Adobe Premiere Pro Review: A Top Choice for Pro Video Editors
Adobe Premiere Pro continues to hold its reputation as the go-to professional video editing software, largely due to its intuitive nonlinear editing environment, robust performance, and extensive ecosystem of complementary tools. This comprehensive application streamlines the import and export processes, making it easy to bring in footage and deliver polished projects. With the integration of AI-driven features like auto-captioning and text-based video editing, Premiere Pro keeps pace with the latest advancements in video production technology. This combination of reliability, flexibility, and cutting-edge functionality has earned it our Editors’ Choice distinction for professional video editing. For hobbyists or casual creators, a more affordable but still powerful alternative is CyberLink PowerDirector, which offers plenty of features at a lower price point.
Premiere Pro is only available through a subscription model. The pricing starts at $22.99 per month if you commit to a year, or $263.88 if paid annually. If you prefer a month-to-month plan without a long-term contract, that option is also available for $34.49 monthly. Adobe offers a free trial period of seven days so users can get a feel for the software before purchasing. Additionally, Premiere Pro can be bundled with Adobe’s full Creative Cloud suite, which includes other industry-leading apps like After Effects, Illustrator, and Photoshop. This full suite costs $59.99 monthly with an annual plan or $89.99 on a month-to-month basis. Businesses face slightly higher fees but gain added collaboration tools and support features. Educational users can benefit from discounted rates, making the entire Creative Cloud more affordable for students and educators.
The subscription-based pricing model means the upfront financial commitment is much lower compared to the traditional approach of paying a large sum upfront for perpetual licenses, which could exceed $1,000 in the past. Furthermore, the subscription ensures users receive regular updates, including new features and performance improvements, without additional costs.
For context, some comparable video editing software offers different pricing models. Apple’s Final Cut Pro is available for a one-time purchase of $299. DaVinci Resolve also charges a one-time fee of $295, but it provides a robust free version suitable for many users. For those seeking less complex options, consumer-friendly software typically costs around $99 to $140, including titles like Adobe Premiere Elements, Pinnacle Studio Ultimate, and CyberLink PowerDirector Ultimate, which can be purchased outright or via subscription. Budget-friendly editors like Corel VideoStudio Pro and Filmora are also available with single-purchase pricing near $70.
Premiere Pro runs on both Windows and macOS platforms with specific system requirements. On Windows, it requires Windows 10 (64-bit) version 22H2 or Windows 11, a relatively recent Intel or AMD processor, 8GB of RAM (though 16GB is recommended), and a display resolution of at least 1920×1080 pixels. For Mac users, it supports macOS 12 or later, working natively on both Intel and Apple silicon processors. With installation, users also receive Adobe Media Encoder, a powerful utility that facilitates exporting to various formats, batch processing, and lets you continue editing while rendering.
Adobe updates Premiere Pro frequently, typically every one to two months, adding new tools, tweaking the interface, and boosting performance. One of the standout recent features is Generative Extend, an AI-powered tool introduced in version 25.2 that allows users to extend clips to fill gaps in their timeline seamlessly. Another powerful addition is Media Intelligence, which uses AI to analyze and index all media in your project, enabling you to search for specific clips or segments based on visual or audio content, including speech.
Caption Translation has also been enhanced, enabling automatic translation of captions into 27 different languages, which can be a huge time-saver for content creators working with multilingual audiences. Premiere Pro now automatically converts raw and log footage into the color space you’re working in, improving the accuracy and consistency of colors during editing. Support for the popular MKV format has been added, expanding the range of files you can easily work with. Adobe also supports Content Credentials, a recent initiative to help creators maintain ownership of their work and prevent unauthorized AI training using their content.
A feature that was surprisingly absent until recently is dynamic waveforms, which allow users to adjust the waveform size in the timeline by dragging, making audio editing more precise. Adobe also included more sample media with updates, which helps users learn new tools like Generative Extend more effectively.
Previous updates brought valuable enhancements like audio auto-tagging that detects dialogue, music, and ambient sounds, alongside AI-powered speech enhancement that cleans up audio recordings automatically. Premiere Pro’s automatic transcription and text-based editing let editors manipulate video segments by editing the transcript, offering a new and intuitive way to cut footage. The software now supports background auto-saving, with a configurable interval as low as one minute, running seamlessly without interrupting your workflow. It even has a recovery mode to restore projects after crashes.
Another long-overdue improvement is the addition of free stock sound effects such as car doors slamming or explosions, which were missing before, though background music has been included for a while. The Essential Graphics panel was replaced with a more streamlined Properties panel and a dedicated Graphics Templates panel to simplify motion graphic workflows. The introduction of a hierarchical structure for organizing your work—called Productions, Projects, and Sequences—gives editors better control over large-scale projects and easier media management.
The interface of Premiere Pro is both sleek and highly customizable, and Adobe has made strides in refining it over time. When you launch the program, the startup screen offers quick access to recent projects, new projects, and Adobe Stock search. The dark theme places your footage front and center, minimizing distractions. The software operates in three primary modes—Import, Edit, and Export—making navigation straightforward. In Edit mode, you can switch between various workspace layouts designed for assembly, editing, color grading, and exporting, among others. Panels can be detached and repositioned freely, allowing users to build their ideal editing environment. Creating bins based on search criteria helps organize assets more efficiently.
The default layout features four main panels: source preview on the top left, project preview on the top right, assets in the lower left, and timeline tracks in the lower right. You can customize which control buttons appear to keep the workspace clean and focused. Premiere Pro supports common keyboard shortcuts used by editors for fast navigation, and its flexible interface allows undocking and repositioning windows to match your workflow. A helpful feature includes the ability to scrub through clips simply by hovering the mouse over thumbnails in the source panel.
Premiere Pro is designed to be touch-friendly, enabling gestures like pinch-to-zoom on the timeline and video preview, as well as tap-based clip selection and placement. Inserting clips into the timeline offers multiple options: using Insert or Overwrite buttons, dragging clips directly from the media browser, or even pulling files from your computer’s file system. Holding down modifier keys changes how clips are inserted, giving users precise control over editing.
The media browser itself includes tabs for Effects, Markers, and History, helping editors recover previous states and manage annotations effectively. Marker improvements let you add notes, place multiple markers at the same timestamp, and assign durations, with a tab that lists all markers for easy access.
Premiere Pro accepts footage from a wide range of sources, from tape capture with time-code settings and scene detection to importing raw footage from high-end cameras like the Arri Alexa and Canon Cinema EOS. It supports editing in resolutions up to 8K and accommodates high-frame-rate clips through proxy media for smoother playback.
While the software offers metadata panels with extensive clip information and color labeling options, simple keyword tagging is not yet available. Users can organize media within Productions, Projects, Sequences, Libraries, and Bins. For those upgrading from Adobe Premiere Elements, project imports are possible due to shared file formats, though some effects and features may not transfer perfectly.
A notable recent addition is the Media Intelligence search tool, accessible via a magnifying glass icon in the top-right corner. This AI-powered search helps you quickly locate clips based on captions, metadata, or visual content like eye close-ups or water scenes. However, its ability to search by color is limited, as it struggled to find clips based on color queries like “yellow” or “orange.” Despite that, this semantic search feature represents a promising step toward more intelligent and efficient editing workflows.
