What it costs to hire a video editor for social media
Last updated October 17, 2026
These are the going rates for editing short social videos — Reels, TikToks, Shorts — from the marketplaces and services that sell the work, and from US government wage data. Every figure links to the page it came from; all of them were read on October 3, 2026. Prices change, so check the source before you buy.
The short answer
- Freelancer by the hour: $10–$60 on Upwork, with a median of $35.
- Per finished short video: about $10–$30 from subscription editing services, $60–$100 from a typical freelancer, and up to $300 for a one-off custom edit.
- Monthly, for a steady flow: from about $200 for ten videos from a subscription service to $1,500–$5,000 for a freelancer retainer or an agency.
- A full-time editor: a median wage of $75,420 a year (May 2025), roughly $107,700 once benefits are added.
Freelance hourly rates
On Upwork, video editors generally charge $10–$60 an hour, and the median is $35 (Upwork, Upwork cost page). Those are asking rates from a worldwide pool, not a survey of what US businesses pay.
Hourly prices only mean something next to the hours. Upwork's own rule of thumb is 1 to 4 hours of editing per finished minute of video. At the median rate, a 60-second reel comes to about $35–$140 (our arithmetic from Upwork's figures).
Price per finished short video
Services that sell short-form editing by the video publish their prices. These assume you supply the footage. Lowest first:
| Who | Price | What it includes |
|---|---|---|
| Splasheo | From $9.90 a video | Edits of short videos you upload, human-made captions, 1–6 hour turnaround; 1 credit per minute of video |
| Editvideo.io | $195 a month for 10 videos | Short videos up to 90 seconds from your raw clips, captions, music, unlimited revisions, 2-day turnaround |
| Feedbird | From $149 a month for 5 videos | 20–60 second videos from your footage or stock, captions, and scheduling and posting included |
| VidChops | $495 a month for 16 short videos | Dedicated editor, 3 revisions a video, 1–2 day turnaround, stock footage |
| Fiverr (category guidance) | $60–$70 a video, typically | Social media video editing gigs; individual gigs start from $5 to $50 |
| Tasty Edits | $80–$94 a vertical video | Animated captions, unlimited revisions, 24-hour turnaround; $88 each in a 15-pack, $80 in a 30-pack |
| Upwork (single short edit) | $75–$300 a video | One vertical video with trimming, pacing, burned-in captions, exported for one platform |
Swipe the table sideways to see every column.
The spread is mostly about who does the work and how much of it: a subscription service batching captioned cuts of your clips sits at the bottom, a freelancer who aspect ratios each video by hand sits in the middle, and a one-off custom edit costs most.
Monthly arrangements
For a steady flow — the ten to fifteen videos a month that keep an account active — editors sell batches and retainers:
| Who | Price | What it includes |
|---|---|---|
| Upwork freelancer, batch of clips | $400–$1,200 per batch of 5–10 | Platform-ready short videos with a consistent caption style, resized for TikTok, Reels and Shorts |
| Upwork freelancer, short-form retainer | $1,500–$3,000+ a month | Weekly or monthly batches with consistent branding (video count not stated) |
| Upwork freelancer, content retainer | $2,000–$5,000 a month | 8–12 videos a month across formats, priority turnaround |
| Capture Video & Marketing | $2,250–$3,950 a month | Unlimited short-form edits by a US-based editor, motion graphics and captions; you supply the footage |
Swipe the table sideways to see every column.
Hiring a full-time editor
The median wage for film and video editors in the US was $75,420 a year, or $36.26 an hour, in May 2025. The lowest-paid tenth earned under $40,280 and the highest-paid tenth over $148,550 (BLS).
A salary is not the whole cost. Across private industry, benefits make up 30% of what employers spend on pay (BLS), which puts a median editor at roughly $107,700 a year before equipment and software (our estimate). That is also why so many editors freelance: about 35% of them are self-employed.
What these prices leave out
- Filming. Almost every price above edits footage you shoot. Having someone come and film is a different, much larger bill.
- Writing the post. The caption, hashtags and title are often extra, or left to you.
- Posting. Only one service above schedules and posts the videos for you; with the rest, you still upload each video to each network yourself.
- Rounds of changes and turnaround. They vary from one round to unlimited, and from hours to days. Compare those as closely as the price.
What doing it yourself costs
The cheapest editor is you, until you count the hours. Put in your own numbers; the freelancer line uses Upwork's median rate.
Work out your own number
That is 12 hours of editing a month — $480 of your time at $40 an hour.
Paying a freelancer $35 an hour (the Upwork median) for the same hours: $420 a month.
Postango Starter: $99 a month for up to 12 finished videos, posted for you.
Where Postango fits
Postango is software, not an editor for hire: you upload the raw clips, and it cuts each video and adds captions and music, writes the caption and hashtags, and posts it to the accounts you connect: video to eight networks, and photo posts to Bluesky, where a video goes as its cover picture with a link to watch it on YouTube. Starter is $99 a month for 12 videos, about $8.25 each. Pro is $199 a month for 30 videos, about $6.63 each, and adds up to 1 hour of footage in one batch, and 1080p Full HD video. Workshop is $499 a month for 60 videos, about $8.32 each, and adds up to 2.5 hours of footage in one batch, and up to 4K wide video and 1080p vertical. A video is one finished video delivered for your review.
A person is still the better choice for some work: a story told across a long video, custom motion graphics, footage that needs rescuing, or a look that has to match a brand book exactly. Postango is built for the other job — a steady stream of short posts from the work you already film. Compare the plans, or see what a social media manager costs if you are weighing hiring someone to run the accounts as well.
Free trial: 2 videos in total, each a small 72-pixel preview, so you can judge the edit; it's too small to post. Trial videos are never posted to your social media accounts, and extra clips are made on paid plans. No card needed. One trial per email address. After that, plans start at $99 a month. Plans · Fair-use policy
Sources
All read on October 3, 2026.
- BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook: film and video editors
- BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026
- Upwork: hire video editors
- Upwork: video editor cost
- Splasheo plans
- Editvideo.io short-form editing
- Feedbird pricing
- VidChops pricing
- Fiverr: social media video editing
- Tasty Edits pricing
- Upwork: short-form video editors
- Capture: short-form editing service