Every video model quotes a per-second rate. Almost none of them quote the same configuration: one is 720p without audio, another is 1080p with native audio, a third bills per token and hides the conversion. Ask "which is cheaper" and you get three numbers that cannot be compared.
So I converted all of them to one unit: dollars per minute of finished output.
The spread is bigger than I expected. The same 8 seconds of video costs $0.34 on the cheapest model and $5.44 on the most expensive — a 16x difference, before retries.
The table, per minute
| Model | Resolution | Per second | 1 minute | 8 seconds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kling 2.6 | 720p | $0.042 | $2.52 | $0.34 |
| Wan 3 | 480p | $0.050 | $3.00 | $0.40 |
| Runway Gen-4 Turbo | — | $0.050 | $3.00 | $0.40 |
| Kling 3.0 | 720p | $0.084 | $5.04 | $0.67 |
| Hailuo 3 | 768p | $0.100 | $6.00 | $0.80 |
| Kling 3.0 | 1080p | $0.112 | $6.72 | $0.90 |
| Runway Gen-4.5 | — | $0.120 | $7.20 | $0.96 |
| Kling 3.0 + native audio | 1080p | $0.168 | $10.08 | $1.34 |
| Veo 3.1 | no audio | $0.200 | $12.00 | $1.60 |
| Seedance 2.5 | 720p | $0.300 | $18.00 | $2.40 |
| Veo 3.1 | with audio | $0.400 | $24.00 | $3.20 |
| Kling 3.0 | 4K | $0.420 | $25.20 | $3.36 |
| Seedance 2.5 | 1080p | $0.680 | $40.80 | $5.44 |
Prices checked 2026-10-30 from provider rate cards. Rows sourced to Runway are the rates published on Runway's developer pricing page, which resells those models; Kling rows are Kuaishou's own rates.
Three things the rate card hides
1. The resolution step is not linear. Kling 3.0 is $0.112/s at 1080p and $0.42/s at 4K — 3.75x the price for 4x the pixels. If a shot only ships at 1080p, rendering at 4K "to be safe" is the most expensive habit in the table.
2. Native audio is a flat 50%. Same model, same resolution: $0.112/s silent, $0.168/s with audio. Whether that beats adding sound in post depends on your pipeline — but it never appears in a comparison table.
3. Retries double everything. Every number above is a first take. For shots with people, hands or text, a 1-in-2 hit rate is normal. So 300 finished clips at 8 seconds is 4,800 generated seconds: about $202/month on the cheapest tier, $538 on Kling 3.0 1080p, $3,264 on Seedance 2.5 1080p.
That last one is the number that actually decides the budget, and it is the one nobody quotes.
The formula
generated_seconds = clips × seconds_per_clip × takes_per_clip
cost = generated_seconds × per_second_rate
Nothing more complicated than that — the work is collecting rates that share a unit.
Try it with your own numbers
I turned the table into a calculator: clip count, duration, retries in, dollars out, across 13 models, cheapest first. No signup, no email.
- Calculator: https://aiapi-pro.com/video-cost-calculator
- Sourced table: https://aiapi-pro.com/video-cost-2026
If a number looks wrong, the source link for that row is on the table page — tell me and I will fix it. Some of the reseller-sourced rows in particular deserve a second pair of eyes.
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