OpusClip Can’t Spin Straw into Gold. But It Can Save You Time

OpusClip can generate a month’s worth of social media posts for you while you make a cup of tea. Then you can evaluate them while you sip, and post in seconds. 

OpusClip is an AI-powered clipping platform that scans your podcast episode, chooses the clips it considers most likely to garner attention, and edits them into clips ready for the social media of your choice. It’s not magic, but it’s fast. Can OpusClip save you time and promote your podcast on social media? Let’s find out. 

Our link to OpusClip is an affiliate link, so we may earn a small commission if you buy. It never affects what you pay, and it never affects our reviews.

How Does OpusClip Work? 

Once you’ve signed up, you can either: 

• enter the URL of a video from the platform of your choice, or
• upload a video file (.mp4 or .mov, but not wav or mp3) 

and then click “Get Clips in 1 Click.” 

Depending on the episode length, OpusClip will generate 12-24 video clips, formatted and captioned for social media, highlighting the parts of your episode that are most likely to grab attention. You can post them directly to your social media accounts from your OpusClip dashboard or download them to your computer.

OpusClip is remarkably cagey about how the software works. According to their site, “The upgraded AI Curation works much closer to the workflow of a REAL human editor: It first understands the entire video, segments it into chapters, and then selects the most interesting or informative parts to create clips with viral potential.” 

Or, as they also say, “There’s a ton of really complicated AI stuff going under the hood that might make your head spin…Ultimately, we’re only serving up the dopest results straight to you with no fuss.” 

Thank goodness. I wouldn’t want anything less than the dopest.

Let’s find out how fast OpusClip finds and extracts clips.  

How Many Clips Can OpusClip Generate, and How Fast? 

Podcasters are busy. If you already spend a lot of time recording and editing, you might not be able to carve out more time to edit posts for social media. Plus, decisions regarding your topic, ideas, and audience engagement can be tiring. Fortunately, OpusClip can work with little to no supervision while you make that cup of tea or take the dog for a walk. 

Again, quantity and speed depend on the file you submit. For my experiment, I used a 59-minute episode of Podcraft. I entered the YouTube URL and clicked “Get clips in 1 click.” You can also upload a video file, though it doesn’t accept MP3 or WAV files. The user interface said processing the clips would take 11 minutes. However, in 8 minutes, the software had finished generating 24 clips. 

Boiling a cup of water takes me roughly five minutes, and typically I steep my tea for four. So, yes, OpusClip can generate many video clips from one episode in the time it takes to make a cup of tea. 24 separate clips could yield four fresh social media posts a week for six weeks. That’s a lot of posts for eight minutes of processing. 

However, like tea, there’s no accounting for taste. You don’t know whether the clips are appropriate for promoting your podcast until you’ve watched them. Some may need adjustment, while others might not be helpful at all. 

OpusClip’s editing interface is intuitive and clear. You’ll see it’s similar to Descript and Headliner.  Even if you haven’t used either of those platforms, the dashboard’s user interface will make sense quickly. A link to OpusClip’s Help guide is in the toolbar, and videos explaining best practices are linked at the bottom of the screen. 

Let’s look at OpusClip’s criteria for, as they said, “serving up the dopest results.” 

How Does OpusClip Select The “Right” Clips? 

OpusClip uses a four-aspect ranking system to score each clip on a scale of 1 to 100. These aspects are: 

• Hook (Does the moment revolve around a short, well-defined argument or question?)
• Flow (Is the discussion coherent? Does it flow logically?)
• Value (Does this moment answer a question or solve a problem?) 
• Trend (Is this moment aligned with topics that are trending on social media?) 

If your podcast episode’s dialogue is clearly defined (or tends toward hot takes), you can predict what OpusClip will generate. I tested OpusClips on more discursive podcast episodes and found that it identified moments in the discussion that were provocative but had little to do with the episode’s main topic. 

Let’s say Colin entered an episode about automating your podcast editing into OpusClip. Pretend that midway through the episode, he said, “I think Taylor Swift has great hair, but few adults can wear bangs without looking childish,” apropos of nothing. OpusClip would capture that moment, because it would earn high scores for Hook, Flow, Value, and Trend. Using this clip to promote a podcast episode about automated podcast editing, however, would be a bait-and-switch. The Swifties would ride at dawn.

Don’t assume that, left unsupervised, OpusClip can spin straw into gold. You’ll thank yourself later if you check every clip for quality and clarity before posting it. Maybe the captions substitute “knight” for “night.” Maybe the automatic filler word removal mangles someone’s name, ruining your discussion of Umberto Eco’s novels. Make sure the generated output matches how you want to represent yourself and your podcast. 

We know OpusClip is fast and focused. But is it free? 

OpusClip’s Pricing and Features

Yes, OpusClip starts with a free tier, allowing you to test basic operations before committing financially. All OpusClip subscriptions include credits, each equal to a minute of episode time. If you pay annually, OpusClip offers a 50% discount. The price tiers are: 

Free
Cost: $0
Includes 60 credits per month, 1080p rendering, auto reframe, and AI captions with emoji and keyword highlights. You can create one brand template. Clips are watermarked, you cannot use the built-in editing tools, and you must export within three days.

A simple way to test the platform.

Starter
Cost: $15 per month
Includes everything in Free, plus 150 credits per month, AI clipping with a virality score, animated captions in more than twenty languages, auto posting to major short form platforms, full editing features, filler word and silence removal, and no watermark.

This tier fits most creators.

Pro
Cost: $29 per month
Includes everything in Starter, plus 300 credits per month, a team workspace for two people, two brand templates, six social account connections, AI-generated stock footage, multiple aspect ratios, a social scheduler, export options for Adobe Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve, Intercom support, custom caption fonts, and speech enhancement.

Best for teams or creators who want advanced tools and scheduling.

Caveat emptor: I tested this with the Pro tier to assess features that are still in beta, such as the stock video footage. If Starter or Free is better for your needs, go for it. The following strategies will help you get the most bang for your buck, no matter which price point you choose. 

How to Get The Most Out of OpusClip

Like most “set it and forget it” tools, OpusClip requires a greater initial time investment, which lessens over time. It’s worth taking time to try these steps on Day One, so the following days flow more smoothly.  

Set up a brand template first. It’ll save you effort in the long run. 

The toolbar along the left side of your Dashboard screen contains all available options; hover over the icons to see what each one corresponds to. It’s tempting to try generating videos right away, but you’ll like the results better if you click “Brand Template” first. 

Templates allow you to set conditions, such as the layout, color, and style of your captions, as well as automatic removal of filler words. Explore these options and make a template you like before uploading anything, so you’ll get results that match your intentions. 

Connect your social media accounts in advance. Click the chain-link icon to open the Social Account Connections menu. The first time, the window will be blank. Click “+ Add Account” and follow the prompts. Once your social media accounts are connected, you can share your clips right away without downloading or re-uploading them. You’ll need this to schedule social media posts in advance. 

Note the start and end times of the part of the episode that matters to you most. This way, OpusClip doesn’t have to search the whole episode, and you don’t have to waste credits on your intro & outro or any baked-in ad reads.

Listen to your clips and edit wherever necessary. Last year, I tested OpusClip with a podcast episode that used the phrase “abducted by aliens from another planet” in a side joke. OpusClip identified this moment and assigned it a high rating, interpreting the episode as about human trafficking rather than about how to write a five-act drama. I’m sure the software has improved since then.

If you find that OpusClip highlights the funny asides instead of the point you intended to make, try adjusting the start and end times of the part you want OpusClip to scan. 

Be careful with filler words. OpusClips’ automatic filler word removal is efficient, but leaves audible edits. The software cuts right before and after each “uh” or “um.” If your episode’s audio has background sound, these edits may be more noticeable. You’ll have to decide on a case-by-case basis which is more distracting: keeping the filler words or editing them out. 

Make sure your call to action is crystal clear. In the Pro plan, users can add Intro or Outro cards, which are image files (with or without text). You can upload your own images to the Asset Library and use them for your CTA. A message as simple as “Look for [title of show] wherever you get your podcasts” provides context and helps your audience connect. 

Who is OpusClip Best For? 

Nearly any podcaster can benefit from using video clips to promote their podcast. The Pew Research Center surveyed over 5,000 adults in the U.S. about their social media use, finding that:  

• 37% of respondents use TikTok, 
• 50% of respondents use Instagram, 
• 71% of respondents use Facebook (which includes Instagram Reels in its feed) 
• 84% of respondents use YouTube. 

Unless your podcast is meant for people who hate video, short video clips can garner interest from anyone who cares about your topic but hasn’t found your podcast yet. 

Audio-only podcasters aren’t left out, either. Whether you record video with your episodes or simply audio, video with clear captions, quality audio, and an eye-catching logo (or OpusClip’s B-Roll footage) can entice people to download your podcast. 

OpusClip’s AI features are best for podcasters who are strapped for time in post-production and who use a script (of any kind) to guide the episode’s discussion. As noted earlier, OpusClip’s AI favors lucid, logically expressed arguments aligned with current trends. Podcasters who get to the point and follow their topic’s current events may find their results with OpusClip are more predictable. The more discussion rambles, the more likely you are to end up with video clips about Taylor Swift’s hair. 

Ultimately, if you need an impartial third party to select and edit promotional clips for your podcast and schedule social media posts, OpusClip can do that, saving you time and reducing decision fatigue. 

Spilling the Tea on What OpusClip Can Do for Your Podcast

OpusClip isn’t sorcery. It can’t turn any material into viral social media posts. Tastes vary, and one person’s trending topic is another person’s passé concept. What OpusClip can do, however, is select and edit a stack of social media video clips in the time it takes to boil water, relieving you of choice overload and saving you time.

Treat each clip like a first draft, and with an attractive brand template, an inviting call to action, and a few modifications to the clips that frame your ideas best, OpusClip can help you put your podcast in front of new audiences and help your show grow. 

Social media is only one part of a podcast’s promotion. If you want to go deeper, The Podcraft Academy has clear, tested strategies you can use right away, along with feedback and accountability to keep you moving. It is a place to build your skills, get practical guidance, and grow your show with confidence.