Fit an Episode's Segments Into the Runtime You Actually Have — Free
Episodes overrun in the edit, not in the studio. Planning segments against a real runtime — with the intro, the ad slot and the outro counted — turns the edit into trimming rather than deleting, and it keeps the last segment from being the one that always disappears.
The proof surface
Free path: the card computes locally in the browser with no key and no account. Where an AI step helps, any free chat assistant works — Google AI Studio's free tier and Groq's free tier were both no-card and rate-limited when this page was reviewed on 2026-09-13 (limits change; check before you rely on them).
Why the flat version breaks
A topic list is not a run sheet. The run sheet has minutes, and the minutes have to add up to the runtime including everything nobody counts: the intro, the housekeeping, the credits. That arithmetic is five minutes of work that saves an hour in the edit.
How to build the run sheet in four passes
Cold open, titles, housekeeping, the ad slot, the credits. These are where runtimes go wrong, and they are the segments most often left off the sheet entirely.
What it takes to say the thing properly, including the retake you will do. Optimistic minutes produce a sheet that fails at the microphone rather than in the edit.
If episodes come out at 34 minutes, plan 34. A plan built on 38 produces a permanent four-minute trim that lands on whichever segment is last.
The sheet shows which segments were scaled and by how much. If the closing segment lost a third of its time, move a segment to the next episode deliberately rather than discovering it while editing.
SAMPLE DATA, NOT A VERIFIED CLAIM: Episode 42 · 38-minute runtime · 40 minutes requested · six segments · scaled by 95%. Replace these values with your own source before you rely on anything.
What breaks first
Planning to the runtime without the housekeeping
Titles, housekeeping and credits are real minutes. Leaving them off is the single most common reason the last segment gets cut.
Scaling the interview and keeping the ad read
The card scales everything proportionally, which is fair. If something is fixed — a sponsor read, a legal line — plan the rest to fit around it rather than letting the scale take it.
Treating the sheet as the edit
The run sheet is a plan; the conversation decides the real shape. The sheet's job is to tell you early whether the episode is over-full, not to constrain what gets said.
What you pay otherwise
| The usual route | What it leaves out | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| A cut closing segment | The ending removed in the edit because the time ran out | the strongest minute |
| Longer editing sessions | Deciding what to cut from a two-hour recording | an evening per episode |
| A rushed guest segment | Questions skipped because the runtime was optimistic | the interview |
| This page + the free studio run sheet strip | Computed in your tab, result on screen before you type anything | $0 |
Try the free studio run sheet strip
Six segments are already checked against a 38-minute runtime. Drop the runtime to 30 and every block is rescaled with the trim shown.
Open the free studio run sheet strip →Keep the work if you will use it again
Every segment, the scaling against the runtime, the trim flags and the running clock, with no account.
Every segment, the scaling and the trim stay free. The one-time tier adds the printable run sheet plus the saved episodes behind it.
Boundary: This plans a recording session you are running; it does not know your platform's requirements or your sponsor obligations. Check any fixed reads and published-length requirements before recording.