Compare
We compared 10 APIs that turn long videos into vertical shorts. Most cost $0.01 to $0.11 per source minute; clipsdk is $0.03 with no subscription, for MP4, MOV, WebM, MKV files up to 3 hours, with up to 20 ranked clips each.
Prices checked 26 October 2026 on vendor pages.
Side by side
Monthly plan price divided by the source minutes it includes, yearly rate in brackets.
| API | Price per source minute | How the API is sold | Longest source | Clips per video | Captions | Reframe | Webhooks | Rate limits or caps |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| clipsdk | $0.03 ($0.02 past 2,000 min) | Prepaid credit, no plan | 3 h, 5 GB | 1 to 20 | Burned in or clean, SRT and VTT | Follows the speaker, 4 sizes | Signed | 3 jobs at once, 200 a day |
| OpusClip | $0.097 ($0.048 yearly) | Beta, Pro plan and up | 10 h, 30 GB | No count setting | Burned in, brand templates | Portrait, square or landscape | Signed | 15 h a month, 30 requests a minute |
| Klap | ~$0.074 at 5 shorts an hour | Pay per step, no plan | 5 h | You set it, 10 by default | On by default, style presets | On by default | None, you poll | None documented |
| Submagic | Not published | Plan plus Magic Clips subscription | 120 min, 10 GB | No count setting | Burned in, templates | Face tracking | Unsigned | 500 requests an hour |
| Vizard | $0.048 ($0.024 yearly) | Plans from $29 a month | 600 min, 10 GB | 1 to 100 | Burned in, can be turned off | Auto, 9:16 by default | Unsigned | 3 a minute, 20 an hour on Creator |
| Reap | $0.028 ($0.017 yearly) | Plans from $16.99 a month | 3 h, 5 GB | No count setting | Burned in, 50+ styles | Face tracking | Unsigned, no retries | 10 projects a minute, 3 at once |
| Choppity | $0.11 ($0.075 yearly) | Creator plan, from $32 a month | Not stated, 10 GB upload | 1 to 30 | Burned in or none | 9:16, 1:1 or 16:9 | Signed | 60 requests a minute |
| Ssemble | ~$0.01 (yearly, 20 min windows) | Plans from $72 a year | 5 h, 20 min per request | 1 to 12 per request | Burned in, templates | Auto, fill, fit or square | Unsigned, with retries | 100 an hour, 1,000 a day |
| WayinVideo | Shown after login | Prepaid API units, no plan | No hard limit | You set a limit | Burned in, templates | AI reframe, 4 sizes | None, you poll | 15 requests a minute, 5 at once |
| Spikes Studio | $0.07 (Pro) | Beta, from $350 a month | Not documented | Not documented | Burned in, style settings | Not documented | Not documented | Not documented |
Verdicts
Send a file or direct URL, get a signed webhook, and download 1 to 20 ranked clips with MP4, SRT, VTT and poster files. It doesn't take YouTube links, and sources stop at 3 hours.
Best for: Pay as you go clipping with signed webhooks and subtitle files.
OpusClip takes YouTube and other links or uploads up to 10 hours and 30 GB, with brand templates and signed webhooks. The catch is a hard 15 hour (900 credit) monthly API cap per workspace.
Best for: YouTube links or long files, under 15 hours a month.
You pay $0.44 per input video, $0.32 per short and $0.48 per export: $4.44 for a 60 minute video with 5 shorts. It takes 5 hour sources from YouTube, S3 or GCS and has an embeddable editor, but no webhooks.
Best for: Apps that need an embeddable editor or only a few clips per video.
Magic Clips takes YouTube links or 120 minute, 10 GB uploads and gives each clip 4 virality sub-scores. It needs its own subscription on top of a plan from $19 a month, at a price Submagic doesn't publish. Editing minutes cost $0.10 to $0.23.
Best for: Clipping plus caption, b-roll and silence removal from one vendor.
Send a YouTube, Drive, Vimeo, Dropbox or file URL up to 600 minutes and 10 GB and ask for 1 to 100 clips. There's no upload endpoint, and Creator allows 3 API calls a minute and 20 an hour.
Best for: Up to 100 clips from long URL sources at a low yearly rate.
The API and an MCP server come with paid plans, plus 50+ caption styles. On monthly billing, credits expire in 30 days, and webhooks are unsigned, never retried and switched off after 5 failures.
Best for: The lowest published price for whole videos, with fragile webhooks.
Choppity takes 5 GB uploads (10 GB in parts), YouTube links or 8 GB file URLs, returns 1 to 30 clips, signs webhooks and can post to social accounts. API access starts on the $32 Creator plan.
Best for: Signed webhooks and social posting in one API.
Each request turns up to 20 minutes of a video into up to 12 shorts for 1 credit, with meme hooks, music and gameplay split screens. There's no file upload, so you split longer videos into windows yourself.
Best for: The lowest cost per minute, if you chunk videos into 20 minute windows.
WayinVideo sells prepaid API units (1 per input minute) with no plan and takes links from YouTube, Twitch, Kick, Zoom and more, with no hard length limit. Unit prices only show after login, and there are no webhooks.
Best for: Long Twitch, Kick or Zoom streams without a monthly plan.
Send a YouTube, Google Drive or file link and get 5 to 180 second clips with burned-in captions. The beta API starts at $350 a month for 50,000 credits, and max length, webhooks and rate limits aren't documented.
Best for: High volume teams ready to commit $350 a month.
Transcription with word timestamps costs $0.0025 a minute on AssemblyAI Universal-2, $0.0043 on Deepgram Nova-3 or $0.006 on OpenAI whisper-1 (shutting down 26 February 2027), plus under a cent an hour for an LLM. You build and host the reframing, captions, queue and storage.
Best for: Teams that want full control and will run video infrastructure.
Method
Every number comes from vendor pricing pages and API docs, checked on 26 October 2026. Klap is priced for a 60 minute video with 5 shorts, and Ssemble for full 20 minute windows. Submagic and WayinVideo don't publish a clipping price. We found no public clipping API for quso.ai, Munch or Vadoo AI, so they're not listed.
FAQ
Ssemble, at about $0.01 per source minute on its $72 yearly Pro plan with full 20 minute windows. For whole videos, Reap is $0.017 a minute yearly ($0.028 monthly), Vizard $0.024 yearly and clipsdk $0.03 with no subscription.
OpusClip, Klap, Submagic, Vizard, Reap, Choppity, Ssemble, WayinVideo and Spikes Studio all accept YouTube URLs. clipsdk does not take YouTube links; you pass a direct file URL or upload an MP4, MOV, WebM, MKV file up to 5 GB.
clipsdk (Clipsdk-Signature header), OpusClip and Choppity (both HMAC SHA-256) sign their webhooks. Submagic, Vizard, Reap and Ssemble send them unsigned, Klap and WayinVideo make you poll, and Spikes Studio doesn't document webhooks.
Only if you want to run video infrastructure. Transcription with word timestamps starts at $0.0025 a minute on AssemblyAI Universal-2, but you also build speaker tracking, ffmpeg caption rendering, a job queue and storage, and keep them running.
Start free
That's 33 source minutes, with every clip included and no subscription. A 60 minute video costs $1.80.
