--- title: "YouTube producer vs video editor" description: "What a YouTube producer owns, what a video editor owns, what each costs where prices are public, and when a creator or founder should hire which, with Tom Sharman's production record." canonical: https://tomsharman.com/compare/youtube-producer-vs-video-editor/ updated: 2026-10-26 --- # YouTube producer vs video editor > A YouTube producer owns the whole video: the idea, the format, the shoot, the edit, the packaging and the release. A video editor owns the edit. Hire an editor when your ideas and packaging already work. Hire a producer when the videos are not landing and you need someone to own why. The same goes for a founder's podcast or personal brand channel. Last updated 26 October 2026. ## How do they compare? | | YouTube producer | Video editor | | --- | --- | --- | | What they own | Commissioning, shoot, edit, packaging and release, end to end | The cut, the pacing, graphics and sound | | Where they start | The idea and the format | The footage | | Title and thumbnail | Owns them | Usually given them | | For a founder or personal brand | Turns the founder's expertise into a format the team can run | Cuts what the founder records | | How they are paid | Per project, per series or as part of the team | Often per video | | Best when | Views have stalled, or the channel is new | The format works and you need more edits | ## What does editing cost? Editing services often publish a price per video. Tasty Edits, for example, lists long form at $327 per video, short form at $94 and management from $1,490 a month, as listed on their site, October 2026. See [tastyedits.com](https://tastyedits.com). ## When should you hire which? - Hire an editor when you already know what to make and the bottleneck is turning footage into finished videos. - Hire a producer when you are launching a channel, a series or a format, or when the views have stopped growing. - Hire a producer when you are a founder and your camera time has to become a show, such as a podcast relaunched as video first. - Hire both once a format works: the producer runs the format, the editors cut it. ## Where does Tom fit? Tom is a producer. At [New Waves, Who Dis?](https://tomsharman.com/case-studies/new-waves-who-dis/), the company he co-founded, he produced [I Pranked America's Most Racist Man](https://tomsharman.com/case-studies/kkk-video/) end to end, 47,563,094 views, and produced [The Biggest Menace](https://tomsharman.com/case-studies/the-biggest-menace/), 78,000,000 views across seven episodes and the trailer. He produced 27 long form videos for [TheBurntChip](https://tomsharman.com/case-studies/theburntchip/), including formats he created such as YouTuber Come Dine With Me. Together they hold 52,004,088 views. For founders, he relaunched [Secret Leaders](https://tomsharman.com/case-studies/secret-leaders/), a founder interview podcast, as a video-first show. It reached number 2 in the UK Business podcast charts, behind The Diary of a CEO, and he closed Wise, Vanta, Hewlett Packard and Dubai Tourism as sponsors. Today he brings that thinking to creators, founders and brands as a strategist and fractional Head of Content: - **[Power hour session](https://tomsharman.com/consulting/#book), £600.** 60 minute video call. The fundamentals, applied to you. What to make, for whom and in which format. - **[The three month sprint](https://tomsharman.com/consulting/#sprint), by application (2 spots left).** 6 fortnightly 60 minute calls. A seat in your team. The 3 month plan. Fortnightly accountability. - **[Fractional Head of Content](https://tomsharman.com/consulting/#fractional), £3,000 to £7,500 a month, 6 month minimum, then monthly (1 spot left).** Fractional head of content, or fractional COO, for creator and founder-led businesses. I run your content function end to end. Strategy, cadence, team, hiring, tooling and reporting. A senior seat in the business for the cost of a fraction of a full time hire. Worldwide and remote. ## Questions ### Does a YouTube producer edit the video? Sometimes, on a small channel. On a bigger one the producer runs the edit and an editor cuts it. The producer decides what the video is, and the editor makes the cut work. ### Does a founder need a producer or an editor? An editor, if the founder already knows what to say and the format works. A producer, if the content has to be built from the founder's expertise. At Secret Leaders Tom judged episodes by who watched as well as how many: one episode did 2,000 views on YouTube and was worth more commercially than videos with a hundred times the audience, because the viewers were founders with budgets. ### Is Tom available to produce a single video? Tom works through the Power hour session (£600), the three month sprint and the Fractional Head of Content role. Each one covers the format and the packaging. Email contact@tomsharman.com if you have a production in mind. ### What does Tom mean by a format? A repeatable shape for a video, so the audience can guess what comes next. Repeat it until it becomes a show. One-off videos are a lottery, and repeatable formats are a business. ## Read next - [I Pranked America's Most Racist Man](https://tomsharman.com/case-studies/kkk-video/): 47,563,094 views. - [Secret Leaders](https://tomsharman.com/case-studies/secret-leaders/): Number 2 in the UK Business podcast charts. - [Everything Tom produced](https://tomsharman.com/topics/produced/)