Runway

Runway is an AI video company whose app makes and edits video with its own Gen-4.5 and Aleph 2.0 models plus outside models such as Kling 4.0 and Seedance. It has a free trial with 125 credits, and paid plans cost $15, $35 or $95 a month as of Nov 6, 2026.

0:12 Runway is an AI video app from Runway AI, Inc. for generating and editing video: its own models are Gen-4.5 for text and image to video and Aleph 2.0 for editing existing footage, and it also sells Kling 4.0, Seedance and Google's Nano Banana Pro inside the same app. As of Nov 6, 2026 it is free to try with a one-time 125 credits, and paid plans cost $15, $35 or $95 a month ($12, $28 or $76 billed yearly), with Gen-4.5 at 12 credits a second, so the $15 plan buys about 52 seconds of Gen-4.5 video.

Runway is best for editing and reworking video (Aleph 2.0 changes a whole clip from one edited frame) and for teams that want many models, an agent and a timeline in one place. If you only care about raw generation quality, its Gen-4.5 ranks 29th on Arena's text-to-video leaderboard, well behind Google's Gemini Omni (1st) and ByteDance's Seedance 2.0 (6th) (Arena, read Nov 6, 2026); Google Flow gives Gemini Omni with 50 free credits a day. Best AI Video Generator compares them.

The words Building Real-World Intelligence and the Runway wordmark over a blurred landscape Runway

Quick facts

Get it	runway.com on the web; API and Runway MCP for developers
Maker	Runway AI, Inc., founded in 2018
Price	Free (125 credits once); Standard $15, Pro $35, Max $95 a month (as of Nov 6, 2026)
Own models	Gen-4.5, Gen-4, Gen-4 Turbo, Aleph 2.0, Act-Two, Ruby, Gen-4 Image, GWM Worlds 2
Outside models	Kling 4.0, Seedance 2.0 and 2.5, Nano Banana Pro, Lyria 3, ElevenLabs (Runway)
Ranking	Gen-4.5 29th on Arena text-to-video, score 1223 (read Nov 6, 2026)
Best for	Video editing with AI, ads and campaign work, picking among several models
Open weights	No

Plans and prices

Plan	Price	What you get
Free	$0	125 credits once, a selection of models, 5 GB
Standard	$15 a month or $12 yearly	625 credits a month (about 52 s of Gen-4.5), all models, no watermark, 4K upscaling, 3 projects
Pro	$35 a month or $28 yearly	2,250 credits (about 187 s of Gen-4.5), 1 custom voice, credit top-ups, Runway MCP, unlimited 4K upscaling
Max	$95 a month or $76 yearly	9,500 credits (about 791 s of Gen-4.5), early model access, HDR and ProRes output, credits roll over one month
Enterprise	Custom	Contact sales

Source: Runway pricing, read Nov 6, 2026. Runway has no unlimited-generation plan as of that date.

Credit costs on the same page: Gen-4.5 60 credits per 5 seconds, Aleph 2.0 140 per 5 seconds, Kling 4.0 at 1080p 118 per 5 seconds (89 with a 25% discount running through Nov 30), Seedance 2.0 Pro at 1080p 160 per 4 seconds, a Gen-4 image 8 credits, a Nano Banana Pro 2K image 20.

Models

Gen-4.5 launched for all paid plans on Dec 11, 2025. Runway said it set a record on the Artificial Analysis text-to-video benchmark and handles motion and collisions better than earlier models, while SiliconANGLE noted it can still render effects too early or miss objects you asked for (SiliconANGLE, Dec 1, 2025). Image-to-video followed on Jan 21, 2026.

3:02 Gen-4 (Mar 31, 2025) was, in Runway's words, its first model to achieve "world consistency": the same characters, objects and locations across shots. In its launch video, Runway's team photographed a wooden toy with a phone and placed it on a New York sidewalk from that reference image and a prompt.

Aleph 2.0, launched May 21, 2026 with Edit Studio, edits footage you already have: change one frame and the rest of the clip follows. The first Aleph arrived on Jul 31, 2025.

Act-Two (Jul 17, 2025) transfers a performer's head, face, body and hands onto a character, with voice changing added on Aug 20, 2025.

Ruby (Aug 20, 2026) is a color-grading model that converts clips to HDR, on Max and higher plans.

World models. GWM-1 (Dec 2025) builds explorable environments, and Runway lists GWM Worlds 2 (Sep 3, 2026) and Solaris (Sep 1, 2026), which draws an app's interface frame by frame, on its research page.

Features

Runway Agent. Since May 13, 2026 a chat agent plans and produces videos; Agent 2.0 (Jun 25, 2026) builds marketing campaigns, and since Jul 23 it can turn a plain-language description into a multi-step Workflow.

Characters. Real-time talking avatars, through the API and a web demo, since Mar 9, 2026.

Audio. Text to speech, sound effects and voice changing since Dec 18, 2025, and Seed Audio 1.0 for speech, sound and music up to 120 seconds since Jun 29, 2026 (Runway changelog).

Outside models. Runway added Kling 3.0 and older Kling models on Feb 20, 2026 and Seedance 2.0 on Apr 7, 2026, so one subscription covers several model makers.

History

2018: Runway founded (SiliconANGLE).
Jul 2025: Act-Two and the first Aleph.
Dec 2025: Gen-4.5 and the GWM-1 world model.
Feb 10, 2026: Runway closes a $315 million round led by General Atlantic, with Nvidia, AMD Ventures and Adobe Ventures; TechCrunch's source put the value at $5.3 billion.
May 2026: Runway Agent, Aleph 2.0 and Edit Studio.
Aug and Sep 2026: Ruby, Solaris and GWM Worlds 2.

Runway vs the alternatives

Google Flow runs Google's Gemini Omni, first on Arena's text-to-video board, and gives 50 free credits a day; pick it for top generation quality on a budget.

Kling sold directly is the source of Kling 4.0, which makes up to 30 seconds in one pass; Runway resells it at credit rates.

Luma is Runway's closest match as a multi-model agent studio, starting higher at $30 a month.

Pika has a cheaper $10 a month entry plan and its own open-weight Pika H3 Flex model.

Wan runs on your own computer for free if you have the graphics card for it.

Frequently asked questions

Is Runway free? Runway has a free plan with a one-time 125 credits and access to some models, enough for about 10 seconds of Gen-4.5, as of Nov 6, 2026; regular use needs Standard at $15 a month.

How much does Runway cost? Runway Standard is $15 a month ($12 yearly), Pro $35 ($28), and Max $95 ($76), with 625, 2,250 and 9,500 credits a month, as of Nov 6, 2026.

How many seconds of video do Runway credits buy? Gen-4.5 costs 12 credits a second, so Runway Standard's 625 credits make about 52 seconds and Pro's 2,250 about 187 seconds.

What is Runway Aleph? Aleph is Runway's video-editing model: Aleph 2.0, launched May 21, 2026, changes a whole clip to match an edit you make to one frame.

Is there a Runway Gen-5? Runway had not announced a Gen-5 as of Nov 6, 2026; Gen-4.5 is its newest generation model.

Can I use Kling in Runway? Yes. Runway offers Kling 4.0 at 118 credits per 5 seconds of 1080p video, plus Seedance 2.0 and 2.5, as of Nov 6, 2026.