6 Mistakes People Make When Hiring a Video Editor (And How to Avoid Them)

I have encountered more tales from prospective clients than I care to recount, where the editor abandoned the project and one of the first questions I am asked is, “Is it common for video editors to just stop working on a project when something better comes along??”

Unfortunately, this tends to be a result of the client tripping over one of the traps I have outlined below.

Try to avoid these and you’ll have a much better chance of getting your video completed, on time and with your original vision in mind!

PART 1: THE TRAPS (What Not to Do)

Mistake #1: Posting Your Project on Freelance Platforms

The Problem: Platforms like Bark, Fiverr, Upwork, and Freelance create a "race to the bottom" with each editor trying to lower their price to get the project.

This ultimately causes editors from developing nations to quote absurd prices like $20-100 (for a project that takes days to weeks) as a way of shutting out the U.S. editors. We see this and discuss this often in the editor forums. It's a known challenge and causes client frustration as well.

U.S.-based editors can't compete, even if they do get the project, so they have to cut corners and you end up with templated, or underwhelming editing. Those platforms may contain some good editors, who cannot do a good job for you!

This not only hurts the industry, but you end up with an editor that will have to do such a rushed, templated job on your project, or that cannot fulfill your vision or make critical changes requested.

This happens SO OFTEN that many people end up abandoning this effort a few days/weeks in and then start their search over again.

Why This Especially Hurts Family Videos: Your family trip footage isn't a widget off an assembly line - it needs patience, not speed.

Mistake #2: Choosing an Editor Who Doesn't Connect With Your Subject Matter

The Problem: Your editor will spend 15-30+ hours immersed in your footage. If they don't care about family stories, human nature kicks in - and they'll rush to finish the job as fast as possible.

Instead of working to really develop and nurture the story and find the right footage and the right moments and portray them in a way that you love, they’ll be forced to race through it - it will just be drag-and-drop and slap a template in place and move on to the next project.

Legacy videos require emotional intelligence and patience.

The Reality: An editor who specializes in music videos or fast-paced, trendy YouTube content may not have the temperament for your grandmother's stories or your kids' first trip to the ocean.

Mistake #3: Pushing for a Flat Fee

The Problem: You press for a flat fee, because you want no surprises. You end up with a rushed job or an exorbitantly priced video.

Let's say you want to lock in a flat fee for the video.

"That way, I'll know exactly what I am spending before we even start!"

This goes 1 of 2 ways.

After much pressing, you set it at a low, $1,000 flat fee. OR
The editor has been through this before - they set it high enough to cover potential losses - then restrict the time the project is allowed to go on.
1. Example: "$5,000, project must complete within 10 days of start date."

Here's what your editor faces:

20+ steps: footage review, importing, organizing, rough cuts, feedback rounds, color correction, removing unwanted background elements, sound cleanup, titles, revisions, exports, uploads, final delivery and so on.

If they hit $1,000 at step 5, every hour after that costs them money! Unfortunately, they now must choose: “Do I rush through the remaining 15 steps?” or “Lose money on the project?”

Why This Kills Family Projects:

Editors abandon unfinished projects when flat fees trap them. You've painted them into a corner, even with good intentions, it’s just the math!

THIS is why I hear SO OFTEN about editors leaving projects UNFINISHED.

They hoped for the best, but now they have no choice.

I hear accounts of this from prospective clients ALL THE TIME.

And this is why I, personally, do not work on a flat fee. You want someone that is going to get paid for their time, so that they STAY until your project is finished!

What Happens Instead: Hourly pricing ensures your editor can give your project the time it needs without financial stress. Ok to ask for an estimated number of hours - but it should be clear what stage of the project your editor is on, and how close or far your video is to being completed.

Personally - I send updates similar to this:

"We're done with all setup, footage review & importing, as we talked about, there will be 5 sections to this video, you have drafts of sections 1-2-3 so far, I am at a total of = 17.25 hours, sections 4 & 5 are remaining, roughly 8-10 hours to go, please review this draft of section 4 and provide feedback".

I've even done stage burndown charts in spreadsheets so they can see a line pointing to when we should be done - problem is, those take a lot of time to produce and only make sense when on longer projects (50+ hours).

The above would illustrate that the project was on track to be completed by Thursday, June 10th.

We want to avoid it looking like this next image:

The above happens when footage keeps arriving long after the project has started. Or the client changes direction, or there is a committee of people at a company that keep weighing in and requesting changes to areas...already changed. Or really anything else that causes us to go back to already completed stages of the video edit. A little bit of this is to be expected. In the case of the video charted out above, you can see that we just kept jumping back to the starting point and thus the completion date moves further out to the right. I have no way to anticipate this - and therefore, this is why I don't quote flat fees.

Again - to be clear, I don't do a stages chart like the above unless it is a longer project - it is a time-consuming effort to update and it can take quite an effort to get clients to pay attention to it.

PART 2: THE RIGHT APPROACH (What to Do Instead)

Solution #1: Find an Editor Who Empathizes With Family Stories

Look for:

Portfolio showing patience with personal/legacy content.
Someone who asks questions about your family and what this means to you.
Reviews mentioning "listened to our story" or "got what we were trying to preserve".
If you are an aspiring youtube channel owner, find someone that understands the style you are going with.
If it's a music video, is this really their thing?
If it's a family trip or legacy video, will they have patience with you and all of your poorly shot, re-copied footage shot through the glass frame (🤦🏻‍♂️) and endless edits about your family history?

Solution #2: Have a Real Conversation First (Zoom/Phone)

Why This Matters:

You're trusting this person with irreplaceable memories.
A 20-30 minute call will often reveal, do you enjoy talking to them? Do they listen?
Trust your gut - if something feels off, if they are hurried, keep looking.

Solution #3: Match Skills to Your Needs

For Family Videos, Your Editor Should Handle:

Basic color correction (making your phone footage and camera footage match)
Removing unwanted visual elements (that person in the background, the finger over the lens)
Audio cleanup (isolating voices, reducing background noise)
Patient handling of mixed-quality footage (yes, even footage shot through that glass frame 🤦🏻‍♂️)

You Don't Need:

A Hollywood colorist
A VFX specialist
Separate sound designer

You DO Need:

One skilled editor who can cover these bases competently for family-style projects

PART 3: THE REALITY CHECK

What Quality Family Video Editing Actually Costs

A quality video editor is going to have the cost of running their business, and their cost of living in the U.S. to support.

Note that, most services that video editors use, are subscription based. And all of those monthly costs have increased lately.

You can expect that cost to be somewhere between $50 and $150 per hour. This varies greatly, depending on their location.

Are they in New York City? Look to the higher end of the range.
Are they in a low cost of living area out in the country? More likely in the lower end of the range.
Then, factor in experience. Low cost of living AND several years of experience…probably somewhere in the middle: $70-90 an hour. That’s the sweet spot.

These days, with the cost of groceries going up, up, up…where in 2024 a family of four (like mine) was spending $325 per week on average…that’s now gone up to $525+

...that hot water heater that used to be $1,000-1,200 now it’s $1,700-2,700.

Landscaping crew that worked at $80/hr, now they're charging $700 for an afternoon....to pick WEEDS!

A video editor has to adjust their prices just to match what they USED to be able to afford…just like everyone else!

Why the Right Editor Is Worth It

Your family footage is irreplaceable.
Cheap/fast editors often disappear mid-project.
The right editor becomes a partner in preserving your legacy.

PART 4: WHERE TO ACTUALLY FIND THE RIGHT EDITOR

Google business listings are a good start. Also, conduct searches that might lead you to a video editor’s Google Business listing. This will also help you to get a feel for what other clients said about this editor and whether or not they are a good fit for what you want to create.

You don’t have to find someone that is local.

These days, footage can be sent via fast transfer services - digitally, often overnight even if in massive quantities. And the editor can post drafts along the way that you can review, pause and when you comment, it makes a marker at that exact moment so they know what you were referring to. You’re always a quick zoom call away - remote editing is pretty common these days.

Ask for a free consultation just to discuss your project. Someone who loves editing and creating videos/shorts/film will enjoy just having a conversation WITHOUT turning it into a sales call.

I've had plenty of conversations with people where, I know there is no $$ business for me in the call. Just last week I discussed a documentary with a couple young film directors in film school, even though it was not going to be feasible to hire me.

Being asked for your advice, is not something we should be too good to offer!

In my own business, roughly 95% of my projects have been out-of-state. I'll do that remote editing, I just won't be close enough to film those projects in person.

Last words of advice...

Repeat clients will remind me of the importance and value it has to them, when we finish a project, “I see this as a way to preserve our legacy”.

So, if your story is important to you, don’t use just anyone to tell it.

If you were building your dreamhouse, you wouldn’t go buy the cheapest prefab trailer you could find and drop it onto your mountain view lot, would you? 😖