For years CapCut was the automatic answer to "what should I edit this on?" Free, genuinely good, and the features you actually needed came in the box. Two changes ended that.
Price first. CapCut pushed auto-captions, audio extraction, background removal and AI effects behind Pro, and Pro doubled — $9.99 to $19.99 a month. The features that made the app worth having are now the ones you rent.
Then rights. ByteDance updated CapCut's terms of service in June 2025 to claim perpetual, irrevocable rights to content uploaded to the app. If you're editing holiday clips, fine. If you're cutting client work, branded content, or anything you plan to license, that's a real problem sitting quietly in the fine print.
Why leaving got easy
The reason switching suddenly makes sense has nothing to do with CapCut. Auto-captions, background removal and AI voiceover have matured everywhere else. The AI features that used to hold people in place now show up in several competing tools, at lower prices.
That's what's different about 2026. Leaving used to cost you something. Mostly it doesn't anymore.
Editing on your phone: InShot
InShot is the closest swap, and the pricing line is almost funny: $19.99 a year for the full Pro set, versus CapCut's $19.99 a month. Same number, twelve times the gap.
It's not a fringe app, either — over 500 million Google Play downloads and a 4.9 App Store rating. The catch is genuine though: InShot is mobile-only. No desktop app. If part of your workflow happens on a laptop, this isn't the whole answer.
Most software for zero dollars: DaVinci Resolve
Resolve is free, and unusually generous about it — no watermark, and a toolset that overlaps heavily with professional post. Studio costs $295 once, not monthly.
What you pay instead is time. Resolve is a professional colour and editing suite that happens to have a free tier, not a social-video app. Cutting a 30-second vertical between meetings? Way more tool than you want. Building an actual skill? Nothing else in the category comes close on value.
Working in a browser: VEED or Clipchamp
Neither needs installing. VEED is free with limits, $18 a month for Pro, $30 for Business. Clipchamp is free with an $11.99 Premium tier.
These fit the occasional editor, or anyone hopping between borrowed and locked-down machines who doesn't want to install one more thing. Clipchamp is the cheaper paid tier. VEED pushes harder on collaboration and team work.
Picking one
Choose based on where you edit and what you owe the person paying you.
Phone-only, watching costs: InShot, and the annual price makes it a short conversation. Serious about the craft, or on a desktop: DaVinci Resolve, and budget a few weeks to get comfortable. Editing now and then on whatever laptop is closest: Clipchamp, or VEED if other people are involved.
One last thing. If you make work for clients, read the terms of service as carefully as the price list. A monthly fee is easy to compare across apps. Who holds rights to your footage is harder to compare — and it's the part you'll actually care about a year from now.
Image: Muhammed Çetinkaya, via Pexels
