An honest breakdown of cost, speed and risk, so you can decide with real numbers, not vibes.
Choose us if you want professional editing without adding headcount, benefits, or a hiring process, and you want to scale up or down as your content volume changes.
Choose an in-house editor if you're producing daily content at real volume, need someone embedded in same-day production decisions, or editing is core enough to your business to justify a full-time hire.
A dimension-by-dimension comparison: no hand-waving, just how each option actually behaves.
| Criteria | The Video Strategy Lab | In-House Editor |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | From $55/video (pack pricing) | $4,000–7,000+/month fully loaded (salary, benefits, software, hardware) |
| Hiring time | Start the same week | 4–8 weeks to hire, plus onboarding |
| Turnover risk | None, team-backed, always covered | One person out means zero editing capacity |
| Software & hardware | Included | You buy and maintain licenses plus a capable machine |
| Scaling up or down | Flexible packs, scale anytime | Requires a new hire or a painful layoff |
| Style consistency | One editor learns your style, applied consistently | Depends entirely on who you hire and how long they stay |
| Management overhead | Async briefs, no day-to-day oversight needed | Requires ongoing management, feedback and reviews |
A single full-time editor's advertised salary is rarely the real cost. Add payroll tax, benefits, a capable editing workstation, software licenses (Premiere, After Effects, stock libraries) and management time, and most companies land closer to $5,000–7,000 a month, before that person has cut a single second of footage.
Our pack pricing starts under $250 a month for consistent output, with no onboarding cost, no equipment to buy, and no risk if your content needs change next quarter.
An in-house editor is a single point of failure. When they're out sick, on vacation, or leave for a better offer, your content pipeline stops with them, and replacing a video editor who's learned your brand voice can take months.
With us, you're backed by a team, not one person's availability. Style consistency doesn't disappear if someone's out, the workflow was never dependent on any single individual.
A full-time hire is a fixed cost regardless of how much content you actually need that month. Slow quarter? You're still paying full salary. Sudden spike before a launch? One person can only edit so fast.
Our packs flex with your actual volume: scale up for a launch month, scale down when things are quieter, without a hiring or layoff decision attached to it.
We'd rather tell you upfront than have you find out after signing up.
Start this week, not after 6-8 weeks of interviews and onboarding.
Your content doesn't stop because one person is unavailable.
Pay for what you actually need this month, not a fixed salary regardless of output.
For most brands under very high daily volume, yes, once you include the full cost of salary, benefits, software and hardware, an in-house hire is usually the more expensive option.
Many clients start with us and transition to an in-house hire once volume justifies it, we're happy to help think through that timeline honestly.
No, you set the direction and give feedback like you would with an employee; the difference is you're not managing someone day-to-day.
Yes, that's exactly the kind of flexibility a fixed in-house hire struggles with.
Send your footage. Get a professional edit back in 48-72 hours, no job posting required.