Getting Started with OpenClip: Your First AI Clips in 30 Minutes
From sign-up to your first exported short-form clip — everything you need to know to get up and running with OpenClip fast.
Prerequisites
- An OpenClip account (Starter, Pro, or Business plan)
- A long-form video file (MP4 or MOV, ideally 15+ minutes) or a hosted video URL
- Clear audio and a visible speaker on camera for best AI results
Steps
Sign up for your OpenClip account
Visit openclip.app and create your account. OpenClip offers three paid tiers — Starter, Pro, and Business. Starter is ideal for individual creators, Pro is suited for active content creators and small teams, and Business is designed for agencies managing multiple clients. Choose the plan that matches your publishing volume and team size.
Tip: If you're unsure which plan to start with, begin with Starter to explore the platform and upgrade when you're ready to scale.
Prepare your first long-form video
OpenClip works by analyzing long-form videos and extracting the best short-form clips. Gather a video that's at least 15 minutes long — a podcast episode, interview, webinar recording, YouTube video, or any recording with a speaker on camera. Make sure the audio is clear and the video is in MP4 or MOV format.
Tip: Your very first upload doesn't have to be perfect. Use any existing long-form video you have to get familiar with the platform and see what AI clip detection surfaces.
Upload your video to OpenClip
From your OpenClip dashboard, click 'New Project' or 'Upload Video.' Drag and drop your video file or browse to select it. You can also paste a direct URL if your video is hosted online. OpenClip will begin uploading and queuing your video for AI processing. Larger files may take a few minutes to upload depending on your connection speed.
Tip: Give your project a descriptive name before uploading — something like 'Podcast Ep 47 - Guest Name' makes it much easier to stay organized as your library grows.
Review AI-detected viral clips
Once processing is complete, OpenClip's AI Viral Moment Detection presents you with a list of clip candidates ranked by viral potential. Each clip has been scored on hook strength, narrative completeness, and overall engagement potential. Review the suggested clips — you'll typically see 5–15 candidates from a single long video. Preview each one and select the clips you want to export.
Tip: Don't skip this review step. The AI is highly accurate, but you know your audience best. Occasionally a lower-scored clip will resonate better with your specific community.
Check speaker tracking on your clips
OpenClip uses AI face detection and speaker diarization to automatically track the active speaker across frames and keep them centered in the frame during vertical cropping. Preview your selected clips in vertical 9:16 format to confirm the speaker tracking is working correctly. For multi-speaker videos, OpenClip will track whichever speaker is actively talking.
Tip: Speaker tracking works best when faces are clearly visible and not obscured. If you notice tracking issues, check that the source video has good lighting and the speaker faces the camera.
Add AI captions to your clips
With your clips selected, apply captions by choosing one of OpenClip's 10 caption presets: Default, Dan, Dan Reveal, Pop, Mozi, Kendrick, Sara, Lucy, Tayo, or Beast. Each preset features different fonts, colors, highlighting styles, and animations. OpenClip generates word-level captions synced to every spoken word automatically. You can also enable emoji injection to add contextually relevant emojis.
Tip: For short-form social content, bold animated styles like Pop, Beast, or Kendrick tend to drive higher engagement and watch time than subtle caption styles.
Export your clips in the right formats
Select your export format based on where you'll publish. Choose vertical 9:16 for TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts. works well for Instagram feed posts and LinkedIn. Horizontal 16:9 is ideal for YouTube or embedding on websites. You can export the same clip in multiple formats to maximize cross-platform coverage.
Tip: Export all format variations at once to save time. Having vertical (9:16) versions of each clip ready means you're set to publish anywhere without coming back to re-export.
Organize your projects and scale up
After your first successful clip, start building a workflow. Use OpenClip's batch processing to upload multiple long-form videos at once — each will be processed in parallel and yield its own set of clip candidates. Organize your projects with clear naming conventions and plan to process your content on a regular schedule to maintain a consistent publishing cadence.
Tip: Many creators batch-process a full week's worth of content on one day, then spread publishing across the week. This creates consistency without daily production pressure.
What You'll Achieve
A fully processed, captioned, and formatted set of short-form clips extracted from your long-form video, ready to publish on TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, LinkedIn, and Twitter/X.
Features
AI Viral Moment Detection
AI scores every segment of your video and surfaces the highest-potential clips automatically
Automatic Speaker Tracking
AI face detection keeps your speaker centered in every vertical crop — no manual adjustment
Word-Level AI Captions
10 professional caption presets with word-by-word highlighting and emoji injection
Batch Processing
Process multiple long-form videos simultaneously for maximum efficiency
Platform-Ready Vertical Export
Export in 9:16 vertical format optimized for every major social platform
Discord Bot Integration
Submit videos and receive finished clips directly through Discord for team workflows
Frequently Asked Questions
Create Your First AI Clips with OpenClip
Upload your first long-form video and let OpenClip's AI find your best moments, track your speakers, add captions, and export for every platform — all in under 30 minutes.