Frequently asked questions

Soft Clipper is a Windows and Mac desktop app that turns a long video into short vertical clips for TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts. It finds the moments worth posting, reframes them to 9:16 with the speaker kept in shot, and burns in captions.

It runs on your computer instead of a server. That means no monthly fee, no minute quota, no watermark, and your video file never gets uploaded — but it also means it needs a Windows PC or a Mac and your own AI key.

A file from your disk, or a link that the app can fetch. Podcast recordings, webinars, streams, interviews and screen recordings all work. Use only material you own or have the right to edit.

There is no hard limit. Longer videos take longer to transcribe and render; a two-hour recording is routine.

$39, once. There is no subscription, no credit pack and no per-export fee. One licence covers one PC, updates to the version you bought are free, and the only thing you might pay for again is your own Google Gemini usage — billed by Google, and free at ordinary volumes.

1 licence = 1 PC, activated online, then works offline. To move to a new computer, release the licence in the app and activate it on the new machine.

Yes — 14 days, no questions asked. Email us from the address you purchased with.

Updates to the version you bought are free. A future major version would be an upgrade price rather than a new full purchase.

No. Instead of a limited free tier there is a full refund window, which we think is the more honest version of the same offer.

Yes — there is a Mac build for macOS 12 or later, Apple Silicon, and the same licence key works on either. Apple Silicon only; there is no Intel build.

No. Video rendering on a phone is not practical for this kind of work, so there is no Android or iOS version.

A hosted version is in development. It will be sold separately; the desktop licence does not include it.

8 GB RAM recommended, no GPU required. Rendering uses the processor, so a faster CPU means faster exports, but no dedicated graphics card is needed.

You do not have to. The app uses Google Gemini with your own free key by default, and that is what keeps the price a one-off: AI analysis costs money per video, so rather than bury it in a subscription you pay Google directly, only if you pass their free tier. To avoid an account entirely, run transcription locally with Whisper and analysis through Ollama or LM Studio.

Not the video file. When a source already has captions, only text is used. When it does not, compressed audio is sent for transcription. Visual analysis — the one mode that sends video — uploads a low-resolution copy and only when you choose it.

No. Everything is processed on your machine or sent directly from your machine to Google with your own key. We have no server in that path.

A licence key and an anonymous hardware fingerprint — a hash, not your files, your name or your video. It is what stops one licence being shared across a hundred computers.

Usually between five and fifteen for an hour of conversation, depending on how much of it stands alone. You choose which ones to render.

Yes. Trim the in and out points, move the crop, edit caption text and styling, add text overlays and stickers, and apply look effects — per clip or across the batch.

MP4 up to 1080p, in 9:16 vertical, 1:1 square and 16:9 — 9:16 is what TikTok, Reels and Shorts want, and the other two are there for feed posts and landscape cuts.

Yes. Each clip comes back with a hook title, a caption and hashtags in the language of the video, plus a virality score for sorting the shortlist.

No. Soft Clipper writes finished clips to a folder on your computer, and posting them stays with you. A hook title, caption and hashtags are generated for every clip, so the text is ready to paste, but there is no scheduler and no connection to TikTok, Instagram or YouTube.