The only thing Clipchamp's free plan holds back is resolution

60 is a middling number in a category where the free options are unusually strong. It puts Clipchamp seventh of the thirteen tools we score, two places below where we rank it, and none of that is a complaint about honesty. What free Clipchamp gives you is clean. The reason the number is not higher is that it gives you less than the desktop editors sitting beside it.

In most categories a browser tool with unlimited watermark-free exports would score well. In this one it is up against a free grading suite, a free node compositor and two unlimited desktop editors with no resolution ceiling at all, which makes a 1080p browser timeline the shallowest real editor on the list apart from iMovie. Measured against the job most people actually open it for, it is enough. That tension is what the verdict at the bottom of this page has to settle.

The resolution cap does nearly all the work here, because everything else on the free tier is unusually complete: unlimited exports, no watermark, no export counter, free stock, free filters and effects, and AI subtitles, voiceovers, silence removal and image background removal included rather than teased (as of July 2026).

• 1080p is hard. 4K UHD appears only in the premium column, stated the same way on Microsoft's product page, Clipchamp's pricing page and Microsoft's support article. There is no partial 4K, no watermarked 4K and no per-file way to buy one.
• Premium stock, premium filters and effects and the brand kit are paid, so a free Clipchamp project leans on your own footage and the free library.
• Cloud backup for projects is paid, and stays paid. It is the one premium feature Microsoft says its own Microsoft 365 subscribers do not get at this time, which is worth knowing before you assume a 365 subscription covers everything.
• The Windows app takes a Microsoft account and nothing else. Microsoft's support article says it is no longer possible to sign into the desktop app another way, and personal users are logged in automatically with their personal or family Microsoft account. The browser at app.clipchamp.com still accepts a Google login, an email link, or an email and password.
• The platform list is short. A browser version for Edge or Chrome, the Windows 10 and 11 app, and a free iOS app. No macOS app, no Android app, no Linux app, so a large share of users are browser-only whether they like it or not, which also means no offline editing.

None of those is a countdown, and that is the useful thing about this free tier. Nothing expires, nothing meters, and the one wall is a specification you either have to cross or you do not.

Every verified route past 1080p is a bundle rather than a video product. Microsoft 365 Personal and Family carry Clipchamp's premium features alongside Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and the rest, and on the business side the two per-user Editor tiers split on exactly one thing: 4K UHD export is on Premium and not on Standard. The honest way to read this ladder is that Microsoft is selling you a subscription you may already have, with Clipchamp attached to it.

Which means the upgrade question is often already answered. If you pay for Microsoft 365 today, the premium features are yours now, minus cloud backup for video projects, which Microsoft states its 365 subscribers do not get at this time. If you do not, the cheapest verified route to 4K is the $7 per user per month business tier billed annually, which is a slightly odd thing to buy for a personal project and is still the only figure we can stand behind.

The one price we cannot give you is the standalone personal Clipchamp Premium subscription. It exists, it is bought through the Microsoft Store, and no Microsoft or Clipchamp page we could read prints a number for it: the pricing page compares free against Microsoft 365 instead, the support article says only that you see your own region's price, and the Store listing renders client-side. A specific monthly figure circulates widely. We are not repeating a number we could not source.

Free with a limit, and the limit is a specification rather than a countdown. Nothing here expires, nothing meters your exports and nothing stamps them, so whether Clipchamp is free for you is decided entirely by whether 1080p is your delivery spec.

Who never pays: anyone cutting social, internal or client video where 1080p is the brief, Windows 11 users who want to trim and caption something without installing anything, people on a Chromebook or a work laptop with locked-down installs, and anyone whose machine is too weak for a desktop editor. Unlimited watermark-free exports at 1080p is a complete answer for all of them, and an unusually clean one.

Who pays: anyone who has to hand over a 4K master, anyone who needs premium stock or a brand kit for repeat client work, and anyone who wants projects backed up in the cloud, which stays paid even for Microsoft 365 subscribers. If you already pay for Microsoft 365, check what you have before you buy anything, because most of the premium list is already yours.

If 4K without paying is the requirement, CapCut's free plan offers it with its own caveats, while Kdenlive's free plan and Shotcut's free plan have no resolution ceiling at all. Free Clipchamp alternatives covers the rest, and the best free video editors ranks the category.