Pricing research · October 2026

The real cost of AI video: $2.52 to $40.80 per minute

Every major video model prices differently — per second, per resolution, with or without native audio. I pulled each provider's own pricing page and normalised everything to one number: the cost of one minute of finished footage.

Cost per minute of output

Model	Resolution	Per second	1 min	8 sec	Source
Kling 2.6	720p	$0.042	$2.52	$0.34	Kling
Wan 3	480p	$0.050	$3.00	$0.40	Runway
Runway Gen-4 Turbo	—	$0.050	$3.00	$0.40	Runway
Kling 3.0	720p	$0.084	$5.04	$0.67	Kling
Hailuo 3	768p	$0.100	$6.00	$0.80	Runway
Kling 3.0	1080p	$0.112	$6.72	$0.90	Kling
Runway Gen-4.5	—	$0.120	$7.20	$0.96	Runway
Kling 3.0 + native audio	1080p	$0.168	$10.08	$1.34	Kling
Veo 3.1	no audio	$0.200	$12.00	$1.60	Runway
Seedance 2.5	720p	$0.300	$18.00	$2.40	Runway
Veo 3.1	with audio	$0.400	$24.00	$3.20	Runway
Kling 3.0	4K	$0.420	$25.20	$3.36	Kling
Seedance 2.5	1080p	$0.680	$40.80	$5.44	Runway

List prices only, converted to USD. Rows sourced to Runway are the rates published on Runway's developer pricing page, which resells those models; rows sourced to Kling are the provider's own published rates. Prices checked 2026-10-30. Every row links to its source — check any of them. Want your own batch numbers? Use the cost calculator.

Why per-second pricing misleads

A per-second rate tells you what one successful generation costs. It does not tell you what a finished shot costs, because finished shots are not first takes. For anything with people, hands, or text in frame, a 1-in-2 hit rate is normal — so the realistic multiplier on every number above is 2×.

That turns the table into a budget: a 300-clip month at 8 seconds each is 4,800 generated seconds — roughly $200 to $3,300 depending on which model you picked, not “a few dollars”. The model choice, not the volume, is what moves the invoice.

Method

Prices were read from each provider's published pricing documentation on 2026-10-30, converted to USD at the published unit rate, and normalised to 60 seconds of output. Where a provider bills in “units”, the unit price stated on the page was used. No estimates, no interpolation: if a configuration was not published, it is not in the table.

This is a static page with no tracking beyond the site's own analytics. If a number here is wrong or out of date, tell us and it gets fixed — the source link for each row is right there.

FAQ

Choosing between named models? Veo 3.1 vs Seedance 2.5 vs Kling 3.0 walks through the same numbers by use case. Or run your own batch through the calculator.

Why is 4K almost four times the price of 1080p?

Because most providers bill per generated second at a resolution tier, not per pixel. Kling 3.0 charges $0.112/s at 1080p and $0.42/s at 4K — a 3.75× step for a 4× pixel count. If a shot only ships at 1080p, generating at 4K “to be safe” is the single most expensive habit in the table.

Does native audio really cost 50% more?

On Kling 3.0, yes: $0.112/s at 1080p without audio, $0.168/s with it. Whether that beats generating silent video and adding audio in post depends on your editing pipeline — but it is a real line item, not a rounding error.

Why are some models priced through Runway rather than the provider?

Because that is where the public API price is published for those models. Aggregators resell at close to provider list price — the spread across platforms for the same model is usually 0–7%, not the 16× you see across models. The model choice dominates; the reseller does not.

What is the cheapest way to produce 300 clips a month?

At a 2× retry rate and 8-second clips, 300 finished clips is 4,800 generated seconds: about $202 at Kling 2.6 720p, $538 at Kling 3.0 1080p, and about $3,264 at Seedance 2.5 1080p. The gap between “cheapest” and “best-looking” is where most of the budget decision actually lives.

How often is this updated?

Whenever a provider changes its pricing page. The checked-on date is in the note under the table; if it looks stale, assume it is stale.