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Facts checked against both vendors on September 28, 2026.
Descript is the stronger choice if you edit whole episodes and videos: it is a full editor where you cut by editing the transcript, with remote recording, Studio Sound, AI voices and an agent that also finds clips. Opus Clip is the stronger choice if your only job is turning long recordings into short vertical clips with captions, and you want that done fast, cheaply and with a scheduler. Many teams run both; if you must pick one, Descript is the editor and Opus Clip is the clipper.
Revolutionize content creation with intuitive editing, AI-driven tools, and seamless collaboration.
Descript and Opus Clip overlap on one feature, finding shareable clips inside a long video, and diverge everywhere else. Descript is a desktop and web editor for podcasts and video built on transcription, with an agent called Underlord that can do the editing for you. Opus Clip is a pipeline: upload or link a long video, let ClipAnything pick moments, reframe them for vertical, caption them and post them.
Both publish clear plans. The figures below come from the vendors' pricing and product pages as of September 2026.
Descript transcribes your audio and video and lets you edit the media by editing the text: delete a sentence and the cut is made. Around that core it offers Studio Sound for cleaning audio, automatic filler word and retake removal, multitrack timeline editing with precision controls, Descript Rooms for remote recording in high-quality audio and 4K video captured locally on each participant's machine, and AI Speech with custom voice clones and video regeneration on the Creator plan and above. Underlord, which Descript calls an agentic video co-editor, cuts filler words and retakes, writes titles and show notes, translates into more than 20 languages and finds social clips with the highest engagement potential. Business adds avatar generation.
Opus Clip is built around ClipAnything, an AI model that the vendor says turns any genre, from vlogs and gaming to sports, interviews and explainers, into clips in one click, and ReframeAnything, which resizes video for any platform while keeping moving subjects centered with object tracking. Captions are generated automatically with what Opus states is more than 97 percent accuracy, across English, German, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese and many more languages. Clip lengths can be set in bands from under a minute up to 10 to 15 minutes. Higher tiers add AI image B-roll, stock B-roll, a virality score, a social media scheduler, brand templates with fonts, colors, logos and intros and outros, a team workspace and an API for connecting to a CMS.
Descript's Free plan is $0 with 1 hour of media a month, 100 one-time AI credits, 720p watermarked export, 5 GB of storage and one seat. Hobbyist is $16 a month billed annually or $24 monthly, with 10 hours of media a month, 400 AI credits, 1080p export without a watermark, 100 GB of storage and access to Underlord plus tools such as Studio Sound. Creator is $24 a month billed annually or $35 monthly, with 30 hours, 800 credits, 4K export, 1 TB and one to three seats, plus full Underlord access and AI Speech with voice clones. Business is $50 a month billed annually or $65 monthly, with 40 hours, 1,500 credits, 4K export, 2 TB, up to five seats and avatar generation. Enterprise is custom. Descript meters two things: media hours transcribed and AI credits spent on Underlord and generation.
Opus Clip's Free plan is $0 with regular processing speed, uploads up to 10 GB per video, exports up to 1080p that expire after three days, a watermark on animated caption templates, one brand template and no B-roll, virality score or scheduler. Starter is $15 a month with faster processing, watermark-free export at the highest available resolution, a 30-day retention limit, a virality score, three AI image B-roll clips and three stock B-roll clips a month, and one brand template; there is no scheduler and no team support. Pro is $29 a month with uploads up to 30 GB per video, no retention limit, 50 AI image B-roll clips a day and unlimited stock B-roll, the social media scheduler, up to four brand templates, 100 GB of fixed storage and team seats sold in packs of two up to four seats per workspace. Business is custom with a dedicated enterprise queue, unlimited storage, unlimited seats and unlimited B-roll. Annual pricing is not shown on the page, so check it for any yearly discount.
It is a complete editor. Transcript-based cutting, a multitrack timeline, Studio Sound, filler removal, remote recording in Rooms and 4K export cover the whole production of a podcast or a YouTube episode. Opus Clip starts after the episode exists.
AI voice and correction. AI Speech with custom voice clones lets you regenerate a flubbed line in your own voice on Creator and above, and Business adds avatar generation. Opus Clip has no speech generation.
Underlord does the clipping too. Descript's agent finds social clips with high engagement potential, writes titles and show notes, and translates into more than 20 languages, so a light clipping workflow is included in the same subscription.
Storage and retention. 100 GB on Hobbyist, 1 TB on Creator and 2 TB on Business with no expiry, against Opus Clip's three-day and 30-day retention on Free and Starter.
Speed to a finished clip. ClipAnything selects moments, ReframeAnything keeps the subject centered in vertical, captions are applied with a template, and Pro posts on a schedule. In Descript you still assemble and export each clip.
Price for the clipping job. Starter at $15 a month, or Pro at $29 with unlimited stock B-roll and a scheduler, is cheaper than Descript Creator at $35 monthly if clips are all you need, and there is no media-hour meter: limits are file size, retention and B-roll count.
Genre coverage and captions. Opus Clip is explicit that ClipAnything handles gaming, sports and vlogs, not only talking heads, and its caption languages run well beyond Underlord's 20 or more translation languages.
Distribution features. A virality score, a social media scheduler, brand templates and an API into a CMS are built for a content team feeding several channels. Descript's publishing story is export.
Pick Descript if you record, edit and publish full episodes or videos, want to fix mistakes by retyping them, need remote recording and audio cleanup, or want AI voice and translation in the same tool. Hobbyist at $16 a month billed annually is enough for a solo podcaster; Creator at $24 adds 4K, 30 hours and voice clones.
Pick Opus Clip if your recordings are already edited, or come from a live stream, and you want the maximum number of platform-ready short clips with the least effort, scheduled straight to social. Starter at $15 a month works for a channel or two; Pro at $29 is where the scheduler, unlimited stock B-roll and team seats arrive. If you produce the episode and the clips, Descript for the episode and Opus Clip for the clips is a common and reasonable pairing.
Built from each tool's listing. Vendors can update their own listing after claiming it.
Free is $0 with 1 hour of media a month and 720p watermarked export. Hobbyist is $16 a month billed annually or $24 monthly with 10 hours, 400 AI credits and 1080p. Creator is $24 billed annually or $35 monthly with 30 hours, 800 credits, 4K and voice clones. Business is $50 billed annually or $65 monthly with 40 hours, 1,500 credits and up to five seats. Enterprise is custom.
Free is $0 with 1080p exports that expire after three days and a watermark on animated captions. Starter is $15 a month with watermark-free export, a virality score and limited B-roll. Pro is $29 a month with 30 GB uploads, unlimited stock B-roll, 50 AI B-roll clips a day, a scheduler and up to four seats. Business is custom with a dedicated queue and unlimited storage.