Short answer: at 720p, AI video generation costs between about $0.06 and $0.63 per second of finished video in October 2026, depending on the model. A 10-second 720p clip costs $0.92 on Grok Imagine, $2.00 on Wan 3.0, $2.50 on Kling 4.0, $3.50 on Seedance 2.5 and $3.67 on Kling 2.6. VEO 3.1 only makes 8-second clips: $2.00 (Fast) or $5.00 (Quality).
Full disclosure first: we build Kreavo, a platform that runs these models for UGC-style video ads. The numbers below are the prices our own billing formula charges (checked on 29 October 2026), not the model vendors' own API rates. We publish them as an open dataset under CC BY 4.0 because we could not find one place that listed them per second, side by side, with the length and resolution options that actually exist.
Why "per second" is the only fair unit
Model pages love "from $X per video". That number hides two things: how long the video is and at what resolution. A $1 clip can be 4 seconds at 480p or 10 seconds at 720p. If you are budgeting a product, a pipeline or an ad test, divide by the seconds you get. Everything below does that.
Price per second at 720p
Lowest price per second at 720p for the main versions of each model (for flat-priced versions, the longest clip gives the lowest rate). A few extra variants, such as Grok Imagine 1.5 or Vidu Q3 Turbo, are left out here to keep the table readable; the dataset has all of them and the script further down prints the full list:
| Model version | USD per second | Lengths offered | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wan 2.6 Turbo | from $0.056 | 5, 10, 15 s | start image required, flat $0.84 per clip |
| Grok Imagine | $0.092 | 6, 10, 15, 30 s | text-to-video |
| HunyuanVideo 1.5 | $0.134 | 5, 8, 10 s | start image required, silent |
| Gemini Omni Flash | $0.198 to $0.248 | 4, 6, 8, 10 s | |
| Wan 3.0 | $0.20 | 2 to 30 s | |
| Seedance 2.0 Fast+ | $0.20 | 4 to 15 s | |
| Kling 4.0 | $0.25 | 3 to 30 s | |
| VEO 3.1 Fast | $0.25 | 8 s only | |
| Gemini Omni 1.1 | $0.25 | 10 s only | |
| Seedance 2.0+ | $0.27 | 4 to 15 s | |
| Kling 3.0 | $0.28 | 5, 10, 15 s | |
| Vidu Q3 Pro | $0.30 | 5, 8, 10, 12, 16 s | |
| Wan 3.0 Fast | $0.32 | 2 to 30 s | |
| Seedance 2.5 | $0.35 | 4 to 30 s | |
| Kling 2.6 | $0.367 | 5, 10 s | |
| VEO 3.1 Quality | $0.625 | 8 s only |
Unless noted, these versions generate sound with the video. The spread from the cheapest image-to-video option to the most expensive is about 11x. If you need pure text-to-video, the spread is still about 7x (Grok Imagine at $0.092 vs VEO 3.1 Quality at $0.625).
1080p and 4K
| Model version | USD per second at 1080p |
|---|---|
| Wan 2.6 Turbo | from $0.056 (start image required, same flat $0.84 per clip as at 720p) |
| Gemini Omni Flash | $0.198 to $0.248 (same price as at 720p) |
| Vidu Q3 Pro | $0.35 |
| Kling 4.0 | $0.37 |
| Kling 3.0 Pro | about $0.37 |
| Gemini Omni 1.1 | $0.38 |
| Wan 3.0 | $0.40 |
| Seedance 2.5 | $0.49 |
| Seedance 2.0+ | $0.60 |
| Wan 3.0 Fast | $0.63 |
At 4K, Gemini Omni Flash costs $0.33 to $0.58 per second ($2.31 for 4 s, $3.30 for 10 s) and Gemini Omni 1.1 costs $0.75 per second ($7.50 for its 10-second clip).
Going from 720p to 1080p adds 40 % on Seedance 2.5, 48 % on Kling 4.0 and doubles the price on Wan 3.0, while Wan 2.6 Turbo and Gemini Omni Flash charge the same at both. If the video ends up in a 9:16 feed on a phone, test whether your audience can tell before you pay for it.
Three things that move the bill more than the model
- Resolution. See above. It is often a bigger lever than switching models.
- Length granularity. Fixed-length models (VEO 3.1 at 8 s, Gemini Omni 1.1 at 10 s) make you pay for seconds you may cut. Flat-priced ones (Wan 2.6 Turbo at $0.84 for 5, 10 or 15 s) get cheaper per second the longer you go.
- The start image. Several of the cheapest options need a first frame. Generating that image is a separate cost (on our side, $0.07 to $0.75 per image depending on the image model and resolution), so compare the pair, not the clip alone.
And one that no price table shows: retries. A clip you throw away costs exactly as much as one you keep. Budget per usable clip, not per generation.
How long you wait
Render time only counts if enough real jobs back it. Our bar is at least 10 customer jobs from 3 or more customers in the window. In the 30 days to 22 October 2026, two versions passed it (request to finished file, queue included, all lengths and resolutions together):
- Grok Imagine: median 2 min 27 s, 90th percentile 5 min 48 s
- Seedance 2.5: median 5 min 1 s, 90th percentile 10 min 6 s
That is roughly 14 and 22 seconds of waiting per second of video. We do not publish a number for the other versions until they have enough jobs. These figures are the dated 22 October snapshot; the JSON below is refreshed more often, so its render-time fields can show a newer window.
Pull the data yourself
Every version in the index carries a price_grid with every length and resolution it supports. This prints every version available at 720p, sorted, including the variants left out of the table above (Node 18+, no dependencies):
// Cheapest price per second at 720p for every AI video model version in the index
const res = await fetch("https://kreavo.ai/api/model-index.json");
const index = await res.json();
const rows = [];
for (const model of index.models.filter((m) => m.kind === "video")) {
for (const v of model.versions) {
const at720 = v.price_grid.rows.filter(([, resolution]) => resolution === "720p");
if (!at720.length) continue;
const perSecond = Math.min(...at720.map(([seconds, , usd]) => usd / seconds));
rows.push({ version: v.name, usd_per_s: +perSecond.toFixed(3), start_image: v.requires_image });
}
}
rows.sort((a, b) => a.usd_per_s - b.usd_per_s);
console.table(rows);
Swap "720p" for "1080p" or "480p" to get the other tables. The data is CC BY 4.0: reuse it, just credit the source.
A monthly budget example
Say you need 100 ten-second 720p clips a month:
| Model | Monthly cost |
|---|---|
| Grok Imagine | $92 |
| Wan 3.0 | $200 |
| Kling 4.0 | $250 |
| Seedance 2.5 | $350 |
| VEO 3.1 Quality (100 x 8 s) | $500 |
Same volume, same resolution, a 5x difference. Most teams end up mixing: a cheap model to find the hook, a more expensive one to render the winner.
Caveats, so you can trust the rest
- Dollar figures use 1 credit = $0.01, the rate of the smallest credit pack ($10 for 1,000 credits). Monthly plans and larger packs cost the same or less per credit.
- For a few models (Kling 3.0, VEO 3.1, Hailuo 2.3) the published resolution is the one we measured on the output, not the setting, because the setting is not always honored.
- Prices change. Every row has a snapshot date. In the 30-day window above, every failed job that had been charged was refunded.
- Price says nothing about quality. Run the same prompt on two or three models before you commit a budget.
Where Kreavo fits
Kreavo is an AI UGC video tool for ecommerce brands: you keep one AI influencer, add your product photo, and render the scene on whichever of these models fits the budget. The full table, the per-second grid and two CSV files live on the AI video generation cost index, with the snapshot date on every row.
If you spot a number that looks wrong, leave a comment with the model, length and resolution, and we will check it against the formula.
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