Free tools for video teams

Every tool in this hub encodes an assumption we had to make repeatedly on real projects: how long an edit takes at a given complexity, how much source footage a target output requires, what a crop does to a subject's framing, where a loudness target lands, and how turnaround changes when a revision round is added. Rather than answering those questions in email each time, we made them interactive.

None of them require an email address, a signup, or an export credit. Use them, screenshot the result, and paste it into your budget deck or your scoping document. If a number looks wrong for your situation it probably is, because these are planning aids rather than quotes, and the underlying assumptions are stated on each tool page.

The video editing cost calculator estimates a monthly range based on output volume, format mix, and complexity, so you can pressure-test a proposal before you sign it. The aspect ratio and crop calculator shows what happens to framing when you take a sixteen by nine frame to nine by sixteen, one by one, or four by five, and where your subject needs to sit at capture time to survive the crop.

The LUFS loudness reference gives target integrated loudness and true peak values per destination with plain-language explanations of what happens when you miss them. The content volume planner turns a publishing goal into a recording schedule, telling you how many source hours you need per month. The turnaround estimator maps deliverable count and complexity against realistic delivery windows including revision rounds.

The cost and turnaround models are built from our own project history across short-form, podcast, YouTube, and paid social work. They reflect an experienced editor working with organized footage and a defined brief. Disorganized source material, missing brand assets, or an undefined approval chain will push both cost and time up, and the tools flag where that happens rather than pretending it does not.

The technical tools are simpler and more objective. Aspect ratio maths does not vary by client, and loudness targets are set by the platforms rather than by us. Where a platform has not published an official number, the tool says the value is observed rather than documented.

If you are comparing quotes, run the cost calculator first and use the output as your reference band. A quote far below the band usually means fewer revision rounds, offshore junior editors, or a scope that excludes captions, thumbnails, and uploading. A quote far above it should come with a specific reason, such as motion design, licensed footage, or a compliance review layer.

If you are building an internal business case, the volume planner and turnaround estimator together give you a realistic staffing picture: how many recording hours, how many editor hours, and how long from capture to publish. That is usually more persuasive to a finance stakeholder than a creative deck.

Say you want fifteen short-form pieces a month across TikTok, Reels and Shorts. Run the content volume planner first: at a realistic eight to twelve strong clips per hour of well-structured conversation, fifteen deliverables needs roughly two hours of usable source, which in practice means one ninety-minute recording block plus a short top-up session for anything topical. That single number is what most content plans get wrong, because they budget editing time and forget capture time entirely.

Then run the turnaround estimator against the same fifteen. A standard batch with one revision round lands in the three-to-five working day window, which means your recording block has to sit at least a week ahead of your first publish date. Finally run the cost calculator to get a planning band. Those three outputs together — source hours, lead time, budget range — are enough to write a one-page content plan that a finance stakeholder can actually approve.

None of these calculators predict performance. There is no tool here that tells you how many views a video will get, what your cost per lead will be, or whether a hook will work, because nobody can model that honestly from a form input and any tool that claims to is selling optimism. Performance depends on your audience, your offer and your specific creative, and the only reliable way to find out is to publish a batch and read the retention curves.

They also do not replace a quote. Complexity that we cannot see from a slider — mixed camera colour, multi-language subtitles, a compliance review chain, licensed music clearance — moves real pricing meaningfully. Treat the output as the band you should expect, then use it to interrogate any proposal that sits well outside it in either direction.