guide
What a minute of AI video actually costs in 2026
Generating the raw footage is the cheap part. Retries, review and editing are where the money goes.
Ask what AI video costs and you will get two very different numbers, both correct. One is what a model charges to generate a second of footage. The other is what a finished, approved minute ends up costing a team. The first has collapsed. The second has fallen a lot, but not by nearly as much, and the space between them is where budgets get surprised.
The finished-minute estimate
Industry estimates put a finished minute of traditionally produced video at around $4,500, and a finished minute of AI-assisted video at around $400. Turnaround falls just as sharply: a 60-second piece that took days can come out in under 30 minutes in a repeatable workflow. These are indicative figures, and the saving depends heavily on the brief, the quality bar and how much editing remains. Scripted explainers and localized versions of an existing video gain the most; open-ended creative work gains the least.
The raw-minute reality
Our price radar converts every platform's published price to US dollars. Multiply the per-second rates by 60 and this is the cheapest and the most expensive way to buy one minute of raw footage, across every mode, resolution up to 1080p and plan we track:
| Model | Cheapest minute | Most expensive minute |
|---|---|---|
| MiniMax Hailuo 02 | $0.90 | $7.04 |
| Kling 3.0 | $2.52 | $20.16 |
| Runway Gen-4.5 | $5.76 | $17.28 |
| OpenAI Sora 2 | $4.50 | $55.89 |
| Seedance 2.0 | $0.90 | $57.60 |
| Google Veo 3.1 | $1.80 | $57.60 |
| Seedance 2.5 | $5.40 | $97.92 |
The low end is a light or fast mode at low resolution, bought through a pay-per-use API such as fal.ai or Replicate, or on a large subscription plan. The high end is the full-quality mode at 1080p with audio, on an entry-level web plan. Seedance 2.5, the model most teams treat as the current state of the art, has the widest spread: $5.40 a minute at 480p on Higgsfield's largest plan, $69.84 at 1080p through fal's API and $97.92 at 1080p on Runway's entry plan. Even that top figure is a quarter of a $400 finished minute. The Seedance 2.5 price page has every option side by side.
Where the other $350 goes
The biggest hidden cost is the retry. A model that follows the brief on the first attempt is cheaper than a model with a lower sticker price that needs three tries. Every rejected clip adds generation cost and review time, and the review time is human.
Our own benchmark shows how uneven first-pass success is. On the prompt that asks for ice melting in a glass of whisky, 7 of the 12 models we tested scored below 4 out of 5; on a full camera orbit around a seated subject, 5 did. If your brief looks like those, plan for more attempts. The ice-melt test shows every model's clip side by side.
That is why the industry is shifting to a different metric: cost per accepted second, total spend divided by the seconds that survive review. A simple illustration with real prices: Veo 3.1 with audio costs $0.40 a second through an API, so 60 seconds is $24. If one clip in two is accepted, the real cost is $48. Add upscaling, editing, voice and approvals, and the gap to the finished-minute estimate closes quickly.
How to bring your number down
- Match the model to the shot. A background plate or a translated version does not need the most expensive model; a cheaper one will be accepted most of the time.
- Buy the model where it is cheapest. The same clip can cost several times more on one platform than another. The Veo 3.1 page shows five platforms side by side.
- Count attempts, not generations. Track how many tries an accepted clip takes for each model. That ratio, more than the list price, decides your bill.
Prices change often. Our price alerts email you when a model you use gets cheaper.
Frequently asked
How much does one minute of AI video cost?
Generating it costs from under $1 to nearly $100 at 1080p on the platforms we track, depending on the model, mode, resolution, audio and where you buy it. A finished, reviewed and edited minute is estimated by the industry at around $400, still far below the roughly $4,500 of traditional production.
What is cost per accepted second?
Total spend divided by the seconds of video that actually pass review. If half your generations are rejected, your real cost per second is double the sticker price, before any editing.
Priya Shenoy: Tracks what AI video actually costs across the platforms that resell access to the same handful of models. Treats a pricing page as a claim, not a fact, until someone checks it.