How to Find a Video Editor
Save countless hours and thousands of dollars in your filmmaking and content creation journey
November 5, 2025 by Kristen Goshorn
It’s pretty hard for people to find a good video editor; at least that’s what I hear. It’s not hard to look one up online – that’s easy. What’s hard is trying to figure out which one you should hire. That’s when people ask me for advice. Rather than try to convert everyone into Kosmos Post clients, I genuinely try to tell people how to go about finding a video editor that best fits their goals and priorities. So today, as Cyrus takes his nap, I am going to turn this advice into our new website’s very first resource post… “How to Find a Video Editor.”
Hiring a video editor can feel exhausting – but it shouldn’t. The trouble is in trying to find a video editor with appropriate skill in a world where every portfolio and project bid looks the same. And how is it that seemingly every freelance video editor purports to have done work for Nike? You begin to feel a little bit of justified skepticism, because the old adage is ringing true: “You can’t believe everything you [see] online.” That said, if you are trying to find a video editor who can cut down 30 minutes of raw footage into a digestible 8-minute YouTube video, complete with music and stock footage… you should be able to do that pretty easily. My assumption is that we [video editors] are all competent enough to edit your video to the extent that it can exist online and basically get your point across. However, since style is subjective and brand voice is everything, how does someone actually choose the right video editor?
There are two major paths for making this decision. The first, and most obvious, is cost. All things being equal, most people would choose the least costly option. It’s hard to find fault with going with the low-cost provider, but the truth is, all things are never equal. So that leaves the second option – taste (i.e., Who do you want to work with? Who gets your style? Who will put your best foot forward while providing you the best experience?)
Video editing is a service industry, and personality will greatly influence both your video results and the post-production experience. I tell people all the time that they should expect to enjoy this process, because firstly, I love editing, and secondly, I love pleasing people and making them look good. Seems pretty straightforward – work with good people and the result will be a good product and a good experience.
But how do you determine if you are going to like working with the video editor you are interviewing? They don’t all have online presences like mine, where you can get a pretty good feeling for who I am and how I work. Even then, there are some questions you should ask your video editor when you interview them. For example:
1) How interested is the video editor in this project?
I know it seems pretty obvious – of course, the editor is going to say that they really want to do your project … but what if they don’t want to do your project? Understand your potential editor’s goals and motivations before going any further.
I know it seems pretty obvious – of course, the editor is going to say that they really want to do your project … but what if they don’t want to do your project? Understand your potential editor’s goals and motivations before going any further.
2) How busy is the video editor?
Find out how many projects the editor is currently responsible for, and how many team members the editor may have working behind the scenes. The goal is to find someone who is in demand, but also available enough to give your project its due attention. For example, as of this writing, Kosmos Post is a one-editor operation - but previously we’ve had 4 employees, a contractor, and still more work than we could handle. That ratio is extremely important – capacity and demand. If you want Kristen Goshorn to edit your video (and most people do), I can’t edit 20 videos at once. That’s why it’s important to follow up with this next question …
Find out how many projects the editor is currently responsible for, and how many team members the editor may have working behind the scenes. The goal is to find someone who is in demand, but also available enough to give your project its due attention. For example, as of this writing, Kosmos Post is a one-editor operation - but previously we’ve had 4 employees, a contractor, and still more work than we could handle. That ratio is extremely important – capacity and demand. If you want Kristen Goshorn to edit your video (and most people do), I can’t edit 20 videos at once. That’s why it’s important to follow up with this next question …
3) Who will you be collaborating with throughout the process?
There is nothing worse than interviewing one video editor and deciding that you really clicked with them, only to find out they are not actually the one editing your project. Many video editors are extremely protective about letting clients interface with someone other than themselves (because that’s how new post-production studios are formed), but since this is about jiving with the person who is doing the work, it’s important that you know who that person actually is so that you can communicate with them efficiently. It’s okay if you only interface with one person if there is a team – that makes financial sense. On the other hand, if your potential video editor will be outsourcing your projects far and wide across the globe to individuals they hardly know… that’s a bad sign. So get an understanding of how the editor handles projects behind the scenes, and if applicable, get an understanding of who is on the team.
There is nothing worse than interviewing one video editor and deciding that you really clicked with them, only to find out they are not actually the one editing your project. Many video editors are extremely protective about letting clients interface with someone other than themselves (because that’s how new post-production studios are formed), but since this is about jiving with the person who is doing the work, it’s important that you know who that person actually is so that you can communicate with them efficiently. It’s okay if you only interface with one person if there is a team – that makes financial sense. On the other hand, if your potential video editor will be outsourcing your projects far and wide across the globe to individuals they hardly know… that’s a bad sign. So get an understanding of how the editor handles projects behind the scenes, and if applicable, get an understanding of who is on the team.
4) How will the video editor collaborate with you throughout your project?
This involves everything from hours of availability to file transfer arrangements to online collaboration platforms. Do you like lengthy face-to-face meetings, or maybe you prefer quick Slack messages … Do you need access to your video editor during normal business hours, or does an editor with a non-traditional work schedule work for you… Does your editor need a subscription to a specific software your project relies on, or will their standard operating procedures suffice? Speaking of SOPs, how does the editor handle feedback on your projects both practically and emotionally? Are there extra fees, or limits on the number of changes you can request or versions you can go through? Is the editor protective of their work in such a way as to resist creative changes you might make? I don’t limit the number or nature of change requests for my clients, but that’s not how everyone else works.
This involves everything from hours of availability to file transfer arrangements to online collaboration platforms. Do you like lengthy face-to-face meetings, or maybe you prefer quick Slack messages … Do you need access to your video editor during normal business hours, or does an editor with a non-traditional work schedule work for you… Does your editor need a subscription to a specific software your project relies on, or will their standard operating procedures suffice? Speaking of SOPs, how does the editor handle feedback on your projects both practically and emotionally? Are there extra fees, or limits on the number of changes you can request or versions you can go through? Is the editor protective of their work in such a way as to resist creative changes you might make? I don’t limit the number or nature of change requests for my clients, but that’s not how everyone else works.
5) How does the video editor establish fees?
Several methods are fairly industry standard. These include monthly or weekly retainers, per-project, per-milestone, per-day, or per-hour. If your editor charges hourly, ask how their hours are calculated. Some editors charge in quarter-hour increments, meaning the minute they sit down in their chair, you are billed for 15 minutes of labor, even if they only spent 2 minutes making a minuscule change to your project. Some editors use time trackers through platforms like UpWork that track their computer’s activity and take random screenshots, giving clients peace of mind (or red flags) about the editor’s use of billable time. My company has used most of these fee schedules and can vouch for the benefits of most. Currently, I track billable hours down to the minute and round to the nearest hundredths of a decimal point each day - this works for me and my clients because I’m a hard worker they trust to do the job efficiently. Last year and the year prior, we worked almost exclusively by monthly retainers, simplifying costs and allowing for reliable automatic payments for our clients' convenience and to reliably fund our staff payroll. There is no wrong choice (though I personally find billing by quarter-hour increments while doing minuscule work reprehensible). Also, for hourly video editors, find out what the editor does and does not charge for. For example, do they charge for file management, upload and download time, or how about the time it takes their computer to export your project? In my opinion, any editor who doesn’t organize your files is costing you more money in inefficiency throughout the project, and upload, download, and export time are near-total automated computer processes requiring little human effort and therefore should not be charged for. Any editor who sits at their terminal twiddling their thumbs does not respect you or your hard-earned money, and them having nothing better to do while these processes run is not and should not be your problem. It comes down to this: what are you most comfortable with? Whatever that is for you, your editor needs to be happy about too.
Several methods are fairly industry standard. These include monthly or weekly retainers, per-project, per-milestone, per-day, or per-hour. If your editor charges hourly, ask how their hours are calculated. Some editors charge in quarter-hour increments, meaning the minute they sit down in their chair, you are billed for 15 minutes of labor, even if they only spent 2 minutes making a minuscule change to your project. Some editors use time trackers through platforms like UpWork that track their computer’s activity and take random screenshots, giving clients peace of mind (or red flags) about the editor’s use of billable time. My company has used most of these fee schedules and can vouch for the benefits of most. Currently, I track billable hours down to the minute and round to the nearest hundredths of a decimal point each day - this works for me and my clients because I’m a hard worker they trust to do the job efficiently. Last year and the year prior, we worked almost exclusively by monthly retainers, simplifying costs and allowing for reliable automatic payments for our clients' convenience and to reliably fund our staff payroll. There is no wrong choice (though I personally find billing by quarter-hour increments while doing minuscule work reprehensible). Also, for hourly video editors, find out what the editor does and does not charge for. For example, do they charge for file management, upload and download time, or how about the time it takes their computer to export your project? In my opinion, any editor who doesn’t organize your files is costing you more money in inefficiency throughout the project, and upload, download, and export time are near-total automated computer processes requiring little human effort and therefore should not be charged for. Any editor who sits at their terminal twiddling their thumbs does not respect you or your hard-earned money, and them having nothing better to do while these processes run is not and should not be your problem. It comes down to this: what are you most comfortable with? Whatever that is for you, your editor needs to be happy about too.
6) How long does the video editor think it will take for the post-production of your video?
This is the question that leads to the real question … depending on how the video editor answers. I can edit pretty fast, as could my employees, with shortcuts and equipment to expedite the process, but this question is almost impossible to answer because there are so many variables outside of our control. If the video editor you are interviewing tells you “I can edit your 45 minute podcast in3 hours, and provide 20 excerpts for Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and TikTok” they are either lying, the videos you receive will be outsourced to multiple editors in a third-world country, or they are going to pull some templates off of a stock website, put your videos in a fill-in-the-blank style project package, and send everything though a sub-par AI processing portal. Any way you slice it, they are going to sell you a woefully inadequate project that will leave you dissatisfied at best. If you think about all the decisions that need to be made, you’ll quickly realize that the process of editing quality videos takes a fair bit of time. I tell people that I can get a typical length YouTube video or cinematic trailer to them in about 20 hours spread across 5 business days, including the client review and any change requests – and yes, sometimes it’s faster but never sub-par.
This is the question that leads to the real question … depending on how the video editor answers. I can edit pretty fast, as could my employees, with shortcuts and equipment to expedite the process, but this question is almost impossible to answer because there are so many variables outside of our control. If the video editor you are interviewing tells you “I can edit your 45 minute podcast in3 hours, and provide 20 excerpts for Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and TikTok” they are either lying, the videos you receive will be outsourced to multiple editors in a third-world country, or they are going to pull some templates off of a stock website, put your videos in a fill-in-the-blank style project package, and send everything though a sub-par AI processing portal. Any way you slice it, they are going to sell you a woefully inadequate project that will leave you dissatisfied at best. If you think about all the decisions that need to be made, you’ll quickly realize that the process of editing quality videos takes a fair bit of time. I tell people that I can get a typical length YouTube video or cinematic trailer to them in about 20 hours spread across 5 business days, including the client review and any change requests – and yes, sometimes it’s faster but never sub-par.
There are many more questions that you could consider asking your video editor, but they start getting project-specific. Since this process relies on you making a connection with your future video editor, I recommend that you ask questions that will help you get to know them as a person. Do preliminary research on them by looking at the video editor’s website or portfolio, their social media feed, etc. You want to be sure the person interviewing with you is the person you think they are after doing some research.
After all that, there is really only one question you need to be able to answer when hiring a good video editor, and that is:
“Do you like this person enough to want to work with them?”
The six questions above should go a long way to helping you answer this last question.
Happy filmmaking!