How much will your AI video actually cost? Enter clip length and resolution — get a side-by-side price comparison across 10 major video generation APIs, updated July 2026.
| Model | Price / sec | Audio | Your cost (USD) |
|---|
Prices are approximate API list prices as of July 2026, compiled from public pricing pages. Always confirm on the provider's official pricing page before large jobs. “—” means that resolution is not offered at a published per-second rate.
Disclosure: some outbound links on this page may be affiliate links. If you sign up through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. This never affects the prices shown or how models are ranked — the table is sorted purely by computed cost.
Not sure which tool fits your workflow? See our Best AI Video Tools of 2026 picks by use case. On a credit plan instead? Convert it to real money with the credits converter, or check what the free tiers actually give you.
Nearly every AI video API now bills per second of generated output, with rates from $0.04/sec (budget models like Kling via resellers, Wan 2.6) to $0.75/sec (Google's original Veo 3 tier). Three things move your bill the most:
For raw price per second, Kling 3.0 through API resellers (~$0.04/sec) and Wan 2.6 (~$0.05/sec, native 1080p) are the budget leaders. Runway Gen-4 Turbo and Veo 3.1 Lite also sit at ~$0.05/sec.
Retries. If you generate 4 takes to get one keeper, multiply by 4 — that's what the "number of takes" field is for. Audio, higher resolutions and premium tiers add more.
API pay-as-you-go prices. Consumer subscriptions (e.g. Dreamina, Sora in ChatGPT) bundle credits with different effective rates — API pricing is the cleanest way to compare models directly.