Editor Hour Ledger

The Editor Hour Ledger treats every editing tool as a claim on a fixed pool of editor hours, not as a source of free output. Agencies should log three numbers per representative client brief: hours spent before the tool touches the timeline, hours spent correcting its output, and hours of accepted deliverables shipped. The ratio between corrected output and accepted output is the real productivity signal, and it varies by format and client. A browser editor like Kapwing may cut caption turnaround on social cuts while adding review cycles on long-form; a text-based editor like Descript can remove filler-word passes but still needs a human ear on audio. The ledger forces delivery leads to compare tools on the same brief rather than on demo reels, and it gives account managers a defensible basis for retainer scope when a client asks why video hours did not fall.