tondi vs Opus Clip
Last checked 12 September 2026. Opus Clip's prices and limits are theirs to change; if something below is out of date, tell support@tondi.app and it gets fixed.
Both take a long video and hand you short, captioned, vertical clips. The difference is where the work happens. Opus Clip is a website: you upload, it processes on their servers, you download. tondi is a Mac app: the video never leaves your machine. Almost everything else — price, speed, privacy, limits — follows from that one fact.
The short version
Pick Opus Clip if you're on Windows, you want a browser-based team workflow, or you want features beyond clipping — scheduling, brand kits, AI B-roll, virality scores.
Pick tondi if you have an Apple Silicon Mac, you'd rather not upload your footage anywhere, you clip more than a couple of hours a month, or you want one flat price instead of a minute meter.
Side by side
| tondi | Opus Clip | |
|---|---|---|
| Where it runs | On your Mac. Nothing is uploaded. | In the cloud. You upload the video and wait for it to process. |
| Platform | macOS 13+, Apple Silicon (M1 or later). No Intel, no Windows. | Any browser — Mac, Windows, Linux. |
| Pricing model | Flat. Free, or Pro at $10 / month or $100 / year. No minute count. | Per minute of source video. Free 60 min / month, Starter $15 / month for 150 min, Pro $29 / month for 300 min. Credits expire. |
| Free tier | 3 clips per video, one video at a time, small watermark. Clips are yours forever. | 60 minutes a month, watermark, 9:16 only, exports expire after 3 days. |
| Clips per video | Up to 10 on Pro (3 on Free). | Varies with video length and plan. |
| Batch | Yes on Pro — queue several videos. | Yes. |
| Aspect ratios | Vertical 9:16, Square 1:1, Portrait 4:5, Horizontal 16:9 — every plan. | 9:16 on Free; more on paid plans. |
| Vertical reframing | The whole frame, over a blurred copy of itself. No speaker tracking. | “ReframeAnything” — AI object tracking keeps the subject centred. |
| Captions | Word-timed captions, your fonts and colours, burned in. | Animated caption templates (watermarked on Free). |
| How clips are chosen | A scoring system — hook words, emphasis, numbers, speech rate, audio energy. Not a language model, and it says so. | An AI "virality score" per clip. |
| Speed | A ~10-minute video takes a few minutes. No queue. | Upload time plus a processing queue; depends on their load. |
| Works offline | Yes, after a one-time 460 MB model download. | No. |
| Your footage | Stays on your disk. tondi's server never sees a frame. | Stored on their servers while you work; Free exports are deleted after 3 days. |
| Beyond clipping | Nothing. It makes clips. | Scheduling, brand kits, AI B-roll, team seats, more. |
| Signed by Apple | Yes — Developer ID team DHN5QUUM7B, notarized. | Not applicable (web). |
Opus Clip figures from opus.pro/pricing and third-party reviews as of the date above. tondi figures are from tondi.app/pricing.
Where Opus Clip is better
- It runs anywhere. tondi is Apple Silicon only. If you're on Windows or an Intel Mac, this comparison is moot.
- It does more than clip. Posting schedules, brand kits, B-roll, team accounts. tondi deliberately does one thing.
- Nothing to install. A browser tab is all it needs.
- The crop follows the subject. Opus Clip's reframe tracks whoever is on screen. tondi keeps the whole widescreen frame over a blurred background — fine for one presenter, less good for a wide two-shot.
Where tondi is better
- No upload. A 2 GB recording doesn't have to go anywhere. Unreleased footage, client work, anything you'd rather not hand to a server — it stays put.
- No meter. Clip ten hours of podcast a month for $10. On Opus Clip that's roughly two Pro plans' worth of minutes.
- No waiting. Processing starts the moment you drop the file, on your own chip.
- Every shape, every plan. Square and 4:5 aren't upsells.
- Clips don't expire. They're files in a folder on your Mac.
What it costs over a year
| If you clip… | tondi Pro | Opus Clip |
|---|---|---|
| Under 1 hour a month | $0 (Free, 3 clips per video) or $100 / year | $0 (Free, watermarked, 3-day expiry) |
| 2–3 hours a month | $100 / year | Starter: $180 / year |
| 5 hours a month | $100 / year | Pro: $348 / year (or ~$174 billed annually) |
| 10+ hours a month | $100 / year | Pro isn't enough minutes; Business, custom pricing |
Common questions
Can tondi import from a YouTube link like Opus Clip?
No. tondi works from a file on your Mac. If the video is on YouTube, download it first with a tool of your choice, then drop the file in.
Does tondi have virality scores?
It scores every candidate clip internally and keeps the best ones, but it doesn't show you a number. The scoring is a set of rules — hook words, emphasis, speech rate, audio energy — not a language model, so it has no opinion about what will "go viral". Nobody does.
Can I try tondi without an account?
Yes. The Free plan needs no account and no card. An account only comes into it if you go Pro.
What happens to my Opus Clip workflow?
Nothing carries over — there's nothing to import. Drop the same source video into tondi and compare the clips it picks.
Also compared: Reelify AI and Ascynd.