Paying for a clip rather than a second
Per-video billing attaches a figure to one generation however long it runs, or to a generation of a named duration. It is a price rather than a rate: it becomes comparable with a per-second figure only after a clip length is settled. As of 2026-09-12.
| Channel | What the figure is attached to | Read from |
|---|---|---|
| fal | Twenty cents for one video on one model, with per-second figures on the rest | The pay-per-use price page |
| Novita AI | Nineteen cents for six seconds rising to fifty-six for ten, on one family | The price page |
| Magnific | Credits against named seconds at named resolutions | The pricing page |
Inclusion rule. Channels whose published figures are attached to a whole generation rather than to a second of it. A channel printing money against a second is a per-second rate and is defined elsewhere. Order. By how close the figure gets to a per-second rate.
1Why it cannot be divided into a rate
Dividing a clip price by the clip length gives a per-second figure that is true for that length and no other. Where a page prints two durations for the same model, the division shows the cost per second rising as the clip lengthens, which contradicts the shape a rate card implies.
So a derived rate would be misleading in a way the original figure is not. This register keeps the published shape and records the durations beside it.
2Where per-video pricing is the better deal
For long generations it usually is. A flat price for a whole clip caps the cost of the longest shot a production wants, where a per-second rate scales with it. The crossover depends only on the length, and it is easy arithmetic once the shot list exists.
For short beats it is usually worse, sometimes by a lot. A four-second reaction shot priced as a whole video pays for the seconds it did not use.
3It is a signal about the product as well as the price
A page pricing whole clips is usually selling demos and short pieces rather than shot-level production. The unit reflects what the seller expects buyers to do, and comparing it against a shot-level rate compares two purchases that happen to both produce files.
4What to record alongside it
The duration the figure covers, whether the page states a maximum, and whether the price changes with resolution. Without the duration the figure is uninterpretable, and two of the three channels above publish several durations for one model.
5Two figures for one model is the useful case
Where a page prints the same model at two durations, the pair is worth more than either figure. Dividing both gives the direction the cost per second moves, and on the one page here that does it the direction is upward: longer clips cost more per second rather than less.
That is the opposite of a volume discount and it changes which shots to buy where. Short beats on that channel are relatively cheap and the long shot a production wanted the flat price for is the expensive row.
6Pages these figures were read from
A definition entry: what the term means, and the figures vendors put in public about it, each figure read on 2026-09-12. Related: Run-time billing, Conditional rate.
7What the seconds buy
Price aside, what goes into the seconds behind “Per-video billing” is described in SceneMixer's guides:
A segment is one generation, and its length is the sum of its shots’ seconds.
SceneMixer, How to Change a Segment’s Duration, and Which Tiers Accept 30 Seconds (read 2026-10-13)
The shot seconds in the storyboard add up to the segment length, so editing them changes it.
SceneMixer, Fixing One Shot Without Redoing Everything — “Can I change the duration of a segment?” (read 2026-10-13)