Clipchamp Review: Microsoft's Free Video Editor, Its Watermark Rules and What Premium Costs

Clipchamp is Microsoft's video editor: you drop clips, photos and music on a timeline, and Clipchamp says its AI can write captions for you or turn a script into a voiceover. Is Clipchamp free? Yes, and its free plan promises something not every editor gives away: 1080p exports with no watermark, as long as you don't use premium features or premium stock. Do you have to download it? No: it runs in the browser, and on Windows 11 it's already in the Start menu. The catch is the sign-up: new accounts need a Microsoft account. And Premium isn't sold on its own: it comes with Microsoft 365, from $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year.

What Clipchamp is (and why it's on your PC already)

Clipchamp belongs to Microsoft (its team is headquartered in Brisbane, Australia), and it's a regular timeline editor: trim, crop, resize and rotate, add text and animated titles, filters and effects, music, and a stock library of videos, images, stickers, GIFs and sound effects. On top of that, its website lists a handful of AI tools: an AI voiceover generator that turns text into speech in a wide range of languages (you can adjust pitch and pace), automatic captions in over 80 languages, and audio cleanup that removes background noise, silences and filler words. There's also a camera, screen and voice recorder.

If you'd rather watch it than read about it, Clipchamp's own beginner tutorial below walks through a full edit.

You get it two ways, and the home page spells them out side by side:

So, no, you don't need to download Clipchamp. On Windows 11 it's already there; on Windows 10 it's a free install from the Microsoft Store; and on a Mac you just open it in the browser. When you open the editor in a browser it doesn't support, it asks you to switch to Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome, so keep one of those around.

Is Clipchamp free? Yes, with two pieces of fine print

The pricing page puts it plainly: start editing "for free," and premium features "are now included with Microsoft 365 Personal and Family plans." Its plan table is generous for a free plan:

The AI video and audio tools, the recorder, text and titles, audio-only export and OneDrive backup all get a checkmark on both plans. The differences are export resolution (1080p vs. 4K), stock (free vs. premium), filters and effects (free vs. premium) and the brand kit for your logos, colors and fonts, which is Premium only.

Now the fine print. First, the stock library mixes free and premium items, and a note on the pricing page says you can't export a video that includes premium assets on the free plan. Second, Clipchamp also warns that videos using features outside your plan get a watermark. In practice: if you want a clean 1080p file for free, build it with your own footage, the free stock and the free effects, and swap out anything premium before you export.

The sign-up: you'll need a Microsoft account

Here's the part that surprised me. Clipchamp's sign-in page offers Microsoft, Google, email and a separate link for work or school accounts, so I went with Google. Google asked me to confirm, sent me back to Clipchamp, and Clipchamp told me no account existed and that sign-up is only available with a Microsoft account. The Google button, it turns out, is for people who already have an older Clipchamp account. Email is the same story: it's there to sign in to an existing Clipchamp account and link it to a Microsoft one.

So I went to create a Microsoft account with my Gmail address. It didn't ask for a password: it emailed me a code, I typed it in, and the next screen asked for my country and a date of birth, both required. That's where I stopped; I don't make up birthdays for test accounts. Signing up is quick, but it's an account with Microsoft, not just with Clipchamp. If you already have a personal Microsoft account, you can skip all of this and sign in with that.

Work and school accounts go a different route. Clipchamp's pricing page has a separate question about Microsoft 365 commercial and education customers, and its sign-in page has a separate link for work or school accounts.

Clipchamp pricing: what Premium really costs

There is no Clipchamp Premium checkout. You get Premium by subscribing to Microsoft 365 Personal or Family, which means you're paying for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneDrive storage too. If you already pay for one of those plans, Premium is a free bonus. If you don't, 4K is a pricey reason to start. These are the US prices as Microsoft lists them:

Paying yearly works out about 17% cheaper, Microsoft says. Microsoft also sells Microsoft 365 Premium at $199.99 a year, but Clipchamp's pricing page only names Personal and Family, so there's no reason to buy Microsoft 365 Premium just for Clipchamp.

Is Clipchamp worth it?

As a free editor, it's one of the easiest recommendations out there: a proper timeline, AI captions and voiceovers listed among the free tools, and 1080p with no watermark if you stay on the free side of the stock library. If you're on Windows 11, you'll find it in the Start menu, which is hard to beat.

Paying is a different question. If your household already has Microsoft 365 Personal or Family, you have Premium and don't need to think about it. If not, ask yourself whether you need 4K or premium stock. For most YouTube, school and social videos, 1080p does the job, and you can keep the $99.99.

For a longer, independent tour of the editor, the Primal Video walkthrough below is a good next step.

Clipchamp or something else?

Descript

Free with limits · from $24/mo

Edit talking-head videos through the transcript; free plan exports at 720p with a watermark.

Descript review →

If most of your videos are people talking, Descript lets you edit the recording by editing the transcript, which is faster than hunting for pauses on a timeline; its free plan is tighter, though. If you'd rather type an idea and get a finished video back, InVideo builds one from a prompt. And for generating new footage from scratch rather than editing your own, Runway is the place to look.

Written by Miguel Ángel, with help from an LLM to verify facts.