How to make money clipping

Creators with long videos, like podcasts, streams, interviews and courses, want to be seen on short-form feeds, where new viewers find them. They don't have time to cut hundreds of clips, so they pay others to do it, and they pay for results: a set amount for every 1,000 views the clips get.

That's a clipping campaign. A creator, a brand, a music label or an app puts up a budget and a rate, and clippers post clips of their content on their own accounts. You submit your clips, the views are counted, and you're paid out of the budget.

Because you're paid per view, there's no client to pitch and no invoice to chase. The flip side is that a clip nobody watches earns nothing. Clipping rewards people who post a lot of clips and learn what holds attention. For the longer version, see what clipping is and how campaigns work. Would rather be paid per clip? See how to get clipping clients.

• Accounts on the apps. TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. New accounts are fine: the feeds show clips to people who don't follow you, so a good clip can get views on day one. Many clippers make accounts for one niche (one podcast, one streamer, one topic), so the feed learns who to show them to.
• A phone or a computer. A computer is faster once you're making several clips a day.
• A way to make the clips. A video editor and up to an hour per clip, or a clipping tool that finds the moments, frames them and captions them for you.
• A way to get paid. Campaigns pay through the platform that runs them, and you'll usually need to verify who you are before your first payout.

You don't need a camera, a following or to show your face. Most clippers run faceless accounts that post other people's content, with their permission.

Most campaigns are listed on clipping marketplaces; how to find clipping campaigns covers where. Read a campaign's brief before you make a single clip. Its rules decide whether your clips count:

Then pick campaigns you can clip well. A high rate on videos you can't find good moments in earns less than a lower rate on a podcast you'd watch anyway. Stick to one niche at first: you'll learn where the good moments are, and your accounts will build a clear audience.

Only clip content you have permission to use. A campaign gives you that permission. Clipping a creator who hasn't asked for clips can get your posts taken down for copyright, and nobody pays for them. See is clipping legal?

Most of a long video doesn't work as a clip. You're looking for moments that make sense on their own, with no setup, and give people a reason to keep watching:

• A strong opinion, especially one people will argue with.
• A story with a payoff: a surprising number, a twist, a confession.
• A clear, useful tip that fits in under a minute.
• A reaction: laughter, an argument, someone caught off guard.

To find them faster, watch at 1.5× or 2×, read the transcript (on YouTube, Show transcript under the description), and look at the Most replayed graph above the progress bar: its peaks are where viewers went back to watch again. Comments with timestamps point at the moments people remember.

An hour of video usually has 5 to 10 moments worth posting. Rank them and make the strongest first.

A good moment still flops if it's cut for YouTube instead of the feed. Every clip needs:

1. The right cut. Start on the line that hooks, not the setup before it, and end on the payoff, not the “yeah, so” after it. Most clips land between 20 and 60 seconds.
2. Vertical framing. 1080 × 1920 pixels (9:16), cropped on whoever's talking and following them when they move.
3. Captions on every word. Many people scroll with the sound off. Big, word-by-word captions keep them reading, and watching. More in how to caption short videos.
4. A hook on screen. A short line on the first frame that tells people why to stay. The hook generator gives you lines to start from.
5. Nothing under the buttons. Keep captions and faces inside the safe zone, clear of the apps' buttons and text. Check a frame with the safe zone checker.

Done by hand, that's half an hour to an hour per clip, and it's the step that limits how many clips you can post.

• Upload each clip to each app. Post the file itself on TikTok, Reels and Shorts, not a link to it, and without another app's watermark.
• Follow the campaign's rules to the letter. The tag, the sound, the hashtags. A clip that misses one usually isn't paid, however many views it gets.
• Write a caption that adds to the hook, and post when your niche's audience is online.
• Submit the clip as soon as it's live, and keep it up for as long as the campaign counts views.
• Never buy views or use bots. Campaigns check, and the apps ban accounts for it.

Clipping is a numbers game played with judgment. Post every day, ideally several clips a day across your accounts, then look at what happened: which openings held people past the first seconds, which topics got shared, which clips were watched to the end. Make more of what worked and drop what didn't.

Most clippers put their first payouts into making clips faster, since every hour saved is more clips posted. The guide to making clips that go viral goes deeper on what holds attention.

The arithmetic is simple: rate × views ÷ 1,000 × clips. At $1 per 1,000 views, a clip with 5,000 views earns $5. Post 3 of those a day and that's about $456 a month.

These are examples, not promises. Views are uneven: most clips get far fewer views than your best one, and now and then one takes off. Use what your recent clips actually got, and remember that caps and budgets limit what one clip can earn. Try your own numbers in the clipping earnings calculator.

Campaign pay is separate from what the apps pay their own creators, which is usually far less per view and isn't paid on clips of others' videos. See how much YouTube Shorts pay and how much TikTok pays per 1,000 views.

• Reposting without editing. The apps favor original posts over reposts. A clip needs its own cut, framing and captions.
• Slow starts. If the first two seconds are someone saying “so, anyway”, people scroll.
• Captions under the buttons. The bottom of a vertical video is covered by the username, caption and sound. Captions there get lost.
• Missing a rule. A missing tag or the wrong sound can mean no payout for a clip with real views.
• Too few clips. One clip a week tells you nothing. Post enough to learn what works.