Video Editing Apps on the App Store Study

Key takeaways

1. 42 of 135 video editing apps with 1,000 or more U.S. ratings (31%) list a weekly plan, at a median lowest price of $4.49 a week. See details
2. Among the 32 apps that list both, a year of weekly payments costs a median 5.2 times the yearly plan, and it costs more in every one of them; paying monthly costs a median 2.6 times the yearly plan (60 apps). See details
3. The median lowest listed price is $6.99 a month (72 apps) and $29.99 a year (70 apps); 23 apps also sell a lifetime unlock, at a median $49.99. See details
4. 132 of the 135 apps are free to download; at least 86 (64%) sell a subscription named by its period. See details
5. The apps carry 9,640,379 U.S. ratings between them, a median of 10,671 each, rated 4.61 out of 5 at the median; CapCut has 1,125,545. See details
6. 14 of them rank in Apple's top 100 grossing Photo & Video apps; CapCut is the highest, at number 4. See details

What does a weekly plan cost over a year?

We read the in-app purchases Apple lists for 135 video editing apps on the U.S. App Store. 32 list both a weekly and a yearly plan. Paying the lowest weekly price for 52 weeks costs a median 5.2 times their lowest yearly price, and more than the yearly plan in every one of them; in 14 it costs six times as much or more. Paying monthly for a year costs a median 2.6 times the yearly plan, across the 60 apps listing both. Apple's guidance to developers is that a per-week or per-month breakdown of an annual price "should be displayed in a subordinate position and size to the annual price" (Apple Developer).

Which plans do the apps sell?

132 of the 135 apps are free to download. Going by the names of their listed in-app purchases, 42 (31%) sell a weekly plan, 72 a monthly one, 70 a yearly one and 23 a lifetime unlock. At least 86 (64%) sell a subscription named by its period; others sell plans whose names give no period ("Pro", "Unlimited access"), so the true share is higher.

What do the plans cost?

Taking each app's lowest listed price for each period, the median is $6.99 a month (72 apps), $29.99 a year (70 apps), $4.49 a week (42 apps) and $49.99 for a lifetime unlock (23 apps).

Which apps are the biggest?

The 135 apps carry 9,640,379 U.S. ratings between them, a median of 10,671 each, and the median app is rated 4.61 out of 5. CapCut has 1,125,545 ratings. 14 of the apps rank in Apple's top 100 grossing Photo & Video apps (Apple chart), CapCut highest at number 4. 76 of the 135 (56%) shipped an update in the 90 days before the read, and the median app was first released in 2018.

What this means

• Pick the yearly plan if you edit all year. Weekly plans cost at least twice as much over a year in every app we could compare.
• A weekly plan suits one short project. Cancel it when the project ends.
• Check the lifetime price. Where it exists, the median lifetime unlock costs $49.99, about 1.7 years of the median yearly plan.

Rather not learn an app at all? Mark Studios edits video for creators and brands. Our video editing software on Wikipedia study compares desktop editors.

How we ran the study

Apps. Candidates from the iTunes Search API (U.S. store; the terms video editor, video editing, edit video, video maker, movie maker, video editing app, 200 results each) and Apple's U.S. top-grossing and top-free Photo & Video charts: 587 apps. We kept those with 1,000 or more U.S. ratings whose name or description is about editing or making video (179), then removed by hand 26 photo-first editors (photo editors that also trim video) and 18 apps that are not editors (cameras, players, social apps, AI video generators): 135 apps. Single-purpose tools such as slow-motion, add-music and slideshow apps count, since they edit or make video.

Prices. Each app's U.S. App Store page (example) lists up to ten in-app purchases with their prices. We classed each by its name (week, month, year or annual, lifetime or one-time) and kept the lowest listed price per period per app. Read October 31, 2026.

Limitations

• Listed prices only. Apple shows up to ten in-app purchases, so an app's cheapest plan or a free trial may be missing, and introductory offers are not shown.
• Periods come from names. A plan named "Pro" with no period is not counted as weekly, monthly or yearly.
• U.S. store, iPhone and iPad apps. Prices differ by country, and Android apps are not included.

How to cite this study

Link to the section you use, for example https://www.markstudios.com/research/video-editing-apps-app-store-study#weekly. To cite the study as a whole:

Mark Studios. "Video Editing Apps on the App Store Study." Published October 31, 2026. https://www.markstudios.com/research/video-editing-apps-app-store-study

@misc{markstudios_video_editing_apps_app_store_study_2026,
  author = {{Mark Studios}},
  title = {{Video Editing Apps on the App Store Study}},
  year = {2026},
  month = oct,
  url = {https://www.markstudios.com/research/video-editing-apps-app-store-study},
  note = {Last verified 2026-10-31}
}

Our counts and the CSV are free to reuse under CC BY 4.0 with a link to this page.

Sources

Per-app data (CSV)

Widely quoted video statistics on other topics are traced to their origin, with a verdict on each, in our research fact-check.

1. Apple, iTunes Search API. Accessed 2026-10-31.
2. Apple, iTunes RSS: top-grossing Photo & Video apps, U.S. App Store. Accessed 2026-10-31.
3. Apple, App Store: CapCut: Photo & Video Editor (an example app page with its in-app purchases). Accessed 2026-10-31.
4. Apple Developer, Auto-renewable subscriptions. Accessed 2026-10-31.

Update policy and change log

We plan to rerun the read every six months. Corrections go to contact@markstudios.com.

• October 31, 2026: First published.