Editing basics for UGC

UGC editing is not film editing. The goal is a video that looks like a real person filmed it on their phone, paced like an ad. That means the polish goes into clarity, not effects: no logo stings, no long intro, no transitions you would never see in a friend's post. The first frame is the hook frame — the product or the problem, on screen, immediately. If your edit needs three seconds to get interesting, it starts three seconds too late.

Captions go on everything. Most viewers start with the sound off, and a caption track is often the difference between a scroll-past and a watch. Auto-captions are a starting point, not a deliverable: check them word by word before you export. Brand names, product names, and prices are the words auto-captions get wrong most often, and a misspelled product name in an ad is the kind of error a brand remembers. Keep captions short per line, high contrast, and out of the zones where platform buttons sit.

Pace comes from the cuts. Trim the breath before sentences, the pause while you reach for the product, the dead half-second at the end of a thought. Cut on the thought, not mid-word, and hold the final frame on the product a beat longer than feels natural — that last image is what a viewer carries into the click. Export at 1080×1920 from your editing app, every time.

One delivery sin marks an amateur faster than any other: sending the brand a file that carries a platform watermark. A video downloaded from TikTok and forwarded to a brand tells them the file was recycled, and the watermark sits right where their media buyer does not want it. Export a clean master from the editor, then post your own copy to platforms separately if you want it there. Brands pay for footage they can run anywhere. Deliver footage they can run anywhere.

Raw vs. edited delivery: what each includes, how each prices

Every UGC deal delivers one of two things, and confusing them costs you money in both directions. Edited delivery is the finished video: hooks in place, cuts made, captions checked and burned in, ready for the brand to post or run as an ad the day it lands. Raw delivery is unedited footage straight off your phone — your usable takes, the close-ups, the b-roll — and the brand's editor assembles it. Both are legitimate products. They are not the same product, and they do not carry the same price.

Raw footage pays 20–30% less than edited delivery. Put numbers on it: if your edited video is $300, the raw version of the same shoot is $210–240. Brands with in-house editors often prefer raw — they want options in their own edit, multiple hooks from your takes, and footage they can re-cut for testing. What raw is not is a fire sale. You still planned the shots, performed the takes, and lit the scene. Charge raw money for raw work and edited money for edited work, and say which one a quote covers before anyone films anything.

Two habits keep this clean. First, deliver raw organized: separate clips, sensibly ordered, with the takes you would pick flagged, not one 14-minute file the editor has to mine. Second, remember that delivery format changes nothing about rights. Raw footage handed over is not footage the brand may use forever, everywhere, for free — the usage terms from your quote apply to raw and edited files alike. A brand that wants to re-cut your raw clips into new ads a year from now is using your work a year from now, and that gets priced like it.

Revisions without resentment

Revisions are where good deals turn sour, and almost never because of the changes themselves. They turn sour because nobody defined what a revision is. Settle it in the quote, before filming: one to two rounds of revisions are included in your price. A round means one consolidated list of changes from the brand, answered with one new version — not six separate messages across four days, each treated as a fresh round. Extra revisions beyond what's included run $25–50 each. State the number kindly and early, and it stops being an argument later.

Learn the line between a revision and a reshoot, because brands will wander across it without meaning to. Fixing a caption, tightening a cut, swapping in a different take of the same line: revision. A new opening, a new script, a different claim, a second product angle: that's a new video wearing a revision's clothes, and it gets quoted as one. Say so plainly when it happens — "happy to film that; it's a new concept rather than a revision, so here's what it runs" — and most brands accept it without blinking, because it is obviously true.

Finally, only take feedback you can act on. "Make it pop" and "it just feels off" are not notes; they are weather reports. Ask for timestamps and specifics: which second, which line, what should it say instead? Good brands learn fast when you give them a format, and the ones who can't ever say what's wrong are telling you something about the next deal. Deliver revisions quickly, keep the tone short and warm, and the process stays boring — which is what professional delivery is supposed to feel like on both sides.