Most hosts start looking for a video editor at a very specific moment, right, it is usually the week the backlog hits three unedited episodes, the sponsor is asking when their read goes live, and the host realises that the four hours a week they planned for editing have quietly turned into eleven, and so they open a marketplace, type in "podcast editor", and get a thousand profiles that all claim to do exactly the same thing.
I run a team that edits podcasts every day, so I am obviously not neutral here, but the thing I want to give you is the process from the host's seat, what the job actually includes once video is involved, where people look, how to test someone properly before you commit, and the one standard I would never compromise on, which is that the person editing your show has watched and listened to the whole thing.
What does a video podcast editor actually do?
A video podcast editor syncs your cameras and audio, cuts the conversation into something that flows, balances colour across angles, cleans and levels the sound, adds graphics and sponsor reads, and exports versions for every platform you publish on.
That sounds like one job, but it is really five or six jobs stacked on top of each other, and that is one reason hiring goes wrong so often. Sync is the first, getting every camera and every microphone lined up so nobody's lips drift. Secondly, the cut itself, deciding which angle to show at every moment of the conversation, which on a multi-cam show with two to four angles is a real editorial skill, and I go into it on the page about multi-cam episodes. And the third thing is colour, because two cameras from different brands will never match out of the box.
Then there is audio, which people underestimate badly, because a video podcast is still mostly listened to, and the sound has to be levelled, cleaned of hum and room noise, and mixed so the host and guest sit at the same volume, which is what podcast audio cleanup covers in detail. A good test question for any candidate is whether they know the loudness targets of the apps you publish to, Apple for instance lays out its audio requirements openly, asking for an overall level of roughly minus 16 LKFS, give or take 1 dB, with peaks kept at or under minus 1 dB FS, and an editor who has never heard of that number is probably not mixing for podcast apps at all. Then come the finishing pieces that make a video episode feel produced rather than recorded, the open and close, name cards for guests, the sponsor segment, vertical cut-downs for Shorts and Reels, and a separate render for each place the show lives, plus an audio-only master for the feed.
Where do hosts usually look for a video podcast editor?
Hosts usually look in four places, freelancer marketplaces, referrals from other hosts, editing agencies, and AI auto-editing tools, and each one trades price, reliability and judgment differently.
Marketplaces give you the most choice and the widest price range, and plenty of genuinely good editors work there, but the catch here is that you are hiring one person, so their capacity, their sick days and their other clients become your schedule, and quality varies a lot from profile to profile. I wrote a full comparison of marketplace podcast editors against an agency if you want the structural trade-offs side by side.
Referrals are underrated, right, because another host who has worked with someone for a year can tell you how that editor behaves when a file is corrupted or a deadline moves, which is something no portfolio shows you. Agencies give you capacity and process, and you pay for the structure. AI tools cost the least and finish the fastest, and for a solo audio show with no budget they can be the right place to start, but what they are really doing is removing quiet stretches of the waveform, so the rhythm of a guest conversation gets chopped into something jumpy, and on video, where you can see the guest's face reacting, that jumpiness is very hard to miss.
Why should a full listen-through edit be the standard?
Because an editor who has not heard the whole episode cannot know what to cut, what to keep, or where your best moment is, and every decision they make without that context is a guess.
To be very honest, this is the single test I would use to filter people. Ask any editor you are considering, directly, whether they watch and listen to every minute before they cut, and listen to how they answer. Our own answer at Pixel Samy Podcast is yes, every minute, with software limited to lining up cameras and cleaning the sound, because a pause is sometimes the guest thinking and sometimes the most honest moment in the conversation, and only someone who heard the whole hour can tell which one it was.
If someone edits your show without hearing all of it, they are not editing your show, they are trimming a file.
The reason this matters so much for video specifically is that the cut is visual as well as verbal, right, so when the guest reacts to something the host said, the editor has to know the reaction is coming to cut to the right angle at the right time, and that only happens if they have heard what comes next. The piece on how to choose a podcast editor goes through more of the judgment calls that separate a real edit from a trim.
How do you run a paid test before you commit?
Pay a shortlisted editor for one real episode at their normal rate, give them the same files and the same brief you would give them in month six, and judge the result on the cut, the audio, the turnaround and how they handle your notes.
Free tests tend to produce misleading results, right, because the editor either rushes it or spends three times the normal effort to win you, and neither tells you what week twelve looks like. A paid test on a real episode does, and I would test two or three people on the same episode if you can, so you are comparing like with like. Judge four things, the cut and whether the conversation flows, the audio and whether you would happily listen on headphones, the turnaround against what they promised, and the revision, because how someone takes your notes tells you more about the next year than the first draft does.
If you test us, the arrangement makes it easy, you settle up episode by episode and nothing obliges you to book another, so your paid test is simply your first episode, and you only commit further if you decide to buy several at once. The full list of questions to ask a podcast editor is worth keeping open during the test.
What should you send an editor before the first episode?
Send the raw camera files and separate audio tracks, your last two or three episodes as a style reference, your logo and fonts, any sponsor reads with their placement, and a short note on what you never want cut.
That last note is the one most hosts skip, and it is very very useful, because every show has something sacred, a running joke, a sign-off, a way the host introduces guests, and an editor who knows it on day one will not accidentally trim it on day three. Also send the separate audio files rather than only the camera audio, because the camera microphone is almost always worse than what the host recorded on the proper mics.
When you hand the reference episodes over, tell the editor which parts of the look are fixed and which you are happy to see improved, because a good editor will otherwise copy your old intro faithfully even if you secretly hate it. If sponsors are involved, include their disclosure requirements, and YouTube has its own setting for paid promotion disclosure that you tick when you upload. Our own version of the handoff is on the how it works page, and whoever you hire, ask for the same kind of written turnaround, ours is two days to a first cut, so you can hold them to it.
How much does it cost to hire a video podcast editor?
It ranges widely depending on whether you hire a marketplace freelancer, an agency or a tool, and the fairest comparison is per finished episode, so for reference, a multi-cam hour with us costs a fixed 299 dollars.
Whoever you hire, I would push for a per episode figure rather than an hourly rate, because it removes the most annoying conversation in this whole business, which is the invoice that is bigger than you expected because the editor "spent longer on it". An hourly quote also hides the thing you most need to compare, which is what is actually included, so ask every candidate the same three questions, how many rounds of changes are in the price, who does the colour when there are several cameras, and whether clips cost extra, and write the answers next to each other before you decide.
For one camera rates, bulk discounts and clip pricing, see our pricing section, and the podcast video editing services page shows what a finished episode looks like, which is a useful thing to hold up against whatever your shortlisted editors send you.
When is a freelancer or a tool the better hire?
A solo freelancer is often the better hire when you want one person who learns your show deeply and you are comfortable with their capacity limits, and a tool can be fine for a solo audio show with no budget.
I mean that genuinely, right, a great freelancer who has edited your show for two years knows it better than any team ever will in the first month, and if you have found one, keep them. The structural risk is capacity and continuity, one person, one calendar, so make sure you own your project files in case they move on. And if you are just starting, recording once a month, and not sure the show will last, a cheap tool or doing it yourself for a few episodes is perfectly reasonable, and you can hire properly once you know the show is worth it.
Where a team makes more sense is when you publish weekly or more, when you have multiple cameras, when clips matter as much as the episode, or when you simply cannot afford a missed week because the editor is ill or overbooked.
What should you do after you hire?
Give the editor one clear notes pass per episode, keep the brief updated, and get it in writing from the first week that the footage, the edit project and the finished renders are all yours.
That is how we work as well, the whole project goes with a host who leaves, so their next editor opens it and continues, and it is exactly the protection I would want if I were the one hiring. Send notes in one pass rather than in drips over three days, because one consolidated pass gets you a cleaner revision, and on our side the revised cut lands a working day after the notes do. And give it three or four episodes before you judge the relationship, because the first episode is always the one where the editor is still learning your rhythm, you see what I mean, the real test is whether episode four needs fewer notes than episode one.
Hiring well is mostly patience, a paid test, a clear brief and a few episodes of watching how someone listens, and if you want us on your shortlist, a 15 minute call where I watch your latest episode and give you a price, or a line to samy@pixelsamy.com, is the easy way to add us to the comparison. So yeah. That's my way of saying it.