Last updated: 2026-08-12
Cutback Selects is an AI pre-editing app that reduces 6 hours of raw video prep to minutes, cutting reported prep time by 60% across 10,000+ projects. It syncs multi-cam footage, switches cameras by detected speaker, removes silences and filler words, and exports a structured timeline to Adobe Premiere, Final Cut Pro, or DaVinci Resolve.
About Cutback Selects
Cutback Selects is a standalone AI pre-editing app made by Cutback, a startup founded in 2024 with offices in San Francisco and Seoul. The company raised a $2.6M seed round led by BASS Ventures, Kakao Ventures, and Smilegate Investment. Selects handles the first, most tedious pass of video editing, syncing multi-camera footage, transcribing audio, and organizing raw clips by scene and topic before an editor ever opens a timeline. The core mechanism is speaker-aware multi-cam sync: Selects analyzes every camera angle and audio track in a shoot, picks the best audio source, and switches between cameras based on who is speaking, without a human scrubbing through footage first. Selects is built for teams cutting long-form, multi-camera content, interviews, podcasts, documentaries, lectures, and talk shows, rather than solo creators making short social clips, since its pricing and analysis caps assume hours of raw footage per project. It ships as a Mac and Windows desktop app only, with no ongoing free plan beyond a short trial, and hands its finished output to whichever NLE the team is already using. Cutback also sells a separate Premiere Assistant plugin that automates cuts, trims, captions, and animations directly inside Adobe Premiere Pro, positioning Selects as the pre-editing layer and Premiere Assistant as the in-NLE automation layer for the same workflow.
Pricing
Starter $20/mo ($16/mo billed yearly, 10hr analysis, 3,600 credits). Pro $100/mo ($80/mo yearly, 40hr analysis, 14,400 credits). Team $1,000/mo ($800/mo yearly, 5+ seats, 72,000 credits). Enterprise custom pricing. No permanent free tier; 7-day free trial only.
Key Features
- Speaker-based multi-cam sync: Automatically syncs multi-camera footage and switches between angles based on who is speaking, handling 4K and 360-degree video without manual review.
- Word-level transcription and speaker ID: Transcribes audio at word-level accuracy and identifies speakers from a single audio track, then organizes footage by scene and topic automatically.
- Natural-language moment search: Lets editors find any moment by describing it in plain language, like the part where he laughed, instead of scrubbing through hours of raw footage.
- Silence and filler-word removal: Detects and cuts silences, filler words, and mistakes with a single click, the pass that normally takes an editor hours per project.
- Prompt-generated rough cuts: The Suggest feature generates a full rough cut from a text prompt describing target length, audience, and key message, reusable across future projects.
- Non-destructive NLE handoff: Exports a structured, color-coded, non-destructive timeline directly into Adobe Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, or DaVinci Resolve.
Pros
- Cuts a reported 6 hours of raw footage prep down to minutes, a 60% reduction in prep time across more than 10,000 processed projects.
- Handles 4K and 360-degree multi-cam footage with automatic speaker-based camera switching, a feature few pre-editing tools offer at this price.
- Non-destructive export keeps editors working in Premiere, Final Cut Pro, or DaVinci Resolve instead of locking them into a proprietary timeline.
Cons
- No mobile app and no web version; Selects only ships as a Mac and Windows desktop download.
- No permanent free plan, just the 7-day trial, and the jump from the entry Starter tier straight to Pro is steep, with no mid-tier option in between.
- AI rough cuts still need a human pass; automated silence detection can cut mid-sentence or misread intentional pauses.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does Cutback Selects cost in 2026?
Selects runs on four paid tiers plus custom Enterprise pricing. Starter is $20/month, or $16/month billed annually, for up to 10 hours of video analysis and 3,600 credits. Pro is $100/month ($80/month annually) for 40 hours of analysis, and Team is $1,000/month ($800/month annually) for 5 or more seats. There's no permanent free tier, only a 7-day trial before you have to subscribe.
Is Cutback Selects free to use?
Selects does not offer a standalone free tier for ongoing use. New users get a 7-day free trial to test the Starter feature set before any payment is required. Once the trial ends, using Selects requires a paid subscription, with no free plan for unlimited ongoing usage.
What are the best alternatives to Cutback Selects?
The closest alternatives are Descript, CapCut, and VEED. Descript is an all-in-one transcript-based editor for teams that want the whole cut, not just the prep, done in a single app. CapCut is a free, general-purpose video editor, a better fit for short-form creators who don't need multi-cam prep at all. VEED is browser-based with built-in captions, a better fit for teams that don't want a downloadable desktop app.
How does Cutback Selects compare to Descript in 2026?
Selects and Descript both target the video prep and rough-cut stage, but solve it differently. Descript lets editors cut video like a text document and can carry a project from raw footage to a finished export inside one app. Selects instead focuses only on the pre-editing phase, then hands a structured timeline over to whichever NLE the editor already has open. Choose Descript for one app that covers the whole edit; choose Selects if your team needs just the prep automated.
How do you get started with Cutback Selects?
Getting started means downloading the Selects desktop app for Mac or Windows and creating an account, which includes a 7-day free trial. Drop raw footage into the app and it syncs multi-cam angles and transcribes audio automatically. From there, search the transcript in plain language for specific moments, or use Suggest to generate a first rough cut from a prompt. The finished cut exports as a non-destructive timeline that opens directly in Premiere, Final Cut Pro, or DaVinci Resolve.
Top Alternatives
- Descript: Pick Descript if you want to do the entire edit, not just the prep, inside one app.
- CapCut: Pick CapCut if you need free, quick social clips rather than multi-cam production prep.
- VEED: Pick VEED if you want browser-based editing with built-in captions instead of a desktop pre-editing app.
- Runway: Pick Runway if you need AI-generated video content, not organization of footage you already shot.