Kling AI
CE 90 free tierThe planned shoot, not the first experiment.
Entry plan$6.99 / seat
× 6 seats$41.94
Against your $114 ceiling−$72.06
Team cost$41.94 / mo
Verified
Reviewed by
Oleh Kem
Oleh KemPlans checked65 / 15 vendors
“Contact sales”11/65
Median entry$19.49/mo
Entry range$6.99-100
Publish a price14/15
Free tier12/15
Leader100 Hailuo AI
AI video generators compared: pricing, image to video and motion
From $6.99 a month at the consumer end up to corporate avatar platforms and API tiers sold in credit packs, AI video pricing in 2026 covers markets that barely compete. We read every published plan for 15 vendors and scored each on how much of it you can see before you pay.
What does an AI video generator cost, and how many seconds does that buy?
The unit on sale is a second of finished video, and the 15 generators here price it four different ways. The cheapest paid month in the category is $6.99, the median $19.49, checked July 29, 2026. Resolution, model and queue speed then decide how many seconds that month actually renders.
- Free tiers are common, 12 of them here, and each one holds something back: a watermark, a resolution ceiling, or output you are not licensed to sell.
- Fourteen put a figure where anyone can read it. One shows a consumer price only after login, and states outright that the number moves with region and device.
- Seven publish a price at every step. The others go quiet at an enterprise or API tier and route you to a form.
- Credits, not minutes, are what a monthly plan buys. One clip costs more credits in 1080p than in 480p, and more again on the newest model.
- Expiry is the norm rather than the exception. Unused credits generally die at the reset, and carrying them forward is a privilege of the dearest tier where it exists at all.
Ranked by a transparency score: pricing transparency 60%, user satisfaction 40%. Capability is not scored. It is the condition grid below. Prices are read from vendor pricing pages and re-checked per product on the dates shown. ComparEdge sells no AI video generators and takes no payment for placement. How the score is built.
01 / 07
AI video tools ranked: image to video, voice track and motion control
A mark shows the smallest monthly figure a vendor will take, read off the page where it sells. Ten times the money shifts a mark only two steps right; the axis is a log scale. What no mark can tell you is how much video that month renders.
Sorted by transparency scorePriced tiers 54 / 65Full disclosure 7 / 15
How to read this table
Reading the console
Vendors that put the most on the record sit at the top. Each mark sits at that smallest monthly figure, and the figure is a door charge, nothing more. Underneath every mark runs a meter no axis can draw: credits charged per second, per clip or per model, an annual minute allotment on the avatar platforms, and media hours counted apart from AI credits on the editors. Two vendors sharing a point on the axis can return very unequal amounts of footage. A tick in a capability column means we found the feature recorded; an unmarked cell means we found nothing on the record for it. That is a gap in the evidence, and we leave it as one.
- Price axis
- One shared logarithmic axis, $6.99 to $1k. A tick further right is genuinely dearer. The tall tick is the cheapest paid tier.
- Diamond
- A flat platform fee, billed per month, not per seat.
- Granted
- Listed on the vendor’s own pages on the verify date.
- Conditional
- Present, but some tiers carry no published price.
- Not on the record
- Absent from the recorded feature set. It means unlisted, not incapable.
01Hailuo AIFree tierAll tiers pricedImage to video listedVoice track not on the recordMotion control listedAPI listed$14.99/u100Alternatives to Hailuo AI
02Veo 2Free tierAll tiers pricedImage to video not on the recordVoice track not on the recordMotion control listedAPI listed$19.99/u100Alternatives to Veo 2
03Wan VideoFree tierAll tiers pricedImage to video listedVoice track not on the recordMotion control not on the recordAPI listed$10/u100Alternatives to Wan Video
04CapCut AIFree tierAll tiers pricedImage to video not on the recordVoice track listedMotion control not on the recordAPI not on the record$9.99/u93Alternatives to CapCut AI
05Kling AIFree tierAll tiers pricedImage to video listedVoice track not on the recordMotion control listedAPI listed$6.99/u90Alternatives to Kling AI
06PixVerseNo free tierAll tiers pricedImage to video listedVoice track not on the recordMotion control listedAPI listed$100flat88Alternatives to PixVerse
07PikaFree tierAll tiers pricedImage to video listedVoice track listedMotion control listedAPI not on the record$10/u87Alternatives to Pika
08InVideo AIFree tier1 of 8 tiers unpricedImage to video not on the recordVoice track listedMotion control not on the recordAPI listed$20/u84Alternatives to InVideo AI
09DescriptFree tier1 of 5 tiers unpricedImage to video not on the recordVoice track listedMotion control not on the recordAPI not on the record$24/u81Alternatives to Descript
10SynthesiaFree tier1 of 4 tiers unpricedImage to video not on the recordVoice track listedMotion control not on the recordAPI listed$29/u78Alternatives to Synthesia
11RunwayFree tier1 of 5 tiers unpricedImage to video listedVoice track listedMotion control listedAPI listed$15/u77Alternatives to Runway
12HeyGenFree tier3 of 7 tiers unpricedImage to video listedVoice track listedMotion control not on the recordAPI not on the record$29/u69Alternatives to HeyGen
13vidIQ AIFree tier2 of 5 tiers unpricedImage to video not on the recordVoice track not on the recordMotion control not on the recordAPI not on the record$19/u65Alternatives to vidIQ AI
14Luma AINo free tier2 of 5 tiers unpricedImage to video listedVoice track listedMotion control listedAPI listed$30/u64Alternatives to Luma AI
15SoraProduct discontinuedNo free tierAll tiers pricedImage to video listedVoice track not on the recordMotion control listedAPI not on the recordRetired0Alternatives to Sora
GrantedSome tiers sealedNot on the recordCheapest paid seatFlat account fee, not per seatScore ranks pricing transparency and user ratings, not capability. Capability is the grid.
15 vendorsMedian entry $19.49Coverage span 4 → 0 of fourSealed tiers 11 / 65
Scroll the console sideways to reach the remaining conditions.
02 / 07
Shortlist an AI video tool by render volume and what it costs
The shortlist ranks by what the plan actually costs your team, not by list price. Flat plans are folded into a per-team number so they compare like for like. Only vendors rated 85 and up are eligible.
Seats
6
Budget / seat
For 6 seats at $19 per seat, start with these
Ranked by monthly team cost, vendors rated 85 and up · Your ceiling for this team: $114 / mo
CapCut AI
CE 93 free tierPhone-first editors cutting vertical video who want captions and effects in one app.
Entry plan$9.99 / seat
× 6 seats$59.94
Against your $114 ceiling−$54.06
Team cost$59.94 / mo
Wan Video
CE 100 free tierThe open-weights option, not the hosted one.
Entry plan$10 / seat
× 6 seats$60
Against your $114 ceiling−$54
Team cost$60 / mo
Over your ceilingVeo 2 $19.99 / seat
Not sure what to weigh? Five questions narrow it faster than the grid.Answer 5 questions
03 / 07
Every generator's plans, verdicts and the date we checked each price
Each card opens on the tiers we verified, the date of the check, and our read on where the meter turns expensive. Ranking is the transparency score; neither price nor popularity moves it.
Transparency scorePricing transparency 60%User satisfaction 40%
Short-form creators who generate in bursts and then stop. Hailuo reads its own cheapest paid month as about three clips at 1080p, and paying annually takes nearly half off three of its four paid tiers.
Plan table and expert take
Hailuo AI: expert take
The top tier is the one place annual billing changes nothing: it holds the same monthly figure either way, while the tiers below drop by nearly half. Credits expire at the end of each month, and unlimited access means one model, not unlimited compute.
Where Hailuo AI holds up
- Exceptional motion dynamics and physical realism
- Generous free tier with daily generation credits
- High degree of character and style consistency
- Fast generation speeds for quick iterations
- Supports up to 8K resolution output
5.0CE scoreG2 5 · 1 reviewsFounded 2023Verified July 16, 2026
| Plan | Monthly | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Free | Free |
| Standard | $14.99 | $7.99 |
| Pro | $54.99 | $27.99 |
| Master | $119.99 | $63.99 |
| Max | $199.99 | Not published |
A rate card, not an app. Veo 2 runs through Google Cloud and bills by the second, while the consumer route is a Google AI subscription handing you a monthly credit pool.
Plan table and expert take
Veo 2: expert take
The Veo 2 API rate is $0.50 a second at 720p, and the advanced camera controls cost the same as a plain call. This generation carries no audio track at any price, and Google has published an end-of-life date for the model.
Where Veo 2 holds up
- Generates 1080p-plus video running over a minute
- Genuine cinematic camera control, so text like 'dolly zoom' or 'tracking shot' produces the actual move
- Holds temporal and visual consistency well within a single subject and shot
- Handles nuanced physics and object interaction that survives a close look
- Latent diffusion transformer architecture pushes fine detail in the frame
Founded 2024Verified July 8, 2026
| Plan | Monthly | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| Free Access | Free | Free |
| Google AI Pro | $19.99 | Not published |
| Google AI Ultra | $249.99 | Not published |
| Veo 2 API | $0.50 / request | Not published |
The open-weights option, not the hosted one. Wan's free tier generates without spending credits at all, one job at a time, and paid credits work only inside its web app rather than the API.
Critical gapThe free tier caps you to one video at a time and locks watermark-free 1080p behind Pro.
Plan table and expert take
Wan Video: expert take
Annual billing is a straight halving on both paid tiers, the largest published annual cut in this category. Purchased credits keep a two-year life, and the larger packs add bonus credits on top of the face amount.
Where Wan Video holds up
- Permissive Apache 2.0 license allows for commercial use
- High-resolution output (1024x576) with strong temporal consistency
- Excellent performance on anime, 3D, and Chinese-style aesthetics
- Can be fine-tuned on custom datasets for specific styles
- Runs locally on consumer GPUs (24GB VRAM recommended)
Founded 2025Verified July 16, 2026
| Plan | Monthly | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Free | Free |
| Pro | $10 | $5 |
| Premium | $40 | $20 |
Phone-first editors cutting vertical video who want captions and effects in one app. CapCut is the one consumer price we could not read anywhere in this category: the vendor says it moves with region and device, and shows it only after you log in.
Critical gapThe platform lacks reliable customer support and consistent AI-generated output accuracy.
Plan table and expert take
CapCut AI: expert take
Even the shape of this ladder is inference. The vendor confirms a yearly option exists but not what it saves, its pricing URL returns a 404, and every figure in our record is a third-party reading pending a logged-in check.
Where CapCut AI holds up
- Seamless one-click export directly to TikTok
- Massive library of trending TikTok sounds & effects
- Generous free plan with no watermarks on exports
- AI-powered auto captions are surprisingly accurate
- Available on mobile, desktop, and web for cross-device editing
4.7CE scoreG2 4.6 · 150 reviewsCapterra 4.7Founded 2020Verified July 8, 2026
| Plan | Monthly | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Free | Free |
| Standard | $9.99 | Not published |
| Popular | $19.99 | Not published |
| Professional | $29.99 | Not published |
The planned shoot, not the first experiment. The Standard card prints $6.99 for the opening month beside the rate it renews at, so the second bill arrives higher by design.
Critical gapThe credit-based pricing model causes unpredictable expenditure during high-volume production cycles.
Plan table and expert take
Kling AI: expert take
A video unit and an image unit share a name and nothing else: the video one costs forty times the image one, and neither converts into the other. Units also expire on 30 or 180-day validity windows, so a prepaid pack carries a clock.
Where Kling AI holds up
- Generates up to 2-minute videos at 1080p 30fps
- Advanced physics simulation for realistic motion
- Reconstructs 3D space for complex camera movements
- Simulates real-world lighting and reflections accurately
- Supports variable aspect ratios for different platforms
4.6CE scoreCapterra 4.5Founded 2023Verified July 12, 2026
| Plan | Monthly | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| Basic | Free | Free |
| Standard | $6.99 | $6.60 |
| Pro | $25.99 | $24.42 |
| Premier | $64.99 | $60.72 |
| Ultra | $127.99 | $119.17 |
Teams that wire generation into their own product instead of clicking through an app. The tier on this axis is PixVerse's platform plan, and its rate table doubles the credit cost the moment you pick the fast queue.
Plan table and expert take
PixVerse: expert take
Credit density rises with the size of the membership, from 150 credits per dollar at the entry tier to about 178 at the top, while pay-as-you-go packs stay flat at 100. Audio is a surcharge on the base clip, never a bundled rate.
Where PixVerse holds up
- Generous free tier with 1000 monthly credits
- Unique anime and 3D cartoon style models
- Fully-featured mobile app for on-the-go generation
- Negative prompts for fine-tuning character and scene elements
- Upscale video resolution to 4K on paid plans
4.5CE scoreG2 4.4 · 10 reviewsFounded 2023Verified July 8, 2026
| Plan | Monthly | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| Essential | $100 | Not published |
| Scale | $1,500 | Not published |
| Business | $6,000 | Not published |
Solo creators posting short vertical clips who want to pay in small increments. Pika is the only generator here that will take a weekly payment. The top of its lineup runs the opposite way, sold by the year only.
Critical gapPro plan tiers fail to deliver documented performance improvements.
Plan table and expert take
Pika: expert take
Resolution drives the meter harder than duration: the same five-second clip is 12 credits at 480p, 20 at 720p and 40 at 1080p, and ten seconds doubles it again. Rollover credits are a purchase here, not a plan feature.
Where Pika holds up
- Modify Region feature offers precise in-video object editing
- Lip Sync tool automatically animates dialogue for characters
- Expand Canvas feature changes video aspect ratios (e.g., 9:16 to 16:9)
- Generous free plan with 30 initial credits and no watermarks
- Sound Effects generation adds audio matching video content
4.5CE scoreG2 4.4 · 6 reviewsCapterra 4.3Founded 2023Verified July 16, 2026
| Plan | Monthly | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| Free / Basic | Free | Free |
| Standard | $10 | $8 |
| Pro | $35 | $28 |
| Fancy | Not published | $76 |
Marketers assembling stock-led videos from a written brief. InVideo caps generations as well as credits at the entry tier, and every plan card carries its own annual switch instead of one toggle for the page.
Critical gapThe engine produces frequent spelling errors requiring manual scene-level post-production correction.
Plan table and expert take
InVideo AI: expert take
The $20 Plus plan is 75 credits, and the price per credit holds flat all the way up the ladder. What moves with the tier is the stock quota: iStock downloads are metered per plan, and team seats are a separate ladder again.
Where InVideo AI holds up
- Generates a complete, editable video from a single text prompt
- Includes 8M+ premium iStock media assets in paid plans
- Offers human-like AI voiceovers in multiple languages and accents
- Provides a collaborative editor for real-time team feedback
- Free plan includes 10 mins/week of AI generation with watermark
4.6CE scoreG2 4.5 · 171 reviewsCapterra 4.6Founded 2017Verified July 16, 2026
| Plan | Monthly | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Free | Free |
| Plus | $20 | $17 |
| Max | $100 | $85 |
| Generative | $200 | $170 |
| Elite | $1,000 | $900 |
| Team: Standard Seat | $50 | Not published |
| Team: Premium Seat | $500 | Not published |
| Enterprise | Contact sales | |
Podcasters and video teams who edit by cutting the transcript instead of the timeline. Descript runs two meters while you work, media hours and AI credits, and they empty at different speeds.
Critical gapThe platform lacks the granular audio mixing tools required by professional editors.
Plan table and expert take
Descript: expert take
The entry plan meters ten media hours against 400 AI credits a month, and the two empty independently. Top-ups are sold only from the middle tier up, so the cheapest paid plan has no way to buy itself out of a busy month.
Where Descript holds up
- Edit video/audio by simply editing the transcribed text.
- Overdub feature clones your voice to fix audio mistakes.
- Studio Sound enhances voice recordings with one click.
- Automatically removes filler words ('um', 'uh') and silences.
- Multitrack editing for complex podcast and video projects.
4.7CE scoreG2 4.6 · 867 reviewsCapterra 4.7Founded 2017Verified July 16, 2026
| Plan | Monthly | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Free | Free |
| Hobbyist | $24 | $16 |
| Creator | $35 | $24 |
| Business | $65 | $50 |
| Enterprise | Contact sales | |
Training and comms teams that need one script delivered by an avatar in dozens of languages. Synthesia meters video minutes by the year rather than the month, so three heavy weeks can eat an annual allotment.
Critical gapThe software exhibits documented rendering latency and limited native slide integration for complex presentations.
Plan table and expert take
Synthesia: expert take
Starter's allotment is 120 minutes for the year and Creator's is 360, spent whenever you like. Studio avatars stay a yearly add-on even for paying customers, and the free tier renders ten minutes a month that you cannot download.
Where Synthesia holds up
- Competitive pricing from $29/mo
- Highly rated (4.7/5 on review platforms)
- 12 key features including AI avatars and 120+ languages
- Multiple pricing tiers (3 plans) to match different needs
- API access for custom integrations
4.7CE scoreG2 4.6 · 2,742 reviewsCapterra 4.7Founded 2017Verified July 16, 2026
| Plan | Monthly | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| Basic | Free | Free |
| Starter | $29 | $18 |
| Creator | $89 | $64 |
| Enterprise | Contact sales | |
Creative professionals who want a whole toolkit rather than one prompt box. Runway's top tier sells unlimited generations at a relaxed rate, the one step on its price list where the counter stops mattering.
Critical gapThe engine restricts complex creative sequences to pre-defined, task-specific generation parameters.
Plan table and expert take
Runway: expert take
Free credits are 125 in total, not a monthly allowance, and only the top tier carries anything over into the next month. The burn rate per model is published nowhere, so the credit count on a plan is the only number you can plan against.
Where Runway holds up
- Gen-2 model offers state-of-the-art text-to-video quality
- All-in-one suite: generation, editing, and VFX tools
- Multi Motion Brush for precise, isolated animation control
- Generous free tier with 125 credits for initial testing
- Advanced camera controls for cinematic shots (zoom, pan, tilt)
4.6CE scoreG2 4.5 · 18 reviewsCapterra 4.4Founded 2018Verified July 16, 2026
| Plan | Monthly | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Free | Free |
| Standard | $15 | $12 |
| Pro | $35 | $28 |
| Unlimited | $95 | $76 |
| Enterprise | Contact sales | |
The localization desk, not the film crew. HeyGen turns one script into avatar takes across languages, and its Pro card hides a credit dropdown where the price per credit does not scale evenly.
Critical gapThe system enforces rigid content guardrails and restricts users to proprietary avatar libraries.
Plan table and expert take
HeyGen: expert take
The $29 Creator plan is 600 credits with a 30-minute ceiling per video. Above it sits a credit dropdown whose price per credit does not move in a straight line, and seats on the Business plan bill on top of the plan itself.
Where HeyGen holds up
- Real-time video translation with accurate lip-syncing
- Custom avatar creation from a single photo or video
- Extensive library of 300+ voices in 40+ languages
- API access for programmatic video generation at scale
- Generous free plan with 1 minute of credit and one instant avatar
4.9CE scoreG2 4.8 · 1,574 reviewsCapterra 4.7Founded 2020Verified July 8, 2026
| Plan | Monthly | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Free | Free |
| Creator | $29 | $24 |
| Pro | $49 | $40.67 |
| Business | $149 | $119 |
| Enterprise | Contact sales | |
| HeyGen API Pay-As-You-Go | Contact sales | |
| HeyGen API Enterprise | Contact sales | |
A channel dashboard rather than a video generator. vidIQ spends its AI credits on research, thumbnails and coaching prompts, and its enterprise step is quoted per organization, not per seat.
Critical gapThe subscription model lacks sufficient value for small-scale creators.
Plan table and expert take
vidIQ AI: expert take
Credits here meter questions, not renders: 150 a month on the free tier, 6,000 at the top, spent on research and thumbnails. The coaching tier carries no published price at all, and it is restricted to English-language channels.
Where vidIQ AI holds up
- Daily AI-powered video ideas tailored to your channel
- Real-time stats bar overlay on YouTube video pages
- Predictive 'Views Per Hour' (VPH) metric for trend-spotting
- Competitor tracking shows what's working for similar channels
- AI Coach provides personalized, actionable growth advice
4.6CE scoreG2 4.5 · 33 reviewsCapterra 4.4Founded 2014Verified July 8, 2026
| Plan | Monthly | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Free | Free |
| Boost | $19 | $16.58 |
| Max | $49 | $39 |
| Enterprise | Contact sales | |
| 1-on-1 Coaching | Contact sales | |
Realism-focused artists who will read a rate table before they render. Luma sells tiers as usage multipliers instead of credit counts, and an HDR pass doubles the rate for an identical shot.
Critical gapThe model produces inconsistent frame rendering and persistent visual artifacts.
Plan table and expert take
Luma AI: expert take
The rate table is the only place a real number appears: 100 credits for five seconds at 720p, 400 at 1080p, a draft pass at a fifth of that. No plan page converts a tier into credits, and no free tier exists to test one.
Where Luma AI holds up
- Pioneering NeRF technology for 3D scene capture from video
- Highly realistic and consistent character/object motion
- Access to Luma plus third-party image and video models (Veo, Kling, Seedream) in one credit wallet
- Advanced camera motion controls (zoom, pan, orbit)
- Strong API access for developers on paid plans
4.5CE scoreCapterra 4.4Founded 2021Verified July 16, 2026
| Plan | Monthly | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| Plus | $30 | $25 |
| Pro | $90 | $75 |
| Ultra | $300 | $250 |
| Team | Contact sales | |
| Enterprise | Contact sales | |
History, not a shortlist entry. Sora never sold a subscription of its own: it came inside a consumer ChatGPT plan, and the record keeps only an API rate card billed per second of output.
Critical gapThe architecture restricts output to 20-second segments, hindering long-form narrative production.
Plan table and expert take
Sora: expert take
What survives is a rate card. Per-second pricing tripled between the standard and pro models, stepped up again with resolution, and halved on a batch tier with a 24-hour turnaround. The app is closed and the API has a published shutdown date.
Where Sora holds up
- Unmatched object permanence and physics simulation
- Maintains character and style consistency across shots
- Generates complex scenes with multiple interacting subjects
- Direct integration within the ChatGPT ecosystem
- Produces high-fidelity 1080p video without upscaling
4.4CE scoreG2 4.3 · 13 reviewsCapterra 4.2Founded 2024Verified July 8, 2026
| Plan | Monthly | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| Sora 2 Standard (API - Standard Tier) | $0.10 / second | Not published |
| Sora 2 Standard (API - Batch Tier) | $0.05 / second | Not published |
| Sora 2 Pro (API - Standard Tier, 720p) | $0.30 / second | Not published |
| Sora 2 Pro (API - Standard Tier, 1024p) | $0.50 / second | Not published |
| Sora 2 Pro (API - Standard Tier, 1080p) | $0.70 / second | Not published |
| Sora 2 Pro (API - Batch Tier, 720p) | $0.15 / second | Not published |
| Sora 2 Pro (API - Batch Tier, 1024p) | $0.25 / second | Not published |
| Sora 2 Pro (API - Batch Tier, 1080p) | $0.35 / second | Not published |
04 / 07
Compare any two video generators: plans, credits and our score
vs
What the records say
Hailuo AI starts cheaper: $14.99 / seat against $19.99 from Veo 2, $5 apart at the door.
For 6 seats, Hailuo AI bills $89.94 / mo and Veo 2 bills $119.94 / mo, $30 / mo between them.
Hailuo AI carries 3 of the 4 capability columns on the record; Veo 2 shows 2.
Both run a free tier, so either can be tried before the bill starts.
Both publish every tier they sell.
Pick Hailuo AI for: Short-form creators who generate in bursts and then stop.
Pick Veo 2 for: A rate card, not an app.
Hailuo AI
CE 100 · G2 5Published plans, US$/mo
FreeFree
Pro$54.99
Max$199.99
Team of 6$89.94 / mo
Verified July 16, 2026
Veo 2
CE 100Published plans, US$/mo
Free AccessFree
Google AI Pro$19.99
Veo 2 API$0.50 / request
Team of 6$119.94 / mo
Verified July 8, 2026
Both price lists on the category axis
Hailuo AI
Veo 2
Where they differ
Only Hailuo AI has on the record
- Image to video
Only Veo 2 has on the record
—
05 / 07
AI video questions: a two-minute clip, talking heads, subscribe or meter
How much does a 2 minute AI video cost?
Nobody sells two minutes. The published units are seconds, credits and clips, so the sum depends on whose meter you land on. The Veo 2 API rate is $0.50 a second, which makes the arithmetic trivial. Credit plans need a conversion first: Kling's $6.99 Standard month is 660 credits, which its own card reads as roughly 33 videos at 720p.
Which AI video tool is cheapest for talking-head training videos?
One of the avatar platforms, and which one depends on volume, because they meter in different units. Synthesia sells minutes by the year, 120 on Starter and 360 on Creator, spent whenever you like. HeyGen's $29 Creator plan is 600 credits with a 30-minute ceiling on any single video. A clip generator will look cheaper than either, and it still will not read a script as a presenter.
Is it cheaper to subscribe or to meter it by the second?
Subscriptions win when you render steadily, because the plan discounts the unit. Metered rates win in bursts: a quiet month costs nothing and no balance expires. Veo 2 has no consumer plan at all: you either meter it through Google Cloud or take the $19.99 Google AI Pro subscription and its monthly credit pool.
What gets held back on a free AI video plan?
12 of the vendors here run one, and each keeps something. Watermarks and a resolution ceiling are usual. Synthesia's Basic tier allows ten minutes a month and no downloads at all. Runway hands over 125 credits once, not every month. Pika's free tier runs on 80 monthly credits, capped at 480p.
What is the most cost effective AI video generator?
The cheapest month is $6.99, which answers a different question from the cheapest second. Kling's $6.99 Standard buys about 33 clips at 720p. Hailuo's $14.99 Standard reads as roughly three clips at 1080p on its newest model. Wan's free tier renders without spending credits at all, one job at a time.
What does jumping to 1080p do to the bill?
Resolution is the multiplier the credit meter cares about most. On Pika an identical five-second clip is 12 credits at 480p, 20 at 720p and 40 at 1080p. Luma charges 100 credits for five seconds at 720p and 400 at 1080p, then doubles that again for HDR. Kling's 4K rate is triple its 1080p rate per second.
How long do prepaid video credits stay usable?
Not as long as the pack implies. Kling sells units on a 30 or 180-day validity window, so a prepaid pack carries a clock. Hailuo's credits expire at the monthly reset, and Synthesia's allotment is annual and does not carry. Wan's purchased credits run for two years. Rollover is the exception: Runway moves credits one month forward at the top of its range.
Does Runway have Kling?
Yes, and it is worth knowing before you buy twice. Runway lists third-party models including Kling and Veo inside its own plans, Luma sells access to Veo and Kling beside its Ray models, and InVideo's team seats list both. One model can reach you through several different meters, each with its own credit rate.
Which of these are not video generators at all?
Three of them. Descript is a transcript-based editor and meters media hours next to AI credits. CapCut is a phone-first editor with AI features bolted on. vidIQ spends its credits on YouTube research and thumbnails and renders no footage. They sit on this shelf because buyers compare them, not because they meter the same thing.
What does a cheap plan strip out of the finished clip?
The watermark and the commercial licence. Kling states that free Basic output is not for commercial use, and Hailuo says the same about its own free tier while stamping downloads with a watermark. Both usually switch on with the first plan you pay for, which is why the free step is a demo rather than a licence.
What happened to Sora?
OpenAI closed the Sora app and published a shutdown date for its API, so what sits here is a record rather than an option. Google has an end-of-life date out for Veo 2 as well. That is the case against prepaying deep into credit packs: a model can be withdrawn while your units still have validity left.
AI video credits are billed per render, not per usable clip
Every meter here charges for what the model produced, not for what you kept. A shot that lands on the fourth attempt cost four renders, and the three you deleted were billed at the rate of the one you published. Runway's Standard month is 625 credits, which its own table reads as 52 seconds of the flagship model. Four takes of a five-second shot and more than a third of that month has gone. No pricing page in this category carries that arithmetic, which is why the $19.49 median tells you so little about a month of real work.
The honest unit is neither the credit nor the second. It is the second you would put in front of a client, and its price is the rate multiplied by the resolution you need, multiplied again by the takes it took to get there. A published per-second rate at least lets you do that sum. Tiers sold as multipliers leave you guessing at the first number.
The AI video prices vendors do not print
Seven vendors here price every plan they sell. The gaps are not only enterprise steps. One keeps its consumer price behind a login and says plainly that the figure moves with region, device and whatever promotion is running. Elsewhere the price is printed and the meter is not: credit allotments with no published burn rate for any model, tiers sold as usage multipliers with no credit count anywhere on the page. Neither can be turned into output until you have spent some of it.
That is what the transparency score measures, and that is the reason it does not follow price. A cheap plan with a secret meter is the worse purchase, and no finance team can budget it.
The verdict on AI video generatorsSigned review · Updated
Two markets sit under this one word. A consumer clip generator and a corporate avatar platform bill on different clocks and sell to different buyers. Decide which you are shopping before the numbers start.
Inside either, the unit is a second of footage you would actually publish. Resolution moves that cost more than duration does, and a failed generation bills the same as a keeper. Work out how many seconds survive, then divide. What we rank is how much of the bill a vendor puts in public. Nothing here is a verdict on the footage.
MethodWe read 65 plans across fifteen vendors, credit tables and per-second rates alike, and dated every figure .
DisclosureCollection is tool-assisted; every verdict is written and signed by a human analyst.
06 / 07
Not sure which? Answer one, take a shortlist.Pick the line that sounds like your team. Each one opens the vendor built for it.
Short-form creators who generate in bursts and then stopHailuo AIA rate card, not an appVeo 2The open-weights option, not the hosted oneWan VideoPhone-first editors cutting vertical video who want captions and effects in one appCapCut AIThe planned shoot, not the first experimentKling AITeams that wire generation into their own product instead of clicking through an appPixVerseStill weighing it? Answer 5 questions, take a shortlist.
07 / 07
Read next: cost guides for AI video generators, plus related categories
Cost guidesHailuo AI cost guideVeo 2 cost guideWan Video cost guideCapCut AI cost guideKling AI cost guideRelated categoriesProject ManagementAI Writing ToolsWebsite BuildersAI Image GeneratorsAI ProductivityCompare two vendorsHailuo AI vs Veo 2Veo 2 vs Wan VideoWan Video vs CapCut AICapCut AI vs Kling AIKling AI vs PixVersePixVerse vs PikaStill unsureAnswer 5 questions → a shortlistAll categories
How this review is made. Prices are read from vendor pricing pages and re-checked on the dates shown against each product. Condition columns reflect the feature set recorded on the vendor’s own pages on that date. ComparEdge sells no AI video generators and takes no vendor payment for placement. Where a vendor publishes nothing, this page says so rather than estimating. Ranking is by transparency score: pricing transparency 60%, user satisfaction 40%. What a product can do is shown in the condition columns and carries no weight in the number.