There is no shortage of video tools. Most are built for creators, marketers and sales teams, and they are very good at what those people need. Financial advisors need something a little different: a way to say the right thing on camera, week after week, in a way their firm can supervise.
Use this checklist to compare options, whether you are an independent advisor choosing for yourself or a firm choosing for every advisor you support.
First, name the real problem
The hard part of advisor video is rarely editing. It is getting started, staying on message, and doing it again next week. A tool that saves ten minutes in editing but leaves you staring at a blank page has solved the wrong problem.
The checklist
1. Where do the words come from?
Look for more than one route to a script: your firm's approved library, your own words, an uploaded document, and an AI first draft for timely topics. Then check that every route ends in the same place, a script you review and lock before you record.
2. Does it check your camera before you record?
Poor framing, a dark room or a noisy microphone can ruin a great take, and you usually find out afterward. A check before recording that coaches framing, lighting and audio will save you more time than any editing feature.
3. Does it keep you on script?
Many tools offer a teleprompter. What matters is that it reads from the locked script and paces you, so what you say matches what was approved.
4. Can you edit without an editor?
If trimming a stumble means opening a timeline, most advisors won't do it. With transcript-based editing, you remove words from the captions and the video is cut to match. Anyone can do that.
5. Do you get every format from one take?
Your website, your LinkedIn feed and vertical video all favor different shapes. A tool built for advisors should deliver landscape (16:9), portrait (4:5) and vertical (9:16) versions from a single recording.
6. Are captions and a transcript included?
Burned-in captions make a video work with the sound off. A separate caption file and a transcript let you reuse the same content on your site, in an email or in a blog post.
7. Are branding and disclosures automatic?
Every video should carry your name, title and brand, plus your firm's approved disclosure, without anyone having to remember to add them. Manual steps are where inconsistency creeps in.
Comparing tools right now? Book a demo and we'll go through this list with you, point by point.
8. What record does compliance get?
Ask whether compliance can review the exact rendered file, not just the script. Retention rules can also differ inside the same firm. The SEC's books and records rule for investment advisers (Rule 204-2) generally requires advertisements to be kept for at least five years, while FINRA Rule 2210 points broker-dealers to Exchange Act Rule 17a-4(b), which sets a period of at least three years. A firm with both an RIA and a broker-dealer can be running two clocks on the same video, so your compliance team should confirm which apply.
9. Who presses publish?
Some tools post straight to social accounts. At many firms, publishing is a supervised step. Check whether the tool can publish on its own, and whether you want it to.
10. What happens to your footage?
Ask where recordings are stored, how long they are kept and whether they are used to train AI models. If the tool offers AI avatars, ask how the likeness is created and how consent is captured.
How Cue Studio answers the list
Cue Studio was built for exactly this list. Scripts come from four routes (your firm library, your own words, an upload or a Cue draft), and every one is locked before recording. A camera check coaches framing, lighting and audio before you start, and a paced teleprompter keeps you on script. Editing works through the captions.
Every session delivers 16:9, 4:5 and 9:16 cuts with captions, your name, title and brand color, and a disclosure slide, plus an SRT file, a transcript and a LinkedIn post drafted in your voice. Compliance can review the exact rendered files. Cue never posts on your behalf, and your recordings are not used to train AI models.
Bring this checklist to a demo. Book a time and we'll answer every point with your own use case, then set you up with a 14-day free trial to test it yourself.