The short version: the software you pick matters far less than which one you'll sit down and use every week, so choose based on your workflow and budget first, not the feature list. DaVinci Resolve (free) or CapCut (free) will get most people to professional-looking video faster than Premiere Pro will, because Premiere Pro's power is wasted on anyone who isn't editing eight hours a day. Buy the expensive tool only once you've hit its limits with the free one, not before.
The bit nobody tells you: the software is rarely the problem
I spent £22.14 a month on Adobe Premiere Pro for the best part of two years. I used maybe 15% of it. I know this because when I finally sat down and counted the tools I touched (cut, trim, basic colour, text overlay, export), it was the same handful every single time. The other 85%, the multicam editing, the advanced colour grading panels, the audio ducking, all of it sat there unused while I paid for it monthly.
Here's the uncomfortable truth most posts on this topic won't say out loud: buying professional software doesn't make your videos professional. Your eye does. Your pacing does. Your willingness to cut the boring 40 seconds out of the middle does. I've seen videos edited entirely in CapCut, a free app, look sharper and more watchable than videos edited in full Premiere Pro by someone still learning what a jump cut is. The tool is not the bottleneck for 90% of people asking this question. Skill and judgment are.
That doesn't mean software choice is irrelevant. It means you should stop treating it as the first decision and start treating it as the third or fourth.
Step one: work out what you're editing
Before you look at a single piece of software, write down what you're editing in a normal month. Be specific.
- Short social clips under 90 seconds, mostly talking head or screen recording
- Long-form YouTube or webinar content, 10 minutes plus, needs proper structure
- Client work where footage arrives from other people and needs syncing, colour matching, multicam
- Repurposed content, one long video cut into 10 shorter pieces for different platforms
If you're mostly doing the first and last of those, you don't need Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro. You need something built for speed. I've written before about the best content repurposing tools for exactly this, because cutting one long recording into ten short clips is a different job to editing a single polished film, and it needs different software to match.
If you're doing the middle two, client work with multicam or long structured video, that's when the heavier tools start earning their keep.
The four real options and what they cost you
DaVinci Resolve (free, Studio version £245 one-time). This is what I use now for anything that needs proper colour work or multicam. The free version has almost everything a small business or solo creator needs. Blackmagic Design, the company behind it, makes its money on the hardware cameras and switchers, so the software is a loss leader for them and full-featured. The learning curve is steeper than most people expect on day one, though it flattens fast once you understand the page-based layout (Cut, Edit, Colour, Fairlight, Deliver).
Adobe Premiere Pro (£22.14/month UK, single app, as of writing). Industry standard for agencies and TV, which is exactly why most solo business owners don't need it. The subscription model means you're paying even in months you don't touch it. Worth it if you're collaborating with editors who already work in Adobe's ecosystem, or if you need tight integration with After Effects for motion graphics.
Final Cut Pro (£299.99 one-time, Mac only). If you're already on a Mac, this is often the smartest financial decision on this list. Buy it once, own it forever, no subscription creep. I know several editors who switched from Premiere to Final Cut purely to stop the monthly bill, and didn't miss a single feature doing client delivery work. If you're building out your Mac setup generally, I've covered the wider toolkit in the Mac apps I rely on as an entrepreneur, and Final Cut sits comfortably alongside them.
CapCut, Canva Video, Animoto (free to roughly £30/month). The right answer for anyone whose main output is social content and who has no interest in becoming a video editor as a career. I wrote a full piece on Animoto for non-technical marketers a while back and the core point still holds: if your goal is consistent, decent-looking marketing video without a learning curve eating your week, templated tools do the job.
A real story: the video that taught me this the hard way
Two years into rebuilding my business, I hired a freelance editor through Fiverr to cut a 45-minute webinar recording into a highlights reel for LinkedIn. He quoted me £180, used Premiere Pro, and took nine days. The final cut was fine. Competent, professional, unremarkable.
The next month I tried the same job myself in DaVinci Resolve's free version, having never used it before. It took me two evenings, roughly six hours total, most of that spent learning the interface rather than editing. The result wasn't as polished on colour grading, but the cuts were tighter and the pacing was better, because I knew which 90 seconds of that webinar mattered and he didn't.
That's the whole lesson. Software bought me nothing. Judgment about content bought me everything. If you're weighing up spending money on software versus spending time getting better at story and pacing, spend the time first.
Step two: match the software to your budget honestly
If money is tight, and for a lot of people rebuilding a business it is, start free and stay free until it costs you real, specific opportunities. I put together the free tools I use instead of expensive marketing software for this exact reason, because there is a persistent myth in business content that free equals amateur, and it simply isn't true anymore. DaVinci Resolve's free tier is used on actual feature films. CapCut is used by brands with seven-figure ad budgets for their organic social content.
The moment to pay is when a specific, named limitation is costing you money or time every week. Examples of a real limitation, not a vague feeling:
- You need to hand off project files to a client's editor and they only work in Premiere
- You're exporting in a format the free tool doesn't support (some 4K or HDR delivery specs)
- You're editing multicam footage weekly and the free tool's sync tools are slowing you down by hours
If none of those apply to you, stop researching software and go edit something.
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Step three: think about hardware before you buy the software
This is the part that gets left out constantly. Professional editing software run on an underpowered laptop will feel unusable regardless of which one you pick, and people blame the software when the real issue is 8GB of RAM trying to render 4K footage. If you're serious about this, 16GB of RAM is the realistic minimum for 2026, 32GB if you're doing 4K regularly. A dedicated graphics card matters more for DaVinci Resolve than for Premiere Pro, because Resolve's colour engine leans on GPU rendering harder.
I made this mistake in year one. I blamed Premiere Pro for constant crashing and lag, switched to a different laptop with double the RAM eighteen months later, and every problem vanished. The software hadn't changed at all.
Step four: decide how much you want to learn
Be honest with yourself here, because this is where most people pick the wrong tool. If you enjoy the craft, want to improve at editing over years, and see it as a skill worth building, get DaVinci Resolve or Premiere Pro and commit to learning them. YouTube has thousands of free tutorials for both.
If editing is a means to an end, something you need done so you can get back to running your business, pick a templated tool and don't feel guilty about it. I've written before about producing professional video content for a side hustle without turning it into a second job, and the advice holds for any small business: the goal is consistent output, not editing mastery.
And if budget is the main blocker rather than skill, there's a full breakdown on how to create great marketing videos without breaking the bank that covers cheaper filming and editing routes together, because the two decisions are connected more than people assume.
My actual recommendation, without the hedging
If you want one straight answer instead of a decision tree: start with DaVinci Resolve free. It costs nothing, it's used professionally, and it will not become a limitation for at least a year of regular use for most small business owners. Learn the Cut page first, ignore the Fairlight and colour pages until you need them, and export in whatever format your platform asks for.
Upgrade to paid software only when a specific, nameable task requires it. Not because a paid tool "feels" more professional. It doesn't. Professional is the video, not the invoice for making it.
Frequently asked questions
Is Premiere Pro worth it for a small business owner?
Usually not on its own. It's worth it if you're regularly collaborating with editors or agencies who already work in Adobe's ecosystem, or you need After Effects for motion graphics alongside it. For solo content creation, DaVinci Resolve's free version does the same core job at no cost.
What video editing software do professionals use?
Broadcast and film work leans heavily on Avid Media Composer and DaVinci Resolve. Agencies and freelance editors split fairly evenly between Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro. What "professionals" use varies far more by industry than most articles suggest, and none of it means amateurs can't produce professional-looking results in free software.
Do I need a powerful computer to edit video professionally?
For 4K footage, yes, 16GB of RAM is a realistic minimum and 32GB is better if you're editing weekly. A weak laptop will make any software feel broken, and people frequently blame the wrong thing when their editor keeps crashing.
Should I pay for editing software before I've learned to edit?
No. Learn the basics of pacing, cutting, and story structure in a free tool first. Software choice becomes relevant once you've hit a genuine, specific limitation, not before, and most people never reach that point on the free tier.
Related reading: Video Editing & Content Creation: A Need Or A Waste Of Time? and Leveraging Advanced Video Editing Skills for Social Media Success: Tips and Strategies.
If you want the full breakdown, here is everything I know about productivity.
