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AI Video Subscription vs API Cost

Enter how many seconds of video you generate per month. We compare the cheapest combination of subscription plans against the pay-as-you-go API price.

Prices updated: October 1, 2026 Sources

API cost
$36.00
$0.120 per second
Monthly cost
$56.00
2 × Runway Pro
API is cheaper
$20.00
You save
PlanPlan price (USD)Included secondsEffective $/sCheapest plan mix
Runway Standard$12.0052s$0.2306 × → $72.00 (150 unused credits)
Runway Pro$28.00188s$0.1492 × → $56.00 (900 unused credits)
Runway Max$76.00792s$0.0961 × → $76.00 (5,900 unused credits)

How it's calculated

Subscription = ⌈seconds × credits per second ÷ plan credits⌉ × plan price · API = seconds × API price per second

For each plan we buy as many copies as needed to cover your credits and compare the total with the API. Break-even is reached when a plan's price equals the API cost of the seconds it includes.

Worked example

Runway Gen-4.5 costs 12 credits per second; the API charges $0.12 per second. At 300 seconds per month you need 3,600 credits.

API: 300 × $0.12 = $36. Cheapest annual-billed plan combination: 2 × Pro (2,250 credits each, $28) = $56. The API wins by $20. At 750 seconds you need 9,000 credits: 1 × Max at $76 beats the API's $90 by $14.

Limitations

  • Only Runway and Luma have both a published plan credit rate and an API rate in our data; use 'Custom' for any other provider.
  • Buying several copies of a plan may not be allowed by every provider; treat it as a pricing comparison.
  • Plans bundle extra features (editing tools, storage, commercial rights) that the API does not.
  • Unused credits usually expire monthly, so a plan only wins when you actually use most of it.

Frequently asked questions

Is a subscription or API cheaper for AI video?

It depends on volume. Runway's API credit costs $0.01, while subscription credits cost more per credit, so low and medium volume is often cheaper via API. Large plans can win at high usage.

What is the break-even point?

The monthly seconds at which a plan costs the same as the API. The tool shows each plan's price, included seconds and effective cost per second.

Do subscription credits roll over?

On most plans unused credits reset monthly; some top tiers allow limited rollover. Check the provider's page.

Why does the API need engineering work?

The API is billed per second but you must integrate it or use a third-party tool. Plans come with a ready-made editor.

Can I compare a provider that isn't listed?

Yes. Choose 'Custom' and enter plan price, plan credits, credits per second and the API price per second.

Sources

Prices updated: October 1, 2026

Prices are collected from public pages and may change without notice. Entries marked 'secondary' were read through a third-party aggregator because the official page did not render to our fetcher; the official URL is still listed as the source of record.

  • Higgsfield and Pika publish credit-based subscription pricing; we did not find public per-second API rates for them, so they appear as effective subscription rates.
  • Veo is priced from the Gemini API (Veo on Vertex AI or inside Google AI plans may differ).
  • Taxes, free tiers, batch discounts, and enterprise contracts are not included.

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