How to start clipping from scratch
No followers, no gear and no editing experience. What you need, the steps, and how you get paid.
To start clipping you need three things: a TikTok, Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts account, an editing app on your phone and a campaign to join. You pick a creator or a brand that pays for reach, cut the best moments from their content, post the clips on your own account and get paid for the views they get. You don't need followers or previous experience, and signing up is free.
The steps are below, one by one. If what you're after is how much you can make, that's in how much clippers make.
What clipping is, and what it isn't
Clipping is taking someone else's long video (a podcast, a livestream, an interview) and turning it into short, vertical clips that you post on your social accounts. Whoever owns that content pays for the reach, and you get paid based on what your clips achieve. It's called clipping, and the person who does it is called a clipper.
It's worth clearing up, because the word “clipping” is used for three other things that have nothing to do with this:
- Press clipping, which is collecting a brand's mentions in the media.
- Audio clipping, which is the distortion you get when a sound signal goes past its maximum.
- Clipping in Formula 1, which is the point where a car brushes the inside of a corner.
If you landed here looking for any of those three, this isn't the page you're looking for. If you landed here looking for how to make money with short videos, keep reading.
What you need before you start
None of this costs money.
A social media account
TikTok, Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts. It can be a new one or one you already have, and you don't need followers: what gets paid is the clip's views, not your audience.
An editing app
Your phone is enough. CapCut is the most widely used and it's free: it lets you cut, make the video vertical and add subtitles, which is all you need at the start.
Consistency
This is a volume game. Your first clips are for learning what hooks people; results come from posting lots of them, not from nailing one.
The six steps
From signing up to your first published clip.
1. Create your account and connect your socials
Connecting your account is what lets your views be counted in a verified way, through a direct connection to the TikTok, Instagram and YouTube APIs. Without that step, your clips don't count.
2. Pick a campaign
You'll see the open campaigns and their rules: what content can be used, which platforms count and what isn't allowed. Start with one whose topic genuinely interests you: it shows in the clips.
3. Find the best moments
It's the step that matters most and the one people put the least work into. Look for the moment that surprises, outrages or makes sense without context. A two-hour video usually gives you three or four good moments, not thirty.
4. Edit the clip
Vertical, between 20 and 60 seconds, with subtitles, because almost everyone watches with the sound off. Cut the pauses and the rambling: if a second at the start isn't needed, cut it.
5. Nail the first three seconds
The hook decides whether the clip exists at all. Open with the strongest line, not the introduction. If the opening doesn't make people stay, it doesn't matter how good the rest is.
6. Post and register the clip
It goes up on your own account and gets submitted to the campaign. From there, views are counted automatically and the clip goes through a review that checks it follows the rules.
The steps on video: inside the platform (in Spanish)
In 15 minutes, with the real app: how to sign up, pick a campaign, read the briefing and connect your socials. The video is in Spanish.
How you get paid
You get paid per verified view, not per clip posted. A clip that gets no views earns nothing, and neither does one that breaks the campaign rules.
What you earn builds up in your account and you request your payout from the dashboard once you reach €150. That minimum is fixed and worth knowing before you start, because it sets how much you need to build up for your first withdrawal.
How much a clip pays depends on the campaign and the reach you get. The real numbers, with what the platform's clippers are earning today, are in how much clippers make.
Who's already clipping
Platform data as of October 23, 2026.
The four beginner mistakes
Not connecting your account. It's the step most people skip, and without it not a single view gets counted. If you've posted clips and see nothing moving, start there.
Ignoring the campaign rules. Every campaign says what can and can't be used. A clip that breaks them gets rejected even if it has lots of views, and all that work is lost.
Posting little and expecting a lot. With three clips there's nothing to judge. What shows you what works is volume, and the first ones are practice.
Cutting without judgment. Chopping a long video into twenty back-to-back pieces isn't clipping. A clip has to make sense on its own, without having seen what came before.
Frequently asked questions
Start with one clip
The hard part isn't the editing: it's posting the first one. Create your account, see which campaigns are open today and pick the one you'd enjoy watching.