The AI video pricing tracker
The table lists five tools that people price most often when they plan AI video work. Three are generators that create footage from text, images or a script (HeyGen, Kling AI and Runway), one is an editor with AI generation built in (CapCut) and one is a clipping tool that cuts long recordings into short clips (Opus Clip). Click a tool name for its own pricing breakdown.
| Tool | Free tier | Cheapest paid plan | Annual billing | Higher tiers | Billing unit | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HeyGen | $0: 3 watermarked videos a month, up to 1 minute each | Creator $29/mo (600 credits) | Creator $24/mo billed annually | Pro from $49/mo (1,000 credits); Business $149/mo + $20/seat; Enterprise on request | Credits, shared across features | Vendor page, checked October 21, 2026 |
| Kling AI | $0 Basic: no monthly credits listed in the plan table; watermarked; not for commercial use | Standard $6.99 first month, then $8.80/mo (660 credits) | Yearly toggle advertises up to 40% off; yearly prices unverified | Pro $32.56/mo (3,000); Premier 18K $181.99/mo; Ultra+ $544.99/mo (57,000) | Credits ($1 = 66 purchased credits) | Vendor page, checked October 21, 2026 |
| Runway | 125 credits, one time, do not expire | Standard $15/mo monthly (625 credits) | Standard $12/mo billed annually | Pro $35/mo or $28/mo annual (2,250); Max $95/mo or $76/mo annual (9,500) | Credits per second of video (Gen-4.5: 12 a second) | Vendor page, checked October 21, 2026 |
| CapCut | $0: free templates and basic editing tools | Pro $19.99/mo (1,200 AI credits) | Yearly toggle advertises up to 30% off; yearly prices unverified | Ultra $79/mo (8,645 AI credits); Teams $12.49/seat/mo | AI credits; Seedance 2.5 quoted per second | Vendor page, checked October 21, 2026 CapCut says displayed prices are for reference only and final prices appear after sign-in. |
| Opus Clip | $0: 60 credits a month, watermarked | Starter $15/mo (150 credits, monthly only) | Pro $14.50/mo billed $174 a year | Pro $29/mo (300 credits per pack); Business custom | 1 credit = 1 minute of source video | Vendor page, checked October 21, 2026 Opus Clip is a clipping tool, not a generator: it cuts existing footage. |
Prices are as displayed to a signed-out visitor on October 21, 2026. Taxes, regional pricing and account-specific offers can change what you pay at checkout.
Each breakdown goes further than the table: HeyGen pricing covers the Creator, Pro and Business plans and how credits roll over; Kling AI pricing separates first-month offers from renewal prices; Runway pricing converts credits into seconds of video; and Opus Clip pricing turns credits into source minutes and cost per publishable clip. If you only want the free options, go to AI video free plans compared.
How to read AI video prices
AI video pricing pages share a structure even when the numbers differ. There is almost always a free tier with a watermark, a cheap entry plan for individuals, a mid-tier plan that unlocks higher resolution or longer videos, and a business tier with seats and admin controls. Three things decide what you will actually pay:
- The billing unit. Most generators sell credits. HeyGen, Kling AI, Runway and CapCut all include a monthly credit allowance, while Opus Clip ties one credit to one minute of uploaded source video.
- The conversion rate. How many credits a second of video costs depends on the model you pick. Runway publishes the clearest rate: its pricing page says Gen-4.5 uses 12 credits per second, so Standard’s 625 monthly credits cover about 52 seconds of Gen-4.5 video.
- What expires. HeyGen monthly credits roll over for one more month. Runway Standard and Pro credits reset each billing date, while Max rolls over up to one month. Opus Clip monthly credits expire after 60 days. Credits you do not use are money you did not spend on video.
A useful habit is to write down the output you need first, for example “eight 10-second product shots a week at 1080p” or “four 3-minute avatar explainers a month”, and only then open the pricing pages. Working backwards from the output tells you which tier you need; working forwards from the cheapest plan usually means buying a top-up later.
Why credits do not compare across tools
It is tempting to divide each plan’s price by its credits and declare a winner. Kling AI’s membership page does exactly that for its own plans, showing $1.06 per 100 credits on Standard falling to $0.71 on Ultra+. Those numbers are useful inside Kling, but 100 Kling credits and 100 Runway credits buy different amounts of video, at different resolutions, from different models.
The fair cross-tool comparison is cost per second of the output you need. For Runway the vendor gives you the rate. For HeyGen the pricing page says the credits a video uses vary by model, duration and complexity, without a per-minute table, so the per-minute cost is unverified until you run your own script through it. For Kling AI the plan cards show how many 720p videos a credit pool covers on the vendor blog, but the live membership page leaves the rate to the generation panel. For clipping tools, our AI clipping cost per minute page does the conversion per source minute, and the Opus Clip breakdown goes one step further to cost per publishable clip using our own test.
First-month offers and renewal prices
Kling AI is the clearest example of a price that changes after month one. On October 21, 2026 its Standard card showed $6.99 for the first month next to a struck-through $10, followed by “Then $8.8/month”. Pro showed $25.99, then $32.56. The page labels these first-purchase offers as available once. Budget with the renewal price, not the headline number.
Runway shows the reverse pattern on its card: a struck-through monthly price ($15 for Standard) with a lower annual-billing price ($12 a month). HeyGen states its annual price in the FAQ rather than on the card: Creator is $29 a month, or $24 a month if you pay annually. CapCut’s page shows a monthly price with a toggle that advertises “up to 30% off” yearly, but the yearly numbers were not readable without signing in, so we list them as unverified.
Monthly versus annual billing
Annual billing is cheaper on every tool in the tracker that publishes it, and it also changes credit rules. HeyGen says annual subscribers’ credits accumulate until renewal instead of rolling over for one cycle. Opus Clip annual Pro delivers a year of credits at once. Runway’s annual Standard is $36 a year cheaper than twelve months at $15.
The trade-off is commitment. Annual plans make sense once you know the tool fits your workflow and your volume. If you are still choosing, a month on the entry plan (or the free tier, see the free plan comparison) is cheaper than an annual plan you abandon.
Which plan to price first
- Talking-head explainers, training and localisation: start with HeyGen Creator ($29 a month, 1080p, branding removed, videos up to 30 minutes).
- Short generated shots for ads and social: compare Kling AI Standard and Runway Standard by seconds of video per month.
- Editing plus a little generation for TikTok: CapCut Pro at USD 19.99 a month includes 1,200 AI credits and premium templates.
- Turning long recordings into Shorts: this is clipping, not generation. Price Opus Clip and the tools in best AI clip makers, or start with free Opus Clip alternatives.
Not sure which kind of tool you need? The AI video generator picker sorts tools by use case: marketing, YouTube and TikTok.
How this tracker is maintained
We read each vendor’s pricing page as a signed-out visitor, copy the plan names, prices and included credits, and record the date. If a figure only appears after sign-in, in a dropdown we could not read, or on a third-party site, we do not use it; the cell says unverified instead. See how we test for the rules we apply to hands-on reviews.
Frequently asked questions
Which AI video generator is cheapest?
By sticker price on October 21, 2026, Kling AI Standard had the lowest paid entry: $6.99 for the first month, then $8.80 a month for 660 credits. Runway Standard was $12 a month on annual billing. A low sticker price is not the same as a low price per usable second, because each vendor spends credits differently.
Are AI video credits the same across tools?
No. HeyGen, Kling AI, Runway and CapCut each define their own credit, and the number of credits a video uses depends on the model, the length and the resolution. Compare tools by the cost of the output you need, not by the number of credits.
How often are these prices checked?
Every price on this page was read from the vendor pricing page on October 21, 2026, and each row links to that page. When a vendor changes a plan we update the row and the date. Anything we could not read on a vendor page is marked unverified.
Does the tracker include CapCut Pro?
Yes, as one row. On October 21, 2026 CapCut listed Pro at USD 19.99 a month with 1,200 monthly AI credits and Ultra at USD 79 a month. CapCut says displayed prices are for reference only and that the final price appears after you sign in.
Have you tested these generators?
No. The prices here are observations of vendor pages, not checkouts. The only hands-on data on Scrutator is our Opus Clip and Vugola clipping test, which is linked from the Opus Clip pages.
Sources
Vendor facts on this page come from these public pages, checked October 21, 2026. Prices and plan limits change; confirm them at checkout.