Video editor contract: the eight lines that stop you editing for free

Search "video editor contract template" and the first templates you find are written for the person hiring the editor.

They protect the client's ownership, the client's deadline and the client's right to ask for changes. The editor's side of the deal, getting paid on a date, gets one line near the bottom.

That is backwards for anyone reading this.

VALORAE Cast exists for editors and clippers, and the worry we hear is usually not a scam. It is a real client, a real project, and no written terms. Then a fourth revision, a missed payment date, and a client who has gone quiet with the files.

Here is the complication. Often there was something in writing. It just covered the wrong things.

So here are the eight lines I would want in writing before the first file, in the order they go wrong.

Line 1: what one deliverable is

"Ten videos" means nothing.

Write what one video is: the length range, the aspect ratio, whether captions and music are included, whether thumbnails are included, and who supplies the footage.

The fight that eats most editors' time starts here. The client thinks a deliverable includes the thumbnail and three cut-downs. You think it is one edit.

Neither of you is lying. You just never wrote it down.

Line 2: how many revisions, and what counts as one

Name a number of revision rounds per video. Two is common.

Then define a round: one message with all the changes, sent at once. Ten messages over a day are still one round if you say so up front, and they are ten rounds if you do not.

A change to the brief after you deliver is not a revision. It is new work, and the contract should say it gets quoted separately.

Line 3: the deposit

Ask for part of the fee before you start, from every new client.

This is the line editors are most scared to send, because it feels like distrust. It is the opposite. A client who can pay will pay the deposit without a second thought.

A client who argues about a deposit is showing you how the final invoice will go.

Line 4: the payment date

Not "on delivery". A date, or a number of days after delivery.

"On delivery" invites "once I've had time to review", which becomes two weeks. A date gives you something to point at.

Then write what happens if the date passes. The simplest version: new work pauses until the invoice is paid. If you want the messages to send when it does happen, there is a four-message unpaid invoice sequence on tgsidd.com that works from the editor's side too.

Line 5: the kill fee

Projects get cancelled. Channels pivot, launches slip, the founder changes their mind.

A kill fee says what you are paid if the client cancels after you have started. It can be the deposit, or a share of the fee tied to how far along you were.

Without one, a cancelled project after three days of work pays nothing, and the client has done nothing wrong by the terms you agreed.

Line 6: when files change hands

Decide two things. When the client gets the final export, and whether they get the project file at all.

The safe default for a new client: watermarked or low-resolution previews for review, the clean final export once the invoice is paid, and project files only if they were part of the price.

Editors hand over everything on delivery because it feels professional. Then the leverage is gone, and so is the client.

Buyers are being told the same order. VALORAE Arc, the group's short-form clipping agency, tells show owners which clause to look for: rights in delivered work pass on payment of the invoice covering that work. A buyer who has read that will not blink at yours.

Line 7: credit and portfolio rights

Write whether you can show the work.

Some clients are fine with a credit and a portfolio link. Some need the work kept private, especially ghost-edited content for a personal brand. Both are fine, if it is decided before the work exists.

If you cannot show it, that is worth a higher rate. Unshowable work does not build your portfolio, and your portfolio is how you get the next client.

Line 8: what happens when the client goes quiet

This is the one nobody writes.

Say what you will do if the client stops replying during a project. For example: after a set number of working days without a reply, the project is treated as paused, the next milestone is invoiced, and the delivery date moves.

It sounds cold. It saves you from sitting on half a project for a month, unable to take other work because you might have to finish it tomorrow.

Step back: where it lives matters less than that it exists

You do not need a lawyer to send these eight lines. A clear message that the client replies to with "agreed" covers most small jobs.

I am not a lawyer, and for a large or long contract you should talk to one where you live. But fine print is rarely where an editor loses money. Terms that were never written down at all are.

Campaign clipping is the exception that proves the rule. In VALORAE Cast, campaign work is paid starting from $0.80 per 1,000 views, and every campaign's rate, minimum and cap is published before a single clip is posted. The terms are the contract, and they are written first.

Client work deserves the same order.

Step forward: the message that carries all eight

Put the lines in one message, in plain sentences, before the first file moves.

Before I start, here is how I work. One deliverable is [length, format, captions, thumbnail or not]. That includes [number] revision rounds, and one round is one message with all the changes. I take [deposit] up front, and the balance is due on [date]. If the project is cancelled after I start, the kill fee is [amount or share]. You get watermarked previews for review and the clean export once the invoice is paid. Project files are [included or not]. I can [or cannot] show this in my portfolio. If I hear nothing for [number] working days, the project pauses and the delivery date moves. Reply "agreed" and I will start.

Keep it short enough that they read it.

If they push back on one line, good. That is the conversation you want before the work, not in week three.

The short version

• Define one deliverable before you agree a count.
• Set a number of revision rounds and define what one round is.
• Take a deposit from every new client.
• Write a payment date, not "on delivery".
• Agree a kill fee for cancelled projects.
• Hand over clean finals after payment, and project files only if priced.
• Decide credit and portfolio rights before the work exists.
• Write what happens when the client goes quiet.

Paid campaign work, with the terms written first, starts at discord.gg/valoraecast.