Is DaVinci Resolve Studio Worth It? | Jonny Elwyn

Is DaVinci Resolve Studio worth the upgrade when you can do so much in the free version of DaVinci Resolve?

That’s the question I’ll be answering in detail in this sponsored article, but, TLDR: Yes is the answer.

We’ll look at:

Blackmagic Design vs Avid, Adobe, and Apple
Financial comparison to other video editing apps
DaVinci Resolve’s growing AI toolkit
Special Resolve Studio features you need
Career-improving skills that Resolve gives you

You can pick up DaVinci Resolve Studio today for $295/£225.

Resolve Studio is bundled with all of these…

If you’re planning on buying DaVinci Resolve Studio, it’s worth thinking about whether you should buy it bundled with another piece of Blackmagic Design hardware, as it comes included in the price of many of their cameras and editing or colour grading hardware.

For example, if you buy the DaVinci Resolve Speed Editor* for $475 you’ll get $299 worth of DaVinci Resolve Studio included.

This will not only save you money in the long run, but you’ll also be set up with the right tools for the job.

DaVinci Resolve Studio is currently bundled with these items:

Cameras

Blackmagic URSA Cine Range
Blackmagic Cinema Camera 6K
Blackmagic PYXIS Range
Blackmagic Pocket Camera (4K/ 6K G2/ 6K Pro)

*When the Speed Editor first came out I tried to hack it, you can read about that here.

Why now is the time to upgrade to DaVinci Resolve Studio

By way of introduction while Adobe Premiere Pro, Avid Media Composer and Apple’s Final Cut Pro are all video editing applications that can do sound, colour and simple motion graphics, DaVinci Resolve is essentially 5 standalone apps jammed into one.

It features a compelling blend of industry-leading colour grading software, a fully fledged DAW in Fairlight, powerful VFX and motion graphics compositing in Fusion and a custom-built video Editing application spread across the Edit and Cut ‘pages’ of the app. Rounded off with excellent media encoding and rendering capabilities.

And you can enjoy all of this for free.

What are the main differences between the Studio version and the free version?

One of the biggest differences is that the AI-empowering Neural Engine, which supports Magic Mask, Depth Maps, IntelliTrack etc, is not in the free version at all.

So while, this is by no means an exhaustive list it will give you a good idea of the differences:

Feature	DaVinci Resolve Free	DaVinci Resolve Studio
Timeline/Exports Max	4K \| 60fps \| 8bit	32K \| 120fps \| 10bit+
Export Codecs	H.264/H.265	All Pro Codecs
Multi-user Collaboration	Y	Y
AI Neural Engine	N	Y
Text-based Editing	N	Y
Magic Mask/IntelliTrack	N	Y
Noise Reduction/Film Grain/Lens Flares	N	Y
AI Audio Clean up	N	Y
Ext BMD Hardware	N	Y
GPU	1	All

Video Editing Price Comparison in 2026

Secondly, DaVinci Resolve Studio is a bargain.

You pay once, you get a lifetime of free updates.

And the pace of those updates is breakneck. The 20.2 video above gives you a strong overview of how much you get in most .dot updates, while the latest version of Resolve is 20.3.

Compare that to being tied to an on-going subscription that locks you out of all of your existing projects the moment you stop paying. Plus after 3 years, an Adobe Premiere Pro single app subscriber would be around £550/$500 worse off, compared with using DaVinci Resolve.

Blackmagic Design’s co-founder and CEO, Grant Petty, has strong words for subscription-based apps (like Adobe and Avid) that he shared in this Forbes interview:

“Cloud licensors are like slumlords,” he gripes, referring to competitors Adobe and Avid. “You have to keep buying from me and the more you’re loyal, the more you’ll get penalised. It’s like your dog does something nice and you beat it with a stick.”

— Grant Petty, CEO, Blackmagic Design

After 17 years of owning DaVinci Resolve, I don’t think MBD will change this pay once, keep it forever model any time soon.

That said, with the inclusion of more and more AI features, some of which could eventually be processed in the cloud (maybe), BMD might need to add some kind of AI credit subscription or credit packs to cover these additional costs in the future.

What’s more other applications subscription prices have only gone in one direction, up. So if you start your career in one of the other NLEs, expect to never stop paying for it.

But how does today’s cost comparison stack up?

Software	1st Year Cost	Cost after 3 years
DaVinci Resolve	£225 $299	£225 $299
Adobe Premiere Pro*	£262.51 $263.88	£787.53 $791.64
Avid Media Composer	£229 – £479 $260 – $540	£687 – £1437 $780 – $1620
Apple Final Cut Pro	£299 $299	£299 $299
Adobe Creative Cloud*	£773.86 $779.88	£2,321.58 $2339.64

*These are the 100% list prices, but Adobe runs 50% sales most years and so even if you’re an existing subscriber you should definitely ask they chat support team to give you this discount.

DaVinci Resolve Studio’s Best AI Tools

If everything I’ve already said so far isn’t enough to convince you, then what are the best DaVinci Resolve Studio tools that make it worth the upgrade?

If you’re an existing DaVinci Resolve free user then you’ve likely come across many of them already but any tool that uses the DaVinci Resolve Neural Engine – the AI suite – aren’t available in the Free version at all.

These are the kinds of tools that you’re missing out on due to the lack of the DaVinci Resolve Neural Engine in the free version:

Magic Mask – person/object/feature isolation
Face Detection – Create smart bins of people and objects
Speed Warp retiming with Neural Optical Flow
Super Scale – AI upscaling HD to 4K/8K, etc.
Scene Cut Detection (Neural version) for automating cuts on flat files
Smart Reframe – auto-reframing for different aspect ratios
Text-based editing from transcription and AI subtitles
IntelliTrack AI point tracker for tracking/stabilising
AI-powered Ultra NR spatial denoise

There are also a ton of Resolve FX and tools that are Studio only, including:

Temporal Noise Reduction and AI Spatial/Ultra NR
Film Grain
Film Look Creator
Color Warper enhancements and advanced HDR scopes
ColorSlice six-vector grading palette
De-flicker and advanced deinterlacing tools
Aperture Diffraction
Automatic Dirt Removal / Dust removal
Dead Pixel Fixer
Lens Distortion, Lens Flare / lens reflections and other optical lens FX
Cinematic Haze
Defocus Background (AI isolation-based blur)
Halation/bloom-like functions bundled inside Film Look Creator
Scripting and automation with DCTLs, LUA and Python
Remote monitoring and grading sessions

In Fairlight there are a similar mix of AI powered and feature rich tools in the Studio version:

Dialogue Separator FX – separate dialogue, background, ambience
Music Remixer FX – separate/remix stems like vocals, drums, bass
Ducker track FX – auto duck music under dialogue
IntelliTrack – powered audio panning to video
Full native Ambisonics workflow and more advanced 3D/immersive routing
Dolby Atmos / Auro-3D immersive mixing and 3D monitor formats

As an example of all this in action, this excellent tutorial from CreativeVideoTips will guide you through using Resolve’s denoise tools on the Fusion page to deliver a professional level of object removal to your projects.

Why DaVinci Resolve Studio is a Career-Enhancing Upgrade

If you’re a professional editor like me, then you’re probably already wedded – through years of familiarity, muscle memory and in-depth knowledge to a particular video editing app.

For me, that’s Adobe Premiere Pro. I know it too well to give up on it now! Maybe for you it’s Avid Media Composer or Final Cut Pro.

But I would argue, all of us would do well to buy DaVinci Resolve Studio and learn some of the exceptional tools that it has to offer to compliment what we can do in our comfy-slippers-video-editing-software.

For example, for some workflows knowing how to make proxies in Resolve – and still use them in another NLE – can be a HUGE timesaver. Or using Elastic Wave in Fairlight to stretch and squash a line from a different take into the one you want to use visually.

Or maybe it’s learning how to use DaVinci Resolve’s depth maps to put text behind an object, relight a scene or execute a day-for-night transformation.

Furthermore, maybe you’re getting serious about learning how to colour grade your own projects, mastering DaVinci Resolve, even if you edit in something else, will be key to getting passed the limitations of colour grading tools like Adobe Premiere Pro’s Lumetri effect.

Being able to ‘pop into’ DaVinci Resolve Studio and add an effect, process a change or enhance a shot will give you editorial super powers without signing up to yet another subscription or find your login for some AI-cloud platform.

Today’s the day.

Download DaVinci Resolve Studio (or free) and begin your career-enhancing learning journey.