There are actually quite a few competitors to Descript now that might be cheaper or better for your workflow. You should check the "Video" category at https://aidude.info/tools They list a bunch of video editing AIs that specialize in things like silence removal and auto-captioning. It is better to compare the features side-by-side there than to just buy the first one you saw in an ad.

I will check the video category. Comparing features first is definitely the smart move.