Descript Features: Everything You Need to Know Before You Buy

If you're tired of clunky video editors with steep learning curves, Descript is worth a serious look. It's built around one core idea: edit video and audio by editing text. Import your footage, get an automatic transcript, and cut sections just by deleting words. It sounds almost too simple, but it actually works.

I've spent time digging through Descript's full feature set, and there's a lot here — some genuinely useful, some with annoying limitations. Here's the real breakdown of what you're getting.

Text-Based Editing: The Core Feature

This is what makes Descript different from Premiere Pro, Final Cut, or DaVinci Resolve. When you import a video or audio file, Descript automatically transcribes it. Your media becomes a text document. Delete a word, and the corresponding audio/video gets cut. Copy and paste a paragraph, and the media follows.

For podcasters, YouTubers, and anyone who creates talking-head content, this is a massive time saver. You can scan through a transcript in seconds to find the sections you want to keep instead of scrubbing through a timeline.

The transcription supports 25 languages including English, Spanish, German, French, Portuguese, and more. It's generally accurate, though you'll still want to review it — occasionally you'll get "site bar" instead of "side bar" and similar errors.

One technique worth knowing: you can use strikethrough instead of deleting content. This keeps material in your script without affecting the final output, which is helpful when you're refining your edit.

Underlord: The AI Co-Editor

Descript's AI assistant is called Underlord. You can direct it to make edits, ask for feedback on your script, or have it design your video layout. It can write scripts based on prompts, convert boring content into engaging video, and handle tedious batch edits like adding lower thirds to every speaker.

The practical stuff Underlord handles well: centering speakers, bleeping colorful language, generating social clips from longer videos, and applying consistent branding. For repetitive tasks, it saves real time.

However, some users report that AI editing features work better for short-form content than longer projects. The lack of a historical view of AI revisions makes it harder to track what changes the AI made — problematic when you're collaborating or need to revisit earlier versions.

Automatic Filler Word Removal

This feature alone justifies Descript for many creators. Click a button and Descript identifies and removes "ums," "uhs," "likes," "you knows," and awkward pauses throughout your recording. What used to take hours of manual editing happens instantly.

The result: you sound significantly more polished without re-recording anything. For podcasters and professional YouTubers, this is a production game-changer.

Studio Sound: AI Audio Enhancement

Recorded in a noisy environment? Forgot to turn off the AC? Studio Sound uses AI to detect and remove background noise while enhancing voice clarity. No expensive microphone or soundproofing required.

It works well for most common audio problems, though it won't perform miracles on extremely poor recordings. Think of it as a solid rescue tool, not a replacement for good recording practices.

Overdub: Voice Cloning

This is Descript's most distinctive feature. Overdub creates an AI clone of your voice from a recording sample. Once trained, you can fix audio mistakes by simply typing what you meant to say — Descript generates new audio in your cloned voice.

Said a name wrong? Dog barked during recording? Instead of re-recording, type the correction and let Overdub generate it. The AI will even match the tonal characteristics of the surrounding audio.

Setting up Overdub requires recording 10-30 minutes of clear speech. More training data (up to 90 minutes) produces better results. You can now create a voice clone in as little as 60 seconds for quick use cases, or create multiple clones with different tones and emotions.

Important limitation: you can only clone your own voice. Lower-tier plans have a 1,000-word vocabulary limit, which gets restrictive fast if you use technical terms or industry jargon. Pro accounts get unlimited vocabulary.

Eye Contact Correction

Reading a script while recording? Eye Contact uses AI to adjust your gaze so it looks like you were looking at the camera the whole time. Subtle but effective for eliminating that "reading off a teleprompter" look.

Green Screen Replacement

Replace your background without a physical green screen. Descript's AI scrubs out your actual background and lets you substitute whatever you want. Quality varies based on lighting and how clean your original shot is.

Multicam Editing

If you're working with multiple camera angles or audio tracks — common for interviews, podcasts, and webinars — Descript handles multi-camera setups with synced tracks. You can group files into sequences and switch between angles easily.

Automatic Captions and Subtitles

Add captions to your videos with a few clicks. Descript supports translation into 20+ languages, and newer features include lip sync that matches mouth movements to translated audio (this requires AI credits on current plans).

Screen Recording

Built-in screen recording means you don't need separate software for tutorials or demos. Record directly in Descript and edit immediately.

Social Clip Generation

Use AI to identify the most engaging moments from longer videos and repurpose them as clips formatted for different platforms. Descript handles sizing and formatting so you don't have to manually create versions for YouTube Shorts, TikTok, and Instagram.

AI Video Generation

Descript can generate B-roll, whole scenes, avatars, and voice clones. You can create customizable AI avatars to present content while you stay off camera. The platform integrates with models like Veo 3.1 for video generation that includes matching audio.

Collaboration Tools

Multiple users can edit, comment, and share feedback in real-time. For teams, this streamlines the review process without needing to export files back and forth.

What's the Catch?

Descript isn't without frustrations:

Descript Pricing

Descript recently overhauled its pricing model to focus on media minutes and AI credits. Here's the current structure:

Education and nonprofit organizations can access the Creator plan at $5/month with a 4-hour transcription limit.

For a deeper dive on costs, check out our Descript pricing breakdown.

Who Is Descript Actually For?

Descript works best for:

It's less ideal for:

How Descript Compares to Alternatives

If you're exploring options, here's how Descript stacks up:

See our best video editing software comparison for more options, or check out free video editing software if you're working with a limited budget.

The Verdict

Descript genuinely delivers on its core promise: editing video and audio is as easy as editing a document. For creators who spend hours cutting ums and rearranging talking points, that's transformative.

The AI features — especially Overdub voice cloning and automatic filler word removal — are legitimately useful and hard to find elsewhere. Studio Sound rescues audio that would otherwise require re-recording.

The recent pricing changes with media minutes and AI credits are the biggest concern. If you have a workflow with multiple camera angles or heavy AI usage, costs can add up faster than expected. Monitor your usage closely.

For most podcasters, YouTubers, and marketing teams producing regular content, Descript is worth trying. The free plan is limited, but it's enough to see if the text-based approach clicks for you.

Try Descript free and see if it fits your workflow.

Looking for other tools to level up your content? See our guides on best screen recording software and free screen recording software for capturing footage, or explore Canva for quick graphics and thumbnail creation.