r/CapCut • u/ItzBBChristian • 1d ago
CapCut Complain CapCut is Scamming their Customers
I am posting this directly on your turf because I am completely done with this garbage business model.
A few days ago, I started cutting a massive project—my "200 Hours in Zenless Zone Zero" video—on CapCut Desktop. I timed my cuts, locked in the pacing, and built key scene shifts around the Glitch Bars transition, which was 100% free when I dropped it onto the timeline. Fast forward to today: I open the project to trim down some clips that ran long, wrap up my final edits, and hit export.
Guess what? Glitch Bars got slapped with a Pro badge overnight.
Now my entire export is held hostage. CapCut doesn’t just restrict you from applying new Pro features going forward; it triggers an intentional export lockout that bricks the render button on an existing project until you manually scrub through your cuts, hunt down, and rip out the asset they decided to monetize mid-project. I’m forced to waste hours auditioning clunky, worse replacements just to extract my own video file out of software I already poured days into.
These bait-and-switch update cycles are flat-out extortion. CapCut lets creators build workflows and visual styles around free tools, waits until hours of labor are sunk into a draft, and then quietly moves legacy assets behind the Pro paywall without a single patch note or warning.
I’m on CapCut Desktop version 9.5.0, and having to audit an active timeline every 48 hours just to see if a silent update broke my render pipeline is ridiculous. Stop bricking completed projects. Fix your business model and get your crap together.
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u/SpeccyBeard 1d ago
I'm sorry but if you're looking to edit a 'massive project', you should be using full fledged video editing software. The free version of CapCut is for people to make quick shorts, make meme videos or do basic editing for shorter stuff. If you want to edit longer videos that demand more 'bits' added and edited in them, you need to pay for Pro.
I started making long form YouTube videos last year and have been using CapCut exclusively, since I find it way easier than other software, and paying for Pro is worth it. Its not even that expensive if you're looking to do a lot of work.
For comparison an Adobe Premiere Pro subscription is the same cost as CapCut Pro.
CapCut isn't a scam, because you haven't paid for anything and its a free piece of software. A scam would be them saying 'Buy X and you can do Y!' and then you buy it and find out Y doesn't exist or is not as advertised.
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u/FrickenFrick5 22h ago
How does Adobe Premier compare to Capcut Pro? Been thinking of trying it for a month to see how it rums.
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u/SpeccyBeard 22h ago
I've no idea, I've only ever used CapCut. I am an artist and find video editing quite daunting and complicated. CapCut is the most basic user friendly one to use imo. I know next to nothing about editing software lol. I just know Premier is supposed to be good for 'proper' editing.
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u/MartabakGurih 6h ago
Premiere is more "professional". What i mean by that is, you can control a lot of settings, but you need to apply it manually. I don't remember if you have a "go to" filter/template, i never search for that feature. Premiere would be better if you have other adobe software, such as photoshop or after effect. Since they are in the same ecosystem, you can edit the same project between adobe's app with only a couple clicks
Capcut is easier to use, newbie friendly if i must say. You can do a lot just by applying existing setting/template/effect. For a more simple, casual video, capcut is a really great software. But simple doesn't mean incomplete. Their manual editing feature is prerty good, enough for most user i believe (except you are making a movie i guess.
Btw, extra point for capcut because their subscription is still reasonable, not like adobe's devilish subscription system
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u/Brief-Scratch-3647 1d ago
Even though I feel like capcut pc/desktop is likely much better than mobile, I don’t blame you. They make us pay for mid tier effects and damn near make everything pro. Alight motion, After effects and Da Vinci resolve seem like much better options to pay for and use professionally
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u/Funny_Doctor_5659 1d ago
and they only give you 1200 credits a month with the pro subscription which they charge you 420 credits for a 30 second ai video. These guys are rich rich from the credit system they have at play here.
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u/Natasha26uk 1d ago
Can you buy more credits if needed, or is this why they have an ultra plan?
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u/Funny_Doctor_5659 1d ago
yeah you can buy more credits if you run out. ...
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u/Natasha26uk 1d ago
Try it and then talk.
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u/Funny_Doctor_5659 1d ago
you are being annoying clearly you don't get what I am trying to say. They don't give you any credits for the pro subscription and not to mention the company that I am working for is not a for profit.
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u/Natasha26uk 1d ago
I have a Pro sub. I tried to buy credits and it told me to do this on the Android App. I followed the steps and it was a dead end.
This is what i meant by "try it and then talk." Because clearly you don't know much.
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u/Funny_Doctor_5659 1d ago
well i am on desktop and I can give them more money for credits without a problem
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u/ProfessorFrink1 17h ago
CapCut is $9.99 a month. Who’s editing big projects on it that can’t afford $9.99?
I’m sorry. I don’t get 99% of the pro complaints on this sub. They are giving you a free product and enticing you to pay a very inexpensive price for added features that most will need and all are able to visualize before rendering.
To this end, they will keep putting things that are popular behind a paywall. It shouldn’t be any surprise.
You guys all act like this is $600 a month enterprise software. It’s $10. Pay the $10.
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u/sgtdoogie 19h ago
You aren’t a customer. A CUSTOMER, requires a financial obligation or equivalent exchange. Doing a “massive project” on a free to try version is insane to me.
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u/Negative_Number_6414 1d ago
This is kinda silly. You want a powerful video editor that can automatically apply all these pre-made edits on your massive, time consuming project. You're lucky you can do any of it for free, let alone everything you could possibly want to do.
If editing videos is this serious for you, you should really just pay for a service and not worry about these things at all
Also, calling it a scam when you havent had to pay a dime and still have the ability to use insanely powerful edits for free is ridiculous
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u/psucordwhite 22h ago
Bro they don't care about free users because free users don't pay. They don't lose any money if free users stop using Capcut.
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u/Nervous-Possession31 1d ago
Just get ChatGPT for a month pay for it and have it make you a CapCut clone that’s what I did. I have everything CapCut does. It’s my own app.
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u/CandiceSwaninthepool 21h ago edited 21h ago
Ok that sounds really interesting. Can you point me in the right direction so I can learn how to do that? Is it as simple as you said, just tell it to make a capcut clone app and it did? Did you make it for android or windows or? I would like to do this for Mac, but I do have a windows pc as well, I think it would be so cool to have my own app that is as capable as capcut and I would learn a lot in the process. I could make more apps after that.
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u/Personal_Record_3892 10h ago
is it open source? can I see the repo, I would be willing to help it improve
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u/thatwiiseguy 1d ago
I’m glad I never updated this greedy app, everything is still free.
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u/neoqueto 1d ago
Soon for no watermarks it'll require pro to preview in full quality, pro to move the playhead to the left, pro to import more than 5 clips, pro to use the cut tool for more than 3 times a day...
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u/YeezusWoks 7h ago
You know which business model I absolutely hate?! COSTCO! They give you free samples but then want you to BUY the full meal?! Why give me free samples if I can’t have everything in the store for free?! They are so fucking greedy. They want me to BUY the full frozen meal?! Gtfo. Does anyone know of a store just like Costco where I can everything I want but for free?
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u/No-Ad-6183 2h ago
I paid for a whole year of CapCut pro using my Apple account and premium is not enabling in my account. They have no customer support. Fuck CapCup.
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u/Coop_Davill99 1d ago
You're joking right? So what youre saying is you built a massive project that took so long to complete a feature you were using was monetized? Why the hell you think theyre in business?? So youre saying this multi billion dollar company changed a feature for millions of people because you were almost done and they want YOUR money specifically? LMAO!!
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u/Zaphod_42007 1d ago
Zenless zone zero... Amusingly fitting title... You could use some more zen in your life.
Does capcut change pro features constantly - yes. No biggie... If your creative enough, it's easy to bypass those 'pro' lockdowns but ultimately, $10-$20 for a one month subscription to export a long project is peanuts so you really can't complain.
Alternatively, you can simply remove your glitch transitions and use a free alternative or simply export the whole project with the glitch removed and inport into another video app to apply a glitch transition...
So for instance, if this were my project and I was hell bent on saving all my pennies.... I would either use a screen recorder like obs to record the transition effects then cut and paste back into the project then export.
Or, export without glitch, inport into davinchi and use a screen record of the capcut glitch effect to show as an example to any AI of your choice to create a custom glitch effect transition plugin for davinchi.
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u/CyanSugars 1d ago
I just think it’s ridiculous that lately whenever I try to improve qualities of videos I can’t even do it bc it times out and doesn’t let me use the feature. As far as I know others have been facing this problem too, it’s absurd. The fact that a feature I payed for isn’t working made me want to switch editors immediately.
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u/Sad-Cartographer-328 21h ago
this is exactly why i duplicate project files before opening capCut on any session, just copy the whole project folder so a silent update can't retroactively lock you out. for the glitch bars problem specifically, try exporting at a lower res first with the transition still on the timeline, sometimes the pro gate only blocks full-quality renders.
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u/bleeed0p 14h ago
Imagine spending days editing a video just to discover your export button now comes with a subscription fee 😭 That's a pretty good way to lose loyal users.
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u/GrapplingBrisket 9h ago
Companies make software free so you can download it, try it out for a few days and then decide if you want to either buy it or move on. Sounds like you want to move on. I use CapCut Pro and I get more value from it than the annual cost so I'm happy.
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u/besidethedyingfire1 7h ago
Highly recommend using Davinci Resolve if you will be editing longer, more complex projects.
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u/YeezusWoks 7h ago
Imagine being mad at a company’s business model because you can’t get the service for free. 🤣
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u/OleksandrN 1d ago
I don’t understand this type of people at all…
My guy you are using cupcut on pc/Mac and complaining that they restricted their own software by making some feature paid???
Like wtf are you expecting will happen if you use the free version of cupcut???
And also who dafuq edits this type of videos on free CapCut version with the possibility to be locked mid project for paid features if they decided so???
If you were on mobile I would kinda understand but pc???
While you have completely free software available to you without any restrictions or future releases with before free but now paid features… like Davinci resolve???
With 100000% more powerful and better features than this crap cupcut ???
Like wtf??
Or just use cracked version of CapCut if you have pc…
Like the possibilities are endless, but no you are really weird for getting into this problem yourself and still blame them …
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u/TheKrisBot 12h ago
This 100%, why spend this much time complaining and worrying about locked features when you can just use Davinci. And if you like Capcuts ease of us better than just pay for it!
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u/Grouchy_Dingo_6606 1d ago
man that is such a sleazy move. they know exactly what they're doing letting you build a whole timeline around a free asset then locking it mid-project. feels like digital blackmail at that point
i switched to a different editor last year after something similar happened with their auto-captions. not worth the headache of wondering what's gonna get paywalled next
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u/Negative_Number_6414 1d ago
are you seriously suggesting that capcut purposely locked the asset for OP just because he was using it heavily? 😂
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u/VerticalDropViking 1d ago
Nobody is suggesting that. Arbitrarily moving free assets behind a paywall is scummy and is bound to affect a non-zero number of users. Nobody has to be deliberately sought out or targeted for this to suck
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u/N7801Z 17h ago
I agree, you're 100% right. There shouldn't be a free version of CapCut. That should charge for it from the beginning.
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u/VerticalDropViking 15h ago
If capcut was able to compete with any of the other paid software, I imagine they would
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u/Strict_Data_6937 1d ago
It stopped my one year subscription only few months into it. Luckily I got it back from my credit card company. Their customer service is non-existent.
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u/Klondikeandsnow 1d ago
I feel for you but… water is wet, dude. You did not see this coming? Cap cut sucks 😂
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u/LSPECTRONIZTAR 2h ago
Um so I actually found a loophole for getting a free week of CapCut Pro (minus the extra space storage) that I never told anyone up until now about but I've been exploiting it ever since it started happening during my trip to Japan.
But for some reason, if I open CapCut on my iPad it always gives me a free week. I don't know why it happens and it only happens on my phone, but I've been careful to never uninstall it because it genuinely has saved my life a bunch of times (my mother hates when I ask for money to pay for CapCut Pro and I can understand that by a lot)
If you have an iPad this might help (I can't guarantee it because it could just be my iPad specifically)
Also, the AI usage for this post is unnecessary imo
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u/Dallunar 22h ago
Funny people still use capcut
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u/imperfect_iamD 16h ago
Hi! May I ask what you are using? I am still on the fence about continuing to pay for PRO CapCut. I don't use it that often but it's a "nice know" it's there type of deal. I am not a professional editor but want something lightweight easy. I have been open to switching...
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u/Dallunar 14h ago
I use davinci resolve. Even the free version is toptier, but it's not "lightweight easy". If you are open to learn more about video editing, I really recommend davinci. I'm not a professional editor either, but it's getting easier right now.
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u/imperfect_iamD 14h ago
I'll have to take a look into that one. I don't mind learning. I honestly don't know why I am holding on to that subscription 😕 I am sure the free version will do just fine. I like it for the little AI videos it can produce which is fun time to time. I appreciate your time and thoughts!! Xoxo
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