Choppity review: pricing, the free plan, and the open source alternative
Checked October 2026 Prices and plans read on Choppity's public pricing page; vendors change them without notice.
Choppity is a closed-source cloud clipper for podcasts and long talking videos: it proposes clips, follows the active speaker and lets you edit each clip through its transcript. A screen recorder and a social scheduler come in the same account.
It has a real free plan: 1 hour of analysis a month and no credit card, with a Choppity logo on exports and projects deleted after 3 days. Paid plans start at $24/month for 3 hours, or $16.80/month billed yearly.
OpenShorts is the open source alternative: free under MIT when you self-host it, with no logo and no meter, or hosted from $12/month billed monthly.
Your first video free up to 60 minutes, then 20 free minutes a month, no credit card. Or self-host it free under MIT.
What does Choppity do?
Choppity (choppity.com) is a cloud AI clip maker aimed mostly at podcasters, educators and marketers. Upload a file or paste a YouTube link and it transcribes the video, proposes 20 to 50 or more short clips, reframes them to vertical while following the active speaker, and captions them; you then refine each clip by editing its transcript. Around the clipper it sells a screen recorder for tutorials and a social scheduler, and it exports 9:16, 1:1 and 16:9.
- Text-based editing: trim a clip by deleting words from its transcript, with timeline controls when you need them
- Active-speaker tracking for podcasts and interviews, keyword and topic search to clip one specific moment, and automatic profanity bleeping
- A screen recorder and a social scheduler (YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Threads) in the same account, plus an API and an MCP server
- Captions and transcripts in 97 languages, it says, and uploads of up to 10 GB
How much does Choppity cost in 2026?
Pricing checked 2026-10-29 on the vendor's public pricing page.
- Free: 1 hour of AI video analysis a month, 2 GB of storage, projects kept 3 days, one seat, with the clipper, editor and captions; exports carry a small Choppity logo. No credit card.
- Starter: $24/month, or $16.80/month billed yearly ($201.60/year): 3 hours of analysis a month, 40 GB, projects kept 30 days, 1080p and 4K exports, scheduling to 1 social account
- Creator: $32/month, or $22.40/month billed yearly: 5 hours a month, 100 GB, projects kept with no expiry, bulk uploads of up to 10 links or files, 3 social accounts, custom fonts, a brand template and API access. More hours come in 5-hour packs at $32 each, up to 100 hours.
- Team: $48/month, or $33.60/month billed yearly: 5 hours a month, 200 GB, unlimited seats, a shared workspace with roles, 6 social accounts, 5 brand templates
- Enterprise: Custom pricing for bespoke usage, security review and white-label
Yearly billing takes 30% off every plan. Usage resets to zero on the 1st of each calendar month, and a payment can be refunded if you ask within 14 days.
Is Choppity free?
Yes, with limits. The free plan needs no credit card and includes the clipper, the editor and captions, but it covers 1 hour of AI video analysis a month, deletes projects after 3 days and puts a small Choppity logo in the corner of every export. Removing the logo starts on Starter at $24/month, or $16.80/month billed yearly. For comparison, OpenShorts Cloud's free plan is the first video clipped whole up to 60 minutes, then 20 minutes a month with a watermark and no credit card, with paid plans from $12/month, and the self-hosted edition has no limit at all.
Choppity's limits
The meter is hours of AI video analysis, counted on the source you upload rather than on the clips you keep: a 90-minute episode uses half of Starter's three hours however few clips you export. Usage resets on the 1st of the calendar month, so hours you do not use are gone.
It is also closed source and cloud only, so every video goes to Choppity's servers and there is no edition you can run yourself.
Who Choppity is for
- Podcasters and interview shows that want speaker tracking and to fine-tune each clip by editing words rather than a timeline
- Course creators who also record screen tutorials and want one tool for the recording and the clips
- Small teams that want clipping, a content calendar and posting to six networks under one subscription
The open source alternative to Choppity
Choppity and OpenShorts both start from a long recording and return captioned vertical clips. Choppity expects you to polish each clip in its transcript editor; OpenShorts is built to hand back finished clips and to run without you, on our servers or on yours. The gap is in the framing: OpenShorts keeps two people on camera stacked in half-frames, keeps a shared screen legible above the presenter, and enlarges a webcam inset rather than cropping it away. What you give up is the zero-setup start: free means Docker on your own machine, and the hosted edition is paid beyond its free 20 minutes a month.
Real OpenShorts output, not a mock-up. A 39-minute interview: Gemini picked the moment, the crop follows the speaker, and the captions come from the word-level transcript. Source: Startup Founder & CEO Mark Bush on How to Overcome Adversity, Foundation for Economic Education, CC BY.
What would you pay for your own usage?
Choppity bills by the minute of video, so the honest comparison is your own monthly minutes. Set them below; each bar is the cheapest published plan that covers that number.
Cheapest published plan that covers that many minutes, per month. Prices checked 2026-10-05. Self-hosted needs Docker and your own Gemini key, whose free tier covers 1,500 requests a day.
What does OpenShorts cost?
Leaving Choppity for OpenShorts, you choose between two bills. Zero, when you self-host the MIT code with Docker: no watermark, no cap, no subscription, only your machine's time and your own API keys. Or a flat hosted plan on OpenShorts Cloud, from $12/month for 100 minutes of source without a watermark, after a free plan with the first video clipped whole up to 60 minutes, then 20 minutes a month with a watermark and no credit card.
Choppity vs OpenShorts, feature by feature
| Feature | OpenShorts | Choppity |
|---|---|---|
| Entry price | $0 self-hosted · $0 hosted for 20 min/mo · $12/mo hosted without watermark | $24/month ($16.80 billed yearly) |
| Open source | Yes, MIT | No |
| Self-hostable | Yes, Docker Compose | No, cloud only |
| Source video stays on your machine | Yes when self-hosted | No |
| AI viral moment detection | Yes, Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite | Yes |
| Face-tracked 9:16 reframing | Yes, MediaPipe + YOLOv8 | Yes |
| Word-level auto subtitles | Yes, faster-whisper | Yes |
| AI voice dubbing, 30+ languages | Yes, with your own ElevenLabs key | Not listed; captions in 97 languages, it says |
| AI UGC video with lip-synced actors | Yes, from $0.65/video | Not listed |
| Free AI YouTube thumbnail & title studio | Yes when self-hosted · thumbnails on paid Cloud plans | Not listed |
| Usage cap | None when self-hosted · metered on Cloud | Metered in hours of AI analysis a month |
When to stay on Choppity
- One hour of source a month is all you clip and a corner logo does not bother you: the free plan covers it.
- You publish to LinkedIn, Facebook or Threads as well, and want the scheduler next to the clipper.
- You pay yearly for Creator: $22.40/month for 5 hours is less per minute than OpenShorts Cloud's Creator plan at $24.17/month yearly for 300 minutes.
Where the two differ
- OpenShorts is MIT-licensed and runs on your own machine with Docker; Choppity is a closed cloud service, so every upload goes to its servers.
- Entry prices: OpenShorts Cloud is $12/month for 100 minutes, billed monthly; Choppity Starter is $24/month for 3 hours, or $16.80 on a yearly plan.
- Choppity's free plan is the more generous hosted one: a full hour a month, against 20 minutes on OpenShorts Cloud after a first video of up to 60 minutes. Both mark free exports.
- Choppity has the richer editor (transcript editing, profanity bleeping, a screen recorder). OpenShorts is built to finish clips without one, and adds dubbing into 30+ languages with your own ElevenLabs key.
Migrating from Choppity to OpenShorts
- Download the clips you want to keep first: free projects are deleted after 3 days and Starter projects after 30.
- Use up the month's hours, then switch: usage resets on the 1st of each calendar month, and refunds are only offered within 14 days of a payment.
- Convert the meter. Choppity sells hours of analysis, OpenShorts Cloud sells minutes of source: Starter's 3 hours is 180 minutes, between our $12 (100 minutes) and $29 (300 minutes) plans.
- Re-run a recent episode from the same YouTube link or file; the first video is clipped free up to 60 minutes, so the side-by-side costs nothing.
- If a script called Choppity's API or MCP server, point it at the OpenShorts API or MCP server instead.
Choppity or OpenShorts?
- You want to fine-tune every clip by editing its transcript
- You also record screen tutorials and schedule posts to six networks
- One hour of source a month is all you clip
- You want to self-host so the footage never leaves your machine
- You clip under 100 minutes a month and want a $12 plan billed monthly
- You want dubbing into 30+ languages with your own ElevenLabs key
Choppity is the better pick if you want to shape every clip by hand in a transcript editor, also record tutorials, and schedule to many networks from one tool. OpenShorts is the better pick if you want the clips finished without the editing pass, to pay monthly from $12, or to keep the whole pipeline on your own machine.
Common questions
- Is there a free alternative to Choppity?
- Choppity's free side, as checked in October 2026: 1 hour of AI video analysis a month, 2 GB of storage, projects kept 3 days, one seat, with the clipper, editor and captions; exports carry a small Choppity logo. No credit card. OpenShorts gives you two free routes instead: the MIT edition on your own machine, with no watermark and no cap, or the hosted free plan, the first video clipped whole up to 60 minutes, then 20 minutes a month with a watermark and no credit card.
- Is there an open source alternative to Choppity?
- Yes: OpenShorts, under the MIT licence, with every stage of the pipeline readable on GitHub (github.com/mutonby/openshorts). Choppity publishes no source and has no edition you can run yourself.
- How do I switch from Choppity to OpenShorts?
- Download the clips you want to keep first: free projects are deleted after 3 days and Starter projects after 30. Use up the month's hours, then switch: usage resets on the 1st of each calendar month, and refunds are only offered within 14 days of a payment. Convert the meter. Choppity sells hours of analysis, OpenShorts Cloud sells minutes of source: Starter's 3 hours is 180 minutes, between our $12 (100 minutes) and $29 (300 minutes) plans. Re-run a recent episode from the same YouTube link or file; the first video is clipped free up to 60 minutes, so the side-by-side costs nothing. If a script called Choppity's API or MCP server, point it at the OpenShorts API or MCP server instead.
- Does Choppity add a watermark, and does OpenShorts?
- Choppity puts a small logo in the corner of free-plan exports; any paid plan, from $24/month ($16.80 yearly), removes it, and old clips can be re-exported clean. On OpenShorts the mark exists only on the free Cloud plan: the self-hosted edition has no watermark code, and paying from $12/month removes it, including from clips made before you upgraded.
- How much does Choppity cost?
- Checked 29 October 2026: Free at $0 (1 hour of analysis a month), Starter $24/month for 3 hours, Creator $32/month for 5 hours with API access, Team $48/month for 5 hours with unlimited seats, and custom Enterprise plans. Yearly billing takes 30% off: $16.80, $22.40 and $33.60 a month. OpenShorts Cloud starts at $12/month for 100 minutes, and self-hosted it costs nothing.
- Does Choppity have an API?
- Yes. API access starts on the Creator plan ($32/month, $22.40 billed yearly), and Choppity also offers an MCP server for AI assistants. OpenShorts has a REST API, webhooks and an MCP server, and the self-hosted edition includes all three for free.
Sources
- Choppity pricing, checked 2026-10-29 on the vendor's public pricing page.
- Choppity plans, limits, billing and refunds, checked 2026-10-29: www.choppity.com/pricing/
- Choppity on free-plan watermarks, checked 2026-10-29: www.choppity.com/tools/free-ai-clip-maker/ai-clip-maker-no-watermark/
- Choppity features and FAQ, checked 2026-10-29: www.choppity.com/
- Choppity languages and upload size, checked 2026-10-29: www.choppity.com/alternatives/opus-clip/
- OpenShorts pipeline details from the project source at github.com/mutonby/openshorts.