Producing a video is a daunting prospect when you’ve never done it before. With good reason, it’s tricky to get right, embarrassing to get wrong, and unless you are happy for it to be a little rough around the edges, it’s a considerable investment in time. But it doesn’t have to be a substantial investment of your hard-earned money.

If video production is something you’d like to explore, but you haven’t got much experience with the technology, it’s a good idea to ‘dip your toes in the water.’ Conducting a few trials before you commit is good general advice for anything new.

We have put together this list of ‘free and cheap’ video editing programs for you to experiment with video production but not commit much money and time. It’s an excellent place to start, and you can get more sophisticated or pay a little more, only when you need to.

So here is a list of free programs, or at least one’s with a free trial, so that you can get started right away:

1. Adobe Spark

Pros: A cross-platform web app that works on desktops and phones comes with a load of templates. It’s easy to use, there are options for collaboration, and they have a database of images, icons, and templates built right in.

Cons: It could be confusing for amateur video makers.

Pricing: Adobe is offering a free starter plan.

Spark on Adobe.com

2. iMovie (Mac only)

Pros: Mac computers come with iMovie pre-installed. It has a simple interface and professional-looking themes and trailers. Edit on iPhone and iPad, share 4k video directly to your social media accounts.

Cons: It’s good for sticking to their templates, but it gets complicated when you step outside the template.

Pricing: Free for Mac users

Apple iMovie

3. Animaker

Pros: Create animated videos with background music and custom characters. Has pre-designed templates, has icons, charts, maps and font support.

Pricing: Free trial available. Then the starter plan is $19 per month

Animaker.com

4. Moovly

Create promo videos, explainer videos and training videos. The text-to-speech feature makes subtitles easy, white labelling options, access to free footage, sounds and images. It’s an app, so you don’t need to download software.

Pricing: Free plan

Moovly.com

5. Screenflow

A video editing and screen recording software. Simultaneous screen, camera and mic recording with customizable title library and video filters.

Pricing: Free trial, then buy at $149

Screenflow by Telestream

Others you might want to check out:

• TikTok has inbuilt video editing capability, and you can export your short clip. Though it will have the TikTok logo.
• Animoto
• Biteable “The world’s simplest video maker”
• Vyond.
• Magisto – AI powered smart video automation tool.
• Powtoon – animated videos
• Ripl – animated videos from photos
• Rocketium – intelligent autosizing feature for each social platform and translates automatically to 100 languages.
• Typito – simple drag and drop cloud based software all done in your browser
• Shakr
• Promo.com
• Adobe Premier Pro – Not cheap, but it’s what the pro’s use.