Short answer: free tiers exist, genuinely unlimited free does not. This page explains where the cost actually hides in each option, so you can pick the one whose catch you can live with. It is written by the people behind a paid tool, so read the last section too, where we say plainly who should not buy it.
The one thing to understand: clipping a video with AI costs somebody GPU time. If the tool runs in the cloud, that GPU is theirs, they pay per minute, and they meter you with credits, minute caps or a watermark. If the tool runs on your computer, that GPU is yours, you already paid for it, and there is nothing to meter.
That single difference explains almost every pricing page in this category.
| What you are offered | The actual catch |
|---|---|
| Free credits per month | Runs out mid-project. Credits are usually consumed by minutes of source video, so one long stream can eat a whole month. |
| Free minutes | Counts your input, not your output. A 3-hour VOD costs 180 minutes even if you keep 40 seconds of it. |
| Free with watermark | Usable for testing, not for a channel you want taken seriously. Removing it is what the paid tier sells. |
| Free trial | Time-limited. Fine for evaluating, not a plan — VERTES gives you 7 days of free cutting and captions, no card. |
| Free and open source | Genuinely free, but you assemble it yourself: models, Python, ffmpeg, and your own time. Real option if you enjoy that. Not a product. |
Not "what is free", but "what does this cost me at the volume I actually work at?" Someone making two shorts a month is fine on almost any free tier. Someone clipping a 3-hour stream several times a week hits every cap there is, and that person ends up paying either way.
So the honest comparison is not free versus paid. It is metered versus unmetered.
VERTES is not free. It is a subscription from £10/month. What it does not do is meter you: it runs entirely on your own PC, so there are no credits, no minute caps, no per-export fees and no upload. Make two shorts this month or two hundred, the price is the same.
| VERTES | Typical cloud tool | |
|---|---|---|
| Where your footage goes | Stays on your PC | Uploaded to their servers |
| Exports | Unlimited | Credits or minute caps |
| Cost per extra video | £0 | Credits, or a higher tier |
| Works offline after setup | Yes | No |
| Needs a gaming GPU | Yes — this is the trade-off | No, any laptop |
| Price | from £10/mo | ~$15 to $39+/mo |
Do not buy VERTES if: you work on a laptop without a dedicated GPU, you are on macOS or Linux, or you make a couple of clips a month. In all three cases a cloud tool's free tier is the better answer and we would rather you used one.
It is worth it if: you already own a gaming PC, you clip long gameplay or podcasts regularly, and you have run into credit limits or minute caps before.
Windows 10 or 11, a gaming GPU (NVIDIA, AMD or Intel — a GTX 1060 6GB or RX 580 is enough), around 20 GB of free disk space, and an internet connection for the one-time setup. After that it works offline.
See what VERTES costs Or read how it works first
Free tiers, yes. Free without limits, no. Every cloud tool meters you somehow, because every clip costs them GPU time. The only unmetered model is software that runs on hardware you already own.
Because their cost scales with your usage. Yours does not, once the processing happens on your own machine.
Most do on the free tier. It is usually the first thing the paid plan removes.
With a cloud tool, your raw video sits on their servers while it is processed. Whether that matters depends on what you record. Local software never sends it anywhere.
No, it is from £10/month. The usage is what is unlimited, not the price. There is a 7-day money-back guarantee if it is not for you — see the terms.