How long does it take to edit a video?

Last updated: July 2026

For a polished 2 to 3 minute brand or promotional video, cut from footage someone else shot: between 20 and 42 hours. Said differently, 8 to 15 hours per finished minute.

In short: polished commercial video editing runs 8 to 15 hours per finished minute, so a 3-minute brand video is a 20 to 42 hour project. Cap the raw footage in the quote or the estimate is fiction.

That ratio surprises most clients, because the finished video hides its own work. Nobody sees the four hours spent finding the best 40 seconds inside two hours of footage. Here is where the time really goes.

The assumptions: editing only (no shooting), usable footage delivered and organized enough to work with, one video, commercial quality, two revision rounds.

The task list

The raw footage rule

The biggest variable is not so much about the finished length. It's actually more about the amount of raw footage. Reviewing and organizing material takes roughly 1 to 2 hours per hour of footage, before any editing begins.

In other words, a client who hands you 40 minutes of clips and a client who hands you six hours of multi-camera material are commissioning very different projects with the same sentence: "it is just a 3-minute video."

You absolutely must ask for the footage amount before quoting. It is the one question that protects this entire estimate.

What moves the estimate

Up: more raw footage (see above), motion graphics beyond simple titles (often a separate project), multiple output versions (a 3-minute film plus five vertical cuts is not one deliverable, it is six), missing or unusable audio, more than two revision rounds.

Down: a tight brief with a reference video the client loves, pre-selected footage, a format you have edited many times, no graphics.

Price your version

Adjust the lines, total them, and put the number into the calculator. At a mid-range 30 hours and the default $50/h with a 20% buffer, a 3-minute brand video quotes around $1,800.

Good editing is invisible, which is exactly why its hours are invisible too. Quote the hours, not the minutes.