OpusClip vs Submagic
OpusClip decides which 40 seconds of your long video are worth posting. Submagic makes 40 seconds you already chose look like it belongs in the feed. If you have long recordings and no idea what to cut, buy OpusClip. If you already know your best moments and they look flat, buy Submagic. A lot of people who compare these two end up paying for both, and that is a rational outcome rather than a failure to choose.
Disclosure: this page is published by Kineo, which is not one of the two tools compared here and does not compete with either on the job they do. There is a short, clearly labelled note about Kineo at the bottom. Everything above it is written as if we had nothing at stake, because on this comparison we do not.
The verdict
OpusClip is a selection problem solver
Its job is finding the moments in a two-hour recording that can stand alone, then reframing them vertically and captioning them. If you publish podcasts, streams or long talking-head video, that search is the expensive part of your week and OpusClip is aimed squarely at it.
Submagic is a presentation problem solver
It assumes you already have the clip. What it adds is caption styling, b-roll, hook titles from Pro up, audio cleanup and silence removal. If your clips are fine but they look homemade next to what is winning in your niche, this is the gap it closes.
The cheapest honest combination is about $27–$34 a month
OpusClip Starter at $15/month plus Submagic Starter at $19/month is $34 monthly, or $27 if you take Submagic annual at $12/month. That gets you selection and polish together for less than a single mid-tier plan on most platforms in this category. Verified on both pricing pages on July 26, 2026.
Neither can help you if you have no footage
Both require an upload. Submagic’s free plan even caps you at 200MB and 1 minute 30 seconds per video. If your channel plan is to publish without filming anything, the entire comparison on this page is moot and you need a different category of tool.
Side by side
Every figure below was read off each vendor’s own pricing page on July 26, 2026. Where a tier table did not resolve to readable prices, the cell says so rather than guessing — a wrong competitor price is worse than no price at all.
| OpusClip | Submagic | |
|---|---|---|
| What it actually is | Finds the best moments in a long video you already recorded and cuts them into vertical clips. | Takes a short video you already have and makes it look native to the feed — captions, b-roll, sound cleanup. |
| Needs an existing video? | Yes — you upload a long video or paste a link. There is nothing to clip from an idea. | Yes — you upload a finished video. It styles a clip, it does not create one. |
| Free tier | Free plan: $0, 60 credits per month, renders up to 1080p, auto-reframe and AI captions with emoji and keyword highlighting. Clips are watermarked, and after 3 days they are no longer exportable. | Free plan: $0, 3 videos per month carrying a Submagic watermark, capped at 200MB and 1 minute 30 seconds per video, with starter templates and free stock media. |
| Cheapest paid plan | Starter $15/month (150 credits/month, monthly billing only) | Starter $19/member/month, or $12/member/month billed yearly |
| Full pricing | Free $0 (60 credits/mo) · Starter $15/mo (150 credits/mo, monthly billing only) · Pro $29/mo, or $14.50/mo billed annually at $174/year (3,600 credits released up front, 2 seats) · Business custom. | Free $0 (3 videos/mo) · Starter $19/member/mo, or $12/member/mo billed yearly (15 videos/mo up to 2 min each, 3 AI credits, 1080p/30fps, API 10 min/mo) · Pro $39/mo, or $23/mo yearly (40 videos/mo up to 5 min, 6 AI credits, Storyblocks media, AI hook titles, audio cleanup, silence removal, caption translation, 1080p and 2K) · Business + API $69/mo, or $41/mo yearly (100 videos/mo up to 30 min, 15 AI credits, 4K/60fps, API 100 min/mo) · Custom on request. |
| Watermark | Watermarked on the free plan; watermark-free from Starter up. | Watermarked on the free plan; removed from Starter up. |
| Aspect ratio | Vertical clips auto-reframed from your horizontal or square source. | Short-form vertical, taken from the video you upload. |
| Voice / narration | Whatever voice is already in your footage. There is no text-to-speech narration of a written script. | Your source audio. No AI narration of a written script. |
| Where the visuals come from | None. Every frame in the output came from the video you uploaded. | Free b-roll and audio on paid plans; the Storyblocks library is added from Pro up. |
| Export & usage limits | Free: clips stop being exportable after 3 days. Starter: 30-day limit on MP4 exports. Pro: no limit on MP4 exports. | 1080p/30fps from Starter, 1080p and 2K from Pro, 4K/60fps on Business. Quota is counted in videos per month, with a maximum duration per video that rises with the tier. |
Sources: OpusClip pricing · Submagic pricing — both checked on July 26, 2026. Vendors change tiers without notice, so confirm on their site before you pay. If you find something here that is out of date, we would rather fix it than keep the click.
Which one you should pick
Pick OpusClip if…
- You record long — podcasts, streams, webinars, long talking-head — and the bottleneck is deciding what to cut.
- You want to try before paying: the free plan gives 60 credits a month at up to 1080p.
- You will commit annually — Pro drops from $29/month to $14.50/month billed annually at $174/year, with 3,600 credits released up front.
- Two people need access; Pro includes 2 seats.
- Auto-reframe from a horizontal source is the specific thing you need automated.
Pick Submagic if…
- You already have the clips and they need to look native to the feed.
- Caption styling is a real differentiator in your niche and you want templates rather than a timeline.
- You want a genuinely usable free plan: 3 videos a month, watermarked, capped at 1m30s and 200MB.
- You need audio cleanup, silence removal or caption translation — those arrive at Pro, $39/month or $23/month yearly.
- You need 4K at 60fps, which is the Business + API tier at $69/month or $41/month yearly.
The differences that actually matter
The 3-day expiry on OpusClip’s free plan
This is the single most-missed line in the entire comparison. On the free plan, OpusClip states that after 3 days the clips are no longer exportable. That makes the free tier a trial rather than a workflow: generate a batch, forget about it for a long weekend, and the work is gone. Starter lifts this to a 30-day limit on MP4 exports, and only Pro removes the limit entirely. If you were planning to run a channel on the free plan, plan around this or plan on paying.
Submagic charges per member, and per video
Submagic prices are quoted per member per month, and the quota is a number of videos with a maximum duration each: 15 videos up to 2 minutes on Starter, 40 up to 5 minutes on Pro, 100 up to 30 minutes on Business. OpusClip meters credits instead. The practical difference is that a Submagic plan has a hard, countable ceiling you can plan a posting schedule against, while a credit balance drains at a rate that depends on what you feed it.
Only one of them charges you more for a team
OpusClip Pro includes 2 seats at $29/month. Submagic bills per member, so a second person is a second subscription. For a solo operator this is irrelevant; for a two-person channel it is a real annual number.
Neither writes a script or records a voice
Worth stating plainly because a lot of buyers assume otherwise. Both work from audio you already recorded. There is no text-to-speech narration of a written script in either product, and no way to go from an idea to a video without filming something first.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need both OpusClip and Submagic?
Often, yes, and that is not a cop-out. They solve different halves of the same workflow: OpusClip identifies and cuts the clip out of your long video, Submagic styles the clip for the feed. Running OpusClip Starter at $15/month alongside Submagic Starter at $19/month — $12/month if billed yearly — is a common and reasonable stack. If money is tight, start with whichever half is currently costing you more time.
Is OpusClip or Submagic cheaper?
OpusClip Starter is $15/month against Submagic Starter at $19/member/month, so OpusClip is cheaper at entry. On annual billing it flips at the top: Submagic Starter falls to $12/member/month while OpusClip Starter is monthly-only, though OpusClip Pro falls to $14.50/month billed annually at $174/year. All figures read from their own pricing pages on July 26, 2026.
What happens to my OpusClip clips after 3 days on the free plan?
OpusClip states that on the free plan, clips are no longer exportable after 3 days. They are effectively use-it-or-lose-it. Starter raises this to a 30-day export window and Pro removes the limit. Check the current terms on opus.pro/pricing before relying on this.
Can Submagic make a video from scratch?
No. Submagic works on a video you upload — its free plan is capped at 200MB and 1 minute 30 seconds per file. It adds captions, b-roll, hook titles, audio cleanup and similar polish. If you have no footage at all, it has nothing to work with.
Which one is better for a podcast?
OpusClip, clearly, for the first step: a two-hour episode is exactly the case its clip-finding is built for. Then Submagic if you want the resulting clips styled beyond what OpusClip’s captions give you. Note the ceilings if you are high-volume — Submagic Starter allows 15 videos a month at up to 2 minutes each, which a weekly podcast will exhaust quickly.
Do both have free plans without a credit card?
Both list a free tier. OpusClip Free gives 60 credits a month at up to 1080p with watermarked clips that expire from export after 3 days. Submagic Free gives 3 watermarked videos a month capped at 200MB and 1m30s. Neither free output is what you would want on a monetised channel, because of the watermarks.
One disclosed third option
Disclosure: Kineo publishes this page and is not one of the two tools compared above. It belongs to a different category — from-scratch generation. Both OpusClip and Submagic need footage you already recorded; Kineo takes a typed topic and returns a finished faceless 9:16 Short with narration over matched footage. If you landed here because you want to post Shorts but have nothing to clip, that is the relevant difference. If you do have long recordings, OpusClip is the better tool for that and this page is not trying to talk you out of it.
Make one free →Up to 3 watermarked Fast videos / 24h · No card · Starter $4.90 first month
Other comparisons
Prices, free-tier terms and limits on this page were verified on July 26, 2026 by reading each vendor’s own published pricing page, linked above. They change. Nothing here is an endorsement by, or affiliation with, OpusClip or Submagic, and no comparison on this site is paid for or sponsored. Kineo is a product of the same company that publishes this page, which is stated on every comparison whether or not Kineo is one of the tools being judged.