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By the toolist.ai editors. Researched from Filmora's own pages and hands-on tests published by others, not hands-on tested by toolist.ai. Updated October 21, 2026.

Filmora review: pricing, features and what testers found

Filmora (Wondershare Filmora) is a desktop video editor for Windows and Mac with a full timeline and AI tools, most of them paid for in AI credits, for clean-up, captions, translation and generating video, images, music and voice. The free version exports with a watermark; US subscriptions are billed yearly, from $49.99 a year ($4.17 a month) for Basic on Windows, which has no AI credits; AI credits start with Advanced at $59.99 a year.

Our take

Filmora suits hobbyists, YouTubers and small creators who want a full desktop timeline editor on Windows or Mac with AI tools built in, for a low yearly price. US prices are yearly or one-off only: Basic costs $49.99 a year ($4.17 a month) on Windows but includes no AI credits and leaves out the Creative Assets library; AI credits start with Advanced at $59.99 a year, 1,000 every 30 days, Premium costs $99.99 a year for 2,000 credits plus the Creative Assets library, and a Windows perpetual licence costs $79.99 once (Mac prices are higher, from $69.99 a year). In PCMag's review of Filmora 15, updated in July 2026, Michael Muchmore rated it 4 out of 5 and found most of its AI tools worthwhile and its rendering fast, but some AI edits costly (400 credits and over 15 minutes for AI Eye Contact on a 22-second clip) and its motion tracking behind Adobe's and CyberLink's. Creative Bloq's Paul Hatton (February 2026) got a convincing 12-second image-to-video clip of himself after a 10 to 15 minute wait, and TechRadar's Krishi Chowdhary, editing on the free plan, found effects and transitions quick to apply but the interface took time to learn. The catches are AI credits that are reclaimed every 30 days and whose cost varies widely by feature and model (450 a time for Veo 3.1 text-to-video), a Basic plan without AI credits, licences locked to one platform, plans that renew automatically under a refund policy that excludes change of mind and forgotten renewals, and built-in music that may not be used commercially. All three tests cover Filmora 15; Filmora 16 came out in September 2026. This verdict rests on those three published tests and Wondershare's own pages.

Based on Filmora's published plans and the hands-on tests linked below, not on a test of our own.

Good for

  • Hobbyists, YouTubers and small creators who want a full desktop timeline editor with tracking, color tools and 4K export for $49.99 to $99.99 a year on Windows
  • Creators who want to generate clips with Veo 3.1, Sora 2 or Seedance 2.0 and clean up footage with AI inside the editor they cut in, at modest volume
  • People who would rather pay once: Perpetual costs $79.99 on Windows or $99.99 on Mac, with updates within Filmora 16 and 1,000 AI credits that do not expire
  • Turning long talking-head videos into short vertical clips: PCMag's tester got 10 scored clips with titles and a transcript (with a few errors) from one video with Smart Short Clips

Watch out for

  • Billing for individuals in the US and Canada is yearly, or once for Perpetual: no monthly plan is offered on the US pricing page (a $19.99 monthly plan exists only for verified students and teachers). Plans renew automatically; Wondershare's refund policy asks you to cancel at least 24 hours before the term ends, and despite the pricing page's '30-day money-back guarantee' it generally refuses refunds for change of mind, dissatisfaction with AI output, credits already used, and renewals you did not cancel in time; eligible cases include duplicate purchases and critical technical issues left unsolved for 7 days.
  • AI credits are reissued every 30 days from the purchase date and unused ones are reclaimed: 1,000 on Advanced, 2,000 on Premium, none on Basic. Costs vary by feature and model: text-to-video costs 450 credits a time on Veo 3.1, 150 to 450 on Sora 2 and 50 to 450 on Normal Mode 2.0; AI Object Remover and voice cloning cost 100, AI Idea to Video about 300 to 800 a session, text-to-speech 1 credit per 10 characters and speech-to-text 4 a minute, so Advanced's month covers about two Veo 3.1 generations. In PCMag's test, AI Eye Contact on a 22-second clip used 400 credits and a Topaz Starlight enhancement 1,653.
  • Extra credits cost from $9.99 for 1,500 to $399 for 100,000, valid for a year, or $9.99 a month for 2,000 (reset every 30 days). Creative Bloq's Paul Hatton put the roughly 50,000 credits he expected an AI-heavy video to need at around $50; Filmora's credit pack page sells 50,000 credits for $219, and 10,000 for $50.99.
  • Basic, Advanced and Perpetual leave out the 2.9 million-item Creative Assets library (the plan cards cross it out, though the comparison table lists the same asset counts, such as 1.1 million+ stock media, for every paid plan). Basic has no AI credits, so the comparison table gives it none of the credit-paid AI tools and none of the free ones such as Auto Reframe, only AI Mate. The add-on costs $19.99 a month, $39.99 a quarter or $99.99 a year and does not include the software, and the 'Try It & Get an Extra 10% off' box on the plan cards adds a 14-day Creative Assets trial that renews at $19.99 a month unless you cancel it.
  • Licences are tied to one platform: the US pricing page says a Windows licence works only on Windows and a Mac licence only on Mac (not on iPhone or iPad), and Mac costs more ($69.99, $79.99 and $119.99 a year; Perpetual $99.99). The page's default version, which Wondershare shows in most other countries, says Basic and Advanced cover both. Perpetual includes updates within Filmora 16 only (its FAQ says you may need to pay again for later major versions) and gets 1,000 AI credits once.
  • Filmora's terms bar commercial use of its built-in music tracks and sound effects on every plan, and on an individual plan commercial videos must say 'Video is made by Filmora' in their description unless you buy the Team plan ($155.88 a year for one user, without AI credits or Creative Assets). Wondershare assigns you the rights to AI output, but its terms warn that output may not be unique.
  • Most AI tools send your media to Wondershare's servers (PCMag). Wondershare's privacy policy for its AI video tools (last updated April 18, 2025) says it will not use your personal data to train AI models, names OpenAI, Azure, ElevenLabs and PixVerse among the outside model providers, says facial features and voiceprints are deleted after each generation, and stores data mainly on servers in the US, the EU and Singapore.
  • All three cited tests are of Filmora 15 (articles from February and July 2026), before Filmora 16 in September 2026, and we found no independent hands-on test of version 16. TechRadar's test skipped the AI features because its free plan had no credits, and PCMag quotes Advanced at $69.99 a year, the price struck through on the page's default version. On Trustpilot, Filmora scores 4.1 out of 5 from 15,713 reviews on a profile Wondershare claimed and collects reviews for; Trustpilot's AI summary of recent reviews praises the easy editor but cites paywalls, unexpected automatic renewals, billing confusion and promotional pop-ups.

What Filmora does

Price

Free plan: The basic editing tools (timeline, multicam, planar and motion tracking, keyframes and color tools) at no cost and with no time limit, but every export carries a Filmora watermark. No AI credits or cloud storage, a smaller asset library (1,500+ effects and filters, 600+ stock media items), AI Mate 15 times a day and, by Wondershare's FAQ, limited free trials of some AI features.

PlanBilled monthlyBilled yearly, per monthIncludes
Free free free Basic editing tools and exports with a Filmora watermark; no AI credits or cloud storage; 1,500+ effects and filters, 1,200+ transitions, 6,000+ titles, 9,600+ music tracks, 6,600+ sound effects and 600+ stock media items; AI Mate 15 times a day
Basic not listed $4.17 $49.99 a year on Windows ($69.99 on Mac, $5.83 a month), renewing automatically; no AI credits; no watermark, 4K export, every future version while subscribed, 1 GB cloud storage, 500 AI Mate conversations a month; the 2.9 million-item Creative Assets library is not included
Advanced not listed $5 $59.99 a year on Windows ($79.99 on Mac, $6.67 a month), renewing automatically; 1,000 AI credits every 30 days (unused ones reclaimed) for 20+ AI features; Auto Reframe, AI Portrait, AI Face Mosaic, AI Color Palette and Smart Search at no credit cost; 10 GB cloud storage; otherwise as Basic, without the Creative Assets library
Premium not listed $8.33 $99.99 a year on Windows ($119.99 on Mac, $10.00 a month), renewing automatically; 2,000 AI credits every 30 days, the Creative Assets library and 100 GB cloud storage; otherwise as Advanced
Perpetual not listed not listed $79.99 once for Windows or $99.99 for Mac, for one platform; updates within Filmora 16 only, not later major versions; 1,000 AI credits once, which do not expire; 1 GB cloud storage, no watermark, 4K export, 500 AI Mate conversations a month; the Creative Assets library is not included
Team not listed not listed Yearly, for Windows or Mac: $155.88 for one user, $280.56 for two, $420.84 for three, $561.12 for four and $701.40 for five; company use without a 'made by Filmora' credit, senior tech support and multi-user control; no AI credits or Creative Assets; more than five users through a form
Education not listed not listed For verified students and teachers, on Windows: a monthly plan at $19.99 (struck from $29.99), a yearly plan at $39.99 (from $49.99) and a perpetual licence for one PC at $49.99 (from $79.99); the cards list 1,000 AI credits (a month on the monthly and yearly plans), while a note on the same page says the plans include no credit benefits or Creative Assets; educators ask for a custom plan by form
AI credit packs and subscriptions not listed not listed Packs valid for a year: 1,500 credits for $9.99, 5,000 for $25.99, 10,000 for $50.99, 20,000 for $99.99, 50,000 for $219 and 100,000 for $399; or a credit subscription of 2,000 credits every 30 days for $9.99 a month, or 8,000 for $37.99 a month; on Windows and Mac only
Creative Assets add-on not listed not listed $19.99 a month, $39.99 a quarter or $99.99 a year, software not included: the 2.9 million-item library of stock media, music, sound effects, titles, transitions, effects and templates; a 14-day free trial when ticked on a plan card at purchase, renewing at $19.99 a month

Prices last checked: 2026-10-30 on Filmora's pricing page. Full breakdown: Filmora pricing.

Price history

No price change since we first recorded these prices on October 21, 2026. We re-check them every week and list each change here.

What hands-on testers found

We have not tested Filmora ourselves. These are the published tests we found that used it hands-on, newest first; follow the links for the full reviews.

PCMag · Michael Muchmore · updated July 31, 2026

What they tested: Filmora 15 on a Windows 11 PC (Intel Core i7-12700K, 16 GB of RAM, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti): timeline editing, tracking, stabilization, transitions, titles and audio tools, AI tools paid in credits (AI Extend, AI Eye Contact, AI Mate, image-to-video, Smart Short Clips, AI Translation, enhancement) and a timed render; the plan is not stated. Written before Filmora 16. PCMag's 'See It' link to Wondershare runs through a Commission Junction affiliate redirect.

  • AI Extend added four seconds to an 8K clip for about 400 credits in two minutes, smoothly though not a perfect match for the scene; AI Eye Contact on a 22-second clip used 400 credits, took over 15 minutes and failed at extreme head angles, though a second try looked fairly natural.
  • AI Mate carried out a 17-shot edit for 525 credits (about $3.33 by the review's count) but did not suggest AI Eye Contact when asked for help with a subject's eyes; Smart Short Clips turned a long talking-head video into 10 scored clips with titles and a transcript with a few errors, while Smart Scene Cut split a video mid-dialogue.
  • Rendering a five-minute project from seven clips (720p to 8K) to 1080p took 40 seconds, tying Adobe Premiere Elements and in the top third of the editors PCMag has timed; planar tracking worked well but motion tracking lost the subject, and the review still ranks Adobe Premiere and CyberLink PowerDirector above Filmora for advanced tools and usability.

Their score: 4.0 out of 5 (Excellent)

TechRadar · Krishi Chowdhary · July 22, 2026

What they tested: Filmora 15 on the free plan on a Windows 11 PC: an RGB Stroke effect on stock footage of a skateboarder, a dissolve transition and assorted video and audio settings. It did not test any AI feature, since the free plan has no credits. The review's only link to Filmora goes to a Wondershare campaign page (filmora.wondershare.net) with tracked download links.

  • Filmora identified the skateboarder and tracked the RGB Stroke effect onto him fairly accurately; effects and transitions went on by drag and drop, and edits applied almost instantly with no lag, even on long videos.
  • He found the three-pane interface a bit overwhelming at first and said new users need time to get used to it, but that its many editing options make that effort pay off.
  • He was disappointed that the free plan allows no AI generation at all, unlike Kapwing, Adobe Firefly or Fliki, and rated Premium, with its 2,000 credits and the Creative Assets package, among the best value for money.

Their score: 4 out of 5 stars (4.25 in the page data)

Creative Bloq · Paul Hatton · February 4, 2026

What they tested: Filmora 15, early in 2026, as a newcomer to AI video: an image-to-video clip made from his own profile photo and a prompt for a skydive, then AI editing tools that remove objects, relight scenes and blur faces. A short first-person feature: his plan, the video model and who supplied his credits are not stated, and he reports nothing on the timeline editing.

  • Filmora judged his one-line prompt too thin and its built-in tool expanded it; the 12-second clip took 10 to 15 minutes, and neither he nor the people he sent it to could spot obvious flaws.
  • The AI editing tools were generally good at their adjustments, though detection struggled at moments; he found the learning curve shallow but the process one of trial and error.
  • He expected an AI-heavy video to need around 50,000 credits, which he put at about $50, and called Filmora a straightforward but potentially quite expensive way into AI video.

What users say

Test result

toolist.ai has not run its own test of Filmora; the findings above come from the published tests linked. See how we research and test.

Best editors tools · Filmora pricing

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Sources