# Cardboard

> A fast, collaborative, and agentic video editor for your browser and Mac. Create, cut, and compose videos with AI.

## About

Cardboard is an agentic video editor that runs in the browser and as a free Mac app for Apple Silicon. Backed by Y
Combinator, it pairs a traditional multi-layer timeline with natural-language commands, so raw footage becomes a
publish-ready edit in minutes. This file is regenerated on every release; the capabilities, plans, roles, and
releases below describe the version currently deployed.

## What Cardboard can do

### Drive the edit

- **Natural language editing**: Describe the edit ("cut the awkward pauses", "make this look more cinematic") and Cardboard performs the precise timeline operations.
- **Browser-native rendering**: A custom WebGL2 compositor and a WebCodecs decoder do the work locally. On the web there is no software to install.
- **Mac app**: Cardboard for Mac (Apple Silicon) is free to download with the Lite plan included, keeps your footage on your Mac, and lets you edit with your own Claude Code or Codex.
- **Multi-layer timeline**: Video, audio, image, text, and caption tracks with drag-and-drop editing and keyframes.
- **Live collaboration**: Review, comment on, tweak, and ship an edit together.

### Cut and assemble

- **Transcript-first cutting**: Remove bad takes, false starts, fillers, stutters, and repetitions from spoken footage while the meaning survives.
- **Silence and gap removal**: Detect dead air, cut it, and close the gaps it leaves behind.
- **Highlight extraction**: Surface the moments worth keeping from long recordings and cut them into a recap.
- **Beat-synced montages**: Compile highlight reels and travel or event montages with cuts landing on the music.
- **Multicam sync**: Align several camera angles of one session by their audio and cut between speakers.
- **Transitions**: Place visual transitions between clips and smooth the cut points.
- **Batch cleanup**: Apply one cleanup pass across every clip in the project with consistent settings.

### Find and source footage

- **Scene and speech search**: Find footage by describing what happened or what was said, not by filename.
- **Stock B-roll**: Drop stock B-roll on the exact moment each concept is spoken, sized to how long it stays the subject.
- **Archival documentary sourcing**: Cover a narrated documentary or origin story with real archival footage of the subject from public archives.

### Frame and finish

- **Motion graphics and titles**: Create animated titles, diagrams, charts, and callouts directly on the timeline.
- **Reframe and speaker tracking**: Recompose an edit for vertical or square, and punch in on whoever is speaking across split, grid, hero, and PIP layouts.
- **Framing repair**: Diagnose and remove black bars, letterboxing, and exposed canvas around a clip.
- **Colour grading and filters**: Cinematic looks, LUTs, and lift/gamma/gain colour wheels applied consistently across the timeline.
- **Background removal**: Remove or replace the background on video and image clips.
- **Depth compositing**: Layer titles, captions, and logos behind the subject rather than flat on top of the frame.
- **Keyframe animation**: Ken Burns moves, zooms, pans, fades, and any property animated over time.
- **Visual review**: Grade the finished timeline on shot selection, typography, colour, composition, text placement, and pacing.

### Words and sound

- **Auto captions**: Word-level captions in seconds, with customisable presets, per-caption editing, and translation into other languages.
- **Voiceover generation**: AI narrator voiceovers from a script, and edits built around the narration timing.
- **Music and sound design**: Generate original background music and sound effects, then mix them under dialogue with a sane volume hierarchy.
- **Voice dubbing**: Dub a video into another language with an AI voice track.
- **Audio cleanup**: Duck the music under speech, level volume across the edit, and strip background noise.
- **Reference matching**: Match the typography or reuse the audio from a reference image or video attached in chat.

### Formats and delivery

- **Platform presets**: Format, pacing, and caption constraints for TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, YouTube, and LinkedIn.
- **Video formats**: Purpose-built workflows for explainers, tutorials, product demos, and vlogs.
- **Export**: Render in the browser or on the server, or export an AAF for Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, and Avid Media Composer.

## Video editing recipes and guides

- [Browse video editing recipes](https://www.cardboard.ai/recipes): preview real edits, check required inputs and choose a recipe.
- [Video editing guides](https://www.cardboard.ai/recipes/guides): step-by-step workflows, example prompts and matching recipes.
- [How to edit a talking head video](https://www.cardboard.ai/recipes/guides/talking-head-video): Edit a talking head video with AI: shape the story, tighten pauses, add captions and B-roll, and start from a Cardboard presenter recipe.
- [How to turn a podcast into short clips](https://www.cardboard.ai/recipes/guides/podcast-clips): Turn a podcast or interview into short clips with a complete idea, readable captions, relevant cutaways and Cardboard clipping recipes.
- [How to edit a UGC video with captions](https://www.cardboard.ai/recipes/guides/captioned-ugc-video): Edit creator and UGC videos with word-timed captions, clear product messaging and Cardboard recipes for talking-to-camera footage.
- [How to edit a travel vlog](https://www.cardboard.ai/recipes/guides/travel-vlog): Make a travel vlog from your own clips: choose a story, sequence establishing shots and details, cut to music and start with Cardboard recipes.
- [How to make a product demo video](https://www.cardboard.ai/recipes/guides/product-demo-video): Build a product demo with clear feature footage, timed callouts, a useful opening and Cardboard product showcase recipes.

Recipes are reusable video editing workflows. Each published recipe has its own page at
https://www.cardboard.ai/recipes/{slug}, with a preview, required media, output format and availability on web or Mac.
Use the live recipe directory and sitemap to discover current recipes. Add your media and requested changes,
then review the editable timeline before exporting. Check the chosen recipe for platform and input requirements.

## Plans

Plans are credit-metered: usage credits cover the agent, such as analysis, captions, voiceover, and server-side
exports, and generative credits cover AI video and image generation. Lite is free in the Cardboard Mac app and a
paid plan on the web.

- **Lite**: $5 first month, then $8/month or $96/year ($8/month), up to 2.5 GB per file
- **Starter**: $9 first month, then $29/month or $240/year ($20/month), up to 2.5 GB per file
- **Creator**: $30 first month, then $59/month or $468/year ($39/month), up to 2.5 GB per file
- **Pro**: $89 first month, then $175/month or $1500/year ($125/month), up to 10 GB per file

Current prices and checkout: https://www.cardboard.ai/pricing

## Recently shipped

The newest releases, so an agent reading this knows how current it is. Full history on the changelog.

- 2026-10-26 — Edit Videos in ChatGPT and Claude: https://www.cardboard.ai/changelog#48
- 2026-10-20 — Faster Exports, Shareable Recipes, Photos to Video: https://www.cardboard.ai/changelog#47
- 2026-10-13 — Meet Recipes, Make It Yours: https://www.cardboard.ai/changelog#46
- 2026-10-05 — Any Footage, Sharper Cutouts, 3D Graphics: https://www.cardboard.ai/changelog#45
- 2026-09-28 — Now on Mac, Bring Your Agent: https://www.cardboard.ai/changelog#44
- 2026-09-21 — Reliable Exports, Smoother Graphics: https://www.cardboard.ai/changelog#43
- 2026-09-14 — Fast Scrubbing, Editable Graphics, Sharper B-roll: https://www.cardboard.ai/changelog#42
- 2026-09-07 — Text on the Canvas, Effects You Can See: https://www.cardboard.ai/changelog#41

## Links

- Website: https://www.cardboard.ai
- Pricing: https://www.cardboard.ai/pricing
- Mac app: https://www.cardboard.ai/desktop
- Video editing recipes: https://www.cardboard.ai/recipes
- Blog: https://www.cardboard.ai/blog
- Changelog: https://www.cardboard.ai/changelog
- Engineering problems we are working on: https://www.cardboard.ai/hard-problems
- Careers: https://www.cardboard.ai/careers
- Support: https://www.cardboard.ai/support (humans@cardboard.ai)
- Status: https://status.cardboard.ai
- Privacy: https://www.cardboard.ai/privacy
- Terms: https://www.cardboard.ai/terms
- X / Twitter: https://x.com/usecardboard
- Contact: humans@cardboard.ai

## Machine-readable resources

- **Sitemap**: https://www.cardboard.ai/sitemap.xml — every indexable Cardboard URL
- **Blog feed**: https://www.cardboard.ai/blog/rss.xml — RSS 2.0, newest posts first
- **Security contact**: https://www.cardboard.ai/.well-known/security.txt — coordinated disclosure

Cardboard has no public API. The HTTP endpoints behind the editor authenticate with a browser session and are not
documented for third-party use. Write to humans@cardboard.ai if you need programmatic access.

## Markdown content negotiation

Public pages serve a Markdown representation of the same URL when asked, following the acceptmarkdown.com
convention. Responses set `Vary: Accept`, and a client that accepts neither HTML nor Markdown gets a 406.

    curl -H "Accept: text/markdown" https://www.cardboard.ai/

Available in Markdown: `/`, `/pricing`, `/changelog`, `/privacy`, `/terms`, `/careers`, `/blog`, `/recipes`, `/recipes/guides`, `/careers/{slug}`, `/blog/{slug}`, `/recipes/{slug}`, `/recipes/guides/{slug}`.

Paths that do not exist return a real HTTP 404 (with a Markdown body when Markdown is requested), so probing the
site gives an honest answer.

## Open roles

- Founding Designer (Bengaluru, India) — https://www.cardboard.ai/careers/founding-designer
- Founding Design Engineer (Bengaluru, India) — https://www.cardboard.ai/careers/founding-design-engineer
- Product Engineer (Fullstack) (Bengaluru, India) — https://www.cardboard.ai/careers/product-engineer-fullstack
- Product Engineer (Mobile) (Bengaluru, India) — https://www.cardboard.ai/careers/product-engineer-mobile
- Backend Engineer (Bengaluru, India) — https://www.cardboard.ai/careers/backend-engineer
- Senior Applied ML Engineer, Evals & Data (Bengaluru, India) — https://www.cardboard.ai/careers/senior-applied-ml-engineer-evals-and-data