Video editing agency vs in-house editor: which is right for you?

The short answer

If you’ve got enough video to keep one person busy every single day — and it’s growing — hire in-house. If you don’t, outsource first.

That sounds obvious, but it’s common to do it the other way round: hire a full-time editor because it feels like the “serious” move, then realise you only film twice a week and the editor is waiting on footage half the time. Or the opposite — sticking with outsourcing long after they should have hired, because nobody sat down and did the maths. So let’s do the maths.

What an in-house editor really costs

The salary is only part of it. When you compare, include:

• Salary plus employer taxes and benefits, which vary by country
• Hardware — a machine powerful enough for 4K timelines, monitors, storage
• Software — editing, motion graphics, stock and music subscriptions
• Recruiting and onboarding time — often weeks before output is consistent
• Management time — briefing, reviewing, feedback
• Idle time — you pay for slow content weeks too

Look up current salary data for your city and role on sources such as national salary surveys or job boards before deciding; it varies widely between the US, UK, Europe and Australia.

What a video editing agency costs

Agencies charge per video, per monthly package or as retainers. You pay for process and redundancy: account managers, multiple editors, project tools. Published short-form prices we reviewed in October 2026 ranged from roughly $30 to over $90 per vertical video at different providers, with “unlimited” agency retainers starting above $2,000 a month — the full comparison is in what short-form editing costs.

The third option: a dedicated outsourced editor

Between the two sits the dedicated external editor: one person who edits your videos every month, learns your style, and communicates directly with you — but isn’t on your payroll. YASH EDITS takes that model a step further, as a small external team: packages from $299 for 30 short-form videos a month, with your style guide applied to every video.

Side-by-side

When in-house wins

• You publish multiple videos every day across several channels.
• You need someone on set, filming as well as editing.
• Your content involves confidential material that can’t leave the building.
• You want one person to own the whole video function, not just editing.

When outsourcing wins

• You publish a steady volume — say 30 to 100 short videos a month — but not a full-time editor’s worth of long-form.
• You need short-form specialism (hooks, retention cutting, captions) more than general editing.
• You want to test a content strategy before committing to a salary.
• Your team is remote or international anyway.

A simple decision rule

Estimate the hours of editing you need each month. If it’s consistently close to a full working month and growing, start hiring. If it’s less, or uncertain, outsource first — and keep the option to bring it in-house once volume proves itself. Our guide to outsourcing video editing walks through doing that without losing quality.