Guide
Text to video API pricing: what a clip costs and why
Text to video API pricing explained: per-second rates, resolution and sound, credits versus dollars, and the exact price of a clip before you run it.
Text to video API pricing is almost always per second of output, and the rate moves with three things: the model, the resolution and whether you ask for sound. That makes a single headline number misleading: a light model at its lowest settings and a flagship model at 1080p with sound are many times apart for the same few seconds, and the table below shows by how much.
This guide shows how Kinoseed prices a clip, what each text-to-video model costs at its shortest and longest length, how credits turn into dollars, and how to get the exact price of a request before you send it. All numbers are computed from the pricing code when the page renders.
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What a text-to-video clip costs, per model
Credits for a clip from a prompt alone, at each model's first resolution. "About" is at the headline credit price of $0.02.
| Model | Shortest clip | About | Longest clip | About | Sound |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Seedance 2.0 (seedance-2) | 5s at 480p: 130 credits | $2.60 | 10s: 260 credits | $5.20 | Included in the rate |
Kling 3.0 (kling-3) | 5s: 110 credits | $2.20 | 10s: 210 credits | $4.20 | 160 credits for the shortest clip with sound |
Google Veo 3.1 (veo-3-1) | 4s at 720p: 150 credits | $3 | 8s: 290 credits | $5.80 | 290 credits for the shortest clip with sound |
Grok Imagine (grok-imagine-video) | 6s at 480p: 55 credits | $1.10 | 6s: 55 credits | $1.10 | No sound option |
Wan 3.0 (wan-3) | 5s at 480p: 50 credits | $1 | 10s: 95 credits | $1.90 | No sound option |
MiniMax H3 (minimax-h3) | 5s at 480P: 50 credits | $1 | 10s: 95 credits | $1.90 | No sound option |
Seedance 2.5 (seedance-2-5) | 4s at 480p: 170 credits | $3.40 | 10s: 400 credits | $8 | Included in the rate |
Seedance 1.5 Pro (seedance-1-5-pro) | 5s at 480p: 12 credits | $0.24 | 10s: 25 credits | $0.50 | 25 credits for the shortest clip with sound |
Seedance 2.0 Mini (seedance-2-mini) | 5s at 480p: 70 credits | $1.40 | 10s: 140 credits | $2.80 | Included in the rate |
Kling 3.0 Standard (kling-3-standard) | 5s: 80 credits | $1.60 | 10s: 160 credits | $3.20 | 120 credits for the shortest clip with sound |
Seedance 2.0 Fast (seedance-2-fast) | 5s at 480p: 110 credits | $2.20 | 10s: 210 credits | $4.20 | Included in the rate |
Kling 2.6 Pro (kling-2-6) | 5s: 65 credits | $1.30 | 10s: 130 credits | $2.60 | 130 credits for the shortest clip with sound |
Google Veo 3.1 Fast (veo-3-1-fast) | 4s at 720p: 75 credits | $1.50 | 8s: 150 credits | $3 | 110 credits for the shortest clip with sound |
Models that only animate an image are left out here; they are priced from a start frame on the comparison page.
What moves the price
Every quote is built from the same parameters the request is built from, so the charge tracks what the provider bills for that exact run:
- Duration. Billed per second on most models. A duration the model does not offer is snapped to the nearest one it does, and the quote follows the snapped value, so you never pay for seconds you did not get.
- Resolution. Higher resolutions cost more per second. On Veo 3.1, a 4-second clip at 720p is 150 credits and an 8-second clip at 1080p is 290.
- Sound. Off by default. On Kling 3.0, the 5-second clip is 110 credits silent and 160 with sound. Seedance 2.0 prices sound into its rate, so turning it off saves nothing there.
- A start frame. Text models route to their image-to-video endpoint when you send
startImageUrl, which can have a different rate.
From credits to dollars
Kinoseed prices in credits so one balance covers every model. The headline price is $0.02 a credit. Plans sell credits for less: Basic $10 a month for 500 credits, Starter $20 for 1,200, Creator $100 for 7,000, Studio $200 for 15,000, which on Studio works out to $0.0133 a credit. Basic, the cheapest plan, sells them at $0.0200.
Generating begins with a plan from $10 a month (500 credits a month). Every tool page is open to browse without an account.
There is no fee per request: quoting, listing models and reading jobs are free, and a failed run is refunded in full. That last point matters when you compare vendors, because a price per successful second is only the real cost if you are not also paying for the failures.
Get the exact price before you run
Send the body you are about to POST to /api/v1/quote with a kind. The answer is the charge the run will make, in credits and in dollars at the headline rate, plus the provider endpoint it will land on and whether the rate behind it is an estimate.
curl -X POST https://kinoseed.app/api/v1/quote \
-H "Authorization: Bearer ks_live_YOUR_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{ "kind": "video", "prompt": "a lighthouse at dusk", "model": "kling-3", "duration": 10, "audio": true }'
An agent should call it before every run and say the number to the person it works for. The agent guide has a system prompt block that does exactly that.
Comparing text to video API pricing across vendors
Vendors publish rates in different units (per second, per clip, per token, per credit), and change them often. To compare fairly, fix the clip first: same model, same length, same resolution, sound on or off, then price that one request everywhere.
Do not rely on numbers copied into a blog post, including this one for anyone but Kinoseed. Read the official pages: fal pricing, Replicate pricing, Runway API pricing and Google Vertex AI pricing.
Kinoseed runs its models through fal, so fal's list price is the floor under every number above. The video generation API comparison puts the two side by side per model, and fal vs Kinoseed explains what the difference pays for.
Questions
Is text to video API pricing per second or per clip?
Per second on most models, with resolution and sound as multipliers. On Kinoseed every clip has one price in credits, computed from those parameters and shown by POST /quote before you run it.
Why does the same clip cost more with sound?
Several providers charge a higher per-second rate when they generate audio. Kinoseed sends sound off unless you ask for it, so the dearer branch is opt-in.
Can the price change between the quote and the run?
The quote is computed by the same function that charges the run, from the same body, so they match. Rates follow the provider's list prices; if those change, both change together.
What does the cheapest clip cost?
It depends on the model and settings; the table above lists every text model at its shortest length, and GET /api/v1/models gives the same example prices as JSON without a key.
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