RenderDrama

What a second of AI video costs, channel by channel

What a second costs, one channel at a time

Every channel that publishes a per-second figure gets a page. The page carries the rate, the resolution tier it belongs to, and the address of the pricing page it was read from, so the arithmetic can be repeated by anyone. As of 2026-09-12.

From a pricing page to a line on the ledgerA line starts on the vendor's published pricing page. The unit is identified first, because a credit price and a per-second price cannot be compared until one is converted into the other using a conversion the vendor publishes. The rate is then stated per finished second at a named resolution, and the address and the reading date are printed beside it.Pricing pagePublishedplans, creditbundles or arate card onthe vendor'sown site.A figure and aunitUnit checkSeconds,credits or amonthlyallowance. Onlya publishedconversionturns one intoanother.A comparableratePer secondStated at anamedresolution,because thenext tier upoften doublesit.A lineAddress anddateThe page thefigure camefrom and theday it was readtravel with theline.
Fig. 1 The unit check is the step that decides whether a channel lands on the ledger or in the unpriced section.

List prices only. A rate negotiated on a sales call, a credit bundle bought at a seasonal discount, an enterprise agreement — none of those appear here, because none of them are published. What is on the page is the number a buyer sees before talking to anyone.

Where a channel prices in credits rather than in seconds, the conversion the vendor publishes is used, and the credit price is printed next to the derived figure. Where no conversion is published, the channel is recorded as unpriced and moves to its own section rather than getting a guessed rate.

Rates move. Each page prints the day it was read, and a rate that has changed is corrected rather than quietly overwritten, so a reader who bookmarked a figure can see when it stopped being true.

1The channels

  • SceneMixer — SceneMixer bills generation in credits and prints a dollar figure per tier: about $0.06 a second on Wan 3.0 at 480P, with a 30-second clip ceiling.
  • Kling AI — Kling AI publishes a developer price per second that moves only with resolution: $0.084 at 720p, $0.168 at 1080p and $0.42 at 4K.
  • MiniMax — MiniMax prices two model lines by the second: H3 at $0.08 and $0.13 for 768P and 2K, and H3-Max at $0.05 and $0.08 for 480P and 768P.
  • Vidu — Vidu publishes reference-to-video rates of $0.035 to $0.075 a second from 540p to 1080p, and states that off-peak generation runs at half price.
  • Runway — Runway prices its API at 12 credits a second and prints the credit price, $0.01, on the same page, so the $0.12 per second figure is plain arithmetic.
  • LTX Studio — LTX Studio publishes an API band of $0.09 to $0.39 a second for LTX-2.5 rather than a rate per setting, and prices its studio plans in monthly credits.
  • Veo — Veo's per-second rates on Google's Gemini API page span three tiers, from $0.05 on Lite at 720p to $0.60 on Standard at 4K, charged only on success.
  • Sora — Sora publishes $0.10 a second for sora-2 at 720p and $0.30 to $0.70 for sora-2-pro up to 1080p, with a batch tier that halves every figure on the page.
  • Wan — Alibaba Cloud prices Wan 3.0 at $0.05, $0.10 and $0.20 a second for 480P, 720P and 1080P, and prints a 30-second ceiling for one generation beside them.
  • PixVerse — PixVerse meters V6 at 5 to 18 credits a second from 360p to 1080p and puts 225 credits at one dollar, so the conversion is arithmetic.
  • Dreamina — Dreamina prints $0.097 a second for Seedance 2.5 at 720p, a figure tied to the Advanced plan billed annually, and the condition travels with the row.
  • fal — Every per-second figure fal prints for video, the one model it prices by the clip instead, and the averaging note printed beneath them.
  • Replicate — The two video models Replicate prices by the second of output, the run-time meter behind everything else, and what the page omits.
  • Novita AI — What Novita AI charges for a second of Kling video with and without sound, the clips it prices whole, and what the page never states.
  • Runware — Runware's per-second figures by model, the cells carrying a struck-through list price beside a discount, and the limits it omits.
  • WaveSpeed AI — A cent a second on one Wan variant, six dearer figures beside it, and the condition WaveSpeed AI attaches to every price on the page.

A channel earns a page when it publishes enough to compute a rate per finished second. Everything else about it belongs on the vendor's own site.

Elsewhere on the ledger: Ratings, Unpriced, Price shapes, What each channel publishes, One model, several sellers, Single ratings, Questions, Terms, Learn, Data. How a figure earns a line is set out on the method page.