Editor Hour Reconciliation (Retention)

Editor Hour Reconciliation (Retention)

1. 01

   Freeze the baseline before the first edit touches the timeline

   Pull the last three comparable deliverables for the client and record editor hours, revision rounds, and accepted-versus-rejected output. Without this number, any later claim about time saved is unverifiable.

2. 02

   Tag every task in the brief as manual, assisted, or automated

   Cutting, color, and audio mixing usually stay manual; caption generation, silence removal, and clip selection are the assisted candidates. Kapwing and Submagic both handle caption and short-form assembly in-browser, which makes them easy to trial on a single tagged task rather than the whole edit.

3. 03

   Run one representative brief through both the current workflow and the assisted workflow

   Use the same source footage, the same client brand rules, and the same reviewer. Record wall-clock editor hours, not tool session time, because review and correction are where the hours actually land.

4. 04

   Count correction passes separately from first-pass output

   A tool that produces a rough cut in four minutes but needs forty minutes of caption cleanup has not saved anything. Log each correction pass with a reason code: timing drift, caption accuracy, audio artifacts, or brand mismatch.

5. 05

   Reconcile accepted deliverables against retainer scope

   If the assisted workflow raises output volume but the retainer is fixed, the gain shows up as margin, not revenue. If scope is per-deliverable, confirm the client accepts the assisted output before counting it as a win.

6. 06

   Set a correction-time ceiling and a kill date for each trial

   Pick a threshold, for example correction time must fall below 20 percent of total editor hours within two billing cycles. If it does not, retire the tool and document why so the next evaluation does not repeat the test.

7. 07

   Publish the reconciled numbers to the account lead, not the tool vendor

   The account lead decides whether the saved hours get reinvested in higher-margin work or passed to the client as faster turnaround. That decision belongs in the retainer conversation, not in a product dashboard.