Descript vs. vidIQ

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Descript
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Descript is a collaborative audio/video editor, from the company of the same name in San Francisco, that works like a doc. It includes transcription, a screen recorder, publishing, full multitrack editing, and AI tools.
$12
per month
vidIQ
Score 10.0 out of 10
N/A
vidIQ is a YouTube audience development and management suite that helps brands and agencies grow their views and subscribers, from the company of the same name in San Franciso. vidIQ's solution assists YouTube Marketers through their workflows, including uploading their videos at the best time of day, connecting brands with their top influencers, YouTube SEO, monitoring viewer and engagement analytics across Twitter and Facebook, bulk description editing, comment moderation, and Facebook fan…
$19.95
per month
Pricing
DescriptvidIQ
Editions & Modules
Free
$0
Annual billing - Hobbyist
$12
per month per user
Monthly Billing - Hobbyist
$19
per month per user
Annual billing - Creator
$24
per month per user
Monthly Billing - Creator
$35
per month per user
Annual billing - Business
$40
per month per user
Monthly Billing - Business
$50
per month per user
Enterprise
Custom
Boost
$19
per month
Boost - Annual
$199
per year
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
DescriptvidIQ
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
DescriptvidIQ
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DescriptvidIQ
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User Ratings
DescriptvidIQ
Likelihood to Recommend
9.5
(14 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
DescriptvidIQ
Likelihood to Recommend
Descript
Descript is well-suited for fast editing of training videos, tutorials, podcasts, and screen recordings, where transcript-based editing and quick cleanup save time. It works best when you need a simple workflow to record, transcribe, remove filler words, tighten sections, and apply basic enhancement tools like noise cleanup.
It is less appropriate for high-stakes projects where losing edits would be very costly, or when you need strong guarantees around long-term project history, backups, and recovery. Based on our experience, if you are doing many hours of edits and expect to revisit projects months later, you may want an additional export/archive process outside the platform.
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vidIQ
It is amazing to see the power of using keywords suggestions from VideoIQ. Our team had a great experience using it and wil definitely recommend it to those who really believe in keywords targeting & optimization
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Pros
Descript
  • Removing filler words is a click of button and get rid of 'ums' and 'a's"
  • Fine tune your edited script in a timeline to adjust timing
  • Import and export Final Cut Pro or Premier XML video speeding up the editing process
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vidIQ
  • Youtube Videos Potential reach
  • Videos viewability & SEO
  • Share of voice
  • hashtags tracking
  • keyword tracking & performance evaluation
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Cons
Descript
  • UX Performance. Because it's synced to the cloud, there can be some delay or lag in the UX when editing.
  • Editing Transcriptions. Machine-based transcriptions always need some post-editing. While Descript makes it pretty easy, I still think there is some room for improvement. For instance, I would like to be able to automatically update for all occurrences of a word after fixing it in the transcript.
  • Automatic importing of YouTube and hosted video files. I often have to download a video from YouTube to be able to import it into Descript. Would be nice to be able to just paste in the URL to the video and have Descript automatically import it.
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vidIQ
  • Sometimes it stuck while using it and there should be more adjustments and custom reports when it comes to reporting the results
  • Chrome extension is not somehow working properly. happened to me twice and then it was resolved. Annoying when you have to wait
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Usability
Descript
It's pretty user friendly, has a easy-moderate learning curve. However during updates they do change the features in different panes / sections that make them harder to find. The text editor is near perfect, some of the other tools such as colour, templates, audio etc. are arranged in a slighlty less intuitive manner
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vidIQ
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Descript
We had a very frustrating experience with Descript and their support.

We used Descript to record and edit several videos. The edits were done around May, mainly using the web app. When we opened those same projects in December, many of them looked like raw recordings again. Cuts were missing and effects were missing.

Support and engineering told us they checked their logs and only saw “creation → recording → transcription,” and they said they could not find proof the edits were ever made. That explanation does not match what we saw in the app. The affected videos show two project backup files. In Descript, backups only appear after you start editing (the app even says so). But when we checked other projects that we know are raw, those do not show any backup files. We asked a simple question: if backups appear only after editing, why do the “raw” affected videos have two backups while truly raw videos have none? They did not answer this clearly.

One rep also said they noticed a spike in network errors in May. That is exactly when the edits were done, which makes it very likely the edits did not save or sync correctly. Instead of admitting this could be the cause, support kept pointing to “no logs of edits” and that it was our fault.

They refunded one month, but called it a “courtesy.” That was disappointing. We also stopped using Descript while they were investigating because we did not feel it was safe to keep working in the platform. If that one-month refund was meant to cover the time we could not use the service during the investigation, that still does not address the real damage. We lost many hours of work, we paid our editor hourly, and we paid for the subscription for convenience and reliability. For the amount of inconvenience and loss we experienced, one month is clearly not enough.
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vidIQ
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Descript
Descript is by far superior to the other editing software you can get on Apple computers. It's able to do a lot more and really save us tons of time. Other Adobe apps are great, but take a while to learn. Descript is very user-friendly, making it easy to start from day one with very little training.
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vidIQ
I was told that it will really help you optimizing the video views so i tried it. Results were amazing. I would definitely encourage people who are on brands & media side to really look into it and get benefit out of it
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Return on Investment
Descript
  • I can get video completed much more quickly and cheaply
  • We can produce more video content because of the speed with which we can have a finished product
  • We can have shorter timelines for example I record on Monday and we publish on Tuesday which wouldn't be otherwise possible with other methods I've used
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vidIQ
  • Video views increased organically by using the relevant keywords targeted for relevant audience
  • By using competitors keywords & hashtags, one can really benefit from it.
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ScreenShots