"How much does AI video cost?" is one of those questions where every article gives you a pricing table and none of them answer it.
The real answer is that a clip costs somewhere between about 20 cents and 2 dollars, and which end you land on is almost entirely under your control. This explains what actually drives that number.
You are renting a GPU, not buying a video
Every AI video generation is a GPU running for a period of time. The provider's cost is roughly:
GPU seconds × the model's compute intensity
Everything else — credits, tokens, tiers, "generations" — is packaging on top of that. Once you see it that way, the pricing stops being mysterious and the levers become obvious.
Four things move the number:
1. Duration. The dominant factor, and it is close to linear. Ten seconds costs roughly twice five seconds. There is no efficiency gain from asking for a longer clip.
2. Resolution. Superlinear, because pixel count scales with the square of the dimension. Going 480p → 720p is roughly 2.25× the pixels. Going 480p → 1080p is roughly 4.5×. This is why drafting at low resolution saves so much: you are not saving 20%, you are saving most of it.
3. Model choice. The widest spread of all. Flagship models with native audio and strong prompt adherence can cost several times what a fast, distilled model costs for identical output specs. Vendors ship both for exactly this reason — Google publishes Veo 3.1 and Veo 3.1 Fast, and the fast variant exists so you are not paying flagship rates to iterate.
4. Audio. Generating a synchronised audio track is extra compute. If you are going to replace the audio in your edit anyway, turning it off is free money.
Why credits instead of dollars
Most platforms price in credits, which reads like a way to obscure the cost. Sometimes it is. But there is a legitimate reason: the underlying GPU cost varies per model and changes as providers reprice, and a credit is a stable unit that absorbs that.
The thing to check is whether the conversion is stated and fixed. On TurboMax AI it is: $1 = 200 credits, and each model's credit rate is shown before you generate. If a platform will not tell you what a credit is worth in your own currency, that is the answer to your question.
What actually drives your bill
Here is what the specs on real models look like, which tells you where the money goes:
| Model | Max resolution | Duration range | Native audio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seedance 2.5 | 1080p | 4–30s | Yes |
| Veo 3.1 | 1080p | 4–8s | Yes |
| Veo 3.1 Fast | 1080p | 4–8s | Yes |
| Kling 3.0 | 4K | 3–15s | Yes |
| Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash | 4K | 4–10s | No |
| PixVerse V6 | 1080p | 1–15s | Yes |
| Grok Imagine 1.5 | 1080p | 6–30s | Yes |
Two observations worth acting on.
The duration ranges vary enormously. Seedance 2.5 and Grok Imagine go to 30 seconds; Veo 3.1 caps at 8. If you need a 20-second continuous shot, model choice is made for you — and if you only need 5 seconds, do not pay for a model priced around a 30-second ceiling.
Minimum durations differ too. PixVerse V6 starts at 1 second. Grok Imagine starts at 6. If you want a 2-second cutaway, one of those bills you for a 2-second clip and the other for a 6-second one.
Five ways to cut your spend
1. Draft cheap, finish expensive. This is the single biggest lever, and most people skip it. Iterate at the lowest resolution and shortest duration the model allows until the prompt gives you what you want. Then run that exact prompt once at full quality. If a prompt takes eight attempts to get right, drafting at 480p instead of 1080p cuts the cost of those eight attempts by roughly three quarters.
2. Use the fast variant while iterating. Veo 3.1 Fast exists for this. Prompt adherence is close enough that a prompt that works on the fast model almost always works on the flagship.
3. Turn off audio while iterating. You are judging motion and composition, not the soundtrack. Enable it for the final run.
4. Generate exactly the duration you need. People habitually generate 10 seconds and use 4. Extending is cheap; you can always generate again. Trimming is pure waste.
5. Start from an image. Image-to-video is generally more predictable than text-to-video because you have already fixed the composition, the colour and the subject. Generate a still for a few cents, iterate on that until the frame is right, then animate it. You spend far fewer expensive video generations getting to the same place.
The costs that are not on the pricing page
Failed generations. Everything fails sometimes — a refused prompt, a timeout, a corrupted output. Whether you are billed for those attempts is a genuine difference between platforms and it is rarely stated up front. Ask directly. On TurboMax AI, a failed, cancelled or timed-out generation is refunded to your wallet automatically.
Estimate versus actual. Some platforms quote a price and charge a different one. The fair approach is to charge what the generation really consumed and return the difference. Ask which one you are on.
Expiring credits. A monthly reset turns a quiet month into a write-off. Credits that do not expire are worth more than a slightly lower headline rate.
Storage and egress. Some tools charge to keep or download your outputs. Check before you have 400 clips you cannot afford to retrieve.
A realistic budget
For a freelancer producing social content:
- Exploring, a few clips a week: $10–20/month.
- Steady client work, a few finished pieces a week: $40–80/month.
- High-volume agency output, daily deliverables: $150–400/month, and at that level you should be negotiating a rate.
If you are near the top of that range consistently, run the numbers on a subscription — at genuinely high, steady volume it can work out cheaper per clip. If your usage is lumpy, prepaid credits are cheaper because you are not paying in the months you generate nothing.
The short version
AI video costs what it costs because you are renting GPUs. Duration and resolution are the two levers that matter, model choice is the third, and drafting cheap before finishing expensive is worth more than any discount you will negotiate.
Per-model credit rates are listed live on the TurboMax AI Models page — $1 = 200 credits, the cost is shown before you generate, and failed generations are refunded automatically.