FAQ

It takes a long video file — a podcast, a Twitch VOD, a lecture — and produces short vertical clips suitable for TikTok, Reels, and Shorts. It runs as a Windows desktop application. The source video stays on your computer.

Two reasons. First, long source video. Web services cap source at 60 to 90 minutes because they are paying to store and process your upload; a desktop app does not have that constraint. Second, privacy. Your raw footage stays on your machine.

English is the primary tested language. Whisper supports about 100 languages, and the underlying transcription will work, but the moment-scoring heuristics and the karaoke caption rendering are tuned for English. Other languages are best-effort at launch.

Not yet. Windows only at launch. Mac is planned, no committed date.

Windows 10 or 11 64-bit, 8 GB RAM (16 GB recommended for source over an hour), and about 4 GB of free disk for the Whisper model and cache.

Internet is used for first-time model downloads (Whisper plus optional speaker-labeling models), license activation and later eligible re-verification, update checks, and optional LLM scoring on Pro or Lifetime. Transcription, speaker labeling, correction, and rendering are offline once the required models are cached.

ClipForge processes video locally and does not upload source video files. The current installer is unsigned, so Windows Defender SmartScreen may show an unrecognized-app warning. Review the exact installer guidance; do not disable Windows security features. Some managed computers can block unsigned software completely.

60 minutes covers one hour-long podcast, interview, or lecture per UTC month, or several shorter sources totaling 60 minutes. If you produce more than that, Pro at $19/mo removes the ClipForge source-minute cap and adds LLM scoring. The Starter cap is on source duration, not output clip count.

Source duration of each video successfully processed and ranked. A 45-minute source uses 45 minutes from the meter regardless of how many clips you export. Processing that is cancelled or fails before ranking completes is not added to the meter. The meter resets on the 1st of each month UTC.

The app blocks processing another source video until the meter resets or you upgrade. Existing files remain on disk, and you can still export clips already generated from earlier processing.

No. The Trial has no time expiry, but its allowance is a lifetime limit of 2 source videos and up to 5 exported clips. After that, Starter is the entry tier at $9/month.

The desktop license itself is the product. The LLM is a tool that the desktop license can use. You pay OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, or your custom provider directly for usage; the Vendor does not mark up those charges.

All current Pro features. Updates within the current major version stream (0.x). Future major versions (1.x and beyond) may be a separate purchase. There are no recurring charges.

Yes. Upgrades take effect immediately. Downgrades take effect at the end of the current billing period.

The percentage of generated clips you would actually publish. ClipForge includes an in-app yield log on paid tiers so you can grade clips A/B/C and measure your own hit rate. Your numbers will depend heavily on source content, audio quality, and topic density.

Try these in order: (1) add proper nouns and recurring jargon to the Custom Vocabulary field in Settings, (2) on Pro, enable LLM scoring with your own API key, (3) if your audio quality is poor, the transcript will be poor — clean source audio is the largest single factor.

No. The free trial is also unwatermarked. There is no upsell pressure built into the output files.

No. The source video file never leaves your computer. The only outbound network call that touches your content is the LLM scoring call on Pro, and that sends only the text transcript, using your own API key.

No telemetry, no analytics, no crash reporting service. The product website also has no cookies or tracking.

Gumroad receives the checkout and payment information required to act as merchant of record under its privacy policy. The Vendor may receive your purchase email, product, transaction identifier, license information, and transaction status to deliver and support ClipForge. The Vendor does not directly collect or store your full payment-card number.

See the License Recovery page. Short version: email the address you bought with from that same address.

Yes, on machines you personally control. Do not share keys with other people.

14 days, no questions. Email jgarci.lugo+clipforge@gmail.com from the purchase address. See Refund Policy.

Email jgarci.lugo+clipforge@gmail.com with the version number (Help → About) and a description of what happened. Logs at %LOCALAPPDATA%\ClipForge\logs\ are helpful.

No public Discord is currently advertised. Email support instead.

Current roadmap focus: Mac support, batch folder automation, and broader export workflows. Local speaker labeling, custom names/colors, turn correction, and speaker-aware subtitle export ship now. Priorities may shift based on paid-customer feedback.