AI Video Generation Cost Calculator

It depends entirely on tool, resolution and how many retries it takes to get a usable clip. Base API rates in July 2026 range from about $0.015/sec (Hailuo/MiniMax at 512p) to $0.60/sec (Google Veo 3.1 Standard at 4K). The cheapest tracked tool today is Hailuo / MiniMax (Hailuo 2.3) at roughly $0.015-$0.082/sec depending on tier, and the true cost per usable clip is higher once you account for retries - use the calculator above with your own retry assumption.

Divide your budget by the tool's true cost per usable clip (base price/sec × clip length × your retry multiplier), not by the sticker per-second rate. A $50 budget at $0.06/sec (Luma 720p, 8s clips, no retries) buys about 104 clips on paper - but at a realistic 3.5x retry multiplier for character-consistent shots, that same $50 buys closer to 30 usable clips. The calculator above does this division live for whichever tool, resolution and retry assumption you pick.

Three reasons: vendors price by resolution and audio inclusion differently (Veo bundles audio free, Runway and Luma do not), some vendors genuinely hide API pricing behind a login (Kling's kling.ai/dev console) so every public number is a third-party estimate, and per-second sticker prices ignore the retry rate needed to get a usable clip - which practitioner reports put at 3-10 attempts depending on the shot. This page normalizes all of that into one $/sec and true-cost-per-clip figure so you can compare tools on the same basis.

The sticker price is what one generation costs. The true cost is what a KEEPER costs - the clip you actually publish. Character drift, wrong camera motion and artifacts mean most workflows need several generations per keeper. We multiply the sticker price by a retry multiplier (default 3.5x, adjustable 1-6x on the slider above) to estimate that real number - see the Retry multiplier section below for the practitioner sources behind that default.

No, and we say so directly: Kling does not publish per-second API pricing on a public page - the kling.ai/dev developer console sits behind account login. The Kling figures here are third-party estimates from independent trackers cross-referencing the login-gated developer guide, not a vendor quote. Confirm the real rate in your own Kling dev console before committing budget.

It's shutting down. The Sora consumer app already closed on April 26, 2026, and the Sora API (sora-2 / sora-2-pro / Videos API) is scheduled to shut down September 24, 2026. We still track its pricing here for reference, but any new integration should pick a different tool - see the full shutdown timeline and alternatives at /sora-api-shutdown/.