How to start a clipping agency

Podcasters, coaches, streamers and brands have hours of long video and too few short clips. A clipping agency fixes that: it picks the moments, cuts the clips, captions them and delivers them, or posts them to the client's accounts, every week.

Agencies get paid in a few ways:

• Retainers: a monthly fee for a set number of clips.
• Account management: running the client's short-form accounts, posting and reporting included.
• Campaigns: running a client's clipping campaign, and the clippers who post for it.

Most agencies start with retainers: they're the simplest to sell and to deliver.

The best prospects post long videos every week and few or no clips: a podcast with no Shorts, a coach with webinars and no TikTok, a streamer with no clip channel.

1. Make a list of 50 creators in one niche you know, with long videos and little short-form.
2. Make samples first. Cut three clips from each one's latest video. A creator who sees their own clips doesn't have to imagine what you'd do.
3. Send them with a short message: the clips, one sentence on what you'd do every week, and the price.
4. Follow up once, a few days later, with one more clip.

Most won't reply. A few will, and one or two clients are enough to start. How to get clipping clients has the messages to send and where to find creators who need clips.

Price on what the clips are worth to the client, not on the minutes they take you. A creator paying for clips is paying for reach, new viewers and their own time back. How much to charge for clipping works through packages of 30, 60 and 120 clips with real costs.

• Charge per month, by volume: for example, three packages of 30, 60 and 90 clips a month.
• Spell out what's included: how fast you deliver, how many changes, the caption style, and whether you post or just deliver.
• Add bonuses for results once you can show them, like a bonus for every clip past a set number of views.
• Ask for a minimum term, like three months: clips take a few weeks to find their audience.

Know your cost per clip before you quote. On Clyper's Studio plan, billed yearly, 1,000 credits make up to 500 clips a month for $48/mo: as little as $0.10 a clip, before your time. As clients add up, Studio 2× and Studio 4× give 2× and 4× the credits at the same price per clip.

Your margin is in how fast you make good clips. A workflow that works for a small team:

1. Intake. Keep every client's new videos in one list, added as they go live.
2. Batch. Clip each client's new videos together. On Clyper Studio, paste up to ten links at once and they're worked through in turn, with priority processing.
3. Pick. Sort each video's clips by hook score and keep the strongest.
4. Polish. Trim to the word, fix names in the captions and use the client's caption style.
5. Deliver. Download into a shared folder for each client, named by date, or schedule them on the client's accounts.
6. Report. Once a month, send the views, the best clips and what you'll try next month.

Delivering files is the simplest service: the client posts them. Running their accounts is worth more, but then the posting times, the captions and the replies are yours too. Many agencies start with delivery and add posting for the clients who ask.

For campaign work, where clippers post on their own accounts, follow each campaign's rules and never buy views. See how to make money clipping for how campaigns pay, and how to start a clip channel for running one.

• Write down how you pick moments and style clips, so someone else can do it your way.
• Hire editors to polish and deliver, and keep picking the moments yourself until they can.
• Raise your prices for new clients as your results get better.
• With the client's permission, use your best clips as samples for the next one.