Data · October 2026
How long does video editing take? Data from 497 editors
Every answer to this question online is a rule of thumb. Thirty minutes per finished minute, an hour per finished minute, ten to one. Nobody shows where the number came from.
Cut Time tracks editing time automatically for the editors who use it, so we can measure it instead. This covers every editing day logged from March 24 to October 27, 2026: 497 editors and more than 30,000 hours of hands-on editing.
The short answer: on a day they edit, editors put in about 1.9 hours of hands-on cutting, and a typical project takes about 2 of those hours spread over 3 days.
1.9 h
median hands-on editing per editing day
2 h
median hands-on time per completed project
3 days
median days worked per project
What "hands-on" means here
Cut Time counts a minute as active when the editing app is in front and the editor is using the mouse or keyboard. Watching playback, waiting on a render and stepping away all count as idle. So these numbers are the time spent cutting, and they run well below the hours an editor spends at the desk.
That is the number that matters for quoting. Clients pay for the cutting, and it's the part people guess worst.
Hours per day and per week
Across 12,835 editing days from 484 editors, the median day had 1.9 hands-on hours. One editing day in ten went past 5.1 hours.
That includes part-timers, so we also looked at the 104 editors who worked in their editing app on at least 40 days this year. Their median is 2.1 hands-on hours per editing day and 9.2 per week.
On 60% of editing days, the editor worked on two or more projects. Switching between jobs is normal, which is one reason memory-based timesheets drift.
This day-level figure has held at about 1.9 hours every month since August, through several tracker updates.
Hours per project
Project figures only count projects that are finished, meaning no activity for at least two weeks, and that started after the editor installed Cut Time. That leaves 3,604 projects from 357 editors. Counting projects still in progress would make edits look shorter than they are.
| Share of completed projects | Hands-on hours |
|---|---|
| Quickest quarter | under 1 |
| Median project | 2 |
| Longest quarter | over 4.5 |
| Longest tenth | over 9 |
A few prolific editors log a lot of projects, so we checked the median both ways. Counting each project equally and counting each editor equally both give 2 hours.
The median project was opened on 3 separate days and spanned 4 calendar days from the first session to the last. Even small edits rarely happen in one sitting.
By editing app
DaVinci Resolve and Premiere Pro projects take about the same time. After Effects projects run shorter.
| App | Editors | Completed projects | Median hours | Longest quarter |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Premiere Pro | 192 | 1,604 | 2.1 | over 4.9 |
| DaVinci Resolve | 187 | 1,396 | 2.2 | over 5.1 |
| After Effects | 92 | 414 | 1.3 | over 3.0 |
Final Cut Pro is left out because fewer than 25 editors in the data use it. Cut Time tracks all four apps: DaVinci Resolve, Premiere Pro, After Effects and Final Cut Pro.
Which days editors work
| Day | Share of editing time |
|---|---|
| Monday | 16.4% |
| Tuesday | 17.4% |
| Wednesday | 15.7% |
| Thursday | 15.6% |
| Friday | 14.4% |
| Saturday | 10.2% |
| Sunday | 10.3% |
One hour in five lands on a weekend, and 84% of editors edited on at least one weekend day this year.
What to do with this when you quote
Use these numbers as a starting point, then replace them with your own. Your footage, clients and revision habits move the number more than anything here. If your quotes assume a day of cutting and your projects look like the median, you're pricing in a lot of time that isn't editing. That's fine as long as you know it's there.
The fastest way to get your own numbers is to track a month of work and look at the median project.
To turn hours into a price, the video editor rate calculator gives a freelance hourly and day rate by market and experience.
Get your own numbers
Cut Time tracks your hands-on hours in Resolve, Premiere, After Effects and Final Cut per project, with nothing to start or stop. Free for individual editors.
Questions
How long does it take to edit a video?
Across 3,604 completed projects tracked in 2026, the median took 2 hours of hands-on editing. The middle half took between 1 and 4.5 hours, and one project in ten took more than 9 hours. Hands-on time counts only the minutes an editor is actively working in the editing app.
How many hours a day do video editors actually edit?
On days they edit, the median editor logs 1.9 hours of hands-on editing. Editors who worked in their editing app on at least 40 days this year log a median of 2.1 hours per editing day and 9.2 hours per week. Playback, renders and review time are not included.
Does editing take longer in DaVinci Resolve or Premiere Pro?
About the same. The median completed project took 2.2 hours in DaVinci Resolve and 2.1 hours in Premiere Pro. After Effects projects were shorter, at 1.3 hours.
How many days does a typical edit take?
The median completed project was worked on across 3 separate days and spanned 4 calendar days from first session to last.
How we measured
Source: Cut Time tracking data from March 24 to October 27, 2026. Each editor's hours are counted once per project per day, even when they belong to several workspaces.
A project is one editor's named project file. Project figures use completed projects with at least 30 minutes of hands-on time, no activity after October 13, and a start date after the editor's first tracked day. The editor-weighted median uses the 267 editors with three or more such projects.
We left out Cut Time staff accounts, test accounts, and untitled or unsaved projects. The editors are Cut Time users, a mix of freelancers and studio editors, so the figures describe them rather than every editor. A project counts as one file, so a job saved as several versions counts as several projects.
Figures are combined across editors and never identify a person, studio, client or project. Each figure covers at least 25 editors, as described in our privacy policy.