Video is becoming an increasingly important part of marketing. As social networks highlight their short-form video offerings, services like beCreatives promise to lighten the load by handling all your video editing needs.
But with prices starting at $899 a month, is it really worth it? In this beCreatives review, we’ll be looking at what the service really offers, and whether it’s a good option for businesses and content creators.
What is beCreatives?
beCreatives is a subscription-based video editing service started in 2019 by founders Birute Efe and Roneta Bajorinaite. After starting with a small team based in Lithuania, the company grew during the COVID-19 pandemic and now operates in 10+ countries.
What does beCreatives offer?
With packages starting at $899/mo, beCreatives offers access to a dedicated video editor who delivers unlimited video projects with daily turnaround (depending on project length and complexity).
In addition, beCreatives offers a host of other features including:
- A built-in project management platform they call Space.
- An AI Assist tool for creating video scripts and concepts.
- Custom animations, motion graphics, and captions.
- Access to a robust library of stock graphics and effects.
- Video resizing and repurposing.
- Access to video editing and content creation courses.
- A 14-day money back guarantee.
How much does beCreatives cost?
BeCreatives offers three pricing plans:
- Scale: a starter plan for $899/month or $8,988/year. This plan has certain limitations including longer turnaround times, limited users and brands.
- Pro: a full-featured plan for $1,999/month or $19,992/year. This includes unlimited brands and users, as well as 1-day turnaround and real-time Slack chat with your editor.
- Enterprise: custom plans for enterprise clients that can include multiple editors, onboarding, and advanced collaboration tools.
How do you sign up for beCreatives?
BeCreatives invites you to watch a demo video or book a meeting before signing up, but you can also sign up right away. Pro tip: when you watch or book a demo, you can get a discount code off your first month of service.
The sign-up process is fairly simple. You’ll be asked to enter your name, email, payment information, and create a password.
But after a few short screens, you’ll be taken straight to the Space dashboard. You can go from signing up to creating your first project in less than 5 minutes.
BeCreatives Review: Technology (design, ease of use, features) - 3.5/5 ⭐
One of beCreative’s standout features is its elegant user experience. I’ve reviewed a lot of creative services, and I can say with confidence that Space (the beCreatives web app) is one of the best-designed dashboards I’ve seen.
The front page highlights your ongoing projects and specifically the ones that need your attention. In addition, you can explore tabs to:
- Create projects
- Create brands
- Use their AI Assistant
- Explore video templates
- Talk to support
- Fill out profile information
- Suggest new features
- And more
While the first impressions are good, further use reveals a few annoying elements. Ironically, the “report a bug” feature appears to be bugged. At least, when I tried to click on it, it didn’t seem to do anything.
The site also suffers from slow load times. It was frustrating to try and watch the videos my editor sent me, both in-app and by download.
There’s a feature to tie your revision notes to a specific timestamp in your video, but I found it difficult to turn this off. Notes meant to the whole video were timestamped to whatever part I had stopped the video at.
The AI Assistant tool, like many such tools that creative services have rolled out in the past two years, is only mildly useful. It’ll help you create an outline for a video based on a few simple prompts, which is great for curing writer’s block and streamlining your process. But if you already have a decent idea of what you want to make, you might find it leads you in the wrong direction.
How do you create a project in beCreatives?
BeCreatives has a simple one-page form to create your video projects, either starting from scratch or choosing from a gallery of templates. I opted for their faceless short-form video template, which says it only accommodates up to 60 seconds, but my 100-second project was created without any trouble.
You can choose to create multiple sizes, add music, upload your video description and script. Once you create your project, you’ll be able to access it, make changes, and download drafts at any time through the Space dashboard.
Important to note: beCreatives is a video EDITING service, not a video CREATION service. Nowadays, many businesses create short-form video at scale using ChatGPT and AI voiceovers, taking the work completely out of their hands.
While BeCreatives lets you do this, they won’t create the script, audio, or video for you—you still have to upload your own script and your own audio/video files.
All in all, beCreatives’ tech is impressive from a design standpoint and very easy to use, but doesn’t always have the best functionality where it counts.
BeCreatives Review: Editors (efficiency, creativity, communication) - 2.5/5 ⭐
BeCreatives’ real selling point is its video editors. Without them, there wouldn’t be much of a service, would there?
Important to note: I worked with one single video editor during my time with beCreatives. This is how the service works, but it means you may be getting a skewed idea of what the overall service can do and how aligned it is with your business. If you’re not happy with your editor, you can talk to support to get paired with a different one who better meets your needs.
That being said, I can’t say I was super impressed with the editor I was paired with. The match was made automatically when I signed up, with little regard for how they suited my business.
Things started off decently. After I created my project—an explainer video related to 2023’s Barbie movie—my editor asked for some reference videos to help them get a better idea of what I had in mind. I provided links to some similar videos by the YouTube channel The Film Theorists.
When I got my first draft back, it was good… for what it was. As someone who edits videos myself, I know it’s no easy feat to turn around multiple projects at a time on this kind of schedule.
That being said, if I had commissioned the video from a freelancer or in-house editor and received this, I wouldn’t be pleased. It’s oversimplified, lacking in creativity, the captions are unwieldy, and awkward pauses are left in the audio.
How to request revisions from beCreatives video editors
The Space dashboard includes an in-app chat to talk directly to your designer and request both general and timestamped revisions. I had some broader issues with the video I was delivered, but in the interest of simplifying things for my review, I kept my requests simple:
- Use the same clips at the beginning and end of the video to create a loop
- Space out the captions less, with more than a single word at a time
- Highlight names and titles in yellow
The revised video was delivered in about 24 hours. Again, the instructions were followed… kind of. A half-second clip was added to the end to create a loop. Two or three words appear on screen at a time, instead of just one. And yes, names are highlighted in yellow… mostly.
Again, I must stress, this is just an experience with a single editor, and I’m sure beCreatives has other video editors who would have been more up to the task of this project. But even knowing how difficult this work is, I can’t say they delivered on my expectations, or my needs.
BeCreatives Review: Support (communication, helpfulness, responsiveness) - 5/5 ⭐
Before signing up for beCreatives, I tested out the in-app chat function.
After keeping the page open for about 30 minutes to no avail, I decided to just go ahead. I did receive a response… overnight, arriving in my email the next day. While they were anything but timely, the response I got was solid and helpful.
BeCreatives provides ample opportunities to connect with support. You can send them an email, book a call, create a support ticket through the web app, and they reached out to me almost daily with tips and updates sent to my email.
Generally, I like my email updates a little less frequent. But I appreciate that they’re clearly dedicated to solving problems and offering their customers the best possible experience. This became especially clear when I canceled my subscription.
How do you cancel your beCreatives subscription?
At the end of my journey, I canceled my beCreatives Scale plan and requested their 14-day refund.
The “cancel” button isn’t the easiest to find—you navigate to the Company tab on your dashboard and find it under Subscriptions, between “Upgrade to pro plan” and “Request editor changes”.
You’re asked to fill out a few questions about why you’re leaving, what you intend to use instead, and how likely you are to return or recommend the service to a friend. Finally, they offer you one last discount and ask you to type in “CONFIRM” to confirm your cancellation.
Personally, I always make sure to send an email when I want a refund, even if they guarantee it. I emailed support and got a timely response from my account executive, who asked if I would give them one more chance or if I’d like to proceed with the cancellation.
This cancellation process strikes a good balance. It shows that they really do care about delivering you the best experience, while not putting too much pressure on you to stick around or ever trying to force you to stay.
While they aren’t available 24/7, beCreatives’ support is professional, helpful, and dedicated. They make it easy to get in touch and will genuinely put in the work to give you the best possible experience.
BeCreatives Review: Service (deliverables, quality, value) - 3/5 ⭐
So, is beCreatives really worth it? Let’s look at the numbers.
The fully-featured Pro plan costs just under $20k/year, which is less than you’d pay for a full-time, in-house video editor. For that price, you get a more managed, hands-off solution with built-in support and tech to streamline your processes.
However, the level of quality and care you get may not be on par with what you’d get from an in-house professional or agency. You’ll still have to put the work in to create your videos, and it’ll take additional time to ensure you get the results you want.
Finally, there’s the time issue. While this unlimited model works quite well for design services, the difference between what you get here and what you’d get from an in-house video editor can be minimal. It took several days to turn around this decently-edited, under-two-minute video, and it would have required multiple rounds of revisions to get it right.
When it comes to overall service quality, beCreatives lands somewhere in the middle. It falls on the lower end of the market in terms of pricing, and delivers great support and some decent features for that price. However, what it offers falls awkwardly between the skill of dedicated pro editors and the efficiency of new AI solutions.
The scorecard
Technology: beCreatives’ Space platform is slickly designed and easy to use. However, with slow loading times and not-so-useful features, it’s a bit more flashy than functional. 3.5/5 ⭐
Editors: The video editor I was assigned communicated well and was clearly knowledgeable, but didn’t deliver on my expectations. However, this has more to do with beCreatives’ auto-assign system than the overall quality of their editors. 2.5/5 ⭐
Support: I had positive experiences with support throughout my time using beCreatives. They were helpful, dedicated, and went out of their way to improve my experience, even if they weren’t on call 24/7. 5/5 ⭐
Service: beCreatives has a slightly lower price than its major competitors, and offers a decent package and great support for that price. However, it’s neither the most efficient nor the most effective solution out there for video editing. 3/5 ⭐
Overall beCreatives review: 3.5/5 ⭐
