Clipping: what it is and how you make money from it

Clipping means taking long-form content from a creator or a brand —a podcast, a livestream, an interview— cutting it into short clips and posting them on your social accounts. You get paid for every thousand views those clips generate. The person who does it is called a clipper (clipero in Spanish), and the activity itself is called clipping.

Not to be confused with press clipping, which is something else entirely: tracking a brand's mentions in the media. Here we're talking about short-form video.

And nearly one in four has taken home more than €1,000. Almost half of those who get paid get paid again in another month: it's not lucky one-off money, it's people who keep coming back.

The difference from making content on your own is that here you don't have to come up with the content or build an audience from scratch: the original material already exists and already has pull. Your job is the editing and the distribution.

What you do need:

• An account on TikTok, Instagram or YouTube. A brand-new account works.
• The drive to post consistently: clipping works on volume, not on a single clip.

What you don't need:

• Followers. You get paid for views, not for an existing audience.
• Money. There's no fee and you don't have to buy any course to get in.
• Gear. You can clip entirely from your phone, with CapCut.
• Editing skills. If you don't know how, we'll teach you for free. We have a complete clipping course (in Spanish), free and with no strings attached, where you learn from scratch to put together clips that work.

If you'd rather have the short version before diving into the course, it's in how to start clipping, step by step. And if what you want to know is which requirements you have to meet and what you lose by skipping them, see how to become a clipper.

Three uncomfortable things, because it's better to know them before you start, not after.

Signing up doesn't make you money. You get paid for results. Some people sign up, don't post consistently and never get paid. It's not a salary.

There's a €150 minimum to withdraw. Your earnings build up across campaigns until you reach that balance. The good news is that a single clip that goes viral can get you past it in one go: you don't need to keep adding up for months if you get one right.

The most famous creator's campaign isn't always the one that pays you best. A big name starts with an edge in views, yes, but it usually pays less per thousand. Campaigns from smaller or niche creators pay quite a bit more per thousand views, and in some of them very few clippers are competing. It's worth looking at both before you choose, not just at the name.

And if you're considering the English-language platforms, which is where most of the campaigns are: getting paid from Spain adds friction that usually goes unmentioned too. We break it down separately, with what their own terms say — what changes when you get paid in euros.

And if you already clip on Clipeamos, you don't have to leave it to try ClipBoom: neither of them asks for exclusivity. We compare them point by point, with what each one's terms actually say.

And if you're still not sure clipping is for you, we've compared the ways to make money without investment —surveys, freelancing, affiliate programs, online stores, UGC and clipping— by what you put in and what you get paid in each one: platforms to make money without investment.