Is there a free alternative to Opus Clip?

Reelsaw is free software under the AGPL-3.0. Install it on your own machine with one command and there is no plan, no credit meter and no watermark. Your only costs are the hardware and, if you pick cloud models, their per-call price.

Is there an open-source alternative to Opus Clip?

Yes. Reelsaw's source is on GitHub under the AGPL-3.0, written in TypeScript. OpenShorts is another open-source option, MIT-licensed and Python-based, with a hosted tier.

Does Opus Clip's free plan add a watermark?

Its pricing page lists captions 'with watermark' on the Free plan and watermark-free export from the Starter plan ($15/mo) upward, as of 2026-10-18.

Can I automate Opus Clip or Reelsaw from an agent?

Both. Opus Clip offers a Video Editing API, an MCP connector and Zapier on its Pro plan. Reelsaw ships an MCP server and an operator CLI on every install, with no plan gate.

Reelsaw vs Opus Clip

The open-source Opus Clip alternative you run yourself

Opus Clip is the best-known AI clipping service: paste a link, get vertical clips with captions and B-roll, and pay by plan. Reelsaw does the clipping part of that job as software you install, so the questions are what you give up, what you gain, and what each actually costs.

This page keeps to what both products document. Opus Clip's prices come from its public pricing page on the date below; Reelsaw's claims come from its README and source.

Pricing checked 2026-10-18 on each vendor's public page. Vendors change plans without notice; verify before you buy.

What Opus Clip costs

Four plans. The free plan watermarks captions and expires exports after three days; watermark-free export starts at $15 a month.

Opus Clip plans
Plan	Price	What it includes
Free	$0	Captions with watermark, MP4 export for 3 days at up to 1080p, media expires after 3 days, 1 brand template, no B-roll, no API
Starter	$15/mo	Watermark-free export, 30-day export window, 3 AI-image and 3 stock B-roll clips a month, 1 brand template
Pro	$29/mo	No export limit, 50 AI-image B-roll clips a day and unlimited stock, AI video B-roll, Video Editing API, Scheduler API, MCP connector, Zapier (up to 300 credits/mo), 2 to 4 users, up to 4 brand templates, 100 GB storage
Business	Custom	Everything in Pro, CMS integration, unlimited seats and storage

Yearly prices and per-plan minute allowances were not shown as plain numbers on the page when checked; usage is metered in plan credits.

What Reelsaw costs for the same job

The software is free under the AGPL-3.0 and there is no hosted plan to upsell you to. What you pay for is the machine it runs on and, only if you choose cloud models, the per-call price of those models.

Fully local: Ollama for the language model and Speaches (Whisper) for transcription. The installer picks a model by GPU memory or RAM (qwen2.5:14b with 24 GB of RAM or a 12 GB GPU, qwen2.5:7b from 12 GB, gemma3:4b below that), reuses one Ollama already has, and puts both on an NVIDIA GPU when there is one. Nothing leaves the box and there is no per-minute cost at all.

With cloud models: set OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Groq, Deepgram, AssemblyAI or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint as a provider:model string and you pay that vendor's metered price for transcription minutes and a few thousand tokens of selection per video. There is no Reelsaw margin on top.

Opus Clip vs Reelsaw, feature by feature

Opus Clip and Reelsaw compared
	Reelsaw	Opus Clip
Runs fully local, no API keys	Yes, and it is the installer's default: Ollama for the language model, a local Whisper for transcription, on-device alignment and face detection. Nothing leaves the machine	No, the video is uploaded to the vendor
Model providers	Any, for each of the three models separately: OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Groq, Deepgram, AssemblyAI, Vercel AI Gateway, Ollama, vLLM, LM Studio or any OpenAI-compatible server. No vendor is baked in; admins switch at runtime	Opus Clip's own models; not configurable
Entry price	$0. AGPL-3.0 software; you supply the machine and, if you want cloud models, the API keys	$15/mo (Starter) for watermark-free export; $0 with a watermark
Free tier	Everything, with no plan and no meter	Yes: watermarked captions, 3-day export window, 3-day media storage
Watermark	Never	On the free plan; removed from Starter up
Open source	Yes, AGPL-3.0, pure TypeScript	No
Self-hostable	Yes: Docker Compose, one-command installer for macOS, Linux and Windows	No, cloud only
AI moment detection	Yes: map, pool, rank with pairwise comparison; any language model, optional separate judge model	Yes
Face-tracked 9:16 reframing	Yes: face, split, stack and fit layouts per segment; 1.2 MB UltraFace detector on the CPU	Yes
Word-level captions	Yes: karaoke highlight, AI-picked key words, boxed or outlined, drag positions on a live preview	Yes, large caption-style library
Filler and false-start removal	Yes: jump cuts located by forced alignment, each one reviewable	Not stated on the pricing page
AI dubbing / translation	No	Not listed on the pricing page when checked
Direct social publishing	No. Export zip with paste-ready text, a YouTube Data API body and a TikTok post body per clip	Yes: Scheduler API on Pro and up
Agent and API access	MCP server (Streamable HTTP, OAuth optional) and an operator CLI	Video Editing API, MCP connector and Zapier on Pro and up
Usage cap	None	Metered in plan credits; media and exports expire on Free and Starter
Accounts and teams	Multi-user with admin approval, per-user quotas and usage	2 to 4 users on Pro, unlimited on Business

What Opus Clip does better

Zero setup: nothing to install, nothing to keep running.
B-roll: AI-image, stock and AI-video B-roll are built into the paid plans. Reelsaw has intros and outros but no B-roll.
Caption styling breadth and brand templates.
Scheduling and publishing from the same place.

Which one should you pick?

Pick Opus Clip if

You want clips today with no Docker and no machine to maintain.
You rely on B-roll, brand templates or scheduled publishing.
Your sources are short, so a per-plan credit allowance stays cheap.

Pick Reelsaw if

You clip long sources every week and a credit meter is the line item that hurts.
The source video must stay on your hardware (clients, pre-release content, internal recordings).
You want to read, change or automate the pipeline: MCP, CLI, your own models, your own judge model.
You run a team and want accounts, approval and quotas without a per-seat price.

Common questions

Is there a free alternative to Opus Clip?: Reelsaw is free software under the AGPL-3.0. Install it on your own machine with one command and there is no plan, no credit meter and no watermark. Your only costs are the hardware and, if you pick cloud models, their per-call price.
Is there an open-source alternative to Opus Clip?: Yes. Reelsaw's source is on GitHub under the AGPL-3.0, written in TypeScript. OpenShorts is another open-source option, MIT-licensed and Python-based, with a hosted tier.
Does Opus Clip's free plan add a watermark?: Its pricing page lists captions 'with watermark' on the Free plan and watermark-free export from the Starter plan ($15/mo) upward, as of 2026-10-18.
Can I automate Opus Clip or Reelsaw from an agent?: Both. Opus Clip offers a Video Editing API, an MCP connector and Zapier on its Pro plan. Reelsaw ships an MCP server and an operator CLI on every install, with no plan gate.

Related comparisons

Sources

Last updated 2026-10-18.