How to hire a video editor when you run a small agency or a channel

On 11 October 2026, Google autocomplete finished the phrase "how to hire a video editor" with YouTube, with "good", with "freelance", and right next to it sat "how much should i pay a video editor".

That is the whole hiring process in the order people panic about it. Where, who, which kind, and then the money.

I sit on both sides of this. I pay editors across the VALORAE group, and the Cast blog tells editors to refuse unpaid trial work, flatly.

So here is the complication. The standard advice for hiring an editor is "ask for a test edit", and I have published advice telling editors to walk away from exactly that request.

Both positions hold. The difference is one word, and I will get to it in Step 3.

Step 1: Work out which job you are short of

Most people hire an editor when the gap is somewhere else.

The test we published on VALORAE Media is two piles. Raw footage you have not edited, and finished video you have not published or published badly, with no real title, thumbnail or caption.

Whichever pile is bigger is the hire. If it is the second pile, a new editor makes it bigger.

For a YouTube channel this matters more than anywhere. A strong edit with a weak title and a frame grab for a thumbnail is a video nobody sees, and no amount of editing fixes packaging.

So count before you post the job. If raw footage is the pile, keep reading.

Step 2: Look where your footage is already being cut

The best place to find an editor is wherever someone is already cutting the format you need.

Podcast clips, talking-head YouTube, product reels and long documentary edits are different crafts. An editor who is excellent at one can be ordinary at another, and the portfolio will not tell you which.

So search by output, not by job title. Find videos in your format that you would be happy to have made, and find out who cut them. Credits in descriptions, editors tagged in posts, communities where editors share work and talk shop.

Then message the person, not a marketplace listing. A short message that names the specific video you liked gets read. A job post that says "looking for editor, must be creative" gets a pile of templates.

Step 3: Run a paid test, and keep it small

Here is the word: paid.

A free test edit is the most common way editors lose money, and the good ones know it. When you ask for free work you filter out every editor who has other options, which is the group you wanted to hire from.

A paid test, even at a reduced rate, turns the first exchange into a transaction. And it tells the editor you will pay on time later, which is the thing they are testing you for.

The shape I would use is the same one the Cast post on free trial edits asks editors to insist on, because it is fair from both chairs:

• Paid, at whatever rate you both agree.
• Short. A segment, never a full video.
• Scoped in writing: one deliverable, one revision round, a deadline.
• Watermarked until payment clears, and you should not mind that.

If an editor asks for any of those terms, that is a good sign. They have been burned, they learned from it, and they will run your work the same way.

Step 4: Send everything once, before the test starts

A test on bad inputs measures your inputs.

Send the real thing. The highest quality export or the raw recording, never a re-download of something already compressed by a platform.

Then the kit. Font files rather than a screenshot of a font, hex colours, the logo, and a one page brief that says who the audience is, what the video is for, the tone, and anything that must never be cut.

Add links to the accounts the video will live on, and a few videos you admire with one line on why each one works. The VALORAE Arc post on what to send a clipper before the first episode carries the full list, and it holds for any editor.

What you should not send is timestamps for every cut. Choosing the moments is part of what you are testing.

Step 5: Judge the revision, not the first cut

Skip the portfolio.

That sounds reckless, so here is the defence. A portfolio is finished work that already went through somebody else's notes, somebody else's footage and somebody else's taste. You cannot see how many rounds it took or who made the calls.

The test shows you the one thing a portfolio hides: what happens when this person receives your notes.

So split your review into two kinds of check. The first kind is pass or fail, and anyone can enforce it. Captions inside the safe area, the hook landing where the brief asked, audio levels, aspect ratio, the file named the way you asked.

The second kind is preference. Pacing, where they chose to cut, which moment they opened on. This is where you learn whether their instincts sit close to yours.

Then send one round of notes and watch the revision come back. Did they fix what you asked without breaking something else? Did they ask a question where your note was vague, or guess?

An editor who asks a good question on the test will ask it on the hundredth video too. That is the hire.

And notice what you had to fix yourself. Every fix is an unwritten rule. I keep those as a rejection log, and the earlier post on what breaks first when an agency grows explains why that list beats any style guide you could write up front.

Step 6: Decide the pay before you decide the person

The autocomplete asks how much to pay a video editor, and I am not going to print a number.

Any figure would be a guess at your volume, your editor's speed and your budget, and I have no source for one I could stand behind today. What I can tell you is what has to be fixed before a number means anything.

Volume. Turnaround. How many revision rounds, and what counts as a revision. Who supplies captions, music and thumbnails. A quote without those attached is an opening position that each side reads in its own favour.

The editor's side of that conversation is written up on VALORAE Cast as what to charge as a short-form editor, and when to stop charging per video. Read it before you negotiate. It tells you exactly what a good editor will ask you, and it is better to have the answers ready.

Then put the agreement in writing. Six short lines in a message thread is enough: what gets delivered with a count, the price, when payment happens, the revision limit, the delivery format and deadline, and that rights transfer on final payment.

Step 7: Pay on the date, every time

This is the step that decides whether the good editor stays.

Pay on the date you agreed. Not when the client pays you, not when you have reviewed the batch, not after a polite delay.

I nearly broke this once and wrote it up in paying editors before the client pays. The short form: the client contract and the editor contract are two unrelated documents, and only one of them has your name on the paying side.

A small reserve that covers one payment cycle with no client money arriving makes this easy. Staggering client due dates away from editor pay day makes it easier.

But the reserve is a tool. The rule is the date.

Step 8: Review early for the first month

The first month is where a good hire goes wrong, and it is usually the buyer's fault.

The cost of rejecting work scales with how finished it was. So ask for the rough sequence before the polish, give notes there, and let the editor finish with your direction already inside the cut.

Keep adding to the rejection log. Send it to the editor, so the rule lives with the person doing the work.

By the end of the month the pass or fail list should be running without you. The preference list should be shorter. If neither has moved, you have learned something about the fit, and you learned it cheaply.

The short version

• Count the two piles before you hire, and hire for the bigger one.
• Find editors through videos in your format, then message the person who cut them.
• Pay for the test, keep it short, and put the scope in writing.
• Send the master file, the kit and a one page brief before anyone starts.
• Judge the revision and the questions, not the polish of the first cut.
• Fix volume, turnaround and revisions before you agree any rate.
• Pay on the agreed date, whatever your client does.

I write these operator notes at tgsidd.com.