AI Video Cost per Second

AI video costs from $0.03 to $0.68 a second on Nov 12, 2026 on Runway's API price list, the one public list that sells most major models at a fixed dollar rate. Gemini Omni 1.2 Flash, first on Arena's text-to-video board, is $0.07 a second at 720p; Seedance 2.5 at 1080p is the most expensive at $0.68.

AI video costs between $0.03 and $0.68 for each second generated, read on Nov 12, 2026 on Runway's API price list, the one public list that sells most of the major models for dollars instead of plan credits (one credit is $0.01 there). The cheapest 720p second is Grok Imagine 1.5 Lite at $0.03, the dearest 1080p second is Seedance 2.5 at $0.68, and the model in first place on Arena's text-to-video board (dated Nov 8, 2026), Google's Gemini Omni 1.2 Flash, is the second cheapest at $0.07. A 10-second 1080p clip therefore runs from $1.00 (Omni 1.2 Flash) to $6.80 (Seedance 2.5) before you count the takes you throw away.

Next: Kling 4.0's price in Runway, Luma and Pika, with the discount that ends Nov 30, which of these models win the blind votes or the 50 free credits a day that make Omni clips for nothing.

Every model on one price list

Model	720p, per second	1080p, per second	10 seconds at 1080p	Arena rank, Nov 8
Grok Imagine 1.5 Lite	$0.03	$0.14	$1.40	not read
Gemini Omni 1.2 Flash	$0.07	$0.10	$1.00	1st, preliminary
Kling 4.0 Flash	$0.094	not listed		not listed
Wan 3.0	$0.10	$0.20	$2.00	8th
Hailuo 3	$0.10 at 768p	$0.15 at 2K	$1.50 at 2K	11th, as MiniMax H3
Wan 3.0 Prime	$0.14	$0.28	$2.80	not read
HappyHorse 1.0	$0.15	$0.30	$3.00	12th
Kling 4.0	$0.157	$0.235	$2.35	not listed
Grok Imagine 1.5	$0.16	$0.29	$2.90	5th
Seedance 2.0	$0.30	$0.40	$4.00	6th
Seedance 2.5	$0.30	$0.68	$6.80	7th

Source: Runway API pricing, read Nov 12, 2026, credits per second of output turned into dollars at Runway's stated $0.01 a credit; ranks from Arena. Reference images, keyframes and input video cost extra on most rows, and Seedance has a minimum charge per request (56 credits for 2.0, 80 for 2.5). Kling 4.0 is 20% cheaper through Nov 30, 2026 UTC: $0.1256 and $0.188.

Four more models are priced without a resolution, so they sit outside the table: Runway's own Gen-4 Turbo at $0.05 a second and Gen-4.5 at $0.12, Veo 3.1 Fast at $0.15 with audio ($0.10 silent) and Veo 3.1 at $0.40 with audio ($0.20 silent). Kling 3.0 is sold in two grades, standard at $0.09 silent or $0.13 with audio and pro at $0.12 or $0.17.

Read down the last column and price has almost nothing to do with rank. The first-place model costs about a seventh of what seventh-place Seedance 2.5 does at 1080p, and Veo 3.1, 14th on the board, costs four times as much as Omni with sound. What the expensive models sell is something the vote does not score: Seedance 2.5 and Kling 4.0 make 30 seconds in one take.

Is the reseller price the maker's price?

For the one maker whose own list we could read today, yes. Google's Gemini API pricing bills Omni 1.2 Flash at $12 per million video output tokens, which Google works out as about $0.07 a second at 720p, $0.104 at 1080p and $0.209 at 4K. Runway charges 7, 10 and 21 credits, the same money to the cent. Google's page says Omni 1.1 requests are routed to 1.2 and billed at its rates from Dec 3, 2026.

Kling's own price page returned no text to us on Nov 12, 2026; Kling holds the Kling 3.0 API rates it showed on Nov 6, and our Seedance and Hailuo pages found no per-second rate from ByteDance or MiniMax that could be read that day.

The same second costs more inside an app

Subscriptions sell credits in bundles, and the bundle decides the price. The division is ours, from each plan's monthly price and credits on Runway's pricing page and Luma's, read Nov 12, 2026, monthly billing.

Where you buy	Dollars per credit	Kling 4.0, 1080p	Seedance 2.5, 1080p	Veo 3.1 with audio
Runway API	$0.01	$0.235	$0.68	$0.40
Luma Plus, $30 for 10,000 credits	$0.003	$0.237 (79 credits)	$0.573 (191 credits)	$0.42 (140 credits)
Runway Standard, $15 for 625 credits	$0.024	$0.566 (118 credits per 5 s)	not read	not read
Runway Pro, $35 for 2,250 credits	$0.0156	$0.367	not read	not read

A credit on Runway's $15 plan costs 2.4 times a credit on its API, so the plan's own Gen-4.5, 12 credits a second on both, is $0.29 a second in the app and $0.12 through the API; only the $95 Max plan (9,500 credits) reaches the API's cent a credit. Luma's Plus plan lands within a fraction of a cent of Runway's API for Kling 4.0 and undercuts it for Seedance 2.5. Credits you do not spend in the month are money lost, which no per-second figure shows.

What a one-minute video really costs

A worked example with one assumption of ours: six 10-second shots at 1080p, three takes of each to get one worth keeping, so 180 seconds generated for 60 used.

Model	180 seconds generated	Per finished minute
Gemini Omni 1.2 Flash	180 x $0.10	$18.00
Wan 3.0	180 x $0.20	$36.00
Kling 4.0, list	180 x $0.235	$42.30
Veo 3.1 with audio	180 x $0.40	$72.00
Seedance 2.5	180 x $0.68	$122.40

Drafting at a lower resolution changes this more than switching model: Seedance 2.5 at 480p is $0.20 a second on the same list, under a third of its 1080p rate.

What creators found

30:50 Dan Kieft, closing his Oct 28, 2026 tier list of six video models, singled out Wan 3.0 as possibly one of the best tools "for the value that you get for the price". The list above agrees: Wan 3.0 is eighth on Arena at $0.20 a second for 1080p, below Kling 4.0's $0.235 and under a third of Seedance 2.5's $0.68.

17:25 In Youri van Hofwegen's Sep 21, 2026 ranking, counted in the credits of the app he used, a clip cost him 17.5 credits on Kling 3, 25 on HappyHorse and 65 on Seedance 2.5, "a bit over three times the price of Kling"; he keeps Kling for testing ideas and pays for Seedance when the shot has to be right. Runway's API shows a similar gap: Seedance 2.5 at 1080p is four times Kling 3.0 pro with audio.

What we think

We think a model in the top five of Arena's text-to-video board costs $0.05 a second or less at 720p on Runway's API price list on Jun 1, 2027. Today the cheapest top-five model there is Gemini Omni 1.2 Flash at $0.07, which arrived 30% under Omni 1.1, and Grok Imagine 1.5 Lite already sells a 720p second for $0.03 without a top-five rank we could confirm. Being wrong means the price of the best models stopped falling for half a year.

Confidence: Possible. Check by: Jun 2027.