How Much Does a Second of AI Video Cost? (October 2026)

Between one cent and a dollar and a half, depending on the door you walk through. Every price below was read from the vendor's own pricing page or documentation on October 28, 2026 and divided by the clip length; the formula is in the cell.

• Cheapest verified second: $0.01 for Seedance 1.0 Pro Fast at 480p through BytePlus ModelArk ($0.05 per 5-second clip). At 720p-class resolution the floor is around $0.03 to $0.04 per second: Google Flow's Gemini Omni Flash on the AI Pro plan ($0.03), MiniMax H3-Lite at 768p ($0.04) and Wan 2.5 in UniqAI ($0.040).
• Priciest verified second: $1.50 for Seedance 2.0 at 4K through Runway's API, ahead of the same model at 4K through BytePlus ($0.78) or Luma ($0.78).
• Where UniqAI sits: Kling 3.0 costs $0.075 to $0.080 per second at the 1,000-Gem pack rate, which is below Runway's API price for Kling 3.0 Standard ($0.09 without audio) and Luma's ($0.147 at 1080p with audio), though resolution and audio are not identical across those doors. Veo 3 with audio in UniqAI is $0.40 to $0.60 per second at the 5-Cinema pack rate, which is above Google's own Flow (Veo 3.1 Quality, $0.25 per second on the AI Pro plan) and Higgsfield's Veo 3 ($0.36 on its Plus plan). The Gem-priced Veo 3.1 Fast with audio (added October 28, 2026) is $0.21 to $0.22 per second at the 1,000-Gem pack: below Flow's Quality tier and Higgsfield, but still four times Flow's own Veo 3.1 Fast ($0.05). UniqAI is a cheap door for Kling and Wan, a mid-priced one for Veo Fast and an expensive one for Veo with full fidelity.
• Not in the table: Kling's own membership credit costs for 720p and 1080p clips, Kling's API rates, Hailuo's app plans and Higgsfield's live pricing page all render only inside their apps, so their cells say "not published" rather than a guessed number. OpenAI has no video product left to price after the Sora shutdown.

Because nobody sells seconds. Vendors sell plans with credits, and each model charges a different number of credits for a different clip length at a different resolution. A $30 plan with 10,000 credits and a $15 plan with 625 credits cannot be compared until you know what one credit buys. Dividing dollars by delivered seconds collapses all of that into one number you can put next to another service, and it is the number that actually moves your bill: a 30-second ad cut from 5-second clips costs six generations, plus the takes you throw away.

It also exposes the markup for the same model. Kling 3.0, Seedance 2.0 and Veo are each sold through four or five doors in the table above, at prices that differ by two to four times. The model is the same; the plan arithmetic is not.

• Resolution is the biggest lever. Seedance 2.0 through BytePlus goes from $0.07 at 480p to $0.78 at 4K, an 11× spread for the same model. Luma's Ray3.2 is 20 credits for a 360p draft and 400 for 1080p. If you only need a social post, generating at 720p and upscaling later is usually cheaper than native 1080p.
• Audio adds 30 to 50%. Runway's API bills Kling 3.0 Standard at 9 credits per second silent and 13 with audio; Seedance 1.5 Pro on BytePlus doubles its token price with audio. Veo 3 and 3.1 always include sound, which is part of why they sit higher in the table.
• Length is roughly linear, with a floor. Most vendors charge about the same per second for 5 s and 10 s clips (Luma: 100 and 300 credits for 720p, so 10 s is 1.5× per second; MiniMax Hailuo 2.3: $0.28 and $0.56). Runway's API adds a minimum of 56 to 80 credits per generation on resold models, so very short clips cost more per second. UniqAI's 8-second Kling clip is slightly cheaper per second than its 5-second one ($0.075 against $0.080).
• Speed tiers cut the price. "Fast", "Lite", "Turbo" and "Mini" variants cost a third to a half of the flagship: Veo 3.1 Lite is 10 Flow credits against 100 for Quality, Seedance 2.0 Mini is $0.08 at 720p against $0.15.
• Input video costs extra. Seedance 2.5 on BytePlus and Runway charges per second of reference video on top of the output; MiniMax H3 bills input video at the output rate.

• One formula: price per second = (credits per clip × dollars per credit) ÷ seconds delivered. Dollars per credit = plan price ÷ credits included, on monthly billing. Where a vendor publishes a per-second or per-clip dollar price (Gemini API, Luma API, MiniMax, BytePlus, Runway API), we use that directly.
• Which plan: the cheapest paid plan that includes the model, named in the cell, plus the largest plan where the gap is big. For UniqAI we use the 1,000-Gem pack ($4.99) and the 5-Cinema pack ($11.99), the two packs anyone can buy without a plan, and show the 7,000-Gem and 30-Cinema packs, which need an active plan, as the floor. UniqAI's subscriptions bundle Gems and Cinema together, so they do not give a clean per-credit price; see the pricing page for the plan maths.
• Only published numbers. Every figure comes from the page linked in the row, loaded on October 28, 2026. We did not sign in, did not read prices from an app's generation panel, and did not take numbers from third-party roundups. Where Higgsfield writes "≈", so do we.
• Seconds delivered, not seconds requested. UniqAI's Veo 3 "5 s" option delivers a 6-second clip, so we divide by 6.
• Rounding: to the cent, or to a tenth of a cent below 10 cents. Discounted first-month prices (Kling) are noted but not used as the headline rate.
• Not covered: free daily or welcome credits, failed-generation refunds, taxes, and regional prices. Free tiers are usually watermarked or capped; the table prices paid output.

• "Unlimited" and relax modes are not priced per second. Higgsfield's Plus and Ultra plans switch off credits for a rotating set of models for 7 or 365 days; Luma's agents get usage multipliers. If you generate a lot on exactly those models, your real per-second cost falls below the table; if not, it does not.
• Watermarks and commercial rights vary by tier. Kling lists watermark removal and 1080p as paid features; Pika's Free plan has no watermark but no commercial licence; Runway's Standard plan states "no watermarks". Check the plan before you publish a clip.
• Daily free credits change the effective price for light users. Google Flow gives every account 50 credits a day, which covers one Veo 3.1 Fast or Lite clip; Kling's Basic plan has daily credits, but that content is not for commercial use.
• Minimums and rollover. Runway's API charges a minimum of 56 to 80 credits on resold models; most plan credits expire monthly, Runway Max rolls over for one month, UniqAI rolls over up to the plan cap.
• Prices move monthly. Runway's Kling 4.0 promotion ends November 30, 2026; Seedance 1.5 Pro retires from BytePlus on November 11, 2026; Google says Flow credit costs "are subject to change". The date at the top of this page is the date these numbers were last checked.

You are welcome to quote any row or the headline numbers. Please link to the page so readers can see the date and the sources: https://uniqai.app/video/ai-video-cost-per-second. Suggested citation: "How Much Does a Second of AI Video Cost? UniqAI, checked October 28, 2026." If you spot a price that changed, tell us through the contact page and we will recheck it.

Related: Kling 3.0 in UniqAI, Veo 3 in UniqAI, all video tools, running Sora prompts after the shutdown.