Cheapest to priciest: CapCut from $5.99/month, Descript from about $16/month (annual), Premiere Pro at $22.99/month. But they're built for genuinely different work, so price alone won't decide it.
| Entry price | Built for | |
|---|---|---|
| CapCut | $5.99/mo (Pro $7.99); free tier watermarks exports | TikTok, Reels, Shorts — fast short-form social |
| Descript | ~$16/mo annual (Hobbyist $24 monthly, Creator $35) | podcasts, long-form YouTube, script-heavy content |
| Premiere Pro | $22.99/mo annual | professional / narrative / client work |
CapCut is built for short-form social video and it's cheap for it — templates, trending effects, quick captions, mobile-first. The free version watermarks exports; Pro at $7.99 removes that and unlocks the AI features. It's less than a third of Premiere's price.
Descript runs an unusual workflow: it transcribes your recording and you edit the text to edit the video — delete a sentence, the footage goes with it. That's transformative for interviews, podcasts and talking-head YouTube where the content is words, and pointless for a montage. It also bundles AI voice and transcription that CapCut doesn't.
Premiere Pro is the professional NLE — the depth, the ecosystem, the color and audio tooling for narrative work and client deliverables. It's the priciest and the steepest to learn, and overkill if you're making 30-second vertical videos.
Making short-form social content: CapCut, and the $7.99 Pro tier. Editing podcasts or script-driven long-form: Descript, where transcript editing is the whole point. Doing professional or client video work that needs real color/audio control: Premiere Pro.