How long does it take to edit a YouTube video? Typically, a YouTube video takes hours to edit. You can expect to spend anywhere between 1 hour – 10 hours on a standard YouTube video. If you’re working on something more professional, you might even find yourself spending days on just one video.
That’s true. And this is exactly why we founded editvideo.io. We offload video editing work from your shoulders. With us, you can focus on content creation, while we focus on perfecting the content you create.
In this post, we’ll share how you can estimate the time required for editing a single YouTube video. So, you can make an informed decision when entrusting us or any other video editor with the job! ☺
Table of Contents
How long does it take to edit a YouTube video?
Precisely, expert video editors give us the following estimates:
- 1-minute video: 1-2 hours
- 5-minute video: 4-8 hours
- 20-minute video: 36-48 hours
- 1-hour video: 5-10 days
However, as mentioned earlier, there are a lot of factors that affect the required editing time. The factors affecting video editing time include:
Video Type
Editing heavily depends on the type of video. Casual videos take less time, while business and corporate videos take more time.
When we say less time, we mean hours. But when we say more time, we mean days.
Here’s a clear division of easy-to-edit video types and difficult-to-edit video types:
| Easy | Difficult |
| Challenge Videos | Travel Vlogs |
| Talking head videos | Cinematic Videos |
| Recipe Videos | Educational Videos |
| Unboxing videos | Travel Vlogs |
| Review videos | Product videos |
| Ask me anything | Culture videos |
| Testimonial videos | Whiteboard videos |
Of course, there are several more types. But we hope you get the idea. It’s easy to edit any video type that involves a casual feel. There’s room for mistakes.
But if you’re selling something and creating a video with a business perspective, you’ll need something more professional.
Now, professional doesn’t mean suit and tie. In videography terms, professional refers to perfection. There should be no flaws in vibes, colors, transitions, sound effects, etc. If you have to convince the buyer to take an action after viewing your video content, you have to maximize its appeal. You can only do so if you perfectly present it.
Complexity of Edits
There are several different aspects of video editing. These include:
- Extracting useful bits from raw footage
- Setting up a sequence of events
- Editing sound and music
- Adding transition and effects
- Adding subtitles
At times, you may even need to add keywords and links in the description and the video content to optimize it for search engines.
The time required for video editing increases with the complexity of edits. If a video requires editing in all of the aspects mentioned above, it will conveniently take a day or two (meaning 8-10 hours of consecutive work). The lesser edits required, the lesser time you will need.
Experience
Your experience in video editing will significantly affect editing time. If you’re well-versed in video editing software, you will have no trouble navigating through and finding the right tools.
Similarly, a vast experience means a quicker understanding of what to do with the video and how to make it better. Experience also sharpens the eye for picking flaws.
For that very reason, we recommend entrusting professional video editors to beginner YouTubers. You will waste a lot of time learning and editing, while a professional can do a better job for you in lesser time.
Software & Tools
Advanced software and tools can speed up the editing process. Advanced software comes with better features that often reduce 5-step processes to 1-3 steps. In this way, they save time.
But again, advanced video editing software is neither cheap nor easy to master. So, if you’re looking to save time, outsource video editing to professionals. At this point of your journey, the costs might worry you. But remember, if you prioritize saving money over time, you’ll lose the audience really quickly. If you truly look forward to making money out of YouTube, we recommend you create a team extension and hire video editing professionals.
How can you edit videos quickly?
You can reduce the editing time of your videos by giving clear instructions to your video editor. We recommend:
- Filming more than you need for the video
- Sifting the footage by yourself and sending relevant footage to a video editor
- Filming with high-quality audio quality
- Sharing a brief of your expectations (every detail)
You can also edit quickly by using video templates. However, templates may kill the uniqueness of your video.
Editing Time VS Turnaround Time
If you’re hiring a video editing company or a freelance video editor to take care of your YouTube videos, you ought to be aware of the following two terms:
- Editing time: This is the time taken to process the videos. It’s affected by the factors mentioned above, i.e., the editing experience of the video editor, video type, software, etc.
- Turnaround time: This is the time taken to return the file. It is affected by the availability of video editors, business hours, transfer time, and your availability.
Both of these do not include revision time.
It is essential to understand these three aspects before outsourcing work to a video editing company. Most video editing companies promise to edit unlimited videos in a month for cheap rates. It appears like a good deal, but it is a bad deal.
That’s because you only get 3-4 videos edited in a month. Their editing time maybe 24 hours, but most companies require 2-3 business days to revise or turn around finished videos.
That’s why we, at editvideo.io, promise instant revision. Every edit request and revision request is turned back within 24 – 48 hours. You can check out our pricing packages starting at only $295 per month.
FAQs
Why does video editing take so long?
Video editing involves many phases, including fishing out the right clips from the raw footage, adding effects, editing audio, and enhancing the overall look of the video. For that very reason, it’s a time take process.
Final Words
So, how long does it take to edit a YouTube video? Typically, it takes one hour to edit one minute of an average YouTube video. But you can estimate time, depending on the factors given above. For accurate estimates, send us your raw video at support@editvideo.io with the subject Estimate My Video Editing Time. Our experts will send you a realistic estimate. You can also get your first video edited for free from us!
