OpenShortsOpus Clip pricing in 2026: every plan, the trial, and what a credit is
Opus Clip has four plans (checked 2026-10-05): Free with 60 credits a month and a watermark, Starter at $15/month for 150 credits, Pro at $29/month or $14.50/month billed yearly for 300 credits, and a custom-priced Business plan.
One credit is one minute of source video you import, not one clip you export. A 60-minute podcast costs 60 credits whether it yields 5 clips or 20. Unused credits roll over for two months.
There is a 7-day free trial of Pro with no credit card, but trial exports keep the watermark. OpenShorts prices the other way round: $0 self-hosted with no meter, or hosted from $12/month for 100 minutes with no watermark.
Paste a link and compare the output against your last Opus Clip export. First video free up to 60 minutes, no credit card.
How much does Opus Clip cost?
Checked 2026-10-05 on the vendor's public pricing and help pages. Vendors change plans without notice; verify before you buy.
| Plan | What it includes |
|---|---|
| Free | 60 credits a month (one credit is one minute of source video), exports up to 1080p with a watermark, no editing, clips must be exported within 3 days |
| Starter | $15/month, monthly billing only: 150 credits a month, no watermark, virality score, auto-posting to YouTube Shorts, TikTok and Instagram |
| Pro | $29/month, or $14.50/month billed yearly ($174/year): 300 credits a month, 2 seats, AI B-roll, Premiere and DaVinci export, limited API access |
| Business | Custom pricing: API and integrations, SSO, dedicated support |
Starter is sold month to month only. The yearly discount (about 50%) applies to Pro, which is why Pro billed yearly, at $14.50/month, costs less than Starter billed monthly, at $15/month, while giving twice the credits.
How Opus Clip's credit system works
The unit Opus Clip bills in is not the clip. It is the minute of video you import. Opus Clip bills one credit per minute of the video you import, not per clip you export. A 60-minute podcast costs 60 credits whether it yields 5 clips or 20, so the effective price depends on your source length rather than your output.
- A video shorter than a minute still costs 1 credit, and partial minutes round down: a 4.5-minute video costs 4.
- Credits on a monthly plan expire after 60 days, so unused ones roll over one month.
- Sources can be up to 10 hours long, which at one credit a minute is 600 credits, two months of Pro.
If your sources are short, the meter barely moves. If they are long (a 90-minute interview, a weekly show) the meter is the whole bill, and the number of clips you keep never enters into it.
What does the free plan include?
60 credits a month, so 60 minutes of source video, with exports up to 1080p that carry a watermark. There is no editing on the free plan, the virality score is hidden, and clips have to be exported within 3 days. It imports from YouTube links and local files.
Is there an Opus Clip free trial?
Yes: 7 days of Pro, no credit card. Two details matter. Trial exports still carry the watermark, and the trial leaves out 4K, social posting, the 100 GB of storage and team seats. When the 7 days end, the account drops to the free plan rather than charging you. Upgrading later removes the watermark from projects you made on the free plan or the trial.
The watermark is the thing you are trying to evaluate past. If the question is whether the pipeline is good enough for your footage, a self-hosted OpenShorts run on one episode answers it at no cost and with no watermark, because the self-hosted edition contains no metering or watermark code.
What would Opus Clip cost you?
Three common creators, priced on the credit rule above (one credit per source minute):
Or set your own number. Each bar is the cheapest published plan that covers it:
Cheapest published plan that covers that many minutes, per month. Prices checked 2026-10-05. Self-hosted needs Docker and your own Gemini key, whose free tier covers 1,500 requests a day.
Opus Clip vs OpenShorts on price
| Opus Clip | OpenShorts | |
|---|---|---|
| Free | 60 credits/month, watermarked | Self-hosted: unlimited, no watermark. Cloud: first video free up to 60 min, then 20 min/month, watermarked |
| Entry paid plan | $15/month for 150 minutes | $12/month for 100 minutes, no watermark |
| Unit of billing | 1 credit per source minute | 1 minute per source minute, no per-clip or per-call charge |
| Self-hosting | No | Yes, MIT licence, Docker |
What does OpenShorts cost?
OpenShorts comes in two editions and they are priced very differently, so it is worth being precise. OpenShorts (self-hosted) is free and open source under the MIT licence: Free and open source under MIT. You run it with Docker on your own machine and bring your own API keys. No watermark, no usage cap, no subscription. What it costs you is hardware and time: on a typical CPU an 8-minute video takes 5 to 8 minutes to process. OpenShorts Cloud is the hosted service: The same software with the compute and API keys covered. An NVIDIA GPU clips that same 8-minute video in about 50 seconds. Free plan: the first video is clipped whole up to 60 minutes, then 20 minutes a month, with a watermark and no credit card. Paid plans start at $12/month for 100 minutes with no watermark, up to $59/month.
Common questions
- How much does Opus Clip cost per month?
- Starter is $15/month for 150 credits (minutes of source video). Pro is $29/month, or $14.50/month billed yearly, for 300 credits. There is a free plan with 60 credits a month and a custom-priced Business plan. Checked October 2026.
- Is Opus Clip free?
- It has a free plan: 60 minutes of source video a month, exports up to 1080p with a watermark, no editing, and clips must be exported within 3 days. There is also a 7-day Pro trial with no credit card, still watermarked.
- Does Opus Clip have a free trial?
- Yes, 7 days of Pro with no credit card. Trial exports carry the watermark and the trial excludes 4K, social posting and team seats. When it ends the account becomes a free account instead of charging you.
- What counts as a credit in Opus Clip?
- One minute of source video you import, not one clip you export. A 60-minute episode consumes 60 credits regardless of how many clips you keep. Under a minute costs 1 credit, partial minutes round down, and credits on monthly plans expire after 60 days.
- What is a cheaper alternative to Opus Clip?
- OpenShorts: free and unlimited when self-hosted under MIT, or $12/month hosted for 100 minutes with no watermark. The hosted free plan clips your first video whole up to 60 minutes, then 20 minutes a month, with no credit card.
Sources
- Opus Clip plans, trial and credit rules checked 2026-10-05 on opus.pro/pricing and the OpusClip help centre (how credits are consumed, free trial, watermark).
- OpenShorts pricing from the full comparison and the project source at github.com/mutonby/openshorts.