How to create a clipping championship for your channel, step by step
Setting up a clipping championship takes four screens and one decision most people make on autopilot: the prize model. Here is the walkthrough as the form works today, what I would pick in each field, and the math that tells you what your prize actually buys.
How to create a clipping championship for your channel, step by step
On Cut.Pro, you create a clipping championship from the dashboard in four stages (championship, rules, prizes, review), with the prize paid in credits (minimum 500) or, for Brazilian organizers, in PIX with a 20% platform fee, and manual approval within 2 business days. The form is the easy part. Whether the championship works comes down to two choices: the tag that identifies the videos and the prize model.
I will go through the form in the order it appears and say what I would pick in each field. Usual disclosure: I work at Cut.Pro.
Before you open the form: do you have material?
A clipping championship distributes something that already exists. If your channel has long streams, a podcast, interviews or a YouTube back catalog, you have raw material. If you post one eight-minute video a month, a hundred clippers will fight over the same three moments, and that turns into complaints, not reach.
My rule of thumb: at least a few hours of fresh material per week of contest. It is not a platform rule. It is what keeps everyone from posting the same clip.
Stage 1: the championship
Name, description, category, banner and logo. Looks like paperwork, but it is your storefront.
- 16:9 banner with the subject centered. Narrow screens crop the sides.
- Square logo, at least 500x500. It sits next to the name in every list.
- Category helps the right people find it in the listing.
- Visibility: public (shows in the listing) or invite only, with entry by email or invite link. Private makes sense when you already have a clipping crew and do not want strangers.
There is also an "I'm setting this up for someone else" switch. It is for agencies or managers who prepare the championship and send it to the channel owner to accept and pay. The invitee gets a link by email, checks the rules, fills in their details, accepts the terms and pays. Nothing goes live before that.
Stage 2: the rules
This is where most championships go wrong.
Which networks will count?
You pick the allowed platforms. Know how each one is measured:
| Network | How the metric arrives |
|---|---|
| TikTok, Instagram, Facebook | Official read through the participant's connected account |
| YouTube, Kwai | Public video link |
| X, Pinterest | Do not score today |
My take: start with the networks where your audience already is and where you can check videos easily. Allowing everything looks generous and only makes the review queue longer.
Tags: the most important decision in the form
A video enters the championship through what is written in the post description: required hashtags (up to 6) and profile mentions with @. The form itself blocks a dangerous setup: if you only require generic tags, any clip posted on the platform lands in your queue. On each network, require at least one hashtag or profile that belongs only to this championship.
Two details that prevent unfair rejections:
- A mention only counts with the @. The profile name typed as plain text does not.
- TikTok and Facebook swap the @ for the profile's display name when someone tags through the app's picker. The form has a field for that display name. Fill it in.
Video requirements
All optional, checked when each video is reviewed. Leave off anything you will not enforce:
- minimum length in seconds;
- text that must appear on screen;
- required text in the caption or title;
- a link in the profile bio;
- your logo or watermark in the video (the platform looks for it in each video and flags it in review when it is missing);
- up to 5 people who must appear, with a face photo for each.
Every extra requirement costs you participants. For a first championship, I would enforce two at most: the tag and, for a brand, the logo.
Limits, dates and material
Max videos per participant applies to the whole championship across all networks. Left blank, nobody has a limit. In a per-thousand-views contest with a low per-video cap, a limit helps spread the prize.
Start: right after approval or on a set date. If you will announce it on stream, set the date.
Content for clippers: links to what can be clipped (a YouTube video or channel, Twitch, Kick, a Drive file, a brief, a Discord server). Whatever the tool clips from those links is free for participants. That matters: you remove the cost of processing your stream from the clipper, and they clip more.
Stage 3: the prizes
First you choose the model. It decides which fields exist in the rest of the form, and you can switch until the championship is created.
Ranking
You set the podium tiers: 1st, 2nd and 3rd, top 5, top 10, equal split among the leaders, or each place by hand. You can add a recurring prize every day, week or month on top of the final podium.
You also decide how the ranking is scored: most views, most likes, most comments, most shares, mixed, or custom weights per metric. Watch out: if a network does not report a metric, the form warns you, and every video from that network would score zero on that weight.
Per thousand views
Each video earns a rate for every 1,000 views. Nobody competes for position. Three fields change the outcome:
- Minimum views per video: below it, the video earns nothing. Once it crosses, it earns on all its views, not only the ones above the minimum.
- Cap per video: the most a single video can earn.
- Different rate per network: a thousand views on YouTube and a thousand on Kwai are not worth the same to whoever pays. Turn it on if that matters to you.
Payouts run daily once a participant reaches the configured minimum.
Per post
A fixed amount per approved video, however many views it gets. Good when you want volume (a launch, a format test) and accept paying for clips that did not perform.
Credits or PIX
Credits: 500 minimum, taken from your account. Distribution to participants is automatic.
PIX (Brazilian organizers): you name the responsible party (individual with CPF or company with CNPJ), a PIX key to return any unspent balance at the end, and you see the 20% platform fee added in the summary. After confirming, you go to the payment screen, and the championship joins the approval queue once payment clears.
How big should the prize be?
The most honest math is in the form itself, in the "What this prize buys" block: total prize divided by the base rate.
An example only to show the math: a prize of 2,000 at a rate of 2 per thousand views buys at most 1,000 thousand-view units, which is 1 million paid views. That is a ceiling, not a forecast. What actually pays out depends on what each video delivers, and on the minimum and the cap per video. If clips underperform, the balance is left over, and on PIX it goes back to your return key.
What rate should you use? A market reference, with its condition: NPR reported in May 2026 on campaigns paying between $0.50 and $25 per thousand views, depending on who pays and what is being promoted (NPR, via VPM). The range is wide because product, niche and network change everything. Start low with a per-video cap and raise it if nobody joins.
Which model I would pick
| Your goal | Model | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Predictable reach, fixed budget | Per thousand views with a per-video cap | You pay for what was delivered and know the maximum upfront |
| Community, competition, fans who clip | Ranking with a weekly prize | The recurring prize keeps people active until the end |
| Many pieces to test formats | Per post with a per-person limit | Pays for the piece, not for algorithm luck |
For a first championship I would go with per thousand views. It is the model where a beginner clipper sees a return without beating anyone, and that fills the championship. A pure ranking with a prize only at the end scares off people who have never won anything.
Stage 4: review and approval
The summary shows model, prize, base rate, tags per network, per-person limit and visibility. Check it calmly: once it is live, changing rules mid-contest is the fastest way to lose the trust of the people clipping for you.
Approval is manual, within 2 business days.
While the championship runs
Three things will need your attention:
- The review queue. Videos arrive for you to approve or reject. When rejecting, you pick a reason (duplicate, inappropriate, suspicious metrics, outside the period, rules violation, unavailable, unrelated). The participant can appeal a rejection for 7 days.
- Duplicates. The platform detects an identical copy of another participant's video and the same video entered twice by the same account.
- Reports. Participants can flag problems in each other's videos. A report does not punish on its own: your decision is what removes a video from the ranking, and the reporter's name is not shown. Reports about the organizer go to Cut.Pro to decide.
Review quickly. Participants can see how long their video has been waiting, and a slow queue is the top reason clippers quit halfway.
A warning about the topic
If your content touches Brazilian politics, read what I wrote about clipping contests during Brazil's 2026 election first. And a contest funded by a betting operator can no longer exist in Brazil since Provisional Measure 1,394 of September 25 (explained here). In both cases, the rules outside the form weigh more than the form. Other countries have their own rules, so check yours.
Where to start
Open the championships dashboard, pick per thousand views, require one exclusive hashtag per network, set a per-video cap and review the queue every day. Tune the rest in your second championship, with data in hand.
To see the other side, the post on how a clipping championship works covers the rules from the participant's seat. And the dark side of clipping campaigns explains why the model you pick changes the kind of clips you get.
Sources: NPR, the clipping economy (May 2026) · Open championships on Cut.Pro
