divide by the number of clips you actually publish. That ratio, not the plan price, is what determines the cheaper billing model. Two worked examples on the published rates make it concrete.
The podcaster. Four 90-minute episodes a month is 360 minutes of source. Say ten clips survive editing per episode, so 40 published clips. On Opus Clip and Vizard that is 360 credits — you are charged for all 360 minutes, including the roughly 320 minutes that never became anything. On Klap the same month is 40 clips, comfortably inside the 100-clip Basic tier at $14 a month billed yearly. The ratio here is 9 minutes of source per finished clip, and per-minute billing charges you for every one of them.
The short-form creator. Twenty 8-minute videos is 160 minutes of source, and suppose you pull 15 clips from each, so 300 published clips. On Opus Clip and Vizard that is 160 credits, and the 300 clips are free — clip count does not enter the calculation. On Klap, 300 clips means stepping up to the Pro tier at $39 a month billed yearly. The ratio is roughly half a minute of source per clip, and now output billing is the expensive one.
Same three tools, opposite answers, and the flip happens somewhere around one minute of uploaded source per published clip. Above that ratio, clip-metered pricing is working for you. Below it, per-minute pricing is. Most people can estimate their own ratio in about thirty seconds, which makes it a far more reliable guide than any roundup's overall winner.
This also explains a pattern you may have noticed if you have read a few of these comparisons: podcast-focused reviewers and short-form-focused reviewers reach opposite conclusions about the same tools, and both are right about their own footage. If you are still deciding what kind of footage to make in the first place, our breakdowns of the faceless TikTok product loop and building a faceless YouTube channel cover the two ends of that spectrum.
You pay before you know it worked
There is a second consequence of input billing that the pricing pages do not spell out, and it is the strongest practical argument for the clip meter.
Opus Clip and Vizard both charge on import. The credits leave your balance because you handed the tool a file, not because the tool produced anything you wanted. If the AI picks poor moments, or misreads a rambling conversation, or crops the wrong speaker, the minutes are already spent — and feeding the same video back in to try again costs its full length a second time. On a 90-minute episode that is 90 credits to find out, and another 90 to try again.
Clip-based billing inverts that risk. You are charged for output, so a disappointing pass costs you time rather than allowance. That matters most on exactly the footage where AI clipping is least predictable: long, loosely structured, multi-speaker recordings.
It cuts the other way too, and it is worth being fair about it. If your footage is tight and repeatable — a scripted talking-head video where nearly every segment is usable — then per-minute billing lets you generate aggressively and keep everything, at no extra cost. The same freedom that is wasteful on a rambling podcast is genuinely cheap on disciplined source material.
One more limit on Opus Clip that catches people out: media storage expires after 3 days on Free and 29 days on Starter. These are processing tools, not archives. Download what you intend to keep.
The free plans, and what they are actually for
All three vendors have a way to try the product, and none of the free tiers is a production plan.
Vizard Free is the more clearly specified of the two we could read: 60 credits a month, 720p output, a watermark, 60 minutes of upload capacity, and a 10-minute maximum export length. Note what that combination does to a podcaster — a single 90-minute episode exceeds the monthly upload capacity outright, so the free tier cannot process it at all.
Opus Clip Free includes a watermark on captions, up to 1080p rendered clips, a 3-day export limit and media storage that expires after 3 days.
Treat both as quality tests rather than trials of the workflow. Sixty minutes is enough to learn whether a tool finds good moments in your kind of footage, which is the only question worth answering before paying, because clip quality on multi-speaker audio varies far more between tools than the feature lists suggest. For the wider toolkit around this step, see our roundup of AI video tools for small business creators and the credit-cost breakdown for HeyGen vs Synthesia, which meters minutes in a different way again.
What we could not confirm
Three gaps, stated plainly rather than filled with numbers we could not read at source.
- Vizard's plan prices. Its pricing page renders the Creator and Business tiers with feature lists and credit tiers but no dollar figures we could read, on repeated attempts. We quote no Vizard price anywhere on this page. The credit model and plan limits above are quoted directly from the page and are reliable; the price is not something we can tell you.
- Klap's source video length caps. Multiple third-party reviews report that Klap limits maximum source length by plan — around 45 minutes on Basic and roughly two hours on Pro — along with a monthly cap on the number of uploads. None of this appears on Klap's own pricing page, which lists only clip allowances. We are not stating those figures as fact, but you should be aware of the possibility, because if Basic refuses a 45-minute upload, the podcaster case above collapses and you would need Pro. Confirm it with Klap before subscribing on the strength of our Basic recommendation.
- Opus Clip's per-plan credit allowances. The prices above are from the pricing page, but the credits attached to each tier sit behind an interactive calculator that did not render for us. Third-party articles consistently report 150 credits on Starter and 300 on Pro. We have not confirmed those, so our scenarios above are expressed in credits consumed rather than in which Opus tier you would need.
This follows the rule we apply site-wide: a number we could not read at source does not get stated as a fact. The billing models here are all quoted from vendor documentation and are the load-bearing part of this comparison — the gaps are in the price tags, not the mechanics.
FAQ
Does Opus Clip charge per clip or per video?
Per video, measured in source minutes. Opus Clip's documentation states that processing costs 1 credit per minute of the original video imported, and that the number of clips generated does not affect the cost. A 60-minute podcast spends 60 credits whether you keep one clip or twenty. Sub-minute videos round up to 1 credit; partial minutes round down, so Opus documents a 4.5-minute video as 4 credits.
Which clipping tool is cheapest for a podcaster?
Usually the one that meters clips. Four 90-minute episodes is 360 minutes of source, so 360 credits on Opus Clip or Vizard even if you publish 40 clips. Klap sells 100 clips a month on Basic at $14 billed yearly, so the same workload fits its entry tier. The caveat is the reported source-length cap on Basic, which is not on Klap's pricing page and would change the answer.
Do Opus Clip credits roll over?
Partly. Opus states that monthly credits expire in 60 days, "so they roll over for one additional month," while yearly plans issue credits immediately and keep them valid for 12 months. Cancel and the remainder expires on its original date, even if that is after your billing cycle ends.
What happens if the AI clips are bad?
On the per-minute tools you have already paid. Both bill on import, so credits go before you see output, and re-importing the same file costs its full length again. That is the practical case for output billing on unpredictable footage — a clip meter only charges for results you chose to keep.
Can you use these clipping tools free?
For testing, not production. Vizard Free lists 60 credits, 720p, a watermark, 60 minutes of upload capacity and a 10-minute maximum export, so a 90-minute podcast will not process. Opus Clip Free carries a captions watermark, up to 1080p clips, and media storage that expires after 3 days.
Final recommendation
Do the division before you do the shopping. Minutes uploaded per clip published is a number you can estimate from last month's output, and it points at the right billing model immediately: a high ratio means you are paying per-minute tools for footage you throw away, and a low ratio means a clip meter is charging you for output the other tools give away.
For long-form creators, that points at Klap, with one condition attached — confirm the maximum source length on the tier you are buying, because it is the fact most likely to invalidate the recommendation and Klap does not publish it. For short-source, high-output creators, Opus Clip and Vizard are the cheaper structure, and the choice between them comes down to output quality on your footage, which is what the free tiers are for. Whichever you pick, monthly billing on Opus Clip gives you a 60-day credit buffer, which is worth having while your publishing rhythm is still irregular.
Related reads: comparison hub, best AI video tools for small business creators, HeyGen vs Synthesia credit costs, the faceless TikTok product loop, the TikTok Creativity Program blueprint, and video translation and AI dubbing.